Learning habits of students with special needs in short‐term vocational education programmes

This research examined some characteristics of the learning habits of students with special needs and those without them in programmes of short‐term vocational education in five areas: motivation, learning and learning techniques, emotional, social and the area of self‐evaluation. The research sample consisted of 140 students from different secondary schools. The Questionnaire on the Learning Habits of Adolescents was used for the purpose of the study. The differences between the means from individual learning habit scales, between the students with special needs or without them, were discovered by one‐way analysis of variance. Basic findings of empirical research emphasise that there exist statistically significant differences between the students with special needs and the students without special needs in four areas of learning habits. Among the findings causing concern in connection with learning habits, we would like to underscore the fact that students with special needs are perceived as less efficient at and less competent in coping with learning and work tasks. These students are not familiar with effective methods and strategies for successful learning, which leads to the feelings of frustration and helplessness in case of failure. In order to cultivate an effective and supportive educational environment for students with special needs, short‐term vocational schools should develop learning/teaching models that provide a potentially powerful alternative to traditionally directed teaching approaches.     

Mentoring and being mentored: The story of a novice music teacher's success

This qualitative study examined the growth of Jelani, a failing novice teacher who successfully received tenure following his third year of teaching. His progress seemed related to the quality of his relationships with different mentors. An unanticipated factor in Jelani's success was his participation in a university-based program for children, where he served, under supervision, as a mentor for two preservice teachers. In what became a mutually beneficial relationship, Jelani reinforced his new-found knowledge and skills and learned to better describe and assess his own teaching. Among those who worked with Jelani, additional reciprocal mentoring relationships developed.     

Experiences,activities, and personal characteristics as predictors of engagement in STEM-focused summer programs

Out-of-school-time programs for youth that are focused on STEM content are often seen as affording opportunities to increase youth engagement, interest, and knowledge in STEM domains, yet we know relatively little about how youth actually experience such programs. In this article, we explore how experiences and activities employed in the delivery of summer STEM programs are associated with youth engagement during programming, and whether youth characteristics moderate these relationships. Data were collected from 203 youth (ages 10–16) in nine summer programs using multiple methods including video, experience sampling, and surveys. Through the use of cross-classified, multi-level models, we found that youth reported higher engagement in program activities they perceived to be more challenging and relevant, and in activities, they perceived to have more affordances for learning or developing skills. Gender moderated these relationships such that the positive relationships observed among males were muted or nonexistent for girls. We further identify that program activities are differently associated with fostering challenge, relevance, and learning. Findings have implications for out-of-school STEM programming for youth.     

Influence of problem familiarity on learning in a problem-based course

The results of an experimental study investigating the influence of problem familiarity on learning in a problem-based psychology course are presented. Participants worked with either a familiar or an unfamiliar version of the same problem. The following measurements were taken (1) a measure of problem quality as perceived by students, (2) number of explanations of the problem put forward by the students while discussing it, (3) quality of learning issues derived from the discussion, (4) amount of time spent on self-study, and (5) the amount of knowledge acquired as indicated by a test. The results demonstrate that participants in the familiar problem condition perceived the problem to be of higher quality than the participants in the unfamiliar problem condition. No significant differences in learning were found. The findings do suggest, however, that problems may be improved by making them more relevant to the everyday experience of students.     

Situational interest and academic achievement in the active-learning classroom

The aim of the present study was to investigate how situational interest develops over time and how it is related to academic achievement in an active-learning classroom. Five measures of situational interest were administered at critical points in time to 69 polytechnic students during a one-day, problem-based learning session. Results revealed that situational interest significantly increased after the problem stimulus was presented. Subsequently, situational interest gradually decreased but at the end of the day increased again. Testing a path model relating the situational interest measures showed strong (directional) interrelations. Moreover, situational interest was highly predictive for observed achievement-related classroom behaviors. The latter, in turn, proved to be a significant predictor of academic achievement. Aggregating situational interest over the day led to less accurate predictions of achievement-related classroom behaviors and academic achievement. Implications of these findings for situational interest research are discussed.     

Peer Coaching: Professional Development for Experienced Faculty

The professoriate, as a whole, is growing older and more experienced; yet institutions often overlook the professional development needs of mid-career and senior faculty. This article, based on a review of the literature and the development of a peer coaching project, examines peer coaching as a professional development opportunity for experienced faculty that meets many of their immediate needs and offers a variety of longer-term benefits to their institution. Six recommendations for creating a peer coaching program emerge from the literature and the authors’ experience.

Science and Mathematics Literacy: PISA for Better School Education

In this study, we explored how a teacher used a new mobile application that enables students to collect data inside and outside the classroom, and then use the data to create scientific explanations by using claim-evidence-reasoning framework. Previous technologies designed to support scientific explanations focused on how these programs improve students’ scientific explanations, but these programs ignored how scientific explanation applications can support teacher practices. Thus, to increase our knowledge about using mobile devices in education, this study aims to portray the synergy with an emphasis on a teacher’s practices when using mobile devices in 2 different units (water quality and plants). Synergy can be thought of as various scaffolds (scaffolds in the mobile application and the teacher support) working together to enable students to support creating explanations when using the mobile application. The findings of this study showed that the decrease in the teacher’s support for claims did not affect the quality of the students’ claims. On the other hand, the quality of students’ reasoning was linked with the teacher’s practices. This suggests that when supporting students’ explanations, focusing on components that students find challenging would benefit students’ construction of explanations. To achieve synergy in this process, the collaboration between teacher’s practices, professional development days, and scaffolds designed to support the teacher played a crucial role in aiding students in creating explanations.     

Developmental patterns of children's shyness: Relations with physiological,emotional, and regulatory responses to being treated unfairly

The dysregulation of social fear has been widely studied in children's shyness, but we know little about how shy children regulate during unfair treatment. We first characterized developmental patterns of children's shyness (N = 304, n_girls = 153; 74% White, 26% Other) across 2 (M_age = 2.07), 3 (M_age = 3.08), 4 (M_age = 4.08), and 6 (M_age = 6.58) years of age. Data collection occurred from 2007 to 2014. At age 6, the high stable group had higher cardiac vagal withdrawal and lower expressed sadness and approach-related regulatory strategy than the low stable group when being treated unfairly. Although shy children may be more physiologically impacted by being treated unfairly, they may mask their sadness to signal appeasement.