The Effects of Verbal Mediation Training on the Problem‐Solving Skills of Children with Partial Sight and Children without Visual Impairments

Thirty children with partial sight and 30 children with unimpaired sight aged between 8 and 12 years were randomly assigned to either verbal mediation or visual mediation training regimes. Participants were asked to complete four variations of the Tower of Hanoi puzzle and success on the task was judged on the basis of the number of moves and time taken to complete the puzzles. Children with visual impairments had some difficulty in adjusting to the requirements of the problem‐solving tasks. However, on the final and most difficult of the tasks (a four‐disc problem), the children with impaired sight performed very much like participants without visual impairments. The effect of verbal mediation training was superior to that of visual mediation training in the final trials of the four‐disc problem‐solving period for both children with partial sight and children without visual impairments.     

Molecularly imprinted polymers as the extracted sorbents of clenbuterol ahead of liquid chromatographic determination

A pre-treatment methodology for clenbuterol hydrochloride (CLEN) isolation and enrichment in a complex matrix environment was developed through exploiting molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). CLEN-imprinted polymers were synthesized by the combined use of ally-β-cyclodextrin (ally-β-CD) and methacrylic acid (MAA), allyl-β-CD and acrylonitrile (AN), and allyl-β-CD and methyl methacrylate (MMA) as the binary functional monomers. MAA-linked allyl-β-CD MIPs (M-MAA) were characterized by Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Based upon the results, M-MAA polymers generally proved to be an excellent selective extraction compared to its references: AN-linked allyl-β-CD MIPs (M-AN) and MMA-linked allyl-β-CD MIPs (M-MMA). M-MAA polymers were eventually chosen to run through a molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) micro-column to enrich CLEN residues spiked in pig livers. A high recovery was achieved, ranging from 91.03% to 96.76% with relative standard deviation (RSD) ≤4.45%.     

Minimax optimal control of linear system with input-dependent uncertainty

In this paper, the quadratic minimax optimal control of linear system with input-dependent uncertainty is studied. We show that it admits a unique solution and can be approximated by a sequence of finite-dimensional minimax optimal parameter selection problems. These finite-dimensional minimax optimal parameter selection problems are further reduced to scalar optimization problems which also admit unique solutions. Thus, the original minimax optimal control problem is solved via solving a sequence of simple scalar optimization problems. Numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the developed method.     

Understanding the Language Demands on Science Students from an Integrated Science and Language Perspective

This case study of a science lesson, on the topic thermal expansion, examines the language demands on students from an integrated science and language perspective. The data were generated during a sequence of 9 lessons on the topic of ‘States of Matter’ in a Grade 7 classroom (12–13 years old students). We identify the language demands by comparing students' writings with the scientific account of expansion that the teacher intended the students to learn. The comparison involved both content analysis and lexicogrammatical (LG) analysis. The framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics was adopted for the LG analysis. Our analysis reveals differences in the meaning and the way LG resources were employed between the students' writings and the scientific account. From these differences, we found the notion of condition-of-use for LG resources to be a significant aspect of the language that students need to appropriate in order to employ the language of school science appropriately. This notion potentially provides a means by which teachers could concurrently address the conceptual and representational demands of science learning. Finally, we reflect on how the complementary use of content analysis and LG analysis provides a way for integrating the science and language perspectives in order to understand the demands of learning science through language.     

Parental perspectives and challenges in inclusive education in Singapore

Relatively little work has focused on inclusive education in Singapore. This study examines the experiences and perceptions of parents whose children with disabilities are attending mainstream secondary schools in Singapore. Data was drawn from interviews with 13 parents of children with mild disabilities. Our findings reveal that parental perspective on inclusive education in Singapore is not only about classroom support but also reflects a deeper concern about whether their children with disabilities will emerge from school as contributing individuals in society. While parents strive to effectively include their children with disabilities in mainstream classrooms, there were dichotomies in their (1) understanding of disabilities, (2) expectations of school support, and (3) expectations for their child with disabilities. Given that academic and social prowess is a critical prerequisite to have a shot at entering the meritocratic Singapore society, the tension parents experience is to gauge a reasonable amount of pressure to exert on their children, the school and themselves as they assert their children's educational entitlements within an imperfect but evolving state of inclusion.     

Sensitivity of School-Performance Ratings to Scaling Decisions

Policymakers usually leave decisions about scaling the scores used for accountability to their appointed technical advisory committees and the testing contractors. However, scaling decisions can have an appreciable impact on school ratings. Using middle-school data from New York State, we examined the consistency of school ratings based on two scaling approaches that differed in scaling decisions that are important in high-stakes testing contexts. We found that, depending on subject, grade, and year, a switch in scaling approach led to (1) average absolute shifts in ranks of between 50 and 132 positions (median = 69), which are appreciable shifts for a listing of 1,243 schools; and (2) between 7% and 45% (average = 20%) of schools experiencing shifts in assigned performance bands, depending on the classification scheme. Further, the effect of scaling approach was larger when the raw-score distribution has more severe ceiling effect, and in these cases, it was driven primarily by the difference in the location of the highest obtainable scale score from the two scaling approaches.     

Charge It! Translating Electric Vehicle Research Results to Engage 7th and 8th Grade Girls

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Despite attempts to generate interest in science and technology careers, US students continue to show reduced interest in science, technology,...     

Elementary Teachers’ Perception of Language Issues in Science Classrooms

Although the importance of language in science learning has been widely recognized by researchers, there is limited research on how science teachers perceive the roles that language plays in science classrooms. As part of an intervention design project that aimed to enhance teachers’ capacity to address the language demands of science, interview data (N = 9) were collected to understand teachers’ perceptions and experiences with a wide range of issues related to language use in science classrooms. Adopting an interpretive approach to qualitative data, the analysis revealed that the teachers perceive a wide range of student difficulties related to language use in science classrooms, especially to the use of specialized terms and writing. Although the teachers are keenly aware of how language can be a barrier to learning science, they are less certain as to what students need to know about the language of science in order to master it. The findings suggested professional support that highlights the distinctive language demands of science and how these demands differ from other subject areas could be useful to these elementary school teachers.     

The views of Pasifika students in New Zealand about communicating mathematically

This paper focuses on the perspectives of Years 7 and 8 Pasifika students on mathematics learning, in particular their views about the communication of solution strategies with others (their peers), and their teacher. Pasifika students' ideas about the importance of communicating their mathematical reasoning and strategies to peers and teachers were analysed and themes identified. While most students were in agreement about the importance of explaining their thinking to others, there was considerable variation in the reasons they gave for their views. The findings are interpreted in relation to socio-cultural theory and recent writing about requirements for citizenship in the twenty-first century.