Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Abstracts 2005

Proceedings of the Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Regional Conference held at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 2005

A social skills training program emphasizing roleplay of social problem solving strategies for learning disabled adolescent males with behavior problems

This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of a social skills training curriculum for learning disabled adolescent males with behavior problems. The need for such intervention has been established, however, the empirical evidence to support educational programs and strategies which promote effective social skills is just beginning to emerge. Roleplay activities and instruction of social problem solving strategies have been combined in this intervention. Cooperation, assertion, empathy, and self-control were taught during twelve lessons conducted over a period of six weeks. Five students from a self-contained class at a special services school were used for the study. Pre and post intervention assessment was conducted using the Social Skills Rating Scale (Gresham and Elliot, 1990) for teachers, parents and students. A social scenarios interview was also conducted to provide descriptive results. The results are encouraging, with improvement occurring in specific areas. These efforts represent a preliminary attempt to develop a social skills curriculum to be used by special education teachers in the classroom. Suggestions are offered for future research

A learning trajectory of integer addition and subtraction using the kempreng game context

Traditional games can be used as a context to understand mathematical concepts. Many studies on learning trajectory (LT), which are set in the context of traditional games, have been carried out. However, no study focuses on using the context of the traditional kempreng game to facilitate primary students in understanding integer addition and subtraction. This research aims to design an LT through traditional game kempreng to help construct students' understanding and mathematical concepts through various activities that have been developed. This study uses design research with stages, namely preliminary design, teaching experiment, and retrospective analysis. This study produces LT which consists of five activities, namely: consisting of calculating addition points through the kempreng context, calculating subtraction (difference) through the kempreng context, performing additional operations on the “same” kempreng card, performing subtraction operations on “different” kempreng, and determining the results of addition or subtraction operations of number cards with the opposing group. In this study, LT set in the traditional game of kempreng can be used as a context in preparing learning designs that could stimulate students thinking in understanding the mathematical concepts of integer addition and subtraction. The impact of the research design also occurs on teachers. Learning becomes a student center, the teacher as a facilitator. The results of this study can have implications as one of the considerations for using contexts with real and cultural backgrounds to reduce or build a meaningful understanding of the concept of integer addition and subtraction for primary students

Developing Teaching Materials Two-Dimensional Figure-Based on Palembang Local Cultural Context

Developing teaching materials is important to help students in learning mathematics especially for two-dimensional figure by using Palembang local cultural context. The purpose of the research was to develop whether the teaching materials two-dimensional figure-based on Palembang local cultural context are valid, practical, and have potential effect. The research method used research and development (R&D). The research consists of two stages, namely the preliminary stage and the formative evaluation stage. In one-to-one evaluation involved three students. Then, small group evaluation involved 9 (nine) students in the research. Meanwhile, in field test stage involved 29 students. Data collection techniques employed interviews, tests and documentation. The research was conducted in seventh graders at one of junior high school in Indonesia. The results of this study were the developed teaching materials were categorized as valid, practical and have potential effect. The average score of validity content, construct and product design were 3.65 which was very highly valid level. The practicality of one-to-one was 3.47 and small group evaluation was 3.61 which was at very highly practical level. The teaching materials were categorized as effective. It showed that there were 24 students (82.75%) out of 29 students (17.24%)

Implementing Realistic Mathematics Education for Elementary Schools in Indonesia

In mathematics learning, concepts and contexts are required that students are able to learn from real-life environment. However, teachers generally equip students with formulas without being accompanied by the ability to comprehend basic concepts. Mathematics learning will indeed be enjoyable if it is not only textbook-based but also followed by real-life experience. This study aims to investigate whether local cultural context could foster students’ concept understanding in mathematics learning, particularly plane figures. Therefore, the research will, firstly, describe plane figures learning that uses the Indonesian Realistic Mathematics Education approach via iceberg and, secondly, discover students’ improvement in concept comprehension after applying the approach. 50 elementary school students participated in the research, which employed experimental and descriptive methods. Further, the study results demonstrate an increase in concept comprehension, indicated from the increase in student learning achievement based on the average score of the experimental class and of the control class (88.40 and 72.91 respectively). Next, the independent sample ttest suggests t-count is higher than t-table, therefore Ho is rejected and Ha accepted. Thus, the learning outcomes of the class using the PMRI approach linked to Palembang’s cultural context has increased

Computational Thinking in Education: Where does it fit? A systematic literary review

Computational Thinking (CT) has been described as an essential skill which everyone should learn and can therefore include in their skill set. Seymour Papert is credited as concretising Computational Thinking in 1980 but since Wing popularised the term in 2006 and brought it to the international community's attention, more and more research has been conducted on CT in education. The aim of this systematic literary review is to give educators and education researchers an overview of what work has been carried out in the domain, as well as potential gaps and opportunities that still exist. Overall it was found in this review that, although there is a lot of work currently being done around the world in many different educational contexts, the work relating to CT is still in its infancy. Along with the need to create an agreed-upon definition of CT lots of countries are still in the process of, or have not yet started, introducing CT into curriculums in all levels of education. It was also found that Computer Science/Computing, which could be the most obvious place to teach CT, has yet to become a mainstream subject in some countries, although this is improving. Of encouragement to educators is the wealth of tools and resources being developed to help teach CT as well as more and more work relating to curriculum development. For those teachers looking to incorporate CT into their schools or classes then there are bountiful options which include programming, hands-on exercises and more. The need for more detailed lesson plans and curriculum structure however, is something that could be of benefit to teachers

Assessing the impact of working memory training on ADHD teenagers in a secondary school

This practitioner sought to assess the impact of a working memory training intervention on students presenting or diagnosed with ADHD symptoms. This intervention took place in a small group and 1:1 setting. The aims were to: 1. Identify common deficits in academic attainment owing to the impairments of ADHD symptoms. 2. Assess the efficacy of a working memory training intervention on addressing these impairments. 3. Observe the extent to which far-transfer effects from this training was noticeable in the classroom. 4. Explore the possibility of a school-wide working memory training intervention programme being implemented long term by staff. The selection criteria for students involved in this pilot intervention was limited to students who acutely presented or were already diagnosed with ADHD symptoms. The selection criteria was narrow to select students whose academic attainment was observed to be affected by ADHD symptomatology. Questionnaires were completed before and after by teachers to identify possible candidates in the former and to assess impact in the latter. Comprehension tests and examination data of participating students was collected prior to and following the intervention. Through partnerships with colleagues and parents the implemented intervention was an 11-week self-devised Working Memory Training (WMT) program that challenged attentional and memory function. Each pupil received 2 hours 15 minutes of working memory training per week split between a 1hr 1:1 once a week, and five 15-minute sessions per school day. The WMT training program devised combined sustained reading as a group in the 15-minute daily sessions and WMT training games played individually in a 1 hour 1:1

Innovative integrated architecture for educational games: Challenges and merits

Interactive Narrative in game environments acts as the main catalyst to provide a motivating learning experience. In previous work, we have described how the use of a dual narrative generation technique could help to resolve the conflict between allowing high player student agency and also the track of the learning process. In this paper, we define a novel architecture that assists the dual narrative generation technique to be employed effectively in an adaptive educational game environment. The architecture composes components that individually have shown effectiveness in educational games environments. These components are graph structured narrative, dynamically generated narrative, evolving agents and a student model. An adaptive educational game, AEINS, has been developed to investigate the synergy of the architecture components. AEINS aims to foster character education at 8-12 year old children through the use of various interactive moral dilemmas that attempt the different student\u27s cognitive levels. AEINS was evaluated through a study involved 20 participants who interacted with AEINS on an individual basis

How do intrinsic motivational strategies impact student\u27s engagement in learning?

Intrinsic motivation is one of the key factors in student\u27s academic performance in the classroom. Thus, my research question becomes how do intrinsic motivational strategies impact student\u27s engagement in learning? Researchers believe there are three common factors that are thought to promote intrinsic motivation: teacher enthusiasm, student choice and cooperative learning. These factors are three techniques believed to help foster intrinsic motivation in students and were implemented in the classroom. After five weeks of implementation, research found that students were making positive changes in the classroom by reading for pleasure, challenging themselves more, and participating more in class. More importantly, through the use of surveys, students saw a positive change in themselves. Through the research conducted, it is evident that the use of these learning strategies did impact students\u27 engagement in learning