The role of maternal mediation of writing to kindergartners in promoting literacy in school: A longitudinal perspective

The current study follows up on Aram andLevin's (2001, Cognitive Development, 16, 831–852)analysis of the role of maternalwriting mediation among low SES Israelikindergartners. That study's main findingindicated that the quality of maternal writingmediation correlated concurrently withkindergartners' literacy skills aftercontrolling for socio-cultural measures. Thepresent study followed up the participants tothe second grade in school, and evaluated theirlevel of Spelling, Reading Comprehension, andLinguistic Knowledge two and a half years later. Theresults indicate that the children's literacymeasures in school were predicted by maternalwriting mediation in kindergarten beyond SESand the early literacy measures assessed in thekindergarten (Word Writing and LinguisticKnowledge). These results highlight thesignificance of early maternal writingmediation as a major factor in literacydevelopment.     

Bully versus victim on the internet: The correlation with emotional-social characteristics

Cyberbullying is a repeated violent behavior aimed at hurting another person directed by an individual or a group towards the victim using technological means such as a computer or a mobile phone (Kowalski, Morgan, and Limber, 2012). The current study examined the phenomenon of cyberbullying among children and youth in Israel. The purpose of was to examine the correlation between bully and victim, and emotional-social aspects—social support, sense of loneliness and sense of self-efficacy—that constitute risk factors and protective factors. The study involved 1,094 elementary, middle school and high school students, who completed four questionnaires that addressed cyber-bullying and the social and emotional aspects: Social support, loneliness, self-efficacy and personal well-being. It was found that the less social support the students have, the lower their sense of self-efficacy; the lonelier they feel and the more they experience a lower sense of well-being, the greater the likelihood that they will participate in cyberbullying, mainly by sending offensive pictures or videos.     

Educating Sentiment: Hume's Contribution to the Philosophy of the Curriculum Regarding the Teaching of Art

From the perspective of art education, the worst‐case philosophical scenario is the hedonist‐subjectivist account of art. If we measure art by the pleasure we gain from it, it may seem senseless to attempt teaching the reception of art. David Hume's ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ provides an argument for the art‐education enthusiast, explaining that—even on a subjectivist account—art education crystallises our own preferences. While I refer to a historical debate and provide a close reading of an 18^th‐century essay, my goal is to offer a philosophical solution to an ongoing dilemma; I use Hume's essay to ground the justification of art education.     

The Teacher's Role in Developing Interaction and Reflection in an Online Learning Community

New technologies provide the opportunity for teachers to make learning interactive and collaborative by using a social constructivist approach to teaching and learning. This involves creating a student-centred approach where the teacher takes the role of the facilitator and the students engage in peer learning. This paper reflects on the author's role as a facilitator in a higher education online unit that was designed for science and mathematics teachers who were geographically and socially isolated. The goal in designing the unit was to create a networked community of learners that encouraged peer learning and focused on reflective thinking. Qualitative data from students' and teacher's postings to the Activity Room were analysed to identify the diverse roles of the online instructor in creating an online learning community. The 'four hats' metaphor of pedagogical, social, managerial and technical actions was used as a framework to discuss the activities of the instructor and to examine the extent to which she was able to establish and maintain a community of learners. This framework also served as a tool to analyse the pedagogies used by the instructor to promote peer-learning and reflective thinking. Le rÔle de l’enseignement pour développer l’interaction et la réflexion dans une communauté d’apprentissage en ligne. Lesnouvelles technologies fournissent l’occasion aux enseignants de rendre l’enseignement interactif et coopératif en utilisant une approche sociale constructiviste pour l’enseignement et l’apprentissage. Ceci implique la création d’une approche centrée sur l’étudiant dans laquelle l’enseignant joue le rÔle du facilitateur et les étudiants s’engagent dans l’apprentissage par paires. Dans cet article je réfléchis sur mon rÔle comme facilitateur dans une unité d’enseignement supérieur en ligne qui a été concue pour des enseignants de science et mathématique qui étaient isolés géographiquement et socialement. Mon but en élaborant cette unité était de créer une communauté d’étudiants en réseau internet pour encourager l’apprentissage par paires et était centré sur la pensée réfléchie. Les données qualitatives des places des étudiants et des maîtres dans la salle d’activités étaient analysées pour identifier les divers rÔles de l’instructeur en ligne en créant une communauté d’apprentissage en ligne. La métaphore des 4 chapeaux des acteurs pédagogiques, sociales, techniques et de management fut utilisée pour discuter les activités de l’instructeur et pour examiner jusqu’où elle était capable d’établir et de maintenir une communauté d’étudiants.

Ce cadre servait aussi comme un outil pour analyser les pédagogies utilisés par l’instructeur pour promouvoir l’apprentissage

par paires et la pensée réflexive. Die Rolle des Lehrers bei der Entwicklung von Interaktion und Reflexion in einer Online-

Lerngemeinschaft. Die Neuen Technologien ermöglichen den Lehrern, durch die Nutzung eines sozialen konstruktivistischen Denkansatzes das

Lernen interaktiv und kollaborativ zu gestalten. Das schließt die Entwicklung einer Schüler zentrierten Methode, bei der der

Lehrer die Rolle eines Moderators übernimmt, während die Schüler sich auf das Lernen von Gleichaltrigen einlassen. In

diesem Beitrag reflektiere ich meine Moderatorenrolle in einem Onlinelehrgang, der für Naturwissenschafts- und Mathematiklehrer, die geografisch und sozial isoliert waren, gedacht war. Mein Ziel bei der Gestaltung des Kurses war, eine vernetzt arbeitende Gemeinschaft von Lernern zu schaffen, die zum Von-einander-Lernen und zu reflektierendem Denken

ermutigt waren. Qualitative Daten aus Beiträgen der Studenten und Lehrer wurden analysiert, um die verschiedenen Rollen des Online-Lehrers beim Entwickeln der Online-Lerngemeinschaft festzustellen. Die ,,four hats’-Metapher von pädagogischen, sozialen, managermäßigen und technischen Aktionen wurde als Rahmen zur Diskussion der Aktivitäten der Instruktorin benutzt und zur überprüfung des Umfangs, wieweit es ihr gelungen war, eine solche Lerngemeinschaft zu gründen und zu pflegen. Dieses Bezugssystem diente auch zur Untersuchung der pädagogischen Schritte, die die Instruktorin benutzte, um das Peer-Learning und die Reflektion voran zu bringen.     

Every teacher carries a leadership wand

Turnaround schools require empowered teachers to discover their leadership wand. Based on a case study conducted on BART Charter School, this article highlights five steps for leaders who wish to empower their teachers and allow them to lead their schools to success: 1) Let your people know; 2) Nominate the fittest, 3) Connect teachers to a prestige model, 4) constantly ask for valid data and 5) share success and responsibility. Conceptual explanations and practical examples describe each step in a chain of turnaround events in a successful turnaround school.     

Teachers’ perspectives on 40 years of reform: the case of the Israeli junior high school

The purpose of this study is to trace junior high school teachers’ perspectives regarding the strengths and weaknesses of their type of school, and to glean more information concerning their preferable type of grade configuration. To this end, 25 teachers filled out an open questionnaire and six of them were further interviewed to provide more insight into the teachers’ responses. Surprisingly, most of the teachers tended to strongly support the 1–8 type elementary schools rather than the current situation of 1–6, 7–9, 10–12 in which they have ever worked. Theoretical and practical implications are suggested.     

A Teacher Professional Development Program on Using a Constructivist Multimedia Learning Environment

This paper describes a professional development program using an interactive multimedia program to develop teachers' understanding of a constructivist epistemology in science education. The aim of this study was to describe teachers' reflections on and perceptions of a series of professional development workshops and how teachers changed their classroom practices after having participated in the workshops. The software, developed with the cooperation of teachers and students, is based on the Birds of Antarctica database (Maor & Phillips, 1996). This database was designed as an interactive program which requires teachers to use a constructivist-oriented approach to teaching and learning in order to promote the development of inquiry skills particularly higher-order thinking skills. A series of workshops for teachers was conducted to empower them to become comfortable with using computers in science classrooms and to enable them to enhance their understanding of, and ability to use, personal and social constructivist approaches. Teachers' perceptions of the process of learning with the multimedia program and their reactions to their experiences were assessed using a new instrument, the Constructivist Multimedia Learning Environment Survey (CMLES). The results of the study suggest that teachers who participated as learners in the professional development program became familiar with a constructivist-oriented multimedia learning environment; understood the context, problems, and issues faced by students in the classroom; and were better able to facilitate students' needs and understanding in this learning environment. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Art Conquers All? Herbert Read's Education through Art

Herbert Read's Education through Art (henceforth ETA) is a pioneering attempt to provide empirical evidence for the need for art in the public school system. Rooting for art education, Read applies the conclusions of the newly evolving psychological research to his thesis on education, which he holds to be a contemporary revival of Plato's educational theory. Psychological research proves, Read believes, that art is required for the healthy cognitive and emotional development of the child, thereby creating a stable and productive society. ‘Education through art’ nurtures each individual's potential, so that every professional direction one would later take would be ‘art'. Since its publication in 1943, art‐education enthusiasts seem to hold that Read was on the right track, but that ETA suffers from a lack of evidence – a mere technicality that can be amended when research advances. Contrariwise, I argue that Read's thesis is inherently problematic, rather than empirically inaccurate. Psychological research may never suffice for the justification of art education, if ‘art education’ is both substituted for ‘creativity’ and expected to produce testable – immediate and quantifiable – results. My interest is not only in Read's theory per se, but in this form of justification. To wit, the discussion examines ETA as a case study in the empirical justification of art education.     

Context effects on heterophonic-homography resolution in learning to read hebrew

The paper examines the role of context in reading unpointed Hebrew, demonstrating the changing nature of reliance on context during the course of reading acquisition. We analyze the reading-aloud of sentences with heterographic-homographic ambiguity, aiming to shed light on the development of ambiguity resolution processes in typically developing schoolaged and adult populations. 171 Hebrew-speaking children and adolescents in seven age/schooling groups (beginning and end of second grade, third, fourth, seventh, and eleventh grade), and a group of adults, participated in the study. Using homographic garden-path and non-Garden-path sentences, we demonstrate the cumulative effect of context as well as processes of monitoring cum reanalysis. Two hypotheses are borne out in the present research: First, context effect is inherent to reading; it is present throughout all age/grade groups, becoming more efficient with age/grade level. Second, monitoring and reanalysis lag far behind context effects, appearing only as age and reading experience increase.     

An Online Questionnaire for Evaluating Students' and Teachers' Perceptions of Constructivist Multimedia Learning Environments

The purpose of this article is to describe the development, validation and use of the Constructivist Multimedia Learning Environment Survey (CMLES). This questionnaire assesses teachers' and students' perceptions of the learning environment when students use online multimedia programs while teachers use constructivism as a referent for their teaching. The design of the questionnaire was based on a constructivist approach to learning and focused on the process of learning with the multimedia program and on the nature of that program. Before the use of the CMLES becomes widespread, it was important to determine whether it is valid and reliable. Therefore, a study involving 221 students in 12 high school classrooms into statistical validation and interpretive validation of the questionnaire was undertaken. For this sample of Grade 10 and 11 students who completed the actual and preferred forms of the questionnaire, the CMLES scales demonstrated a high degree of internal consistency reliability (with alpha reliability coefficients ranging from .73 to .82), as well as satisfactory factorial validity and discriminant validity. Therefore, the study supports the reliability and validity of the CMLES for assessing students' and teachers' perceptions of one important aspect in evaluating learning environments which promote the use of multimedia programs and constructivist learning approaches.