Students' Views of Teaching

Abstract

Much To Do About Writing: Teaching and Assessing Writing By Edward M. White San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985, 304 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by David Taylor

A Poignant, Colorful Portrait: Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences By Lewis A. Coser New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984, xviii + 351 pages, $25.00. Reviewed by R. W. Franklin     

Promoting Acceleration of Comprehension and Content Through Text in High School Social Studies Classes

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of Promoting Acceleration of Comprehension and Content Through Text intervention implemented with 11th-grade students enrolled in U.S. History classes. Using a within-teacher randomized design, the study was conducted in 41 classes (23 treatment classes) with 14 teachers providing the treatment. Students in the treatment condition performed significantly better than students in the typical instruction comparison condition on a measure of content acquisition at posttest (ES = 0.36), as well as 4 (ES =.22) and 12 (ES =.24) weeks following treatment. There were no differences between treatment and comparison groups on measures of social studies reading comprehension or more general reading comprehension.     

Changes in college students' perceptions of use of web-based resources for academic tasks with Wikipedia projects: a preliminary exploration

Motivated by the need to facilitate Net Generation students' information literacy (IL), or more specifically, to promote student understanding of legitimate, effective use of Web-based resources, this exploratory study investigated how analyzing, writing, posting, and monitoring Wikipedia entries might help students develop critical perspectives related to the legitimacy of Wikipedia and other publicly accessible Web-based resources for academic tasks. Results of survey and interview data analyses from two undergraduate courses indicated that undergraduate students typically prefer using publicly accessible Web-based resources to traditional academic resources, such as scholarly journal articles and books both in print and digital form; furthermore, they view the former as helpful academic tools with various utilities. Results also suggest that the Wikipedia activity, integrated into regular course curriculum, led students to gain knowledge about processes of Web-based information creation, become more critical of information on the Web, and evaluate the use of publicly accessible Web-based resources for academic purposes. Such changes appear more conspicuous with first year than with upper division students. The findings suggest that experiential opportunities to grapple with the validity of publicly accessible Web-based resources may prepare students better for their college and professional careers. The study results also indicate the need for integrating multiple existing frameworks for IL into one comprehensive framework to better understand various aspects of students' knowledge, use, and production of information from cognitive and technical perspectives and for a variety of purposes.     

Informed learning design: teaching and learning through engagement with information

ABSTRACT

While higher education teachers are able to use information in sophisticated ways to learn and communicate within their disciplines, they may not be accustomed to teaching their students to use information creatively and reflectively to support their work in a course. This article introduces informed learning design, a curriculum design model by which teachers specifically enable students to learn course content through intentional engagement with information. Drawing from informed learning pedagogy and the variation theory of learning, the design model outlines an instructional pattern for enabling student awareness of critical aspects and features of the object being studied related to both information use and course content.     

Reading videogames as (authorless) literature

This article presents the outcomes of research, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in England and informed by work in the fields of new literacy research, gaming studies and the socio‐cultural framing of education, for which the videogame L. A. Noire was studied within the orthodox framing of the English literature curriculum at A level (pre‐university) and undergraduate (degree level) in the United Kingdom. A mixed methods approach was adopted. Firstly, students contributed to a gameplay blog requiring them to discuss their in‐game experience through the ‘language game’ of English literature, culminating in answering a question constructed with the idioms of the subject's set text ‘final examination’. Secondly, students taught their teachers to play L. A. Noire, with free choice over the context for this collaboration. Thirdly, participants returned to traditional roles to work through a set of study materials, designed to reproduce the conventions of the ‘study guide’ for literature education. Fourthly, interviews were conducted after each phase. The interviews informed a redrafting of the study materials, which are now available online for teachers. In the act of inserting the study of L. A. Noire into the English literature curriculum as currently framed, this research raises epistemological questions about ‘subject identity’, and the implications for digital transformations of texts for ideas about cultural value in schooled literacy and also the politics of ‘expertise’ in pedagogic relations.     

10 Content-Area Literacy Strategies for Art,Mathematics, Music,and Physical Education

Content-area literacy involves the use of research-based learning strategies that help students effectively and efficiently gain content knowledge. Its use is fundamental to all content areas, not just to those that rely heavily on printed materials. One of the major goals of content-area instruction is to produce critical thinkers and problem solvers, and content-area literacy is a tool that teachers use to help students achieve this goal. Through this author's teaching experiences, she (Ming) learned about literacy strategies that are useful in art, mathematics, music, and physical education. Thus, in this article, she discusses the importance of using literacy in content-area instruction. Specifically, she talks about how literacy strengthens students’ language arts skills, shares 10 content-area literacy strategies that can be integrated into the four content areas, and provides specific examples of what they would look like in each area.     

教学法与学生认知方式对生物学业成绩的影响

以高二理科班学生为被试，研究信息转换教学法、常规教学法对不同认知方式被试的生物学业成绩的影响．结果表明：(1)从整体上看，场独立的学生在两种教学法的条件下，学业成绩均优于场依存的学生；(2)使用信息转换教学法的班级，不同认知方式的学生的生物成绩均高于使用常规教学法的班级，场依存的学生的学业成绩差异极显著．     

Formal Teacher Competence and its Effect on Pupil Reading Achievement

The main aim of this study was to investigate the impact of formal teacher competence on pupils' reading achievement. The data comes from the Swedish participation in PIRLS 2001 in grade 3. Information was obtained from pupils (n = 5271) and teachers (n = 351). The analyses were conducted using 2-level structural equation modeling. Teacher competence was operationalized with multiple observed indicators and defined as a latent variable. Two measures of achievement were used: PIRLS 2001 reading test results and teacher judgement of pupil performance in the Swedish language. The results reveal that teacher competence was positively and similarly related to both achievement measures. No selection effects in terms of pupil socioeconomic status were found. The current study provides evidence for a strong impact of teacher competence on pupil reading achievement.     

Reading ads,reading the world

This paper challenges the reductive notion of children as ‘efferent'¹1 A term used by Rosenblatt (1938 Rosenblatt, L. 1938. Literature as Exploration. New York: Appleton-Century. [Google Scholar]) to critique the teaching of reading which involved students in ‘taking away’ a particular meaning. readers who learn to decode written language in order to ‘take away’ knowledge. This anachronistic idea has become entrenched in current UK curriculum and education policy. However, it is well established that decoding letters and sounds is only one aspect of reading, that reading is cultural and that learning to read, not only words but also images and sounds, develops children's comprehension and criticality. With this in mind, I seek to share a process through which children and young people were able to develop as readers with a particular focus on the reading of media texts. I present an account of media education activity which focused on the way children read media texts, in the classroom. I suggest that with appropriate pedagogic and conceptual tools children develop as critical, cultural and collaborative readers of words, images, sounds and texts and thereby of the world.     

A comparison of the influence of government policy on information and communications technology for teacher training in England and Northern Ireland

Abstract

This article examines the introduction of national standards and guidelines for the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in initial teacher training in England and Northern Ireland. The context for the increased focus on ICT in teacher education is described for each part of the United Kingdom (UK). Comparisons are drawn between the two areas of the UK to show how schools and teacher training institutions have attempted to meet the standards within each political context by examining the positive features of three case teacher training courses, two in England and one in Northern Ireland. From this, inferences are drawn about the level of intervention by Government and whether greater government control has reduced or increased the integration of ICT into the cycle of teaching and learning.     

内容图式迁移与英语阅读教学中的文化意识培养

图式理论表明，二语习得中母语知识和目的语知识间存在着内容图式横向迁移和内容图式在阅读中纵向迁移现象。因此，在阅读教学中，教师要重视跨文化差异引起的内容图式迁移对英语阅读理解的影响，教师要通过各种手段培养学生的文化意识，激活并逐步建构起较完整的内容图式，这是一个不可忽视的重要教学环节。     

Skilled Students and Effective Schools: Reading Achievement in Denmark,Sweden, and France

This study investigates how reading achievement relates to student and school characteristics in countries with different reading scores at the fourth grade level. Data comes from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2011 for Denmark, Sweden, and France and the multilevel analysis includes two levels: student/home and schools. The school effectiveness and the home literacy models informed the selection of the independent variables. Results show that students’ early literacy skills, home literacy practices and resources, and reading behavior are associated with reading scores in all countries. Furthermore, across different countries there are student/home universals and school particulars that explain variation in reading achievement. Educational policies should address home and school literacy skills and practices, school climate, and school composition to improve students’ reading ability.     

Phrase Reading Training and Reading Achievement

This study examined the independent and interactive effects of supplement format (knowledge map vs. text vs. no supplement) and strategy (cooperative learning vs. cooperative teaching vs. individual study) on learning. After training and practice sessions, subjects studied a science and math passage over which they were tested. Two individual difference measures were also taken and combined into a general ability score. Repeated-measures analysis of variance of the recall variables indicated that (a) high ability subjects outperformed low ability subjects, and (b) cooperative learning with map supplements had a mutually facilitative effect on the low ability subjects’ recall.     

深度学习及其有效发生的条件探讨

深度学习与浅层学习其有一定的区别与联系。兴趣、情感、知识深度以及构建合理的学习环境、创建优质的信息资源是促使深度学习发生的有效条件。     

How preschool children learn in Hong Kong and Canada: a cross‐cultural study

This paper reviews literacy learning conducted in two laboratory preschools in Hong Kong and Canada, and examines the link between cultural values and educational practices. Both preschools maintain that a constructivist view of child learning underpins their practice. However, the author's experience in these two settings illustrates how similarities and differences are identified in the scope, focus, implementation strategies and learning outcomes of the activities observed. Reasons for these findings are explored from the perspectives of cultural values and societal beliefs in education of the East and the West, and how the constructivist ideology is espoused in these settings. Implications of this cross‐cultural comparison on the issue of ‘best practice’ in early childhood education are discussed.     

The literacy practices of vocational training in Carpentry and Automotive Technology

Prior studies indicate that vocational students’ literacy practices are more demanding than is generally recognised. Employing a view of literacy acquisition as socialisation, we investigated the literacy practices of trades training in Carpentry and Automotive Technology, by interviewing tutors and examined course books and student writing. A register of spoken language was identified, which differed from everyday language in being highly technical, reflecting specialist knowledge and indexing an identity as a member of a trade. Students were found to read a wide variety of texts, including complex professional texts such as Building Standards, Specifications, Codes and manufacturer’s instructions, as well as tutor-produced course books. Writing was less prominent and included assignment questions, and tests and some preparation for professional writing. Further research into the oral practices of vocational study, based on observation of pedagogical practice, is suggested. Implications for vocational pedagogy include a focus on support for reading.     

信息素养:当代教师必备的素质

信息时代的特征、新型人才的特点和信息技术对教育的巨大影响促使教师必须具备一定的信息素养,它是时代对教师素质提出的新要求;加强教师信息素养对于当今教育的改革和发展具有重要的现实意义,主要体现在顺利推进教育信息化、实施创新教育、培养学习者“终身学习”的能力和提高教师的专业化水平等方面。     

'Supposing': Reading between the Lines: an Allegorical Account of Contemporary Debates on Literacy Acquisition

Telling stories is a basic human activity. It enables us to organise, evaluate and transform what we see going on around us. It allows us to make sense of what is happening, to defy what is ephemeral in our experience. In short, it helps us to read the signs and between the lines. In the story that follows, we shall watch how Little Monster struggles with the apparently random and inexplicable and strives to make order out of chaos. He is fortunate to have a mother who regards story-telling as a significant determinant of his psycho-social well-being. Indeed, there are those who would argue that engaging in the construction of narrative is a precondition for literacy development, academic success and enhanced life chances. Our second story begins here, as we exploit the potential of narrative to function as a developmental turning-point in our understanding of contemporary debates on early literacy acquisition in the context of the National Evaluation of the Early Intervention Programme in Scotland.     

网络学习者的信息素养探析

网络学习带来的学习方式的变化对学习者的基本素养提出了新的要求。学习者的信息素养是网络学习顺利进行的基础。本文主要分析了信息素养的结构及其在网络学习过程中起的作用 ,以期教师和学生在日常教学过程中给予关注 ,提高网络学习质量     

Computer-Assisted Learning in Elementary Reading: A Randomized Control Trial

This study evaluated the efficacy of Accelerated Reader, a computer-based learning program, at improving student reading. Accelerated Reader is a progress-monitoring, assessment, and practice tool that supports classroom instruction and guides independent reading. Researchers used a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the program with 344 first- through fourth-grade students in three schools in a large Midwestern U.S. city. The results of hierarchical linear modelling analyses indicated that the computer-assisted learning program had a statistically significant positive impact on student reading gains when compared with traditional reading instruction alone. The impact corresponded to a moderate effect size (d = 0.38).