The Importance of Language Strategy in Simple Arithmetic

Students who seemingly are about equally adept at two languages differ considerably in their language strategy in mental arithmetic. The present findings suggest that language strategy has an important effect on simple arithmetical performance, affecting the mean reaction time of responses, the frequency of errors, and the experience of difficulty. Bilinguals who retrospectively reported a single language strategy during task performance showed a clear tendency for faster response times, fewer errors, and less perceived difficulty than bilinguals who used their two languages simultaneously or interchangeably. The degree of interference that occurs seems to depend on individual strategies and can be held to a minimum if the domains of use are clearly defined.

     

Self-assessment of diversity competence as part of regular teaching evaluations in higher education: raising awareness for diversity issues

Tertiary Education and Management - Higher education institutions face the challenge to promote diversity competence. We suggest a procedure which can help raise awareness for diversity issues...     

What Knowledge is Worth Knowing?

Science & Education - The paper reports a study that used a Bernsteinian analysis in order to investigate the association between higher primary science curriculum and social equity in four...     

Assessing Multiliteracies and the New Basics

This paper addresses the skills and characteristics required of successful learners, workers and citizens in the knowledge economy. The authors trace the shifting commercial, technological and cultural conditions characteristic of this economy, and highlight the key qualities now required for individual success. Effective learners will increasingly need to be autonomous and self-directed, flexible, collaborative, of open sensibility, broadly knowledgeable, and able to work productively with linguistic and cultural diversity. While still prevalent, it is held that standardised testing and a 'back to basics' approach to curriculum are unable to promote and measure effectively these skills and sensibilities. Instead, a broader and more creative approach to curriculum and assessment is recommended. A 'new basics' is argued for at the level of curriculum, with correlative assessment techniques such as analysis of portfolios, performance, projects and group work.     

Children’s use of drawing as a pre-writing strategy

In this study the writing products of 60 third-grade students, who drew before writing a story on a self-selected topic, was compared with the writing products of 59 third-grade students who wrote without drawing. The students in the group which drew before writing tended to produce more words, more sentences and more idea units, and their overall writing performance was higher than the students who wrote without drawing. These findings were consistent for boys as well as girls. Implications for writing research and instruction are discussed.     

SYMBIOSIS: Development,Implementation, and Assessment of a Model Curriculum across Biology and Mathematics at the Introductory Level

“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.”Alan Cohen (Used by permission. All rights reserved. For more information on Alan Cohen''s books and programs, see (www.alancohen.com.)

With the support of the East Tennessee State University (ETSU) administration and a grant from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the departments of Biological Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, and Curriculum and Instruction have developed a biology–math integrated curriculum. An interdisciplinary faculty team, charged with teaching the 18 curriculum modules, designed this three-semester curriculum, known as SYMBIOSIS. This curriculum was piloted to two student cohorts during the developmental stage. The positive feedback and assessment results of this project have given us the foundation to implement the SYMBIOSIS curriculum as a replacement for the standard biology majors curriculum at the introductory level. This article addresses the history and development of the curriculum, previous assessment results and current assessment protocol, and the future of ETSU''s approach to implementing the SYMBIOSIS curriculum.     

Job-related requirements and competences of educational science graduates

All over the world, universities have to cope with the mission to promote the employability of their graduates, implying that competences should be trained which are relevant for the professional experience. In this context, it is of special interest where graduates work and what they are doing at work. In this study we focus on educational science graduates (N = 1565) and compare them to graduates of other study programmes (N = 10,224). Using data of the German DZHW graduate panel 2005 (N = 11,789), we address the questions (1) in which fields graduates of educational science work, (2) whether a theoretical-based four-dimensional internal structure of graduates’ job-related requirements and competences can be confirmed, (3) what kind of self-rated requirements educational science graduates experience at work, and (4) which self-rated levels of competences they possess, compared to other graduates. The analyses show that most graduates of educational science find an appropriate job in a clearly educational setting and that generic competences (systematic, social, and personal competences) are rated as more important than knowledge processing.