Classroom Voting Questions to Stimulate Discussions in Precalculus

Classroom voting can be an effective way to stimulate student discussions. In this pedagogy, the instructor poses a multiple-choice question to the class, and then allows a few minutes for consideration and small-group discussion before students vote, either with clickers, cell phones, or a non-electronic method. After the vote the instructor guides a class-wide discussion. Here we report on a study of precalculus voting questions that includes data from 25 classes taught by eight instructors at five institutions over the course of 7 years. The goal of this study is to explore ways of identifying the questions most likely to provoke good student discussions. We recorded the percentage of each class voting for each option on each question posed, a total of 851 votes. We have 60 questions on which we recorded the results from at least five classes. We identified the five questions with the most widely dispersed votes, a method that has a history of being helpful in identifying good discussion questions. We present these five questions here, four of which we found to be examples of questions which are particularly good at stimulating student discussions. We include notes about how we used the questions in class.     

Counselor Educators and Qualitative Research: Affirming a Research Identity

The lack of enthusiastic research activity among counseling professionals has been a subject of professional concern for the last 2 decades. Many graduates of counselor education programs are not connected to academic research and do not establish a research identity. Qualitative research methods have the potential for creating this connection for some students. To increase understanding of the nature and potential usefulness of this paradigm for increasing counselors' connection to academic research, the authors conducted a phenomenological study to investigate the experiences of counselor education doctoral students as they encountered qualitative research. Students' positive responses were summarized as they reflected 4 themes: worldview congruence, theory and skills congruence, research identity and professional viability, and holistic nature of perceptions and experiences.     

Using a whole‐class token economy and coaching of teacher skills in a preschool classroom to manage disruptive behavior

The Level System is a whole‐classroom approach for managing disruptive behavior that utilizes behavioral management strategies such as a token economy, response cost, stimulating rewards, and strategic attention. Using an ABACC′ treatment comparison design with follow‐up, this study evaluated the effectiveness of the Level System in a preschool classroom compared to (a) strategies already employed by the teacher, and (b) coaching the teacher in the Child‐Directed Interaction (CDI) and Parent‐Directed Interaction (PDI) phases of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Teacher‐ and parent‐report measures were administered, and behavioral observation data were collected for child and teacher behavior using videotapes. Results suggested that the amount of inappropriate behavior exhibited by children decreased when the Level System was implemented. Additionally, inappropriate behavior decreased further during the CDI and PDI conditions. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 351–361, 2004.     

Teaching and Learning IT in Secondary Schools: Towards a New Pedagogy?

New Technologies, particularly Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), have caused profound changes throughout society. A generation of children is emerging already immersed in a multimedia 'data storm' (Moshell, 1995). Their understandings and expectations of the world are mediated through their experiences of multimedia and ICTs and these differ from those of preceding generations nourished on linear technologies. Educating these children using models of teaching and learning that are grounded in concepts of knowing and understanding that are linear and finite will not help them succeed in a technological, global future where multi-disciplinary, holistic approaches predominate. The conflict between the traditional and the new in English secondary schools is particularly intense in the teaching and learning of Information Technology (IT). Teaching and learning IT are inherently constructivist activities, and IT teachers who attempt to implement learning programmes designed from predominantly behaviourist perspectives quickly find that these are less effective. A new pedagogy is needed that is theoretically sound, that goes beyond a cookbook approach, and that guides teachers in using constructivist approaches within an education system grounded in an inimical behaviourist paradigm. This paper takes some tentative steps in this direction. © 1999 IFIP, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers     

Collective Trolling as a Form of Organizational Resistance: Analysis of the #Justiceforbradswife Twitter Campaign

This case study analyzed Twitter posts from the #JusticeForBradsWife campaign against the Cracker Barrel (CB) restaurant chain. Participants in the counterinstitutional movement employed diverse message strategies of humor and resistance in using social media as a site for discourse. Thematic analysis of the most influential users revealed humor strategies including: connecting to popular culture, political comic relief and using hyperbole. Participants’ resistance strategies included: making calls for action, critiquing CB products and business partners, attacking CB patrons, critiquing CB’s social media management, and offers of support from outside organizations. These strategies reflected collective trolling, where trolling behaviors created a hidden and public hybrid form of collective resistance from nontraditional stakeholders who had contradictory goals. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

When and why do initially high-achieving poor children fall behind?

In this paper, we examine the trajectories of initially higher- and lower-achieving children from lower and higher socio-economic status families from primary school through to university in England for the first time. We also explore what explains these trajectories. This enables us to provide new insights into when and why the performance of children with similar initial achievement diverges on the basis of their socio-economic background. Our results indicate that pupils from poor backgrounds who are higher achievers in primary school fall behind their better-off but lower-achieving peers during secondary school. This suggests that secondary school may be a critical period to intervene to prevent poor children from falling behind their richer peers. Our analysis suggests that there is less divergence in performance between pupils from different socio-economic backgrounds who attend the same schools. This result is particularly strong for children with low initial achievement. While we remain cautious about the implications of these findings, they provide suggestive evidence that schools (or the sorting of pupils into schools) play an important role in explaining why the test scores of richer and poorer children diverge over time.     

Making and Mistaking Reality: What is Emotional Education?

A central thesis of this paper is that the mind and its thought evolve out of the experience of the whole person in their unique surroundings. It attempts to articulate the meaning and value of Emotional Education, especially in its relation to thought processes. It shows the value of learning from the particular, and from awareness of feeling states. It shows how making emotional enquiry can change the nature of the thinking, reducing the need of the thinker, and involves experiencing while not-knowing as well as more usual rational approaches.Recent affirmations from neuroscience of the psychoanalytic picture of conscious awareness arising from unconscious emotional processes are noted. Systemic and emotional thought processes are described and illustrated.While the nature of unconscious choice is recognised as part of all thought process, the “use of self” is explored as a conscious means of influencing the nature of thinking, and the attributes of both person and context necessary to flourishing thought are contrasted with the human needs which produce mistaken thought. Some questions which have been asked by students in Emotional Education classes, about free will, abuse, and ethics are raised. I hope the gratitude to people who have shared their feelings in order to think and be thought about in “emotional thinking” is evident; it is very real to me.     

Deaf persons and computer use

Deaf person's computer use was studied (N = 227). Respondents self-administered a survey in their preferred language (voice, American Sign Language, captions, or printed English). A small nonparticipant sample was also recruited. Demographics were consistent with those in other studies of deaf people: 63% of respondents reported computer use, mostly at home; 50% of nonparticipants reported computer use. Subjects with hearing loss due to meningitis were less likely to use computers (p = .0004). Computer use was associated with English usage at home (p = .008), with hearing persons (p = .002), and with physicians and nurses (p = .00001). It was also associated with the use of Signed English as a child to communicate (p = .02), teacher use of Signed English (p = .04), and teacher use of ASL (p = .03). Two thirds of respondents reported using computers, though nonresponder data suggested less use among all deaf persons. Computer use was associated with English use and inversely associated with hearing loss due to meningitis.