Potenziale digitaler Medien zur Differenzierung im Grundschulunterricht

In verschiedenen Forschungsprojekten haben wir uns damit beschäftigt, wie digitale Medien im Grundschulunterricht eingesetzt werden können, um Kindern mit unterschiedlichen Voraussetzungen bei der Verarbeitung mathematischer Informationen im Arbeitsgedächtnis besser gerecht werden zu können (siehe Berger et al., 2022; Cubillo et al., 2022; Ladel, 2020; Winkel & Zipperle, 2022). Ziel des vorliegenden Beitrags ist es, die Implikationen, die sich daraus für den Einsatz digitaler Medien beim Mathematiklernen in der Grundschule ergeben, zusammenzufassen. Für eine ausführlichere Fassung dieses Beitrags mit konkreten Beispielen sei verwiesen auf Winkel und Ladel (2022)

Teaching self-regulation

Children’s self-regulation abilities are key predictors of educational success and other life outcomes such as income and health. However, self-regulation is not a school subject, and knowledge about how to generate lasting improvements in self-regulation and academic achievements with easily scalable, low-cost interventions is still limited. Here, we report the results of a randomized controlled field study which integrates a short self-regulation teaching unit based on the concept of mental contrasting with implementation intentions into the school curriculum of first graders. We demonstrate that the treatment increases children’s skills in terms of impulse control and self-regulation while also generating lasting improvements in academic skills like reading and monitoring careless mistakes. Moreover, it has a substantial effect on children’s long-term school career by increasing the likelihood of enrolling in an advanced secondary school track three years later. Thus, self-regulation teaching can be integrated into the regular school curriculum at low cost, is easily scalable and can substantially improve important abilities and children’s educational career path

Intra‐individual variability in task performance after cognitive training is associated with long‐term outcomes in children

The potential benefits and mechanistic effects of working memory training (WMT) in children are the subject of much research and debate. We show that after five weeks of school-based, adaptive WMT 6–9 year-old primary school children had greater activity in prefrontal and striatal brain regions, higher task accuracy, and reduced intra-individual variability in response times compared to controls. Using a sequential sampling decision model, we demonstrate that this reduction in intra-individual variability can be explained by changes to the evidence accumulation rates and thresholds. Critically, intra-individual variability is useful in quantifying the immediate impact of cognitive training interventions, being a better predictor of academic skills and well-being 6–12 months after the end of training than task accuracy. Taken together, our results suggest that attention control is the initial mechanism that leads to the long-run benefits from adaptive WMT. Selective and sustained attention abilities may serve as a scaffold for subsequent changes in higher cognitive processes, academic skills, and general well-being. Furthermore, these results highlight that the selection of outcome measures and the timing of the assessments play a crucial role in detecting training efficacy. Thus, evaluating intra-individual variability, during or directly after training could allow for the early tailoring of training interventions in terms of duration or content to maximise their impact

The Impact of Working Memory Training on Children’s Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills

Working memory capacity is thought to play an important role for a wide range of cognitive and noncognitive skills such as fluid intelligence, math, reading, the inhibition of pre-potent impulses or more general self-regulation abilities. Because these abilities substantially affect individuals’ life trajectories in terms of health, education, and earnings, the question of whether working memory (WM) training can improve them is of considerable importance. However, whether WM training leads to improvements in these far-transfer skills is contested. Here, we examine the causal impact of WM training embedded in regular school teaching by a randomized educational intervention involving a sample of 6–7 years old first graders. We find substantial immediate and lasting gains in working memory capacity. In addition, we document relatively large positive effects on geometry skills, reading skills, Raven’s fluid IQ measure, the ability to inhibit pre-potent impulses and self-regulation abilities. Moreover, these far-transfer effects emerge over time and only become fully visible after 1213 months. Finally, we document that 3–4 years after the intervention, the children who received training have a roughly 16 percentage points higher probability of entering the academic track in secondary school