Evaluation of an adaptive tutorial supporting the teaching of mathematics

ABSTRACT

Adaptive tutorials enable engaged, personalised and interactive online learning that includes instant adaptive feedback. By integrating an adaptive tutorial into a large and diverse engineering mathematics course, we explored its potential to support and guide students’ learning from afar. The aim of this study was to assess whether students provided with an adaptive tutorial, could benefit from its use and whether they would engage in and take responsibility for their learning. Comparisons were made between students who did and did not use the tutorial. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses determined the impact of including an adaptive tutorial in a blended learning environment, where 58% of students engaged with the tutorial and 74% of them completed it. Improved confidence and understanding was reported by 98% of the participants. A comparison of examination results indicated that median scores for students who utilised the tutorial were significantly higher than those who did not.     

‘The idea is nice… but not for me’: First-year students’ readiness for large-scale ‘flipped lectures’—what (de)motivates them?

Higher Education - The flipped classroom is proposed as an answer to challenges in higher education. However, studies that explore its influence on first-year student motivation are largely...     

Inter-firm R&D partnering in pharmaceutical biotechnology since 1975: Trends, patterns, and networks

This paper analyses a large, longitudinal database on inter-firm R&D partnerships formed in the high-tech pharmaceutical biotechnology industry since 1975. Our research indicates an overall growth in the number of annually, newly established R&D partnerships where research partners consistently prefer contractual partnerships to equity-based alliances. In the networks that develop through these R&D partnerships, small, entrepreneurial biotechnological companies take a leading role during the 1980s when biotechnology first became relevant for the pharmaceutical industry. The 1990s, however, show a different pattern with established, large pharmaceutical companies becoming more dominant, acting as nodal players with multiple partnerships with a variety of other companies.     

The impact of the French policy mix on business R&D: How geography matters

Based on a spatial extension of an R&D investment model, this paper measures the macroeconomic impact of the French R&D policy mix on business R&D using regional data. Our measure takes into account not only the direct effect of policies but also indirect effects generated by the existence of spatial interaction between regions. Using a unique database containing information on the levels of various R&D policy instruments received by firms in French NUTS3 regions over the period 2001–2011, our estimates of a spatial Durbin model with structural breaks and fixed effects reveal the existence of a negative spatial dependence among R&D investments in regions. In this context, while a-spatial estimates would conclude that all instruments have a crowding-in effect, we show that national subsidies are the only instrument that is able to generate significant crowding-in effects. On the contrary, it seems that the design, size and spatial allocation of funds from the other instruments (tax credits, local subsidies, European subsidies) lead them to act (in the French context) as beggar-thy-neighbor policies.     

Instruments for evaluating school psychologists' functioning and service

The evaluation of school psychological services is both a responsibility and an opportunity too long ignored. Unique problems must be overcome in evaluating school psychologists, but the task is not insurmountable. This paper describes and presents examples of five data collection devices which can be used in the evaluation effort: the vignette-based questionnaire, the role-model questionnaire, the services received questionnaire, the teacher interview, and nonobtrusive measurement.     

Electronic Portfolio Adoption for Teacher Education Candidates

Programs of professional development for preservice teachers of young children in the United States attempt to align their program goals and candidate performances to The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Association of Childhood Education International (ACEI), and their particular state standards. In addition they attempt to teach candidates to be knowledgeable and reflective practitioners who use the best practices in their field. This article will address one university’s attempt to adopt this process and utilize electronic portfolios. The article will include examples of course objectives, standards, rubrics, and candidate performances interwoven through program matrices in order to insure the proper delivery of instruction while maintaining flexibility and creativity. It is hoped that the article will foster discussion about the strengths and challenges of accountability and academic freedom in preparing candidates in early childhood education.     

Raisonnements arithmétiques et algébriques dans un contexte de résolution de problèmes: difficultés rencontrées par les futurs enseignants

Le problème de l'articulation entre les raisonnements arithmétiques et raisonnements algébriques nous renvoie entre autres au rapport que l'enseignant – ou le futur enseignant – entretient lui-même a priori avec ces modes de traitement, une telle relation ayant une incidence sur les choix didactiques qui seront éventuellement posés par cet intervenant en regard d'une introduction à l'algèbre dans un contexte de résolution de problèmes. Une expérimentation, visant à mettre en évidence si les futurs enseignants peuvent établir ou non une dialectique entre ces deux modes de raisonnements dans le contexte particulier de la résolution de problèmes, a été conduite auprès de trois groupes de futurs enseignants (164 sujets); des entrevues individuelles et dyadiques réalisées auprès de quelques sujets pointent leurs difficultés dans le passage d'un mode de traitement à l'autre. Dans le présent article, sont relatées les résistances rencontrées spécifiquement dans le passage à l'algèbre. ABSTRACT. The problem of articulation between arithmetic teaching and algebra teaching concerns among other things the relationship the teacher or pre-service teacher has with the knowledge to be taught (relation au savoir), which produces an impact on the choices that he makes concerning the approaches they are to favour in an introductory algebra context. Three groups of future teachers (164 students) were questioned with a view to analyzing to what extent these students were able to shift back and forth between these two methods within the particular context of problem solving. Interviews on either an individual basis or in a dyad format were conducted with a number of subjects, and have served to bring out their difficulties in articulation between these two fields. Only the difficulties observed in the transition from arithmetic to algebra are presented in this article.