Grades Five and Six Students’ Representation of Meaning in Collaborative Wiki Writing

This paper examined grades 5 and 6 students’ participation in wikis while writing reports on social studies topics. An analysis of eight wikis showed that students represented meanings they had constructed about their topics by engaging in knowledge telling practices (e.g., introducing, stating, or repeating information or an idea and developing previous ideas with examples, statistics or other information) more frequently than they engaged in knowledge transforming processes, such as drawing conclusions, identifying cause-effect relationships, or making inferences or judgements. Our research shows that Bereiter and Scardamalia’s model (1987) is useful to inform the development of tools for assessing students’ demonstration of their understanding of concepts in content area writing

An Analysis of Large-Scale Writing Assessments in Canada (Grades 5-8)

This paper reports on an analysis of large-scale assessments of Grades 5-8 students’ writing across 10 provinces and 2 territories in Canada. Theory, classroom practice, and the contributions and constraints of large-scale writing assessment are brought together with a focus on Grades 5-8 writing in order to provide both a broad view of Canada-wide assessments and specific recommendations for enhancing the validity of provincial and territorial writing assessment in Canada. We deductively analyzed the primary assessment administration documents found on the provincial and territorial education websites using the categories of (a) design (e.g., grades at which the tests are written, the goals of the tests, the number and types of written compositions that are gathered, (b) administration (e.g., time of year, length of time provided to students to write, and pre-writing activities), and (c) the scoring of the assessments. We also used tenets of effective writing assessment from a process writing approach and from a multiliteracies approach to analyze the assessment procedures. Our analysis shows that process writing approaches have influenced the administration procedures in terms of the provision of time to talk with peers before writing and the recognition of various composition and thinking processes. However, composing processes are directed to be less idiosyncratic and recursive than composition theorists and noted teachers of writing would recommend. The assessments do not yet reflect an awareness of multiliteracies theory, as there is little use of digital technology to write and portfolio assessments and the collaborative writing of Web 2.0 practices are non-existent.   Cet article fait état d’une analyse d’évaluations à grande échelle de rédactions d’élèves de la 5e à la 8e année dans 10 provinces et 2 territoires au Canada. Se penchant sur les rédactions écrites par des élèves de la 5e à la 8e année, nous réunissons la théorie, la pratique en salle de classe et les avantages et les contraintes liés aux évaluations à grande échelle pour élaborer un aperçu général des évaluations pancanadiennes et des recommandations spécifiques visant l’augmentation de la validité des évaluations de l’écriture dans les provinces et les territoires du Canada. Nous avons analysé par déduction les documents administratifs de l’évaluation principale tirés des sites Web d’éducation des provinces et des territoires. Notre analyse reposait sur les trois catégories suivantes : (a) conception (p. ex. niveau scolaire auquel on écrit les examens, objectifs des examens, nombre et type de rédactions exigées), (b) administration (p.ex. période de l’année, temps de rédaction accordée aux élèves, activités de pré-écriture et (c) évaluation des examens. Nous nous sommes également appuyés sur les principes de l’évaluation efficace des rédactions selon une approche processus et une approche axée sur la multilittératie pour analyser les procédures d’évaluation. Notre analyse démontre que les approches processus à l’écriture ont influencé les procédures administratives quant au temps accordé à la discussion avec les pairs avant l’écriture et quant à la reconnaissance de divers processus de rédaction et de réflexion. Toutefois, les processus d’écriture imposés sont moins idiosyncratiques et récursifs que des théoriciens de l’écriture et des enseignants éminents de la rédaction recommanderaient. Les évaluations ne reflètent pas encore une prise de conscience de la théorie de la multilittératie, l’emploi de la technologie numérique pour écrire étant très limité, et les évaluations de portfolios et l’écriture coopérative qui découle des pratiques de Web 2.0 étant inexistantes

The Niichii Project: Revitalizing Indigenous Language in Northern Canada

Two Anishnabek kindergarten teachers discuss four principles of Indigenous pedagogies in a project with a university researcher that created a context for children to engage in activities to learn their Anishnabek language and culture, and create positive identities. The university researcher sent a rabbit puppet named Niichii (Friend), who was assigned the role of an Anishnaabek child whose family was from their Indigenous community but had moved away. Taking the role of Niichii’s Kokum (Grandmother), the university researcher asked the child to teach Niichii the community’s language and traditional ways. The teachers describe and interpret the learning activities of the Niichii project in terms of four elements of Indigenous pedagogies: intergenerational learning; experiential learning; spiritual learning involving interconnections with the land; and learning about relationality. Implications for other bilingual and multilingual contexts include creating role play contexts where children are positioned as teachers and helpers to support an imaginary character’s language and cultural learning, building on children’s funds of knowledge and highlighting cultural connections to the local community

A “Great Balancing Act:” Becoming Dexterous and Deft with New Literacies Pedagogy

In response to recent mandates in literacy curricula, literacy teachers must integrate Web 2.0 and new literacies perspectives into their writing instruction. Such transitions in their pedagogy, however, are often accomplished without adequate support or opportunities for professional development. How do teachers approach the difficult task of changing their perspectives to take new literacies practices into account? This article traces the learning and pedagogical practices of five teachers who worked with the authors in a dual-sited action research study (one in a large urban district, one in a small rural district) for more than two years. We present two themes drawn from the teachers’ experiences: (1) the creation of their own opportunities to collaborate with colleagues is the strongest professional development; and (2) recognition for their innovative practices and perspectives has led to them becoming mentors for other teachers, which in turn feeds their own professional development. From the differing contexts of these teachers, we highlight implications for teachers and administrators in other contexts who want to make or support this shift

University Faculty, Colleagues and Teachers’ Federation as Mentors in Collaborative Action Research

This research reports on collaborative research projects supported by a teachers’ federation. We compare research teams involved in the first year of the project, where they had free choice of research purposes with those in the second year who had the subject area defined for them. University faculty, teachers’ colleagues, and the teachers’ federation served as mentors for participating teachers. The action research resulted in change in teachers’ practice and in the development of leadership skills.Cet article fait le compte-rendu de projets de recherche collaborative soutenus par une fédération d’enseignants. Nous y comparons l’expérience de l’équipe de chercheurs impliqués dans la première année du projet – lesquels ont eu libre choix quant à leurs objectifs de recherche – à celle de la seconde cohorte de chercheurs, devant travailler avec des objectifs déjà définis. Des membres de la faculté universitaire, des collègues enseignants ainsi que la fédération des enseignants ont agi à titre de mentors auprès des participants. L’action de recherche a eu pour résultantes des changements de la pratique enseignante et le développement d’habiletés de leadership

Examining Rhetorics of Play in Curricula in Five Provinces: Is Play at Risk in Canadian Kindergartens?

In this article, school division and Ministry of Education–based early childhood consultants and university researchers respond to the question of whether play is at risk in kindergartens in five Canadian provinces by analyzing current and previous kindergarten curricula using Sutton-Smith’s framework of rhetorics of play. We find that play is integral to kindergarten curricula in Saskatchewan and Ontario, but only implicitly mentioned in the Alberta, British Columbia, and Manitoba curricula where support documents provide more support for play. The rhetoric of play as progress is the dominant discourse of current kindergarten curricula

Visual mismatch negativity (vMMN): A review and meta-analysis of studies in psychiatric and neurological disorders

The visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) response is an event-related potential (ERP) component, which is automatically elicited by events that violate predictions based on prior events. VMMN experiments use visual stimulus repetition to induce predictions, and vMMN is obtained by subtracting the response to rare unpredicted stimuli from those to frequent stimuli. One increasingly popular interpretation of the mismatch response postulates that vMMN, similar to its auditory counterpart (aMMN), represents a prediction error response generated by cortical mechanisms forming probabilistic representations of sensory signals. Here we discuss the physiological and theoretical basis of vMMN and review thirty-three studies from the emerging field of its clinical applications, presenting a meta-analysis of findings in schizophrenia, mood disorders, substance abuse, neurodegenerative disorders, developmental disorders, deafness, panic disorder and hypertension. Furthermore, we include reports on aging and maturation as they bear upon many clinically relevant conditions. Surveying the literature we found that vMMN is altered in several clinical populations which is in line with aMMN findings. An important potential advantage of vMMN however is that it allows the investigation of deficits in predictive processing in cognitive domains which rely primarily on visual information; a principal sensory modality and thus of vital importance in environmental information processing and response, and a modality which arguably may be more sensitive to some pathological changes. However, due to the relative infancy of research in vMMN compared to aMMN in clinical populations its potential for clinical application is not yet fully appreciated. The aim of this review and meta-analysis therefore is to present, in a detailed systematic manner, the findings from clinically-based vMMN studies, to discuss their potential impact and application, to raise awareness of this measure and to improve our understanding of disease upon fundamental aspects of visual information processing

Supporting Young Children's Vocabulary Through Play

This is an accepted manuscript of an article originally published in the research monograph What Works? Research into Practice.By Grade 4, children whose vocabulary knowledge is below grade level are likely to have difficulties in reading comprehension. How can teachers in primary classrooms support students’ vocabulary development

Evaluation and Teachers’ Perceptions of Gender in Sixth-Grade Student Writing

The desire for accountability has led designers of large-scale writing assessment to embrace a formal semantics theory of writing evaluation that disregards cultural influences on the writing and marking processes in its emphasis on consistency and unbiased scoring of student writing. However, an examination of the scores assigned to the narrative writing of elementary and middle-grade students on large-scale examinations in Canada, Great Britain, and the United States reveals the need to consider sociocultural influences because scores on girls' writing are consistently higher than scores on boys' writing. This study investigates the relationship between teachers' perceptions of gender-related differences in grade six students' narrative writing and teachers' scoring of five narrative papers written by sixth-grade boys and girls. Participating teachers scored the narrative papers using a Canadian provincial scoring guide. The teachers who did not know the gender of the writers were asked to identify the gender of the writer (if possible) and to describe the characteristics of the narrative that helped them to determine the writer's gender. All teachers were asked to compare and contrast girls' and boys' classroom narrative writing. Significant differences in the scores appeared for only one paper, written by a girl, that exemplified both male and female narrative writing characteristics. Teachers who felt that a girl wrote this paper scored the paper significantly higher than teachers who identified the writer as a boy. Teachers who disagreed in their identification of the writer's gender drew upon similar elements from the writing to support their views, yet evaluated those elements in contrasting ways that revealed a stance privileging girls' narrative writing. In addition, teachers characterized girls' classroom writing as being more sophisticated than boys' writing on all five dimensions of Moffett's (1968) continuum of discursive growth