Exploring the Impact of Teacher Collaboration on Student Learning: A Focus on Writing

In this yearlong case study, six English teachers in an urban high school in Northern California engaged in sustained collaboration focused on developing and enacting strategies to improve the writing skills of their culturally and linguistically diverse freshmen. The study was conducted between August 2018 and June 2019, to determine the connections, if any, between teacher collaboration and student learning. Qualitative data were analyzed from teacher collaboration and observation of classroom practices, focus groups and teacher-created artifacts. Students’ on-demand writing assessments in fall and spring were compared with instructionally supported writing. Student surveys were analyzed in a mixed methods approach. Findings suggest that students’ writing skills improved and students reported increased confidence in writing and other literacy practices. The lessons developed in the collaboration meetings and observed in practice, in tandem with student and teacher self-reports suggest a positive relationship between teacher collaboration and student learning outcomes

Argumentation Mining in User-Generated Web Discourse

The goal of argumentation mining, an evolving research field in computational linguistics, is to design methods capable of analyzing people's argumentation. In this article, we go beyond the state of the art in several ways. (i) We deal with actual Web data and take up the challenges given by the variety of registers, multiple domains, and unrestricted noisy user-generated Web discourse. (ii) We bridge the gap between normative argumentation theories and argumentation phenomena encountered in actual data by adapting an argumentation model tested in an extensive annotation study. (iii) We create a new gold standard corpus (90k tokens in 340 documents) and experiment with several machine learning methods to identify argument components. We offer the data, source codes, and annotation guidelines to the community under free licenses. Our findings show that argumentation mining in user-generated Web discourse is a feasible but challenging task.Comment: Cite as: Habernal, I. & Gurevych, I. (2017). Argumentation Mining in User-Generated Web Discourse. Computational Linguistics 43(1), pp. 125-17

Study behaviours in an increasingly digital world: Learning habits, top tips and 'study hacks' questionnaire survey

In response to recent changes in the higher education market, student performance and competitor activity, The Open University has developed strategic objectives around a shift to developing ‘digital by design’ modules and the development of new digital tools to improve student success rates. In order to design effective tools, this initial piece of research was designed to understand more about students’ current study behaviours. The survey was built on a framework with student success at the centre, and generated a great deal of rich, qualitative data about how current distance learning students approach their study. The data was analysed using a thematic analysis, and produced a number of interesting themes. These included a variety of digital personas; priorities when organising study sessions; note-taking methods and reasons for making notes; and boundaries. The practical applications of these findings are some embryonic concepts for new tools and digital spaces for students that encourage the development of successful study behaviours. These concepts are being developed in conjunction with a rigorous research plan

Web Annotation in English Language Arts: Online Dialogue as a Platform to Support Student Comprehension of Texts

This study explores how web annotation—through a process of online reading, writing in the margins, and replying to others’ comments—influences student dialogue in ways that research suggests are associated with improved comprehension. Viewing data through a dialogic lens, and using a qualitative, multiple case study design to observe two high school English Language Arts teachers and their students, this inquiry was guided by the following research questions: (a) How do English Language Arts teachers use web annotation to support student comprehension of texts? (b) To what extent, if any, does web annotation appear to support student comprehension of texts? and (c) How do English Language Arts teachers and students perceive the usefulness of web annotation in supporting student comprehension of texts? Both teachers in this study implemented web annotation practices with hopes of getting their students to engage in meaningful dialogue about texts, and that goal was evident in how they structured web annotation activities so students could drive the discussion and how they both tried to build upon students’ online discussions during subsequent face-to-face (F2F) class discussions. Despite such dialogic intentions, analysis of web annotations based on indices associated with high-level thinking and textual understanding revealed that, generally speaking, web annotation discussions did not exhibit rich dialogue. Additionally, there was a widespread lack of textual connections—annotations that connected a text to other texts, to the reader’s emotions or personal experiences, or to experiences the students shared as a class—evident in students’ annotations. However, discussions in which the teacher gave specific requirements for the number of annotations and replies and provided specific writing prompts tended to result in a higher prevalence of the indicators related to increased textual understanding. Although web annotation did not generally result in a substantial increase in these measures, findings revealed that students found great value in seeing and being able to interact with their peers’ thoughts about texts and that teachers saw enough benefits for student learning that they planned to continue its use going forward. Recommendations invite teachers to explore ways to establish a dialogic culture in their classroom and to make intentional decisions for inclusion of web annotation—or any other digital tool—based on sound pedagogy and on the learning goals they set with their students; approaching technology implementation in this way places teachers and pedagogy at the center of the process, helping them to leverage the affordances digital technologies provide. Recommendations for future research include focused examinations of (a) the thinking and composing processes students undergo as they annotate on the web; (b) the impact web annotations have on specific learning outcomes, potentially using comprehensive reading comprehension assessments; and (c) methods for web annotation use in elementary, higher education, or adult learning settings

Close Reading Strategies for Difficult Text: The Effects on Comprehension and Analysis at the Secondary Level

Literacy skills are an essential component in transitioning from learning to read to reading to learn. But reading to learn has several levels of difficulty. This research focuses on exploring in what ways close reading strategies of difficult text can impact comprehension and analysis. The participants of the intervention were ninth-grade students of various reading ability levels at a rural public high school. During the six-week period, students used formative assessments, annotations, and written responses to determine if gains in comprehension and analysis scores can be connected. The pre- and post-intervention data reflects how students achieved with and without close reading. Both quantitative and qualitative data showed an increase in both comprehension and analysis scores on student assessment using these strategies. Observations also indicated that the intervention was engaging to students and held them accountable for their successes. The research project suggests that a more extensive investigation on other interventions may have positive effects on vocabulary and reading

Challenging inequity in mathematics education by making pedagogy more visible to learners

This paper reports on initial findings from the Visible Maths Pedagogy research project, a collaboration between an academic researcher and two teacher researchers (the paper’s authors). The aim of the project was to explore the effects of making pedagogy more visible on students’ success in school mathematics. We adopted a Participatory Action Research methodology to plan and evaluate five strategies used alongside ‘progressive’ teaching approaches to make the teacher’s pedagogical rationale more visible to learners. Our findings show that students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, were initially prone to misinterpret the intentions of the teacher. However, the five strategies helped students gain a greater appreciation of the teacher’s pedagogical rationale and how to respond appropriately. We discuss the implications of these findings for enabling all students to access the benefits of progressive teaching approaches and for opening up to scrutiny what it means to be a successful learner of mathematics

“Just Don’t Bore Us To Death”: Seventh Graders’ Perceptions of Flipping a Technology-Mediated English Language Arts Unit

This mixed methods study aimed to assess student engagement during the flipped model of instruction in two seventh-grade English language arts (ELA) classrooms. Implementation of the flipped model required students (n=183) and teachers (n=2) to use digital technology via a website and teacher-made videos. It compared student perceptions during a flipped unit to those same students’ perceptions during a traditionally taught unit. A hybrid embedded design and case study interviews were used to assess students’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement. Data analysis revealed that overall student engagement decreased in the flipped unit and that students were divided in their reactions to the flipped method with one student poignantly writing on the survey, “Just don’t bore us to death.” This work is significant in that it is among the first to examine whether course content matters when utilizing the flipped method and whether student engagement in the traditional ELA curriculum is unique due its emphasis on discussion and holistic assessment

E-Pedagogy of Handheld Devices 2013 Survey: Patterns of student use for learning

The Pedagogy of Ebooks (E-Ped) project began in 2012 and seeks to document, analyse and explain the changing study practices of UK distance learning students as they employ, adapt and integrate the use of new portable digital devices such as e-book readers and tablets into their learning. This report describes the results of an undergraduate survey undertaken in 2013 at the Open University (UK) which asked students how they used e-readers, tablets and smartphones for study. This research represents a snapshot of the rapidly changing interaction between technology and education, and highlights issues and opportunities for Higher Education in supporting student adoption of appropriate technologies and development of effective new methods of study

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN ANNOTATING TEXT STRATEGY MASTERY AND READING COMPREHENSION AT THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS’ OF SMAN 11 PEKANBARU

Penelitian ini mempunyai tiga rumusan masalah yaitu; bagaimana penguasaan strategy annotating text, bagaimana pemahaman membaca siswa dalam teks narasi, dan apakah ada hubungan yang signifikan antara penguasaan strategy annotating text siswa dan pemahaman membaca mereka dalam teks narasi. Penelitian ini diadakan di SMAN 11 Pekanbaru. Subjek dari penelitian ini adalah pada siswa kelas X SMAN 11 Pekanbaru, dan objek dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mencari hubungan antara penguasaan strategi annotating text dan pemahaman membaca siswa tahun pertama SMAN 11 Pekanbaru. Adapun jenis penelitian adalah penelitian korelasi. Dari keseluruhan jumlah populasi adalah 300 siswa. Di karenakan jumlah populasinya sangat banyak, peneliti mengambil 10% sebagai sampelnya. Dalam hal ini, peneliti menggunakan teknik random sampling, jadi sampelnya sebanyak 30 siswa. Dalam pengumpulan data, peneliti menggunakan angket dan tes. Adapun angket digunakan untuk mengetahui penguasaan strategi annotating text siswa dan tes digunakan untuk mencari pemahaman membaca siwa. Dalam hal ini peneliti mengumpulkan data melalui teknik regresi linear dengan metode kuadrat terkecil dan product moment melalui SPSS versi 16.0. Berdasarkan analisis yang telah dilakukan, dapat dilihat bahwa adalah 0.591 and df nya adalah 28. Berdasarkan r table, dapat di analisis bahwa lebih tinggi dari r table pada level 5% atau pada 1%. Dengan kata lain dapat kita katakan (0.3610.463), jadi peneliti dapat menyimpulkan bahwa Ho ditolak dan Ha diterima. Ini berarti bahwa ada hubungan yang signifikan antara penguasaan strategi annotating teks dan pemahaman membaca pada siswa tahun pertama SMAN 11 Pekanbaru