The microworld of Phoenix Quest: social and cognitive considerations

The present paper explores social and cognitive considerations in the context of a computer-game microworld or learning culture environment. Forty-one boys and 57 girls, aged 8 to 12 years (Grades 4, 5, and 6) were observed playing a computer game called Phoenix Quest. This computer game, featuring an adolescent female protagonist, is an interactive, mystery-adventure with embedded language and mathematics activities. The issues discussed include (a) the development of a computer game learning culture or microworld, (b) interdependence in the process of learning social skills, (c) computer game-playing strategies, (d) gender differences in computer-game play, and (e) mathematics concepts explored in the Phoenix Quest environment. These findings not only contribute to the understanding of how students create and shape a microworld around a computer game like Phoenix Quest, but also indicate some of the inherent teaching and learning limitations of educational software when the guidance of a teacher is absent.     

The language of mathematics teaching: a text mining approach to explore the zeitgeist of US mathematics education

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Exploring language provides us with one approach to better understanding the practices and beliefs of a community. With advances in...     

Educational theories and computer game design: lessons from an experiment in elementary mathematics education

Although educational games have been used for a considerable time, their true potential for enhancing achievement and motivation is still being explored. We argue in this paper that we may get closer to realizing this potential if the theoretical underpinning of educational games is improved. We developed a simple interactive math game based on insights from cognitive load and game design theory, in which players solve mathematical problems competitively and creatively. To investigate the effects of the game on achievement and motivation, we ran an experiment with fifth- and sixth-grade students. Our results show that students who played the game achieved better math results than those who did not. We did not find any significant differences in math motivation. Another promising finding, albeit beyond the scope of our hypotheses, relates to the potential effects of math games on student behavior.

     

计算机及互联网在外语教学中的应用

计算机及互联网给现代教育带来深刻影响,英语教学应高度重视这一新变化,采取有效方式充分实践新技术手段,是当前英语教学改革的一个重要内容。文中讨论了计算机及互联网在英语写作教学、网上实时讨论、教材生活化、合作学习,搜索与研究以及英语测试数字化等方面的运用,分析了教师教学主体行为的变化及其应对措施。     

Correction to: Problem-based gaming via an augmented reality mobile game and a printed game in foreign language education

Education and Information Technologies - A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-020-10409-8     

How schools and students respond to school improvement programs: The case of Brazil's PDE

This study uses rich empirical data from Brazil to assess how a government program (PDE) that decentralizes school management decisions changes what goes on in schools and how these changes affect student outcomes. It appears that the PDE resulted in some improvements in management and learning materials, but little change in other areas including evaluation and community relations. However, we find no evidence that schools’ participation in the PDE improved student achievement. The results for grade passing are stronger. Students in PDE schools saw greater increases in grade passing rates than students in non-PDE schools during the period of our study. We also estimate a positive relationship between PDE spending and student gains for those schools in the program, especially for spending on teaching and learning materials and furniture. We find no benefit of electronics spending or spending on teacher training, two of the three largest areas of school investment.     

How teachers define and respond to child abuse: The distinction between theoretical and reportable cases

Teachers are considered to be among those who are well-placed for the detection and prevention of child abuse. Yet little attention has been given to the definitions teachers use in deciding which cases to process. The paper draws on a larger study of Ontario women teachers. Information from 264 elementary teachers and 47 principals was collected in three phases: exploratory interviews, a survey, and focused interviews. A key part of the survey involved 10 vignettes designed to determine how teachers define abuse, how much experience they have had in dealing with such situations, and what action they took in each case. The findings demonstrated that teachers included a broad range of behaviors in their own “theoretical” definitions, but preferred informal intervention over formal reporting. Although there is no statistical relationship between definitions and reporting, it seems clear that the decision to report involves the interplay of definitions, institutional response, and teachers' experiences with a range of reactions and personal trials. Reporting is also complicated by teachers' disciplinary role, by their concerns for establishing reasonable grounds, and by the perception that some cases can be handled more effectively by the school, without the intervention of Child Protection Services (CPS).     

The use of computer games as an educational tool: identification of appropriate game types and game elements

Playing games is an important part of our social and mental development. This research was initiated to identify the game type most suitable to our teaching environment and to identify game elements that students found interesting or useful within the different game types. A group of twenty students played four commercial games (SimIsle, Red Alert, Zork Nemesis and Duke Nukem 3D). Results suggest that students prefer 3D-adventure (Zork Nemesis) and strategy (Red Alert) games to the other types ("shoot-em-up", simulation) with Zork Nemesis ranked as the best. Students rated game elements such as logic, memory, visualisation and problem solving as the most important game elements. Such elements are integral to adventure games and are also required during the learning process. We present a model that links pedagogical issues with game elements. The game space contains a number of components, each encapsulates specific abstract or concrete interfaces. Understanding the relationship between educational needs and game elements will allow us to develop educational games that include visualisation and problem solving skills. Such tools could provide sufficient stimulation to engage learners in knowledge discovery, while at the same time developing new skills.     

Learning mathematics in a second language: A problem with more and less

An investigation into the development of the understanding of the relational terms more and less when used in a mathematical setting is described for two distinet groups of children. The first is a group of Papua New Guinean children attending government schools in Papua New Guinea; English isthe second language for these children. The second is a group of expatriate children attending international primary schools in Papua New Guinea. English is the first language for these children. The language of instruction in both school systems is English. In all, 376 Papua New Guinean children in grades 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, and 255 expatriate children in grades 2, 4, and 6 were given a test in which the words more and less were used in different contexts. Although analysis of errors suggested that Papua New Guinean and expatriate children tended to make qualitatively similar errors, substantial differences were found in the grade levels by which class mastery of a given meaning could be assumed, with the Papua New Guinean children lagging from 2 to 4 years behind their expatriate contemporaties. This difference appears to have serious educational implications for the learning of elementary mathematics in Papua New Guinea.     

高职数学课堂中师生博弈策略研究

针对职业院校数学课中学生很普遍的逃课行为、课堂教学效果不高、考核质量不理想等现象,教师在教学中尝试和归纳出来一系列师生博弈策略来帮助解决这些矛盾,将这些策略应用于实践当中,收到了比较好的效果。     

The relationship between language and social competence: How language impairment affects social growth

Given the research that suggests the social use of language is the latest developing aspect of language, it was hypothesized that children with speech/language impairment (SLI) are particularly susceptible to social interaction difficulties, resulting in diminished social competence. This hypothesis was explored with SLI and non‐language‐impaired (NLI) 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children by gathering measures of social problem solving ability (as rated by teachers, parents, and peers), emotion knowledge, and language development. Results provided partial support for the hypothesis above. Speech/language‐impaired children were rated significantly lower on parent ratings of self‐control and higher in internalizing behaviors, and lower on teacher ratings of assertiveness, than the NLI controls. There were no differences noted on peer sociometric ratings or mutual friendships. However, SLI children scored lower on a stereotypical test of emotional knowledge, while scoring similarly to NLI controls on a nonstereotypical test. A test of language development (TELD‐2) differentiated the SLI and NLI groups, both expressively and receptively. In addition, the TELD‐2 indicated a significant difference in semantic processing errors, but not syntax errors, between the two groups. The differential effects of speech/language impairment on the development of social competence were explored. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 313–321, 2004.     

When language of instruction and language of application differ: Cognitive costs of bilingual mathematics learning

Bilingual education programs implicitly assume that the acquired knowledge is represented in a language-independent way. This assumption, however, stands in strong contrast to research findings showing that information may be represented in a way closely tied to the specific language of instruction and learning. The present study aims to examine whether and to which extent cognitive costs appear during arithmetic learning when language of instruction and language of retrieving differ. Thirty-nine high school students participating in a bilingual education program underwent a four-day training on multiplication and subtraction problems in one language (German or French), followed by a test session in which they had to solve trained as well as untrained problems in both languages. We found that cognitive costs related to language switching appeared for both arithmetic operations. Implications of our findings are discussed with respect to bilingual education as well as to cognitive mechanisms underlying different arithmetic operations.     

Student perceptions in the design of a computer card game for learning computer literacy issues: a case study

The aim of this work was twofold. First, an empirical study was designed aimed at investigating the perceptions that entry-level non-computing majors -namely Physical Education and Sport Science (PESS) undergraduate students- hold about basic Computer Literacy (CL) issues. The participants were 90 first-year PESS students, and their perceptions were elicited through a written questionnaire. The data analysis revealed scientifically acceptable perceptions as well as various empirical, vague, incomplete and erroneous perceptions. Second, those students’ prior knowledge was utilized to design and implement an Educational Computer Card Game (ECCG) aimed at helping PESS students overcome their conceptual difficulties and approach the aforementioned CL issues in a scientifically consistent manner. The ECCG was designed taking into account basic digital game-based learning principles in combination with basic aspects of social and constructivist perspectives to learning. The ECCG was also pilot-tested in the field with real students, and the results were encouraging.     

The impacts of an early mathematics curriculum on oral language and literacy

Competence in early mathematics is crucial for later school success. Although research indicates that early mathematics curricula improve children's mathematics skill, such curricula's impacts on oral language and early literacy skills are not known. This project is the first to investigate the effects of an intensive pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum, Building Blocks, on the oral language and letter recognition of children participating in a large-scale cluster randomized trial project. Results showed no evidence that children who were taught mathematics using the curriculum performed differently than control children who received the typical district mathematics instruction on measures of letter recognition, and on two of the oral language (story retell) subtests, sentence length and inferential reasoning (emotive content). However, children in the Building Blocks group outperformed children in the control group on four oral language subtests: ability to recall key words, use of complex utterances, willingness to reproduce narratives independently, and inferential reasoning (practical content).     

The effect of competition and contextualized advisement on the transfer of mathematics skills a computer-based instructional simulation game

This study was designed to determine the effect of contextualized advisement and competition on transfer of mathematics skills in a computer-based simulation game in which participants helped their “aunt and uncle” fix up a house. Contextualized advisement referred to whether the participant had access to video-based advisement delivered by the aunt and uncle about how to solve the problem, and competition referred to whether or not the participant was playing against a computer character. A total of 123 seventh-and eighth-grade students were randomly assigned to one of five conditions formed by crossing the two independent variables and adding a control group. Results indicated an interaction between competition and contextualized advisement. Participants in the noncompetitive condition had higher transfer scores when they had access to contextualized advisement, while participants in the competitive condition had higher transfer scores when they had no access to contextualized advisement.