Edulabs AGIRE project – evaluation of ICT integration in teaching strategies

The AGIRE project, under the Edulab concept, aims to promote the adoption of innovative teaching practices. This paper reports the support strategies used to evaluate the teacher practices at the end of a teacher training course (TTC) and analyse its impact on teacher technology integration, using a design-based methodology. Teachers’ initial perception was gathered using an online questionnaire comprising ICT personal and professional competencies. The questionnaire results and the classroom observations showed that the majority of teachers were at the level of ICT adoption, before attending the TTC, reaching the adaptation level of integration of ICT, after the TTC. A variety of teaching strategies (flipped classroom, collaborative work, …) and technologies (interactive white boards, tablets, videos, …) were explored. The results sustain the thesis that, with proper support, ICT can be integrated in educational contexts in an innovative way and contribute to the development of teachers’ digital literacy.     

Scaffolding Narrative Skills: A Meta-Analysis of Instruction in Early Childhood Settings

Research Findings: Children’s ability to tell stories and to understand the stories of others typically emerges in early childhood, supported by primary caregivers and educators. This article reviews instruction designed to foster children’s narrative skills in preschool and kindergarten settings and examines the effects using meta-analysis. The review covers more than 3 decades (1980–2013) of experimental research (k = 15 studies, 28 effects). The findings showed that verbal scaffolding, alone or in combination with other strategies, was the predominant teaching approach. The meta-analysis revealed average effects (weighted for sample size) for narrative expression (.50) and a slightly larger effect for comprehension (.58). These effects were unrelated to the duration of instruction. However, when verbal strategies were combined with nonverbal ones, such as engaging children in enacting stories or in telling stories with props, the effects for expression increased (i.e., children’s storytelling improved more from pretest to posttest). Practice or Policy: The review indicates promising strategies for supporting narrative skills. Furthermore, the studies identified can serve as a resource for practitioners by suggesting diverse kinds of verbal scaffolds, complementary nonverbal approaches, and storybooks that have been used effectively to foster narrative competencies among young children.     

Factors affecting probabilistic judgements in children and adolescents

Six hundred and eighteen pupils, enrolled in elementary and junior-high-school classes (Pisa, Italy) were asked to solve a number of probability problems. The main aim of the investigation has been to obtain a better understanding of the origins and nature of some probabilistic intuitive obstacles. A linguistic factor has been identified: It appears that for many children, the concept of certain events is more difficult to comprehend than that of possible events. It has been found that even adolescents have difficulties in detaching the mathematical structure from the practical embodiment of the stochastic situation. In problems where numbers intervene, the magnitude of the numbers considered has an effect on their probability: bigger numbers are more likely to be obtained than smaller ones. Many children seem to be unable to solve probability questions, because of their inability to consider the rational structure of a hazard situation: chance is, by itself, an equalizing factor of probabilities. Positive intuitive capacities have also been identified: some problems referring to compound events are better solved when addressed in a general form than when addressed in a particular way.     

Curriculum Design of a Flipped Classroom to Enhance Haematology Learning

A common trend in higher education is the “flipped” classroom, which facilitates active learning during class. The flipped approach to teaching was instituted in a haematology ‘major’ class and the students’ attitudes and preferences for the teaching materials were surveyed. The curriculum design was explicit and involved four major components (1) the preparation of the students; (2) the weekly pre-class work; (3) the in-class active learning strategies and (4) closing the learning loop using formative quizzes. Each of these components is discussed in detail and was informed by sound pedagogical strategies. Several different sources of information and several freely available software tools to engage the students are discussed. Two iterations are reported here, with improved pass rate for the final examination from 47 to 48 % in the traditional class to 56–65 % in the flipped classroom approach. The majority of students (93 and 89 %) came to the class prepared, after viewing the screencasts and engaged fully with the activities within the face-to-face time. The students perceived that solving case studies (93 %) was the most beneficial activity for their learning and this was closely followed by the production of essay plans (71 %). The majority of students recommended that this approach be repeated the following year (69 and 75 %).     

Indian child welfare: A community team approach to protective services

The purpose of this study is threefold: first, to describe the characteristics of child abuse and neglect on a major Indian reservation; second, to examine the impact of a community team approach to child abuse and neglect as measured by the incidence of reported abuse and neglect and admissions for emergency foster care; and third, to make recommendations for actions to close the gaps in child welfare services to Indian children living on reservations.     

Correlates of Work-Life Balance for Faculty Across Racial/Ethnic Groups

Very few studies have examined issues of work-life balance among faculty of different racial/ethnic backgrounds. Utilizing data from Harvard University’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education project, this study examined predictors of work-life balance for 2953 faculty members from 69 institutions. The final sample consisted of 1059 (36%) Asian American faculty, 512 (17%) African American faculty, 359 (12%) Latina/o faculty, and 1023 (35%) White/Caucasian faculty. There were 1184 (40%) women faculty and 1769 (60%) men faculty. The predictors of worklife balance included faculty characteristics, departmental/institutional characteristics and support, and faculty satisfaction with work. While African American women faculty reported less work-life balance than African American men, the reverse was true for Latina/o faculty. In addition, White faculty who were single with no children were significantly less likely to report having work-life balance than their married counterparts with children. Faculty rank was a significant positive predictor of work-life balance for all faculty. Notably, the findings highlight the importance of department and institutional support for making personal/family obligations and an academic career compatible. Institutional support for making personal/family obligations and an academic career compatible was consistently the strongest positive predictor of perceived work-life balance for all faculty. In addition, satisfaction with time spent on research had positive associations with work-life balance for all faculty, highlighting how faculty from all racial/ethnic backgrounds value being able to spend enough time on their own research.     

Exploration De La Résilience éducationnelle Chez Des Enseignants

AN EXPLORATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL RESILIENCE OF TEACHING STAFF – This study focuses on the degree of resilience displayed by teaching staff with the aim of promoting their professional development and preventing job-related exhaustion. Seven underprivileged schools in Montreal were selected, and 24 teaching staff with contrasting personal profiles were interviewed on the subject of their work. The Alceste software was used to analyse the conversations, which revolved around techniques applied when dealing with critical incidents. The main analysis identified five different discourses among the respondents. Three of these were associated with the more resilient of the teachers and two were associated with the more vulnerable ones. Resilient teaching staff characteristically discussed dealing with aggressive behaviour, the teaching-learning relationship and the subject of social relationships, whereas vulnerable teaching staff focused on work beyond the classroom, people in positions of higher authority and the community. The authors note that teachers who are just embarking on their careers appear more vulnerable than more experienced teaching staff, which suggests that more resources should be provided to support teachers in their profession.     

La Littérature De Jeunesse Entre Normes Pédagogiques Et Littéraires : Le Cas Des Pays Francophones D’afrique

YOUTH LITERATURE IN THE CONTEXT OF PEDAGOGIC AND LITERARY NORMS: THE FRENCH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES OF AFRICA – There are two approaches to children’s and youth literature, one didactic, the other aesthetic. This gives rise to the following question: taking into account the fact that children’s literature aspires to be a literary form in its own right, should more weight be attibuted to its aesthetic value when evaluating it? This paper examines this question – which has in the past been the subject of highly controversial discussions in the German-speaking regions – by focusing on youth literature in the French-speaking coutries of Africa. The pedagogic dimension cannot be ignored when considering this literary context because it is so much a part of the post-colonial dynamic. Youth literature in the French-speaking countries of Africa echoes current realities. Examples are used to demonstrate how literature can deal with vital questions without neglecting the literary aspect.     

A women's scientific society in the west. The late eighteenth-century assimilation of science

The Natuurkundig Genootschap der Dames (Women's Society for Natural Knowledge), formally established by and for women, met regularly from 1785 to 1881 and sporadically until 1887. It challenges our stereotypes both of women and the physical sciences during the eighteenth century and of the intellectual interests open to women in the early European republics. This essay aims not simply to identify the society and its members but to describe their pursuits and consider what their story adds to the history of Western science. What does this society's existence tell us about the relationship between women and early science in general and about science and society in the Dutch setting in particular? Science and gender look rather different when observed through the activities of the immensely prosperous women of Middelburg, citizens of one of the most highly literate Western countries. The elite lives of the first-generation members of the women's society also offer us a glimpse into the early domestication of science, a process vital to its acceptance and assimilation.