Using statement banks to return online feedback: limitations of the transmission approach in a credit-bearing assessment

Electronic marking tools that incorporate statement banks have become increasingly prevalent within higher education. In an experiment, printed and emailed feedback was returned to 243 first-year students on a credit-bearing laboratory report assessment. A transmission approach was used, students being provided with comments on their work, but no guidance as to how they should use these remarks. A multiple-choice question test, undertaken before and after the return of feedback, was used to measure learning. Although returned comments included model answers, test scores showed no overall enhancement, even when students’ marks for their laboratory reports were initially hidden. A negative and significant (p = .010) linear trend between relative test scores and test date suggests that even modest improvements in subject knowledge were lost over time. Despite this, students could accurately guess their mark based on emailed feedback alone, estimated and awarded marks being linearly correlated (p < .001). It is concluded that statement banks organised according to published assessment criteria can ultimately help students to appreciate how their work was graded. However, students should be encouraged to produce a structured response to received feedback if self-assessment is to occur.     

Technologies and Reformed-Based Science Instruction: The Examination of a Professional Development Model Focused on Supporting Science Teaching and Learning with Technologies

Journal of Science Education and Technology - While access to computers, other technologies, and cyber-enabled resources that could be leveraged for enhancing student learning in science is...     

Professional noticing of coordinated mathematical thinking

Over the past three decades, research and policy in many geographic regions has promoted a shift from direct, lecture-oriented mathematics instruction to inquiry-based, dialogic forms of instruction. While theory and research support dialogic instructional approaches, some have noted that the complexities of dialogic teaching make it difficult for teachers to implement. One mechanism by which teachers can improve their decision-making practices in dialogic classrooms is learning to notice (i.e. becoming aware of learners’ processes). While research has contributed frameworks for understanding how teachers notice individual learners’ mathematical thinking, there is little conceptualization regarding how teachers notice group processes in mathematics classrooms, which is integral to dialogic instruction. We offer a noticing framework termed professional noticing of coordinated mathematical thinking that describes how teachers notice group activity in mathematics classrooms. Professional noticing of coordinated mathematical thinking is conceptualized as a bi-dimensional process: noticing groups’ mathematical activity and noticing groups’ coordinated activity. Teachers must become aware of how groups approach the mathematical and collaborative nature of a task, since both of these aspects inform whether learners develop opportunities to learn in groups. The framework describes noticing practices integral to dialogic instruction and promotes inquiry for future research related to teaching moves in dialogic classrooms.     

The Effects of Childhood Trauma on College Completion

Research in Higher Education - This study uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to examine the effect of childhood trauma experiences on college graduation rates. A...     

Teaching Science as a Process,Not a Set of Facts

Science & Education - The widespread misperception of science as a deliverer of irrefutable facts, rather than a deliberative process, is undermining public trust in science. Science education...     

The Devil’s Advocate

Science & Education - While dissent is recognized as a necessary component of scientific knowledge production, in school settings, it is a double-edged sword that can disrupt and undermine...     

Language and reading impairments are associated with increased prevalence of non-right-handedness

Handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders because of its link with language hemispheric dominance. No clear pattern has emerged, possibly because of small samples, publication bias, and heterogeneous criteria across studies. Non-right-handedness (NRH) frequency was assessed in N = 2503 cases with reading and/or language impairment and N = 4316 sex-matched controls identified from 10 distinct cohorts (age range 6–19 years old; European ethnicity) using a priori set criteria. A meta-analysis (N_cases = 1994) showed elevated NRH % in individuals with language/reading impairment compared with controls (OR = 1.21, CI = 1.06–1.39, p = .01). The association between reading/language impairments and NRH could result from shared pathways underlying brain lateralization, handedness, and cognitive functions.     

Small Circles: Mobile Telephony and the Cultivation of the Private Sphere

This article examines how we use mobile telephony to maintain our physically and socially closest social circle. The analysis is based on traffic data gathered from Norway using approximately 24 million calls and texts made by private individuals. Previous research has shown that our temporal and spatial movement is highly predictable and that the majority of calls and text messages are sent to only four to six different persons. This article extends this research by examining both tie strength and the distance between the interlocutors in urban and rural settings. The findings show that even as information and communication technologies (ICTs) potentially put the world at our fingertips, the mobile phone is an instrument of a more limited geographical and social sphere. Approximately two-thirds of our calls/texts go to strong ties that are within a 25-km radius.     

Scientific arguments as learning artifacts: designing for learning from the web with KIE

We designed Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE) debate projects to take advantage of internet resources and promote student understanding of science. Design decisions were guided by the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration instructional framework. We report on design studies that test and elaborate on our instructional framework. Our learning studies assess the arguments students construct using the Knowledge Integration Environment debate project about light propagation and, explore the relationship between students' views of the nature of science and argument construction. We examine how students use evidence, determine when they add further ideas and claims and measure progress in understanding light propagation. To a modeate degree, students' views of the nature of science align with the quality of the arguments.