Learning to observe: using video to improve preservice mathematics teachers’ ability to notice

Video has assumed an increasingly prominent role in teacher education, particularly in the form of the viewing of videotaped class lessons by preservice teachers. Yet there is little research that confirms whether preservice teachers attend to the aspects of the video(s) that teacher educators anticipate or desire. This article explores this issue and reports on the impact of video viewing as a means to improve teachers’ ability to be observers of classroom practice. We utilized a pre- and post-test design to measure the quantity and type of classroom events that preservice mathematics teachers noticed before and after a teaching methods course where improving observation skills was an explicit goal. The results of the pre-assessment suggest that preservice teachers generally do not enter teaching methods courses with well-developed observation skills. The post-assessment indicates that the course led to significant increases in preservice teachers’ observation skills, particularly in teachers’ ability to notice features of the classroom environment, mathematical content of a lesson, and teacher and student communication during a lesson.

Effectiveness and motivation towards the use of video tutorials when learning how to use music software / Efectividad y motivación hacia el uso de videotutoriales para el aprendizaje de un software musical

Abstract

The objective of this study is to highlight the potential of video tutorials for learning how to use music editing software as well as students’ perceptions of their use. The project has been developed within a flipped-classroom approach, in which students studied with two types of resources: video tutorials and printed tutorials created ad hoc. Using a quantitative study with a quasi-experimental design, students participating in the project (n = 48) were divided into an experimental group (video tutorials) and a control group (printed tutorials) in order to evaluate the resource used according to: (1) academic results achieved; (2) students’ independence; (3) time spent completing tasks; (4) motivation generated by the resource. The resource used did not result in an improvement of academic performance in those students who used video tutorials. However, there has been an improvement in time invested in the production of scores, students’ autonomy in relation to the teacher and motivation towards the resource used.     

Sound’s use in instructional software to enhance learning: a theory-to-practice content analysis

Sound may hold great promise for instructional software by supporting learning in a variety of ways. Conceptual and preconceptual barriers, however, still appear to prevent software designers from using sound more effectively in their instructional products. Interface books seldom discuss the use of sound and when they do, it is most often simple verbatim narration of on-screen text. This content analysis of 12 award-winning instructional software products indicated that, while sound is being incorporated into many learning environments, many instructional designers are using sound only for literal, information conveyance and not yet exploring how to exploit the associative potential of music, sound effects, and narration to help learners process the material under study more deeply.     

Kenyan students’ perceptions of new technologies to improve access to education

The aim of this paper is to present the findings of a qualitative study carried out on perceptions of high school students on the use of ICT in learning in a secondary school in Mombasa, Kenya. The study involved 18 students in the 11th grade (form three). The students took part in three focus group discussions and six one-on-one interviews over a period of 2 weeks. Several themes on the learners’ understanding of and reaction to ICT were identified. It was revealed that learners had a sound understanding of the various types of ICT and could even define them while explaining the uses of these ICT tools. Findings showed that the learners were generally motivated about using ICT and that ICT encouraged student-centered learning leading to better understanding and performance in their studies. All in all, the findings from this study indicate that learners are aware of the importance of ICT in their learning and feel that at the moment the use of ICT in school is no longer a luxury but a necessity that has taken too long to materialize.     

Welcome to BOBO’s Kindergarten

虽然每年的年龄都在长,不过,大家的童心并没有随之越来越少,每年的六一,有很多"超龄儿童"依然过得不亦乐乎,我们这里的两位——井宝同学、包子同学,聊起小时候的事情也是童心未泯。     

A meta-analytic review of interventions to improve children’s attitudes toward their peers with intellectual disabilities

Children’s biases toward their peers with intellectual disabilities tend to have negative developmental and social consequences for those with intellectual disabilities. As a result, researchers developed intervention programs to reduce biases toward children with intellectual disabilities. This meta-analysis is a quantitative summary of 59 studies and 144 hypothesis tests involving intervention programs to change children’s attitudes toward their peers with intellectual disabilities. Results revealed an overall significant effect (d = 0.44): following intervention programs, children’s attitudes toward their peers with intellectual disabilities increased. Moderators indicate that the most effective interventions were those that occurred over multiple sessions, involved active engagement in multiple strategies and social interactions, emphasized equal status contact that was unstructured or indirect, and had little adult guidance. Interventions had no effect on changing children’s perceptions of competence and participants in junior high had more negative attitudes following the interventions. Findings provide guidance for researchers, educators, and counselors who seek methodologies to reduce biases toward children with intellectual disabilities.     

Teaching strategies to improve students’ vocabulary and text comprehension

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Good readers use various comprehension strategies to understand texts. However, many students lack knowledge on how to purposefully and effectively use...     

Engaging with blended learning to improve students’ learning outcomes

When blended learning is embraced to enhance learning in engineering (architectural), design and architecture, we argue it is a best-practice instructional mode. Blended learning is the seamless amalgamation of carefully selected online modules with face-to-face instruction. This paper evaluates case studies of the introduction of blended learning in these disciplines. It demonstrates that students who do not engage with blended learning are academically disadvantaged. Alignment of the blended mode of delivery and the mode of assessment is next considered. Two case studies of the introduction of blended modes of assessment, for improved student satisfaction with feedback, are evaluated. Finally, the reliance upon non-faculty to provide both blended learning and assessment is evaluated using qualitative research methods to establish the barriers to adoption of what is now considered best educational practice.     

Returning to humanity’s moral heritages

The main arguments of my lecture were how humans are failing themselves and devastating earth’s biosphere, at least in part, because they became uncooperative with two key ecological inheritances: raising the young within the human evolved developmental niche and, as part of this, facilitating the development of a deep attachment to, knowledge of and respect for their local landscape of other-than-human entities. Without humanity’s return to these cooperative evolutionary roots, the species will be doomed, along with many other-than-human beings. The now-widespread mental illness of ‘human supremacism’ that results from these missing pieces has spread around the planet and is destroying ecological integrity. The ‘Sacred Money and Markets’ story (SMM) that David Korten criticizes and I briefly discuss is a symptom of these missing pieces of human inheritance. We must return to a Sacred Life and Living Earth story with lifestyles to match.     

Linguistic Context’s Effect to Anaphora

The anaphora resolution firstly relies on the special association between the anaphor and the antecedent.But this kind of associa tion may not result in the accomplishment of the anaphora resolution.By the analysis of many kinds of anaphoric examples,this paper will point out that,when the anaphora resolution has some mistake,the linguistic context will restrict on anaphor.The purpose is to influence semantic connection between the antecedent and the anaphor,and make the anaphora resolution accomplish successfully.     

Emily Dickinson’s Interpretation to Solitude

As one of the most mysterious female poets in the history American literature,Emily Dickinson leads a life in solitude more than 20 years.Because of her early life experience and her absorption of Emerson’s transcendentalism theory,Dickinson developed her own interpretation to solitude,which brings unique beauty to her poems,and makes her distinguished among her contemporaries.     

Reply to Sun Luyuan’s Questions

十八大期间,小学生记者孙露源得到了提问机会:"我们中小学生多数在学校吃饭,怎么能让我们的午餐吃得安全放心呢?另外,我也爱吃零食,我们怎么才能吃到放心的食品?"教育部部长袁贵仁回答了她的问题。假如你是教育部部长,你将怎样回答她提出的问题?     

Yan Zi’s misson to Chu

人物:Y:Yan Zi A/B:卫兵道具:各人物头饰,古代大城门图(城门旁有一狗洞)场景:春秋末期,齐国派大夫晏子出使楚国。晏子来到楚国城下,只见城门关着,在城门旁开了一个小洞──(楚国故意刁难晏子)Y(兴奋地):Oh,Chu!Here I am!(做一个胜利的手势)AB(上前拦住,威严地):Who are you?     

Response to Grace’s reflections on Allen and West’s paper

Since the 1970s, school effectiveness research has looked for process-variables filling the black box between mainly structural school features and cognitive outcomes in students. Two concepts came to the fore: school climate and school culture. Both concepts are currently used interchangeably, although it is open to debate whether both are actually the same thing. Because of the way culture and climate are defined and subsequently measured, we propose school culture is a better frame from which to study school effectiveness. This article goes through the premises of perceptual measurement usually overlooked in climate research, and we demonstrate empirically by means of very basic and simple methods and techniques that perceptual measurement and measurement based on assumptions are different approaches and might yield totally different results on an aggregated level. We conclude by demonstrating how culture can be probed and integrated in the models traditionally used in school effectiveness research in an advantageous and theoretically sound way.     

It’s Time to Take Medicine

Nurse:Wakeup!Wakeup!Tom:What’sthematter?Nurse:It’stimetotakesleepingmedicine.该吃药了护士:醒醒!醒醒!汤姆:怎么啦?护士:该吃安眠药了。It’s Time to Take Medicine@支振彪