Characteristics of High‐Risk College Student Drinkers Expressing High and Low Levels of Distress

The aim of this study was to identify variables that reliably differentiated between 2 groups of students who reported binge drinking at the same rate (6 to more than 10 times within the previous 2 weeks) but who exhibited different distress associated with their behavior. Results indicated that students who received an external expression of concern were more likely to be concerned themselves about their alcohol use. The clinical utility of this finding is discussed.     

Creating culturally responsive environments: ethnic minority teachers' constructs of cultural diversity in Hong Kong secondary schools

One of the challenges facing Hong Kong schools is the growing cultural diversity of the student population that is a result of the growing number of ethnic minority students in the schools. This study uses semi-structured interviews with 12 American, Canadian, Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani teachers working in three secondary schools in the public sector to examine how school teachers are handling this challenge. The study uses these interviews to establish a model for the creation of culturally responsive environments that may help to improve the academic performance and promote the personal growth of students in Hong Kong's secondary schools. Five aspects of cultural responsiveness are identified: conceptualising cosmopolitanism, raising sensitivity to “minor acts of racism”, managing the diverse learning needs of students, promoting a deep understanding of cultural values and helping students deal with the challenges of trilingualism. This study argues that ethnic minority teachers are engaged in a continuing cross-cultural process through which they make sense of the cultural diversity of students and re-learn their own beliefs and practices. The implications for the creation of a culturally responsive environment are also presented.     

Student perceptions of continuous summative assessment

This paper reports the effect of continuous summative assessment on the behaviour and learning environment of students. Assessing the performance of students is considered to be the most important thing a teacher can do for their students and it can have a profound effect on their learning. Continuous summative assessment was introduced as a form of assessment on a module within an undergraduate degree at a UK university. Student perceptions of the process were sought via a questionnaire and interviews. The paper describes the effect the assessment had on student motivation, their approach to learning and the change to their learning environment. The conclusion reached is that while continuous summative assessment may be time‐consuming to administer, the rewards of an enhanced learning environment for students outweigh the additional burden on staff. The results should be of interest to those academics who are concerned with assessment and its impact on behaviour.     

Teaching practices in Grade 5 mathematics classrooms with high-achieving English learner students

Teachers need more clarity about effective teaching practices as they strive to help their low-achieving students understand mathematics. Our study describes the instructional practices used by two teachers who, by value-added metrics, would be considered “highly effective teachers” in classrooms with a majority of students who were English learners. We used quantitative data to select two fifth-grade classrooms where students, on average, made large gains on a mathematics achievement test, and then examined teaching practices and contextual factors present in each classroom. Participants included two teachers from a mid-Atlantic district and their students who were 67% English learners and 68% economically disadvantaged. We found that the use of multiple representations of mathematics concepts, attention to vocabulary building, individual and group checks for understanding and error analysis were prevalent practices in both high gains classrooms. Also, class sizes ranged from 12–19 students. Discussion focuses on whether observed practices are aligned with recommended teaching practices for English learner students.     

Technologically mediated complex problem‐solving on a statistics task

Simulations on computers can allow many experiments to be conducted quickly to help students develop an understanding of statistical topics. We used a simulation of a challenging problem in statistics as the focus of an exploration of situations where members of a problem‐solving group are physically separated then reconnected via combinations of computer and communications technology to work collaboratively on the simulation. The particular focus in this work was on trying to understand how students could use a system which allowed them to conduct variable based practical experiments in order to help them develop their knowledge and understanding of a statistics topic. We wished to develop an understanding of the virtual space created by shared simulations and video communication tools for supporting collaborative work between people at a distance. The paper reports on an experiment involving 48 subjects using this virtual space to establish the impact on their statistics understanding and to map their use of this distributed environment for learning. It establishes that the virtual space is effective for learning, and that the video conferencing condition which allows for eye contact between the pairs has some advantages for successful problem‐solving with the simulation. In addition the experimental setting provided some opportunities for exploring subjects' understanding of statistical and experimental concepts.