Mathematical power of special‐needs pupils: An ICT‐based dynamic assessment format to reveal weak pupils' learning potential1

This paper reports a study aimed at revealing special‐educational‐needs pupils' learning potential by means of an ICT‐based assessment including a dynamic visual tool that might help pupils when solving mathematics problems. The study focused on subtraction problems up to 100, which require ‘borrowing’. These problems, in which the value of the ones‐digit of the subtrahend is larger than the ones‐digit of the minuend, are known as a serious difficulty for weak pupils in mathematics. Seven of such problems from a standardised test were placed in the ICT environment. Data were collected from two test conditions: the standardised written test format and the ICT version of the test items including the tool that provided pupils with a set of virtual manipulatives. The 37 pupils involved in the study were 8–12 years old and from two special‐education schools in the Netherlands. Comparison of the performance scores in the two formats showed that an ICT‐based assessment format, including a dynamic visual tool, can reveal weak pupils' learning potential and strategy use. The study also pointed out that ‘partial‐tool use’, ie, not carrying out the complete subtraction operation with the tool, can provide sufficient support to find the correct answer.     

Analysing Cognitive Learning Processes through Group Interviews of Successful High School Pupils: Development and Use of a Model

The focus is on the metacognitive awareness of ten high-achieving high school pupils in mathematics in Denmark and England and their understanding of their cognitive learning processes and strategies. Mainly unstructured focus group interviews investigate how they explain that they learn a mathematical concept that is new to them. I develop the ‘CULTIS model for analysis’ (Consciousness, Unconsciousness, Language, Tacit, Individual, Social), which consists of six themes in which various psychological theories of learning are expressed. The model uses the theories of Ernest, von Glasersfeld, Hadamard, Krutetskii, Mason, Piaget, Polya, Sfard, Skemp, and Vygotsky. The model is used to sort the pupils' explanations and it also functions as a tool with which to compare the pupils' explanations with the various theories. I conclude that the pupils can talk about their learning in their own words and each pupil refers to elements that the researcher associates with different theories. Half the pupils furthermore explain that how they are used to learning, or being taught, influences how they later on are able to learn. I also discuss metacognition and whether this can be an aid to enhance learning.     

Attitudes of Serbian and Slovenian student teachers towards causes of learning underachievement amongst Roma pupils

The task of initial teacher education is to prepare student teachers (ST) to accept responsibility for improving the education of all pupils, including Roma pupils. Thus, knowledge of ST's attitudes regarding such pupils at the onset of initial teacher education is a key for the creation of teacher education programmes that challenge implicit beliefs and biases. The main focus of this paper, therefore, is ST's perceptions concerning the causes of learning underachievement amongst Roma pupils and who is primarily responsible for these pupils' learning achievement. Research was conducted at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and the Teacher Training Faculty at the University of Belgrade in Serbia. The results suggest that ST do not consider themselves likely contributors to Roma pupils' learning achievement, which leads to an attitude of minimal responsibility. The majority of ST attribute Roma pupils' learning underachievement to their parents' disinterest in schooling, Roma pupils' lack of motivation, and their non-acceptance by peers. The implications of these findings for teacher education programmes are subsequently discussed.     

Facilitating metacognitive talk: a research and learning tool

This paper describes a research tool which aims to gather data about pupils' views of learning and teaching, with a particular focus on their thinking about their learning (metacognition). The approach has proved to be an adaptable and effective technique to examine different learning contexts from the pupils' perspective, while also acting as an aid to reflective dialogue between pupils and teachers as part of the teaching and learning process. A range of templates have been created as psychological or semiotic tools. They form the basis of a mediated interview by providing an image of the learning environment or activity on which the research is focused. The image then becomes the stimulus for a three‐way interaction between the researcher (or the teacher), the pupil and the template. This paper provides examples from a number of research projects where the technique has been used to gather data in classrooms.     

Low-achieving (learning disabled) pupils in year 2 of the primary school in Hungary

We selected 60 low-achieving children from a sample of 263 pupils in Year 2 of the primary school in order to analyse the problems of learning disabilities. We explored two questions: whether teachers evaluate the pupils' school performances correctly; and what kind of relationship exists between the low-achieving pupils' cognitive abilities and their school performance. Methods used were questionnaires, pedagogical tests and traditional psychological tests. We obtained the following results: the teachers generally evaluate the pupils' school performance fairly well, but they are inclined to assume a close correlation between the achievements in different subjects, and the teachers' knowledge of the low-achieving children is more reliable regarding the group of pupils as a whole rather than each pupil individually; and the low-achieving pupils' cognitive learning abilities prove to be significantly weaker than their general intellectual abilities.     

Learning ‘Peace Talk’ in Northern Ireland: Peer Mediation and Some Conceptual Issues Concerning Experiential Social Education

Experiential learning is often seen as a central component of social education and pastoral programmes such as peer mediation; but the precise nature of experience as an educational, social and pedagogic/cultural process in schools is complex. This paper uses the notion of experiential learning to explore the impact of a peer mediation programme in a transforming integrated school in Northern Ireland. The programme was intended to mainstream the involvement of pupils in the process of creating a more integrated school ethos and was implemented by youth workers working as members of the school staff.

The paper begins with a review of the theoretical basis of experience as educational. This is followed by an interpretative review of the results of a survey of pupils' attitudes to peer mediation and semi-structured interviews with pupils and school and project staff about their perception of the impact of the programme on ideas of social learning. One issue is the extent to which developing pupils' capacity for interactive dialogue can be seen as an experiential process, like learning a foreign language – hence ‘peace talk’. Another is the process by which the perception of peer mediation training as ‘experiential’ constituted an enabling ‘pedagogic discourse’ which legitimized the programme for teachers and affirmed its beneficial impact on pupils.     

Promoting mental model building in astronomy education

While astronomy has recently re-emerged in many science curricula, there remain unresolved teaching and learning difficulties peculiar to astronomy education. This paper argues that mental model building, the core process in astronomy itself, should be reflected in astronomy education. Also, this crucial skill may promote a better understanding of the nature of science by pupils and it resonates with current understandings about pupils' learning in science. However, three practical questions to be considered are: the expressed reservations about the connection between mental model building and meaningful learning; the earliest age of pupils for whom mental model building is appropriate; and the lack of research into pupils' prior ideas about the role of models in science. The paper describes how a four-phase general pedagogical strategy was adopted to create an astronomy teaching and learning package to promote mental model building. The package consists of notes explaining the mental model building followed by an overview of the teaching-learning approach and suggested outlines of the 12 lessons. Research investigated whether that package can help Year 7-8 pupils interrogate and refine their mental models of the Sun-Earth-Moon system within the constraints of an ordinary class of 33 pupils. The results showed that all four phases of the general strategy were necessary and effective in that most pupils were able successively and successfully to critique their mental models of the Sun-Earth-Moon system while also achieving traditional astronomy knowledge goals. Implications are that pupils as young as Year 7-8 may be able to construct other appropriate mental models, such as those for biological populations, atomic structure and plate tectonics.     

ICT in European schools: emerging issues from the ValNet project

ABSTRACT

Investigations of aspects of differentiation in primary and secondary schools showed that even teachers believed to be ‘good differentiators' have difficulties in allocating tasks to pupils which are appropriate to their attainment levels. Teachers identified a number of key needs to be met if they were to improve differentiation, in particular the need for detailed, manageable, accessible information on pupils' attainments. Among the needs of learners identified by pupils was a need for more information on their learning goals, problems and the means of their solution. A partnership model of assessment is described which has been developed by teachers to meet the needs of both teachers and pupils.     

Raising Pupils' Self‐Esteem through Leadership Activities in Art

This article is about the ways in which young people who have disengaged from learning in school can find a way back through leadership activities in art. It is based on a project which was funded by a small grant from the Wallenberg Foundation. The project explored the potential of an approach to developing positive leadership qualities in pupils who were not consistently committed to the school's learning purposes. This account describes and comments upon two pupils' guided attempts at peer teaching in art and its subsequent effect upon their selfesteem and attitude towards school. It was found that pupils who taught art to other pupils had an increased sense of self‐worth and were more positively affected towards learning. However, broader issues, such as the negative nature of some school systems and their role in de‐motivating pupils were highlighted.     

Teaching about the nature of science through history: Action research in the classroom

This article reports on 18 months of action research that monitored British pupils' learning about the nature of science, using some aspects of history of science for the purpose. The action research took place within five classrooms and involved practicing teachers who used a set of historical materials specially written for this study. Preliminary findings about the common perceptions of the nature of science held by middle school pupils (age 11–14 years) guided the work, which was carried out using a variety of methodologies. The results obtained show some areas of substantial progress in the pupils' understanding of the nature of science, and others where little change seems to have been effected.     

Assessment from a Sociocultural Perspective: Narratives from a first grade classroom

This study focuses on observations of classroom conversation as an approach to assessment of relationships between a teacher's teaching and pupils' learning and identity‐development processes. Detailed observation notes from two conventional conversation situations from a first grade classroom are written down as narratives and analysed within a sociocultural theoretical framework. Three significant themes emerge: (1) How the teacher sees the pupils, (2) How she connects with them, and (3) How she wanders on together with them. Together these themes function as strong “process motors” demonstrating how a teacher's support and scaffolding add positive influences to children's learning and personal growth. The study concludes that writing down information from classroom observations in a narrative genre manufactures excellent opportunities for revealing, describing, interpreting, and evaluating significant relationships between a teacher's teaching and pupils' learning and identity development.     

Portfolios as ‘learning companions’ for children and a means to support and assess language learning in the primary school

This article explores the idea of portfolios as a way to collect evidence of pupils' learning and achievement in their language learning in the primary school. The emphasis is on portfolio work as an active and reflective process to underpin and support learning and to show evidence of achievement and progression. Pupil choice and reflexivity are essential in the process. The process can encourage learners to draw on their learning experiences across the curriculum. Whilst a means of providing evidence of learning, and for showcasing work pupils are proud of, portfolios are seen as central to and embedded in the day-to-day learning and underpinned by the principles of formative assessment. Designed to be used with other modes of assessment including the European Languages Portfolio, portfolios are in essence flexible, inclusive and a dynamic record of learning, achievement and potential for every learner. In this article, the use of portfolios from an early age as a means to promote development and learning and a way of assessing learning are inextricably linked. Teachers working to develop portfolio work, and some of their pupils, add their voices to the discussion of portfolio development towards an enhanced dialogic assessment culture.     

Pupils,the forgotten partners in education action zones

Education action zones (EAZs) involving local partnerships are one of the government's policies set up to help raise standards in pupils' performance and behaviour in areas of economic and social disadvantage. This article explores the nature of these partnerships and the fact that pupils are excluded. It reviews literature on student voice and describes interviews with 139 Year 8 pupils in two inner city zone schools to gain an insight into their perceptions about their learning. The data highlights some differences by gender and ethnicity and also the steps pupils believe are necessary if improvements are to be made. If zone schools are to live up to the promise of ‘empowering people and communities’, the paper argues pupils need to be included as stakeholders who shape the implementation of policy and become part of the solution to the difficulties EAZs are charged to address. The paper concludes by suggesting this will require a shift in the dominant epistemology to recognize pupils as co‐constructors of learning and a shift towards more democratic forms of relations in order to encourage pupil participation and enable their voices to be heard.     

“Busting with blood and gore and full of passion”: the impact of an oral retelling of the Iliad in the primary classroom

This paper describes the impact of an oral retelling of Homer's Iliad on pupils' learning in Key Stage 2 classrooms (children aged 9–11) in schools in East London. We argue that the oral nature of the retelling and responses promoted high levels of engagement and inclusion, leading to enhanced understanding by the pupils. The use of a complex and emotionally powerful text also encouraged a changing of the nature of the discourse between teachers and pupils. Finally we argue for the use of texts like the Iliad as an integral part of the literacy curriculum.     

Elementary school pupils' evaluations of the malleability of their academic abilities

Purpose:?This study set out to investigate pupils' evaluations of their academic abilities in different school subjects and their ratings of their potential for improving their performance in those school subjects.

Sample:?Twenty-eight pupils from the third grade (approximately age nine) and 30 pupils from the sixth grade (approximately age 12) in a primary school in Finland were interviewed.

Design and method:?The interview included tasks where the pupils were asked to rate and explain their potential for improvement in mathematics, the foreign language and the mother tongue. The explanations given were content-analysed and coding categories were formulated on that basis.

Results:?In all the three school subjects, the third-graders had a more positive view of their ability and its potential for improvement than the sixth-graders, and they based their view on a perspective of development and learning new things. The sixth-graders were more moderate and more uncertain in assessing their future performance.

Conclusions:?This study provided support to the earlier findings to the effect that pupils' faith in their abilities decreases in the course of their school years. We seek to explain this phenomenon in terms of the early stabilisation of the pupils' school performance, which is conveyed and constructed in the school's evaluative practices, especially in normative assessment. These practices clearly convey a differential conception of ability, which the pupils adopt as part of their self-assessments as shown e.g. by their use of school-like explanations in assessing their performance.     

Wireless keyboards and mice: could they enhance teaching and learning in the secondary English classroom?

This paper reports on the first year of a pilot study on the use of wireless keyboards and mice by student teachers with small groups of pupils across the 11–16 age range in the secondary English classroom. It investigates the equipment's suitability for use with a range of teaching and learning strategies including collaborative writing and textual analysis and considers the affordances which may be offered to the learning context through use of the technology. Provisional findings reveal some technical difficulties with the equipment but suggest that it has the potential, particularly when used as a motivational tool, to develop pupils' creative engagement with composition processes during small group collaborative writing.     

Does the gender of the teacher matter in the teaching of reading literacy? Teacher gender and pupil attainment in reading literacy in Hong Kong

A study of 148 primary school teachers and 4867 Grade 4 pupils in Hong Kong found no support for the proposal that boys learn to read better when taught by men teachers. In fact, it was found that both boys and girls learnt better when taught by women. Responses to a teacher questionnaire indicate significant differences in the preferred patterns of teaching favoured by male and female teachers. Responses from men teachers suggest they are more authoritarian, prefer to control pupils' learning, engage pupils in whole-class reading and like to read passages aloud while pupils follow the text. Responses from women teachers suggest they prefer to teach reading in groups, to group pupils according to reading ability, set tasks that suit pupils' stage of learning, allocate more time for pupils to read books and use the school library and encourage pupils to discover for themselves the meaning of new vocabulary encountered in text. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Significance of the Classroom Effect in Primary Schools: An Application of Creemers' Comprehensive Model of Educational Effectiveness

This article presents findings of an attempt to test Creemers' model of educational effectiveness by using data derived from an evaluation study in Mathematics in which 30 schools, 56 classes and 1,051 pupils of the last year of primary school of Cyprus participated. More specifically, we examine whether the pupil, classroom and school variables show the expected effects on pupils' achievement in Mathematics. Research data concerned with pupils' achievement in Mathematics were collected by using two different forms of assessment (external assessment and teacher's assessment). Questionnaires were administered to pupils and teachers in order to collect data about most of the variables included in Creemers' model. The findings support the main assumptions of the model. The influences on pupil achievement are multilevel and the net effect of classrooms was higher than that of schools. Implications for the development of research on school effectiveness are drawn.     

Specific Learning Difficulties and Peer Support

This article describes a project aimed at supporting secondary-school pupils with specific learning difficulties, using a peer support approach. Feedback obtained from the school's special educational needs co-ordinator and from the pupils themselves indicated some degree of success for the project in terms of developments in the pupils' response to learning and in their self-perceptions. The involvement of older pupils as contributors to the group is identified as one factor in the success of the project. The project format and the content of the group sessions are described in sufficient detail to enable colleagues to run similar groups should they wish.