Learning by doing—The influence of students’ experience in community television production on personality variables

The aim of the present study was to examine the influence of students’ experience in community television production, i.e. “learning by doing”, on their self-image. The research population included 157 subjects who underwent a set of tests for evaluating their self-image (personal, moral and social) and motivation. All the subjects took part in the production of a film and experienced the production roles according to their personal choice (director, editor, photographer, actor). At the end of the learning process and the production of the film the subjects took the same set of tests again in order to determine the change that took place following the process. Sixty-one subjects also participated in an interview that examined their attitudes and feelings towards the process they had undergone. The results indicate that students who experienced learning via community television production roles improved their personal, moral, social and self-image. An open experience system can thus create a common framework in which each person contributes towards a completed product, and can help develop the student’s self-image and motivation.     

The role of contradiction and uncertainty in promoting the need to prove in Dynamic Geometry environments

In many geometrical problems, students can feel that the universalityof a conjectured attribute of a figure is validated by their action in adynamic geometry environment. In contrast, students generally do not feelthat deductive explanations strengthen their conviction that a geometricalfigure has a given attribute. In order to cope with students' convictionbased on empirical experience only and to create a need for deductiveexplanations, we developed a collection of innovative activities intended tocause surprise and uncertainty. In this paper we describe two activities, thatled students to contradictions between conjectures and findings. We analyzethe conjectures, working methods, and explanations given by the studentswhen faced with the contradictions that arose.     

The promotion game

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

Fathers' participation in family work and children's sex-role attitudes

The relation between fathers' participation in family work (child care and home chores) and children's sex-role attitudes was examined in an interview study of 160 Caucasian middle-class families. Children were stratified by age level (5-year-olds and 10-year-olds), sex, and maternal employment status. 5 types of paternal participation were assessed--for example, total interaction time, performance of traditionally feminine home chores--using joint estimates by fathers and mothers. Children's attitudes were measured by questionnaire; their occupational aspirations were also assessed. Data are provided on the extent of fathers' participation for each of the 5 types assessed. The direct effects of paternal participation per se on children's attitudes were weak. Among fourth graders, mother's attitude toward the male role was the strongest predictor of stereotyping; children with nontraditional mothers were significantly less stereotyped.     

Correction to: Better beware: comparing metacognition for phishing and legitimate emails

Metacognition and Learning - The article “Better beware: comparing metacognition for phishing and legitimate emails”, written by Casey Inez Canfield, Baruch Fischhoff and Alex Davis,...     

Publications Received

This study examined teachers' perceptions of transactional distance in different teaching environments. The independent variable was the teaching environment, which was divided into three: entirely distance environment (Distance-E), blended distance environment (Distance-B), and the traditional environment (Traditional). The dependent variable was teachers' perceptions of the transactional distance, which pertains to their feelings as a result of the teaching process and indicates their evaluation of their ability to communicate with the students and explain the content and to determine their satisfaction from teaching in the different environments. One hundred sixty educators who teach in distance environments (Distance-E, n?=?66; Distance-B, n?=?94) and 160 who teach in a traditional environment completed a study questionnaire (Teachers' Transactional Distance Scale). The teachers' perceptions of the transactional distance were found to be sensitive to the seniority of the teachers, the number of students per class, and Distance-E. These findings show that the teacher's role should be redefined and that teachers should be trained for this new role in order to reduce the perceived transactional distance. Teaching a large number of students in a course transmitted entirely at a distance must also be reconsidered, despite clear economic advantages of large classes.     

Patterns of Verbal Mediation During Problem Solving: A Sequential Analysis of Self-Explanation

The explanations that participants give themselves (self-explanations) while learning or solving problems have been shown to be positively associated with various performance measures. The major aim of this study was to identify patterns of self-explanation that distinguish between good and poor problem solvers. Thirty-two Grade 9 students were asked to solve 3 mixture problems—1 warm-up problem and 2 test problems—while thinking aloud. The problem-solving process was videotaped, protocols were transcribed, and 5 content categories were identified. Through a sequential analysis, patterns of self-explanation that differentiate between good and poor problem solvers were identified.     

New actions upon old objects: A new ontological perspective on functions

We argue in this paper that the systematic use of special software in instruction has a profound impact on the notion of function as an abstract entity to be constructed. We argue that through the medium of the computer, the objects in the graphical, tabular and algebraic settings can change their essence and thus become objects of a new kind we callrepresentatives. Actions on representatives which naturally arise in this framework induce an ontological shift. A taxonomy of the skills involved in the learning of the concept of function through these new ontological lenses is presented, as well as software, and problem solving tasks that embody the same ontological perspective. Within the framework of a teaching experiment, students' acquisition of many of the identified skills was investigated by means of a questionnaire and interviews during computer supported problem solving sessions. The most salient results of the study indicate that a majority of students were able (1) to cope with partial data about functions (e.g., problems of interpolation and arbitrariness), (2) to recognize invariants (i. e., properties of functions) while coordinating actions among representatives from different settings, and (3) to recognize invariants while creating and comparing different representatives from the same setting.