Student Response Technology: Empirically grounded or just a gimmick?

Student Response Technology (SRT) involves the use of hand‐held remotes by students during classroom lectures to electronically respond to questions. This study surveyed 350 students enrolled in one of 13 lower‐division university science classes taught by five different instructors who used SRT. The survey probed students’ perceptions of SRT in terms of enhancing student learning, and investigated which features of SRT students felt had the greatest/least impact on student learning. The majority of students reported that the SRT increased their content understanding, class participation, alertness, and interactions with fellow students, helped with examination preparation, provided important and immediate instructor feedback, and made class more enjoyable. Students in this study scored more positively than peer groups on survey questions related to student engagement in academic and intellectual experiences, suggesting that SRT helps to promote student engagement. Important instructor actions identified during this study that augment the enhancing effects of SRT on student learning, even in large lecture settings, include designing clear, substantive questions, reviewing correct and incorrect answers with students, and making pedagogical adjustments based on class responses.     

Computers and Traditional Teaching Practices: Factors influencing middle level students’ science achievement and attitudes about science

The purpose of this study was to examine the association of middle school student science achievement and attitudes toward science with student-reported frequency of using computers to learn science and other classroom practices. Baseline comparison data were collected on the frequency of student-centred teaching practices (e.g. the use of group experiments during science class) and traditional teaching practices (e.g. having students copy notes during science class) to learn science. The student sample was composed of 294 seventh-grade students enrolled in middle school science. Multiple regression was used to investigate the association of attitudes toward science, student-centred teaching practices, computer usage, and traditional teaching practices with science achievement. Both attitudes toward science and student-centred teaching practices were positively associated with science achievement, and student-centred teaching practice was positively associated with attitude toward science. Computer usage was found to have a negative association with student achievement, which was moderated by traditional teaching practices.     

Changing course: the gender gap in college selectivity and opportunities to learn in the high school curriculum

Gender gaps in learning and education outcomes have changed dramatically over the last few years. However, researchers have not adequately assessed how the high school learning environment differentially affects boys and girls. An important component of the learning environment in US secondary school is the opportunity to learn in an Advanced Placement (AP) curriculum, which allows high school students to do college-level work. Using the US National Education Longitudinal Study 1988–2000, we explain how high school AP curriculum interacts with gender to predict the selectivity of colleges that students attend. The results show that girls and boys who attend high schools with a larger percentage of students in AP curriculum attend more selective colleges (that require higher standardised scores for admissions); yet the positive effect of the opportunity to learn in an AP curriculum is greater for girls than for boys. This research furthers the debate about the effects of school structure on gender stratification.     

A means of personalising learning: incorporating old and new literacies in the curriculum with mobile phones

This article explores a notion of ‘personalising learning’ which puts the learner at the centre, supported by mobile technology and teacher mediation. It reports a small study in the Northern Territory of Australia, with indigenous students who were given mobile camera phones to capture aspects of their everyday lives and bring them into school. It found that they created a range of narratives that linked their traditional literacies with ‘new literacies’. The article argues that, using tools like these, students can contribute to their curriculum. However, it raises issues of cultural differences between teachers and students, and the importance of developing critical literacy in conjunction with new communication forms and other new literacies. Finally it points to the important role of teachers in leading change in school cultures, and particularly assessment, that will allow these personal contributions to learners' curricula.     

Comparing Class- and Task-Level Measures of Achievement Goals

Models of achievement goals suggest that different tasks and contexts influence the goals students adopt at a given time. However, many studies of achievement goals rely on measures assessed at the class level, analyze results with a variable-centered approach, and employ self-report questionnaires, which may reduce understanding of the contextual factors that arise as students interact with tasks. We compared a behavioral, task-level measure of middle school students' achievement goals to a self-reported, class-level measure and analyzed both measures' relations to task performance and quarterly grades using both variable-centered and person-centered approaches. Task-level goals predicted task performance but not quarterly grades, while class-level goals predicted grades but not task performance. The two measures of achievement goals were not related. This work demonstrates the importance of measuring goals at multiple levels and suggests opportunities for changing students' behaviors and achievement through motivation at the task level.     

An Ecological Approach to a University Course that Develops Partnerships Impacting Health and Wellness in K-12 Schools and Communities

Over the past several decades, there has been an increased focus on health promotion as opposed to individual health determinants and disease prevention. Given the association between health and academic success, health promotion is a vastly overlooked lever for establishing effective K-12 schools. Student, organizational, and community well-being are intricately linked, and thus, focusing on any one of these alone will not eliminate achievement gaps and health disparities. We assert that university–community collaboration is instrumental in promoting student and family well-being. Moreover, employing an ecological systems lens to inform partnership and health promotion practices facilitates collective action and magnifies results. In this article, we describe the philosophical and theoretical orientations that guide our teaching, service, and scholarship. We explain how a university undergraduate course that utilizes service-learning has leveraged theory to build university–community collaboration. Using illustrative examples of several service-learning projects, we show how an ecological systems orientation has enhanced the course; supported a systemic approach to health promotion in schools and communities; and facilitated strategic, mutual, and sustained partnerships. We conclude by highlighting the implications of an ecological approach to university–community collaboration, including organizational capacity building, implementation of evidence-based practices, and the need to enhance preservice teacher education.     

Designing Rural School Improvement Networks: Aspirations and Actualities

Rural school educators are often isolated and have few opportunities to learn from neighboring schools or colleagues. This is an especially daunting challenge for low-performing rural schools faced with implementing significant reform efforts (e.g., turnaround approaches, educator effectiveness systems, college- and career-ready standards and assessments). This paper discusses the design and start-up of a large-scale project to connect “like with like” rural and remote schools within the northwest region of the United States to identify and share promising and innovative school reform practices. The authors present a network design framework based on previous work supporting and studying similar educational networks for innovation and improvement in the United States and beyond. They also present lessons learned about designing and launching a network that others might consider when initiating a school improvement network.