Feedback complexity and corrective efficiency

College undergraduates read a 2400-word passage, responded to 16 multiple-choice questions, and received one of four types of feedback following their responses. Complexity of feedback was inversely related to both error correctability and criterion efficiency taken as a ratio of feedback study time to post-test corrects. The results were discussed in terms of depth of processing and instructional comprehension.     

Refuting Myths,Making Electronic Links with the World: writing in secondary schools in the Eastern Province,South Africa

Older pedagogies that separate learning English in South African schools into LI and L2 inevitably bring in their train judgements of ESL achievements as relatively fixed in quality and as less good in kind than those of L1 users. New curriculum emphases on the dynamic creativity of human language‐learning potential entail more positive and success‐oriented criteria for assessing additional language learning. Electronic links with students in Canberra, Australia and with a Californian Professor of Writing showed Standard 7 students from the Eastern Province as already competent in writing communicatively in English. However, disabling myths still threaten to impede progress towards equity of educational outcomes in South Africa.     

Considering the Role of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices Research in Transforming Urban Classrooms

We explore the first four articles in this Special Issue of Studying Teacher Education to identify challenges to the self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (S-STEP) methodology, and how this methodology supports the work of teachers and teacher educators working in urban settings. We respond to these articles by identifying strategies and tools that might be used by S-STEP researchers to strengthen the presentation of their work and to explore the challenges to transforming classrooms using this methodology.