A theoretical framework and model towards media-rich social presence design practices

Educators are seeing rapid developments in online instruction with regard to not only available technologies, but also in design and teaching practices. Developing and maintaining social presence in an online environment is paramount to the success of a learning environment. This article touches upon some historical perspectives of social presence and proposes a theoretical framework and design guide towards media-rich social presence practices for future research. The design guide in this article adds to the historically text-based social presence applications by posing media-rich, higher-level thinking questions based upon a grounded theoretical framework.     

The four ‘R’s of openness and ALMS analysis: frameworks for open educational resources

A significant movement in education concerns the use of open educational resources. By ‘open’ it is generally meant that the resource is available at no cost to others for adaptation and reuse in different contexts. However, ‘open’ is not a simple dichotomy; rather, there is a continuum of openness. We discuss four separate aspects of reuse and demonstrate how these describe different levels of openness. We discuss how the licensing and technical aspects of open educational resources affect the relative openness of an open educational resource. Implications for those creating open educational resources are discussed.     

Using Peer Coaches to Build Oral Reading Fluency

Fluent oral reading is essential for success in elementary school. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of enhanced reading fluency instruction for struggling readers. The intervention was provided to small groups of students at risk for reading difficulties. Students were assessed on key early literacy skills. Second-grade students who were at risk for reading failure and who received supplemental intervention scored higher on measures of fluency than students who received only typical classroom instruction; the effects of enhanced fluency instruction were evident across different dosages for many children at risk for reading failure. In addition, statistically significant improvements and relationships were evident for oral reading fluency and comprehension. We discuss guidelines for developing and using the intervention in other classrooms.     

The cross-cultural generalizability of a new structural model of academic self-concepts

Prior research on the structure of academic self-concepts has demonstrated academic self-concepts to be domain-specific and hierarchically organized, but has largely failed to support the hypothesis that general academic self-concept is at the apex of the hierarchy. The present study investigates a new multidimensional nested-factor model of academic self-concepts that incorporates both domain-specific and general academic self-concepts, and the position of general academic self-concept at the apex of the self-concept hierarchy. Data were obtained from representative samples of 15-year-old students in 26 countries (total N = 106,680). Results showed that the nested-factor model provided a good fit to the data in each of the 26 countries, and that general and domain-specific academic self-concepts were meaningfully related to gender as well as to student achievement. Moreover, it emerged that the relationships between academic self-concepts and these student characteristics may differ substantially depending on whether the model applied does or does not account for the influence of general academic self-concept on domain-specific measures of academic self-concepts.     

Technology and Early Childhood Education: A Technology Integration Professional Development Model for Practicing Teachers

Despite the promise of technology in education, many practicing teachers are faced with multiple challenges of effectively integrating technology into their classroom instruction. Additionally, teachers who are successful incorporating educational technology into their instruction recognize that although technology tools have the potential to help children, they are not ends in themselves. This article describes a Summer Institute project that the authors facilitated in a medium sized midwest public university. The summer workshop afforded participating early childhood education teachers exciting opportunities to interact with various instructional tools and technology applications. Further, the practicing teachers explored various strategies to integrate specific technology tools into their lessons in a manner consistent with constructivist pedagogy. This article is intended to stimulate reflections on the need to adopt a suitable technology integration professional development model in early childhood education classrooms to support young learners.     

Children's Moral Motivation, Sympathy, and Prosocial Behavior

Two studies investigated the role of children's moral motivation and sympathy in prosocial behavior. Study 1 measured other-reported prosocial behavior and self- and other-reported sympathy. Moral motivation was assessed by emotion attributions and moral reasoning following hypothetical transgressions in a representative longitudinal sample of Swiss 6-year-old children ( N  =   1,273). Prosocial behavior increased with increasing sympathy, especially if children displayed low moral motivation. Moral motivation and sympathy were also independently related to prosocial behavior. Study 2 extended the findings of Study 1 with a second longitudinal sample of Swiss 6-year-old children ( N  =   175) using supplementary measures of prosocial behavior, sympathy, and moral motivation. The results are discussed in regard to the precursors of the moral self in childhood.