Teaching reading strategies in history lessons:A micro-level analysis of professional development training and its practical challenges

Reading comprehension is an important skill in secondary education, yet many history teachers find it difficult to provide adequate reading strategy instruction. In this study, we designed a digital learning environment to support teachers’ instruction of reading strategies based on student data. We provided history teachers in the experimental conditions with a visualisation of student performance data. Additionally, these teachers received professional development (PD) training and a guiding manual on how to translate these data into structured, explicit reading strategy instruction. Teachers in the control condition were only provided with basic data. We investigated teachers’ personal experiences through micro-level analysis of qualitative interview data. Our results show that teachers in the experimental condition improved the variation of their strategy instruction and used modelling behaviour more often after the PD training. However, we also identified multiple contextual implementation barriers that provided us with important suggestions for future practice-oriented educational research

Relationships between adolescent students’ reading skills, historical content knowledge and historical reasoning ability

The ability to apply various reading skills is an important prerequisite to comprehend expository texts commonly found in history textbooks, but it is unclear which specific skills contribute to students’ historical content knowledge and historical reasoning abilities. This study used a digital learning environment (DLE) to measure and support lower secondary students’ subject-specific reading skills, and explored the relationships with students’ historical content knowledge and historical reasoning ability. Results showed that subject-specific reading skills, such as explaining historical events, correlated significantly with both historical content knowledge and historical reasoning ability, but not all skills were significant predictors. These findings indicate that to promote the advanced practice of historical reasoning, history teachers should pay attention to students’ reading comprehension skills

What influences students' peer-feedback uptake? Relations between error tolerance, feedback tolerance, writing self-efficacy, perceived language skills and peer-feedback processing

This study investigated the extent to which the uptake of peer-feedback of 10th grade students (N = 160, age range = 15–16) related to intrapersonal factors (error tolerance, feedback tolerance, and writing self-efficacy) and interpersonal factors (feedback provider's language skills, as perceived by the feedback recipient). Two groups of students received similar feedback on their writing performance, provided by trained research-assistants. Half the students was led to believe that feedback was provided by a peer perceived to have stronger language skills than their own, whereas the other half was led to believe that feedback was provided by a peer perceived to have weaker language skills than their own. Results showed that (1) error tolerance was related to feedback tolerance, (2) perceived language skills of the feedback provider positively related to the uptake of peer-feedback on writing style, and (3) error tolerance, feedback tolerance, and writing self-efficacy did not relate to peer-feedback uptake. These results emphasize the central role of errors in peer-feedback processing and they imply that the importance of interpersonal factors should not be overlooked when predicting or explaining peer-feedback uptake

Formative peer assessment in a CSCL environment

In this case study our aim was to gain more insight in the possibilities of qualitative formative peer assessment in a computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. An approach was chosen in which peer assessment was operationalised in assessment assignments and assessment tools that were embedded in the course material. The course concerned a higher education case-based virtual seminar, in which students were asked to conduct research and write a report in small multidisciplinary teams. The assessment assignments contained the discussion of assessment criteria, the assessment of a group report of a fellow group, and writing an assessment report. A list of feedback rules was one of the assessment tools. A qualitative oriented study was conducted, focussing on the attitude of students towards peer assessment and practical use of peer assessment assignments and tools. Results showed that students’ attitude towards peer assessment was positive and that assessment assignments had added value. However, not all students fulfilled all assessment assignments. Recommendations for implementation of peer assessment in CSCL environments as well as suggestions for future research are discussed

Design and methods of the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP), a multicomponent targeted intervention to prevent delirium in hospitalized older patients: efficacy and cost-effectiveness in Dutch health care

BACKGROUND: The Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) has been shown to be highly efficient and (cost-)effective in reducing delirium incidence in the USA. HELP provides multicomponent protocols targeted at specific risk factors for delirium and introduces a different view on care organization, with trained volunteers playing a pivotal role. The primary aim of this study is the quantification of the (cost-)effectiveness of HELP in the Dutch health care system. The second aim is to investigate the experiences of patients, families, professionals and trained volunteers participating in HELP. METHODS/DESIGN: A multiple baseline approach (also known as a stepped-wedge design) will be used to evaluate the (cost-) effectiveness of HELP in a cluster randomized controlled study. All patients aged 70 years and older who are at risk for delirium and are admitted to cardiology, internal medicine, geriatrics, orthopedics and surgery at two participating community hospitals will be included. These eight units are implementing the intervention in a successive order that will be determined at random. The incidence of delirium, the primary outcome, will be measured with the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM). Secondary outcomes include the duration and severity of delirium, quality of life, length of stay and the use of care services up to three months after hospital discharge. The experiences of patients, families, professionals and volunteers will be investigated using a qualitative design based on the grounded theory approach. Professionals and volunteers will be invited to participate in focus group interviews. Additionally, a random sample of ten patients and their families from each hospital unit will be interviewed at home after discharge. DISCUSSION: We hypothesize that HELP will reduce delirium incidence during hospital admission and decrease the duration and severity of delirium and length of hospital stays among these older patients, which will lead to reduced health care costs. The results of this study may fundamentally change our views on care organization for older patients at risk for delirium. The stepped-wedge design was chosen for ethical, practical and statistical reasons. The study results will be generalizable to the Dutch hospital care system, and the proven cost-effectiveness of HELP will encourage the spread and implementation of this program. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Netherlands Trial register: NTR384

Scaffolding expository history text reading:Effects on adolescents' comprehension, self-regulation, and motivation

Reading comprehension is an important predictor for academic success, yet many adolescents in secondary education face difficulties when reading their textbooks. In this quasi-experimental study, we developed a digital learning environment to scaffold students' expository text reading in seventh-grade history classrooms. Students in the experimental condition could use hints comprised of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategy instruction, whereas students in the control condition received no additional support. A comparison of posttest comprehension between conditions showed no significant differences. However, students in the experimental condition who accessed hints during history text reading performed significantly better on the posttest than students who did not use hints at all. We found no differences between conditions regarding students' self-regulated learning or motivation, but students' awareness of problem-solving reading strategies significantly increased in the experimental condition. Finally, a comparison of students with different reading levels showed that below-average readers benefitted most from digital reading practice

Designing electronic collaborative learning environments

Electronic collaborative learning environments for learning and working are in vogue. Designers design them according to their own constructivist interpretations of what collaborative learning is and what it should achieve. Educators employ them with different educational approaches and in diverse situations to achieve different ends. Students use them, sometimes very enthusiastically, but often in a perfunctory way. Finally, researchers study them and—as is usually the case when apples and oranges are compared—find no conclusive evidence as to whether or not they work, where they do or do not work, when they do or do not work and, most importantly, why, they do or do not work. This contribution presents an affordance framework for such collaborative learning environments; an interaction design procedure for designing, developing, and implementing them; and an educational affordance approach to the use of tasks in those environments. It also presents the results of three projects dealing with these three issues

Pulse separation control for mode-locked far-infrared p-Ge lasers

Active mode locking of the far-infrared p-Ge laser giving a train of 200 ps pulses is achieved via gain modulation by applying an rf electric field together with an additional bias at one end of the crystal parallel to the Voigt-configured magnetic field. Harmonic mode locking yields a train of pulse pairs with variable time separation from zero to half the roundtrip period, where pulse separation is electrically controlled by the external bias to the rf field

Design and methods of the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP), a multicomponent targeted intervention to prevent delirium in hospitalized older patients: efficacy and cost-effectiveness in Dutch health care

Background The Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) has been shown to be highly efficient and (cost-)effective in reducing delirium incidence in the USA. HELP provides multicomponent protocols targeted at specific risk factors for delirium and introduces a different view on care organization, with trained volunteers playing a pivotal role. The primary aim of this study is the quantification of the (cost-)effectiveness of HELP in the Dutch health care system. The second aim is to investigate the experiences of patients, families, professionals and trained volunteers participating in HELP. Methods/Design A multiple baseline approach (also known as a stepped-wedge design) will be used to evaluate the (cost-) effectiveness of HELP in a cluster randomized controlled study. All patients aged 70 years and older who are at risk for delirium and are admitted to cardiology, internal medicine, geriatrics, orthopedics and surgery at two participating community hospitals will be included. These eight units are implementing the intervention in a successive order that will be determined at random. The incidence of delirium, the primary outcome, will be measured with the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM). Secondary outcomes include the duration and severity of delirium, quality of life, length of stay and the use of care services up to three months after hospital discharge. The experiences of patients, families, professionals and volunteers will be investigated using a qualitative design based on the grounded theory approach. Professionals and volunteers will be invited to participate in focus group interviews. Additionally, a random sample of ten patients and their families from each hospital unit will be interviewed at home after discharge. Discussion We hypothesize that HELP will reduce delirium incidence during hospital admission and decrease the duration and severity of delirium and length of hospital stays among these older patients, which will lead to reduced health care costs. The results of this study may fundamentally change our views on care organization for older patients at risk for delirium. The stepped-wedge design was chosen for ethical, practical and statistical reasons. The study results will be generalizable to the Dutch hospital care system, and the proven cost-effectiveness of HELP will encourage the spread and implementation of this program