The Arguments and Data in Favor of Minimum Grading

The arguments and for and against minimum grading systems have grown increasingly more intense and acrimonious in the past decade. However, there has been an absence of empirical data, theory and clear comparative analyses of conflicting points of view. Critics of minimum grading contend that the practice will produce grade inflation and social promotions of those students receiving minimum grades as the two chief arguments against minimum grading practices. In our retrospective study, we found no evidence of grade inflation or social promotion of those students receiving minimum grades in a large urban High School using a school-wide macro minimum grading system over a seven year period. We also found most of the benefits posited by minimum grading theory, including students who received minimum grades doing significantly better on state exams than would be predicted by the overall GPA’s with the opposite results being true for the other students in this High School. The far-reaching implications of these results for educators looking to implement fairer and more accurate student assessment are discussed here, including the documented benefits of minimum grading as sound educational and grading policy, and the need of a minimum-grading component in any sound grading system

Learning styles and the selection of majors among Lebanese youth

Learning style preferences and selection of university major data were obtained from a sample of 199 Lebanese high school graduates. These measures and gender were used to assess the relation between the selection of major and learning style preferences. The main assumption was that students who believe they have competencies or ability in a certain area would make choices to pursue activities in these areas in order to develop further these competencies (Holland, 1973). The perceptual and biological development of students’ auditory, visual, tactual and kinesthetic senses appeared to be a key factor in their way of acquiring information. Thus, fitting learning preferences to the specific content knowledge required is with little doubt a very important issue that needs to be addressed by research. This study found that learning style preferences were not homogeneous and were not homogenously distributed across majors. Overall, students indicated a preference for the visual and active learning styles.Females, however, were higher than males on both reflective and verbal styles. Chi-square analyses indicated that each of the six general major areas had distinct learning style attribute profiles that distinguished them from the others. Learning style profiles, therefore, may contribute positively to student selection processes for different majors.peer-reviewe

Advanced EFL learners' beliefs about language learning and teaching: a comparison between grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary

This paper reports on the results of a study exploring learners’ beliefs on the learning and teaching of English grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary at tertiary level. While the importance of learners’ beliefs on the acquisition process is generally recognized, few studies have focussed on and compared learners’ views on different components of the language system. A questionnaire containing semantic scale and Likert scale items probing learners’ views on grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary was designed and completed by 117 native speakers of Dutch in Flanders, who were studying English at university. The analysis of the responses revealed that (i) vocabulary was considered to be different from grammar and pronunciation, both in the extent to which an incorrect use could lead to communication breakdown and with respect to the learners’ language learning strategies, (ii) learners believed in the feasibility of achieving a native-like proficiency in all three components, and (iii) in-class grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary exercises were considered to be useful, even at tertiary level. The results are discussed in light of pedagogical approaches to language teaching

The Take-Away Technique for Increasing Higher Order Learning and Achievement

Abstract Keywords: higher order learning, achievement enhancement, written summarizations, learning character, selfdirected learning, anxiety optimization, meta-cognition, long-term memory formation, science and social science learning Overview If one has training in business, advertising, marketing, political science, funding raising or campaigning, one most likely is vaguely familiar with the concept of the "take-away" in any (content) presentation or interaction, and its key importance as an evaluative and effectiveness criterion for summarizing the critical essence of the interchange and its key messages, whether it is a live presentation, or a casual or group conversation or discussion, or a webpage or series of web-pages or a lecture or a chapter in a book. However, if you are in education, you might not be familiar with the concept of the "take-away" or its key and critical importance in the teaching-learning exchange, and the critical "back-end" of the learning process; namely, what happens and what students do after a presentation or interchange or learning session is done. From the point of view of contemporary cognitive learning theory (e.g.