Grading styles and disciplinary expertise: The mediating role of the teacher’s perception of the subject matter

Based on a sample of 312 high school teachers who participated in the Israeli PISA assessment of student academic achievement in 2002, the current study examines the mediatory role of their perception of the subject matter (as “open/flexible” or “closed/hierarchical”) in the relation between their disciplinary expertise (language, mathematics or science) and their grading style (performance-output or effort-input). The mediation hypothesis was completely supported for all disciplines in the case of perception of subject matter as open/flexible. With respect to the closed/hierarchical perception, it was supported only for the comparison of science vs. mathematics.     

Implicit dimension identification in user-generated text with LSTM networks

In the process of online storytelling, individual users create and consume highly diverse content that contains a great deal of implicit beliefs and not plainly expressed narrative. It is hard to manually detect these implicit beliefs, intentions and moral foundations of the writers.We study and investigate two different tasks, each of which reflect the difficulty of detecting an implicit user’s knowledge, intent or belief that may be based on writer’s moral foundation: (1) political perspective detection in news articles (2) identification of informational vs. conversational questions in community question answering (CQA) archives. In both tasks we first describe new interesting annotated datasets and make the datasets publicly available. Second, we compare various classification algorithms, and show the differences in their performance on both tasks. Third, in political perspective detection task we utilize a narrative representation language of local press to identify perspective differences between presumably neutral American and British press.     

The effects of explicit teaching of metastrategic knowledge on low- and high-achieving students

This study assessed the effects of explicit teaching of metastrategic knowledge (MSK) on gains of low-achieving (LA) and high-achieving (HA) 5th grade students (N = 41). Gains in reasoning scores of students from the Experimental group (compared to students from the control group) were obtained on the strategic and on the metastrategic level. Gains were preserved in near and far transfer tasks immediately after the end of instruction and 3 months later. Explicit teaching of MSK affected both LA and HA students, but it was extremely valuable for LA students who required a longer period than HA students to reach their top score.     

Promoting preservice teachers’ dual self-regulation roles as learners and as teachers: effects of generic vs. specific prompts

Researchers have recently suggested that teachers must undertake important dual self- regulation roles if they want to become effective at improving their students’ self-regulation. First, teachers need to become proficient at self-regulated learning (SRL) themselves, and then teachers need to learn explicitly how to proactively teach SRL – termed self-regulating teaching (SRT). Considering that both roles are difficult to attain by novice teachers, supports (prompts) are essential. We examined an intervention comparing the usefulness of two prompting conditions – generic versus specific – for developing both SRL (as learners) and SRT (as teachers) among 90 preservice science teachers engaging in explicit self-regulation instruction and reflective group discussion about learning/teaching experiences (observed learning clips, in-action teaching). We compared the two group conditions by using two SRL assessments and two SRT assessments. Mixed methods indicated that, as expected, the specific-prompts condition outperformed the generic-prompts condition on self-awareness of own SRL, skills for accurately noticing authentic videotaped students’ SRL, and explicit usage of SRT during actual teaching experiences. As expected, no differences emerged between generic and specific prompts in applying SRT to a novel lesson-design task (far-transfer measure). These findings, supported by two case studies’ sequential pattern analysis, offered an important contribution to theoretical and practical understanding of novice teachers’ self-regulation prompting approaches, practice modes, and multidimensional assessments of teachers’ professional development.     

Using Technology to Enhance Mathematical Reasoning: Effects of Feedback and Self-Regulation Learning

Effects of two types of feedback on mathematical reasoning in a computerized environment are compared. Metacognitive feedback (MF) is based on self-regulation learning using metacognitive questions that serve as cues for understanding the problem. Result feedback (RF) means giving cues that pertain only to the final outcome. A total of 108 sixth-grade Israeli students participated in the study. Results indicated that the MF students significantly outperformed the RF students on various measures of mathematical reasoning and mathematical explanations. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed. L’utilisation de la technologie pour développer le raisonnement mathématique : les effets du feed back et de l’apprentissage autorégulé. Ce texte compare les effets de deux types de feed back sur le développement du raisonnement mathématique dans un environnement informatique: a) le feed back métacognitif (MF) qui se base sur un apprentissage autorégulé et utilise des questions de type métacognitif (Mevarech et Kramarski, 1997) qui servent d'indices pour identifier la compréhension du problème ; b) le feed back sur les résultats (RF) qui ne donne des indications que sur les résultats finaux. Cent quatre-vingt étudiants israéliens de sixième année ont participé À cette étude. Les résultats indiquent que les étudiants soumis au MF obtiennent de meilleurs résultats que ceux soumis au RF sur la base de mesures du raisonnement et de l'explicitation mathématiques. Der Einsatz von Technologie zur Steigerung mathematischer Logik: Die Wirkung von Feeback und

selbstreguliertem Lernen. Im Vergleich stehen zwei Feeback-Arten mathematischer Logik in einem Computer-unterstützten Umfeld : (a) Metakognitives Feedback (MF = metacognitive feedback) basiert auf selbstreguliertem Lernen unter Verwendung von metakognitiven Fragen (Mevarech & Kramarski, 1997) die als Hinweise zum besseren Verständnis des Problems dienen ; (b) Ergebnis-orientiertes Feedback (RF = result feedback), das lediglich Hinweise auf das Endergebnis gibt. 180 israelische Schüler im Alter von ca. 12 Jahren nahmen an dieser Studie teil. Bei der Analyse des Resultats wurde offenbar, dass die MF-unterstützten Schüler wesentlich besser abschnitten, als die RF-Schüler. Theoretische und praktische Auswirkungen dieser Studie werden noch diskutiert.     

From verbal descriptions to graphic representations: Stability and change in students' alternative conceptions

The present study investigated students' conceptions and misconceptions relating to the construction of graphs. Participants were 92 eighth-grade students randomly selected from two schools. Students were tested before and after being exposed to formal instruction on graphing. Qualitative analysis of students' responses identified three main kinds of alternative conceptions: (a) constructing an entire graph as one single point; (b) constructing a series of graphs, each representing one factor from the relevant data; and (c) conserving the form of an increasing function under all conditions. In addition, the following kinds of errors were displayed by less than 10% of the subjects: conceiving a generalized, stereotypic idea of a graph, using arrows or stairs to represent the direction of the covariation, and connecting the ticks on the axes by lines or curves. Quantitative analyses of the data indicated that overall students did not enter the learning situation as a tabula rasa. On the pretest, about a quarter of the students constructed correctly graphs representing increasing, constant, curvilinear, and decreasing functions, and many more students represented correctly at least one kind of function. Further analyses showed the stability and change in students' alternative conceptions after students were exposed to formal instruction about graphing. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The effects of metacognitive instruction on solving mathematical authentic tasks

The present study investigates the differential effects of cooperative-learning with or without metacognitive instruction on lower and higher achievers' solutions of mathematical authentic tasks. Participants were 91 seventh graders who studied in three classrooms. Data were analyzed by using qualitative and quantitative methods. Results indicated that students who were exposed to the metacognitive instruction within cooperative learning (COOP+META) significantly outperformed their counterparts who were exposed to cooperative learning with no metacognitive instruction (COOP). The positive effects of COOP+META were observed on both authentic and standard tasks. In addition, the findings show the positive effects of COOP+META method on lower and higher achievers. The practical implications of the study are discussed.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

COLLABORATIVE EVALUATION RESEARCH: A CASE STUDY OF TEACHERS’ AND ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS’ TEAMWORK IN A SECONDARY SCHOOL

The article examines the processes and challenges involved in conducting participatory research and evaluation in schools, by looking at a case study of a collaborative evaluation research that was conducted in a secondary school in Israel by two researchers and three teachers. It describes the experiences of the research team while conducting the study, the processes that developed during this collaboration, and the kinds of knowledge that emerged over the two years of teamwork. It also describes the features of the relationships between the various individuals who participated in the study. Implications for evaluation in schools are presented.