A case study comparing the influence of LED and fluorescent lighting on early childhood student engagement in a classroom setting

Studies suggest that the learning environment can act as a third teacher in contributing towards student academic success. A variable within the physical learning environment that has received little attention in the literature is the interior lighting. Because of budget constraints and age, most American public school classrooms have fluorescent lighting fixtures installed. A new lighting technology, Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), is becoming popular in commercial facilities across the United States because of energy efficiency. Previous research has demonstrated that lighting influences adult worker productivity and mood in a workplace. However, because children process stimuli faster, it is unknown whether LED lighting would have the same influence in a learning environment. Researchers hypothesise that students display more engaged behaviours in classrooms lit with LEDs as compared with fluorescent lighting fixtures. The current study tested this hypothesis by observing child engagement behaviours in a pre-K classroom under LED lighting and fluorescent lighting fixtures to compare differences. Students displayed more engaged behaviours under the LED lighting condition.

     

An Extra Radiator? Teachers’ Views of Support Teaching and Withdrawal in Developing the English of Bilingual Pupils

Summary This article, based on a series of semi‐structured interviews, explores the attitudes of a group of secondary school teachers towards withdrawal and mainstream support as ways of helping bilingual pupils develop their competence in English. The teachers interviewed were well aware of the value of support teaching and argued in favour of it on social and pedagogic grounds consonant with a series of reports from Bullock to Cox. On the other hand, they also saw merit in withdrawal, which they felt provided a secure working environment for pupils, especially beginning bilinguals, offered a good opportunity for follow‐up of mainstream lessons and allowed for specific language development activities more easily than mainstream support. Most worryingly, the teachers felt that support teaching in their own schools was hampered by poor organisation, unhelpful attitudes on the part of some colleagues and a general lack of status for teachers of English as a second language.     

Machine behaviourism: future visions of ‘learnification’ and ‘datafication’ across humans and digital technologies

ABSTRACT

This paper examines visions of ‘learning’ across humans and machines in a near-future of intensive data analytics. Building upon the concept of ‘learnification’, practices of ‘learning’ in emerging big data-driven environments are discussed in two significant ways: the training of machines, and the nudging of human decisions through digital choice architectures. Firstly, ‘machine learning’ is discussed as an important example of how data-driven technologies are beginning to influence educational activity, both through sophisticated technical expertise and a grounding in behavioural psychology. Secondly, we explore how educational software design informed by behavioural economics is increasingly intended to frame learner choices to influence and ‘nudge’ decisions towards optimal outcomes. Through the growing influence of ‘data science’ on education, behaviourist psychology is increasingly and powerfully invested in future educational practices. Finally, it is argued that future education may tend toward very specific forms of behavioural governance – a ‘machine behaviourism’ – entailing combinations of radical behaviourist theories and machine learning systems, that appear to work against notions of student autonomy and participation, seeking to intervene in educational conduct and shaping learner behaviour towards predefined aims.     

Administering Spatial and Cognitive Instruments In-class and On-line: Are These Equivalent?

Standardized, well-established paper-and-pencil tests, which measure spatial abilities or which measure reasoning abilities, have long been found to be predictive of success in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. Instructors can use these tests for prediction of success and to inform instruction. A comparative administration of spatial visualization and cognitive reasoning tests, between in-class (proctored paper and pencil) and on-line (unproctored Internet) (N = 457), was used to investigate and to determine whether the differing instrument formats yielded equal measures of spatial ability and reasoning ability in large first-semester general chemistry sections. Although some gender differences were found, findings suggest that some differences across administration formats, but that on-line administration had similar properties of predicting chemistry performance as the in-class version. Therefore, on-line administration is a viable option for instructors to consider especially when dealing with large classes.     

SodaConstructing knowledge through exploratoids

In this article, we describe a preliminary study that integrates research on engineering design activities for K‐12 students with work on microworlds as learning tools. Here, we extend these bodies of research by exploring whether—and how—authentic recreations of engineering practices can help students develop conceptual understanding of physics. We focus on the design–build–test (DBT) cycle used by professional engineers in simulation‐based rapid modeling. In this experiment, middle‐school students worked for 10 hr during a single weekend to solve engineering design challenges using SodaConstructor, a Java‐based microworld, as a simulation environment. As a result of the experiment, students learned about center of mass. Our data further suggest that in the process of simulation‐based modeling, rapid iterations of the DBT cycle progressively linked students' interest in the design activities and understanding of the concept of center of mass. We suggest that these rapid iterations of the DBT cycle functioned as exploratoids: short fragments of exploratory action in a microworld that cumulatively develop interest in and understanding of important scientific concepts. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach     

Beyond the Total Score: A Preliminary Investigation into the Types of Phonological Awareness Errors Made by First Graders

Current phonological awareness assessment procedures consider only the total score a child achieves. Such an approach may result in children who achieve the same total score receiving the same instruction even though the configuration of their errors represent fundamental knowledge differences. The purpose of this study was to develop a tool for phonological awareness error classification and explore the types of errors made by 215 grade one children from low socioeconomic backgrounds on a phonological awareness test. Twenty-one distinct errors were identified and classified into eight categories. The most frequently occurring error category was Additions followed by Segmentations, Substitutions, Insertions, Repetitions, Omissions, Reversals, and Multiple Errors. Examination of a subsample of study participants who were classified as high and low reading performers revealed differences in the both the degree and type of errors exhibited. Low reading performers exhibited significantly more Insertion, Omission, Segmentation, and Substitution errors. Knowledge of child errors has the potential to enhance understanding and interpretation of child test performance and subsequent instructional recommendations.