Formative assessment of teachers in the context of an online learning environment

This case study looked at how an assessment strategy designed for an online learning environment can support teachers’ professional development. More specifically, we intended to evaluate how a particular online assessment design can help the participating in-service teachers to recognize the added value of formative assessment, and promote their own use of formative assessment in their professional classroom practices. The presented assessment design consists of a combination of different, non-standard assessment methods in an online environment. We analysed data from 494 questionnaires, the participants’ critical reflections about their learning and the participants’ produced artefacts. The findings illustrate the participants’ recognition of the formative character of the proposed assessment design, reflected not only by the high scores reported in seven of the eight themes explored, but also from the qualitative analysis of the participants’ reflections and artefacts. Suggestions are offered for the improvement of the proposed assessment design, so as to better promote the formative character of assessment. In particular, implications for the development of formative assessment in online professional development are discussed taking into account its potential to promote the participants’ self-regulatory learning processes.     

Environmental argumentation as sociocultural activity

While environmental argumentation has recently received much attention from science educators, little consideration has been given to how personal identities and social relationships can either support or constrain student argumentation. This study attends to this issue by examining environmental argumentation as a sociocultural activity (how students implicitly create identities and relationships through environmental warrants and claims). By integrating rhetorical and sociocultural analysis of oral discourse, we examine argumentation about environmental dilemmas (problematic scenarios involving animals and the environment). Although students set forth a variety of warrants (social, economic, contextual, biocentric, and expertise‐based), the dilemmas led to distinct forms of argumentation. One dilemma involving a pet iguana fostered non‐adversarial argumentation wherein students identified themselves as animal lovers and cooperative discussants. By contrast, the other two dilemmas (the hypothetical encounter with a fawn in the woods and the observation of classroom lights being unnecessarily left on) led to the unexpected emergence of sexual identities, combative disagreement, and conflict resolution on social rather than rational grounds. The main implication of this study is that it highlights the need for educators to pay closer attention to specific textual elements in the design of environmental dilemmas (types of prompts used, decision‐makers' identities, statements of intentionality and outcome, moral complexity, values of nature, and social representation or cultural images of animals) in order to foster an appropriate and productive sociocultural classroom context for rational and reasoned environmental argumentation to take place without the constraints of unexpected social complications. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 869–897, 2012     

Behind the By-Lines

Abstract

This article uses a critique of modernity to examine the perceived relationship between global citizenship education (GCE) and digital democracy (DD). We review critiques of citizenship education in the global imperative and of the relationship of technology to democratic engagement. An analogy expresses the problematic way that GCE and DD are both mutually compatible and complicit in ethical global justice issues. We end with a suggestion of a pedagogical framework through which educators can engage with an ethical approach to GCE and DD.     

The aesthetic experience of nature and hermeneutic phenomenology

ABSTRACT

One aim of environmental education is to encourage different ways of generating meanings of, valuing, conceiving, and contextualizing “nature.” The field of aesthetics provides an affective basis for interpreting our perceptions of environments and relations with other more-than-human beings. This critical essay examines some of the key concepts about hermeneutics and phenomenology introduced by philosophers such as Kant, Dufrenne, Bachelard, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, and Quintás and then indicates some methodological implications. Our Freirean purpose is to advance how understandings of the nature of the aesthetic experience of nature might inform different research framings, critical curriculum inquiry, and eco-pedagogical explorations of being in, becoming and relating with nature.     

Analysis of the Methods and Research Topics in a Sample of the Brazilian Distance Education Publications, 1992 to 2007

Abstract

The objective of this study was to identify the methodological approaches employed in a sample of Brazilian distance education scientific literature and compare with similar publications in the United States. Brazilian sample articles (N = 983) published in several journals and meetings were compared with a sample of articles published in The American Journal of Distance Education (AJDE) from 1987 to 2006. A categorization system based on Gall, Gall, and Borg (2006 Gall, J. P., Gall, M. D. and Borg, W. R. 2007. Educational research: An introduction, Boston: Pearson.  [Google Scholar]) and Lee, Driscoll, and Nelson (2007) Lee, Y. and Driscoll, M. P. 2007. “Trends in research: A content analysis of major journals”. In Handbook of distance education, 2nd, Edited by: Moore, M. G. 31–41. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.  [Google Scholar] was used. The methodological approach employed in the Brazilian sample was predominantly qualitative, and this feature remained largely unchanged over the past seven years. The predominant research method continues to be exploratory, followed by case studies. Of note, the most frequent research topic in AJDE articles was evaluation, contrasting with the predominant topic of management in Brazilian publications.     

Physical activity and school recess time: Differences between the sexes and the relationship between children's playground physical activity and habitual physical activity

The aims of this study were: (1) to observe participation in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during school recess periods; (2) to determine the relative importance of physical activity during recesses to overall daily physical activity; and (3) to examine differences in physical activity between the sexes during unstructured recess periods. The participants were 22 school children (10 boys, 12 girls) aged 8?–?10 years (mean = 8.9, s = 0.7) in the third and fourth grades. Daily totals for the physical activity variables were calculated by summing the values for each hour of 14?h of physical activity measurements (08:00 to 22:00?h). Recess times (minutes) were as follows: morning 10:30 to 11:00?h and afternoon 15:30 to 16:00?h. We did not differences between boys and girls in daily total accelerometer counts or the overall time spent in MVPA. However, girls were significantly (P <?0.05) more involved (38%) in MVPA during recess time than boys (31%). Participation in MVPA during recess contributes significantly more (P <?0.05) for girls (19%) than boys (15%) to the total amount of physical activity suggested by international health-related physical activity guidelines, while the percentage of time engaged in MVPA during recess time at school accounts for a small amount of the daily MVPA (6% for boys and 8% for girls). The results of this study suggest that school recess time is an important setting to promote MVPA and contributes to daily physical activity in young children, especially in girls.     

Late information pick-up is preferred in basketball jump shooting

Abstract

In this study we examined the timing of optical information pick-up in basketball jump shooting using an intermittent viewing technique. We expected shooters to prefer to look at the basket as late as possible under the shooting style used. Seven experts with a high shooting style and five experts with a low shooting style took 50 jump shots while wearing liquid-crystal glasses that opened and closed at pre-set intervals. In principle, under this constraint, the participants could control when they saw the basket by actively modulating the timing of their movements. Analyses of the phasing of the movements relative to the events defined on the glasses revealed that low-style shooters preferred to see the basket just before the ball passed their line of sight, whereas high-style shooters tended to view the basket from underneath the ball after it passed their line of sight. Thus, most shooters preferred to pick up optical information as late as possible given the adopted shooting style. We conclude that, in dynamic far aiming tasks such as basketball jump shooting, late pick-up of optical information is critical for the successful guidance of movements.     

Criterion-related validity of the 20-m shuttle run test in youths aged 13–19 years

Abstract

We assessed the agreement between maximal oxygen consumption ([Vdot]O_2max) measured directly when performing the 20-m shuttle run test and estimated [Vdot]O_2max from five different equations (i.e. Barnett, equations a and b; Léger; Matsuzaka; and Ruiz) in youths. The 20-m shuttle run test was performed by 26 girls (mean age 14.6 years, s = 1.5; body mass 57.2 kg, s = 8.9; height 1.60 m, s = 0.06) and 22 boys (age 15.0 years, s = 1.6; body mass 63.5 kg, s = 11.5; height 1.70 m, s = 0.01). The participants wore a portable gas analyser (K4b2, Cosmed) to measure [Vdot]O₂ during the test. All the equations significantly underestimated directly measured [Vdot]O_2max, except Barnett's (b) equation. The mean difference ranged from 1.3 ml · kg^?1 · min^?1 (Barnett (b)) to 5.5 ml · kg^?1 · min^?1 (Léger). The standard error of the estimate ranged from 5.3 ml · kg^?1 · min^?1 (Ruiz) to 6.5 ml · kg^?1 · min^?1 (Léger), and the percentage error ranged from 21.2% (Ruiz) to 38.3% (Léger). The accuracy of the equations available to estimate [Vdot]O_2max from the 20-m shuttle run test is questionable at the individual level. Furthermore, special attention should be paid when comparisons are made between studies (e.g. population-based studies) using different equations. The results of the present study suggest that Barnett's (b) equation provides the closest agreement with directly measured [Vdot]O_2max (cardiorespiratory fitness) in youth.     

Functional torque ratios and torque curve analysis of shoulder rotations in overhead athletes with and without impingement symptoms

Abstract

In this study, we evaluated the peak torque, functional torque ratios, and torque curve profile of the shoulder rotators in overhead athletes with impingement symptoms so as to examine possible alterations in response to sports training and shoulder pain. Twenty-one overhead athletes with impingement symptoms were compared with 25 overhead athletes and 21 non-athletes, none of whom were symptomatic for impingement. The participants performed five maximal isokinetic concentric and eccentric contractions of medial and lateral shoulder rotations at 1.57 rad · s^?1 and 3.14 rad · s^?1. Isokinetic peak torque was used to calculate the eccentric lateral rotation-to-concentric medial rotation and the eccentric medial rotation-to-concentric lateral rotation ratios. An analysis of the torque curve profiles was also carried out. The eccentric lateral rotation-to-concentric medial rotation torque ratio of asymptomatic athletes was lower than that of non-athletes at both test velocities. The concentric medial rotation isokinetic peak torque of the asymptomatic athletes, at 3.14 rad · s^?1, was greater than that of the non-athletes, and the peak appeared to occur earlier in the movement for athletes than non-athletes. These findings suggest that there may be adaptations to shoulder function in response to throwing practice. The eccentric medial rotation-to-concentric lateral rotation torque ratio was altered neither by the practice of university-level overhead sports nor impingement symptoms.