Training Students to Use Maps to Increase Text Recall

In this study, high school students were trained to use adjunct maps strategically while studying a History text. Subjects were randomly assigned to either a control or map training group which read a lengthy passage which was accompanied by three maps. The control group was instructed to study the materials and write an essay about them. The map training group was instructed to study the materials and to place important event information from the text on their maps; they also discussed how their maps could be used to help them remember the text. One week later multiple choice, probed recall, free recall, and map recall tests were administered. Three weeks after training both groups read a transfer text and were instructed to use the attached map to help them remember the information. Free recalls were gathered after a short delay. Results showed that map training subjects obtained higher scores on all of the training text recall measures and on the main idea level transfer text measures. High ability map training subjects also recalled more details. Maps used in the transfer task showed trained subjects using the strategies they had been taught.     

The Effects of Classwide Self-Assessment on Preschool Children's Engagement in Transition, Free Play and Small Group Instruction

The effectiveness of using a group self-management procedure to increase the on-task behavior of four disruptive preschool boys was studied using a reversal design combined with a multiple baseline across settings design. Measures of child and teacher behavior were obtained through direct observation during free play, transition, and small group instruction activities. The classwide procedure, which included self-assessment by the students, matching the assessments with the teacher, and reinforcement based on a match between teacher and child ratings, was conducted by teachers in two classrooms located at a Head Start center in a large urban area. Results suggest that use of the procedure improved on-task behavior of the target students and decreased off-task and competing behavior. For the teachers, use of a group approach to self-management served the dual purpose of addressing individual student needs while promoting independent and responsible behavior for all members of the class.     

Exercise and Children’s Intelligence, Cognition, and Academic Achievement

Studies that examine the effects of exercise on children’s intelligence, cognition, or academic achievement were reviewed and results were discussed in light of (a) contemporary cognitive theory development directed toward exercise, (b) recent research demonstrating the salutary effects of exercise on adults’ cognitive functioning, and (c) studies conducted with animals that have linked physical activity to changes in neurological development and behavior. Similar to adults, exercise facilitates children’s executive function (i.e., processes required to select, organize, and properly initiate goal-directed actions). Exercise may prove to be a simple, yet important, method of enhancing those aspects of children’s mental functioning central to cognitive development.

Postcritical knowledge ecology in the Anthropocene

The always vexed relationships between philosophy, theory, methodology, empirical work and their representations and legitimations have been thrown into chaos with the belated acknowledgement of the Anthropocene. Unsurprisingly, traditional Western thought may have been complicit, given its underlying anthropocentric assumptions and humanist commitments in education philosophy, theory and practice. The postcritical knowledge ecology developed here is applied to both a modest and responsible form of methodological inquiry in an ethnographic study of nature experience. Our contextualised experiment adds to the nascent literature of an environmentally oriented education now demanded in the Anthropocene.     

The Value of Fieldwork in Life and Environmental Sciences in the Context of Higher Education: A Case Study in Learning About Biodiversity

Fieldwork is assumed by most practitioners to be an important if not essential component of a degree level education in the environmental sciences. However, there is strong evidence that as a result of a wide range of pressures (academic, financial and societal) fieldwork is in decline in the UK and elsewhere. In this paper we discuss the value of fieldwork in a higher education context and present the results of a case study which illustrates its value to student learning and the wider student experience. We used qualitative and quantitative methods to compare the impact of two learning tasks upon the affective and cognitive domains of students. We designed two tasks. One task that included fieldwork, and required students to collect organisms from the field and make labelled drawings of them, and one task that omitted the fieldwork and simply required drawing of specimens that the students had not collected. We evaluated the students’ experience through structured and semi-structured questionnaires and written exercises. Students did not perceive the two tasks as being equivalent to one another. They reported that they enjoy fieldwork and value it (in the contexts of their learning at university, life-long learning, and in relation to their career aspirations) and felt that they learn more effectively in the field. Our students were better able to construct a taxonomic list of organisms that they had collected themselves, better able to recall the structural detail of these organisms and were better able to recall the detail of an ecological sampling methodology that they had personally carried out in the field rather than one that a tutor had described to them in a classroom setting. Our case study supports the growing body of evidence that fieldwork is an important way of enhancing undergraduate learning and highlights some key areas for future research.     

Engineering education research in European Journal of Engineering Education and Journal of Engineering Education: citation and reference discipline analysis

The authors, citations and content of European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE) and Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) in 1973 (JEE, 1975 EJEE), 1983, 1993, 2003, and available 2013 issues were analysed. Both journals transitioned from house organs to become engineering education research (EER) journals, although JEE transitioned first. In this process the number of citations rose, particularly of education and psychology sources; the percentage of research articles increased markedly as did the number of reference disciplines. The number of papers per issue, the number of single author papers, and the citations of science and engineering sources decreased. EJEE has a very broad geographic spread of authors while JEE authors are mainly US based. A ‘silo’ mentality where general engineering education researchers do not communicate with EER researchers in different engineering disciplines is evident. There is some danger that EER may develop into a silo that does not communicate with technically oriented engineering professors.