Designing a flashcard with knowledge pills for learning to solve chemistry exercises

Nowadays, universities tend to promote more learner-centred learning, creating a more interactive and motivational environment for students and teachers. This paper describes an expanded framework to help chemical educators to construct a quiz for solution of chemical exercises in their courses. The novelty of this contribution is that the proposed tool combines a flashcards-based method with knowledge pills. The framework has three levels: definition of problem for a teacher; the quiz; use of the quiz for the student. The tool could provide predefined or automatically generated exercises of chemicals. Students could practise where and whenever they like via the Internet. Theirs answers would be registered automatically by the tool and if the students have doubts about any of the questions, they can see a knowledge pill with a teacher explanation about the solution of the exercise. Moreover, they would be able to check their scores from the tests. Once the flashcards were designed and produced, the opinions of other lecturers and students about them were considered. Both groups considered that the tool could be useful to improve the students’ learning process. For future work, this design will be used with the students and its effectiveness will be analysed.     

Biomechanical analysis of the penalty-corner drag-flick of elite male and female hockey players

The aim of this study was to analyse the kinematic sequencing in the penalty-corner drag-flicks of elite male and female field hockey players of international calibre. Thirteen participants (one skilled male drag-flicker and six male and six female elite players) participated in the study. An optoelectronic motion analysis system was used to capture the drag-flicks with six cameras, sampling at 250 Hz. Select ground reaction force parameters were obtained from a force platform which registered the last support of the front foot. Twenty trials were captured from each subject. Both player groups showed significantly (p < 0.05) smaller ball velocity at release, peak angular velocity of the pelvis, and negative and positive peak angular velocities of the stick than the skilled subject. Normalised ground reaction forces of the gender groups were also smaller than that of the skilled drag-flicker. By comparing these players we established that the cues of the skill level are a wide stance, a whipping action (rapid back lift) of the stick followed by an explosive sequential movement of the pelvis, upper trunk and stick.     

How clicker use facilitates existing pedagogical practices in higher education: data from interdisciplinary research on student response systems

This article identifies how clicker use can support or augment existing principles of good teaching across different disciplines in higher education. While many of these principles will be familiar to instructors, the link between student response system (SRS) use and existing pedagogical methods is still often unclear, even for scholars who are well read in the literature. Functioning as a resource for both novices and instructors who have already incorporated clickers into their courses, this article synthesizes existing literature and offers empirical data from five courses in three disciplines to show how SRSs can be used to support contemporary pedagogical goals. The authors discuss five exemplary practices, providing sample clicker questions along the way, to show how clickers can be used to facilitate active learning in large courses.     

Memoria y competencia inferencial en niños: un estudio preliminar

Resumen

Se contrasta la hipótesis de un posible efecto de facilitación mediante la representación previa de unas premisas sobre la competencia lógica de niños de nueve años. Los resultados no permiten confirmar la incidencia de ese efecto cuando la tarea exigida está por encima de la competencia lógica actual de los sujetos.     

Memoria incidental e intencional en preescolares

Resumen

En general, se ha mantenido que los niños en edad preescolar recuerdan mejor en tareas de aprendizaje incidental que en las de aprendizaje intencional. En este estudio se ha reexaminado esta cuestión y se ha visto que no existe tal diferencia. Niños de 3 a 5 reconocieron de modo semejante una serie de objetos y dibujos, tanto si se les había advertido previamente que debían recordar como si no. El estudio ha demostrado asimismo, y en concordancia con otros trabajos, que el recuerdo no es independiente del nivel de conocimiento ni de la edad del niño. En virtud de estos resultados se hace una interpretación de la memoria infantil acorde con la teoría de los niveles de procesamiento.     

那些曾经，溢过阳光

阳光温暖得让人有些沉醉。故事的开始似乎总是这样一个浪漫的午后,有某些事物在继续奔跑,延伸。带走一些忧伤,似乎也带来一些快乐。一体育课上绕着操场一圈圈地跑着,豆子从后面跑上来,拉着我的手径直从操场中间穿过,坐在一个完全暴露在阳光下的斜坡上,因为豆子说她冷得快见马克思了。于是我们坐在水泥地上,也没有想     

Books and articles of academic interest

Books and articles of academic interest     

The development of referential communication: Improving message accuracy by coordinating private speech with peer questioning

In this study, we examine the development of referential communicative regulation, incorporating the Vygotskian notion of private speech. From this perspective, private speech may serve a regulatory role when the child speaker is focused on what to say when speaking to others. In a longitudinal study carried out with 10 pairs of children with a mean age of 4.5, 6.5, and 8.5 years, we analyzed the relationship between the capacity of the child in the speaker role to modify messages, increasing their informative quality, the presence of private speech embedded in the messages, and the emergence of prior questions by the child in the listener role aimed at clarifying some aspect of the message. We found that the number of modified messages, the mean frequency of private speech in the messages, and the number of peer's questions all increase with age. Only in the case of the modified messages by the speaker did we find a triple interaction among age, use of private speech, and the presence of peer's questions. At 8.5 years, the presence of peer's questions and subsequent use of private speech appeared together for the majority of the modified messages. This was not the case at the ages 4.5 or 6.5. In line with Vygotsky's theses, private speech would play an important role to allow communicators to reflect on the quality of their communicative utterances, and to modify and improve them accordingly. In this process, the capacity to improve message accuracy by coordinating private speech with peer questioning clearly emerges with age.     

LEARNING POTENTIAL ASSESSMENT AND ADAPTATION TO THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT: THE USEFULNESS OF THE ACFS FOR ASSESSING IMMIGRANT PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

The objective of this study was to test the usefulness of dynamic assessment for determining cognitive abilities such as classification, auditory and visual memory, pattern sequences, perspective taking, verbal planning, learning potential, and metacognition in immigrant preschool children with and without competence in the dominant language (Spanish). One hundred seventy‐six preschool‐children were distributed in three groups according to the cultural background of their parents (native Spanish/Spanish‐speaking immigrants/non‐Spanish speaking immigrants). The children were assessed by means of the K‐BIT, the Application of Cognitive Functions Scale (ACFS), and metacognition, language competence and academic performance estimates. The results show that although there are initial differences in execution between the two groups (Spanish/immigrants), there are no differences with regard to learning potential. The study also demonstrates the importance of behavioral, attitudinal, and metacognitive variables in children's test execution and academic performance.