Leveraging new media skills in a peer feedback tool

Today's youth thrive in informal participatory communities where they not only consume but also act as contributors or producers. Through active participation they develop new media skills encompassing cultural competencies and social skills. In a participatory culture of learning, students' active contributions to their learning are stressed and peer feedback is considered an important component. In this paper we consider how to leverage aspects of these skills and the environments in which they are developed in the design of a peer feedback tool for students engaged in collaborative inquiry learning. The tool needs to be lightweight, and “playful” and draw on these participatory skills in order to entice and motivate students to give and receive feedback.     

Adolescent Weak Decoders Writing in a Shallow Orthography: Process and Product

It has been hypothesized that students with dyslexia struggle with writing because of a word-level focus that reduces attention to higher level textual features (structure, theme development). This may result from difficulties with spelling and/or difficulties with reading. Twenty-six Norwegian upper secondary students (M = 16.9 years) with weak decoding skills and 26 age-matched controls composed expository texts by keyboard under two conditions: normally and with letters masked to prevent them reading what they were writing. Weak decoders made more spelling errors and produced poorer quality text. Their inter-key-press latencies were substantially longer preword, at word end, and within word. These findings provide some support for the word-level focus hypothesis, although we found that weak decoders were slightly less likely to engage in word-level editing. Preventing reading did not affect differences between weak decoders and controls, indicating that their reduced fluency was associated with production rather than reading difficulties.     

Gathering the views of children and young people to inform practice in a psychological service

This paper describes the process employed by a psychological service to gather the views of children and young people using guided discussion groups and questionnaires. Pupils in the guided discussion groups were asked to identify issues that affect them and how adults could help. This information was analysed using thematic analysis. Seven themes were identified as issues: managing feelings; friendships; behaviour; specific difficulties that can affect learning; not being accepted; bullying; and ‘other important issues’, including bereavement and family difficulties. In relation to each of these themed issues, several sub‐themes regarding how adults could help were collated. Questionnaire data was analysed using inferential statistics. The questionnaire rated the importance of help from adults in the areas of learning, friendships and feelings. Results suggested that these were equally important to primary‐aged pupils. Findings were used to contribute to the development plan and shape future practice.     

How word decoding, vocabulary and prior topic knowledge predict reading comprehension. A study of language-minority students in Norwegian fifth grade classrooms

This study examined the contribution of word decoding, first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) vocabulary and prior topic knowledge to L2 reading comprehension. For measuring reading comprehension we employed two different reading tasks: Woodcock Passage Comprehension and a researcher-developed content-area reading assignment (the Global Warming Test) consisting of multiple lengthy texts. The sample included 67 language-minority students (native Urdu or native Turkish speakers) from 21 different fifth grade classrooms in Norway. Multiple regression analyses revealed that word decoding and different facets of L2 vocabulary explained most of the variance in Woodcock Passage Comprehension, but a smaller proportion of variance in the Global Warming Test. For the Global Warming Test, prior topic knowledge was the most influential predictor. Furthermore, L2 vocabulary depth appeared to moderate the contribution of prior topic knowledge to the Global Warming Test in this sample of language minority students.     

Cognitive predictors of shallow-orthography spelling speed and accuracy in 6th grade children

Reading and Writing - Spelling accuracy and time course was investigated in a sample of 100 Norwegian 6th grade students completing a standardized spelling-to-dictation task. Students responded by...     

Classroom Teachers' Perceptions of the Impact of Barriers to Teaching Physical Education on the Quality of Physical Education Programs

A major aim of the current study was to determine what classroom teachers perceived to be the greatest barriers affecting their capacity to deliver successful physical education (PE) programs. An additional aim was to examine the impact of these barriers on the type and quality of PE programs delivered. This study applied a mixed-mode design involving data source triangulation using semistructured interviews with classroom teachers (n = 31) and teacher-completed questionnaires (n = 189) from a random sample of 38 schools. Results identified the key factors inhibiting PE teachers, which were categorized as teacher-related or institutional. Interestingly, the five greatest barriers were defined as institutional or out of the teacher's control. The major adverse effects of these barriers were evident in reduced time spent teaching PE and delivering PE lessons of questionable quality.     

Turkish‐speaking First Graders in Norway Acquiring Second Language Vocabulary,Listening Comprehension and Literacy Skills

This study explored relationships between characteristics of classroom talk exposure and immigrant first graders' acquisition of second language oral skills (vocabulary and listening comprehension) and literacy skills. Twenty‐six children (mean age = 6.10 years) with Turkish as their first language and Norwegian as their second, attending various multilingual and ethnically diverse classrooms in Norway, were videotaped during classroom conversations. Classroom talk was coded for vocabulary richness, discursive complexity and emergent phonics talk and the children's oral language and literacy skills were assessed. Classroom vocabulary richness and discursive complexity predicted the children's second language vocabulary skills and listening comprehension after controlling for maternal education, but did not predict their literacy skills. The density of emergent phonics talk did not predict target children's code‐related skills in this sample. Applied perspectives related to second language learning in multiparty settings are discussed.     

The relationship between PE biographies and PE teaching practices of classroom teachers

The current study sought to explore the relationship between personal school physical education (PE) experiences and current PE teaching practices of classroom teachers. Questionnaires were completed by 189 teachers from 38 randomly selected schools. Additionally, semi-structured interviews of 31 classroom teachers were conducted. The results indicated that many teachers had negative memories of school PE and believed that they were not taught anything. Interestingly, teachers involved in the study held reasonably positive attitudes towards teaching PE but examination of their current teaching practices indicated that little ‘teaching’ was evident in their PE programmes. A hierarchical regression model was used to examine key predictors of PE programme quality and accounted for 32% of the variance. Personal school experiences in primary school PE, quality of preservice education and attitudes to teaching PE were established as significant predictors. A key finding of the current study was the significant relationship evident between personal school experiences in PE and current PE teaching practices which has not been previously established with classroom teachers. The implications of these findings for preservice education and professional development will be discussed.     

Using scenarios to design complex technology-enhanced learning environments

Science Created by You (SCY) learning environments are computer-based environments in which students learn about science topics in the context of addressing a socio-scientific problem. Along their way to a solution for this problem students produce many types of intermediate products or learning objects. SCY learning environments center the entire learning process around creating, sharing, discussing, and re-using these learning objects. This instructional approach requires dedicated instructional designs, which are supplied in the form of what are called pedagogical scenarios. A SCY pedagogical scenario presents the learning process as an organized assembly of elementary learning processes, each associated with a specific learning object and a tool for creating this learning object. Designing a SCY learning environment is basically a two-step procedure: the first step is to select one of the available scenarios, and the second step is to define the domain content. The SCY technical infrastructure then handles the instantiation of the scenario as a SCY computer-based learning environment. In this article we describe the SCY pedagogical design scenarios and report on our experiences in designing four different SCY learning environments.