21,864 research outputs found

    Learning For Life: The Opportunity For Technology To Transform Adult Education - Part II: The Supplier Ecosystem

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    In fall 2014, Tyton Partners (formerly Education Growth Advisors), with support from the Joyce Foundation, conducted national research on the role and potential of instructional technology in the US adult education field. The objective was to understand the current state of the field with respect to technology readiness and the opportunities and challenges for increasing the use of technology-based instructional models within adult education. The initial publication in the series, "Part I: Interest in and Aptitude for Technology," focused on demand-side dynamics and addressed adult education administrators' and practitioners' perspectives on the role and potential of technology to support their students' needs and objectives. This second publication, "Part 2: The Supplier Ecosystem," highlights market composition and supply-side dynamics, instructional resource use, and opportunities for innovation

    Measuring Up: Teachers\u27 Perceptions of a New Evaluation System

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    Teacher appraisal and evaluation systems have increased the level of teacher accountability, resulting in increased pressure to be successful in the classroom (Benedict, Thomas, Kimerling, & Leko, 2013; Derrington, 2011; Glazerman et al., 2011; Papay, 2012). As a result, several states have begun to stray from the traditional methods of evaluating teachers, thus creating their own appraisal systems in an effort to increase teacher quality and teacher accountability of student performance and success (Anderson, 2012). This approach to transform traditional teacher evaluation methods has attracted both teachers and administrators alike (Derrington, 2011)

    Explaining the success of the world's leading education systems: the case of Singapore

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    International comparative data on student performance has led McKinsey & Company, among others, to suggest that education systems will inexorably converge in their developmental trajectories with principals and schools enjoying more autonomy. This article challenges these assumptions through referencing Singapore where schools and professionals are still tightly controlled in key resources, curricula and assessment, and where other key factors contribute to its success – thereby evidencing multiple pathways to success

    Multiple Pathways to Graduation: New Routes to High School Competition

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    Examines three approaches -- targeted population, district-wide, and linked learning -- to raising graduation rates, benefits, and challenges; what is required for implementation; and which approaches work well for different types of districts

    Virtual patient design : exploring what works and why : a grounded theory study

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    Objectives: Virtual patients (VPs) are online representations of clinical cases used in medical education. Widely adopted, they are well placed to teach clinical reasoning skills. International technology standards mean VPs can be created, shared and repurposed between institutions. A systematic review has highlighted the lack of evidence to support which of the numerous VP designs may be effective, and why. We set out to research the influence of VP design on medical undergraduates. Methods: This is a grounded theory study into the influence of VP design on undergraduate medical students. Following a review of the literature and publicly available VP cases, we identified important design properties. We integrated them into two substantial VPs produced for this research. Using purposeful iterative sampling, 46 medical undergraduates were recruited to participate in six focus groups. Participants completed both VPs, an evaluation and a 1-hour focus group discussion. These were digitally recorded, transcribed and analysed using grounded theory, supported by computer-assisted analysis. Following open, axial and selective coding, we produced a theoretical model describing how students learn from VPs. Results: We identified a central core phenomenon designated ‘learning from the VP’. This had four categories: VP Construction; External Preconditions; Student–VP Interaction, and Consequences. From these, we constructed a three-layer model describing the interactions of students with VPs. The inner layer consists of the student's cognitive and behavioural preconditions prior to sitting a case. The middle layer considers the VP as an ‘encoded object’, an e-learning artefact and as a ‘constructed activity’, with associated pedagogic and organisational elements. The outer layer describes cognitive and behavioural change. Conclusions: This is the first grounded theory study to explore VP design. This original research has produced a model which enhances understanding of how and why the delivery and design of VPs influence learning. The model may be of practical use to authors, institutions and researchers

    Connecting operation-choice problems by the variation principle: Sixth graders’ operational or deeper relational pathways

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    Many empirical studies documented students’ challenges with operation-choice problems, in particular for multiplication and division with rational numbers. The design principle of problem variation was suggested to overcome these challenges by engaging students in making connections between inverse operation-choice problems of multiplication and division, and between problems with natural numbers and fractions/decimals, but so far, this approach was hardly investigated empirically. In this study, we investigate 17 sixth graders’ modelling pathways through sets of operation-choice problems that are systematically designed according to the variation principle. In the qualitative analysis, we identify five pathways by which students solve the problems and sometimes connect them. While one pathway uses deep relational connections, others only draw superficial and operational connections and others stay with informal strategies without connecting them to formal operations.This study is supported by an FPU grant FPU19/02965 from Ministerio de Universidades (Spain) to Cristina Zorrilla under the supervision of Ceneida Fernández and Salvador Llinares. The analytic approach and the paper have been developed collectively by the first, second and last author during the first author’s research stay in Dortmund, Germany, with Susanne Prediger and Anna-Katharina Roos. This stay was funded by the Ministerio de Universidades (EST21/00333)

    When Memories Make a Difference: Multimodal Literacy Narratives for Preservice ELA Methods Students

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    This article examines multimodal literacy narrative projects designed by students in a methods of teaching course for secondary preservice English Language Arts teachers. For the multimodal project, preservice teachers infused written, audio, and visual text using a variety of creative mediums. Through combined theoretical frames, the researcher explores semiotics and preservice teachers’ use of multiliteracies as they shift their conceptions of what it means to compose. Finally, this article explores how the act of reflection through the literacy narrative influences preservice teachers’ notions of teaching composition through a variety of mediums
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