Using Formative & Summative Assessment to Evaluate Library Instruction in an Online First Year Writing Course

Ensuring quality library instruction in an online-exclusive First Year Writing (FYW) course is important and challenging. Assessing what the students learned and how is equally important. The authors collaborate and co-teach the information literacy portion of an online-exclusive second semester FYW course at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. To teach information literacy skills, the authors developed tutorial videos, worksheets, and a Librarian AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussion forum for the students. The authors completed formative and summative assessments to measure the efficacy of the activities. This article explores their assessment, findings, and recommendations.     

Cohesive harmony in the written stories of elementary children

The use of cohesion in the written stories of normally developing and language-learning disabled elementary children was studied using Cohesive Harmony Analysis. The proportion of words in chains (cohesive density) and chain interaction (cohesive harmony) was consistent across the elementary years. However, children with language-learning disabilities evidenced significantly less cohesive density and cohesive harmony, and they included significantly fewer characters and fewer types of verbal processes in their stories. Educational implications are discussed.     

RESCUR Surfing the Waves: an evaluation of a resilience programme in the early years

ABSTRACT

RESCUR Surfing the Waves is a recently developed resilience curriculum for early years and primary schools in Europe. It seeks to develop in marginalized young learners the requisite competences needed to overcome the various challenges in their lives to achieve academic success and social and emotional wellbeing. The competences include developing a growth mindset, making use of one’s strengths, self-determination, effective communication skills and healthy relationships, and overcoming challenges and obstacles. This paper presents the findings of a study on the implementation of the programme in five kindergarten centres in Malta over a 1-year period. A pre- and post-intervention study in 20 classrooms (97 children) showed an improvement in resilience skills, prosocial behavior and learning engagement, but not in internalized and externalized problem behaviors. A small scale study in two nurture classes at two of the schools found similar findings. The findings suggest that there are indications that the programme as a proportionate universal intervention for early years leads to an improvement in social and academic behaviours, but more rigorous research is needed to substantiate these findings.     

Decision making: Influence of features and presentation mode upon generation of alternatives

Decision making can be defined as the process of making reasoned choices among alternatives based upon judgments consistent with the values of the decision maker. Models describing decision making generally include: identification of the problem, collection of relevant information, generation of alternatives, identification of consequences of alternatives, and selection of alternatives. This research focuses on the ability of children to generate alternatives in decision-making tasks. The problem was to determine the differential effects of the number of features of a decision-making situation in interview and computer-simulation modes on the number of alternatives children generate. The study involved 208 children with equal numbers of 2nd and 4th grade boys and girls. Each child responded to three decision-making situations either in an interview or computer-simulation mode. The three situations varied on the number of features of the award objects. An increase in the number of features (color) of the award objects (jelly beans) in a decision-making situation increased the number of alternatives generated. The children in this study generated more alternatives in the interview setting than with the computer simulation.     

Peer-led focus groups as ‘dialogic spaces’ for exploring young people’s evolving values

ABSTRACT

Although peer-led focus groups are widely used in research with children and young people, surprisingly little has been written that evaluates their methodological appropriateness. Drawing on data from 10 peer-led focus group sessions across 5 international schools, this article demonstrates how focus group discussions around moral and social values, which become more meaningful though the self-reflection provoked in encounters with different experiences and perspectives, can be advantageous for research. Peer-moderators, as both participants and facilitators, run focus groups that open dialogic spaces for exploratory talk that avoids the self-censure and deference that can emerge in the presence of an adult moderator. This is particularly important when participants are structurally disadvantaged and lack similar spaces for collaborative inquiry into their shared experiences. Video capture allows researchers in-depth access to these focus groups after the event, revealing evidentially and pedagogically rich dialogues.     

Determining the influence of the social versus physical context on environmentally responsible behaviour among cycling spectators

The paper explores the relationships between three factors and environmentally responsible behavioural intentions among cycling spectators: place attachment, subculture identification and subjective norms. Two categories of behavioural intentions are presented namely situational (while spectating) and future (before attending similar events). Analysis of covariance is used to test the relationships in a sample of 619 spectators from both road race and mountain bike events. The paper supports previous research highlighting the importance of the social dimension of sport spectating and the link to social norms that drive environmental behaviour. It also adds to existing research on place attachment as a precursor to environmentally responsible behaviour with reference to sport spectating.     

Peer coach during field experiences: cultivating teacher candidates’ peer feedback and reflective practices

ABSTRACT

Designing field embedded experiences for teacher candidates poses a unique challenge for large teacher education programs. Field experiences must include working with students, enhanced pedagogical coaching, and interaction within a professional community. Coursework coupled with field work should engage teacher candidates in a process of planning, implementing, analyzing and reflecting, and then modifying future teaching as evidence of reflective practice. Skilled coaching by the university based teacher educator or classroom mentor is one avenue for teaching novice educators how to analyze their classroom experiences. However, in large teacher education programs the ratio of candidates to UBTEs can make adequate coaching impossible. Thus, peer coaching can provide a feasible option for UBTE coaching. The purpose of this article is to describe the peer coaching experiences of teacher candidates and their university based teacher educators during junior level clinical block courses focused on developmentally appropriate practices for students in grades 1-3. Presented are a discussion of reflective practice, a rationale for peer coaching, and the application of peer coaching within three early childhood and elementary courses. Recommendations and challenges of peer coaching in a clinical pre-service teacher education program and implications for further studies are explored in the closing.