Improving Hybrid Brainstorming Outcomes with Scripting and Group Awareness Support

Previous research has shown that hybrid brainstorming, which combines individual and group methods, generates more ideas than either approach alone. However, the quality of these ideas remains similar across different methods. This study, guided by the dual-pathway to creativity model, tested two computer-supported scaffolds – scripting and group awareness support – for enhancing idea quality in hybrid brainstorming. 94 higher education students,grouped into triads, were tasked with generating ideas in three conditions. The Control condition used standard hybrid brainstorming without extra support. In the Experimental 1 condition, students received scripting support during individual brainstorming, and students in the Experimental 2 condition were provided with group awareness support during the group phase in addition. While the quantity of ideas was similar across all conditions, the Experimental 2 condition produced ideas of higher quality, and the Experimental 1 condition also showed improved idea quality in the individual phase compared to the Control condition

Closing in on the picture : analyzing interactions in video recordings

This paper provides a detailed account of the processing and analysing of data, obtained through video recording during reflective practitioner research. It sets out five stages in the analysis of video recordings of classroom interactions during a series of educational drama lessons: from decisions relating to the selection of data for close analysis, to the seeking of themes, and finally to the presentation of conclusions. The researcher adapted and synthesised several processes derived from discourse analysis (Wells, 2001; Spiers, 2004; Gee, 2005) to produce a range of instruments for use in transcription and analysis of verbal and non-verbal discourse. These include: a simple transcription key; classifications for verbal and non-verbal discourse; and a template for a transcription and analysis matrix

Enhancing Free-text Interactions in a Communication Skills Learning Environment

Learning environments frequently use gamification to enhance user interactions.Virtual characters with whom players engage in simulated conversations often employ prescripted dialogues; however, free user inputs enable deeper immersion and higher-order cognition. In our learning environment, experts developed a scripted scenario as a sequence of potential actions, and we explore possibilities for enhancing interactions by enabling users to type free inputs that are matched to the pre-scripted statements using Natural Language Processing techniques. In this paper, we introduce a clustering mechanism that provides recommendations for fine-tuning the pre-scripted answers in order to better match user inputs

A mixed methods study of the relationship between dialogic inquiry and engagement in active learning Shakespeare education

This study evaluated the relationship between dialogic inquiry and student engagement within the context of active learning Shakespeare education. Active learning is a pedagogical framework that challenges students to experience Shakespeare’s literature by embodying the text through voice and movement. A mixed methods approach was designed to gather data from students in sixth to 12th grades, who attended a Shakespeare camp that used active learning. The experimental group had the addition of dialogic inquiry to their learning experience. Surveys, video recordings, and focus groups from both the control and experimental groups were conducted with students to investigate the dialogic inquiry approach and its relationship to engagement. The data revealed that both groups experienced significant increases in engagement, but the amount of change in behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement between the two groups was not significantly different. The qualitative elements of the surveys, video recordings, and focus groups helped explain elements of dialogic inquiry and active learning that students found meaningful and provided context for these findings

Whole language curriculum for English learners in elementary schools

The purpose of this project is to propose a pedagogy that adds, builds, and uses the student\u27s language and culture to speak, read and write English. This project establishes the need for a comprehensive model of instruction for English learners in elementary schools

Quiet on the Set!: Writing Socially in an Elementary After-School Video Club

The research presented is a qualitative case study of an after-school video club for elementary age students. The focus of the project revolved around one main question: how do students socially read and write videos? The broader goal of the question was to understand how students socially read and write multimodal texts with video as a subset. The study was approached from sociocultural approach to literacy that recognizes videomaking as a new literacies practice. As a literacy practice, videomaking incorporates multiple authors, multiple communicative modes (visual, spatial, aural, gestural, and linguistic), and involves complex and dynamic social interactions between both readers and writers of texts. Using qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, one site (the Midway Elementary After-School Video Club) was studied for a complete school year. There were 23 participants in the study including 20 4th and 5th grade students, two adult volunteers, and a participant/researcher. The findings of the study outline how participants at the site socially read and wrote videos: by inventing, revising, and following a socially established videomaking process (pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution), by behaving in ways that were influenced by sociocultural contexts specific to videomaking at the site (protocols, roles, tools, products), and interacting in specific and identifiable ways (inquiring, instructing, suggesting, and evaluating) to both solve\u27 and \u27find\u27 problems during literacy events. Videomaking required multiple authorship and, depending on how students responded to the sociocultural contexts, the opportunity for democratic writing was made possible and sometimes inevitable. Through the study of social videomaking, the research deomonstates the social nature of all literacies.\u2

Cognitive and Affective Outcomes of Varying Levels of Structured Collaboration in a Computer-Based Learning Environment.

This study investigated cognitive and affective outcomes resulting from the use of varying levels of structured peer collaboration (unstructured, structured, and structured with training) in a computer-based learning environment. The study was designed to apply research findings showing a positive relationship between giving explanations and achievement into classroom practice. The sample consisted of 190 students enrolled in nine sections of seventh grade social studies at two middle schools in East Baton Rouge Parish, LA. The schools were selected because they contained large percentages of students at-risk of school failure. Intact classes were randomly assigned to receive one of the three treatments for a nine-week experimental period. Students were assigned by the teachers to groups of three to complete computer-based learning activities that focused on critical thinking and problem solving. Collaboration protocols defining the roles and responsibilities to be used during the learning sessions were given to students in both the structured and training groups. Additionally, the researcher conducted three fifty-minute collaborative learning training sessions with classes receiving the structured collaboration with training treatment. Pre- and posttests were used to measure content area achievement, critical thinking ability, self-esteem and perception of the learning environment. Frequency of specific verbal interactions (explanations given and input suggestions made) was recorded during classroom observation. Significant findings include: (a) training was an effective means of increasing the frequency of giving explanations within collaborative learning groups, (b) students who received structured collaboration (with or without training) scored higher on the social studies achievement test than students in the unstructured groups, and (c) students who received training scored higher than students receiving only structure on the posttest of self-esteem. Students in the structured (without training) groups reported that they felt more in control of the processes within their collaborative learning groups and had greater freedom to set their own instructional pace, while students receiving training in the roles and responsibilities within the collaborative learning groups declined in their perception of the amount of freedom they had to control the pace and style of their learning