THE EFFECT OF SCAFFOLDED VIGNETTE INSTRUCTION ON STUDENT MASTERY OF SUBJECT MATTER

Vignettes have long been used as a tool to model, teach, and research behavior and understanding as well as to stimulate discussion and problem solving in learning situations. The growing body of research on vignettes as an instructional and assessment tool to enhance recognition, recall, and transfer of subject matter knowledge suggests that the effectiveness of vignettes is due in part to its use as a scaffolding tool during instruction. This article summarizes an analysis of the effects of vignette instruction on vignette quiz performance in three sections of a blended graduate educational psychology course. Eight instructional vignettes administered to two sections and eight traditional scaffolding activities completed by the third section represented the only difference in the intervention. Study results suggest that vignette instruction provides efficient near-transfer opportunities and richer scaffolding experiences on student mastery of subject matter than does instruction without vignettes, regardless of whether the scaffolding is conducted in class or online or whether the vignette tasks involve solving a problem or evaluating a solution to a problem in a hypothetical teaching situation.     

Research into School Television

In the field of research into school television there exists at present no adequate overall grasp of the aims that should be set. I am referring here mainly to public television broadcasts for schools. Admittedly a great number of starts have been made in Europe; there have been many experiments concerning school television broadcasts and there have been a good many theoretical discussions—but as a whole the situation is far from satisfactory.     

Zwischen Seniorität und Alterität

Demographic changes are leading to an altered population structure and subsequently to changes in the age structure of potential participants in educational training. Adult education has reacted to this by developing special provisions for older participants and a concept of intergenerational learning provision for different generations. Arranging such intentional intergenerational processes is indeed no small task for adult education. This contribution will look at this challenge more closely. To this aim, the orientations of professional and non-professional adult educators and participants in intergenerational learning processes will be reconstructed in a qualitative investigation. It can be shown that the andragogic skill of adult educators is a pre-requisite for the facilitation of learning processes, which are explicitly intergenerational.     

Lernen im freiwilligen Engagement und gesellschaftliche Partizipation

This contribution analyses the impact of young people’s work on political participation in adulthood on the basis of Dewey’s theory of democratic education and a theory of community service sketched by Reinders. Its primary goal is to examine whether the acquisition of specific skills and specific knowledge obtained in social and political institutions is as important for – or even more important than – future political commitment as the development of pro-social attitudes. Based on survey data (n = 2,052), these assumptions are tested using ordinal probit models. These models show that in addition to effects of changes in attitude, specific experiences in voluntary work seem to be important to promoting political participation. Political commitment is, therefore, indeed closely connected to learning and educational processes in the sense of Dewey.     

Das lange Leben lernen

In the industrialized world the probability of people reaching higher ages has risen substantially over the past decade. Falling birth and mortality rates have led to changes in the population structure. In Germany, the population will be aging rapidly over the next (decades), with the new demographic situation necessitating adjustment and re-orientation on the individual and socio-political level. We argue that the adjustment strategies should focus on the promotion of education across all phases of life and population groups. This applies to the issue of health, for example, since future strains on the social welfare system and macroeconomic performance are affected, among other factors, by the state of health of the growing number of elderly people. Education boosts health-promoting behavior, thus increasing the chances of an individual enjoying a long, active life. Besides, educational training and professional development are gaining importance owing to demographic change as the changes in the population structure will require individuals to work longer over their working lives and lead to a more even distribution of gainful employment across the life course. Education is a worthwhile investment, in particular as the prospects for long life are rising and because it enables people to lead their lives as responsible agents, to take charge of their personal individual and professional development, and to assure their livelihood.