KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER IN BIOLOGY AND TRANSLATION ACROSS EXTERNAL REPRESENTATIONS: EXPERTS' VIEWS AND CHALLENGES FOR LEARNING

Recent curriculum reform promotes core competencies such as desired ‘content knowledge’ and ‘communication’ for meaningful learning in biology. Understanding in biology is demonstrated when pupils can apply acquired knowledge to new tasks. This process requires the transfer of knowledge and the subordinate process of translation across external representations. This study sought ten experts’ views on the role of transfer and translation processes in biology learning. Qualitative analysis of the responses revealed six expert themes surrounding the potential challenges that learners face, and the required cognitive abilities for transfer and translation processes. Consultation with relevant curriculum documents identified four types of biological knowledge that students are required to develop at the secondary level. The expert themes and the knowledge types exposed were used to determine how pupils might acquire and apply these four types of biological knowledge during learning. Based on the findings, we argue that teaching for understanding in biology necessitates fostering ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ transfer (and translation) processes within learners through the integration of knowledge at different levels of biological organization.     

Beginning literacy: links among teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and student learning

Although the importance of phonological awareness has been discussed widely in the research literature, the concept is not well understood by many classroom teachers. In the study described here, we worked with groups of kindergarten and first-grade teachers (the experimental group) during a 2-week summer institute and throughout the school year. We shared with them research about learning disabilities and effective instruction, stressing the importance of explicit instruction in phonological and orthographic awareness. We followed the experimental group and a control group into their classrooms for a year, assessing teachers' classroom practices and their students' (n = 779) learning. The study yielded three major findings: We can deepen teachers' own knowledge of the role of phonological and orthographic information in literacy instruction; teachers can use that knowledge to change classroom practice; and changes in teacher knowledge and classroom practice can improve student learning.     

Undergraduate Computer Science Enrollment Trends in Liberal Arts Colleges

There has been a good deal of informal, anecdotal discussion about undergraduate computer science enrollment trends at liberal arts colleges. While this information can be helpful, it is difficult to do detailed planning on the basis of informal and unsubstantiated evidence. This article presents quantitative data about enrollments in the computer science program at Macalester College for the eight‐year period 1985‐1992. The article also compares our local data with information on computer science enrollments from 11 national liberal arts colleges. These data incorporate enrollments at all levels of the curriculum‐‐service, introductory, core, and advanced courses. They also include information on the number of majors and graduates. Based on the data, we draw a set of 10 “observations” about enrollments trends which can help computer science departments in their long‐term planning and budgeting process.     

Assessing students’ understanding of models of biological processes: a revised framework

Models are very important tools when learning and communicating about science. Models used in secondary school biology education range from concrete scale models, such as a model of a skeleton, to abstract concept-process models, such as a visualisation of meiosis. Understanding these concept-process models requires a profound understanding of the concept of models and how they are used in biology. This study evaluates an existing framework for its use in assessing students’ understanding of biological concept-process models. Four additions were required to extend the applicability of the framework to concept-process models. We were also able to give an indication of students’ current level of understanding of these models, showing room for improvement in all aspects of understanding. Since concept-process models have a central place in many scientific disciplines, it is important that students have a deep understanding of the nature, application and limitations of these models. The current study contributes to assessing the way students reason with concept-process models. Knowing how to improve students’ view on the use of concept-process models in biology may lead to higher scientific literacy.     

Precursors of metamemory in young children: the role of theory of mind and metacognitive vocabulary

This paper describes findings of a longitudinal study that was carried out to examine relationships among different aspects of young children's cognitive development, namely, theory of mind, metacognitive vocabulary, and metamemory, which seem theoretically connected but so far have not been studied simultaneously. In total, 174 children were included in the present analyses who were about 4;6 years of age at the first measurement point. Children were tested at four time points, separated by a testing interval of approximately half a year. At the first time of testing, children completed a set of theory of mind tasks. At each of the following measurement points, measures of metacognitive vocabulary and general vocabulary as well as metamemory were given. Overall, the findings show that theory of mind performance assessed at the age of 4;6 predicts metacognitive knowledge assessed about one and a half years later. Furthermore, they point to a reciprocal relationship between metacognitive vocabulary and metamemory in that comprehension of metacognitive vocabulary predicted later metamemory and, conversely, metamemory significantly predicted later comprehension of metacognitive verbs. This research was supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation (SCHN 315 /20–7) to the German Research Group on Cognitive Development.     

Our view on the Other: issues regarding school textbooks

Studies of the image of Muslims or ‘the Other’ in general have been done to a certain extent by Western scholars showing that stereotyped images have been prevalent. In the case of Islamic studies, the long tradition of Orientalist scholarship is a clear example of this, but, as researchers have shown, generalisations and stereotypes are still apparent in school textbooks. This article discusses some general and problematic areas that pertain to textbooks. The focus is on what critical issues we need to take into consideration when discussing or performing textbook production and how we can think about these.     

Editorial: Single-blind or double-blind review processes?

Educational Studies in Mathematics - The investigation at scale of the tensions that teachers need to manage when deciding to follow recommendations for practice has been hampered by the problem of...     

Media Education in Primary Schools in Austria: Teaching Materials

Abstract

This article describes the questionnaire by which the Austrian Ministry of Education investigated the state of media education in primary schools, and briefly summarizes the results. It then describes the teaching materials that have been and are being produced.