'I Might as Well Give Up': Self-esteem and mature students' feelings about feedback on assignments

Lecturers working with adult students balance the need to provide feedback and assess students' work with a concern to protect vulnerable students. This article is based on a small-scale quantitative research project that looked at Access students' responses to feedback on assignments. All students found the first assignment problematic, but thereafter great variations were found, which related to varying levels of self-esteem. Students varied in their attitudes to receiving feedback, their perceptions of the messages they were receiving and whether it was important to them that they receive positive comments. They also differed in the extent of the impact of the feedback, for some students, it was 'only work'; for others, their whole sense of self was at stake.     

A Librarian's Suggestions on Taking Notes

Abstract

A key factor in ensuring students' academic success is to make certain that they do not feel lost or intimidated when undertaking library research assignments. Classroom faculty and librarians working in collaboration can help ease students' research anxiety by providing them with some simple pre-research tools. Included in this article are “Library Tips for Students,” and for faculty “Guidelines for Designing and Implementing Effective Library Research Assignments,” “Characteristics of Effective Assignments,” and “Pitfalls to Avoid” when designing these assignments. Students, classroom faculty, and librarians benefit when students receive a solid foundation for their research undertakings.     

Educators’ Perceptions of Student Digital Citizenship Practices

Abstract

Digital citizenship, defined as exhibiting appropriate and responsible behavior with digital technology use, is an essential component of technology education. The purpose of this study was to examine K-12 educators’ perceptions of their students' digital citizenship knowledge and practices as they relate to cyberbullying, digital footprint, digital privacy, digital netiquette, and digital identity. One hundred and seven educators responded to a survey on digital citizenship practices. Based on the educators' perceptions, student understanding and practice of digital citizenship were rated as not well for most of the items on the survey. While educators' perceptions of their students' digital citizenship practices did not vary among school levels or based on their roles as teachers or technology coaches, educators who taught digital citizenship had higher perceptions of their students' digital citizenship practices.     

Working while teaching,learning while working: students teaching in their own class

This paper examines the context of teacher education in which certain students work as teachers whilst at the same time they study in a teacher education programme. The two phenomena that are discussed are the integration of theory and practice, and learning while working. These are located in the wider framework of teachers' pedagogical thinking, and research‐based teacher education. The paper reports on students' experiences of the success of integrating theoretical studies in their work as teachers and the related issue of how a student's everyday grasp of classroom practice has been taken into account in their studies. The paper also raises the issue of the university–school relationship through students' estimations of the impact that their participation in teacher education has brought to the school in which they work and other key aspects of the university–school relationship.     

The Grade W: Why Students Drop Their Classes

Abstract

This study reports reasons given by community college students as to why they drop their classes and totally withdraw from college. In addition, the report gives findings as to whether or not students have a propensity for adding another class after they drop a class, and relates students' reasons for dropping a class to several student characteristics. Analysis of the data reveals that a majority of students drop classes for reasons not related to the college's instructional program.     

‘It's a year and then that's me’: masters students' decision‐making

This paper explores the decision‐making of students entering full time UK taught masters degree courses. The findings come from an ongoing research project, Career progression and employability for full time UK resident masters students. Little previous work has focused on these students and their process of transition (however long) from undergraduate studies. Analysis of the data from in‐depth interviews with 24 students from six masters courses across two universities has led to the development of a threefold classification to summarize students' circumstances on entry to their courses. Alongside this, Bourdieu's notions of field, social, cultural and economic capital and habitus have proved valuable in making sense of the data. I argue that students' decisions to pursue full time higher level study are related to their circumstances on application, their dispositions and the resources they have available to them that are relevant to their masters level study. Key differences in the students' circumstances are cross cut by key common themes, suggesting that they bring their prior dispositions to their decision‐making, which is firmly located within the opportunity structures they perceive as relevant to themselves. The complexities of the students' decision‐making appear to be a far cry from the narrow policy notion of students as rational actors seeking economic gain.     

Sexual Harassment of College Students by Lecturers in Zimbabwe

Sexual harassment of female students by their lecturers has become a serious social problem in schools and institutions of higher education in Zimbabwe. The current study is an in-depth follow-up to Zindi's study (1994) and sought to investigate and establish whether or not inappropriate relationships between male lecturers and female students exist; whether female lecturers sexually harass male students; and whether there is a relationship between sexual harassment and students' performance in their studies. There may be a relationship between sexual harassment and the performance of female students in examinations. The results of a questionnaire completed by 83 students in one higher education institution in Zimbabwe revealed the widespread sexual harassment of female students by male lecturers and the different perceptions of such harassment held by male and female students. Possible implications of these findings to education are discussed and recommendations made.     

Students and Support for Technology in the Elementary Classroom

Summary

This paper explores the roles of students supporting technology in elementary classrooms. Students' primary role in the classroom is not to support teachers, but with technology, teachers take advantage of support in many forms. This paper classifies the ways in which students were found to support technology in the classroom, taking advantage of their expertise to help the teacher and other students. In some cases, students' efforts provided positive benefits to the teacher and other students, and in other cases, the students' efforts caused more problems than they solved.     

The Case of One Child: Making the shift from personal knowledge to professionally informed practice

The present paper examines shifts in preservice students' understandings about teaching and learning as a consequence of developing a case study of an elementary-aged child. Data for this paper were gathered from 18 preservice students and included (a) admission statements, (b) responses to open-ended questions, with accompanying illustrations, regarding students' learning trajectory in relation to the child they studied, and (c) responses to a survey that asked students to contrast what they felt they understood at the end of the term as compared with what they thought they knew at the start of the term. In addition, six of the 18 students volunteered to participate in a more in-depth follow-up that involved a short interview. The present paper represents a preliminary exploration and begins with a discussion of the assumptions and theoretical framework guiding the analysis. Data are then presented and examined, after which the paper concludes with some recommendations for teacher educators.     

Developing understanding through confronting varying views: The case of solving qualitative physics problems

This study explored high school students' collaborative efforts in solving qualitative physics problems. It aims to investigate whether and how confronting students with varying views help to improve their problem solving skills and develop better understanding of the underlying physics concepts. The varying views were provided to 18 Year 12 students by requiring them (a) to work in dyads on three problems during which they had to consider and confront each other's ideas; and (b) to consider, in a feedback session, multiple solutions to each problem, comparing the solutions with their own and reflecting on their mistakes. The study adopts Marton's emerging theory of awareness as its theoretical underpinning- that the varying views would bring to students' focal awareness and enable them to discern the different critical aspects of the problem situations and this would help them to develop conceptual understanding. The results show that confronting students with varying views have positive effects on students' learning, thus lending support to the theory of awareness.     

Differences in Competence and Beliefs About Autism Among Teacher Education Students

Students with autism often are placed in general education classrooms, indicating general education teachers should be prepared to meet these students' needs. This survey study of teacher education students examined differences in educational training, beliefs about autism, and competence working with students with autism, according to college level and major area of study. Results showed that teacher education students held accurate beliefs about most aspects of autism, but they demonstrated misconceptions about special, gifted abilities. Secondary teacher education students were less likely to demonstrate accurate beliefs about the social emotional features of autism over the course of their training. General education teachers reported a lack of competence working with students with autism and believed additional training was needed. Findings suggested ongoing preservice training is needed to foster accurate beliefs about autism and competence working with students with autism.     

Social Work Students' Attitudes About Working With Involuntary Clients

Social workers employed in areas such as public child welfare, substance abuse, and corrections often provide services to involuntary clients. These individuals do not seek social work services on their own volition and may be actively opposed to the services they are receiving. This study explores social work students' attitudes about working with involuntary clients. The article is based on a cross-sectional survey of social work students (N = 107) at a large Southeastern university. Participants answered questions regarding their experience, knowledge, and attitudes about involuntary clients. Findings and implications for social work education and practice are discussed.     

Toward Stewardship of Democratic Ideals: Using students' perspectives to improve school‐university collaboration and model democratic practice

A healthy democracy values and depends on diverse perspectives to maintain flexibility and to make ongoing improvements that better serve its various groups. Our analysis of qualitative data from interviews conducted with students in two professional development school settings (school-university partnerships) showed that students were not regularly asked to provide their views of schooling or of school renewal efforts. The analysis further showed that students in this study, both young children and maturing adolescents alike, held personal knowledge that could contribute to adults' understandings of their work. The article is organized into five sections. First, we describe the innovation that provided the impetus for the study. Second, we describe the study's design. The third and fourth parts—students' perspectives on their schools and on the changes they were experiencing—represent the heart of the article. We conclude by placing the students' perspectives in the larger context of schooling for democracy—the theoretical framework for the study.     

Linkages between cognitive and social dialogue patterns during collaborative small-group discussions

BackgroundCollaborative small-group discussions have the potential to promote reading comprehension, critical thinking, and argumentation. However, few studies have gone beyond cognitive processes to understand the social characteristics of dialogue and their potential contributions to students’ cognitive processing in turn-by-turn dialogic exchanges.AimsThis study closely examined dialogues between speakers and addressees regarding their levels of cognitive processing (i.e., cognitive dialogue patterns) and social processes reflecting social cohesion (i.e., social dialogue patterns). The aims were to understand, first, the relations between students' cognitive dialogue patterns and their social dialogue patterns, and second, the relations between students' cognitive dialogue patterns and peers’ social dialogue patterns.SampleThis study included 4070 speaking turns generated by 120 fifth-graders in 60 small-group discussions.MethodsStudents participated in small-group discussions, called Collaborative Social Reasoning. Dialogue between pairs of group members formed social networks, based on which Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) were specified.ResultsFindings showed that speakers' social dialogue patterns were associated with their cognitive dialogue patterns. However, receiving social dialogue patterns from peers did not always predict students’ advanced types of cognitive dialogue patterns.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that cognitive and social aspects of small-group discussions are intricately linked, and that encouraging social cohesion does not guarantee that students will engage in collaborative and critical discussions.     

A Canonical Correlation Analysis ofBehavior Problems and School Achievementfor Different Grades,Sexes, and Races

Abstract

Using education survey data from 6,883 Grade 6 students in 148 schools and from 6,868 Grade 8 students in 92 schools in New Brunswick, Canada, the author applied student and school characteristics to explain differences among students and schools regarding students' sense of belonging to school. Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed that in Grades 6 and 8, discrepancies in students' sense of belonging were mainly within schools, rather than between schools. At the student level, sense of belonging in both grades was affected more by students' mental and physical conditions and less by their individual and family characteristics. Students' self-esteem was the single most important predictor of their sense of belonging, followed by their health status. At the school level, school climate (academic press or expectation in Grade 6 and disciplinary climate in Grade 8) was more important than school context in shaping students' sense of belonging.     

Working with children in college: an evaluation of an exploratory it module with undergraduate primary student teachers

Abstract

Since 1991 all undergraduate primary student teachers at Chester have followed a Technology course. The distinctive pattern of our approach to Design & Technology has been acknowledged to be successful, but classroom use of Information Technology (IT) has not been as evident. This paper describes a small scale project which set out to replicate the essential elements of our approaches to Design & Technology and to apply them to Information Technology elements of the course. The outcome of the qualitative and quantitative research methods to monitor the effectiveness of the approaches are evaluated and discussed. Our tentative findings highlight the importance of students working with children using computers. Until the students had gained first hand experience of working with children in the classroom with IT, their concerns were more equipment-related than pedagogical. It would appear that students perceive issues of teaching and learning to be more important than concerns with their own IT capability after working with children. The integration of IT into students' professional coursework is identified as being influential in the development of their appreciation of the contribution IT can make to children's learning.     

Evaluating Education Reform: Students' Views of Their Charter School Experience

Abstract

One aspect of charter schools that is often overlooked when one evaluates their success is the support that they receive from students. By using data from a survey of Texas charter school students, supplemented with statistics from the Texas Education Agency, the author examined students' satisfaction with their charter school, especially as it compared with their previous educational experiences. Results suggest that when students perceived that the charter school had higher quality teachers, better classes, and a more caring environment, they were more satisfied with their charter school than with their previous school. Furthermore, students most at risk for dropping out also were those who tended to be more supportive of their charter school.     

Programming and Mathematics in an Upper-Level University Problem-Solving Course

We discuss teaching and learning situations that surfaced when computer programming and mathematics were brought together in a course where students write computer code to explore mathematics problems. Combining programming and mathematics creates a rich ecosystem which, on top of traditional mathematics activities (writing solutions, proofs, etc.), offers simulation and experimentation, invites discussions about structure, requires logic and testing strategies, and handles mathematics objects with an added feeling of reality. Focusing on novice and inexperienced programmers, we look for answers to the practice-oriented question, “How do students reason through their difficulties when using programming to explore a mathematics problem?” Following literature review and methodology, we build the programming model, which we use to study students' experiences as they approach a mathematical problem by writing computer code. Our research is based on analyzing students' in-class work and class notes, author's observations of students working on their computers, and his interactions with students in class and elsewhere. In the four case studies that we present we touch upon students' difficulties in working with complex conditional statements and recurrence relations. As well, we discuss cases where resolving a programming issue demands posing and answering mathematical questions.     

Making Courses More Imaginative

Abstract

This article describes the organization and implementation of a class survey project. The exercise, which can be applied across disciplines, may be tied to course materials or campus activities. Three surveys conducted by the authors and their students are detailed and the students' roles in the projects are discussed. Students benefit from the group survey projects by gaining valuable experience under the guidance of their professors.