Classroom,Home and Peer Environment Influences on Student Outcomes in Science and Mathematics: An analysis of systemic reform data

Using secondary analysis of a large database from a Statewide Systemic Initiative, we examined the effects of several types of environments on student outcomes. Over 3 years, nearly 7,000 students in 392 classes in 200 different schools responded to a questionnaire that assesses class, home, and peer environments as well as student attitudes. Students also completed an achievement measure that, developed by scientists, teachers, and science educators, was not aligned with any particular curriculum. Students were enrolled in middle‐school science and mathematics classes in schools that had participated in the Statewide Systemic Initiative. Rasch analyses allowed us to compare across student cohorts and across schools. Findings confirmed the importance of extending research on classroom learning environments to include the learning environments of the home and the peer group. Although all three environments accounted for statistically significant amounts of unique variance in student attitudes, only the class environment (defined in terms of the frequency of use of standards‐based teaching practices) accounted for statistically significant amounts of unique variance in student achievement scores. The findings are supported by other studies of systemic reform in the United States.     

Supporting and Developing Teachers through Telecommunications

Abstract

This article looks at how knowledge can be accessed using current technologies, so that forms of alternative delivery can be made available. It examines the effect of establishing links between schools and the university producing ‘virtual institutions’, and looks to the future.     

A case study of integration and destreaming: Teachers and students in an Ontario secondary school respond

The direction that secondary school reform should take has become a contested question in the province of Ontario, Canada, during the 1990s. This case study of one secondary school examines some of the issues surrounding the transition years. Two policies, destreaming and integration, mandatedbythe OntarioMinistryof Education in 1993, and fully implemented by 1995, are examined by means of interview and survey. Administrators, teachers and students commented on the transition from elementary to secondary school. We discuss questions related to destreaming (especially how teachers contend with mixed-ability classes) and integration (with a particular focus on mathematics, science and technology).     

An Analysis of Some New Statistical Methods for Selecting Test Items

In this study, the relationship between student affective performance and classroom physical environment, social climate, and management style were investigated in a sample of classes in Hong Kong primary schools. The results of Pearson and canonical correlation analyses indicated that among the measures of classroom environment, perceived quality of physical environment and class master's expert power, personal power, and coercive power were the strongest predictors of affective performance. This finding supports the importance of class master's management style in the classroom environment. Students' attitudes toward school and teachers appeared to be most sensitive to variation in the classroom environment, and self-concept was the least sensitive among the seven student affective measures. Students' self-efficacy of learning and intention to drop out were moderately sensitive to classroom environment. Profiles of effective and ineffective classroom environments were also mapped. In effective classrooms, class masters care for students, pay attention to teaching, do not use force or punishment but do create a good classroom climate with their professional knowledge, personal morality, and personality. Physical environment and psychological environment are both important; a good classroom environment is highly correlated with student affective performance.     

The communal constraints on parody: The symbolic death of Joe Bob Briggs

Arguments and Addresses of Joseph H. Choate. Collected and edited by Frederick C. Hicks, LL. B., Litt. D. With a Memorial by Elihu. Boot. St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1927. 1189 pp.

Great Speeches, by Elizabeth W. Baker. New York: Allyn and Bacon, 1927. Pp. 191 and Appendix.

The Speech Arts, by Alice Evelyn Craig. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926. 500 pp.

The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan. Philadelphia: Winston and Company, 1925. 556 pp.

The Growth of the Mind—An Introduction to Child‐Psychology. By Kurt Koffka. Translated by R. M. Ogden. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1924. xvi + 383 pp.

Psychology and Education, by Robert Morris Ogden. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1926. xiii + 364 pp.

Causes and Their Champions, by M. A. DeWolfe Howe. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1926.

Trumpets of Jubilee, by Constance Mayfield Rourke. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1927.

The Pocket Oxford Dictionary, by P. G. Fowler and H. W. Fowler. American Edition, revised by George Van Santvoord. Oxford University Press, American Branch. Pp. xvi +1029.

The Romance of Words, by Ernest Weekley, M. A. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1927. Pp. xi + 225.     

Between patriotism and nationalism: Johan Hendrik Swildens and the ‘pedagogy of the patriotic virtues’ in the United Dutch Provinces during the 1780s and 1790s

The dominant influences that forged curriculum policy in relation to the literacy curriculum in New Zealand during the 1930s can be seen to be enmeshed in the politics of the wider context of what de Castell and Luke have identified as the ‘literacy ideologies of the British Empire’. ^{1 1} See de Castell, Suzanne and Allan Luke. “Literacy Instruction: Technology and Technique.” American Journal of Education 95, no. 3 (1987): 413–440. It was these literacy ideologies and concerns over the cultural authority of ‘standard English’ that were to spark a growing public and professional concern during the 1930s over New Zealanders’ speech and the growing ‘insidious’ influence of American‐derived popular culture. These tensions led to debates that would eventually highlight the need for New Zealanders to develop their own national and cultural identity. They would also bring into question the role of Maori language and culture in New Zealand primary school education, and herald the first challenges to the cultural dominance of the English language in New Zealand’s Native schools in the late 1930s.     

Promoting assessment efficacy through an integrated system for online clinical assessment of practical skills

This paper presents evaluation outcomes from an externally funded research project involving the online clinical assessment of practical skills (eCAPS) using web-based video technologies within a university medical programme. eCAPS was implemented to trial this web-based approach for promoting the efficacy of practical skills assessment in knee joint examinations for a pre-clinical cohort of second year medical students. eCAPS involves a progressive organisation of online video experiences and task expectations for formative and summative assessments of selected competencies. Data are presented from semi-structured interviews with the medical students (N?=?40). eCAPS successfully supported students’ skill development in knee joint examinations on fellow students and allowed remote assessment of candidates’ performances by clinicians experienced in musculoskeletal examinations. An ‘indicative standard’ paradigm, involving formative assessment of one randomly selected performance from the submission of all students’ responses within a small group, offered an efficient and efficacious avenue for providing consolidated feedback to students and promoted desirable learning behaviours. Overall, there was evidence of reciprocal learning benefits to the ‘blending’ of an online learning and assessment approach with an existing face-to-face environment. The medical students were able to successfully engage online with high quality and consistent practical skill-based materials in a flexible, independent and individual manner.     

Exploiting Online Interactivity to Enhance Assignment Development and Feedback in Distance Education

Networking provides the means to deliver enhancements to assignment development and feedback which have not previously been possible for ODL courses. This paper describes the experimental introduction and evaluation of network delivered model answers and peer review as additional formative feedback on assessment. The enhancements assisted students in attuning themselves to the writing demands of the course, and there may be particular times in a course when they are most of value. Use of a network allowed for delivery within a controlled time frame, whilst providing an interactive environment for debate on alternative perspectives.