Teaching children how to include the inversion principle in their reasoning about quantitative relations

The basis of this intervention study is a distinction between numerical calculus and relational calculus. The former refers to numerical calculations and the latter to the analysis of the quantitative relations in mathematical problems. The inverse relation between addition and subtraction is relevant to both kinds of calculus, but so far research on improving children’s understanding and use of the principle of inversion through interventions has only been applied to the solving of a + b − b = ? sums. The main aim of the intervention described in this article was to study the effects of teaching children about the explicit use of inversion as part of the relational calculus needed to solve inverse addition and subtraction problems using a calculator. The study showed that children taught about relational calculus differed significantly from those who were taught numerical procedures, and also that effects of the intervention were stronger when children were taught about relational calculus with mixtures of indirect and direct word problems than when these two types of problem were given to them in separate blocks.     

Dynamics of Acculturation, Enculturation, and Ethnic Identity: Influence of Psychocultural Constructs on Conscientiousness and Expectations of Higher Education Among Latinos

This study investigated the influence of psychocultural variables (e.g., acculturation, enculturation, ethnic identity) and personality characteristics in relation to educational expectations among 345 Latino middle school students in the U.S. Results from a path model indicate that 24.4?% of the variance of educational expectations was accounted for by all predictor variables included in the model. Age, acculturation, and conscientiousness had statistically significant direct effects on educational expectations. Findings also show that elements of ethnic identity and conscientiousness mediated the association from acculturation and enculturation to educational expectations. Implications of the findings for counselors are addressed.     

Comentarios a la influencia de la obra de Vygotski en la psicología del lenguaje

RESUMEN

El autor hace algunas consideraciones sobre las ideas de Vygotski sobre el lenguaje: la comunicación verbal como punto de unión entre lo fisiológico y lo social, el origen social del lenguaje, su función comunicativa y su relación con la inteligencia. De esta forma Vygotski abrió el camino hacia una teoría del lenguaje.     

The Use of New Information Technologies in the Relationship of Education and the Community

Abstract

The District of Bragança is an interior district situated in north‐eastern Portugal and has an area of 6595 km², equal to 7.4% of the mainland territory. The low population density of 27 inhabitants per km², however, emphasizes the strong need for incentives to develop. In this context, a project is proposed and presented in outline, which aims at implementing an information network to link small regional enterprises, in order to allow them to take advantage of new technologies and progress towards their integration into the information society. The present project includes an important component of training for new technology users.     

Beyond decoding deficit: inhibitory effect of positional syllable frequency in dyslexic Spanish children

This study explores whether activation and inhibition word processes contribute to the characteristic speed deficits found in transparent orthographies (Wimmer, Appl Psycholinguist 14:1–33, 1993). A second and fourth grade sample of normal school readers and dyslexic school readers participated in a lexical decision task. Words were manipulated according to two factors: word frequency (high vs. low) and syllable frequency (high vs. low). It has been repeatedly found that words with high-frequency syllables require extra time for deactivating the lexical syllabic neighbors: the so-called inhibitory effect of positional frequency syllable (Carreiras et al., J Mem Lang 32:766–780, 1993). We hypothesized that dyslexic readers would show a stronger inhibitory effect than normal readers because they are slower decoders and they may also be slower at the activation and inhibition of word representations that are competing (i.e., syllabic candidates). Results indicated an interaction between word and syllable frequency (i.e., a strong inhibitory effect was found in the low-frequency word condition). According to our hypothesis, the inhibitory effect size was almost three times bigger in dyslexics than in the normal readers. This difference shows an alteration, not a developmental lag. Interestingly, the inhibitory effect size did not interact with school grade. Thus, reading experience did not impact the lexical processes involved on the inhibitory effect. Our outcomes showed how activation and/or inhibition of lexical processes can contribute to the lack of speed beyond decoding deficit.     

What Works to Improve Student Literacy Achievement? An Examination of Instructional Practices in a Balanced Literacy Approach

A core assumption of the San Diego City Schools (SDCS) reform effort was that improved instructional practices, aligned with a balanced literacy approach, would be effective in improving student outcomes. This article explores this hypothesis by presenting findings from an analysis of classroom instruction data collected in 101 classrooms in 9 high-poverty elementary schools. Data were collected using a literacy observation tool adapted from prior research. The study found a prevalent focus on reading comprehension instruction and on students' active engagement in making meaning from text. Teachers' use of higher-level questions and discussion about text were substantially higher than that found by a prior study using the same instrument in similar classrooms elsewhere. Hierarchical Linear Modeling analyses of instruction and student outcome data indicate that teacher practices related to the higher-level meaning of text, writing instruction, and strategies for accountable talk were associated with growth in students' reading comprehension.     

Individual Differences in Categorical Perception Are Related to Sublexical/Phonological Processing in Reading

This article examines the relationship between individual differences in speech perception and sublexical/phonological processing in reading. We used an auditory phoneme identification task in which a?/ba/-/pa/?syllable continuum measured sensitivity to classify participants into three performance groups: poor, medium, and good categorizers. A lexical decision task manipulated syllable and word frequency. We found that the two tasks were associated. Poor categorizers did not present the typical syllable frequency effect; however, the other groups were sensitive to phonological information to differing degrees and showed the inhibitory syllable frequency effect only for low-frequency words. These results suggest that auditory phoneme identification efficiency may be related to the sublexical processes involved in reading words.     

Digital illiteracy: a challenge for 21st century teachers / El analfabetismo digital: un reto de los docentes del siglo XXI

Resumen

El aprendizaje de la química requiere dominar los diferentes códigos mediante los que se representa gráficamente la organización espacial de las moléculas. Los alumnos deben no sólo aprender la nomenclatura de esos sistemas de representación, sino también sus reglas sintácticas, siendo capaces de traducir de un código o lenguaje a otro, y de decidir cuándo y con qué metas deben usar cada uno de esos sistemas de representación. Para investigar cómo proceden y qué dificultades tienen estudiantes universitarios de química para usar esos sistemas de representación realizamos dos estudios. En total participaron 201 estudiantes universitarios, 174 estudiantes argentinos de un primer curso de química orgánica y 27 estudiantes españoles de la carrera de Psicología, que respondieron a tareas escritas diseñadas específicamente para esta investigación.

Los resultados mostraron que en general los estudiantes de química utilizan los diferentes sistemas de representación de forma adecuada. Sin embargo, aunque son eficaces en los procesos de traducción, no lo son en cuanto a su uso estratégico dependiente del marco teórico-conceptual. Por otra parte, al presentarles en el segundo estudio una tarea sin contenido químico, pero gráficamente isomorfa a las tareas químicas, los estudiantes de química, a diferencia de los de psicología, cometían errores característicos como consecuencia de interpretar el problema con una tarea dentro de un sistema representacional químico. Se discuten también algunas de las implicaciones de los resultados para el aprendizaje y la enseñanza de la química en la universidad.