Cognitive Empathy and the Transition to Independent Graduate Study in Mathematics

Thirteen Ph.D. students took part in interviews focussed on the nature of their own learning of mathematics. In analysing these interviews an unexpected category emerged concerning the students awareness of others as having particular types of learning goal. In this paper we explore the three levels which we discerned within this category and link them to the notion of cognitive empathy. We suggest that differences in ones own cognitive style are linked to differences in the ability to empathise with those who have alternative learning goals. We also consider how these two features – cognitive style and cognitive empathy – may come to be linked.     

Child Readers and the Worlds of the Picture Book

Children as readers of picture books and the ways they respond to, and make meaning from, such texts are the focus of this article, which reports on a small-scale study undertaken in Norway and Wales, UK. The theoretical framing of the research draws on concepts of the multimodal ensemble in picture books and of the reading event as part of a social practice. The research design was developed from the team’s analysis of two texts, Pappa by Svein Nyhus (1998) and What does Daddy Do? by Rachel Bright (2009). Twenty-four children, who were 7 and 8 years old, took part in the study. This was built around two reading events for each book, staged as an immediate response and as a guided response. The data subsequently collected were analysed according to three overarching organisational principles, as book world, real world and play world. For both Daddy and Pappa, the first reading event showed the children’s responses were mainly directed towards exploring the book world. On the second reading event, references to the real world predominated for Daddy, while for Pappa the book world was again dominant. Across both reading events and for both books, the playworld revealed those occasions when the children expanded the meaning of the story, demonstrating an inventive ability to play with the text. Overall, the children’s responses moved fluidly across the three worlds, showing them to be energetically making connections between the reading, their experience of books and their own lives.     

Teaching Kindergarten Children to Solve Word Problems

A kindergarten teacher's practice was investigated in order to understand her knowledge of her children's mathematical thinking, the ways in which she acquired that knowledge, and the uses she made of that knowledge in making instructional decisions. The focus of the investigation was the teacher's knowledge of her children's thinking about numbers, including counting and addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The teacher had attended Cognitively Guided Instruction workshops at which she had the opportunity to learn about research on children's mathematical thinking. She gathered information on her own children's thinking by posing word problems, listening to children as the described their strategies for solving the problems, and talking to other adults about her children. She used that information to select problems to pose in subsequent lessons.     

CyberConnect: Use the internet with Big6® skills to achieve standards

Conclusions Information seeking strategies can be taught more effectively in collaboration with a classroom teacher in conjunction with a specific assignment. The Big6 Skills(tm) help organize a long-term project into manageable pieces. Using the Internet for research can help students achieve information literacy and NETS standards.     

Prediction and prevention of child abuse and neglect

Utilizing an interview, a questionnaire, and observations during labor, delivery, and the postpartum period, a sample of one hundred mothers was identified as at high risk for abnormal parenting practices. These mothers were randomly divided into a “High-Risk Intervene” group (N=50) and a “High-Risk Nonintervene” group (N=50). The “Intervene” group received comprehensive pediatric follow-up by a single physician, a lay health visitor, and/or a public health nurse in the home. The “Non-intervene” group received routine care, although the results of these screening procedures were shared with the physicians and nurses responsible for their ongoing care. Another group of 50 mothers, who delivered during the same time period and who were assessed as low risk in terms of abnormal parenting practices, served as controls. When the children were approximately two years old (mean age 26.8 months), 25 families in each of the three groups were chosen at random for detailed evaluation.     

Learning Styles Among Mature‐Age Students: Some Comments on the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI‐S)

The short form of Entwistle's (1981) Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI‐S) was administered to 503 mature‐aged students, most of whom identified themselves as disadvantaged and were returning to study after many years absence. Analysis of the 503 responses showed that internal consistency estimates for the seven subscales of the ASI‐S were generally low, but that confirmatory factor analysis could recover two major dimensions corresponding to deep and surface orientations to learning. To examine the predictive validity of the ASI‐S with this population, results for a mathematics unit which they were studying were regressed on factor scores. Results of the structural analysis indicated that the deep orientation was unrelated to academic progression in mathematics but that high scores on the surface orientation were associated with poor academic performance ( = 0.092). These findings indicate that broad learning orientations are fundamental and can be identified in a group of students returning to study after a long absence. The study also emphasises the importance of examining the particular study context when evaluating the effect of learning orientations. The effect of deep and surface orientations may be positive or negative depending on the subject area and the learning context.     

The Early Literacy Support Programme (ELS) and the blend and clash of national educational policy ideologies in England

In this article we consider the development of key policy issues in England, related to the area of literacy learning and children who are considered to have difficulties in literacy in their early years. We trace the tensions which have arisen since the 1980s between different policies and practices in these areas. These tensions include pressures to raise standards of literacy and to support children with difficulties, and the establishment of a prescribed curriculum for young children. In particular, we focus on the blend and clash of national educational policy ideals in areas related to literacy and children who have been categorised as having ‘special educational needs’, and how these have influenced the development of the Early Literacy Support Programme (ELS) (DfES, 2001 Department for Education and Skills 2001a Early Literacy Support Programme, materials to support teachers working in partnership with teaching assistants London DfES  [Google Scholar]a; 2001 Department for Education and Skills 2001b Early Literacy Support Programme, session materials for teaching assistants London DfES  [Google Scholar]b). This is a programme set up by the Department for Education and Science in England for children in Year 1, aged 5 to 6 years old.     

Pathways to Undergraduate Research Experiences: a Multi-Institutional Study

The positive impact of undergraduate research experiences on students’ post-secondary success is well-documented. However, these conclusions are drawn from undergraduate students who already participate; very little research has explored the pathways by which students enter these experiences. Using data from a multi-institutional survey, we examined students’ reasons for participating and differences across institutions and demographic groups. Overall, students cited social and experiential reasons as key motivators for participation and a perceived lack of research readiness as a key barrier. Differences were also found across academic year. Implications from this study address issues of access, preparation, and institutional policies around undergraduate research.     

The effects of explicit timing on middle‐school students’ writing production across 5‐ and 15‐min sessions

Enhancing rates of accurate, active, academic responding can enhance learning. Both temporal manipulations (i.e., reducing time to work on assignments) and providing multiple distributed temporal cues (MDTC), sometimes referred to as explicit timing, have been shown to enhance rates of accurate mathematics responding. The current study was designed to evaluate the effects of session length (i.e., 5 vs. 15 min to write) and temporal cues (i.e., a single initial temporal cue vs. MDTC) on seventh‐ and eighth‐grade students writing assignment rates and writing accuracy. Results showed that the 5 min writing sessions did result in significantly greater rates of accurate responding than the 15 min sessions; however, explicit timing did not significantly alter writing rates or accuracy. These findings suggest that educators can enhance rates of accurate writing by reducing writing session lengths. Discussion focuses on applied implications of providing briefer writing sessions and future research investigating the interaction between multiple temporal cues and assignments.