The Use of Rasch Model to Create Adaptive Practices in e-Learning Systems

While different approaches were developed to create computerized adaptive practices for e-learning systems, we show that exploiting Rasch models to create adaptive practices can be a new promising approach. Rasch analysis enables us to find a mathematical model to analyze students’ answers to exam questions by representing students’ abilities and questions difficulty levels on the same scale. In this paper, we introduce a novel algorithm to generate adaptive practices based on the Rasch analysis of students’ performance in an initial assessment. This approach enables us to generate adaptive practices that consider not only the student’s ability and his previous performance but also the difficulty level of each question. We also present results from a preliminary field experiment that we have conducted using an online learning system that implements this algorithm. The potential advantages of this approach and the practical contributions are discussed

Multi-theoretic approaches to understanding the science classroom

Multi-camera on-site video technology and post-lesson video stimulated interviews were used in a purposefully inclusive research design to generate a complex data set amenable to parallel analyses from several complementary theoretical perspectives. The symposium reports the results of parallel analyses employing positioning theory, systemic functional linguistics, distributed cognition and representational analysis of the same nine-lesson sequence in a single science classroom during the teaching of a single topic: States of Matter. Without contesting the coherence and value of a well-constructed mono-theoretic research study, the argument is made that all such studies present an inevitably partial account of a setting as complex as the science classroom: privileging some aspects and ignoring others. In this symposium, the first presentation examined the rationale for multi-theoretic research designs, highlighting the dangers of the circular amplification of those constructs predetermined by the choice of theory and outlining the intended benefits of multi-theoretic designs that offer less partial accounts of classroom practice. The second and third presentations reported the results of analyses of the same lesson sequence on the topic “states of matter” using the analytical perspectives of positioning theory and systemic functional linguistics. The final presentation reported the comparative analysis of student learning of density over the same three lessons from distributed cognition and representational perspectives. The research design promoted a form of reciprocal interrogation, where the analyses provided insights into classroom practice and the comparison of the analyses facilitated the reflexive interrogation of the selected theories, while also optimally anticipating the subsequent synthesis of the interpretive accounts generated by each analysis of the same setting for the purpose of informing instructional advocacy

Lexicogrammatical analysis of science classroom language: possibilities and limitations

© 2010 Dr. Lay Hoon SeahThis study examined the productivity of analysing science classroom language at a lexicogrammatical level, that is, in terms of the use of lexicogrammatical (LG) resources. The aims of the study are two-fold: 1) to conduct lexicogrammatical analysis of science classroom language; and 2) to reflect on the possibilities and limitations of the analysis. Adopting an integrated socio-constructivist and socio-semiotic perspective, this study assumed learning the language of school science is constitutive of the learning of science. By analysing the science classroom language, this study set out to explore what is entailed for students to appropriate and employ the language of school science. Data for this study came from a larger study entitled ‘Causal Connections in Science Classrooms’. A single case study consisting of data generated from a sequence of nine lessons on the topic of “States of Matter” from a Grade 7 classroom in an outer suburban school in Melbourne was constructed. The focus of the analysis was on the students’ written assignments and lesson transcripts generated from the lessons related to the concepts of expansion and density. Data from other lessons as well as the interview videos constituted supplementary data useful for understanding the context. Analytical categories from the Systemic Functional Linguistics framework were utilised in the analysis. Among the main findings are: students’ written responses to tasks showed diversity in the type of explanation, the use of LG resources and the meanings realised; the different explanatory foci identified among the students’ explanations were found to be associated with distinct sets of LG resources; some students employed LG resources in ways that appeared to be ambiguous; some of the LG resources employed by the students were similar to those employed in the instructional language but others were different; similarly, not all of the meanings realised by the students’ language were similar to those realised by the instructional language; the significance of the differences in the use of LG resources between the instructional language and the students’ language could be illuminated by the condition-of-use for the LG resources. Further, the analysis also illustrates how the students’ use of LG resources could have been shaped by the nature of the instructional activities and tasks as well as the language used in the classroom. The above findings constituted the “possibilities” of analysing science classroom language at a lexicogrammatical level, and can be broadly grouped into A) the different ways in which students employ language to realise scientific meanings in relation to the instructional language; B) patterns of language use that are significant for realising scientific meanings; and C) aspects of the instructional process that appear to shape the way students employ language. Two limitations of lexicogrammatical analysis were identified. One limitation relates to the difficulties in the interpretation of students’ intended meaning from their written responses and the other relates to the inadequacy of the analysis for illuminating the significance of the diversity in the use of LG resources in terms of the scientific accuracy of the meaning realised. Three kinds of implications were drawn from the findings: theoretical, pedagogical and methodological. Theoretical implications relate to the dual role of LG resources as cognitive and semiotic tools, and what is entailed in the use of LG resources as “building blocks” to realise scientific meanings. Pedagogical implications relate to the interventions that teachers may undertake to facilitate the learning of the language of school science, which is constitutive of learning science. Some suggestions include strategies on how to attend to the use of LG resources in science classrooms; the need to discuss the requirements of classroom tasks; and using alternative modes of representation (e.g., diagrams) not only to access students’ understanding but also to assess students’ effectiveness in their use of the language of school science. Methodologically, this study shows the importance of students’ diagrams in unpacking the meaning of their writings that would otherwise remains ambiguous and of investigating the effects of context on students’ representation of scientific meanings. To conclude, this study has demonstrated the productivity in investigating the use of LG resources in a science classroom, particularly the insights it offers into the challenges that students face when employing the language of school science. These challenges relate not only to conceptualising scientific knowledge through language but also the effective control of the use of language as a semiotic tool. The demonstrated importance of the role of LG resources in the learning of science is a reminder that in the current push towards inquiry-based learning of science, there is a need to focus not only on getting students to be involved in conducting scientific inquiry but also on their ability to gain control of the use of the various semiotic tools - of which language of the school science is a central one

A cross-disciplinary approach to analysing a secondary school science lesson in Singapore

Master of EducationThis study involves the use of a cross-disciplinary approach to analyse science classroom discourse. The focus is on the ways in which classroom discourse in a secondary school in Singapore was used to mediate students' scientific meaning-making, with particular emphasis on the teacher's discourse. The cross-disciplinary approach adopted in this study relates to the use of two frameworks drawn from different disciplines, the flow of discourse (FOD) framework from the sociocultural psychology and the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) framework from linguistics. The central data in this study is the transcript of a lesson episode, which constitutes part of a sequence of lessons on rate of reaction. The analysis provides insight into the teacher's use of discourse to mediate students' scientific meaning-making, characteristic features of the discourse and potential problems relating to the discourse used. The insights gained from the use of both frameworks are compared and contrasted. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of each framework are examined. This study also explores the issues relating to the use of the cross-disciplinary approach to analyse the same classroom discourse. The analysis using the two different frameworks reveals complementary insights about the classroom discourse. Specifically, the FOD framework provides a macro-view of the discourse in terms of the instructional approach adopted by the teacher, while the SFL framework provides a micro-view of the discourse in terms of the grammatical resources used by the teacher. Overall, this study concludes that the use of this cross-disciplinary approach to analyse science classroom discourse provides a more comprehensive overview of the discourse than would be possible from the use of either one of the frameworks

A cross-disciplinary approach to analysing a secondary school science lesson in Singapore

Master of EducationThis study involves the use of a cross-disciplinary approach to analyse science classroom discourse. The focus is on the ways in which classroom discourse in a secondary school in Singapore was used to mediate students' scientific meaning-making, with particular emphasis on the teacher's discourse. The cross-disciplinary approach adopted in this study relates to the use of two frameworks drawn from different disciplines, the flow of discourse (FOD) framework from the sociocultural psychology and the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) framework from linguistics. The central data in this study is the transcript of a lesson episode, which constitutes part of a sequence of lessons on rate of reaction. The analysis provides insight into the teacher's use of discourse to mediate students' scientific meaning-making, characteristic features of the discourse and potential problems relating to the discourse used. The insights gained from the use of both frameworks are compared and contrasted. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of each framework are examined. This study also explores the issues relating to the use of the cross-disciplinary approach to analyse the same classroom discourse. The analysis using the two different frameworks reveals complementary insights about the classroom discourse. Specifically, the FOD framework provides a macro-view of the discourse in terms of the instructional approach adopted by the teacher, while the SFL framework provides a micro-view of the discourse in terms of the grammatical resources used by the teacher. Overall, this study concludes that the use of this cross-disciplinary approach to analyse science classroom discourse provides a more comprehensive overview of the discourse than would be possible from the use of either one of the frameworks

Discourse Analysis and Multimodal Meaning Making in a Science Classroom: Meta-Methodological Insights from Three Theoretical Perspectives

This article provides rich insights into the process of data generation for discourse analysis from three separate studies of the video recordings of a single science classroom in action. The central claim is that multimodal transcription can contribute to developments in discourse theory. A three-stage reflective heuristic is developed and used in the article to support meta-methodological discussion on different researchers’ negotiations with the complexity of the video data. The focus is how the different researchers attended to modalities of meaning making (e.g. speech, learning artefacts, whiteboard notes, gestures, bodily actions) and appropriated, adapted and transformed their theoretical framework in order to construct the transcripts for each study. The three-stage heuristic is shown to facilitate transparency in analytic decision-making and is recommended for promoting much needed discussion on processes of data generation for discourse analysis that draws upon video recordings of action in situ

The roles of teachers’ science talk in revealing language demands within diverse elementary school classrooms: a study of teaching heat and temperature in Singapore

<p>This study of three science teachers’ lessons on heat and temperature seeks to characterise classroom talk that highlighted the ways language is used and to examine the nature of the language demands revealed in constructing, negotiating, arguing and communicating science ideas. The transcripts from the entire instructional units for these teachers’ four culturally and linguistically diverse Grade 4 classes (10 years old) with English as the language of instruction constitute the data for this investigation. Analysis of these transcripts focused on teachers’ talk that made explicit reference to the form or function of the language of science and led to the inductive development of the ‘Attending to Language Demands in Science’ analytical framework. This framework in turn revealed that the major foregrounding purposes of teachers’ talk include labelling, explaining, differentiating, selecting and constructing. Further classification of the instances within these categories revealed the extensive and contextualised nature of the language demands. The results challenge the conventional assumption that basic literacy skills dominate over disciplinary literacy skills in primary school science. Potential uses of the analytical framework that could further expand our understanding of the forms, functions and demands of language used in elementary school science are also discussed.</p

Designing collaborative knowledge building environments accessible to all learners: impacts and design challenges

The present study attempted to investigate whether young learners who were new to knowledge building approaches could work towards advancing both individual and collective knowledge, and whether knowledge building could be beneficial to both high-achieving and low-achieving students. Findings reported in this paper are from one and a half-year design research for science learning in one primary school in Singapore. In this study, we closely examined the design and enactment of the Knowledge Building Community model in one class with high-achieving students and two classes with mixed-ability students. The research consists of two phases: Phase I Cultivating a collaborative knowledge building culture and Phase II Progressive Knowledge Building using Knowledge Forum. Data were collected from multiple sources, including knowledge assessment, conceptual understanding tasks, and the content analysis of Knowledge Forum postings. The results in Phase I show that while it is critical for students to monitor and build knowledge for their own understanding, they had difficulties developing such skills. In both phases, we found positive impacts on academic achievements showing improvement of student understanding in the course of reflective thinking and progressive inquiry. Overall, quantitative data suggest that the collaborative knowledge building environment was beneficial for both high-achieving and low-achieving students. We conclude by discussing some of challenges and issues in designing collaborative knowledge building environments for young learners with diverse abilities

Antibiotic utilisation and resistance over the first decade of nationally funded antimicrobial stewardship programmes in Singapore acute-care hospitals

Abstract Objective The aim of this study was to describe the time series of broad-spectrum antibiotic utilisation and incidence of antibiotic-resistant organisms during the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship programmes (ASP) in Singapore. Methods An observational study was conducted using data from 2011 to 2020 in seven acute-care public hospitals. We applied joinpoint regressions to investigate changes in antibiotic utilisation rate and incidence density of antibiotic-resistant organisms. Results Across the seven hospitals, quarterly broad-spectrum antibiotic utilisation rate remained stable. Half-yearly incidence density of antibiotic-resistant organisms with two joinpoints at first half (H1) of 2012 and second half (H2) of 2014 decreased significantly in the second and third period with a half-yearly percentage change (HPC) of -2.9% and − 0.5%, respectively. Across the five hospitals with complete data, half-yearly broad-spectrum antibiotic utilisation rate with one joinpoint decreased significantly from H1 of 2011 to H2 of 2018 (HPC − 4.0%) and H2 of 2018 to H2 2020 (HPC − 0.5%). Incidence density of antibiotic-resistant organisms decreased significantly in the two joinpoint periods from H1 of 2012 to H2 of 2014 (HPC − 2.7%) and H2 of 2014 to H2 of 2020 (HPC − 1.0%). Ceftriaxone with one joinpoint decreased significantly from H1 of 2011 to H1 of 2014 (HPC − 6.0%) and H1 of 2014 to H2 of 2020 (HPC − 1.8%) and ceftriaxone-resistant E. coli and K. pneumoniae decreased significantly in later periods, from H2 of 2016 to H2 of 2020 (HPC − 2.5%) and H1 of 2012 to H2 of 2015 (HPC − 4.6%) respectively. Anti-pseudomonal antibiotics with one joinpoint decreased significantly from H1 of 2011 to H2 of 2014 (HPC − 4.5%) and H2 of 2014 to H2 of 2020 (HPC − 0.8%) and that of quinolones with one joinpoint at H1 of 2015 decreased significantly in the first period. C. difficile with one joinpoint increased significantly from H1 of 2011 to H1 of 2015 (HPC 3.9%) and decreased significantly from H1 of 2015 to H2 of 2020 (HPC − 4.9%). Conclusions In the five hospitals with complete data, decrease in broad-spectrum antibiotic utilisation rate was followed by decrease in incidence density of antibiotic-resistant organisms. ASP should continue to be nationally funded as a key measure to combat antimicrobial resistance in acute care hospitals