Writing Assignments with a Metacognitive Component Enhance Learning in a Large Introductory Biology Course

Writing assignments, including note taking and written recall, should enhance retention of knowledge, whereas analytical writing tasks with metacognitive aspects should enhance higher-order thinking. In this study, we assessed how certain writing-intensive “interventions,” such as written exam corrections and peer-reviewed writing assignments using Calibrated Peer Review and including a metacognitive component, improve student learning. We designed and tested the possible benefits of these approaches using control and experimental variables across and between our three-section introductory biology course. Based on assessment, students who corrected exam questions showed significant improvement on postexam assessment compared with their nonparticipating peers. Differences were also observed between students participating in written and discussion-based exercises. Students with low ACT scores benefited equally from written and discussion-based exam corrections, whereas students with midrange to high ACT scores benefited more from written than discussion-based exam corrections. Students scored higher on topics learned via peer-reviewed writing assignments relative to learning in an active classroom discussion or traditional lecture. However, students with low ACT scores (17–23) did not show the same benefit from peer-reviewed written essays as the other students. These changes offer significant student learning benefits with minimal additional effort by the instructors.     

Influence of mothers' education on children's maths achievement in Kenya

Research shows that fathers' level of education predicts achievement of both boys and girls, with significantly greater effect for boys. Similarly, mothers' level of education predicts the achievement of girls but not boys. This study tests the mother–child education achievement hypothesis, by examining the effect of mothers' education on the maths test score of children, using data from 71 schools across 6 districts in Kenya. The findings of a multilevel random intercept model, based on a sample of 1907 learners reveal surprisingly negative effect of mothers' education on pupil's achievement, with an interaction effect of mother's and father's education being positive.     

‘To provide for the edifice of learning’: Researching 450 Years of Jesuit Educational and Cultural History,with Particular Reference to the British Jesuits 1

Jesuit education provided the first rigorous educational ‘system’ in the Western world from the 1540s onwards. By 1773 more than 700 Jesuit colleges and universities educating some 250,000 students worldwide constituted the largest educational network in existence up to that time. At the present day, in 68 countries worldwide, the Society of Jesus is responsible for 848 educational institutions serving an estimated 2.5 million lay students. This article examines the extensive historiography of Jesuit education and the educational archives that the Society of Jesus has generated since 1540. Particular attention is paid to the foundational Ratio Studiorum of 1599, a key educational document drawing on earlier traditions, and a source of later reformulations and scholarship in many parts of the world. The scope of Jesuit archives around the globe is examined and an assessment made of their significance for educational and cultural historians.

There are few religious institutions in the Roman Catholic Church that have aroused more fascination, during its four and a half centuries of existence, than the Society of Jesus, few that have inspired such curiosity and misunderstanding, such attraction and repulsion. ^{2 2} Woodrow, Alain. The Jesuits: A Story of Power. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1995: 10.      

Journalism and Mass Media

1977 Newspaper Edition (the publication will appear quarterly—apparently covering a different medium each issue, 342 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017— available without charge to key personnel concerned with media decisions at agencies and clients, $18.00 per copy to others)

1977 City and Regional Magazine Directory (Conference Management Corp., 500 Summer St., Stamford, Ct. 06901—$19.95, paper)

Washington Journalism Review (WJR, 3122 M St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20007—$16.00 per year/12 issues, with single copies at $2.00)

Maurice Rickards' This is Ephemera: Collecting Printed Throwaways (Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1977—$7.00/3.9)

Prakash Sethi's Advocacy Advertising and Large Corporations: Social Conflict, Big Business Image, the News Media, and Public Policy (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books [D.C. Heath] , 1977—$25.00)     

Books of the Month

Maurice Horn (ed.) The World Encyclopedia of Comics (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1976—$30.00 for trade edition; $42.50 for augmented library edition

Anthony Rhodes Propaganda: The Art of Persuasion, World War II (New York: Chelsea House, 1976— $30.00     

Music and Popular Culture

Gaye Tuchman, Arlene Kaplan Daniels, and James Benet, eds. Hearth and Home: Ima9es of llomen in the Mass Media (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978—no price given, but available in hardback and paperback)

Maurice Horn's Women in the Comics (New York: Chelsea House, 1977—$15.00)

Charles K. Wolfe's Tennessee Strings: The Story of Country Music in Tennessee (Knoxville, Yniversity of Tennessee Press, 1977—$3.50, paper)

Anthony Hopkins' Downbeat Music Guide (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977—$4.95)

Peter L. Skolnik's Fads: America's Crazes, Fevers & Fancies From the 1890s to the 1970s (New York: Crowell, 1978—$9.95)     

Nature's Nature: ideas of nature in curricula for environmental education

Two contrasting sets of ideas about nature in environmental education are described. An analytical framework is developed from inter‐disciplinary histories of ideas and used in evaluating a specific curriculum. In conclusion, some general implications are suggested for curricula in environmental education.     

The effect of marker placement around the elbow on calculated elbow extension during bowling in cricket

The elbow extension angle during bowling in cricket may be calculated from the positions of markers attached around the shoulder, elbow and wrist using an automated laboratory-based motion analysis system. The effects of two elbow-marker sets were compared. In the first, a pair of markers was placed medially and laterally close to the condyles while in the second a triad of markers was placed on the back of the upper arm close to the elbow. The root mean square (RMS) difference in elbow extension angle between the two methods at four key instants was 8° for 12 fast bowlers and 4° for 12 spin bowlers. When evaluated against video estimates of the elbow extension angle for the fast bowlers, the elbow extension angle calculated using the pair method had an RMS error of 2° while the triad method had an RMS error of 8°. The corresponding errors for the spin bowlers were 3° and 5°, respectively. It is thought that the greater errors associated with the triad is a consequence of soft tissue movement in this dynamic activity. This is consistent with the finding of greater error for the fast bowlers compared with the spin bowlers.