Implementing curriculum-embedded formative assessment in primary school science classrooms

The implementation of formative assessment strategies is challenging for teachers. We evaluated teachers’ implementation fidelity of a curriculum-embedded formative assessment programme for primary school science education, investigating both material-supported, direct application and subsequent transfer. Furthermore, the relationship between implementation fidelity and teacher variables was explored. N = 17 German primary school teachers participated in professional development on formative assessment, N = 11 teachers formed a control group. Teachers’ implementation fidelity was evaluated via classroom observations student ratings and an analysis of students’ workbooks, focusing on the frequency and quality of intended formative assessment elements (assessments, feedback and instructional adaptations). Regarding direct application, treatment group teachers’ implementation fidelity was high, with slight variations in quality. Regarding transfer, implementation fidelity was lower but teachers still implemented more formative assessment elements than the control group. Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and their evaluation of the formative assessment intervention were associated with implementation success.     

Brave new platforms: a possible platform future for highly decentralised schooling

ABSTRACT

Sweden has one of the most marketised and decentralised school systems in the world while also ranking amongst countries with the highest levels of access to technology in classrooms. Considering the increasingly central role that digital platforms play in the practices of schooling, this article speculates on what might happen during the 2020s in highly decentralised school systems like Sweden’s. Based on current trends in education, directions indicated by platformisation in other contexts and taking a critical speculative approach, it offers a discussion of what could happen to the practices of schooling and the public mission of education. This discussion is intended to raise important questions for researchers, educators and policy makers to consider as the platformisation of schooling unfolds.     

Young students’ aesthetic experiences and meaning-making processes in an outdoor environmental school practice

This study uses John Dewey’s theoretical concept of ‘aesthetic experience’ in empirically exploring expressions of cognition and emotion in students’ meaning-making processes. A case study was conducted in one class of Grade 6 students during a single school semester. This article reports results from five outdoor days. The empirical material consists of observations, field notes, logbook entries, interviews and students’ written reflections. The students’ meaning-making processes were analyzed through the Deweyan theory of an initial phase involving anticipation, an activity phase with courses of actions and a concluding phase with reflections that serve as fulfillments. Expressions of aesthetic experience were identified in four important components of the students’ meaning-making processes: prior personal experiences; responses to environments and artifacts; social interaction; and situations allowing for responsibility, trust and independence. A more in-depth process-oriented analysis revealed that aesthetic experiences are vital in continuous meaning-making processes.     

Face Detection and the Development of Own‐Species Bias in Infant Macaques

In visually complex environments, numerous items compete for attention. Infants may exhibit attentional efficiency—privileged detection, attention capture, and holding—for face‐like stimuli. However, it remains unknown when these biases develop and what role, if any, experience plays in this emerging skill. Here, nursery‐reared infant macaques' (Macaca mulatta; n = 10) attention to faces in 10‐item arrays of nonfaces was measured using eye tracking. With limited face experience, 3‐week‐old monkeys were more likely to detect faces and looked longer at faces compared to nonfaces, suggesting a robust face detection system. By 3 months, after peer exposure, infants looked faster to conspecific faces but not heterospecific faces, suggesting an own‐species bias in face attention capture, consistent with perceptual attunement.     

Ein Vorgehensmodell für die Multimedia-Entwicklung mit Autorensystemen

Zusammenfassung.   Multimedia-Anwendungen sind interaktive Softwaresysteme und verlangen als solche, mit softwaretechnischen Methoden erstellt zu werden. Sie werden heutzutage in der Regel mit Hilfe von Autorensystemen entwickelt, die eine Ad-hoc-Entwicklung auf Implementierungsniveau unterstützen. Hierdurch und wegen des Fehlens etablierter Vorgehensmodelle für die Multimedia-Softwareentwicklung reduziert sich der Multimedia-Entwicklungsproze? auf die Implementierungsphase. Dies führt zu den in der Softwaretechnik bekannten Problemen wie mangelnder Konzeption und fehlender Dokumentation. Wir stellen in diesem Beitrag ein Vorgehensmodell für die Entwicklung von Multimedia-Anwendungen vor, in dessen Mittelpunkt eine Analyse- und Entwurfsphase im Hinblick auf eine Implementierung der Multimedia-Anwendung mit einem Autorensystem stehen. Ausgehend von einem frameworkbasierten Analysemodell der Anwendung und einem Modell der Realisierungsm?glichkeiten mit einem konkreten Autorensystem wird systematisch ein Implementierungsmodell auf Instanzebene abgeleitet, das als Eingabe für das Autorensystem verwendet wird. Das postulierte Vorgehensmodell wird exemplarisch für das Autorensystem Director am Beispiel der Dom?ne multimedialer Lehr-/Lernanwendungen erl?utert. Eingegangen am 2. November 1998 / Angenommen am 18. M?rz 1999     

Arctic sea ice and the communication of climate change

Media play a major role in framing key political issues such as climate change, and the melting of the Arctic snow and ice has become a bellwether of global climate change through the mediations of the region and its wildlife. While Arctic change has scientific significance for understanding global warming, it also plays a key role in the popular communication of global climate change and its impacts. This article addresses questions such as how the Arctic and its sea ice have become become powerful images of climate change, and what roles scientific activities, technologies, and networks play in relation to media and mediation. Drawing upon earlier research on the role of the media and framing in relation to climate change in general and upon Arctic climate change in particular, we explore how media framings are linked with various dynamics such as scientific practice and the institutional structure of the media system.     

The impact of instruction and student characteristics on the development of students’ ability to read texts with instructional pictures

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Reading texts with instructional pictures (text-picture integration) is a key component of students’ learning processes in most school subjects,...     

Ein Vorgehensmodell für die Multimedia-Entwicklung mit Autorensystemen

Multimedia-Anwendungen sind interaktive Softwaresysteme und verlangen als solche, mit softwaretechnischen Methoden erstellt zu werden. Sie werden heutzutage in der Regel mit Hilfe von Autorensystemen entwickelt, die eine Ad-hoc-Entwicklung auf Implementierungsniveau unterstützen. Hierdurch und wegen des Fehlens etablierter Vorgehensmodelle für die Multimedia-Softwareentwicklung reduziert sich der Multimedia-Entwicklungsproze? auf die Implementierungsphase. Dies führt zu den in der Softwaretechnik bekannten Problemen wie mangelnder Konzeption und fehlender Dokumentation. Wir stellen in diesem Beitrag ein Vorgehensmodell für die Entwicklung von Multimedia-Anwendungen vor, in dessen Mittelpunkt eine Analyse- und Entwurfsphase im Hinblick auf eine Implementierung der Multimedia-Anwendung mit einem Autorensystem stehen. Ausgehend von einem frameworkbasierten Analysemodell der Anwendung und einem Modell der Realisierungsm?glichkeiten mit einem konkreten Autorensystem wird systematisch ein Implementierungsmodell auf Instanzebene abgeleitet, das als Eingabe für das Autorensystem verwendet wird. Das postulierte Vorgehensmodell wird exemplarisch für das Autorensystem Director am Beispiel der Dom?ne multimedialer Lehr-/Lernanwendungen erl?utert.     

Reading and spelling among nonvocal children with cerebral palsy: Influence of home and school literacy environment

In literacy research, home literacy experiences and exposure to print have been ascribed a contributing role in later reading development along with metalinguistic and other cognitive skills. In a study on reading and spelling skills in nonvocal children the home and school literacy experiences of 35 children with cerebral palsy were studied by means of questionnaires. The questionnaires were completed by the parents and teachers. The answers from the disability group were compared with the answers from two comparison groups, one matched for mental age and sex and the other for sex and IQ. The results revealed few differences in the home literacy experiences of the three groups. The children of all three groups had access to a variety of printed materials, and there were no differences in the parents' reading habits or in their values and high priority given to literacy. The disabled children took a passive role in story reading with little linguistic interaction, and the parents took the active part. The results indicated that home literacy experiences in the groups studied at best had a marginal influence on reading development. Individual differences in speech and language abilities were proposed to have higher explanatory value of the low literacy skills found among nonvocal children.