The Effects of Paraphrasing Interventions on Problem‐Solving Accuracy for Children at Risk for Math Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to examine effectiveness of paraphrasing interventions on mathematics word problem‐solving accuracy in third grade children (N = 72) at risk for mathematics disabilities (MD). Three instructional conditions directed students’ attention through paraphrasing, via writing, to different propositions within word problems. Students were randomly assigned to one of four intervention conditions: paraphrase question propositions (restate), paraphrase relevant propositions (relevant) and paraphrase all propositions (complete) or an untreated control. A mixed ANCOVA indicated that paraphrasing relevant and complete propositions significantly increased posttest accuracy when compared to the control and restate condition. Results from the study provide support for the effectiveness of paraphrasing interventions that directs students to restate/paraphrase propositions of mathematics word problems relative to the control condition.     

Executive functioning and word reading in Hong Kong Chinese children: A 1-year longitudinal perspective

This study examined the bidirectionality between kindergarten children's executive functioning (EF) and word reading across two time points. Participants were 523 Hong Kong Chinese-speaking children (mean age at Time 2 = 64.59 months; 52.9% male) and their parents. At Time 1, children were administered the measures of EF skills: inhibitory control, attention shifting, working memory and Chinese word reading. They were reassessed with these measures at Time 2 one year later. Results from the cross-lagged panel model revealed that, controlling for child age, gender and parental education levels, children's word reading at Time 1 was significantly predictive of their working memory at Time 2, but that the three EF skills at Time 1 were not predictive of word reading at Time 2. These findings underscored the role of early word reading in promoting children's working memory.     

Walter White(ness) lashes out: Breaking Bad and male victimage

This essay situates the television show Breaking Bad (BB) and its critical reception in the context of American politics following the economic and political events of 2008. Reading the show as an allegory, I demonstrate that it offered a pathway for viewers to maintain investments and commitments to a toxic, white masculinity threatened by 2008’s economic and political dislocations. Taking the show up for its capacity to allegorize the human experience, Breaking Bad’s critically acclaimed status among viewers from widely divergent political positions suggests that the investment in raced and gendered ideas of individual freedom crosses partisan lines, indicating that American national identity and white masculinity share a mutually sustaining incoherence. Understanding the cultural roots of American victimage evident in post-2008 America helps explain how BB distinguished itself from similar masculine “anti-hero” dramas.     

Developmentally Appropriate Emergent Literacy Activities for Young Children: Adapting the Early Literacy and Learning Model

Whether it be leaping, resisting, or being gently shoved, the field of early childhood education continues moving into the age of accountability. Young children are expected to exhibit many requisite skills prior to kindergarten. Thus, the advancement of pre-reading and writing skills development become one of the many areas of focus for early childhood teachers. This study focused on the advancement of young children’s emergent literacy and letter recognition skills through developmentally appropriate instruction and need based adapted activities using the Early Literacy and Learning Model (ELLM) curriculum. The results suggest that mindfully adapting activities to children’s needs advances children’s emergent literacy development.     

Teaching Science Through Home and Second Languages as the Medium of Instruction: a Comparative Analysis of Junior Secondary Science Classrooms in Hong Kong

Positioned in the Hong Kong education context, this article evaluates the effects of teaching science through home and second languages (i.e. Chinese and English) in Secondary 2 (or eighth grade) science classrooms. A total of 479 students, divided into two language instruction groups, participated in a teaching intervention comprising 16 lessons on the topic of ‘Making Use of Electricity’. Informed by the results of a mixed-methods study with a quasi-experimental design, with data collected from science diagnostic tests, inquiry questions and focus group interviews, this article reports that Chinese is the most advantageous language of instruction for low- and middle-ability science students, whereas English is more favourable for their high-achieving peers. Whilst Hong Kong students who learnt the focal topic in English were able to rid themselves of certain naive ideas generated from the translation of science terms into Chinese (e.g. pencil ‘鉛筆’ is translated as ‘lead pen’ in Chinese), they were also found to have misconceptions about certain scientific concepts. For example, they were confused about ‘open’ and ‘closed’ circuits because they mixed up the words ‘open’ (‘開放’) and ‘switch on’ (‘開啟’) in English. The study’s broad implications for language support and a mixed-code approach in science teaching worldwide are discussed.

     

The effect of choice on motivation for young children on the autism spectrum during discrete trial teaching

Self‐determination and decision‐making are acknowledged internationally as key rights of persons with disabilities and should play an important role in the development of educational plans and procedures. Not only is the chance for individuals with developmental disabilities to select their own tasks, leisure activities or reinforcers a valuable way of enhancing rights‐based education and personal dignity, but choice‐making opportunities may also function as a useful clinical or educational tool if they actually improve the efficacy of programmes aimed at the acquisition of socially relevant behaviours and life skills or the reduction of challenging behaviours. The study reported here assessed whether or not choice affected effectiveness of an educational procedure for three children on the autism spectrum. Following a preference assessment, a number of discrete teaching trials were conducted with each child and, contingent upon targeted responses, either the child or the therapist selected one of three preferred reinforcer items. Reinforcer choice did not affect intervention effectiveness for two of the children; however, performance and motivation improved for the third child. Results re‐affirmed the importance of thorough preference assessments prior to intervention and showed that additional stimulus choice contingent on the target response may improve motivation and outcomes for some children.     

Choosing and leaving science in highly selective institutions

This study sought to discover some of the causes of initial interset in and atrition from the natural sciences and engineering among the students (N=5320) who entered four highly selective institutions in 1988, with particular attention to possible special causes for the disproportionate attrition of women from science. Though a smaller proportion of women (35 percent) than men (49 percent) were initially interested in science, gender added little to the prediction of such initial choice when preadmission measures of developed abilities were taken into account in regression analysis. Of the group of 2,276 students initially interested in science, 40 percent did not finally concentrate in science, and smaller proportions of women (48 percent) than of men (66 percent) persisted. The most significant cognitive, factor predicting these losses was low grades earned in science courses taken during the first two years of study. With grades held equal, gender was not a significant predictor of persistence in engineering and biology; gender added strongly to grades, however, as a factor associated with unusually large losses of women from a category that included the physical sciences and mathematics. Responses to a questionnaire administered in the fall of 1991 showed that science majors regarded their instruction as too competitive, with too few opportunities to ask questions, taught by professors who were relatively unresponsive, not dedicated, and not motivating. Students who defected from science did so largely because of the attraction of other fields, but many shared the criticism of overcompetitiveness and inferior instruction, along with the view that the work was too difficult. Several items were about elements of classroom instruction and atmosphere thought to be especially difficult for women (i.e., the chilly climate), but except for perceived competitiveness, women did not rate their classroom experiences as being more unpleasant than did men. This research was supported by grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the National Science Foundation.     

Effect of sport education on students’ perceived physical literacy,motivation, and physical activity levels in university required physical education: a cluster-randomized trial

Higher Education - Originating from the field of physical education, physical literacy is an individual disposition that accentuates the importance of lifelong physical activity. Sport education is...     

What is Lesson Study?

This article addresses the conceptual question “what is lesson study?” as an issue that arises in the context of the globalisation of lesson study as a method for improving teaching and learning beyond its presumed origins in the Japanese education system. To what extent can adaptations of the method in different national settings be interpreted as faithful representations of its practically significant “critical features” in the country of origin? In order to address this question, the article begins by examining the comparative classroom research by Stigler and Hiebert that culminated in the publication of The Teaching Gap. This work is generally acknowledged to have been seminal for the global development of lesson study as a method for improving teaching and learning. Sponsored by the 1997 TIMMS testing programme, the research sought to explain pronounced differences in measured educational attainment between students of all ages in Japan, and the US and Germany. In the process Stigler and Hiebert discovered the extensive use of lesson study in Japanese primary schools as a school‐based research method for securing consistency between learning goals and teaching methods. In doing so, they identified six principles which underpinned the method and pinpointed its practical significance. In this article, the author claims that the principles identified by Stigler and Hiebert can be used as a framework for assessing adaptations of lesson study in the context of globalisation, and connecting it to related methodological ideas that are internationally circulating. In particular, the author stresses links between lesson study, the tradition of classroom action research forged by Lawrence Stenhouse and his colleagues at the University of East Anglia, UK and the theory of variation developed in Sweden and Hong Kong by Ference Marton, Lo Mun Ling and others. Such links can deepen a theoretical understanding of “lesson study” and safe‐guard it against a “cherry‐picking” approach to its implementation in a context of globalisation. The article particularly highlights the importance of understanding the ways in which the organisational cultures of schooling in many countries shape and distort the implementation of lesson study. It argues for the greater involvement of school leaders and administrators in a form of second‐order action research aimed at transforming the organisational context of teachers’ work in classrooms and creating more space for them to spend less time as test data managers and more time as lesson researchers in accordance with the six principles outlined.