Campus‐based student experiences of learning technologies in a first‐year science course

This study reports on an investigation into the campus‐based experience of university students studying mammalian physiology that was significantly supported with learning technologies. The design of the course enabled the students to interrogate the key ideas that they came across in their lectures and laboratories through online activities which prepared the students for practical classes. Close‐ended questionnaires were used to uncover qualitative variation in the population sample, particularly the differences in the concepts of learning technologies and approaches to learning technologies. Qualitative variation in concepts of, and approaches to, learning technologies was found to be significantly associated with variation in academic achievement. The outcomes have important implications for the approaches to teaching of campus‐based experiences of learning supported by learning technologies when we seek to support all students to realise their learning outcomes in technology‐mediated processes     

The effect of recommendation systems on Internet‐based learning for different learners: A data mining analysis

A general challenge facing Internet‐based learners is how to identify information objects which are helpful in expanding their understanding of important information in a domain. Recommendation systems may assist learners in identifying potentially helpful information objects. However, the recent literature mainly focuses on the technical performance, rather than on how recommendations support searching in educational contexts. This study thus investigates how recommendation systems may influence the searching behaviors and strategies of different learners, when they are used with a mind map. The results suggested two main different searching behavioral patterns, namely focused searchers and broad searchers. It is found that the recommendations may influence the searching behaviors of the two types of searchers in different ways. For the focused searchers, the recommendations may support these searchers to expand their keywords to explore the domain. Regarding the broad searchers, they did not rely on the computer recommendations. However, the mind map interface applied along with the recommendations may support them in monitoring their searching processes. Online Information Searching Strategies Inventory (OISSI) was applied to examine the participants' perceptions of how students applied information searching strategies. The results of OISSI support that both types of searchers perceived a higher level of searching strategies when they search with the recommendation system and mind maps.     

Practice What We Preach: Differentiating Instruction and Assessment in a Higher Education Classroom as a Model of Effective Pedagogy for Early Childhood Teacher Education Candidates

Teacher education faculty are experiencing increasingly diverse higher education classrooms. In many ways, the diversities present in collegiate classrooms mirror the differences in classrooms of young children. The diversity may be a result of a range of ethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic differences. Or it may be differences resulting from previous experiences, background knowledge, learning style, needs, or interests. In this article, two university colleagues present challenges related to meeting a plethora of learner needs in a course with participants from three different programs of study. The authors describe the challenges faced, steps taken to use the challenges as opportunities for growth, and the outcomes of their efforts. The authors candidly describe how they used the principles of Differentiated Instruction to model effective pedagogy for their early childhood teacher educator candidates.     

The Precursors of Reading Ability in Young Readers: Evidence From a Four-Year Longitudinal Study

We report a longitudinal study investigating the predictors of reading comprehension and word reading accuracy between the ages of 7 to 8 (UK Year 3) and 10 to 11 years (Year 6). We found that different skills predicted the development of each. Reading comprehension skill measured in Year 3 was a strong predictor of comprehension in Year 6; vocabulary and verbal IQ also made significant unique contributions to the prediction of comprehension ability across time. Three comprehension components (inference, comprehension monitoring, and knowledge and use of story structure) emerged as distinct predictors of reading comprehension in Year 6, even after the autoregressive effect of comprehension was controlled. For word reading accuracy, early measures of word reading accuracy and phonemic awareness predicted later performance.     

Using technology to help preservice teachers construct knowledge about young children's classroom environments

Abstract

In an effort to help teacher candidates understand early childhood classroom environments, a website was constructed for use in a foundation in early childhood education course. This website, based on constructivist teaching practices uses technology in a unique way to assist students as they come to know, understand, and use the principles associated with room arrangement and management of early childhood classrooms.     

Special Issue

Teacher education, the process of becoming a teacher and aiding others to become teachers, is in part a journey of imaginative development. Students come to imagine teaching, and themselves as teachers, in new ways. This essay reports on an attempt to use ideas about imagination in teaching and learning as the central theme of the first semester of a one‐year teacher education program in British Columbia, Canada. Following a discussion of the theoretical and practical challenges encountered, several possible means of extending this approach are proposed. It is argued that a program thus infused by imagination may be more likely to lead to authentic professional transformation of the kind often posited as a goal of teacher education.     

Action learning and constructivist grounded theory: powerfully overlapping fields of practice

This paper considers the shared characteristics between action learning (AL) and the research methodology constructivist grounded theory (CGT). Mirroring Edmonstone's [2011. “Action Learning and Organisation Development: Overlapping Fields of Practice.” Action Learning: Research and Practice 8 (2): 93–102] article, which explored the relationship(s) between AL and organisation development, a case is made that AL and CGT are powerfully overlapping fields of practice. An account of practice is included to provide a contextual explanation of the ‘overlap’, and a new methodological praxeology is proposed to the field of practice/practitioner-focused research.     

The development of young children of immigrants in australia, Canada, the United kingdom, and the United States

In spite of important differences in some of the resources immigrant parents have to invest in their children, and in immigrant selection rules and settlement policies, there are significant similarities in the relative positions of 4- and 5-year-old children of immigrants in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Children of immigrants underperform their counterparts with native-born parents in vocabulary tests, particularly if a language other than the official language is spoken at home, but are not generally disadvantaged in nonverbal cognitive domains, nor are there notable behavioral differences. These findings suggest that the cross-country differences in cognitive outcomes during the teen years documented in the existing literature are much less evident during the early years.