Computerized prompting partners and keystroke recording devices: Two macro driven writing tools

Recent research into composing processes has focused on instructional intervention strategies that promote effective composition practices within computerized writing environments. The field of computers and composition has benefitted both from advances in computing tools and developments in learning theory. The innovative computer tool discussed in this paper uses the macro-command language of a full-featured word processor to enact strategic support designed to help writers with their written work. From a theoretical standpoint, this tool created a writing environment based on Vygotskian theory of mediated learning and was grounded in an instructional strategy known as “procedural facilitation.” To evaluate the effectiveness of this computerprompting tool, a second macro application was used to log student keystrokes, thereby tracking student writing development, revisionary practices, and keystroke reactions to the prompting partner. Students using the prompting tool enacted divergent and convergent thinking assistance that appeared at the bottom of their computer screens while the system saved a process record of their keystrokes. Procedures for creating macro-driven prompting programs and keystroke-logging devices are discussed. Additionally, a catalog of prompts and summary of keystroke-mapping benefits are provided. Finally, our research using the macro-driven prompting partner and keystroke-register tool is detailed.     

Language development: A complex,systematic, and natural process

Conclusions Although we do not understand very well what the processes are that contribute to language development, it is clear that communication plays a central role. As children strive to become increasingly skilled at communicating their ideas (White, 1959), as they have increasingly complex ideas to communicate (Piaget, 1955), and as they encounter an increasingly diverse set of people with whom to communicate (Brown, 1973), they must learn to use language which is richer and more flexible.When children come to school or to a day care center they already know a great deal about language. They have readily and actively mastered words, sentences and forms of communication which they need in their own family and community. In their new environment—the school or center—children's language development can further be fostered by adults who are receptive to children's efforts at communication. Adults who encourage children to use language in new ways, who attend to what children mean to say and who recognize that children's errors are often not mistakes, are likely to play a positive role in children's language development.Janet H. Kane and Karen Sheingold are on the Staff at Bank Street College of Education.     

Personality and attainment: An application of psychological principles to educational objectives

In education it is important for applied research systematically to apply and test current psychological theories. However oversimplification of a theory will generally lead to inappropriate hypotheses and hence to inconclusive or inconsistent results. In research on personality and academic attainment it has been common to derive hypotheses about the effect of neuroticism directly from an early Hullian formulation. Examples in terms of the academic behaviour of students are used to explain recent adaptations of this basic theory. In particular it is necessary to distinguish between trait and state anxiety and to incorporate allowances for the effect of previous habit systems. Strongly established habits will control the type of behaviour elicited by drive stimuli, such as imminent examinations.Anxiety, even as a trait variable, can be seen as operating in opposite directions, facilitating or debilitating performance according to the nature of the individual and of the drive stimuli. In the progression from primary to higher education there will be a tendency for individuals whose high neuroticism adversely affects their performance to be eliminated; hence a positive correlation between achievement and neuroticism at this level might be anticipated.While there is considerable complexity in the relationship between anxiety and achievement, it is clear that introversion is consistently linked with success in higher education. This high performance is probably due to the introvert's better study habits and his ability to become conditioned easily to the predominant academic mores. In addition the build-up of reactive inhibition in extraverts during lectures or prolonged periods of study is likely to lead to avoidance symptoms in time.

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Résumé Dans l'enseignement il importe que la recherche expérimentale applique avec méthode les théories psychologiques classiques pour les mettre à l'épreuve. Pourtant, la simplification abusive d'une théorie mène souvent à des hypothèses inadéquates et à des résultats non concluants ou incompatibles. Dans la recherche sur la personnalité et la réussite universitaire on a souvent voulu tirer directement d'une formulation ancienne de Hull des hypothèses sur les effets du caractère névrotique. On cite des exemples de conduite scolaire des étudiants, pour montrer quelques adaptations récentes de cette théorie fondamentale. Il faut distinguer en particulier entre l'anxiété comme trait et l'anxiété comme condition, et prendre en compte l'effet du système antérieur des habitudes. Les habitudes qui sont fermement établies modèlent les types de conduite provoqués par les stimuli significatifs, tels que, par exemple, les examens imminents.On peut voir la variable de l'anxiété, considérée comme trait, agir de façons opposées en facilitant ou en entravant la réussite en fonction des caractéristiques de l'individu et des stimulants significatifs. Dans la progression de l'enseignement primaire à l'enseignement supérieure on observe une élimination progressive des individus dont le caractère névrotique exerce un effet défavorable sur la réussite; on peut par conséquent prédire une corrélation positive entre les résults et le caractère névrotique au niveau universitaire.Bien que les rapports entre l'anxiété et la réussite soient des plus complexes, il est évident que, au niveau de l'enseignement supérieur, il y a une liaison assez forte entre l'introversion et le succès. Il est probable que le niveau élevé de réussite est dû aux meilleures habitudes de travail de l'introverti et à sa capacité de s'adapter facilement aux moeurs universitaires dominantes. En outre, l'accumulation d'une inhibition réactive chez les extrovertis, pendant les cours ou les périodes d'étude prolongées tend à produire des symptômes d'annulation.

     

Infant search and object permanence: a meta-analysis of the A-not-B error

Research on Piaget's stage 4 object concept has failed to reveal a clear or consistent pattern of results. Piaget found that 8-12-month-old infants would make perserverative errors; his explanation for this phenomenon was that the infant's concept of the object was contextually dependent on his or her actions. Some studies designed to test Piaget's explanation have replicated Piaget's basic finding, yet many have found no preference for the A location or the B location or an actual preference for the B location. More recently, researchers have attempted to uncover the causes for these results concerning the A-not-B error. Again, however, different studies have yielded different results, and qualitative reviews have failed to yield a consistent explanation for the results of the individual studies. This state of affairs suggests that the phenomenon may simply be too complex to be captured by individual studies varying 1 factor at a time and by reviews based on similar qualitative considerations. Therefore, the current investigation undertook a meta-analysis, a synthesis capturing the quantitative information across the now sizable number of studies. We entered several important factors into the meta-analysis, including the effects of age, the number of A trials, the length of delay between hiding and search, the number of locations, the distances between locations, and the distinctive visual properties of the hiding arrays. Of these, the analysis consistently indicated that age, delay, and number of hiding locations strongly influence infants' search. The pattern of specific findings also yielded new information about infant search. A general characterization of the results is that, at every age, both above-chance and below-chance performance was observed. That is, at each age at least 1 combination of delay and number of locations yielded above-chance A-not-B errors or significant perseverative search. At the same time, at each age at least 1 alternative combination of delay and number of locations yielded below-chance errors and significant above-chance correct performance, that is, significantly accurate search. These 2 findings, appropriately elaborated, allow us to evaluate all extant theories of stage 4 infant search. When this is done, all these extant accounts prove to be incorrect. That is, they are incommensurate with one aspect or another of the pooled findings in the meta-analysis. Therefore, we end by proposing a new account that is consistent with the entire data set.     

When transnational curriculum policy reaches classrooms – teaching as directed exploration

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to explore how education policy that is both enabled and constrained by transnational policy flows and national policy built up by social, cultural and historical traditions are enacted through curriculum at the classroom level. The focus is on how policy rationality embedded in the structure and content of curriculum is transformed into certain rationalities in classroom teaching. By understanding lessons as ‘curriculum events’, the study reveals a dominant classroom discourse of recitation and similar triadic communication patterns, which is in accordance with other classroom studies. However, in the article it is argued that the version of teaching that emerges in this study, interpreted in a broader context of an international standards movement, can be understood in terms of directed exploration based on the teacher’s role as an explorer of what the students know, think and understand in relation to the acquisition of knowledge prescribed in the curriculum’s knowledge requirements. Even though the form of recitation is well known, the reason for choosing this teaching repertoire is somewhat new and can be related to the teacher authoring a basic oral text in accordance with assessment standards.     

The Impact of the Home Instructional Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) on School Performance in 3rd and 6th Grades

A post hoc matching design was used to compare children who participated in the Home Instructional Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) throughout Arkansas to children from the same classrooms who had no preschool experience and children who had other preschool experiences in the third and sixth grades. The program showed modest positive impact on school suspensions, grades, classroom behavior, and achievement test scores at both grade levels.     

How New Caledonian crows solve novel foraging problems and what it means for cumulative culture

New Caledonian crows make and use tools, and tool types vary over geographic landscapes. Social learning may explain the variation in tool design, but it is unknown to what degree social learning accounts for the maintenance of these designs. Indeed, little is known about the mechanisms these crows use to obtain information from others, despite the question’s importance in understanding whether tool behavior is transmitted via social, genetic, or environmental means. For social transmission to account for tool-type variation, copying must utilize a mechanism that is action specific (e.g., pushing left vs. right) as well as context specific (e.g., pushing a particular object vs. any object). To determine whether crows can copy a demonstrator’s actions as well as the contexts in which they occur, we conducted a diffusion experiment using a novel foraging task. We used a nontool task to eliminate any confounds introduced by individual differences in their prior tool experience. Two groups had demonstrators (trained in isolation on different options of a four-option task, including a two-action option) and one group did not. We found that crows socially learn about context: After observers see a demonstrator interact with the task, they are more likely to interact with the same parts of the task. In contrast, observers did not copy the demonstrator’s specific actions. Our results suggest it is unlikely that observing tool-making behavior transmits tool types. We suggest it is possible that tool types are transmitted when crows copy the physical form of the tools they encounter.