Learning Is Moving in New Ways: The Ecological Dynamics of Mathematics Education

Whereas emerging technologies, such as touchscreen tablets, are bringing sensorimotor interaction back into mathematics learning activities, existing educational theory is not geared to inform or analyze passages from action to concept. We present case studies of tutor–student behaviors in an embodied-interaction learning environment, the Mathematical Imagery Trainer. Drawing on ecological dynamics—a blend of dynamical-systems theory and ecological psychology—we explain and demonstrate that: (a) students develop sensorimotor schemes as solutions to interaction problems; (b) each scheme is oriented on an attentional anchor—a real or imagined object, area, or other aspect or behavior of the perceptual manifold that emerges to facilitate motor-action coordination; and (c) when symbolic artifacts are introduced into the arena, they may both mediate new affordances for students’ motor-action control and shift their discourse into explicit mathematical re-visualization of the environment. Symbolic artifacts are ontological hybrids evolving from things with which you act to things with which you think. Students engaged in embodied-interaction learning activities are first attracted to symbolic artifacts as prehensible environmental features optimizing their grip on the world, yet in the course of enacting the improved control routines, the artifacts become frames of reference for establishing and articulating quantitative systems known as mathematical reasoning.     

Predicting persistence from the student adaptation to college questionnaire: Early warning or siren song?

With the currently dwindling traditional applicant pool, retention is higher education's holy grail of the nineties. Western Psychological Services is marketing its new Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) as providing early evidence of poor adjustment and potential attrition. While the SACQ closely parallels Tinto's model of institutional departure, no previously published research addresses its ability to differentiate persisters from nonpersisters. Using discriminant analysis, the present study examined (1) the extent to which the SACQ accurately predicts student departure for a private, comprehensive university; (2) SACQ items distinguishing nonpersisters; (3) use with an incoming class; and (4) evidence linking the SACQ with intervention strategies. The paper will appeal to a wide audience, especially those concerned with enrollment management and assessment.Presented at the Thirty-first Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, San Francisco, May 26–29, 1991.     

Modern education and the revolt of 1857 in India

Abstract

In May 1857, a number of battalions in the Bengal army of the East India Company rebelled against their immediate British officers and the British administration in the North Western Provinces (NWP), Oudh and Bihar. The protracted conflict that stretched over a year was extremely violent, killed thousands of British officers and civilians and provoked an equally ruthless suppression. It ended the Company’s rule and the British Crown assumed administration in 1858. Even before the end of the conflict, the British elites such as former governor of the NWP George Russell Clerk and former Governor-General of India Ellenborough argued that English education was responsible for the revolt. They also listed the missionary schools and girls’ education as the leading causes. This paper attempts to examine the educational policies prior to the revolt and the condition of schools during the revolt, as well as the historical validity of the arguments put forth by Clerk and Ellenborough.     

Metaphors we’re colonised by? The case of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article discusses issues concerning the spread of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. Here, as elsewhere, educational technology continues to be promoted optimistically as the bearer of a panacea for historically-rooted social problems. Whilst some of these technologies have indeed contributed to important widening-participation programmes in the last two decades, widespread advocacy of technological ‘solutionism’, reflected in gradually stronger policy demands for efficiencies to be improved through ‘innovation’, has supported a relentless marketisation of the country’s educational systems. As transnational corporations position themselves to take control of key areas of these systems, threatening to restructure the whole sector, data-driven educational technologies provide the latest example in a series of ‘new’ ideas offered in an ever-expanding market. Based on the notion of ‘conceptual metaphors’, which encapsulate specific ways of perceiving, thinking and relating with the world, this article examines key metaphors underpinning discourses surrounding data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. In particular, the article analyses ways in which these specific metaphors may be promoting perspectives that ignore difference and obscure broader questions concerning education, thus contributing to the reproduction of previously existing problems and supporting new forms of colonisation.     

The role of further government intervention in Australian international education

Trade in Australian education services has expanded rapidly over recent years. The sector is the third largest exporter of Australian services. In 2001–2002, exports of education were about $A 4.2 billion. Government assistance to the sector includes export market development, regulation of education standards, and funding education activities; university research and development, for example. This paper examines the case for further government intervention in the export of education, and the appropriate forms of assistance if further government intervention is justified. The paper predominately focuses on assisting higher education exports because this activity dominates education exports.     

Validation of a self-perceived media competence instrument for pre-service teachers / Validación de un instrumento de autopercepción de competencia mediática para docentes en formación

Abstract

Key to guaranteeing the fundamental human rights of freedom of expression and information is the development of media competence, particularly in schools. Training teachers in the area of media competence is particularly important for developing these skills in the broader citizenry. In order to provide educators and educational policymakers with a useful diagnostic tool, we have designed a self-perception questionnaire. The questionnaire was applied to a sample of Peruvian education students (N = 501). On the one hand, the results confirm the construct’s coherence, validity and instrumental reliability. On the other hand, they allow us to propose a theoretically based update to the way in which this construct is interpreted and applied, confirming the multidimensionality of media competence. Finally, we use this empirical evidence to discuss the integral, transversal and ecological status of media competence.     

The inadequacy of individual educational program (IEP) goals for high school students with word-level reading difficulties

This investigation analyzed goals from the Individual Educational Programs (IEPs) of 54 high school students with diagnosed reading disabilities in basic skills (decoding and/or word identification). Results showed that for 73% of the students, the IEPs written when they were in high school failed to specify any objectives regarding their acute difficulties with basic skills. IEPs from earlier points in the students’ educations were also reviewed, as available. For 23 of the students, IEPs were present in the students’ files for three time points: elementary school (ES), middle school (MS), and high school (HS). Another 20 students from the sample of 54 had IEPs available for two time points (HS and either MS or ES). Comparisons with the IEPs from younger years showed a pattern of decline from ES to MS to HS in the percentage of IEPs that commented on or set goals pertaining to weaknesses in decoding. These findings suggest that basic skills deficits that persist into the upper grade levels are not being sufficiently targeted for remediation, and help explain why older students frequently fail to resolve their reading problems.     

Research of technical knowledge and creativity development of children in pre-primary education through interactive whiteboard

The introduced study represents methodology and results of research focused on utilization of interactive whiteboard as didactic technology mediating information through multimedia worksheets applied in education process in pre-primary education. Its aim was to determine whether it can significantly increase the level of children’s acquired knowledge in the field of technical skills education and whether it can positively influence the development of children’s creative skills as a sign of their motivation. We observe that this issue in the way it is theoretically and practically established in this study can contribute by proposing education standards and set of multimedia worksheets in the technical field in Slovak pre-primary education.