Emergent patterns of teaching/learning in electronic classrooms

Novel patterns of teaching/learning have emerged from faculty and students who use our three teaching/learning theaters at the University of Maryland, College Park. These fully-equipped electronic classrooms have been used by 74 faculty in 264 semester-long courses since the fall of 1991 with largely enthusiastic reception by both faculty and students. The designers of the teaching/learning theaters sought to provide a technologically rich environment and a support staff so that faculty could concentrate on changing the traditional lecture from its unidirectional information flow to a more collaborative activity. As faculty have evolved their personal styles in using the electronic classrooms, novel patterns of teaching/learning have emerged. In addition to enhanced lectures, we identified three common patterns: (a) active individual learning, (b) small-group collaborative learning, and (c) entire-class collaborative learning.     

论问题解决与教学促进

大多数教育工作者都认为问题解决很重要,但是他们对什么是问题解决持有不同观点,在怎样教给学生问题解决的本领上也没有达成一致意见。各种不同观点主要集中于将问题解决视为教育目标、教育方法以及技能训练之间的差异问题上。其一,目标型问题解决不应只限于良构问题解决,而应该延伸到现实问题解决;其二,对初学者来说,方法型问题解决有其明显的局限性,给予这些学习者足够帮助,对于培养他们的问题解决能力具有重要作用;其三,技能型问题解决不应被看作是只在培养专长过程的初期才会出现,而应被视为在系统1模式与系统2模式中平行发展的一个过程。总结以上观点,综合学习设计模式完全可以用来促进此三种类型的问题解决,并其本回答了问题解决最好应该怎样教的问题。     

R Tricks for Kids

Real‐world phenomena simulation models, which can be used to engage middle‐school students with probability, are described. Links to R instructional material and easy‐to‐use code are provided to facilitate implementation in the classroom.     

Metacognition: Theory or chapter heading?

The four articles in this series are analyzed within the framework of Pintrich's classification system for metacognition, consisting of knowledge states, judgments and monitoring skills, and control processes. This scheme is used to locate the strengths and/or limitations of each article. A developmentally-based model is proposed to help integrate the conceptually diverse components of metacognition; to extend it to additional domains, such as motivation; and to argue for more longitudinal, interactive research in this field.     

Two Are Better Than One: The Joint Influence of Maternal Preparedness for Parenting and Children's Self-Esteem on Academic Achievement and Adjustment

Research Findings: This study investigated the joint influence of maternal cognitive readiness to parent and children's self-esteem on children's academic achievement and behavioral adjustment in the classroom at age 10. Participants were 153 adolescent mothers and their firstborn children. Findings indicated that low levels of prenatal maternal cognitive readiness to parent were associated with impairments in children's achievement and adjustment at age 10, regardless of the children's level of self-esteem. Among dyads in which mothers were more cognitively prepared for the parenting role, however, children with higher self-esteem showed notably better achievement and adjustment compared to those with lower self-esteem. These results illustrate the joint influence of mothers' preparedness for parenting and children's self-esteem on the school performance of children who are generally considered to be at high risk for impairments in achievement and adjustment. Practice or Policy: Findings are discussed in terms of the enduring impact of cognitive readiness to parent and self-esteem on the academic achievement and behavioral adjustment of at-risk children, with a focus on implications for intervention and prevention based on the specific findings from this study.     

From Reading Readiness to Reading Competence: The Role of Self-Regulation in At-Risk Children

This study investigated how self-regulation contributes to the development of reading competence in an at-risk sample of 157 children born to adolescent mothers. It was hypothesized that reading readiness at age 5 would shape self-regulation at age 10, which in turn would influence reading competence at age 14. Based on structural equation modeling, it was concluded that self-regulation partially mediated the relationship between early reading skills and later reading competence. These findings suggest the importance of socioemotional and cognitive self-regulation in the development of reading competence; implications for classroom practice are discussed.     

Memory strategy instruction is made of this: Metamemory and durable strategy use

Although the use of task‐appropriate strategies facilitate memory, newly acquired strategies often have two negative characteristics: They are neither durable nor generalizable. The present article considers an alternative approach to strategy instructions that leads to skills that are more general and better maintained after instruction has ceased. This approach focuses on the role of knowledge about strategies (metamemory) as a precursor of effective strategy deployment. Three perspectives on the role of metamemory in improving strategy use are considered: (a) occasions when metamemory develops simply as a function of using a strategy (the Laissez‐Faire approach); (b) situations in which Explicit Provision of metamemorial information increases strategy use; and (c) the production of higher‐level strategies that operate on other strategies, thus enhancing metamemorial knowledge about them (Metamemory Acquisition Procedures). Future research directions and educational implications associated with each approach are discussed.     

Self-Regulation Mediates the Relationship between Learner Typology and Achievement in At - Risk Children

A person-centered approach was used to explore the mediating role of self-regulation between learner typology at age 8 and academic achievement at age 14while controlling for domain-specific achievement in a longitudinal sample of 113 children born to adolescent mothers. Children were classified into one of 5 learner typologies at age 8based on interactive patterns of intellectual, achievement, and adaptive abilities. Typology classification explained significant variance in both reading and mathematics achievement at age 14. A bootstrapping approach confirmed that self-regulation mediated the relationship between typology and reading and mathematical achievement for children from all typologies except those classified as Cognitively and Adaptively Challenged. Implications of person-centered approaches for understanding processes involved with achievement are discussed.