Reading and summarizing challenging texts in first and second languages

The thinking processes of 14 adult Anglophone students of French performing challenging reading and summarizing tasks were compared in their first and second languages. Individuals proved to use equivalent proportions of higher-order problem solving strategies while writing and reading in both languages. These varied with people's levels of literate expertise in their mother tongue, correlating with the qualities of written summaries they produced in both languages. Uses of these problem solving strategies appeared unrelated to participants' levels (beginning and intermediate) of second language proficiency. Analyses of the verbal reports reveal thinking processes which are common to reading and summary writing in first and second languages but which appear to vary with people's literate expertise and relevant knowledge. Findings are interpreted in relation to Cummins' (1984) theories of the cross-linguistic interdependence of cognitive-academic skills and Van Dijk and Kintsch's (1983) model of discourse comprehension. Implications are drawn for theories of bilingual cognition, further research, and instruction in second language reading and writing.     

Formative Interventions for Expansive Learning and Transformative Agency

This article examines formative interventions as we understand them in cultural-historical activity theory and reflects on key differences between this intervention research tradition and design-based research as it is conceived in the learning sciences tradition. Three projects, including 2 Change Laboratories, are analyzed with the help of conceptual lenses derived from basic epistemological principles for intervention research in activity theory. In all 3 interventions, learners expansively transformed the object of their activity. The Change Laboratory cases, however, show that this learning process included productive deviations from the researchers’ instructional intentions, leading to significant outcomes, both practical and theoretical, that were not anticipated by the interventionists. Together these cases illustrate that an activity-theoretical formative intervention approach differs from design-based research in the following ways: (a) formative interventions are based on design done by the learners; (b) the collective design effort is seen as part of an expansive learning process including participatory analyses and implementation phases; (c) rather than aiming at transferable and scalable solutions, formative interventions aim at generative solutions developing over lengthy periods of time both in the researched activities and in the research community.     

Instructional systems development in the schools

The authors of this commentary take exception to several points made in an article that appeared in the most recent issue of this journal (ETR&D, Vol. 38, No. 2). Following this explanation of their concerns is a reply by the authors of the original article.     

Exploring employee perceptions of Six Sigma as a change management program in higher education

Change initiatives in higher education are frequently guided by an institutional change management program which provides employees with a framework and set of skills to better understand problems and facilitate change at the organisational level. In this paper, we explore employee perceptions of Six Sigma as a tool for facilitating change at one public institution of higher education in the southeast United States. Unlike previous research studies that focused on specific results of change initiatives using Six Sigma, our research team considered how individuals, trained in the implementation of Six Sigma techniques and strategies, viewed the potential of the Six Sigma model to enact and sustain change initiatives in a higher education setting. In this case study, we describe Six Sigma as a change management program in higher education based on Lewin’s Three-Phase Model of Change.     

The Use of Film in Marriage and Family Counselor Education

The authors introduce an innovative technique that can be included in marriage and family counselor education curricula. Feature films are discussed as an educational technique for the instruction and development of perceptual, conceptual, and executive counseling skills. They also outline the advantages for using film in counselor education, present various strategies for using them in the classroom, and offer examples of how they have integrated movies into introductory marriage and family courses.     

数字技术支持的教师学习:研究与项目综述(下)

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。     

Gender differences in reading performance on documents across countries

Females are known to excel over males in most reading tasks, but notconsistently so in tasks that require processing information from maps,tables, charts and diagrams, so called `Documents'. The IEA ReadingLiteracy data provides possibilities to investigate gender differencesacross countries in such tasks in two age groups, 9-year-olds and14-year-olds. The general question about cultural influences vs. aninvariant pattern of gender differences is of great interest for genderresearch, and central in this study. The aim of the paper is to describeand analyze gender differences on Document tasks, and investigate if andhow the pattern of differences varies over countries. Another aim is todemonstrate the power of using a multivariate analysis technique bycontrasting it against traditional univariate approaches. The univariateanalysis indicates female advantage as the most common in the youngergroup and a mixed pattern in the older. The multivariate analysisindicate that Document tasks are not unidimensional, because bothgeneral and specific dimensions can be extracted from the raw scores.The traditional univariate analysis often disguised true patterns ofdifferences in the data, both in terms of country differences and interms of the direction of the gender differences. Raw score differencesbetween the genders proved to be due to differences in both general andpassage specific dimensions. Ten of the countries showed genderdifferences in both directions in the general dimension among9-year-olds, while an almost consistent pattern of female advantage wasfound among 14-years-olds. Many of the specific passage dimensionsturned out to favor either males or females. This complex pattern variedover both age groups and across countries, although commonalities in thepattern among subgroups of countries were common.     

Consultation and Collaboration to Develop and Implement Restorative Practices in a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Elementary School

ABSTRACT

Through an embedded single-case study design and qualitative methods, this article describes the school-wide implementation and preliminary results of a restorative practices (RP) program within a culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) elementary school. Located in an urban area with high rates of crime, violence, and poverty, the three-year multisystemic project brought school psychology knowledge and skills to (a) use multicultural consultation and participatory methods to introduce, adapt, and support RP in a CLD school, (b) present findings related to teachers, parents, students, and school climate, and (c) increase youth, parent, and community engagement and voice. The authors developed a comprehensive, culturally relevant model through an interdisciplinary school-university-community partnership. They used multicultural consultee-centered consultation, including bilingual/bicultural practices and cultural brokers, and participatory culture-specific intervention methods to collaboratively design, implement, and evaluate outcomes for students, parents, teachers, and others.     

Humanoid robots go to school

Education and Information Technologies - Humanoid robots are being used in some schools, however, research on the use of these robots is relatively new. In this three-year study, humanoid robots...