Do Interactive Learning Environments Have an Effect on Learning Outcomes,Cognitive Load and Metacognitive Judgments?

Education and Information Technologies - In this study, considering the effect of interactive learning environments on human cognition, we have examined extraneous processing effects of multimedia...     

Exploring the Impacts of Cognitive and Metacognitive Prompting on Students’ Scientific Inquiry Practices Within an E-Learning Environment

This study explores the effects of metacognitive and cognitive prompting on the scientific inquiry practices of students with various levels of initial metacognition. Two junior high school classes participated in this study. One class, the experimental group (n?=?26), which received an inquiry-based curriculum with a combination of cognitive and metacognitive prompts, was compared to the other class, the comparison group (n?=?25), which received only cognitive prompts in the same curriculum. Data sources included a test of inquiry practices, a questionnaire of metacognition, and worksheets. The results showed that the mixed cognitive and metacognitive prompts had significant impacts on the students’ inquiry practices, especially their planning and analyzing abilities. Furthermore, the mixed prompts appeared to have a differential effect on those students with lower level metacognition, who showed significant improvement in their inquiry abilities. A combination of cognitive and metacognitive prompts during an inquiry cycle was found to promote students’ inquiry practices.     

Using extended family system in guidance and counselling practice — The Nigerian experience

Summary One of the greatest strengths of Nigerian society is the extended family system. This can be a great support being a more effective institution than the welfare state of other communities.In recent times however, with the advent of a wage economy many of the traditional responsibilities are now limited to the wage earners.However, no interpersonal system is wholly without weakness. Within the extended family system the multiplicity of relationships sometimes leads to jealousies and rivalries and it is often the young adolescent who is affected by these as his sensitivity towards the feelings of others increases.Thus, it can be seen that the extended family system, despite its strengths, may place some specific strains on society and adolescents. These strains relate mostly to forging an independent identity when there is a multiplicity of adult figures within the family.Guidance service therefore, can provide parents with vocational, educational, personal-social information which will make them better informed in their planning situations with children. This could result in sounder expectations and decisions. Counsellors can assist parents in obtaining the assistance of private and community agencies and organisations which help children who need such attention because of physical and emotional problems.Because personal problems of the students or individuals sometimes arise in the home or at least are contributed to by the home situation, the teacher or the counsellor may find it necessary to make direct contact with parents and the community.Never before have the school counsellors in Nigeria been so critically needed, and seldom have we (counsellors) been faced with responsibilities and tasks whose results could determine, in a significant way, the success or failure of the extended family system. For counsellors and teachers, as leaders in the academic enterprise, it is a time of challenge and opportunity to make a contribution. Guidance services are concerned with satisfying youths and adults to resolve their emotional, personal-social issues for better adjustment to life goals generally.Therefore, as teachers and counsellors there is a pressing need for a realization of the new roles which schools must play to satisfy the needs of the adolescent in the Nigerian society. Our schools must assume new functions which would enable them to take over effectively the roles which were originally assigned and performed by extended families. A typical African child, according to Durojaiye (1976), has need for affection, belonging, achievement, social recognition, in dependence and self-esteem. These psychological needs have significant bearings on the work of teachers and counsellors in African schools. Their roles must now consist largely in creating avenues for making it easy for pupils to satisty their needs, to provide alternative means of satisfying these needs, to create desirable needs for pupils to satisfy and to create opportunities for the correction of undesirable ones. The appreciation of these new roles, among other things, imply that our teachers and counsellors must understand and be patient with pupils' requirements for need satisfaction.     

Salinity tolerance in barley during germination—homologs and potential genes

Salinity affects more than 6% of the world’s total land area, causing massive losses in crop yield. Salinity inhibits plant growth and development through osmotic and ionic stresses; however, some plants exhibit adaptations through osmotic regulation, exclusion, and translocation of accumulated Na⁺ or Cl^-. Currently, there are no practical, economically viable methods for managing salinity, so the best practice is to grow crops with improved tolerance. Germination is the stage in a plant’s life cycle most adversely affected by salinity. Barley, the fourth most important cereal crop in the world, has outstanding salinity tolerance, relative to other cereal crops. Here, we review the genetics of salinity tolerance in barley during germination by summarizing reported quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and functional genes. The homologs of candidate genes for salinity tolerance in Arabidopsis, soybean, maize, wheat, and rice have been blasted and mapped on the barley reference genome. The genetic diversity of three reported functional gene families for salt tolerance during barley germination, namely dehydration-responsive element-binding (DREB) protein, somatic embryogenesis receptor-like kinase and aquaporin genes, is discussed. While all three gene families show great diversity in most plant species, the DREB gene family is more diverse in barley than in wheat and rice. Further to this review, a convenient method for screening for salinity tolerance at germination is needed, and the mechanisms of action of the genes involved in salt tolerance need to be identified, validated, and transferred to commercial cultivars for field production in saline soil.

     

The principle of calibration using the ionic current —A new calibration method for electro-magnetic flowmeters

An equivalent relationship between electro-magnetic flowmeters (EMFs) and the Hall effect is discussed in principle and three equivalent conclusions about their measuring equations are derived. Thereby, the calibration using the ionic current (CUIC) is introduced to the calibration of EMFs in a special Hall effect system. A basic system with these equations is specially given and discussed for realizing the method. Two key points about CUIC are proved by a simple experiment.     

Rising to the Challenge: The Effect of Individual and Social Metacognitive Scaffolds on Students’ Expressions of Autonomy and Competence Throughout an Inquiry Process

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Engaging students in inquiry is a key component in order to fulfill essential goals in science education. To achieve successful engagement in inquiry...     

Eliciting Reciprocal Peer-Tutoring Groups’ Metacognitive Regulation Through Structuring and Problematizing Scaffolds

The study examines whether structuring (SS) versus problematising scaffolds (PS) differently affect reciprocal peer-tutoring (RPT) groups’ adoption of particular regulation skills, deep-level regulation, and tutee-initiated regulation. A quasi-experimental design involving two experimental groups (SS versus PS condition) was adopted. The first, third, and sixth RPT-session of eight randomly selected RPT-groups (four from the SS condition, four from the PS condition) were videotaped (48hr). Mixed ANOVAs were conducted to investigate the impact of both scaffold types on RPT-groups’ metacognitive regulation. The results indicate that neither scaffold type encourages RPT-groups into a balanced adoption of, or initiative for, regulation skills and a deep-level approach. Nevertheless, the PS condition significantly outperforms the SS condition in evoking deep-level monitoring, tutee-initiated orientation, and tutee-initiated monitoring.     

Metacognitive Ability and its Relationship with CET4 Score——A Study on Science Students under Online College English Autonomous Learning

By using 162 third-year science students from the Independent College in Shandong University of Science and Tech nology,this paper investigated the relationship between their metacognitive ability and their CET4 score.The results indicated that their metacognitive ability,and the three subcategories have positive significant correlations with the students’CET4 score.     

Ultrasonic tomography and its applications in oilfield

INTRODUCTION Oil and water well is an important basic estab- lishment in oilfields. In many oilfields, there are many different damages in the well’s casing walls after its development for a period of time. They will affect the normal production of damaged wells and adversely influence the neighbouring wells and the block, and threaten steady production. There are different kinds of damages due to multiple problems in the casing walls, for example, corrosion, perforation, decreased diame…     

Greek early childhood educators’ conceptualization of education,care and educare concepts

Drawing on kindergarten teachers’ and University departments’ reactions to the Greek government’s initiative to adopt an integrated Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) system, the present study aimed to explore how various ECEC professional groups working in the two main preschool programs operating in Greece define different aspects inherent to ECEC theory and practice. Results yielded both similarities and differences, with aspects of health and well-being characterized mostly as having both a ‘care’ and an ‘education’ aspect, whereas personal and professional development and communication, management and administrative factors were characterized as educational in nature. Discrepancies were revealed in terms of child development, education and play and social environment factors, with those working in childcare settings defining them as including both ‘care’ and ‘education’ whereas those working in kindergartens defined them as educational in nature.     

‘Going global’: conceptualization of the ‘other’ and interpretation of cross-cultural experience in an all-white,rural learning environment

Based on an ethnographic case study done in an all-white, rural middle school, this article examines the students’ experience with and interpretation of an international education program implemented with a hope of providing more global/international contents to the curriculum. The study shows that these students interpreted other cultures introduced by the program in relation to their own culture and their own identity formation. The process of local ‘othering’ within the student school community was analogous to that of the students’ collective ‘othering’ of unfamiliar non-US cultures. The idea of US-centrism based on US consumer culture became the main standard against which the ‘otherness’ of different cultures were measured. The findings show how prejudice and stereotyping of global others derive from both the everyday process of differentiation in local home cultures and defense of national culture.     

Developmental Improvements and Persisting Difficulties in Children’s Metacognitive Monitoring and Control Skills: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Perspectives

This study investigated age-dependent improvements of monitoring and control in 7/8- and 9/10-year-old children. We addressed prospective (judgments of learning and restudy selections) and retrospective metacognitive skills (confidence judgments and withdrawal of answers). Children (N = 305) completed a paired-associate learning task twice, with a 1-year delay. Results revealed improvements in retrospective, but not in prospective monitoring and control. Furthermore, control remained suboptimal, seemingly a consequence of overoptimistic monitoring. Both age groups showed stronger monitoring-based control at the second compared to the first assessment. The comparison with a cross-sectional sample (N = 144) revealed that improvements in retrospective monitoring can be mainly attributed to naturally occurring development, whereas retrospective control seemed to improve due to increased task familiarity.     

Grandparents—the overlooked potential partners: perceptions and practice of teachers in special and regular education

The unique contribution of grandparents to families of children with and without disabilities is often overlooked in the clinical and empirical literature. Perceptions and practice of teachers regarding grandparents were examined. Eighty‐two special education teachers and 80 teachers from regular classes completed a 30‐item questionnaire tapping perceptions of structural and functional aspects of grandparents’ support to parents, and actual practice with grandparents. Results show that, on the whole, few differences were found between special and regular education. Although teachers acknowledge the significant and stable role that grandparents play, they rarely translate this to actual practice. Moreover, more than half the teachers showed no interest in acquiring more professional training in this area. The findings present a challenge to educators and policy‐makers to be more attentive to the significant family resource of grandparents that is currently practically ignored.     

A family of quasi-cubic blended splines and applications

INTRODUCTION Bézier curves and uniform B-spline curves are powerful tools for constructing free form curves and surfaces (FFC/FFS). But they cannot represent the arcs, hyperbola, sphere, cylinders and other transcendental curves and surfaces exactly. In order to avoid the in- conveniences, many bases are presented in other new spaces (Zhang, 1996; Pe?a, 1997; Walz, 1997; Sánchez-Reyes, 1998; Mainar et al., 2001). Note that, these existing methods can deal with both polynomial curve…     

Elementary students’ metacognitive processes and post-performance calibration on mathematical problem-solving tasks

Calibration, or the correspondence between perceived performance and actual performance, is linked to students’ metacognitive and self-regulatory skills. Making students more aware of the quality of their performance is important in elementary school settings, and more so when math problems are involved. However, many students seem to be poorly calibrated, with a tendency towards over-confidence. The present study analyzes the relationship between post-performance calibration accuracy and the metacognitive process shown by 524 fifth- and sixth-grade students while solving two math problems. After calculating a calibration index and establishing the stability of students’ judgments and actual performance, differences in the metacognitive process exhibited by students with different calibration accuracy (Accurate vs. Inaccurate groups) were analyzed. The emergence of different calibration patterns and differences in the metacognitive process as a function of mathematics achievement and grade level were also examined. Results indicated that: (a) students in the overall sample were little calibrated and over-confident, showing high stability in their judgments and actual performance across problems; (b) inaccurate students reported using information representation sub-processes (drawing/summarizing) less frequently, but writing and reviewing (and also correcting mistakes) more frequently than their accurate peers; and (c) differences in calibration patterns and the metacognitive process were found when achievement level was considered, whereas grade level did not generate any important effect. These findings suggest the usefulness of process-based measures to examine the metacognitive processes involved in making post-performance judgments, considering achievement and its possible mediating role in this relationship.