Benefits of Playing Numerical Card Games on Head Start Children’s Mathematical Skills

Abstract

Low-income preschoolers have lower average performance on measures of early numerical skills than middle-income children. The present study examined the effectiveness of numerical card games in improving children’s numerical and executive functioning skills. Low-income preschoolers (N?=?76) were randomly assigned to play a numerical magnitude comparison card game, a numerical memory and matching card game, or a shape and color matching card game across four 15-minute sessions. Children who played either of the numerical games improved their numeral identification skills, while only children who played the numerical magnitude comparison game improved their symbolic magnitude comparison skills. These improvements were maintained eight weeks later. The results suggest that a brief, low-cost intervention can successfully improve the numerical skills of low-income children.     

Supporting Online AP Students: The Rural Facilitator and Considerations for Training

Online courses supplemented by on-site facilitators help many rural students pursue advanced coursework, but research is warranted to better understand facilitator role and training needs. This study examined facilitation experiences, demographic characteristics, and professional development activities of rural on-site facilitators associated with an online Advanced Placement (AP) program. Themes in qualitative data collected aligned with challenges related to facilitator role that have been documented in existing literature. One theme included facilitator engagement in direct AP instruction despite the facilitator role not requiring that responsibility. Self-reported facilitator demographic characteristics and professional development activities were then compared with those of on-site AP teachers in the same state. Results showed that facilitators demographically resembled teachers but lacked similar engagement with AP professional development. The role of facilitator excludes direct instruction, but specialized professional development like that for AP may match the needs and interests of these facilitators.     

C2STEM: a System for Synergistic Learning of Physics and Computational Thinking

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Synergistic learning combining computational thinking (CT) and STEM has proven to be an effective method for advancing learning and understanding in a...     

The Phenomena of Collaborative Practice: the Impact of Interprofessional Education

A qualitative phenomenological inquiry was utilized in this exploratory study to investigate the impact of interprofessional education on the development of collaborative practice for five participants training to be professional clinical mental health counselors and eight students training to be speech language pathologists. Global implications for counselor training, interprofessional education, collaborative practice, and future research are provided.     

Refugee-Teacher-Train-Refugee-Teacher Intervention Research in Malaysia: Promoting Classroom Management and Teacher Self-Care

ABSTRACT

Given the current refugee crisis, the development of sustainable postconflict refugee education systems and supports is essential. The present study reports Resilient Refugee Education (RRE) intervention effects on refugee teacher confidence and knowledge of classroom management, in addition to refugee teacher self-care in Malaysia. We compared effects on (a) peer trainers, who were refugee teachers trained by consultants (n = 38), and (b) peer trainees, who were refugee teachers trained by peer trainers (n = 78). The sample included teachers who were refugees (n = 97; mean age = 30; 78% Burmese) and nonrefugees (n = 19; mean age = 48; 44% Chinese-Malaysian). Significant effects on teacher knowledge, confidence, and self-care were found for both trainers and trainees, including interactions with gender and education. Implications for sustainable promotion of the emotional context in refugee education are discussed.     

The development of trust in residential environmental education programs

Trust, a relational phenomenon that is an important building block of interpersonal relationships and within society, can also be an intermediary outcome of field-based environmental education programs. Trust creates a foundation for collaboration and decision-making, which are core to many ultimate outcomes of environmental education. Yet, understanding how trust develops among environmental education program participants is still nascent, partly because few methods exist for measuring trust in informal contexts, such as those that are common for many environmental education programs. Our study used social network analysis and qualitative data from focus groups, questionnaires, and participant observation to investigate the development of trust among residential environmental education program participants in two school groups, some of whom had initial familiarity with each other. Network data indicated differential increases in peer-to-peer trust among group members when measured at the individual level. Qualitative data from the focus groups highlighted salient dimensions of trust that were particularly relevant in this setting, including friendship, emotional and physical safety, and self-disclosure; reciprocal trust among peers and educators; and aspects of this immersive setting that fostered trust among the participants.     

Predicting Graduation Rates at 4-year Broad Access Institutions Using a Bayesian Modeling Approach

This study models graduation rates at 4-year broad access institutions (BAIs). We examine the student body, structural-demographic, and financial characteristics that best predict 6-year graduation rates across two time periods (2008–2009 and 2014–2015). A Bayesian model averaging approach is utilized to account for uncertainty in variable selection in modeling graduation rates. Evidence suggests that graduation rates can be predicted by religious affiliation, proportion of students enrolled full-time, socioeconomic status of the student body, enrollment size and institutional revenue and expenditures. Findings also demonstrate that relatively fewer variables predict institutional graduation rates for Latina/o and African American students at 4-year BAIs. We conclude with implications for policy and key recommendations for research focused on 4-year BAIs.     

Reasoning in Young Children: Fantasy and Information Retrieval

The present article examines 2 predictions concerning conditional reasoning in children derived from Markovits's model of conditional reasoning. The first claims that children under 12 years of age should be able to respond correctly to uncertain logical forms if the premises and context enable them to access pertinent counterexamples from memory. The second concerns the effect of reasoning in a fantasy context. Previous studies have established that young children can correctly respond to certain reasoning problems with empirically false premises when these are presented in a fantasy context. However, this model of reasoning predicts that presenting empirically true premises in a fantasy context should decrease performance on the 2 uncertain logical forms. In Study 1, a total of 48 8-year-olds, 78 10-year-olds, and 74 12-year-olds were given 4 reasoning problems involving familiar premises. These problems were embedded in either a fantasy or a realistic context and presented via video tape. Results were consistent with the predictions made. Study 2 attempted to determine whether these results could be due to context or problem formulation. A total of 40 7-year-olds and 46 8-year-olds were given reasoning problems with either no context or with a visual image preceding the problems. Results showed that children did equally well in these conditions, and that providing an image did not improve performance.     

Seeking Emergence Through Temporal Analysis of Collaborative-Group Discourse: A Complex-Systems Approach

Abstract

Research around problem solving in collaborative groups has made progress, but several conceptual and methodological issues remain. These issues include the appropriate choices of units of analysis; the ability of current theoretical sets of macrocognition codes to capture group dynamics; detection and identification of potentially emergent phenomena within groups; and the extent to which multiple dynamics are integral to understanding groups. Using data from a complex engineering challenge, we applied methods drawn from complex-systems analysis to offer insight into each of these issues, showing the need for multiple dimensions when studying group dynamics and highlighting methodological difficulties when dealing with emergent phenomena. We suggest future research to improve the understanding of the complex dynamics of collaborative groups.     

Educating force multipliers: constructing terrorism in a US public high school

ABSTRACT

This article ethnographically explores a specialized Homeland Security program at a US public high school, paying careful attention to the program’s discursive constructions of terrorism and national security. In particular, this analysis examines how the Homeland Security program framed its study of national security as both anti-racist and objective. I contend that the invocation of anti-racism and objectivity can advance Orientalist discourses in the classroom. Critical education scholars need to address how teachers and students rely on liberal precepts like anti-racism to maintain dominant understandings of war, terror, and security.