Edulabs AGIRE project – evaluation of ICT integration in teaching strategies

The AGIRE project, under the Edulab concept, aims to promote the adoption of innovative teaching practices. This paper reports the support strategies used to evaluate the teacher practices at the end of a teacher training course (TTC) and analyse its impact on teacher technology integration, using a design-based methodology. Teachers’ initial perception was gathered using an online questionnaire comprising ICT personal and professional competencies. The questionnaire results and the classroom observations showed that the majority of teachers were at the level of ICT adoption, before attending the TTC, reaching the adaptation level of integration of ICT, after the TTC. A variety of teaching strategies (flipped classroom, collaborative work, …) and technologies (interactive white boards, tablets, videos, …) were explored. The results sustain the thesis that, with proper support, ICT can be integrated in educational contexts in an innovative way and contribute to the development of teachers’ digital literacy.     

Goodness of fit in the home: its relationship to school behavior and achievement in children with learning disabilities

This study examined whether a "goodness of fit" theoretical model, applied to families with and without children with learning disabilities, would be valuable in understanding the children's performance in school. A home interview was conducted with 63 families with a child with learning disabilities and 53 families with a comparable child without learning disabilities. The mothers were asked to rate how their own child fit into the family's expectations for children. It was found that, for both groups of families, children who were rated as a "poor fit" in the home demonstrated less positive behavior in the classroom and poorer achievement over the elementary school years. There was some evidence that poor fit in the home was even more negatively related to outcomes for children with learning disabilities. Discussion is centered on the importance of this theoretical model for understanding the importance of the home on successful school function.     

The role of relevant active questions in learning based upon successive presentations

Both active questions i.e. questions asked by subjects, and provided (or passive) questions i.e. offered to subjects as problems for solution, had been found to facilitate learning and retention of prose material when subjects were faced with a task of sufficient difficulty to challenge their competence. With difficult prose, boys and low ability subjects had gained most from active questions. These effects were more pronounced in the long term. In this study, the effects of relevant active questions i.e. questions which subjects can put alongside answers, are investigated and compared with those of active and provided questions, over a series of six presentations for both the short and the long term (i.e. after ten months). In the short term, although active questions give greater help than provided questions on the first presentation, and relevant active questions give the greatest improvement between the first and second presentations, provided questions are the most helpful overall. In the long term, however, both the active questions treatments prove to be as effective as provided questions. For low ability boys, the difference between treatments is negligble even in the short term; under the relevant active questions treatment the number of questions asked is greater; and the decline in inspection time over presentations is negligible.This study formed part of a Schools' Council Research project (Director: Dr. W. P. Robinson) in the Department of Psychology, University of Southampton.     

Which notion of implication is the right one? From logical considerations to a didactic perspective

Implication is at the very heart of mathematical reasoning. As many authors have shown, pupils and students experience serious difficulties in using it in a suitable manner. In this paper, we support the thesis that these difficulties are closely related with the complexity of this notion. In order to study this complexity,we refer to Tarski's semantic truth theory,which contributes to clarifying the different aspects of implication: propositional connective, logically valid conditional, generalized conditional,inference rules. We will show that for this purpose, it is necessary to extend the classical definition of implication as a relation between propositions to a relation between open sentences with at least one free variable. This permits to become aware of the fact that, in some cases, the truth-value of a given mathematical statement is not constrained by the situation, contrary to the common standpoint that, in mathematics, a statement is either true or false. In the present paper, the didactic relevance of this theoretical stance will be illustrated by an analysis of two problematic situations and the presentation of some experimental results from our research on first-year university students' understanding of implication. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Children’s Extracurricular Activities

Why do children learn in different ways: some are good students who show interest and zeal, while others are lazy and have to be taught against their will? Why do schools have over- and underachievers? Of course, there are a multitude of reasons. But almost 50 years ago it was shown using large data sets that families with high socioeconomic status are more likely to have children who are good students. Of course, there are many examples of successful students from poor families. However, they tend to be the exception to the rule. The certainty of success in school increases with rising socioeconomic status.     

Interaction of LDL and platelets in ischaemic and ischaemic risk subjects

Platelets play a vital role in the progression of atherosclerosis and thrombosis, a major cause of death worldwide. Platelets are activated by many triggers like elevated LDL in blood resulting in aggregation and formation of plaque. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of LDL and signal transduction inhibitor on the activation of platelets in Ischaemic risk subjects. Platelets from IHD and hyperlipidemic subjects were hypersensitive to ADP, as higher levels of platelet aggregation were observed in these groups. LDL from IHD hyperlipidemic subjects was more effective in activating platelets from any other group. Ox-LDL was more effective in activating platelets than native-LDL as monitored by level of platelet aggregation induced by PAF and thrombin. Calcium channel blocker, nifedipine and verapamil inhibited platelet aggregation at micromolar level. Protein kinase inhibitor, staurosporine was effective in inhibiting ADP induced aggregation at nanomolar level.     

Clinico-Biochemical indexing of calcium urolithiasis on the basis of urinary citrate to calcium ratio and inhibition of mineralisation of urinary stone forming minerals by human urine

Urinary citric acid and calcium levels have been estimated in the urine of 20 normal healthy persons as well as 12 urinary stone patients. Inhibition efficiency of these urine samples towards the mineralisation of urinary stone forming minerals, viz., calcium phosphate, oxalate or carbonate, has been studied in an experimental model. Statistical correlation of the above data has been made by computing the coefficient of determination and unexplained variance. Clinico-biochemical indexing of calcium urolithiasis risk factor has been attempted in the light of the data.