Developing schools as professional learning communities： The TL21 experience

Over the last 2 decades, Irish schooling and society have gone through a period of significant structural and policy-driven change. To meet the emerging needs of the knowledge/learning society, schools and teachers are challenged to develop their capacities as ＂active learning communities＂. This places greater demands on teachers and schools to reflect on their classroom practices, to utilise a wider repertoire of pedagogic styles more suited to the needs of the 21st century learners and so that meaningfully collaborate with their fellow professionals. Teaching and Learning for the 21st Century （TL21） was a 4-year （2003-2007） multi-pronged research and development project involving the Education Department at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth （NUIM） and 15 post-primary schools. The project sought to address a number of key aims in terms of developing schools as professional learning communities, including addressing the isolation and insulation which teachers can, and do experience in their day-to-day professional lives and prioritize quality in teaching and learning as a key challenge for school development planning. This paper attempts to succinctly frame the key developments and findings which emerged over the duration of this process.     

The use of adjunct displays to facilitate comprehension of causal relationships in expository text

We examined whether making cause and effect relationships explicit with an adjunct display improves different facets of text comprehension compared to a text only condition. In two experiments, participants read a text and then either studied a causal diagram, studied a list, or reread the text. In both experiments, readers who studied the adjunct displays better recalled the steps in the causal sequences, answered more problem-solving transfer items correctly, and answered more questions about transitive relationships between causes and effects correctly than those who reread the text. These findings supported the causal explication hypothesis, which states that adjunct displays improve comprehension of causal relationships by explicitly representing a text’s causal structure, which helps the reader better comprehend causal relationships.     

Changes in teacher stress through participation in pre‐referral intervention teams

Teachers today face high stress that can compromise their well‐being, longevity in the profession, and the quality of their interactions with students. Pre‐referral interventions, which address individual student difficulties before consideration for special education, may help buffer teacher stress through student interventions and team support. Yet, little is known about how teacher stress changes across pre‐referral interventions. This study followed 33 elementary education teachers prospectively through their participation in a pre‐referral intervention team (PIT) program. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that, across the pre‐referral process, teachers felt less distress related to referred students' needs, termed “dyadic stress.” Teachers' dyadic stress was partially accounted for by student progress on referral concerns. Teachers' experience of PIT support was also linked to reductions in stress and lower dyadic stress after pre‐referral interventions were implemented. The findings have implications for how school practitioners consult with teachers. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The influence of self-efficacy and working memory capacity on problem-solving efficiency

We investigated the influence of self-efficacy beliefs and working memory capacity on mathematical problem-solving performance, response time, and efficiency (i.e., the ratio of problems solved correctly to time). Students completed a letter-recoding task (Experiment 1) or an operation span task (Experiment 2), rated their self-efficacy for solving mental multiplication problems, and then solved similar problems of varying complexity. We tested the motivational efficiency hypothesis, which predicted that motivational beliefs, such as self-efficacy, increase problem-solving efficiency through focused effort and strategy use. Experiments 1 and 2 reported a significant effect for self-efficacy on problem-solving performance and efficiency, but limited effects for time. A self-efficacy by working memory interaction occurred in Experiment 1, suggesting self-efficacy is beneficial as demands on working memory increase. These findings suggested that self-efficacy increased problem-solving efficiency through strategic performance rather than faster solution times, and were consistent with the motivational efficiency hypothesis.     

Metacognitive learning: the effect of item-specific experience and age on metamemory calibration and planning

Metacognition is a person’s ability to think about their own thinking, to think about their own cognitive ability and knowledge and then to take the appropriate regulatory steps when a problem is detected. Although considerable research has examined the level of such ability in various contexts, there has been relatively little study on whether metacognition can be improved with experience. The present research examined this question for both general (lifetime experience) and item-specific (repetition) experience. Metamemory calibration (correlations between memory predictions and performance) and planning (correlations between memory predictions and study decisions) were examined in both young and older adults. The results indicated that both calibration and planning efficiency increased only with item-specific experience, and even though calibration benefited from experience equally for young and older adults, only younger adults showed better improvement in planning with experience.

Cam McRobbie: A man for all occasions

This article reviews the contributions of Campbell John McRobbie, Cam, to science education scholarship and research within the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA) and within the broader science education community. Cam provided strong leadership and vision across many spheres of science education and leaves a legacy to the field that includes, (a) long term administrative and academic support of ASERA as an organization and for its incorporation, (b) firm establishment of RISE as an international journal of high quality, and (c) strong collegial approach to supporting the research of his colleagues including early career researchers and research degree candidates.

From Biology to Mathematical Models and Back: Teaching Modeling to Biology Students,and Biology to Math and Engineering Students

We describe the development of a course to teach modeling and mathematical analysis skills to students of biology and to teach biology to students with strong backgrounds in mathematics, physics, or engineering. The two groups of students have different ways of learning material and often have strong negative feelings toward the area of knowledge that they find difficult. To give students a sense of mastery in each area, several complementary approaches are used in the course: 1) a “live” textbook that allows students to explore models and mathematical processes interactively; 2) benchmark problems providing key skills on which students make continuous progress; 3) assignment of students to teams of two throughout the semester; 4) regular one-on-one interactions with instructors throughout the semester; and 5) a term project in which students reconstruct, analyze, extend, and then write in detail about a recently published biological model. Based on student evaluations and comments, an attitude survey, and the quality of the students'' term papers, the course has significantly increased the ability and willingness of biology students to use mathematical concepts and modeling tools to understand biological systems, and it has significantly enhanced engineering students'' appreciation of biology.     

An audience response system may influence student performance on anatomy examination questions

This study integrated an in-house audience response system (ARS) in the human anatomy course over two years to determine whether students performed better on high-stakes examinations following exposure to similar interactive questions in a large lecture format. Questions in an interactive ARS format were presented in lectures via PowerPoint presentations. Students who chose to participate in the anonymous ARS sessions submitted answers via their personal wireless devices (e.g., laptops, smartphones, PDAs, etc). Students were surveyed for feedback. Student participation in ARS activities was greatest (65-80%) in the first lecture. The number of students who actively participated in ARS activities decreased over the next four sessions, and then slightly increased in the last two sessions. This trend was the same for both years. Use of the ARS did not dramatically enhance overall student performance on examination questions that dealt with content similar to content presented in the ARS sessions. However, students who scored in the lower quartile of the examination performed better on the examination questions after the ARS was implemented. Accordingly, our findings suggest that the effect of ARS to improve student performance on examinations was not uniform. The overall benefit of an ARS to enhance the lecture experience was confirmed by student surveys.