Cognitive models: The missing link to learning fraction multiplication and division

This quasi-experimental study aims to streamline cognitive models on fraction multiplication and division that contain the most worthwhile features of other existing models. Its exploratory nature and its approach to proof elicitation can be used to help establish its effectiveness in building students’ understanding of fractions as compared to the traditional algorithmic way of teaching, vis-à-vis the students’ negative notions about learning fractions. Interestingly, the study showed the benefits and drawbacks of using these cognitive models in the teaching and learning of mathematics.     

Impact of Adaptive Materials on Teachers and their Students with Visual Impairments in Secondary Science and Mathematics Classes

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, important in today’s world, are underrepresented by students with disabilities. Students with visual impairments, although cognitively similar to sighted peers, face challenges as STEM subjects are often taught using visuals. They need alternative forms of access such as enlarged or audio‐converted text, tactile graphics, and involvement in hands‐on science. This project focused on increasing teacher awareness of and providing funds for the purchase of supplemental adaptive resources, supplies, and equipment. We examined attitude and instructional changes across the year of the programme in 15 science and mathematics teachers educating students with visual impairments. Positive changes were noted from pretest to posttest in student and teacher perspectives, and in teacher attitudes towards students with disabilities in STEM classes. Teachers also provided insights into their challenges and successes through a reflective narrative. Several adolescent students resisted accommodations to avoid appearing conspicuous to peers. Teachers implemented three strategies to address this: providing the adaptations to all students in the class; convincing the student of the need for adaptation; and involving the class in understanding and accepting the student’s impairment. A variety of teacher‐created adaptations for various science and mathematics labs are reported. Another finding was many adaptations provided for the student with visual impairment benefitted the entire class. This study supports the claim that given knowledgeable, supportive teachers, and with appropriate accommodations such as tactile or auditory materials, students with visual impairments can be as successful and engaged as other students in science and mathematics.     

Who Am I? The Social Construction of Ethnic Identity and Self-Perceptions in Latino Preservice Teachers

The Urban Review - Because of the changes in the demographics, it is important for Latino teachers to relate to the educational and psychological needs of language minority children who are...     

The transition from primary to secondary school: Teachers’ perspectives

The transition from primary school to secondary school has long been recognised as one of the most challenging times in a young adolescent students’ education, particularly in regard to their academic achievement. Research evidence from the last 30 years has identified a consistent pattern in students’ academic achievement across transition, suggesting that student achievement stalls or even declines in the first year of secondary school. The focus of this research was to identify teachers’ perceptions of the best practices to prepare students for a successful transition to secondary school. The findings were based on 12 one-on-one interviews with primary (Year 6) and secondary (Year 7) teachers. Teachers’ responses were analysed qualitatively through a process of thematic analysis. Findings from the research identified three key methods which primary and secondary school teachers believed were essential for facilitating successful transition experiences for students: curriculum continuity and awareness, communication between primary and secondary schools, and adequate teacher support.     

Community learnings through residential composting in apartment buildings

Communities need to engage in initiatives that tackle environmental sustainability issues. However, the lessons communities learn from these initiatives may go far beyond the initial local project. This article presents findings from an empirical study investigating the experiences of 38 residents who began participating in on-site composting in their apartment buildings. It was found that resident learnings extended beyond composting. Free-choice learning outcomes varied by the composting method and educational approach. For some residents, participation resulted in a greater awareness of food waste produced. For others, their involvement in on-site composting inspired a greater sense of community, a deepened connection with nature, and a desire to grow green spaces and create positive global change toward sustainability.     

Encouraging the development of higher-level study skills using an experiential learning framework

Teachers have only recently considered how study skills support in higher education (HE) can be delivered in a way that encourages experiential learning. This paper aims to substantiate, or otherwise, the idea that a carefully developed initiative can encourage the experiential learning of study skills. In addition, it considers whether such an approach might also allow student access to some of the higher-level study skills required for successful university study. Focus group data were used to evaluate a module delivered to sports students at a post-1992 university in the UK. This data suggested that the module facilitated learning in each stage of Kolb's experiential learning cycle. Moreover, there was evidence that the module encouraged students to undertake an ‘epistemological shift’ in which they moved from seeing knowledge as a set of uncontested facts to seeing it as something that they are expected to question and contribute to themselves.     

Transnational audience reception as a theater of struggle: young Filipino women's reception of Korean television dramas

This study examines the ‘theater of struggle’ in young Filipino women's reception of Korean television dramas in view of the American cultural imperialism that is deeply entrenched in the Philippine society. Mainly anchored on Gramsci's concept of hegemony and Stuart Hall's encoding-decoding theory, the researcher conducted a reception analysis through a textual analysis of selected Korean television comedy-dramas and focus group discussions with young Filipino women in different colleges. The young Filipino women expressed cultural affinity with the culture, storylines, values, and environment in Korean and other Asian television dramas that have invaded the Philippines in the twenty-first century. ‘Negotiation, resistance, and struggle’, in Hall's sense, against both the liberalism in American dramas and the pre-modern themes in local dramas were manifested in the young women's discourses. Consequently, American cultural imperialism in the Philippines was undermined, challenged, and to some extent subverted. The study also looked into the young women's dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings of the dominant capitalist patriarchal values and ideologies that were embedded in selected Korean dramas. While there were young female participants who subscribed to global capitalist values showing their cooptation within Western cultural hegemonic domains, the young women largely articulated negotiated readings of capitalist values and oppositional readings with regard to the dominant ideology of capitalist patriarchy. In reading the selected Korean dramas reflexively, the young women identified social pathologies of poverty, class inequality, and capitalist patriarchal values and constructed emancipatory discourses with regard to these.     

The continual need for improvement to avoid derailment: a study of college and university administrators

Understanding what relates to the behaviours associated with derailment (i.e. failure or burnout in managerial positions) may prevent costly outcomes of derailment for the manager, co‐workers and the organization. The outcomes of derailment are especially pertinent with those working in college and university administration as many, including faculty, other staff and students, depend on these administrators. Data collected about 173 middle‐ and top‐level college and university administrators from 88 different colleges and universities across the USA revealed that self‐ and observer‐ratings (peers and direct reports) of willingness to improve negatively related to boss ratings of derailment. Specifically, the more administrators were willing to improve (and the more others believed those administrators were willing to improve), the less likely it was that bosses believed those administrators displayed the characteristics and behaviours associated with derailment. We conclude with a discussion of our findings including guidance for college and university administrators.