Levels of use of Interactive Whiteboard technology in the primary mathematics classroom

Despite the availability of Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) technology in a large number of Australian primary schools, many teachers focus only on technical issues as opposed to pedagogical engagement in an attempt to incorporate the technology. Previous research suggests that the technology is being used for sophisticated transmission-style teaching as opposed to constructivist approaches. This article presents findings of a project that considered the implementation of IWB technology in three Victorian primary mathematics classrooms (5 to 12 years of age). The study analysed the teaching strategies adopted by three teachers as they embarked on the use of IWB technology as an integral component of mathematical activities with the support of professional development. Teacher use of IWB technology in the primary mathematics classroom was aligned against Beauchamp’s generic transitional framework for viewing the development of teacher use of IWB technology. Through this alignment, a transitional framework emerged which is specific to the introduction of IWB technology in the mathematics classroom.     

The effects of L1 and orthographic regularity and consistency in naming Chinese characters

The present study examined the influence of the features of Chinese characters, such as frequency, regularity and consistency, on the accuracy with which they were read by two groups of adult Chinese learners. Twenty-two English-speakers and 31 Japanese-speakers studying Chinese at a Taiwanese University read 130 Chinese characters that varied along the dimensions of regularity, consistency, number of strokes and familiarity (frequency with which they appeared in instructional texts). The results suggest that lexical and sub-lexical features, such as regularity and consistency, play an important role in reading Chinese among Chinese language learners. Furthermore, differences between the Japanese- and English-speaking participants suggest that the first language (L1) phonology and writing system may influence Chinese character learning. In addition, the language proficiency of Chinese language learners also influences sensitivity to sublexical features in naming Chinese characters. Finally, Chinese language learners with both L1s follow the same trajectory for developing orthography-to-phonology knowledge reported for native Chinese-speaking children.     

Students as learners through the eyes of their teachers in Rwandan higher education

In this study, we aim to explore and thematically analyze higher education teachers’ notions about the most important problems related to students’ learning, including the teachers’ notions about the approaches to learning adopted by students. The study was carried out in Rwanda with 25 university teachers engaged in group interviews. Inspired by the concepts of metaphors for learning and approaches to learning, five main categories of students’ learning problems were identified: dependence, physical and economic resources, experience of a deep approach to learning, reading culture, and previous preparation for higher education. These problems are interrelated and point to the need to understand study levels in education systems as interdependent.     

Teaching Students to Infer Meaning Through Material Culture

Social studies students can learn to glean historical information from the study of material culture through active engagement as curators. Teachers can guide students through a pre-survey of helpful reading materials and then through selecting items of personal significance to them: creating labels that objectively describe the chosen items as to origin, composition, background, and provenance; exchanging the created sets of file cards; examining the cards received in the exchange; inferring factual information about the owner of the selected items; and sharing deductions with the class. From this exercise, students will have a chance to learn how historians, anthropologists, and other social scientists use critical thinking in their work, how much can be learned from material culture, and how missteps can result from overtheorizing.     

中国环境政策与社会经济影响评估——评估内容与评估框架的思考

开展环境政策社会经济影响评估,分析和评估现有环境政策与环境保护未来需求及社会经济发展的适应性,是完善我国环境政策体系、进一步提升环境保护决策水平、促进绿色发展转型的重要手段之一,是考察评估环境政策在推进生态环境保护工作的同时,协调和支撑社会经济可持续发展的重要依据。基于此,本文对现阶段开展中国环境政策社会经济影响评估的必要性和紧迫性进行了分析,在此基础上,识别总结了包括宏观和微观、经济和社会、时间和空间等多角度的环境政策社会经济影响评估内容,提出了包括评估目的和对象、标准和指标、方式与结果等基本要素的环境政策社会经济影响评估框架,归纳了环境政策评估方法体系的组成与典型方法,这对于推进我国环境政策评估实践具有重要现实意义。     

Early Language Experience in a Tseltal Mayan Village

Daylong at-home audio recordings from 10 Tseltal Mayan children (0;2–3;0; Southern Mexico) were analyzed for how often children engaged in verbal interaction with others and whether their speech environment changed with age, time of day, household size, and number of speakers present. Children were infrequently directly spoken to, with most directed speech coming from adults, and no increase with age. Most directed speech came in the mornings, and interactional peaks contained nearly four times the baseline rate of directed speech. Coarse indicators of children’s language development (babbling, first words, first word combinations) suggest that Tseltal children manage to extract the linguistic information they need despite minimal directed speech. Multiple proposals for how they might do so are discussed.     

The structure of relationally indexed titles and abstracts

Farradane's system of relational indexing has been used to index abstracts in several, mainly scientific subject areas, and provides two-dimensional displays of concepts and explicit relations. Ten of these collections have been examined to compare (a) the use of relations, (b) the use of concept types, (c) the cross sections (or shape) of abstracts, and (d) the properties of “nodes”. Whilst differences between the collections were noted in several instances, there were no obvious correlations between these differences. However, some points arose which could warrant more detailed study with larger collections.     

Development and Evaluation of a Three-Tier Diagnostic Test to Assess Undergraduate Primary Teachers’ Understanding of Ecological Footprint

Research in Science Education - This study focused on the development and validation of a three-tier multiple-choice diagnostic instrument about the ecological footprint. Each question in the...