Lexical decision and oral reading by poor and normal readers

The primary goal of this study was to compare a paper-and-pencil version of the lexical decision task, which can be administered groupwise, with reading aloud a differently ordered list of the same words and pseudowords. Participants were first and second graders (“normal readers”) and students from schools for children with learning difficulties. On the average, the latter “poor readers” scored at the same oral reading level as the normal readers, but were older. The correlation between both tasks appeared to be high and both tasks had comparable correlations with third variables, suggesting that performance is determined by the same processes. Because the lexical decision task showed little evidence for guessing, it may be an — even better — alternative for oral reading. No differences between participant groups were found that point to different reading strategies. Error analysis, however, indicates that the poor readers probably have a specific problem in the oral reading of pseudowords.     

Cultural and organisational issues facing online learning communities of teachers

Collegial sharing and reflection about practice has been widely suggested as an effective form of teacher professional learning. Information and communications technology (ICT) has the potential to foster this professional learning through online community environments. Whilst the potential of self-sustaining online teacher communities to support professional learning through reflective sharing of practice is recognised, the journey to realising this potential is not straightforward. This paper identifies two key aspects of school culture that are acting as barriers on the journey—schools do not adequately value collegial reflective sharing of practice, and classroom teachers do not use online communications tools as an integral part of their professional practices. The paper suggests a framework for maximising participation in online teacher communities.     

Knowledge building community: Keys for using online forums

Conclusion “The need for learning in a knowledge-based society is more important than ever, including traditional classroom teaching, online learning, and/or blended learning” (Levitch & Milheim, 2003). Accordingly, learning in a technology-supported collaborative knowledge building community is more desirable than ever. Whether in distance or blended learning, online forums can provide either an exclusive discussion or a supplement to in-class discussion. Through thoughtful planning and careful implementation, online forums can be used in “creative ways to help students internalize knowledge and share ideas in enjoyable and exchange environments” (Raleigh, 2000). Successful employment of online forums can foster knowledge building community in which desired student qualities are cultivated.     

Exploring Grade 7 Students’ Responses to Shaun Tan’s The Red Tree

As art objects, picturebooks have the potential to contribute to readers’ aesthetic development. Many scholars and practitioners have recognized how using picturebooks with older students can augment their reading motivation and extend their understanding of visual elements of art and design, as well as develop their literacy, language, and thinking skills. The Red Tree (Tan, 2001) was one of the picturebooks used during two multifaceted, classroom-based research projects with Grade 7 students. The studies explored how the students responded to and interpreted picturebooks and graphic novels with metafictive devices, and examined how the students transferred their knowledge and understanding of various literary and art elements when creating their own multimodal print texts. Overall, the content analysis of the students’ written responses to The Red Tree revealed an adoption of an “aesthetic attitude” (Doonan, Looking at Pictures in Picture Books, 1993, p. 11) towards the picturebook. The students’ responses reflected how they positioned themselves as active readers who looked closely at Tan’s sophisticated and metaphorical paintings, and who embraced a co-authoring role as they interpreted the emotional landscapes and textual fragments in the picturebook. The article concludes with a discussion of several pedagogical issues associated with using picturebooks in middle years’ classrooms.     

Evaluating online learning communities

This article reviews recent evaluation studies of online learning communities to provide a systematic understanding of how such communities are evaluated. Forty-two representative studies were selected and categorized into a newly developed taxonomy of online learning community evaluations. This taxonomy is divided into four components: evaluation purpose, evaluation approach, measures for evaluation, and evaluation techniques. The findings suggest that it is inappropriate to conceptualize evaluation of such communities as a one-size-fits-all, generalizable measure of “good” or “bad.” Instead, we recommend a comprehensive, on-going, diagnostic approach to measuring clusters of indicators, or syndromes, of a particular OLC and examining the causal relation assumed by the evaluators between what is measured and the success of OLC as an imputed outcome.

Motivation and learning in an online, unmoderated, mathematics workshop for teachers

As hypermedia, online teacher professional development (TPD) should ideally support diverse learners to work with online content effectively because it involves multiple representations and a nonlinear format. Differences among participants in motivation and learning provide challenges for design. The present study is a use-inspired, mixed-method study of 164 teachers’ motivation and learning in an unmoderated online workshop. It addresses participants’ demographic and motivational profiles, participation in this type of workshop (e.g., the frequency, duration, and focus, as well as their work with technology-enhanced, nonroutine challenge problems and journal assignments), the predictive value of the initial questionnaire, and implications for design. Findings indicate that while three clusters of motivational profiles could be identified (low interest, low self-efficacy, and less math; low interest, high self-efficacy, and more math; high interest, high self-efficacy, and more math), whether the teachers continue to participate appears to be related to the structure and content of the workshop, not just these profiles. Findings are interpreted as suggesting that the potential of hypermedia lies in its designers’ abilities to support participant stake by providing for multiple ways into thinking and working with disciplinary content—design that both accommodates and supports those with differing strengths and needs. Implications for studying motivation and learning online are also discussed.     

Learning by doing—The influence of students’ experience in community television production on personality variables

The aim of the present study was to examine the influence of students’ experience in community television production, i.e. “learning by doing”, on their self-image. The research population included 157 subjects who underwent a set of tests for evaluating their self-image (personal, moral and social) and motivation. All the subjects took part in the production of a film and experienced the production roles according to their personal choice (director, editor, photographer, actor). At the end of the learning process and the production of the film the subjects took the same set of tests again in order to determine the change that took place following the process. Sixty-one subjects also participated in an interview that examined their attitudes and feelings towards the process they had undergone. The results indicate that students who experienced learning via community television production roles improved their personal, moral, social and self-image. An open experience system can thus create a common framework in which each person contributes towards a completed product, and can help develop the student’s self-image and motivation.     

Pedagogical practices of NetNZ teachers for supporting online distance learners

A supportive online learning environment entails teachers using effective pedagogical practices to meet the needs of their students and developing a positive teacher–student relationship to foster learner motivation and engagement. This paper reports a study investigating how 32 secondary teachers in New Zealand taught their online distance classes and how they related to their students. These classes were administered by NetNZ, an online distance education community. An online survey conducted in 2016 found that NetNZ teachers used inquiry-based practices including flipped learning and knowledge-building pedagogies to support agency, autonomy, collaboration, and community development. They also used synchronous and asynchronous communication technologies to overcome barriers of relationship building in online settings. NetNZ was unique in delivering distance education in the New Zealand context in that it used a community approach to encourage a more active participation of its member schools and teachers in delivering distance courses to secondary students.     

A Study of Online Discourse at The Chronicle of Higher Education

Given the explosive growth of online communications, new forms of discourse are an intriguing topic of study. This research focused on ten online discussions hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education, using content and discourse analysis of the postings to answer several questions. What is the “conversational scaffolding” used by posters in higher education-related online discussions? Are academic online discussions more like speech or writing? Additional questions dealt with how posters identify themselves, who their audience is, what motivates them, how accurate and political they are, and what the experience of reading these online discussions is like. Based on the analyses, these posters were more likely to write correctly although with diary-like personal insights. Through the analysis I also identified both positive and negative aspects of the online discussion experience.     

Knowledge of suffixed words: A comparison of reading disabled and nondisabled readers

The present study was undertaken to measure and compare reading disabled and nondisabled readers’ semantic and syntactic knowledge about derivational suffixes as a function of modality (reading versus listening) and as a function of the “neutrality” of the derivative (neutral versus nonneutral). In the present study, neutrality refers to how straightforward and productive is the relationship between the root and derived form, with “completeness” qualifying as a neutral derivative and “completion” a nonneutral derivative. Two experimental tests were designed for the study. The Semantics test measured ability to extract lexical-semantic information from suffixed words, and the Syntax test measured knowledge regarding the part-of-speech contribution of derivational suffixes. In each test the target words were divided equally between neutral and nonneutral derivatives and between items that were either read or listened to. Participants included 20 sixth-grade reading disabled students (6RD), 20 fourth-grade normal readers (4N), and 20 sixth-grade normal readers (6N). In both the Semantics test and the Syntax test all groups scored better on neutral than on nonneutral derivatives while listening and reading, and the RD students were no more affected by neutrality than the nondisabled readers. In the Semantics test all groups scored better in listening than in reading, but the RD group showed the greatest oral-reading difference. The RD group also scored better in listening than reading in the Syntax test (real words), whereas the two nondisabled groups scored better in reading than in listening. Thus, the RD students were better able to demonstrate their knowledge of suffixed words in oral language measures than in reading measures.     

Creating a model to examine motivation for sustained engagement in online communities

This paper considers factors that influenced long-term engagement in an online community. It draws on a case study of a 6 year online collaboration amongst a group of European teachers. The email interchange between these teachers was, with their agreement, saved and used as research data; intensive group interviews were also conducted, involving all the participants in the online group. Dynamic motivation models and Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of motivational flow were used to create a theoretical framework to analyse the email interchanges and group interview data so as to build an understanding of the teachers’ commitment to the online community. As a result of the analysis, the existing theoretical models were modified to produce a new combined model. This incorporates ideas grounded in the participants’ reasons for their sustained engagement in the collaboration. This combined model could provide a basis for planning future virtual interactions and for assessing their sustainability.     

The effects of phonological transparency on reading derived words

The purpose of this study was to determine whether poor readers have more pronounced problems than average-reading peers reading derived words the base forms of which undergo a phonological shift when a suffix is added (i.e., shift relations as in “natural”), as compared to derived words whose forms are phonologically and orthographically transparent (i.e., stable relations, as in “cultural”). Two computer-based word recognition tasks (Naming and Lexical Decision) were administered to children with reading disability (RD), peers with average reading ability, and adults. Across tasks, there was an effect for transparency (i.e., better performance on stable than shift words) for both child groups and the adults. For the children, a significant interaction was found between group and word type. Specifically, on the naming task, there was an advantage for the stable words, and this was most noteworthy for the children with RD. On the lexical decision task, trade-offs of speed and accuracy were evident for the child reader groups. Performances on the nonwords showed the poor readers to be comparable to the average readers in distinguishing legal and illegal nonwords; further analyses suggested that poor readers carried out deeper processing of derived words than their average reading peers. Additional study is needed to explore the relation of orthographic and phonological processing on poor readers’ memory for and processing of derived words.     

The Integration of Personal Learning Environments & Open Network Learning Environments

Learning management systems traditionally provide structures to guide online learners to achieve their learning goals. Web 2.0 technology empowers learners to create, share, and organize their personal learning environments in open network environments; and allows learners to engage in social networking and collaborating activities. Advanced networking mechanisms, UGC, flat-structured architectures, RSS, and social tagging, permit online learners to define their own learning structures. This article reports an online course built within multiple Web 2.0 technologies designed to empower learners to construct their own personal learning environments within open network learning environments. Lessons learned, examples, and critical issues are discussed. This paper concludes that effective instructions should prepare “online” learners to become “network” or “open network” learners.     

Motivation,Empowerment, and Innovation: Teachers' Beliefs About How Participating in the Edmodo Math Subject Community Shapes Teaching and Learning

Educators around the world participate in virtual communities, social media sites, and online networks in order to gain support and ideas for improving their practice. Many researchers have explored how and why teachers participate in these online spaces; however, there is limited research on how participation might impact teaching and learning. This study was designed to examine how K–12 teachers' participation in the Edmodo math subject community, an informal online space for educators, shaped their learning and practice. Data were collected through an online survey of 150 participants and in-depth, follow-up interviews with 10 participants. Three themes emerged from the participants' responses: motivation, empowerment, and innovation. The participants were motivated to spend time learning how to improve their practice, they felt empowered to make changes to their practice, and they believed they were able to adopt innovative, student-centered practices. Implications and ideas for further research are discussed.     

“Is This a Boy or a Girl?”: Rethinking Sex-Role Representation in Caldecott Medal-Winning Picturebooks, 1938–2011

A number of previous studies have addressed gender role-stereotyping in Caldecott Award-winning picturebooks. Building upon the extensive scholarship examining representations of females in Caldecott books, this current study offers a critical investigation of how gender is represented in Caldecott Medal-winning literature from 1938 to 2011 by exploring the ways in which “femininity” and “masculinity,” biological sex, and gender are constructed in these texts. The investigators briefly address author and illustrator gender and the representations of males and females as characters or images in pictures and text before departing from previous scholarship to offer a rereading of books that feature “ungendered” leading characters, those that are not identified in the text as being either “male” or “female” and are therefore open to the interpretation of individual readers. By resisting cultural cues and normative constructions of gender and biological sex, these ungendered depictions extend the range of possible ways in which readers may see themselves or those in their lives represented in Caldecott Medal-winning picturebooks.     

Global Social Responsibility: Developing a Scale for Senior High School Students in Japan

This research was conducted with the aim of clarifying a concept of “global social responsibility.” A total sample of 395 senior high school students in Japan responded to a pool of items mostly adapted from a scale developed by Starrett (1996) and provided additional data concerning their social experiences. The data were used in the development of a Japanese version of the Global Social Responsibility (GSR) scale. It was found that “global altruism,” “active involvement with society,” and “understanding of interdependence” constituted a construct of global social responsibility. It was also found that females, those who discussed social problems with their family, those who revealed a high awareness of responsibility and those who had multiple experiences of volunteer activities for community service showed high GSR scores. The scale provides both an awareness of the concept and a measure for determining levels of global social responsibility. Counseling professionals are encouraged to consider their roles from a global and social perspective, with the notion of responsibility being seen as central to the concepts of freedom and personal development.     

The influence of student learning characteristics on purchase of paper book and eBook for university study and personal interest

First-year university students (n = 199) completed an online questionnaire that queried their purchase of paper books and eBooks for university study and personal interest. The questionnaire also required students to rate their learning characteristics including reading strategies, study self-regulation, learning control beliefs and achievement motivation. Self-reported student learning characteristic scores were associated with self-reported book purchases. For example, as student extrinsic motivation scores increased, number of paper books purchased for university study tended to increase. As student learning control belief scores increased, purchase of eBooks for university study tended to increase. Collectively, such results lend support to the conclusion that education students who embrace emerging technologies such as eBooks and who read for leisure perceive themselves as more able learners than students who do not embrace emerging technologies such as eBooks and who do not read for leisure.     

A decade of research with dyslexic college students: A summary of findings

The major findings of several research projects that investigated dyslexic college students are summarized in this paper. Consistent findings of these investigations led to the following conclusions. 1) Developmental dyslexia is a syndrome made up of the following four symptoms: slow rate of reading, error-prone oral reading, poor written spelling, and grammatically incorrect writing; 2) all these symptoms could be traced to a poor mastery of the grapheme-phoneme relational rules; 3) developmental dyslexia can be found in subjects who appear to have adequate oral language skills; 4) ex-dyslexics who appear to be “poor spellers but good readers” have subtle reading deficits; and 5) the 20 dyslexic subjects investigated appear to constitute a homogeneous group which raises questions regarding dyslexia subtypes.     

Participation in online courses from the students’ perspective

The purpose of this study is to uncover factors that affect participation in online classes from the student’s perspective. Interest in the online environment has been increasing and renders the opinions of students participating in online courses more important since the opinions of students in this environment are closely related to interaction. It has been seen that lack of interaction creates a sense of loneliness, which causes students to drop their classes. For this reason, a qualitative study has been conducted about student experiences on the use of methods that increase interaction in an online environment and participation. Participants were given tasks based on collaboration, special attention was paid to make sure that the setting in which the participants found themselves was in accordance with the principles of the community of inquiry, computerized equipment was used to facilitate online interactions. 15 students worked based on collaboration and 15 students worked individually. Data was collected with interviews and reflection reports. Open, axial and selective coding was made by using the theorizing method. At the end of the study, it was determined that participation in online environment was affected in both groups by factors such as personal approaches, changing variables, mediated attributes.     

Rethinking online discourse: Improving learning through discussions in the online classroom

As colleges continue to expand online offerings, student participation within courses should be assessed to ensure that teachers can best implement effective, responsible lesson plans. This study examined discourse in an online classroom in order to gauge student participation by observing student-to-student and student-to-instructor exchanges within the discussion board. Classroom discourse was analyzed using Stahl’s computer supported collaborative learning methodology. Data was collected to assess development of classroom dialogue through group collaboration, and to determine whether participants were interpreting previous posts and contributing to the development of the discussion topic. This study shows that students within the online classroom were able to construct deeper meanings in classroom dialogues through thoughtful and personal contributions, thereby reaching new understandings through collaborative discussion. This study contends that through insightful planning and guided responses, instructors can manage online classroom discussions to better direct student communications in order to improve collaborative learning and knowledge construction.