Systems,transfer, and fields: Evaluating a new approach to energy instruction

Energy is a central concept in science in every discipline and also an essential player in many of the issues facing people everywhere on the globe. However, studies have shown that by the end of K-12 schooling, most students do not reach the level of understanding required to be able to use energy to make sense of a wide range of phenomena. Many researchers have questioned whether the conceptual foundations of traditional approaches to energy instruction may be responsible for students' difficulties. In response to these concerns, we developed and tested a novel approach to middle school physical science energy instruction that was informed by the recommendations of the Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012a) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (NGSS Lead States, 2013). This new approach differs substantially from more traditional approaches to energy instruction in that it does not require energy forms and it emphasizes connections between energy, systems, and fields that mediate interaction-at-a-distance. We investigated student learning during this novel approach and contrasted it with student learning within a comparable unit based on a more traditional approach to energy instruction. Our findings indicate that students who learned in the new approach outperformed students who learned in the traditional approach in every quantitative and qualitative aspect considered in this study, irrespective of their prior knowledge of energy. They developed more parsimonious knowledge networks in relation to energy that focused primarily around the concept of energy transfer. This study warrants further investigation into the value of this new approach to energy instruction in both middle and high school.     

Enhancing students’ self-regulation and mathematics performance: the influence of feedback and self-evaluative standards

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of self-evaluative standards and graphed feedback on calibration accuracy and performance in mathematics. Specifically, we explored the influence of mastery learning standards as opposed to social comparison standards as well as of individual feedback as opposed to social comparison feedback. 90 fifth grade students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. We conducted analyses for both the complete sample and an at-risk group of low performing students who overestimate their skills. Self-evaluative standards had no effect on calibration accuracy and performance. Students who received feedback were more accurate in their self-evaluative judgements than students who received neither type of feedback. In overconfident students, feedback additionally increased prediction accuracy and, albeit marginally, performance. We discuss the educational implications of our findings with respect to the relevance of standards and feedback for promoting self-regulated learning within regular classroom settings.     

The Mirror Neuron System and Observational Learning: Implications for the Effectiveness of Dynamic Visualizations

Learning by observing and imitating others has long been recognized as constituting a powerful learning strategy for humans. Recent findings from neuroscience research, more specifically on the mirror neuron system, begin to provide insight into the neural bases of learning by observation and imitation. These findings are discussed here, along with their potential consequences for the design of instruction, focusing in particular on the effectiveness of dynamic vs. static visualizations.

Forms of mathematical interaction in different social settings: examples from students’, teachers’ and teacher–students’ communication about mathematics

The study presented in this article investigates forms of mathematical interaction in different social settings. One major interest is to better understand mathematics teachers’ joint professional discourse while observing and analysing young students mathematical interaction followed by teacher’s intervention. The teachers’ joint professional discourse is about a combined learning and talking between two students before an intervention by their teacher (setting 1) and then it is about the students learning together with the teacher during their mathematical work (setting 2). The joint professional teachers’ discourse constitutes setting 3. This combination of social settings 1 and 2 is taken as an opportunity for mathematics teachers’ professionalisation process when interpreting the students’ mathematical interactions in a more and more professional and sensible way. The epistemological analysis of mathematical sign-systems in communication and interaction in these three settings gives evidence of different types of mathematical talk, which are explained depending on the according social setting. Whereas the interaction between students or between teachers is affected by phases of a process-oriented and investigated talk, the interaction between students and teachers is mainly closed and structured by the ideas of the teacher and by the expectations of the students.

Perspektivenübernahme als Kompetenz für den Geschichtsunterricht

This study addresses a competency of students’ historical thinking related to taking perspectives. We start by discussing socio-cognitive theories from psychology as well as approaches from history education that focus on this competency. We also present empirical findings concerning relationships between achievement, self-concept and interest in the subject of history and connect these findings with the competency to take historical perspectives. Our research questions target this relationship between indicators of achievement and motivation in the subject of history, the competency of historical perspective taking and students’ socio-cognitive ability to adopt social perspectives in their everyday lives. These questions are investigated using a cross-sectional design with 375 grammar school students in grades 7 and 10. Results indicate that in grade 7 the competency to take historical perspectives relates to students’ ability to coordinate social perspectives in their everyday lives. For 10th graders, however, the adoption of historical perspectives is closely related to subject-specific variables such as interest for history, self-concept, history grade and achievement in a test of historical knowledge. In the last section of this paper, we discuss challenges that arise when students’ competencies in a subject like history are assessed within the context of standard-based testing. Specifically, we raise the issues of reliability, validity, the context-specificity of measurements, the kinds of response formats used and the formulation of progression models of historical thinking.     

Effects of the TWA strategy on expository reading comprehension of students with autism

High‐functioning students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been shown to have significant reading comprehension difficulty. This multiple baseline study examined the effect of the think before reading, think while reading, and think after reading (TWA) strategy on expository text comprehension of four boys with ASD. Following baseline, each student received six sessions of TWA instruction. Data were collected on retell and comprehension question accuracy during the baseline, intervention and maintenance phases. Results supported the effectiveness of TWA as a reading strategy to increase the expository text comprehension of students with ASD. Effects during the intervention phase were immediate and consistent for comprehension questions, with greater variability observed for retell. Data collected at maintenance suggested that the gains were sustained for both comprehension questions and retell.     

中国著作权制度：英美模式还是大陆模式？

一、引言 1990年9月7日通过的中华人民共和国着作权法,已经两度修改：第次修改稿於2001年月27日通过,最近的第二次修改稿,