Educational Research Abstracts

Editors\u27 Note: As noted in previous issues of the Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations, the purpose of this Educational Research Abstract section is to present current published research on issues relevant to math and science teaching at both the K-12 and college levels. Because educational research articles are published in so many different academic journals, it is a rare public school teacher or college professor who reads all the recent published reports on a particular instructional technique or curricular advancement. Indeed, the uniqueness of various pedagogical strategies has been tacitly acknowledged by the creation of individual journals dedicated to teaching in a specific discipline. Yet many of the insights gained in teaching certain physics concepts, biological principles, or computer science algorithms can have generalizability and value for those teaching in other fields or with different types of students. In this review, the focus is on assessment. Abstracts are presented according to a question examined in the published articles. Hopefully, such a format will trigger your reflections about exemplary math/science assessment as well as generate ideas about your own teaching situation. The abstracts presented here are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather a representative sampling of recent journal articles. Please feel free to identify other useful research articles on a particular theme or to suggest future teaching themes to be examined. Please send your comments and ideas via email to [email protected] or by regular mail to The College of William and Mary, P. O. Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23185-8795

Barriers to industrial energy efficiency: a literature review

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Nurturing the independent-thinking practitioner: using threshold concepts to transform undergraduate learning

This article explores the experience of employing the theory of threshold concepts to curricular re-design to transform students' learning experiences. As part of our annual review in 2011, programme team members raised the concern that some graduates from our vocational-type degree programme – BA (Hons) Working with Children, Young People and Families – did not appear to develop the links between 'theory' and 'practice' as effectively as other graduates. Reflection on the three-year old degree programme, designed to provide a foundation for those wishing to move into, or study further, in areas such as family support and social work, revealed two areas for further consideration. First, the programme's modular format appeared to encourage students to view aspects of their studies as unconnected. Secondly, its original design had been premised on a series of 'need to know' areas of policy, theory and practice which had been added to over time, with little taken out. In short, the curriculum appeared to have become both 'stuffed' and fragmented and did not appear to provide the ideal platform from which to engage students in the development of the knowledge, skills and understanding for future professional practice. Using the theory of threshold concepts as our starting point, we were able to identify key themes, ideas and activities that we perceived to be central to nurturing and developing independent and employable practitioners. The following article recounts our journey towards curriculum change, detailing how programme threshold concepts were identified and how these were subsequently applied in curriculum re-design

Real-time decoding of question-and-answer speech dialogue using human cortical activity.

Natural communication often occurs in dialogue, differentially engaging auditory and sensorimotor brain regions during listening and speaking. However, previous attempts to decode speech directly from the human brain typically consider listening or speaking tasks in isolation. Here, human participants listened to questions and responded aloud with answers while we used high-density electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings to detect when they heard or said an utterance and to then decode the utterance's identity. Because certain answers were only plausible responses to certain questions, we could dynamically update the prior probabilities of each answer using the decoded question likelihoods as context. We decode produced and perceived utterances with accuracy rates as high as 61% and 76%, respectively (chance is 7% and 20%). Contextual integration of decoded question likelihoods significantly improves answer decoding. These results demonstrate real-time decoding of speech in an interactive, conversational setting, which has important implications for patients who are unable to communicate