Adventures in Implementing a Testing Program

What are the ways in which a testing program can run aground? What are some suggestions for avoiding these problems?     

Twenty questions about student errors

Errors in science learning (errors in expression of organized, purposeful thought within the domain of science) provide a window through which glimpses of mental functioning can be obtained. Errors are valuable and normal occurrences in the process of learning science. A student can use his/her errors to develop a deeper understanding of a concept as long as the error can be recognized and appropriate, informative feedback can be obtained. A safe, non-threatening, and nonpunitive environment which encourages dialogue helps students to express their conceptions and to risk making errors. Pedagogical methods that systematically address common student errors produce significant gains in student learning. Just as the nature-nurture interaction is integral to the development of living things, so the individual-environment interaction is basic to thought processes. At a minimum, four systems interact: (1) the individual problem solver (who has a worldview, relatively stable cognitive characteristics, relatively malleable mental states and conditions, and aims or intentions), (2) task to be performed (including relative importance and nature of the task), (3) knowledge domain in which task is contained, and (4) the environment (including orienting conditions and the social and physical context). Several basic assumptions underlie research on errors and alternative conceptions. Among these are: Knowledge and thought involve active, constructive processes; there are many ways to acquire, organize, store, retrieve, and think about a given concept or event; and understanding is achieved by successive approximations. Application of these ideas will require a fundamental change in how science is taught.     

Openness and reciprocity: Indigenous community requirements for hosting university students*

ABSTRACT

Although there is a substantial literature critical of the colonising discourses of higher education in both teaching and learning and research, there has been relatively little commentary about work integrated learning (WIL) from an Indigenous perspective. Currently, the higher education discourse of WIL is dominated by a teaching and learning perspective, which focuses almost entirely on the benefits to the student and/or the educational institution. This leaves the Indigenous community experience invisible and continues to reinforce a neo-colonial relationship between higher education providers and Indigenous people. This article reports the findings of a study undertaken in partnership with the Aboriginal community of Cherbourg in Queensland, Australia, which sought to understand the community experience of students undertaking WIL within Cherbourg. Twenty yarns, undertaken by a research assistant employed from the community, provided the basis for identifying key meanings and requirements of the community in their hosting of higher education students. The recent experience of students by the community was found to be positive with reciprocity, openness and practical benefit over time being central concerns. The study concludes that WIL with Indigenous agencies and communities requires decolonising, temporal and relational frames to be employed in the process of negotiating the purpose and processes of higher education student engagement.     

数字技术支持的教师学习:研究与项目综述(上)

本文在系统回顾教师知识与教师学习本质的基础上,讨论了数字技术与教师学习活动之间的关系,主张将数字技术的效用描述为教师学习中有目的的一组活动,即：知识建构、分布式认知、社群与沟通以及约定,通过对五个技术支持的教师学习的典型案例。分析了数字技术对教师学习的支持作用。最后指出了数字技术支持的教师学习与专业发展之方向。     

Spatial thinking in science,technology, engineering,and mathematics: Elementary teachers' beliefs,perceptions, and self-efficacy

Fostering students' spatial thinking skills holds great promise for improving Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Recent efforts have focused on the development of classroom interventions to build students' spatial skills, yet these interventions will be implemented by teachers, and their beliefs and perceptions about spatial thinking influence the effectiveness of such interventions. However, our understanding of elementary school teachers' beliefs and perceptions around spatial thinking and STEM is in its infancy. Thus, we created novel measures to survey elementary teachers' anxiety in solving spatial problems, beliefs in the importance of spatial thinking skills for students' academic success, and self-efficacy in cultivating students' spatial skills during science instruction. All measures exhibited high internal consistency and showed that elementary teachers experience low anxiety when solving spatial problems and feel strongly that their skills can improve with practice. Teachers were able to identify educational problems that rely on spatial problem-solving and believed that spatial skills are more important for older compared to younger students. Despite reporting high efficacy in their general teaching and science teaching, teachers reported significantly lower efficacy in their capacities to cultivate students' spatial skills during science instruction. Results were fairly consistent across teacher characteristics (e.g., years of experience and teaching role as generalist or specialist) with the exception that only years of teaching science was related to teachers' efficacy in cultivating students' spatial thinking skills during science instruction. Results are discussed within the broader context of teacher beliefs, self-efficacy, and implications for professional development research.     

Recovery Supports for Young People: What Do Existing Supports Reveal About the Recovery Environment?

This article seeks to address how our understanding of the recovery process and resulting supports can be made more comprehensive: How can links from treatment to home to school to communities be made so that there are fewer and fewer recovery gaps for adolescents? Using the ecology of recovery model developed by White (2009) as the impetus for such a review, the article discusses the challenges inherent within adolescent substance abuse recovery, factors impacting successful recovery, and programs addressing this issue that have been empirically studied. Studied programs can be categorized as (a) formalized aftercare recovery and (b) recovery communities, and both examples are described using existing literature. From the review of existing recovery support research and resources, the discussion highlights gaps and future research areas in order to address the complexity of recovery among young people.     

Who disrupts from placement in foster and kinship care?

OBJECTIVE: To identify reliable, inexpensive predictors of foster care placement disruption that could be used to assess risk of placement failure. METHODS: Using the Parent Daily Report Checklist (PDR), foster or kinship parents of 246 children (5-12 years old) in California were interviewed three times about whether or not their foster child engaged in any of the 30 problem behaviors during the previous 24 h. PDR was conducted during telephone contacts (5-10 min each) that occurred from 1 to 3 days apart at baseline. Disruptions were tracked for the subsequent 12 months. Other potential predictors of disruption were examined, including the child's age, gender, and ethnicity, the foster parent's ethnicity, the number of other children in the foster home, and the type of placement (kin or non-kin). RESULTS: Foster/kin parents reported an average of 5.77 child problems per day on the PDR checklist. The number of problem behaviors was linearly related to the child's risk of placement disruption during the subsequent year. The threshold for the number of problem behaviors per day that foster and kinship parents tolerated without increased risk of placement disruption for these latency-aged children was 6 or fewer. Children in non-kin placements were more likely to disrupt than those in kinship placements. There was a trend for increased risk of disruption as the number of children in the home increased. CONCLUSIONS: The PDR Checklist may be useful in predicting which placements are at most risk of future disruption, allowing for targeted services and supports.     

Drivers and barriers to the utilisation of gamification and game-based learning in universities: A systematic review of educators' perspectives

While gamification and game-based learning have both been demonstrated to have a host of educational benefits for university students, many university educators do not routinely use these approaches in their teaching. Therefore, this systematic review, conducted using the PRISMA guidelines, sought to identify the primary drivers and barriers to the use of gamification and game-based learning by university educators. A search of multiple databases (Web of Science, Scopus and EBSCO (Business Source Complete; ERIC; Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts)) identified 1330 articles, with 1096 retained after duplicates were removed. Seventeen articles (11 quantitative, two mixed-methods and four qualitative) were included in the systematic review. The primary drivers described by the educators that positively influenced their gamification and game-based learning usage were their beliefs that it encourages student interactions and collaborative learning; provides fun and improves engagement; and can easily be used by students. Alternatively, the university educators' major barriers included a lack of time to develop gamification approaches, lack of proven benefits and classroom setting issues. Many of these and other less commonly reported drivers and barriers can be categorised as attitudinal, design-related or administrative in nature. Such categorisations may assist university educators, teaching support staff and administrators in better understanding the primary factors influencing the utilisation of gamification and game-based learning and develop more effective strategies to overcome these barriers to its successful implementation.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Gamification and game-based learning may have many benefits for university students.
• The majority of university educators do not routinely use gamification and game-based learning in their teaching.

What this paper adds

• University educators' major drivers that positively influence the use of gamification and game-based learning include their perceptions that it encourages student interactions and collaborative learning, provides fun and improves engagement and can easily be used by students.
• University educators' major barriers that negatively influence the use of gamification and game-based learning include their perceptions of a lack of time to develop gamification approaches, lack of proven benefits and classroom setting issues.
• These drivers and barriers may be classified as attitudinal, design-related and administrative, with these categories providing a useful way for universities to develop strategies to better support educators who wish to use these approaches in their teaching.

Implications for practice and policy

• Attitudinal factors such as university educators' intention to use gamification and game-based learning are influenced by a host of their perceptions including attitude, perceived usefulness and ease of use.
• A range of design-related and administrative barriers may need to be overcome to increase the use of gamification and game-based learning in the university sector.