Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Abstracts 2004

Proceedings of the Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Regional Conference held at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 2004

The effects of pairing, training, and gender on second graders' content-mastery of a hypermedia science lesson : a factorial experiment

The purpose of this study was to examine second graders' performance on a test of content-knowledge based on a hypermedia science program when they were working with a partner of the same sex versus working alone, and when they were given training in systematic self-instruction versus given no training. One hundred and twenty second graders from two public schools in the Guilford County School System were sampled. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of eight treatment conditions by pairing, training, and gender. The dependent measure was the adjusted posttest scores using the pretest score as the covariate on a test of content-knowledge based on a hypermedia science program about primates. It was hypothesized that female pairs who received training would significantly outperform all other treatment conditions. It was also hypothesized that trained pairs would significantly outperform untrained pairs and individuals. In addition, gender differences were expected between groups of subjects who worked in pairs, while no gender differences were expected between groups of subjects who worked alone

Incorporating Scripts with Cooperative Learning to Promote Critical Thinking Skills in Secondary Science

A drastic growth of scientific and technological advancements in the 21st century have allowed for new jobs with innovative processes that require individuals who possess the ability to think deductively, reason through problems, and obtain information that can support the potential solutions to these problems. Many of the technological advancements have reduced the necessity to only memorize rote facts; rather, much of this information can be found through a quick internet search. What is needed, therefore, is education which requires students to think deeper than before – to examine new information through a more critical lens. The purpose of this research study is to investigate how the introduction of collaborative scripts into the cooperative learning of students in a secondary science classroom impacts critical thinking skills. A quasi-experimental non-equivalent control-group design was implemented. The sample was drawn from eight sections of ninth grade science at a secondary public school in a northeastern state. Students engaged in project-based learning with cooperation with peers on an inquiry-based science lesson with phenomena. The experimental group was presented with scripts to begin asking thoughtful questions of peers about the phenomena being studied. The control group was instructed to engage in peer discourse as they normally would. The CCT-X was administered to all participants as a pretest and posttest. The data was analyzed via ANCOVA testing. Although a greater improvement in scores can be seen in the group that was exposed to the cooperative scripts, the results were not statistically significant. Future recommendations were identified, such as recruiting a larger sample size, implementing a longer duration for the intervention of collaborative scripts, and considering a new instrument for measuring critical thinking skills

Teacher-Student Interactions and Domain-Specific Motivation: The Relationship between Students\u27 Perceptions of Teacher Interpersonal Behavior and Motivation in Middle School Science

This study examined interactions between middle school science students\u27 perceptions of teacher-student interactions and their motivation for learning science. Specifically, in order to better understand factors affecting middle school students\u27 motivation for science, this study investigated the interactions between middle school students\u27 perceptions of teacher interpersonal behavior in their science classroom and their efficacy, task value, mastery orientations, and goal orientation for learning science. This mixed methods study followed a sequential explanatory model (Cresswell & Plano-Clark, 2007). Quantitative and qualitative data were collected in two phases, with quantitative data in the first phase informing the selection of participants for the qualitative phase that followed. The qualitative phase also helped to clarify and explain results from the quantitative phase. Data mixing occurred between Phase One and Phase Two (participant selection) and at the interpretation level (explanatory) after quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed separately

Different Methods of Embodied Cognition in Pedagogy and its Effectiveness in Student Learning

The Mathematical Ideas Analysis hypothesizes that abstract mathematical reasoning is unconsciously organized and integrated with sensory-motor experience. Basic research testing movement, language, and perception during math problem solving supports this hypothesis. Applied research primarily measures students’ performance on math tests after they engage in analogous sensory-motor tasks, but findings show mixed results. Sensory-motor tasks are dependent on several moderators (e.g., instructional guidance, developmental stage) known to help students learn, and studies vary in how each moderator is implemented. There is little research on the effectiveness of sensory-motor tasks without these moderators. This study compares different approaches to working with an interactive application designed to emulate how people intrinsically solve algebraic equations. A total of 130 participants (84 females, 54 males) were drawn from a pool of Introductory Psychology students attending San Jose State University. Participants were placed in three different learning environments, and their performance was measured by comparing improvement between a pre-test and a post-test. We found no difference between participants who worked alone with the application, were instructed by the experimenter while using the application, or who instructed the experimenter on how to solve equations using the application. Further research is needed to examine how and whether analogous sensory-motor interfaces are a useful learning tool, and if so, what circumstances are ideal for sensory-motor interfaces to be used

A descriptive study of two small peer-directed mathematics groups in an elementary classroom.

The purpose of this study was to describe the behavior of children engaged in two different Peer Work Group (PWG) tasks and to search for patterns of behavior that relate to learning. The study was exploratory in nature and was designed to investigate the processes children use under different PWG task-structure conditions. Two groups of children in a 1st-2nd grade classroom were studied; each group worked for one week on each task and all interaction was videotaped. Detailed information about requests and responses was recorded onto a checklist. Pretests and posttests were administered for each task to assess gains and to search for relationships among tasks, behaviors, and learning. Results include identification of eleven task-related behaviors with differences across tasks in level of engagement for the following: Independent Seatwork, Group Discussion, Time Off-Task, Waiting for Peers, Cooperative Problem Solving, Approaching the Teacher, and Requesting Help. Patterns in the data for request-response behaviors agree with sociolinguistic theory regarding effective speakers . Significant differences were not found within or between groups and tasks on achievement measures. Implications are drawn regarding the influence of task structure on group process and children\u27s use of requesting behavior for obtaining elaborated responses from peers

Fostering collaborative knowledge construction with visualization tools

This study investigates to what extent collaborative knowledge construction can be fostered by providing students with visualization tools as structural support. Thirty-two students of Educational Psychology took part in the study. The students were subdivided into dyads and asked to solve a case problem of their learning domain under one of two conditions: 1) with content-specific visualization 2) with content-unspecific visualization. Results show that by being provided with a content-specific visualization tool, both the process and the outcome of the cooperative effort improved. More specifically, dyads under that condition referred to more adequate concepts, risked more conflicts, and were more successful in integrating prior knowledge into the collaborative solution. Moreover, those learning partners had a more similar individual learning outcome

Social Networking, the Writing Process, and Cooperative Learning: A Three-Strategy Approach Helping Developmental Students and First-Year Composition Students Prewrite

Students in developmental writing courses and first-year composition coursesstruggle with thewriting process. Individual instructional strategieshave been insufficient to engage these students or build their self-confidences for further writing courses. The purpose of thisstudy was to understand how students perceive a combination of three strategies,social networking, the writing process, and cooperative learning may help students to be successfulwith the prewriting phase of the writing process. The three research questions were (1) what are students\u27 perceptions of a social networking tool; (2) how do students perceive asocial networking tool influences prewriting in cooperative groups; and(3) how do cooperative groups work together to prewrite? A combination of strategies together with a high level of student engagement may help to increase student success in developmental writingand first-year composition courses. Nine students across four sections of writing courses agreed to participate inthis qualitative inquiry. Data werecollected from semi-structured interviews, social networking posts, observations, and a researcher-made handout, and data were analyzed using the constant comparative method. Three themesemerged:Students perceivedusefulness related to using a social netowrking tool, their behaviors, and positive results.Group interaction refleceted students\u27positive interdependnece,individual accountability, group processing, social skills, andface-to-face interaction.Finally,knowledge representation was evident as it encapsulated the participants\u27 views on making their thinking visible and sharing ideas. A discussion of the research questions integrated these findings.Students perceived a social networking tool to be valuable, beneficial to helping them learn, and an achive for their ideas. Students perceiveda social networking tool to influence prewriting in cooperative groups by generating ideas,representing their contributions, andcommunications with groupmembers. Finally, the participants\u27 perceptions and observations revealedthat working together in cooperative groups to prewrite reflected the five elementsof cooperation. Implications for practice with writing instructions, limitations of the current study, and implications for further research about timeframes, participants, and challenges are provided

Pilot Study: Effectiveness of System Dynamics based Interactive Learning Environment SD/ILE as an interdisciplinary educational tool in K-12 classrooms

Systems thinking is a methodology used to explore and understand the interrelationships within complex systems. One of the key concepts in systems thinking are the feedback loops. This research aims to assess the effectiveness of an SD/ILE (System Dynamics-based Interactive Learning Environment) as an interdisciplinary educational tool for K-12 students, to help them develop systems thinking skills and build lateral understanding on feedback loop processes. While the concept of feedback loops is far-reaching and present in many disciplines as well as day-to-day life, this ILE references the carbon cycle as a complex system. In this study we chose to develop a lesson about “Carbon Cycle” for two reasons: first, it is part of the US high-school biology curriculum, and second, due to the current environmental crisis, it is important to learn about climate feedbacks and to provide a real-world context. This is an empirical research project based on observation of students’ learning outcomes in a pilot session. During this session, students were provided with guidelines, the online links to the ILEs and challenges to complete both individually and in teams under their teacher’s supervision. The session took place in a US high-school biology class. The obtained results through the pilot test and analyzed data, show promising increase in students’ learning curve after playing the Carbon Cycle games in comparison with the pre-test results. Evaluation of students’ understanding, and page time tracking data reveals that learning curve has a high correlation with the average time that each student spent playing the game. Moreover, the data supports the positive impact of animation-based design in the students’ learning curve along the game. Also, this pilot session provides a useful overview of challenges for real-world experiment setup and limitations of available systems thinking skills measurement tools in real-world classroom experiments. The challenges are related to different aspects of the experience, such as the teachers’ role, interactive and engaging level of the ILE (game) design, appropriate timing for playing the game, easy instruction, and suitable assessment tool for measuring individual knowledge development. Among the strongest lesson learned from the classroom experiment, time management, and students’ engagement can be underlined.Master's Thesis in System DynamicsGEO-SD351INTL-KMDMASV-SYSDYINTL-HFINTL-JUSINTL-PSYKINTL-MNINTL-MEDINTL-S

Bullies in the Block Area: The Early Childhood Origins of Mean Behavior

Bullying can pose a serious threat to children's immediate and long-term health and well-being, and can have profound impacts on all children involved in bullying behaviors, whether as the one bullying others, the one being bullied, or the one witnessing bullying. At least some of the roots of bullying behaviors, and conversely the roots of positive pro-social skills, can likely be found in adverse and positive experiences during early childhood, yet the research literature on these connections is limited. The early childhood field lacks a coherent, theoretical model that identifies the factors contributing to "mean" or aggressive behavior in young children, and establishes the developmental link between this early behavior and later bullying behavior. This white paper summarizes the literature on seven key hypotheses about the roots of bullying behavior in early childhood experiences