Nature of Interactions Among Young Children and Adult Caregivers in a Children’s Museum

This naturalistic, qualitative study examines the nature of child- and adult-led interactions in a children’s museum. Using dialogic learning as a theoretical framework, the study examines how children and adults engage in interactions while learning at a museum. Findings suggest that children and adults are almost equally likely to lead interactions; however, most child-led interactions are qualitatively different from adult-led interactions. Children are more likely to show-and-tell about their experiences and learn by asking questions and commenting about their play. Adults are more likely to teach by telling, prompting, and reporting a child’s activities. Children and adults also are equally engage in pretend play during their interactions. Leveraging these findings, recommendations are made for museum exhibit space design.     

The effects of 15 min and 30 min of exercise on affective responses both during and after exercise

Although much research has examined the relationship between exercise and affect, few studies have considered the effects of exercise bouts of different durations and few researchers have questioned the longer term effects that might be associated with acute exercise. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of the standard health recommended exercise duration of 30?min with a shorter (15?min) bout of exercise upon individuals' affect scores both during and after exercise. Twenty-three (mean age 22.4 years) physically active participants engaged in two counterbalanced cycle ergometer exercise conditions for 15?min (short bout) and 30?min (moderate bout). The participants completed the Subjective Exercise Experience Scale before, during, 5?min, 30 mins, 1?h and 2?h after both exercise conditions. A series of 2 × 6 within-participant repeated-measures analyses of variance for positive well-being (P?<0.01), psychological distress (P?<0.01) and fatigue (P?<0.01) scores revealed significant time main effects, with improved scores over time. No significant differences were noted between the 15-min and 30-min exercise bouts. These results indicate that positive affective responses are experienced by exercisers after relatively short bouts of acute exercise and these effects can still be evident some time later.     

Outcomes assessment: an examination of the ETS major field test and the comprehensive business exam

This study is the first to examine student performance differences between the major field test in business (MFTB) and the comprehensive business exam (CBE). Results reveal students performed at a statistically significant 50.8 percentile ranking on the CBE compared to a 38.0 percentile ranking on the MFTB. Additionally, this study finds that students transferring business core courses with a grade point average (GPA) of 2.5 or lower perform at a statistically significant lower level on both the MFTB and the CBE than those transferring business core courses with GPAs higher than 2.5. These findings have important implications for assessment of learning purposes.     

Multilingual primary classrooms: an investigation of first year teachers’ learning and responsive teaching

This article draws on the analysis of 26 interviews with newly qualified primary teachers (NQTs) in one multilingual city in England, towards the end of their induction year. Interview analysis focused on three themes: developments in pedagogic practice, collaboration with colleagues, resolutions for change or development. Detailed thematic analysis confirmed that NQTs were engaged in reflection about how to respond to diversity, in some cases building on awareness raised in teacher education. Learning on the job was a frequent theme but five respondents still expressed lack of confidence about their approaches. Twenty-one NQTs believed that they had begun to develop responsive forms of teaching, aided by support from and collaboration with other colleagues, including teaching assistants, many bilingual. Implications of the study are that both teacher education and educational research programmes need to give further time to the study and development of linguistically responsive forms of teaching.     

Natural mentors, racial identity, and educational attainment among african american adolescents: exploring pathways to success

The present study explored how relationships with natural mentors may contribute to African American adolescents’ long‐term educational attainment by influencing adolescents’ racial identity and academic beliefs. This study included 541 academically at‐risk African American adolescents transitioning into adulthood. The mean age of participants at Time 1 was 17.8 (SD = .64) and slightly over half (54%) of study participants were female. Results of the current study indicated that relationships with natural mentors promoted more positive long‐term educational attainment among participants through increased private regard (a dimension of racial identity) and stronger beliefs in the importance of doing well in school for future success. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Finding the Hook: Computer Science Education in Elementary Contexts

The purpose of this study was to investigate how elementary teachers with little knowledge of computer science (CS) and project-based learning (PBL) experienced integrating CS through PBL as a part of a standards-based elementary curriculum in Grades 3–5. The researchers used qualitative constant comparison methods on field notes and reflections to describe the teachers' participation in professional development to create CS-infused projects to be implemented with their students. Categories that emerged included standards integration, student autonomy, and challenges of infrastructure and time. The data are from the first 6 months of a 3-year, National Science Foundation-funded project. (Keywords: computer science, project-based learning, integration, elementary curriculum)     

The peripatetic professor: the internationalisation of the academic profession

The internationalisation of the academic profession is a growing, iflittle studied, phenomenon, in contemporary higher education, and thearticle studies attitudes and behavioural outcomes of academic staff from arange of countries in relation to this dimension. After brief allusions topast examples of academic staff mobility, a routine measure ofinternationalisation was used to divide the International Survey populationinto two groups (peripatetic and indigenous). Results indicatedsignificant differences in both values and performance, in a range of areas.Substantial differences are also reported between many systems of highereducation. The article concludes with some comparisons of other staffmobility schemes, and a defense of the worth of international experience foracademic staff.     

Using targeted active-learning exercises and diagnostic question clusters to improve students' understanding of carbon cycling in ecosystems

In this study, we used targeted active-learning activities to help students improve their ways of reasoning about carbon flow in ecosystems. The results of a validated ecology conceptual inventory (diagnostic question clusters [DQCs]) provided us with information about students' understanding of and reasoning about transformation of inorganic and organic carbon-containing compounds in biological systems. These results helped us identify specific active-learning exercises that would be responsive to students' existing knowledge. The effects of the active-learning interventions were then examined through analysis of students' pre- and postinstruction responses on the DQCs. The biology and non-biology majors participating in this study attended a range of institutions and the instructors varied in their use of active learning; one lecture-only comparison class was included. Changes in pre- to postinstruction scores on the DQCs showed that an instructor's teaching method had a highly significant effect on student reasoning following course instruction, especially for questions pertaining to cellular-level, carbon-transforming processes. We conclude that using targeted in-class activities had a beneficial effect on student learning regardless of major or class size, and argue that using diagnostic questions to identify effective learning activities is a valuable strategy for promoting learning, as gains from lecture-only classes were minimal.     

Support of the collaborative inquiry learning process: influence of support on task and team regulation

Regulation of the learning process is an important condition for efficient and effective learning. In collaborative learning, students have to regulate their collaborative activities (team regulation) next to the regulation of their own learning process focused on the task at hand (task regulation). In this study, we investigate how support of collaborative inquiry learning can influence the use of regulative activities of students. Furthermore, we explore the possible relations between task regulation, team regulation and learning results. This study involves tenth-grade students who worked in pairs in a collaborative inquiry learning environment that was based on a computer simulation, Collisions, developed in the program SimQuest. Students of the same team worked on two different computers and communicated through chat. Chat logs of students from three different conditions are compared. Students in the first condition did not receive any support at all (Control condition). In the second condition, students received an instruction in effective communication, the RIDE rules (RIDE condition). In the third condition, students were, in addition to receiving the RIDE rules instruction, supported by the Collaborative Hypothesis Tool (CHT), which helped the students with formulating hypotheses together (CHT condition). The results show that students overall used more team regulation than task regulation. In the RIDE condition and the CHT condition, students regulated their team activities most often. Moreover, in the CHT condition the regulation of team activities was positively related to the learning results. We can conclude that different measures of support can enhance the use of team regulative activities, which in turn can lead to better learning results.