Multicultural approaches in education: a German experience

This paper is about learning in a multicultural context. It is not an outcome of academic research nor has it been composed in the tradition of armchair anthropology. It describes the development of a project which set off as an initiative in the field of pre‐school education to improve opportunities for Turkish migrant children, without expecting them to accomplish a one sided process of assimilation. Hence the work of the project and its co‐operating partners involved and affected a much wider range of people than the original ‘target group’, which accounts for the fact that in the following relatively little will be said about Turkish children.

     

Small group learning: Do group members' implicit theories of ability make a difference?

We examined the impact of members' implicit theories of ability on group learning and the mediating role of several group process variables, such as goal-setting, effort attributions, and efficacy beliefs. Comparisons were between 15 groups with a strong incremental view on ability (high incremental theory groups), and 15 groups with a weak incremental view on ability (low incremental theory groups). Groups worked on a computer-based management simulation. The task required the groups to learn the underlying structure of the simulation to be able to control the system effectively. High incremental theory groups set more challenging group goals, attributed their performance more to effort, developed stronger group efficacy, and displayed steeper learning trajectories than low incremental theory groups. Group goals mediated the impact of group members' implicit theories on group learning. Exploratory analyses of the group communication process revealed that members of the high incremental theory groups communicated more openly about the task and maintained a stronger task focus compared with members of the low incremental theory groups. Research on group learning benefits from a stronger individual differences perspective that incooperates variables such as implicit theories of ability as determinants of emerging group processes and outcomes.     

The educational e-portfolio: preliminary evidence of its relationship with student’s self-efficacy and engagement

Education and Information Technologies - The educational use of portfolios has been increasing in the last few years, especially as technology has also developed electronic versions of portfolios....     

The role of nonspeech rhythm in Spanish word reading

Recent literacy research shows an increasing interest in the influence of prosody on literacy acquisition. The current study examines the relationship of nonspeech rhythmic skills to children's reading acquisition, and their possible relation to stress assignment in Spanish, a syllable‐timed language. Sixty‐six third graders with no reading difficulties were scored on measures of nonspeech rhythm, word‐level decoding skill, reading fluency and reading with correct assignment of lexical stress. After controlling for verbal intelligence and working memory, hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that nonspeech rhythm predicted unique variance in reading fluency and correct stress assignment; it did not predict decoding skills. Given that Spanish is a syllable‐timed as opposed to stress‐timed language like English, the association between nonspeech rhythm, reading fluency and stress assignment found in our study suggests that nonspeech rhythm may be a universal factor in reading acquisition, independent of the type of linguistic rhythm.     

新时代的批判媒介和文化研究

本文从历史的角度分析了批评性媒介素养在不同历史阶段的关注重点,并辅以事例着重阐释了如何利用分析方法使批判性素养的理论与实践相结合,从而提高学生的批判性媒介素养,特别是随着多种新媒体的出现,更需要在文化研究的关照下关注新的媒介素养问题。     

Gallery Education

This paper takes the form of a conversation about gallery education between Carmen Moersch and myself Mariam Sharp. It will draw from in‐depth research by Moersch who is currently undertaking a PhD comparing Gallery Education in Germany and England and considers the differences in England and Germany and to some extent Europe generally. The article touches on Carmen's role as an artist and relates to the role of the artist in socially engaged arts practices. In England outreach practices extend the work beyond the gallery and Moersch's research explores case studies in the UK that develop these models of working. The conversation started at the Engage conference at the Baltic in Newcastle in November 2002 and continued into early 2003 via email and was informed by my experience as the lead officer for gallery education at the Arts Council of England's National Office.     

Comparing Simple and Advanced Video Tools as Supports for Complex Collaborative Design Processes

Working with digital video technologies, particularly advanced video tools with editing capabilities, offers new prospects for meaningful learning through design. However, it is also possible that the additional complexity of such tools does not advance learning. We compared in an experiment the design processes and learning outcomes of 24 collaborating participant pairs (dyads) using 2 contrasting types of video tools for history learning. The advanced video tool WebDIVER supported segmenting, editing, and annotating capabilities. In the contrasting condition, students used a simple video playback tool with a word processor to perform the same design task. Results indicated that the advanced video editing tool was more effective in relation to (a) fostering student understanding of the topic and acquisition of cognitive skills, (b) the quality of student design products, and (c) the efficiency of dyad interactions. The implication of our experimental findings for constructivist design-based learning is that mediating functions of video tools may be used as cognitive and social supports, for example when students learn by solving design tasks in school.