How do tutors use data to support their students?

ABSTRACT

Despite widespread enthusiasm, evidence of the effectiveness of learning analytics remains mixed. One possible explanation for this is that insufficient attention has been paid to the contexts in which it is introduced. We report here on a small-scale study into the prior use of data and communications technologies by tutors, who comprise a key user group in The Open University’s tuition model. Tutors interviewed reported using a complex set of data sources and information tools, and creating local/personal tools and methods for keeping track of students and their interactions with them.     

SYMPOSIUM: THE SUPREME COURT''S MICHIGAN DECISIONS

On 23 June 2003, the Supreme Court of the United States issued two rulings on the constitutionality of race preferences in university admissions. The cases in question both involved the University of Michigan and were designated Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger. Academic Questions' editors subsequently invited five scholars to address the meaning and significance of those decisions.     

Early Islam in British Higher Education

Abstract

In an educational environment where interest in Arabic and Islam is growing, I ask the place of revisionist/critical approaches to early Islam in Higher Education. This paper uses 15 semi-structured interviews with Lecturers in early Islam to investigate how they treat controversial subject matter in the classroom. The paper examines how the different approaches taken by lecturers are linked to different kinds of academic training, and asks what kinds of approach are suited to different student demographics. It concludes by suggesting how critical ways of teaching this subject are linked to new approaches in interfaith engagement, which acknowledge the political context for the development of Scriptures.     

State-mandated accountability as a constraint on teaching and learning science

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of state-mandated policy, emphasizing control through performance-based instruction and student test scores as the basis for determining school accreditation, on the teaching and learning of science. The intended consequence of instigating the rational theory of management by one state is to improve their current level of student literacy. However, some contend that the implementation of the policy has results that are not intended. The identification of the tension between the intended and unintended results of centralized policy making is the basis for examining a specific case in which the rational model is implemented. One hundred and sixty-five seventh-grade science students and four teachers are participants in the study. Qualitative analysis is the research methodology used as a means to provide detailed information about the contextual nature of the classroom processes. The intention is to identify and describe features of the behavior setting that influence the behavior of the teachers and their students. Three assertions generated during the field work were: Teachers redefine the goals of science instruction as the acquisition of facts and isolated skills, teachers alter their usual instructional behavior to implement uniform instructional procedures, and the teacher/student classroom interaction constrains students' opportunities to learn science. The implications of the study indicate that the state-mandated policy has results that are in opposition to the intended results. Instead of improving the practices of teachers, the implementation of the policy constrains and routinizes the teachers' behavior, causing them to violate their own standards of good teaching. They feel pressured to “get through” the materials so students will score well on tests. The classroom interaction is structured in such a way as to inhibit students from asking questions of their own. As a result, students' opportunity to express curiosity and inquiry—central processes in scientific thinking—are constrained. These unintended consequences of the implemented state policy, instead of improving science teaching and learning, continue to reduce science instruction to the literal comprehension of isolated facts and skills.     

The Development of Gender Stereotype Components

Developmental research has been limited by a narrow concept of stereotypes. A more complex model is presented, and developmental changes in gender stereotypes were investigated using the new model. In 2 studies, children were told about several sex-unspecified children, each described as having 1 masculine or 1 feminine characteristic. The children then predicted the likelihood of each story child having other masculine and feminine characteristics. In Study 1, 56 children (4–6 years) were told about target children who liked either a masculine or feminine toy, and then children predicted the targets' interests in other toys. In Study 2, 76 older children (6, 8, 10 years) were told about target children with a masculine or feminine characteristic from 1 of 4 categories (appearance, personality, occupations, toys), and then they predicted the likelihood of targets having other masculine and feminine characteristics from the same and from different categories as the cue. 2 developmental trends emerged: ( a ) children appear first to learn associations among characteristics relevant to their own sex and, later, to learn them for the other sex, and ( b ) older children's stereotypic judgments are more extreme than those of younger children. The implications of these results for the development of stereotypes, assessing gender knowledge, and understanding social judgments are discussed.     

Academic progress of children who attended a preschool for abused children: a follow-up of the keepsafe project

OBJECTIVE: This study was undertaken to assess academic progress of children 1 to 5 years after graduating from the C. Henry Kempe Center's Therapeutic Preschool Day Treatment Program. METHOD: Information was gathered through chart review; telephone surveys of care providers, relatives, and social service workers; as well questionnaires on all children who attended the therapeutic preschool day treatment program between 1984 and 1989, including the 24 children reported on by Oates, Gray, Schweitzer, Kempe, and Harmon, 1995. RESULTS: Classroom placement was determined for 27 of the 44 graduates (61.4%), 14 of whom (51.9%) were in a regular classroom, 10 (37.0%) in special education, two (7.4%) in residential treatment, and one (3.7%) was receiving home schooling. Twenty-two of the 27 children (81.5%) improved or remained in the same grade and type of classroom as they had been staffed into at the time of their graduation from the preschool day treatment program. Factors thought to affect stability of classroom placement were studied, of which frequency of family moves was the only significant variable. Its significance was in the direction opposite to that expected. The most effective method of locating families was to contact the Department of Social Services who provided information used to find 60% of them. CONCLUSIONS: Intervention in a therapeutic preschool day treatment program was found to be beneficial, as it enabled most of the children to progress appropriately in public school.     

A reading level match study of nonword reading skills in poor readers with varying IQ.

This study evaluated the hypothesis that poor readers are characterized by poor nonword reading skills, but that a specific deficit, as opposed to a developmental lag, in nonword reading will be found only in subjects whose reading is discrepant from intellectual ability. To test this hypothesis, we measured nonword reading skills in 93 (64 male, 29 female) third-grade poor readers and 54 (37 male, 17 female) fifth-grade poor readers (with and without reading/IQ discrepancies) who were matched to 147 (81 male, 66 female) nondisabled first graders on word identification skills. Results showed third- and fifth-grade poor readers to be significantly more impaired than word-identification level match first graders on all measures on nonword reading. These findings were not related to the verbal IQ level within the poor reader groups and, thus, provide strong evidence for a deficit in nonword reading skills that is not explained by verbal intelligence.