Personal voices in higher education: A digital storytelling experience for pre-service teachers

Digital storytelling (DST) has recently emerged as a new tool in instructional environments. DST involves the combination of media and technology with traditional storytelling to help students learn. This paper examines the use of DST in a university course and pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their learning experiences using this tool. Thirty-eight pre-service teachers participated in the study, in which DST was employed as a learning activity. In the course, the participants created personal digital stories about their careers. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used for data collection and analysis. The findings indicate that DST is very useful for learning. The pre-service teachers perceived DST as an attractive way to share ideas and feelings, and valuable for using in lessons. DST served as a practical learning tool to present the students’ personal experiences to others, and the process encouraged emotional interactions. Implications regarding these findings are discussed.     

An inquiry-based augmented reality mobile learning approach to fostering primary school students’ historical reasoning in non-formal settings

This study investigated the contribution of a location-based augmented reality (AR) inquiry-learning environment in developing 3rd grade students’ historical empathy and conceptual understanding. Historical empathy is an important element of historical thinking, which is considered to improve conceptual understanding and support the development of democratic citizens by helping students interpret, understand and connect patterns of human activity across time. Fifty-three 3rd grade students, grouped in two research conditions, participated in this study. Students visited an archaeological site with and without the support of an AR learning environment on mobile tablet devices. Data from all students were collected following a pre- and post-test design. Twelve students from the AR condition participated in individual interviews and all AR students took a delayed post-test. The results showed that students’ conceptual understanding and historical empathy increased from pre to post for both conditions. Statistically significant differences were found between the AR field trip and the traditional field trip students in the development of empathy and conceptual understanding. These results add to the literature by supporting the potential of AR technologies for the development of students’ historical empathy; several design implications are also discussed.     

Effect of the 5E Model on Prospective Teachers’ Conceptual Understanding of Diffusion and Osmosis: A Mixed Method Approach

The aim of this study was to explore a group of prospective primary teachers’ conceptual understanding of diffusion and osmosis as they implemented a 5E constructivist model and related materials in a science methods course. Fifty prospective primary teachers’ ideas were elicited using a pre- and post-test and delayed post-test survey consisting of ten two-tier questions of which an explanatory part was integral. Individual interviews were conducted with six prospective teachers at the end of the implementation of the unit using four questions. Test scores were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Post-instructional interviews were analyzed qualitatively. Statistical analysis using one-way ANOVA of student test scores pointed to statistically significant differences between pre- and post- and delayed post-test (p < 0.05). A qualitative analysis of the prospective teachers’ explanations in the two-tier questions revealed changes in their ideas overtime. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that the teaching activities promoted students’ conceptual understanding. No statistically significant differences were found between post-test and delayed post-test scores, suggesting that the teaching activities based on 5E model enabled students to retain their new conceptual understanding.     

Exploring the values of writing collaboratively through a digital storytelling platform: a mixed-methods analysis of users’ participation,perspectives and practices

Digital technologies allow teachers and students to experience new pedagogical approaches leveraging on interactivity and collaboration. Among the available techniques, digital storytelling (DST) has been usually regarded as an activity that can both enrich the teaching practices and foster students’ active behaviour. This paper aims at analysing to what extent a DST platform proposing the collaborative writing of a fictional story and leveraging on an active learning technique such as role-play can affect a variety of dimensions, namely students’ performance, commitment, creativity and social skills. Combining the analysis of the data-log automatically collected by the system with the evaluations given by teachers before and after the activity, this article shows that the use of a DST tool in the teaching practice can have positive effects on students, including the ones that usually manifest moderate scores for the previously mentioned dimensions. Additionally, semi-structured interviews and direct observations provide an insight on how the benefits stemming from the use of a DST tool in the classroom can especially lie on the collaborative process that is activated.     

Predicting First Graders’ Social Competence from Their Preschool Classroom Interpersonal Context

Research Findings: This study investigates contributions of the preschool classroom interpersonal environment to students’ social competence in 1st grade. Participants were 862 ethnically/racially diverse children who attended public preschool classrooms serving low-income families. Systematic observations of 60 classrooms occurred across the preschool year and quantified teacher and student behaviors. Preschool and 1st-grade teachers provided reports of children’s social behavior. First-grade teachers also assessed children’s problem behaviors. Multilevel analyses indicated that at the end of 1st grade, students who experienced preschool settings with teachers who displayed more approving behavior, less disapproving behavior, and more positive emotional tone showed significant gains in positive social behavior and lower rates of problem behavior, even after students’ social skills at preschool entry were controlled. Greater gains in positive social behavior and fewer problem behaviors in 1st grade were also predicted by immersion in preschool classrooms that had more positive and cooperative interactions among peers. Practice or Policy: Universal preschool is a policy under consideration nationally and locally, with social competence often listed as an important goal. This study indicates that even in the absence of a particular social-emotional curriculum, preschool teachers’ behaviors and interactions among their students may have lasting implications for children’s social development.     

Digital storytelling and the nature of knowledge

While storytelling pedagogy presents novel perspectives and affordances to educators, a fundamental question that bears attention is the match between storytelling pedagogy and the nature of knowledge. Quite simply, the problem may be posed thus: is storytelling the optimum means for teaching all forms of knowledge? While rather obvious matches occur for knowledge in the social science, humanities, languages and literacy education, would storytelling pedagogy ‘work’ for the natural sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics classrooms? If so, what may be optimum means to integrate storytelling instruction in these latter kinds of classrooms? In this study, we report on the results of an implementation of digital storytelling in a grade five science classroom. Using what we termed the ‘edu-tainment’ approach, we asked students to design a digital story that communicated a scientific concept embedded within the narrative structure—characters within the narrative would experience the effects of the concept, the quality of the story being proxy indicators of students’ understanding of the scientific concept. We propose that this pedagogical strategy presents a strong challenge to discern students’ understanding, and we also discuss the effect of knowledge forms on the success of this pedagogy.     

Engaging Students in Traditional and Digital Storytelling to Make Connections Between Pedagogy and Children’s Experiences

Traditional and digital storytelling is a powerful literacy tool which engage students in making connections between pedagogy and academic content. Definitions of traditional and digital storytelling, pedagogical methods aligned with curriculum standards, and examples of literacy centers associated with storytelling in early childhood classrooms are shared. The theoretical framework, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), is included to illustrate how pedagogy, storytelling, and technology interact to teach content knowledge and 21st-century skills. The five literary elements and additional elements of stories identified from research which enhance students’ engagement in stories are provided. A checklist for selecting stories, book lists and storytelling websites offer resources that will support teachers in using both digital and traditional storytelling with their students.     

Using structured examples and prompting reflective questions to correct misconceptions about thermodynamic concepts

This paper explores the effectiveness of using ‘structured examples in concert with prompting reflective questions’ to address misconceptions held by mechanical engineering students about thermodynamic principles by employing pre-test and post-test design, a structured questionnaire, lecture room observation, and participants’ interviews. Students’ misconceptions were identified through pre-tests that evaluated students’ understanding of the chosen concepts, while conceptual change was assessed in pre-test–post-test design that revealed students’ ability to apply the concepts and transfer skills from a worked example to satisfactorily undertake a fairly complex similar problem. The use of worked examples in concert with prompting reflective questions is effective for inducing correct conceptual change and effective problem-solving skills. However, it is recommended that engineering tutors should incorporate inquiry-based learning approach and computer simulations alongside the use of worked examples with prompting reflective questions in order to enhance students’ conceptual understanding of thermodynamic concepts.     

Supporting Conceptual Change in School Science: A possible role for tacit understanding

When students reason during school science, they often refer to conceptions that are derived from out-of-school experiences and are poor proxies for science orthodoxy. However, for some areas of science, these conceptions represent only a proportion of students' full conceptual knowledge, for tacit understanding exists that is superior to the understanding displayed when reasoning. Noting that tacit understanding is engaged when events are judged as natural or non-natural, the paper is concerned with software that: (a) requires direction and speed of falling objects to be predicted, i.e. a typical science reasoning task that engages conceptual knowledge; (b) presents simulations of predicted motion in the expectation that its naturalness or non-naturalness would be recognised. An evaluation study is reported where children aged 8–12 years worked with the software in contexts that typify computer use in classrooms, i.e. individually under adult guidance (n =? 44 children) or in pairs with a classmate (n = 48 children). They were observed while they did this. Reasoning about object fall was assessed via change from individual pre-tests administered prior to software usage to individual post-tests administered a few weeks afterwards. The children who worked with the software showed greater pre- to post-test gains in conceptual understanding than control children (n =? 47 children), who lacked software experience. The gains were especially marked for the children who worked in pairs. The approach taken is contrasted with traditional approaches to conceptual change in school science, e.g. strategies that rely upon classroom experiments.     

A phenomenological study: teachers’ experiences of using digital storytelling in early childhood education

This study investigates how early childhood education (ECE) teachers incorporated digital storytelling in their classrooms and the challenges and successes that they faced in the process. After the teachers attended a digital storytelling workshop, in-depth phenomenological interview, observation and focus group interviews were used to collect data. Phenomenal data were collected from 5 kindergarten classrooms, each of which contained approximately 20 students and a teacher. The study presented examples that illustrated how ECE teachers had used digital storytelling to enhance learning. The results showed that an emphasis on specific points may assist teachers, parents, educational researchers and education policy-makers in using technological tools in young children’s learning environments.     

The Collaboration of Cooperative Learning and Conceptual Change: Enhancing the Students’ Understanding of Chemical Bonding Concepts

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cooperative learning based on conceptual change approach instruction on ninth-grade students’ understanding in chemical bonding concepts compared to traditional instruction. Seventy-two ninth-grade students from two intact chemistry classes taught by the same teacher in a public high school participated in the study. The classes were randomly assigned as the experimental and control group. The control group (N?=?35) was taught by traditional instruction while the experimental group (N?=?37) was taught cooperative learning based on conceptual change approach instruction. Chemical Bonding Concept Test (CBCT) was used as pre- and post-test to define students’ understanding of chemical bonding concepts. After treatment, students’ interviews were conducted to observe more information about their responses. Moreover, students from experimental groups were interviewed to obtain information about students’ perceptions on cooperative work experiences. The results from ANCOVA showed that cooperative learning based on conceptual change approach instruction led to better acquisition of scientific conceptions related to chemical bonding concepts than traditional instruction. Interview results demonstrated that the students in the experimental group had better understanding and fewer misconceptions in chemical bonding concepts than those in the control group. Moreover, interviews about treatment indicated that this treatment helped students’ learning and increased their learning motivation and their social skills.     

Promotion of literacy skills in early childhood: a follow-up study from kindergarten to Grade 1 / Fomento de habilidades de lecto-escritura en la primera infancia: estudio de seguimiento desde la educación infantil al primer curso de educación primaria

Several researchers have shown that invented spelling activities in kindergarten foster preschool children’s early literacy skills. However, few studies have assessed its impact on learning to read and write in the first year of primary school. Our goal was to analyse the impact of an invented spelling programme with kindergarteners on their literacy skills until the end of Grade 1. A follow-up study was conducted with 45 five-year-old Portuguese children attending two classes of two schools in Lisbon. The teaching effect was controlled as children from each class were randomly assigned into two groups (experimental/control) — equivalent on letter knowledge, cognitive abilities and phonological awareness. The participants were assessed in kindergarten with a pre-test, immediate post-test and delayed post-test (spelling; reading; phonemic awareness) and at the end of Grade 1 (spelling; reading). The experimental group participated in invented spelling sessions, while control children participated in storytelling activities. Data analysis revealed statistically significant differences between the two groups. The experimental group scored higher, not only in kindergarten but also in the follow-up year for all literacy measures.     

The Contribution of Conceptual Change Texts Accompanied by Concept Mapping to Eleventh-Grade Students Understanding of Cellular Respiration Concepts

The present study conducted to investigate the contribution of conceptual change texts, accompanied by concept mapping instruction to eleventh-grade students’ understanding of cellular respiration concepts, and their retention of this understanding. Cellular respiration concepts test was developed as a result of examination of related literature and interviews with teachers regarding their observations of students’ difficulties. The test was administrated as pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test to a total of 70 eleventh-grade students in two classes of the same high school in an urban area, taught by the same teacher. The experimental group was a class of 34 students who received conceptual change texts accompanied by concept mapping instruction. A class of 36 students comprised the control group who received traditional instruction. Besides treatment, previous understanding and logical thinking ability were other independent variables involved in this study. The results showed that logical thinking, treatment, previous understanding of cellular respiration concepts each made a statistically significant contribution to the variation in students’ understanding of cellular respiration concepts. The result also showed that conceptual change texts accompanied by concept mapping instruction was significantly better than traditional instruction in retention of this understanding.     

Argumentation in elementary science education: addressing methodological issues and conceptual understanding

In this review essay I respond to issues raised in Mijung Kim and Wolff-Michael Roth’s paper titled “Dialogical argumentation in elementary science classrooms”, which presents a study dealing with dialogical argumentation in early elementary school classrooms. Since there is very limited research on lower primary school students’ argumentation in school science, their paper makes a contribution to research on children’s argumentation skills. In this response, I focus on two main issues to extend the discussion in Kim and Roth’s paper: (a) methodological issues including conducting a quantitative study on children’s argumentation levels and focusing on children’s written argumentation in addition to their dialogical argumentation, and (b) investigating children’s conceptual understanding along with their argumentation levels. Kim and Roth emphasize the difficulty in determining the level of children’s argumentation through the Toulmin’s Argument Pattern and lack of high level arguments by children due to their difficulties in writing texts. Regarding these methodological issues, I suggest designing quantitative research on coding children’s argument levels because such research could potentially provide important findings on children’s argumentation. Furthermore, I discuss alternative written products including posters, figures, or pictures generated by children in order to trace children’s arguments, and finally articulating argumentation and conceptual understanding of children.     

Constraints on Conceptual Change: How Elementary Teachers’ Attitudes and Understanding of Conceptual Change Relate to Changes in Students’ Conceptions

Like their students, teachers may hold a variety of naïve conceptions that have been hypothesized to limit their ability to support students’ learning. This study examines whether changes in elementary students’ conceptions are related to their teachers’ content knowledge, attitudes, and understanding of conceptual change. The study takes place in the context of the adoption of a new unit on seasonal change in which students build and use sundials to observe seasonal differences in the apparent motion of the Sun across the sky. A mixed-method approach is used. Data sources include pre- and post-tests for students and teacher interviews and questionnaires. Results indicate that changes in students’ conceptions may be related to their teachers’ knowledge of the content, attitudes toward science, and understanding of conceptual change. One teacher had low attitude toward science and limited knowledge of conceptual change. After instruction, her students’ responses became less accurate but more homogeneous than before instruction. The other teacher had high attitude and moderate knowledge of conceptual change. Her students showed gains from pre- to post-test, including responses that were more scientifically accurate than the teachers’ initial answers.     

The Implementation of Character Education and Children’s Literature to Teach Bullying Characteristics and Prevention Strategies to Preschool Children: An Action Research Project

Bullying behaviors among young children are taking place in preschool classrooms and child-development centers. The author makes a case, based on bullying themes in children’s literature and both qualitative and quantitative data collection with young children, for the use of children’s picture books to teach character as bullying prevention to 4–6 year old children. Through the reading of picture books and character education activities with a bullying theme preschool children develop a better understanding of bullying characteristics and strategies for dealing with bullying behaviors. Included are the results from questionnaires and interviews with preschool children and an annotated bibliography of children’s picture books and activities useful in the instruction and prevention of bullying behaviors.     

Associations Between Classroom Language Composition,Teacher Social-Emotional Support,and Dual Language Learning Preschoolers’ Social Behavior

This secondary analysis explored longitudinal associations between the concentration of shared-language peers and the development of prosocial and problem behavior in dual language learning (DLL) preschoolers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Mixed-effects regression models were used to analyze year-end outcomes of 212 Spanish-speaking students in 73 Head Start classrooms in which English was the only instructional language. Research Findings: Classroom concentration of Spanish speakers was not associated with Spanish-speaking DLLs’ year-end prosocial behavior. For problem behavior, there was a disordinal interaction between teacher social-emotional support and classroom concentration. In classrooms with higher teacher social-emotional support, the proportion of Spanish-speaking classmates was positively associated with Spanish-speaking children’s problem behaviors. In classrooms with lower teacher social-emotional support, the proportion of Spanish-speaking students per classroom was negatively associated with Spanish-speaking children’s problem behaviors. Practice or Policy: Findings highlight the value of shared-language peers in particular classroom contexts and have implications for DLL students’ preschool classroom placements.     

Comparing the effects of different book reading techniques on young children’s language development

The purpose of this research study is to compare the effects of digital, dialogic and traditional reading on children’s language development aged 48–66 months. Fifty-six randomly selected children enrolled in three different classrooms in a public preschool in Turkey participated in the study. The three classrooms were again randomly assigned as digital, dialogic and traditional reading groups. During the reading activities, a total of 24 storybooks were read by each group every three times in 8 weeks. While the children’s language scores (the receptive and expressive language scores) resulted in a significant increase in dialogic reading, the children’s language scores in a digital and traditional reading group slightly changed during the intervention. Alternatively, qualitative data suggested that the interaction between teacher and children and between children and children were very limited in a digital and traditional reading group and that limited interaction during reading was the underlying cause of the insignificant increase in children’s language scores.

     

ARGUMENTATION AND STUDENTS’ CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF PROPERTIES AND BEHAVIORS OF GASES

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of argumentation-based pedagogy on college students?? conceptual understanding of properties and behaviors of gases. The sample consists of 108 students (52 in the control group and 56 in the intervention group) drawn from 2 general chemistry college courses taught by the same instructor. Data were collected through pre- and post-tests. The results of the study show that the intervention group students performed significantly better than the control group students on the post-test. The intervention group students also showed significant increase in their test scores between pre- and post-test. While at least 80?% of the students in the intervention group abandoned their initial ideas on all of the 17 alternative conceptions that were identified by the authors but one, the percent of student abandoning their initial ideas in the control group was less than 50. The discussion focuses on the implications of these results for addressing students?? alternative conceptions, promoting the argumentation?Cpedagogy in college science courses and the challenges associated with the use of argumentation in college science classrooms.