Graduate Business Students Performance with Synchronous and Asynchronous Interaction e-Learning Methods

The effects of synchronous and asynchronous lectures and interaction formats were examined with graduate business students in on‐campus and off‐campus MBA programs. The dependent variables were scores on exams questions and learning styles and cognitive styles were used as covariates. The results indicated significant differences for discussion and lecture format and for on‐campus and off‐campus students. The results were discussed relative to learning in electronic environments.     

Motivating Young Native American Students to Pursue STEM Learning Through a Culturally Relevant Science Program

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Data indicate that females and ethnic/race minority groups are underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce calling for innovative...     

Classcraft: from gamification to ludicization of classroom management

In this article, we discuss the concept of gamification, based on a literature review and preliminary feedback from teachers using Classcraft, a role-playing game supported by a digital platform and a mobile application that were developed to answer high school teachers’ classroom management needs. Our results come from two experiments in France and Quebec and also from an online survey that was made available on the Classcraft platform. These results promote a model of gamification that consists of considering the experience of the students, rather than the game itself, and they confirm that a game is consubstantial to its player. Therefore, we argue for the use of the term “ludicization” to emphasize that transforming a situation into a game does not consist of using elements that have a game-like aspect, but rather of a non-essentialistic vision of play, generating a metaphor around the situation to build a reflexive space where the nature and meaning of interactions are modified.     

Factors associated with changes in prestige of university departments

Four models of possible predictors of changes in prestige for university departments are advanced and tested using multiple regression. Changes in prestige are measured using a residual change score derived from the ratings of departments in various disciplines collected by American Council of Education in 1964 and 1969. The models are tested using data collected from 1,164 faculty in 80 university departments in 1968, and from published sources for that same year. Results indicate that a resource model is the best predictor for sociology, and that a research productivity model and an organizational model were good predictors of reputational change for political science and chemistry. For physics, only one organizational variable was an important predictor. The fourth model tested involved reputation of faculty within the department, and this model yielded the fewest significant results. A composite predictive equation was then used, retaining variables that had emerged as significant in earlier analyses. Results again exhibited large differences across scientific fields, suggesting that there is no single set of factors that can reliably predict improvement or decline in prestige across all disciplines.     

Understanding Candidates’ Learning Relationships with their Cooperating Teachers: A call to Reframe my Pedagogy

Abstract

This self-study frames the influences of cooperating (or mentor) teachers on teacher candidates in my teacher education classroom as an action-at-a-distance on my pedagogy of teacher education; that is, a tacit set of influences and expectations that teacher candidates develop about my course before it even begins. Interviews with teacher candidates enabled me to develop two conceptual metaphors to think about the relationships candidates develop with cooperating teachers on practicum. The first, freedom with foundation, reflects the fact that teacher candidates hope to have considerable autonomy in their practicum placements while simultaneously having the support from their cooperating teacher to receive meaningful, regular, feedback. The second, power and performance, names the tensions teacher candidates feel in experiencing the practicum as a site of performance rather than as a site of learning. I offer some specific pedagogical ways in which I have responded to these issues before making a turn to self. I examined journal entries from my own experiences as a teacher candidate 20 years ago with a view to understanding the ways in which the two metaphors may have played a role in my own development as a teacher. This research compels me to attend explicitly to action-at-at-distance forces in my teacher education classroom, such as candidates’ relationship with cooperating teachers and my relationships with my former cooperating teachers.     

Transformations in learning and teaching through Initial Teacher Education

In England, little research has been carried out into how pre‐service secondary English teachers transform what they know as they learn to teach. They are seldom asked to reflect explicitly on the connections between the pedagogy of their undergraduate studies and their pedagogical experiences as student teachers. The initial teacher education committee of the National Association for the Teaching of English decided to explore these connections by asking student teachers on English Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses in five different university departments of education to respond to a series of questions at the start and end of the academic year 2004–2005. The questions fall into four broad areas: student teachers' experiences as learners at undergraduate level and developing ideas about teaching; the nature of the subject English; tensions encountered during the PGCE course; new learning about teaching. The purpose of this article is to discuss some patterns emerging from the research. The most prominent of these is student teachers' realisation that good teaching comes from teachers seeing themselves as learners. We argue that ‘reflexivity’ ( Moore, 2004 ) is a valuable way to help student teachers begin to understand this transformation from learner into learning teacher.     

A systems approach to child abuse: management and treatment issues

In the systems approach certain patterns of family interaction are seen as fitting with physical abuse towards children in the family. If these interactions are blocked or changed using specific family therapy interventions, the risk of further abuse will be significantly reduced. Identifying typical patterns of interaction that fit with abuse is a useful first step in planning the management of physically abusing families. A full systemic formulation of the presenting problem will address numerous systems and sub-systems simultaneously, notably the family-professional system, the family within the extended family/friendship system, and the nuclear family. Interventions may have to be directed on a variety of these levels. The Marlborough Family Service has assessed and treated over 100 child-abusing families. A family day unit is used as the setting, and a multifamily group as the principle medium of treatment. Within the day unit real life stress situations are recreated around everyday issues, enabling families to find new and nonviolent solutions to the problems of daily life. In the cases seen, approximately one-third have resulted in a recommendation of permanent alternative family care for the children. In those families reunited, the re-injury rate has been found to be extremely low.     

Curricular quality and day‐to‐day learning activities in pre‐school

The purpose of this paper is to show how curricular quality is related to the day‐to‐day activities experienced by children and the pedagogical activities of staff, both coded through systematic target‐child observations. Data were drawn from the Effective Provision of Pre‐School Education (EPPE) and the Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) studies. Curricular quality was measured by coding the ECERS‐E, an English curricular extension to the well‐known ECERS‐R. In centres scoring high on the ECERS‐E, staff engaged in pedagogical practices that included more ‘sustained shared thinking’ and more ‘direct teaching’ such as questioning or modelling. In high‐scoring centres, children were also observed participating in more activities associated with early reading, emergent writing and active listening. Children in centres assessed as ‘adequate’ spent more time in activities associated with the ‘Physical Development’ and ‘Creative’ curriculum. Thus the ECERS‐E gives higher scores to pedagogical practices and activities where staff take a more active role in children’s learning, including scaffolding young children’s play, especially in the communication and literacy domains of the curriculum.     

Reading and writing to learn science: Achieving scientific literacy

A key step in helping students to achieve scientific literacy is to ensure that each school's curriculum supports students' efforts to learn science meaningfully. Educational researchers play a vital role in this step by providing teachers, teacher educators, administrators, and policy makers with information about the creation of a curriculum that supports scientific literacy. In a scientific literacy curriculum, reading and writing can serve as dynamic vehicles for learning science meaningfully. The task of educational researchers is to show how reading and writing can be used most effectively to support science learning. Much of what is done now in schools is based on teacher intuition—good intuition—but intuition nonetheless. What is needed is school-based research to validate and build upon these intuitions. This article is intended to stimulate research on reading and writing to learn science.     

Inquiry as a Members’ Phenomenon: Young Children as Competent Inquirers

Understanding children’s inquiry often draws on exogenous understanding (i.e., scientists’ inquiry, classroom expectations) without first understanding inquiry in children’s everyday lives. In contrast, we examine young children’s inquiry in their families to better understand their competent engagement in inquiry. Specifically, we develop an endogenous representation of inquiry as a members’ phenomenon (IMP)—a representation formulated by participants in the course of their own activity. IMP highlights key moments in inquiry—beginning by orienting to inquiry, making progress by drawing on sensemaking resources, and orienting to ending inquiry. This representation also allows us to recognize evidence of young children’s competence in managing interactional, affective, and epistemic challenges inherent in these key moments of inquiry; the diverse array of sensemaking resources through which children address those challenges; and a range of children’s interests and concerns addressed within their inquiry. Furthermore, IMP provides a prism for reconceptualizing learning from learners’ perspective: attending to how participants orient to a moment of inquiry, inquire together, and come to what counts to them as a satisfactory end to their inquiry. This representation of inquiry is an important step in basic learning sciences research and informative for the design of science and other domain learning environments.