Development of system thinking skills in the context of earth system education

The current study deals with the development of system thinking skills at the junior high school level. The sample population included about 50 eighth‐grade students from two different classes of an urban Israeli junior high school who studied an earth systems‐based curriculum that focused on the hydro cycle. The study addressed the following research questions: (a) Could the students deal with complex systems?; (b) What has influenced the students' ability to deal with system perception?; and (c) What are the relationship among the cognitive components of system thinking? The research combined qualitative and quantitative methods and involved various research tools, which were implemented in order to collect the data concerning the students' knowledge and understanding before, during, and following the learning process. The findings indicated that the development of system thinking in the context of the earth systems consists of several sequential stages arranged in a hierarchical structure. The cognitive skills that are developed in each stage serve as the basis for the development of the next higher‐order thinking skills. The research showed that in spite of the minimal initial system thinking abilities of the students most of them made some meaningful progress in their system thinking skills, and a third of them reached the highest level of system thinking in the context of the hydro cycle. Two main factors were found to be the source of the differential progress of the students: (a) the students' individual cognitive abilities, and (b) their level of involvement in the knowledge integration activities during their inquiry‐based learning both indoors and outdoors. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Strong／weak limits and strong／weak differentials of multi-variable indeterminate forms. II： Supplementary annotations and analysis

Supplementary annotations on special forms 1to 4, discussion on the general characteristics of K(t) and K(t,t′), and analyses on two noticeable limits are presented in this part. It is demonstrated that strong and weak parabolic transforms can beemployed to change the standard form of a multi-variable indeterminate form into χ^mK type, hence to derive the standardformulae of the limit and the differential.     

To answer questions from text,one has to understand what the question is asking: differential effects of question aids as a function of comprehension skill

Reading and Writing - The present study investigates the effectiveness of question paraphrases in supporting students’ understanding of a specific task. Secondary school students (i.e.,...     

Characteristics of students who benefit from high-quality mathematics instruction

The present study examined characteristics of students who took advantage of the opportunity to learn Algebra II from a highly skilled teacher. In particular, student information was gathered concerning: (a) the amount of mathematics students knew prior to the class, (b) their motivation for learning mathematics, (c) the number and types of interactions they had with the teacher during class, (d) degree of self-regulation, and (e) general aptitude. A model for achievement was used that suggests both opportunity and propensity are important (i.e., students must be willing and able to take advantage of opportunity). Support for the model was found. Propensity to take advantage of a highly favorable opportunity accounted for almost sixty percent of the variance in achievement. In particular, students who were self-regulated, had strong mathematics backgrounds, and had low levels of frustration benefited more from high-quality instruction.