Pre-service teachers’ TPACK competencies for spreadsheet integration: insights from a mathematics-specific instructional technology course

This article explored the impact of strategies applied in a mathematics instructional technology course for developing technology integration competencies, in particular in the use of spreadsheets, in pre-service teachers. In this respect, 104 pre-service mathematics teachers from a teacher training programme in Ghana enrolled in the mathematics instructional technology course for one semester. Strategies applied in designing the course were: aligning theory and practice, collaborative design, learning technology by design, modelling how to use technology and scaffolding authentic technology experiences. The pre-service teachers’ technology integration competencies were assessed through analysis of lesson plans and lesson observations, their self-reported technological pedagogical content knowledge and attitudes towards technology. Findings show that pre-service teachers’ technology integration competencies improved after participation in the course. All strategies were considered important, but in particular, scaffolding authentic technology experiences including feedback from teaching try-outs made significant contributions to the pre-service teachers’ developed technology integration competencies. The study provides guidelines that can serve as a benchmark for implementing strategies in the design of a subject-specific teacher education programme in preparing pre-service teachers to integrate technology in teaching.     

Using Web-Based Key Character and Classification Instruction for Teaching Undergraduate Students Insect Identification

The purpose of the study was to determine whether undergraduate students receiving web-based instruction based on traditional, key character, or classification instruction differed in their performance of insect identification tasks. All groups showed a significant improvement in insect identifications on pre- and post-two-dimensional picture specimen quizzes. The study also determined student performance on insect identification tasks was not as good as for family-level identification as compared to broader insect orders and arthropod classification identification tasks. Finally, students erred significantly more by misidentification than misspelling specimen names on prepared specimen quizzes. Results of this study support that short web-based insect identification exercises can improve insect identification performance. Also included is a discussion of how these results can be used in teaching and future research on biological identification.     

Creating a Schoolwide Vocabulary Initiative in an Urban High School

In an effort to improve student achievement at an urban high school, teachers and administrators developed a 5-part, schoolwide vocabulary plan. Over 4 years, teachers provided students with increased opportunities to read, read to their students, developed content-specific vocabulary instruction, taught students academic words, and focused on 5 words each week with a common prefix, suffix, or root. Over the 4 years, student achievement in vocabulary and reading comprehension improved in significant ways, both on reading assessments and state achievement tests.     

Sociodemographic Inequality in Early Literacy Development: The Role of Teacher Perceptual Accuracy

Previous research has established that student learning is influenced by how accurately teachers perceive student academic ability. But studies rarely investigate the degree to which inaccuracies in teacher perceptions exacerbate demographic inequality in academic ability. Using a sample of almost 14,000 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort, we found that children whose literacy skills are overestimated by their teachers typically gain more literacy skills during kindergarten. Conversely, children whose skills are underestimated learn less. It is important to note that the skills of socioeconomically disadvantaged children are on average underestimated. As a result, inequalities in kindergarten literacy development stem in part from the links between teacher misperceptions and student background. We also explored the extent to which these relationships operate through practices associated with ability grouping. We found instructional grouping to be a weak facilitator of the link between teacher perceptions and student learning, suggesting the need for further research that identifies the social and structural classroom characteristics that link teacher perceptual accuracy to student learning.     

The noise of thoughts: The turbulent (sound‐)worlds of Jean‐Luc Godard

This article examines the role of noise in various aspects of Jean‐Luc Godard's filmmaking practice. Beginning with an analysis of 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (1966), it suggests that the loud noise on the soundtrack functions to disrupt the search for meaning in this film that is precisely about knowledge and cognition, providing an image of thought as an unpredictable and uncontrollable process. The influence of 1970s theoretical biology and information theory is analysed in Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1979) which applies Henri Atlan's ‘order from noise’ principle to the composition of shots, the construction of scenes and the development of narrative. Finally Godard's presentation of a complex, deterritorialised capitalist economy is considered in Nouvelle Vague (1990), and it is suggested that Godard's creation of aesthetic events – both through editing and through sound design – implies a different conception of temporality to the sequential logic of financial speculation and risk management.     

Resistance to interference in complex negative patterning

Resistance to interference was examined in rats that received a complex negative patterning discrimination in which XA and XB were followed by food reinforcement and XAB was not. Retention of the discrimination was evident after separate reinforcement of both A and B (Experiment 3), but not after reinforcement of either AB (Experiments 1 and 3) or XAB (Experiments 2 and 3). These data suggest that complex negative patterning discriminations are acquired configurally and that the relative similarity of the original discrimination and subsequent interference trials dictates the final degree of retention observed.     

Comparing face-to-face and asynchronous online communication as mechanisms for critical reflective dialogue

Two mechanisms for engaging in critical reflective dialogue are discussed and compared: face-to-face meetings and asynchronous online discussion. The context is an umbrella action research project, with over 20 participants, which aimed to improve practices in online teaching and contribute to the development of graduate attributes. The article compares discussion using the two modes (face-to-face and online) of the nature of and development of problem-solving and other graduate attributes. Face-to-face discussion was wide ranging and quite loosely structured, so divergent aspects of a topic were uncovered. The asynchronous nature of online discussion, however, permitted topics to be explored more thoroughly. The two modes worked well in conjunction with one another, if aspects of face-to-face discussion topics were posted online as discussion threads. The asynchronous online discussions then allowed each thread to be explored in depth, so that collective understanding of a given topic could be enhanced.