Does a Computer System Help to Teach a Sight Vocabulary to Children with Severe Learning Difficulties?

Twelve children with severe learning difficulties were taught an initial sight vocabulary with and without the help of a computer system. A control group received individual teaching in mathematics. All groups were given the teaching for eight minutes a day for four weeks. The results demonstrated that all 12 children in the experimental groups significantly improved their sight vocabulary. Trends in the data indicated that the teacher-only condition produced better learning than the computer-assisted condition, and that this was particularly true for the children with lower ability. The results are discussed in relation to the information-processing demands being made on the child in each condition and the implications for teaching.     

Critical thinking in distance education: Developing critical communities in an audio teleconference context

Distance education has long been associated with independent study and delivery of prepackaged learning materials. These characteristics effectively deny distance education students the opportunity to participate in communities of inquiry and, perhaps, opportunities to develop their critical thinking skills. This paper reviews the theoretical impact of socially situated learning, critical thinking and their implications for distance education. It then presents the results from a study of learners' perception while enrolled in two different models of audio teleconferenced, university courses. The study reports quantitative results from a mail survey of these students and the qualitative results from interviews and classroom observations. The impact of the instructional design used by the delivering institution resulted in two distinct models of audio teleconference delivery with significant qualitative and quantitative differences in student perception. The paper concludes that learning communities, which support the development of critical thinking skills, can be created at a distance and that they provide a mechanism for improving the quality of higher level distance education.     

Teacher Candidates' Perspectives on the Value of a Site-Based Methods Course

Abstract

In the field of teacher education, the disconnect between university-based coursework and practical field experiences has long been a concern. To make teacher preparation coursework more meaningful, some programs partner with P-12 schools to offer site-based courses. Although situated learning for novices in practice-based professions makes sense, more research is needed to determine if, how, and why site-based courses in particular may be beneficial for teacher candidates’ (TCs) learning. In this study, we used surveys and interviews with TCs, who had taken the same site-based literacy methods course, to identify which aspects of the course they found most facilitative of connections between the course content and the field. Our findings suggest working with children in classrooms, course instructors’ involvement at the school, and opportunities to discuss and reflect upon their experiences immediately after they had been in the field were the primary features of a site-based course TCs found valuable.     

Exploring undergraduates' understanding of photosynthesis using diagnostic question clusters

We present a diagnostic question cluster (DQC) that assesses undergraduates' thinking about photosynthesis. This assessment tool is not designed to identify individual misconceptions. Rather, it is focused on students' abilities to apply basic concepts about photosynthesis by reasoning with a coordinated set of practices based on a few scientific principles: conservation of matter, conservation of energy, and the hierarchical nature of biological systems. Data on students' responses to the cluster items and uses of some of the questions in multiple-choice, multiple-true/false, and essay formats are compared. A cross-over study indicates that the multiple-true/false format shows promise as a machine-gradable format that identifies students who have a mixture of accurate and inaccurate ideas. In addition, interviews with students about their choices on three multiple-choice questions reveal the fragility of students' understanding. Collectively, the data show that many undergraduates lack both a basic understanding of the role of photosynthesis in plant metabolism and the ability to reason with scientific principles when learning new content. Implications for instruction are discussed.     

Professional skills development in a resource-poor setting: the case of pharmacy in Malawi

The dominance of the human capital approach in vocational skills development has been increasingly questioned for being de-humanised and de-contextualised. Contrary to this trend, the discourse in health professional skills development has shown increasing enthusiasm for consolidating this existing paradigm. To debate whether professional skills development should indeed be insulated from such scepticism, this paper examines one strategy adopted by the health professions. Called ‘task shifting’, this strategy involves re-delegating professional tasks to nonprofessional cadres according to a skills-based toolkit. Challenging the context-free approach to using this toolkit, this paper presents ethnographic evidence derived from a case study of pharmacy workforce issues in Malawi. It was found that task shifting was inhibited by a perception barrier about the moral and intellectual superiority of the pharmacists. Pharmacy technicians were judged to be unfit for a professional task because of a perceived lack of professional status, power and ethics. On tracing the origin of the inherent professional prowess assigned to the pharmacists, it was found that professionalism was an ideology borrowed from external sources, inter alia, colonial legacies and global health governance. This study exposes our hidden assumption about an axiomatic transferability of Anglo-American skills development models to a postcolonial, aid-dependent context. This paper therefore suggests redefining this toolkit by bridging health research into dialogue with non-health disciplinary concerns such as postcolonialism and aid-dependence. In conclusion, it argues that professional skills development is context-laden; and in need of a human-centred approach that involves true indigenous participation–challenges not unlike those faced by the vocational skills discourse.     

Engaging young students in scientific investigations: prompting for meaningful reflection

This study examined the verbal prompts a tutor used to promote reflection and young students’ responses to these prompts. Seven children (ages 8–12) participated in 260 min of one-on-one tutoring to learn scientific concepts related to gear movement; the tutor spontaneously provided these students with 763 prompts for reflection. Prompts reliably induced reflection: Students responded verbally 87% of the time. Turn-by-turn discourse analysis revealed seven distinct types of prompts and 11 distinct types of verbal responses. High-level prompts were strongly associated with high-level responses. A log-multiplicative association model with two dimensions (temporality and certainty) represented the relationships between prompt and response types; from this model, odds ratios estimated the strength of association between specific pairs of prompt and response types. Findings are discussed in terms of the effects that reflection may have on students’ developing understanding of scientific concepts.     

“My Child is Your Child”: Family Behavior in a Mexican Science Museum

Abstract In this paper we describe the particularities of Latin American museum visitors as learners through an exploratory study that took place at Universum, Museo de las Ciencias, a science museum located in Mexico City. The exploration of the learning experiences of Latin American family groups was carried out by means of a case study approach and from a socio‐cultural theory perspective. This inquiry of 20 family groups reveals that nuances of the concept of “family,” in the Mexican context, are important in studying family learning in museum settings. The prominent roles of the extended family and interactions within family groups are discussed as intrinsic traits of a family’s museum learning. In addition, the outcomes of this study highlight the impact that the Latin American notion of educación has on museum education and research, as it encompasses issues that relate to the perpetuation of socio‐cultural values, child‐rearing, and ultimately, cultural identity.