Making Difference Matter: Teaching and Learning in Desegregated Classrooms

In this ethnographic study, we look closely at everyday classroom interactions in order to examine the complex process of creating equitable classroom communities in racially and socioeconomically diverse schools. We use the lens of relational difference (Abu El-Haj, 2006) to examine how students negotiate social boundaries within their new school; how students and teachers use small group work to co-construct expectations of academic ability; and how teachers communicate and students navigate the social significance of differentiated instruction and assessment. We find that assumptions that some students are more competent than others permeate the classroom, and these perceptions of ability are frequently tied to students' race and socioeconomic status. We provide suggestions for teachers and teacher educators who wish to challenge these unspoken classroom norms.     

Reasoning beyond history: examining students’ strategy use when completing a multiple text task addressing a controversial topic in education

Reading and Writing - Given prior work identifying sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization as key strategies needed to learn from multiple texts, this study examines students’ multiple...     

Body composition analysis of inter-county Gaelic athletic association players measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry

Gaelic Football and Hurling are two sporting codes within the Gaelic Athletic Association. The purpose of this study was to report the body composition phenotype of inter-county Gaelic athletic association players, comparing groups by code and field position. 190 senior, male, outfield inter-county players (144 hurlers and 46 Gaelic footballers) were recruited. Stature and body mass was measured, estimates of three components of body composition, i.e. lean mass, fat mass and bone mineral content was obtained by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), and normative data for Gaelic athletic association athletes by code and position was compared. Other than in the midfield, there was limited difference in body composition between codes or playing position. Stature-corrected indices nullified any existing group differences between midfielders for both codes. Further comparisons with a non-athletic control group (n = 431) showed no difference for body mass index (BMI); however, the athletic group has a lower fat mass index, with a greater lean mass in accounting for the matched BMI between groups. In addition to providing previously unknown normative data for the Gaelic athletic association athlete, a proportional and independent tissue evaluation of body composition is given.     

The development of a system for supporting the lifelong learner

Given the rapidly changing skills needs of ‘post‐industrial economies’, lifelong learning forms an integral part of government policy within the UK and abroad. However, like the UK, most economies are faced with the problem of how to reach those sections of the community that have traditionally not embraced learning and educational opportunities. In this paper, the development and evaluation of a system designed to address this problem is described. The Lifelong Learning in London for All (L4All) project has investigated the concept of ‘trails’ as a way of organising lifelong learning opportunities. The L4All pilot system combines a set of web services to provide the functionality needed to support this central idea. The development process was outlined, and the findings of an empirical study were used to confirm proof of concept.     

Cognitive Affective Engagement Model of Multiple Source Use

This article introduces the cognitive affective engagement model (CAEM) of multiple source use. The CAEM is presented as a way of unifying cognitive and behaviorally focused models of multiple text engagement with research on the role of affective factors (e.g., interest) in text processing. The CAEM proposes that students' engagement with multiple texts may be explained by the default stance toward task completion they adopt. Students' default stances are defined according to two dimensions: their level of affective engagement with the topic of the task and their habits with regard to text evaluation. Default stances are used to explain a host of multiple text use behaviors, such as text selection, duration of text access, and document information access, and performance outcomes, including text recall and integration. Directions for future research on the CAEM are proposed.     

Youth’s Engagement as Scientists and Engineers in an Afterschool Making and Tinkering Program

Research in Science Education - Making and tinkering is currently gaining traction as an interdisciplinary approach to education. However, little is known about how these activities and...     

Old friends, new friends: predictors of children's perspective on their friends at school

Predictors of 5-year-old kindergartners' insights into their friends, and their accounts of liking and conflict with their friends were investigated, with a focus on both the children's and their friends' social understanding during the preschool period, and the quality of their preschool friendships. Seventy children initially studied at 4 years utilizing social cognition tasks and observations of dyadic play with their friends were followed over the transition to school; at school they were interviewed about their friendships and their social understanding was assessed. One group had remained close to their preschool friends, whereas a second group had formed new friendships. Social understanding, language abilities, and prosocial characteristics of both the children and preschool friends, their successful communication and shared pretend play experiences during the preschool period, and their mothers' educational level were related to their perspectives on their current school friends. Liking of current friends was linked to relationship history and maternal educational level for both those with old and with new friends, whereas insight was related to assessments of social cognition.     

The international telecommunication project in the schools of Moscow and New York state

The authors of the projects express their sincere gratitude to their partners in the project, Peter Copen of the Copen Family Fund, USA, and Jane Barley of the New York State Department of Education, USA. Thanks are also extended to Monica Bradsher from the National Geographic Society, USA, and Robert Tinker of TERC, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, for sharing their experience developing KIDNET.     

The role of educational context in beliefs about knowledge,information, and truth: an exploratory study

Beliefs about knowledge have been found to relate to a variety of student outcomes and to vary across educational domains and instructional contexts. However, there are limited data on students’ beliefs about information and truth, vis-à-vis knowledge (i.e., epistemic beliefs) and how these beliefs differ across instructional settings. Undergraduates from two educational contexts, in the USA (n?=?240) and the Netherlands (n?=?72), participated in this study. While students in the USA were enrolled primarily in lecture and discussion classes, students in the Netherlands followed a problem-based learning curriculum. Beliefs about knowledge, information, and truth and their interrelations were examined across these two contexts through graphical and written justification tasks. Results from this exploratory study indicate that Dutch students were more likely than American students to depict knowledge, information, and truth as subjective and to define knowledge and information as synonymous. Commonalities and differences associated with educational backgrounds are considered in relation to instructional implications.