A Student’s Guide to Strengthening an Online Community

Students usually have plenty of experience with online social technologies, but they lack understanding about how to use these tools and methods for course learning. This article is designed to help college students who are anxious about participating in an online learning community or do not know how to build one effectively. With ideas derived from research and practice, this guide has been written to inform online students about learning communities, the benefits they offer, and how students can assist in building a successful online community.     

Measuring Elementary Student’s Mathematics Motivation: A Validity Study

The psychometric properties of a 10-item math motivation scale were empirically validated with an independent sample consisting of 182 elementary-school students. Analysis of the model dimensionality supported a one-factor structure fit. Item parameter estimates from a Classical Test Theory framework revealed that most items were highly discriminating, and the survey is informative for students of low to average math motivation. Differential item functioning (DIF) analyses found two items exhibiting gender bias. Overall, the instrument was a psychometrically valid instrument for measuring math motivation at the elementary level.     

A Student’s Request for Extra Money

A student called up his Mom one evening from his college and asked her for some money, because he was broke. His Mother said,“ Sure, sweetie. I will send you some money. You also left your economics book here when you visited two weeks ago. Do you want m…     

A Counsellor’s Guide to Conducting Psychobiographical Research

By nature of their interests and professional training, counsellors are ideally equipped to conduct psychobiographical research. This article positions the counselling field in the broad specialty area of psychobiography, highlights the preparedness of counsellors to conduct psychobiographical research, and emphasizes the benefits of this research endeavor to counsellors themselves and to the counselling profession. A ten-step guide to conducting and publishing psychobiography is presented.     

Windows into Children’s Thinking: A Guide to Storytelling and Dramatization

Telling and dramatizing stories is an increasingly popular addition to the preschool curriculum, largely due to the attention this activity has received through the writings of Vivian Paley (Bad guys don’t have birthdays: fantasy play at four. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988; The boy who would be a helicopter: the uses of storytelling in the kindergarten. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990; A child’s work: the importance of fantasy play. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2004). While the writings of Paley and others (Cooper, When stories come to school: telling, writing, and performing stories in the early childhood classroom. Teachers & Writers Collaborative, New York, 1993; Engel 1999) focus on the social and cognitive outcomes children experience as a result of storytelling, less has been written about the process of writing and dramatizing stories with young children. This article discusses procedures and considerations that enhance storytelling with preschool children, including effective prompts for encouraging children’s creativity, potential trouble spots such as aggression in stories, and ways that storytelling can enhance home-school relationships.     

Technology’s Non-Neutrality: Past Lessons Can Help Guide Today’s Classrooms

The benefits of classroom computers and associated technologies seem to be an accepted truism with those who question the benefits often dismissed as intractable Luddites. Educational technology has become big business both commercially and academically for today’s increasingly high-tech classrooms. Clearly, computers mark changes—permanent changes—in the way everyone lives, learns, works, and interacts globally. Ellul, Norman, and Postman, among others, have focused on the application of a technology and not on the “box” itself. All three have warned that although educators’ focus should be on the application, it is the characteristic of technology itself that shapes the future. History is replete with lessons and voices that support these warnings and provide a foundation for reasoned discussions of any technology’s Faustian bargains and its often unanticipated uses and consequences. The topic and open debate could not be more crucial or timeless, for how young minds, mental habits, and values are shaped in classrooms around the world affects everyone.     

Positioning and the Discourses of Urban Education: A Latino Student’s University Experience

Based on data collected from a year-and-a-half-long qualitative research project, this case study examines the early college experiences and identity negotiations of one urban-schooled Latino participant as he navigated a predominately White state university in his hometown. Recognizing the university as a figured world, this study highlights two emblematic personal encounters that positioned him in inferior ways. It also offers a counter-example of a rhetoric professor who positioned him in positive ways and contributed to his academic success. Implications are framed in an argument for the inclusion of identity studies and positioning theory in order to better contextualize urban-schooled Latina/os’ early college experiences.     

The Student Assistance Program: higher education’s Holy Grail

This paper outlines an exploratory study conducted within the Sport & Exercise Sciences department at a higher education institution in Wales. Prior to the study it was identified that personal tutors were spending an increasing amount of time dealing with pastoral issues. This research sought to investigate the implementation of the Student Assistance Program, a peer-support group, to reduce the pastoral burden on staff and improve retention and to assess any changes in student behaviour. At the end of the programme students were asked to evaluate the experience by means of a simple questionnaire that also gave them the opportunity to add some open-ended responses. In addition, the facilitators were also given the opportunity to comment on the programme using a similar open-ended questionnaire. Data were analysed using qualitative analysis. The results were encouraging and changes occurred within the students who participated in the pilot study.     

Student’s local top-up higher education choices

Making decisions about education choices is challenging and difficult for students. Utilising the theory of reasoned action, we specify and estimate a conceptual framework that captures the cognitive process of decision making of students in choosing top-up higher degrees in Hong Kong. Top-up higher or bachelor’s degrees are top-up undergraduate programmes forming a progression route for sub-degree graduates to earn bachelor’s degrees. We argue that attitudes, subjective norms and perceived value influence a student’s top-up higher education choices. Our results show that family members, educators, job availability and security, social image and difficulty of curriculum play critical roles in influencing students’ decision. We also find differences between females and males, between business and non-business students and between Year 1 and Year 2 students in higher education choices. These findings underscore the importance of educational institutions developing effective policies for promoting top-up higher degree programmes by taking cognisance of gender, the field of study and year of study differences and for policy makers to understand the dynamics of higher education.     

Influence of Co-membership on Teacher’s Coauthoring on Student’s Narratives

This paper examines the specific research question of how co-membership in discourse style and life experience influences teacher’s coauthoring on student’s narratives in the ESL teaching and learning context in the United States. As a case study,a specific student’s classroom narratives are transcribed and analyzed. The research findings indicate that a shared discourse style and an overlap in life experience between the teacher and the student will exert positive influence on the teacher’s coauthoring on the student’s narratives. Above all,sharing the same discourse style makes it possible for the teacher to recognize the rhythm of the student’s narratives,to detect the moments when the student needs interactional support and offer help,and to quickly notice a potential ending of the student’s narrative and expand it with open-ended questions and comments. In addition,an overlap in life experience makes it possible for the teacher to go deep into the student’s narratives by contributing specific and concrete thoughts rather than responding with superficial ideas.     

Influence of Co-membership on Teacher’s Coauthoring on Student’s Narratives

This paper examines the specific research question of how co-membership in discourse style and life experience influ-ences teacher’s coauthoring on student’s narratives in the ESL teaching and learning...     

Essay versus Multiple-Choice Type Classroom Exams: The Student’s Perspective

Abstract

The major aim of the present research was to compare students’ attitudes and dispositions toward teacher-made essay versus multiple-choice type exams. The primary study was conducted on a sample of 174 junior high school students, who were administered a test attitude inventory specifically designed to assess students’ attitudes towards essay versus multiple-choice type formats on a variety of critical dimensions. The study was partially replicated on a sample of 101 seventh- and eighth-grade students who were administered a modified version of the test attitude inventory that was used in the first study. Overall, the data from both studies were remarkably consistent, pointing to more favorable student attitudes towards multiple-choice compared to essay type formats on most dimensions assessed. The practical significance of the results for classroom test construction are discussed and some suggestions are made about potential future applications of test attitude inventories in the classroom setting.     

Student teachers’ professional identity: A review of research contributions

Twenty-two empirical studies on student teachers' professional identity were selected for this review. In this paper we present important implications for current and future research on student teachers' professional identity by focusing on the discussion of key-issues associated with it. We also discuss the studies’ contributions and implications for initial teacher education and future research. Based on this discussion, we present a working definition of professional identity and consider which are the current emerging research issues.     

Academic Mentoring in College: The Interactive Role of Student’s and Mentor’s Interpersonal Dispositions

This study examined the interaction between college students attachment orientation and mentors relational style in the prediction of students behaviors and perceptions in academic mentoring and of their subsequent academic achievement. Ninety college students were administered the Adult Attachment Interview and their professors-mentors completed the Attachment Style Questionnaire. Students displayed more adaptive behaviors and perceptions in mentoring and earned higher grades when their attachment orientation was in contrast to their mentors relational style. Implications for the practice of academic mentoring in college are discussed.     

The Intelligent Teacher’s Guide Through Campaign Propaganda

Seven adolescents who are blind and seven of their parents were interviewed about the adolescents’ social lives. Adolescent and parent perspectives are reviewed, followed by implications for teachers to support the social connections of students who are blind.     

“It’s More Than a Class”: Leisure Education’s Influence on College Student Engagement

As universities and colleges continue to seek out ways to improve student engagement on their campuses, attention has been given to the role that on-campus leisure opportunities can play in developing this engagement. Yet, little research has analyzed the influence of leisure education on student engagement in the higher education setting. The purpose of this study was to explore how for-credit Leisure Skills classes at a mid-sized southeastern university may build engagement. The results indicate that leisure education provides a uniquely positioned environment for building students’ sense of engagement with their institution through an enhanced sense of community, enhanced sense of self, and active learning.