Development of an Early Hebrew Oral Reading Fluency Measure

Currently, there are no Hebrew (L2) reading assessments that have been tested to obtain evidence for reliability and validity on which to base decisions about Hebrew instruction. The authors developed a Hebrew benchmark assessment tool for first grade students modeled after Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, a standardized test of accuracy and fluency used to identify at-risk students and to monitor student progress. Results of pilot data collection (N=53) provide evidence for strong alternate form reliability for this measure, as well as evidence for content, face and criterion-related validity. Future directions for research and development are discussed.     

Do universities maintain common standards in awarding first degrees with distinction? The case of Israel

This article investigates the extent to which there exist differences in standards for awarding first degrees with distinction amongst universities in Israel (as measured by the percentage of total graduates each year that receive a distinction). Based upon an analysis of annual data for the period 1979–1983, considerable diversity was found in the tendency to award first degrees with distinction between and within universities and faculties, and between the major subject department of the social science faculty, selected for more detailed analysis.This heterogeneity parallels that reported in Nevin's work relating to the situation current at universities in the United Kingdom nearly two decades ago.     

Structures of Constant Rate Word Problems: A functional approach analysis

Many recent projects have lately explored function-based approaches to algebra. For the last five years we developed and tested such an approach to algebra, the 'Visual Mathematics'¹ curriculum, in grades seven to nine. While teaching this curriculum we learned from our students' work that while functions form an important basis for solving various sorts of algebra word problems, they introduce some tension in dealing with other sorts of word problems. The data accumulated during our experiments led us to conjecture that viewing algebra rate problems through a function lens offers new ways to look at similarities and differences among word problems. This article presents a theoretical framework for a systematic investigation of the structures of algebra word problems and their relationship to function-based solutions. We think that for those who take a function approach to algebra, this paper suggests new insights into the categorization of word problems. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Assessing conceptual change of teachers involved in STES education and curriculum devleopment - the STEMS project approach

Science-Technology-Environment-Society (STES) orientation in science education is currently being implemented in Israeli high schools within the framework of 'science for all' reform worldwide. This paper focuses on assessing the conceptual change of teachers who have been involved in the development, implementation, field-testing and evaluation of several modules. These modules constitute a grade 10-11 high school national curriculum titled STEMS - 'Science, Technology, Environment in Modern Society'. STEMS is aimed at developing an autonomous learner, capable of system thinking, decision making and problem solving within the real life STES context. We sensed that the intrinsic nature of STEMS curriculum requires that the teachers, who will teach it, will also be the developers of its modules. Involvement of this kind makes the teachers responsible for their own conceptual change, explanations and interpretations. Our formative evaluation indicates that the conceptual change of STEMS teachers was gradual. Participants differed with respect to what sort of 'treatment' or experience within the project actually affected who and when. It was apparent that the change occurred with respect to both their content knowledge and pedagogical views. A positive response towards teaching beyond the discipline boundaries was followed by teachers' active involvement and participation in the development process and team discussions. Thus, the STEMS project affected their teaching/learning perception towards interdisciplinarity. These findings are in accord with teachers' support of a life cycle approach for curriculum development as being suitable for achieving the STEMS objectives. The teachers emphasized the need to practice together with their students scientific inquiry and experiment design skills which, foster an autonomous learner. At the end of the first year of the curriculum development process, STEMS was finally conceptualized by the project teachers as a novel way of learning, rather than another sophisticated teaching technique. The major conceptual change was, the switch teachers made from the role of knowledge providers into that of learners. The interplay among action, participation and conceptualization turned out to be instrumental in our life cycle approach for developing the STEMS curriculum.     

Infants Learn Baby Signs From Video

There is little evidence that infants learn from infant‐oriented educational videos and television programming. This 4‐week longitudinal experiment investigated 15‐month‐olds' (N = 92) ability to learn American Sign Language signs (e.g., patting head for hat) from at‐home viewing of instructional video, either with or without parent support, compared to traditional parent instruction and a no‐exposure control condition. Forced‐choice, elicited production, and parent report measures indicate learning across all three exposure conditions, with a trend toward more robust learning in the parent support conditions, regardless of medium. There were no differences between experimental and control conditions in the acquisition of corresponding verbal labels. This constitutes the first experimental evidence of infants' ability to learn expressive communication from commercially available educational videos.