261,640 research outputs found

    Measure for Measure: A Critical Consumers' Guide to Reading Comprehension Assessments for Adolescents

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    A companion report to Carnegie's Time to Act, analyzes and rates commonly used reading comprehension tests for various elements and purposes. Outlines trends in types of questions, stress on critical thinking, and screening or diagnostic functions

    Design, Implementation, and Evaulation of GIS-Based Learning Materials in an Introductory Geoscience Course

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    Little is known about how well GIS-based learning lives up to its potential for improving students' skills in problem solving, analysis, and spatial visualization. This article describes a study in which researchers determined ways to quantify student learning that occurred with a GIS-based module on plate tectonics and geologic hazards, and to improve the materials design with the use of classroom observations and field testing. The study found that student difficulties in working with GIS-based activities can be overcome by making some features of the GIS transparent to the user, that a lack of basic geography skills can interfere in the progression of a GIS-based activity, and that some conceptual difficulties can be overcome by providing guiding questions that help students interrogate visual data. In addition, it was noted that some misconceptions in interpretation of two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional block diagrams can persist even after direct instruction. In general, a positive correlation was noted between spatial thinking and GIS-based learning. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

    ACER: A Framework on the Use of Mathematics in Upper-division Physics

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    At the University of Colorado Boulder, as part of our broader efforts to transform middle- and upper-division physics courses, we research students' difficulties with particular concepts, methods, and tools in classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics. Unsurprisingly, a number of difficulties are related to students' use of mathematical tools (e.g., approximation methods). Previous work has documented a number of challenges that students must overcome to use mathematical tools fluently in introductory physics (e.g., mapping meaning onto mathematical symbols). We have developed a theoretical framework to facilitate connecting students' difficulties to challenges with specific mathematical and physical concepts. In this paper, we motivate the need for this framework and demonstrate its utility for both researchers and course instructors by applying it to frame results from interview data on students' use of Taylor approximations.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figures, 2 tables, accepted to the 2012 PERC Proceeding

    Academic writing and the art of the possible

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    Over the last thirty years the demographic profile of Australian universities has changed significantly to include increasing numbers not only of international students, but also of local students whose first language is other than English, mature age 'second chance' students, VET articulants, and students from migrant, indigenous, rural, or lower socio-economic backgrounds. Such a change has coincided with an institutional shift towards a corporatised and vocationalised higher education environment. This paper addresses the challenge of supporting the learning needs, particularly the literacy learning needs, of the new demographic within a changed environment. It addresses three concerns: firstly, that traditional approaches to literacy support are inadequate and inappropriate to the needs of non-traditional students; secondly, that a vocationalised curriculum does not address basic literacy; and, thirdly, that corporatisated higher education privileges economy, efficiency, and standardisation over contingent learning support needs. The paper considers how these concerns might be negotiated by offering the case of a literacy support program that engages with a vocational/corporate discourse to create new possibilities for meeting students' literacy support needs

    Readers reading practices of EFL Yemeni students: recommendations for the 21st century

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    This paper investigates the reading practices of forty-five second year EFL Yemeni undergraduate students using the Four Resources Model of multiliteracy practices. The Four Resources Model of multiliteracy practices organizes reading practices into four key practices: code breaking, text participating, text uses and text analysing levels. Quantitative and qualitative methods, designed based on the Four Resources Model constructs, were used to collect data from a sample of students studying English as a Foreign Language at a university in Yemen. Quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire, while qualitative data was gathered using semi-structured interviews guided by the research objectives. The findings reveal that Yemeni students were medium users of the code breaker and text user practices whereas the meaning making and text analysis practices were reported to be used in low usage. On the whole, these early findings suggest that the reading practices and reading abilities of the Yemeni students are still limited even at the tertiary level and have not developed fully with regard to reading in English. This paper reports in detail, the use of the Four Resources Model as a tool to determine reading efficacy while examining the aforementioned findings. Discussion is put forward on the implications for teaching of reading and its approaches in a Yemeni context, especially in view of the students‟ reading needs at the tertiary level in Yemen

    Analytic Framework for Students' Use of Mathematics in Upper-Division Physics

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    Many students in upper-division physics courses struggle with the mathematically sophisticated tools and techniques that are required for advanced physics content. We have developed an analytical framework to assist instructors and researchers in characterizing students' difficulties with specific mathematical tools when solving the long and complex problems that are characteristic of upper-division. In this paper, we present this framework, including its motivation and development. We also describe an application of the framework to investigations of student difficulties with direct integration in electricity and magnetism (i.e., Coulomb's Law) and approximation methods in classical mechanics (i.e., Taylor series). These investigations provide examples of the types of difficulties encountered by advanced physics students, as well as the utility of the framework for both researchers and instructors.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, in Phys. Rev. - PE

    Outcomes from institutional audit: arrangements for joint, combined and multidisciplinary programmes : second series

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    Development of reading comprehension with graphic organizers for students with dyslexia

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    This academic work has the aim of analyzing the impact of graphic organizers in the development of reading comprehension accordance with the level of English of each student. The theoretical foundation is constructed by the contents previously defined in the problem; with specific bibliography for the scientific content. Statistical analyses of information were taken into consideration. The implementation of this research will permit the creation and design of a handbook with easy-to-read stories that would increase students receptive abilities in a foreign language in the learning process, especially for students with learning disabilities (dyslexia). These analyses determined the importance of the application of a handbook that would include a short and a long text, vocabulary in context, strategies to improve reading skills, and unit assessments to evaluate the knowledge of students in each unit. This will let the students to develop multiple skills with the guidance of the teacher. This innovative material has as a main target to help the learner to decode phonemes and to identify structures of the story through charts and picturesPeer Reviewe
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