Cognitive development in bilingual and monolingual lower-class children

The cognitive development of lower-class English-speaking monolingual and English-Spanishs peaking bilingual children in kindergarten, third, and sixth grades was compared by means of standard verbal and nonverbal measures. The verbal ability of bilingual children was assessed in both English and Spanish. Their scores in both languages were lower than those of monolingual children. However, the mean scores and error patterns of both groups on nonverbal measures were equivalent, suggesting that bilingual and monolingual children have comparable cognitive skills despite apparent language differences.     

Assessing early arithmetic abilities: Effects of verbal and nonverbal response types on the calculation performance of middle-and low-income children

In two studies, we compared young children's performance on three variations of a nonverbally presented calculation task. The experimental tasks used the same nonverbal mode of presentation but were varied according to response type: (1) putting out disks (nonverbal production); (2) choosing the correct number of disks from a multiple-choice array (nonverbal recognition); and (3) giving a number word (verbal production). The verbal production task required children to map numerosities onto the conventional number system while the nonverbal production and nonverbal recognition tasks did not. Study 1 showed that the performance of 3-, 4- and 5-year-old middle-income children (N = 72) did not vary with the type of response required. Children's answers to nonverbally presented addition and subtraction problems were available in both verbal and nonverbal forms. In contrast. Study 2 showed that low-income children (3- and 4-year-olds; N = 48) performed significantly better on both nonverbal response type tasks than on the verbal response type task. Analysis of individual data indicated that a number of the low-income children were successful on the completely nonverbal calculation tasks, even though they had difficulty with verbal counting (i.e., set enumeration and cardinality). The findings suggest that the ability to calculate does not depend on mastery of conventional symbols of arithmetic.     

Self-efficacy and classroom learning

This article discusses the role of perceived self-efficacy during classroom learning of cognitive skills. Self-efficacy refers to personal judgments of performance capabilities in a given domain of activity. Students enter classroom activities with various aptitudes and prior experiences, which affect their initial sense of self-efficacy for learning. During task engagement, students may assess self-efficacy by utilizing cues made cognitively salient by educational practices and which convey information about their capability to acquire knowledge and skills, such as performance outcomes, attributions, situational circumstances, outcome patterns, perceived model similarity, and persuader credibility. In turn, heightened learning self-efficacy enhances motivated learning, or motivation to acquire knowledge and skills. Research findings are presented showing how different educational practices affect self-efficacy. Future research needs to determine how students derive efficacy information from multiple cues, and to specify in finer detail how the cognitive processes involved in understanding instruction and appraising self-efficacy influence one another.     

让研究性学习走进课堂

作为实施素质教育主阵地的课堂教学，研究如何渗透研究性学习的理念、方式方法尤为重要。本主要探讨怎样突破传统教学模式，改变教师教学方式，评估方式及营造开放的学习环境方面的问题。     

Mobile learning and the socio-materiality of classroom practices

The use of socio-material perspectives as a perspective for understanding new technologies in education has experienced a resurgence. At the same time, mobile learning as a concept is growing fast. This paper takes up the notion of mobile learning and classroom practices from a socio-material perspective, and looks at what socio-materiality has to offer for the understanding of mobile learning and classroom practices.     

Meaningful learning in the cooperative classroom

Meaningful learning is based on more than what teachers transmit; it promotes the construction of knowledge out of learners' experience, feelings and exchanges with other learners. This educational view is based on the constructivist approach to learning and the co-operative learning approach. Researchers and practitioners in various countries and settings seek ways to incorporate these approaches to create meaningful learning in the multicultural classroom and in the co-operative learning classroom. This article presents some of the ideas, studies and methods that signal a major shift of emphasis in education from product to process.     

Understanding learning at the classroom level

Conclusions Our aim in taking the Year 7 class was to increase our understanding of the learning process. In simple terms we were trying to apply our ideas and White's analysis of the term ‘understanding’ further clarified our purpose. Each target of our understanding has been affected by our experience. Two examples can be used to show how this occurred. Our understanding of the learning approach has been modified by our understanding of students at this level. The effects of peer group interactions have been underestimated as a factor in the learning environment. As a further example we can see that some ways in which schools are organized are not conducive to the implementation of the learning approaches being presented. Schools are organized so that groups of age cohorts can function effectively. The result is that school classrooms are a compromise where competing functions of schooling and the constraints that are operating are ‘balanced’. The ideal conditions for our approach to learning could not be present and two visitors from the ‘ivory tower’ were grateful for the opportunity to better understand a secondary school and a group of its students.     

Assessment and the co-regulation of learning in the classroom

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the processes of regulation of student learning that are associated with formative assessment in the classroom. It discusses the concept of co-regulation and presents a model of co-regulation developed in a situated perspective on classroom learning. This model conceptualises co-regulated learning as resulting from the joint influence of student self-regulation and of sources of regulation in the learning environment: namely, the structure of the teaching/learning situation, the teacher’s interventions and interactions with students, the interactions between students, and the tools used for instruction and for assessment. Examples of research showing how co-regulation functions are discussed, in particular students’ use of tools for self-assessment and peer assessment, and the role of teacher–student interactions that encourage active student participation in formative assessment.     

Training metacognition in the classroom: the influence of incentives and feedback on exam predictions

In two semester-long studies, we examined whether college students could improve their ability to accurately predict their own exam performance across multiple exams. We tested whether providing concrete feedback and incentives (i.e., extra credit) for accuracy would improve predictions by improving students’ metacognition, or awareness of their own knowledge. Students’ predictions were almost always higher than the grade they earned and this was particularly true for low-performing students. Experiment 1 demonstrated that providing incentives but minimal feedback failed to show improvement in students’ metacognition or performance. However, Experiment 2 showed that when feedback was made more concrete, metacognition improved for low performing students although exam scores did not improve across exams, suggesting that feedback and incentives influenced metacognitive monitoring but not control.     

Assessment for learning in the multigrade classroom

This paper suggests that multigrade classrooms lend themselves particularly well to promoting assessment that enhances learning, rather than assessment aimed solely at selecting pupils for promotion to the next grade. Some strategies to encourage assessment for learning in the multigrade classroom are explored. These include facilitating individual responsibility for learning, drawing on other children as an assessment resource and using assessment tasks that have learning potential. For such strategies to be used, teachers need training, guidance and exemplification relating to the formative purposes of assessment and criterion- and pupil-referenced assessment.     

Cooperative learning in the heterogeneous Israeli classroom

The group investigation method of cooperative learning (CL), and its contribution to the heterogeneous classroom, is the subject of this article. A wide range of ethnic and cultural diversity among students in the classroom, as occurs in Israel as a nation of recent immigrants, requires a differentiated approach to instruction not provided by the uniformity inherent in traditional whole-class teaching. Group investigation through positive peer interaction in small groups increases students' motivation to learn while providing for flexibility and variety in the content and pace of teaching and learning.     

浅析英语课堂上的小组合作学习模式

当前社会,我们一直提倡合作共赢的理念,课堂上的小组合作学习模式就是应时下要求应运而生。这种学习模式建立在以生为本的基础上,通过小组之间的共商、共议、合作、探讨,共同实现学习目标。这不仅有助于增加学生的知识,而且对提升学生社会能力的培养也有益处。