Promoting Student-Centered Learning Using iPads in a Grade 1 Classroom: Using the Digital Didactic Framework to Deconstruct Instruction

In this qualitative case study, we provide a series of vignettes illustrating a Grade 1 teacher's experiences integrating iPad technology into her instruction over a school year. We use the digital didactic model to deconstruct these vignettes and draw upon the teacher's reflections to gain further insights about her instructional experiences using iPads. We highlight the effective use of cognitive, affective, and technical scaffolding for encouraging students to take risks, explore multiple solution paths, and become independent learners. We emphasize the criticality of student-centered learning environments for collaboration and knowledge sharing and discuss how iPads can be integrated into the curriculum.     

Developing students' ability to ask more and better questions resulting from inquiry‐type chemistry laboratories

This study focuses on the ability of high‐school chemistry students, who learn chemistry through the inquiry approach, to ask meaningful and scientifically sound questions. We investigated (a) the ability of students to ask questions related to their observations and findings in an inquiry‐type experiment (a practical test) and (b) the ability of students to ask questions after critically reading a scientific article. The student population consisted of two groups: an inquiry‐laboratory group (experimental group) and a traditional laboratory‐type group (control group). The three common features investigated were (a) the number of questions that were asked by each of the students, (b) the cognitive level of the questions, and (c) the nature of the questions that were chosen by the students, for the purpose of further investigation. Importantly, it was found that students in the inquiry group who had experience in asking questions in the chemistry laboratory outperformed the control grouping in their ability to ask more and better questions. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 791–806, 2005     

El lenguaje y las matemáticas en la propuesta curricular para la educación infantil del Department d'Ensenyament de la Generalitat de Catalunya

La propuesta curricular de la Generalitat de Catalunya y el modelo curricular de la LOGSE son dos realizaciones sucesivas, y por ese orden, del mismo planteamiento. Incluimos aquí esta propuesta curricular como la primera de otras posibles que versen sobre el tratamiento que reciben los códigos de representación en la reforma que viene y como un elemento mas del debate científico-profesional al que desde ahora invitamos a nuestros lectores.     

Threshold concept theory as an enabling constraint: a facilitated practitioner action research study

International interest is growing in how threshold concept theory can transform tertiary teaching and learning. A facilitated practitioner action research project investigating the potential of threshold concepts across several disciplines offers a practical contribution and helps to consolidate this international field of research. In this article we show how a focus on threshold concept theory enabled tertiary teachers to work collaboratively to investigate tertiary pedagogical practices. The purpose of the article is to argue that threshold concept theory can serve as a guiding principle of pedagogical design. The article draws on findings from a research study conducted over two years by a team consisting of five practitioner researchers in four disciplines and two educational researchers who facilitated the inquiry. The act of constraining the research to thresholds, both in and across different fields, enabled the team to intensify discipline-specific insights and to explore wider cross-disciplinary links and differences. A threshold-constrained focus entailed making specific discipline, knowledge management, and pedagogic practices explicit to ourselves as individual practitioners and comprehensible enough to enable conversations with colleagues from other disciplines. As a result of the research, we argue that threshold-concept thinking enables three processes: usefully unsettling the meaning of being a disciplinary expert; providing a structured framework for both disciplinary and cross-disciplinary knowledge and learning; and intensifying insight into curricular content and teaching methods. We also provide an account of how the collaborative action research sparked fresh experiments, searches for new data, and reflections on the impact of threshold concepts on individual disciplines and beyond.