How to facilitate freshmen learning and support their transition to a university study environment

Most freshmen enter universities with high expectations and with good motivation, but too many are driven into performing instead of true learning. The issues are not only related to the challenge of comprehending the substance, social and other factors have an impact as well. All these multifaceted needs should be accounted for to facilitate student learning. Learning is an individual process and remarkable improvement in the learning practices is possible, if proper actions are addressed early enough. We motivate and describe a study of the experience obtained from a set of tailor-made courses that were given alongside standard curriculum. The courses aimed to provide a ‘safe community’ to address the multifaceted needs. Such support was integrated into regular coursework where active learning techniques, e.g. interactive small groups were incorporated. To assess impact of the courses we employ the feedback obtained during the courses and longitudinal statistical data about students' success.     

Examining Teachers’ Attitudes and Experiences with Coaching to Inform Research-Based Practice: An Iterative Developmental Design Study

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine teachers’ attitudes and experiences with coaching. This study was conducted in advance of a planned randomized controlled trial of a coaching intervention to better align the model with teachers’ needs and goals. Thirty-four K–5 general (n = 26), special education (n = 6), and educational support staff (n = 2) working in two high-poverty schools participated in focus groups. Interrater reliability between independent coders was high (К = 0.92; range: 0.76–1.0). Thematic analyses identified facilitators and barriers to teacher participation in the planned intervention and were used to improve upon the existing coaching model. Themes focused on advantages and disadvantages to coaching and characteristics of effective coaches and coaching models. Implications of findings for research and practice are discussed.     

Prior learning in biology at high school does not predict performance in the first year at university

Students in their first year of university face a number of transition issues that can make realising their academic potential difficult. In the sciences, first-year courses cover a large amount of material across broad subject areas, which can make them troublesome for students without background knowledge, and students need to adapt to typically large class sizes and develop active, independent learning skills. We expected a student's prior learning to be important to their academic performance in a large, first-year introductory biology subject and analysed the relationships between students' results in this course with their senior high school results in related subjects over three years from 2007 to 2009. We predicted that students with prior learning in biology would have higher results than those without it, but that chemistry might also be important, given the biochemical nature of much of the course content. Students who completed biology at the senior high school-level did perform better than those who had not, but only if they also completed chemistry. Prior learning in biology was of no benefit to students in first-year biology, except when combined with chemistry, suggesting that potential differences in biology curricula between high school and the first year at university may need to be addressed.     

Challenges for collaborative blended learning in undergraduate students

This study reports a quasi-experiment in collaborative blended learning (CBL) with undergraduate students who, despite being in a world-leading, enriched digital environment, were new to collaboration and CBL. The mixed-methods research found that only small improvements to students’ CBL took place over time, and explanations for this are proffered. The study found that the students needed specific and intensive instruction, practice, and development in how to collaborate, both with and without blended learning. Students discovered and appreciated the benefits, pitfalls, and challenges to collaboration and CBL largely by doing it: learning from experience. Collaboration and CBL do not release teachers from their instructional and pedagogical roles; rather, they place teachers and face-to-face instruction and practice in collaboration and CBL in classrooms, at the heart of effective practice and improvements here. Implications for teaching are suggested.     

Mobility and wage equilibration in the educator labor market

Using longitudinal data, this article examines mobility and wage equilibration patterns for instructional personnel for kindergarten through the twelfth grade. The study concludes that (1) contrary to popular belief, educators are at least as responsive as other workers to interoccupational wage differences in deciding to change occupations; (2) educators paid above (below) the wage they could expect in the economy at large experience less (greater) than average wage growth; (3) educators are responsive to wage differentials within teaching in deciding to change districts but not as strongly responsive as to wage differentials between teaching and other occupations; and (4) educators paid above (below) the average wage for educators with similar qualifications experience less (greater) than average wage growth from one school year to the next.“Frustrated teachers stew over working conditions, but most don't quit.”