Content Area Literacy in the Mathematics Classroom

Content area literacy has an important role in helping students understand content in specific disciplines, such as mathematics. Although the strategies are not unique to each individual content area, they are often adapted for use in a specific discipline. For example, mathematicians use mathematical language to make sense of new ideas and information and to organize that information in a specialized way. Content literacy strategies can help mathematics students accomplish these goals. In this article, we will discuss six practical strategies to help build students' content skills in the mathematics classroom and they are: the Frayer model, question generation, visual supports, think-alouds, writing to learn, and text reading.     

Oxygen uptake kinetics in children and adults after the onset of moderate-intensity exercise

The literature suggests that the oxygen uptake (VO2) response to the onset of moderate-intensity exercise may be both mature from childhood and independent of sex. Yet the cardiorespiratory response to exercise and the metabolic profile of the muscle appear to change with growth and development and to differ between the sexes. The aim of this study was to investigate further changes in the VO2 kinetic response with age and sex. Participants completed a series of no less than four step change transitions, from unloaded pedalling to a constant work rate corresponding to 80% of their previously determined ventilatory threshold. Each participant's breath-by-breath responses were interpolated to 1 s intervals, time aligned and then averaged. A single exponential model that included a time delay was used to analyse the averaged response following phase 1 (15 s). Participants with parameter confidence intervals more than +/- 5 s were removed from the sample; the results for the remaining 13 men and 12 women (age 19-26 years), 12 boys and 11 girls (age 11-12 years) were used for statistical analysis. Children had a significantly shorter time constant than adults, both for males (19.0+/-2.0 and 27.9+/-8.6 s respectively; P<0.01) and females (21.0+/-5.5 and 26.0+/-4.5 s respectively; P<0.05). There were no significant differences in the time constant between the sexes for either adults or children (P>0.05). A significant relationship between the time constant and peak VO2 was found only in adult males (P<0.05). A shorter time constant in children may reflect an enhanced potential for oxidative metabolism.     

Context matters: increasing understanding with interactive Clicker Case studies

Although interactive technology is presumed to increase student understanding in large classes, no previous research studies have empirically explored the effects of Clicker Cases on students?? performance. A Clicker Case is a story (e.g., a problem someone is facing) that uses clickers (student response systems) to engage students in understanding the meaning of the science contained within the story. Using an experimental randomized Solomon design across 11 institutions, we found that Clicker Cases increased student understanding more than PowerPoint lectures in large introductory biology classrooms, although there was variation across institutions and topics. By examining student performance in conjunction with faculty experience, we found that strong Clicker Cases created dissonance, captured attention and involved students in interpreting data or making decisions. This study provides a model for collaborative research across multiple institutions and demonstrates the need for using multiple institutions and topics in research on education.     

Effects of Teaching Experience,Knowledge of Performer Competence,and Knowledge of Performance Outcome on Performance Error Identification

The purpose of this study was to determine if experienced tennis teachers could be differentiated from inexperienced tennis teachers on the basis of their ability to identify common performance errors in films depicting the performance of the tennis forehand. The study also sought to determine if the differences in error detection proficiency between the two groups would be greater when subjects were provided with preresponse information concerning the performer's level of competence in the skill (PCI) and postresponse information concerning the outcome produced by the response (POI). The error detection proficiency of 40 experienced tennis teachers and 40 undergraduate physical education students was assessed under conditions of PCI and POI present, PCI present and POI absent, PCI absent and POI present, and PCI and POI absent. Results indicated that the experienced teachers, although significantly more accurate in detecting errors than the novice teachers, were only marginally so. No positive effects on error detection accuracy were observed for PCI and the facilitative effects for POI tended to be small and generalized to both experienced and inexperienced subjects rather than being specifically helpful to the experienced teachers. The differences between experienced and inexperienced teachers appeared to be due to fewer false alarms committed by the experienced teachers.     

A Classroom Study on the Relationship Between Student Achievement and Retrieval-Enhanced Learning

Retrieval practice has been shown to produce powerful learning gains in laboratory experiments but has seldom been explored in classrooms as a means of enhancing students’ learning of their course-relevant material. Furthermore, research is lacking concerning the role of individual differences in learning from retrieval. The current study explored the effects of retrieval in a large undergraduate introductory biology course as a function of individual differences in student achievement. Students completed in-class exercises that required them to retrieve course information (e.g., recalling definitions for terms and labeling diagrams) followed by feedback or to simply copy the information without retrieving it. A later quiz over the information showed that high-performing students benefited more from retrieving than copying, whereas middle- and low-performing students benefited more from copying than retrieving. When asked to predict their quiz scores following the in-class exercises, high-performers demonstrated better overall metacognitive calibration compared to middle- or low-performers. These results highlight the importance of individual differences in learning from retrieval and encourage future research using course-relevant material to consider the role of student achievement in classroom-based interventions.     

Developing collaborative approaches to enhance the professional development of primary mathematics teachers

This research project promoted a collaborative model of professional development between lead teachers from three schools, supported by a project coordinator and a researcher from a local university. Each lead teacher worked with their head teacher to design, lead, and evaluate an innovative, personalised, and school-based mathematics continuing professional development (CPD) programme in their school. University staff helped to facilitate project meetings across the schools and monitored impacts within each school. Professional development meetings, involving all teachers and teaching assistants (TAs) from the schools (n?=?55), were designed to encourage a whole-school approach. The project also provided structured opportunities for the lead teacher to work with colleagues in the classroom, for example, through lesson observation and/or collaborative teaching. The outcomes from this project confirmed that collaborative models of CPD, as opposed to transmission, formal training, and ‘top-down’ models, were welcomed by teachers and head teachers – some of whom reported early indications of improvements in student performance. Commenting on what constitutes the most effective forms of CPD, there was a reiteration of the importance of combining peer and external support through a collaborative process.     

Learning from Writing in College Biology

This study used both quantitative and qualitative analyses to examine the influence of written arguments on learning in a college level introductory biology class and the types of metacognition employed by students while writing. Comparison of a treatment and control group indicates that the writing assignments used had minimal impact on overall content learning as measured by conventional exams. Subsequent interviews and think-aloud protocols with a subset of students indicated that writing arguments had the potential to foster learning through forward and backward search strategies. However, few of the students took advantage of this opportunity to use metacognitive skills. This study suggests that preparing written arguments is not sufficient, by itself, to have a reliable effect on student learning and is consistent with the view that students must be explicitly taught when and how to use different metacognitive strategies.     

Steps to Global Licensing Success

The impact of evolving technology on those who create content and those who use it has raised many interesting copyright-related challenges that legislators, copyright experts, authors, publishers and licensing organizations around the world are looking to address. Several international initiatives underway highlight the evolving global copyright landscape, including a report commissioned by the UK government calling for the creation of a “Digital Copyright Exchange.” Through such international efforts—and through the content licensing experience of collective management organizations—the best solutions to the copyright challenges of our time can deliver efficiency to everyone involved.