The Effect of Parents' Conversational Style and Disciplinary Knowledge on Children's Observation of Biological Phenomena

This study was designed to better understand how children begin to make the transition from seeing the natural world to scientifically observing the natural world during shared family activity in an informal learning environment. Specifically, this study addressed research questions: 1) What is the effect of differences in parent conversational style and disciplinary knowledge on children's observations of biological phenomena? 2) What is the relationship between parent disciplinary knowledge and conversational style to children's observations of biological phenomena? and 3) Can parents, regardless of knowledge, be trained to use a teaching strategy with their children that can be implemented in informal learning contexts? To address these questions, 79 parent-child dyads with children 6-10 years old participated in a controlled study in which half of the parents used their natural conversational style and the other half were trained to use particular conversational strategies during family observations of pollination in a botanical garden. Parents were also assigned to high and low knowledge groups according to their disciplinary knowledge of pollination. Data sources included video recordings of parent-child observations in a garden, pre-post child tasks, and parent surveys. Findings revealed that parents who received training used the conversational strategies more than parents who used their natural conversational style. Parents and children who knew more about pollination at the start of the study exhibited higher levels of disciplinary talk in the garden, which is to be expected. However, the use of the conversational strategies also increased the amount of disciplinary talk in the garden, independent of what families knew about pollination. The extent to which families engaged in disciplinary talk in the garden predicted significant variance in children's post-test scores. In addition to these findings, an Observation Framework (Eberbach & Crowley, 2009) that hypothesizes how everyday observers become scientific observers is proposed

Conceptual representations for transfer: A case study tracing back and looking forward

A primary goal of instruction is to prepare learners to transfer their knowledge and skills to new contexts, but how far this transfer goes is an open question.  In the research reported here, we seek to explain a case of transfer through examining the processes by which a conceptual representation used to reason about complex systems was transferred from one natural system (an aquarium ecosystem) to another natural system (human cells and body systems). In this case study, a teacher was motivated to generalize her understanding of the Structure, Behaviour, and Function (SBF) conceptual representation to modify her classroom instruction and teaching materials for another system. This case of transfer was unexpected and required that we trace back through the video and artefacts collected over several years of this teacher enacting a technology-rich classroom unit organized around this conceptual representation. We provide evidence of transfer using three data sources: (1) artefacts that the teacher created (2) in-depth semi-structured interview data with the teacher about how her understanding of the representation changed over time and (3) video data over multiple years, covering units on the aquatic ecosystem and the new system that the teacher applied the SBF representation to, the cell and body. Borrowing from interactive ethnography, we traced backward from where the teacher showed transfer to understand how she got there. The use of the actor-oriented transfer and preparation for future learning perspectives provided lenses for understanding transfer. Results of this study suggest that identifying similarities under the lens of SBF and using it as a conceptual tool are some primary factors that may have supported transfer

Risk of intracranial haemorrhage and ischaemic stroke after convexity subarachnoid haemorrhage in cerebral amyloid angiopathy : international individual patient data pooled analysis

Altres ajuts: JF reports grants from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, grants from Fundació Marató TV3, grants from NIH, grants from Departament de Salut de la Generalitat de Catalunya.To investigate the frequency, time-course and predictors of intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH), recurrent convexity subarachnoid haemorrhage (cSAH), and ischemic stroke after cSAH associated with cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). We performed a systematic review and international individual patient-data pooled analysis in patients with cSAH associated with probable or possible CAA diagnosed on baseline MRI using the modified Boston criteria. We used Cox proportional hazards models with a frailty term to account for between-cohort differences. We included 190 patients (mean age 74.5 years; 45.3% female) from 13 centers with 385 patient-years of follow-up (median 1.4 years). The risks of each outcome (per patient-year) were: ICH 13.2% (95% CI 9.9-17.4); recurrent cSAH 11.1% (95% CI 7.9-15.2); combined ICH, cSAH, or both 21.4% (95% CI 16.7-26.9), ischemic stroke 5.1% (95% CI 3.1-8) and death 8.3% (95% CI 5.6-11.8). In multivariable models, there is evidence that patients with probable CAA (compared to possible CAA) had a higher risk of ICH (HR 8.45, 95% CI 1.13-75.5, p = 0.02) and cSAH (HR 3.66, 95% CI 0.84-15.9, p = 0.08) but not ischemic stroke (HR 0.56, 95% CI 0.17-1.82, p = 0.33) or mortality (HR 0.54, 95% CI 0.16-1.78, p = 0.31). Patients with cSAH associated with probable or possible CAA have high risk of future ICH and recurrent cSAH. Convexity SAH associated with probable (vs possible) CAA is associated with increased risk of ICH, and cSAH but not ischemic stroke. Our data provide precise risk estimates for key vascular events after cSAH associated with CAA which can inform management decisions. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00415-021-10706-3

The effect of parents' conversational style and disciplinary knowledge on children's observation of biological phenomena

This study was designed to better understand how children begin to make the transition from seeing the natural world to scientifically observing the natural world during shared family activity in an informal learning environment. Specifically, this study addressed research questions: (1) What is the effect of differences in parent conversational style and disciplinary knowledge on children’s observations of biological phenomena? (2) What is the relationship between parent disciplinary knowledge and conversational style to children’s observations of biological phenomena? and (3) Can parents, regardless of knowledge, be trained to use a teaching strategy with their children that can be implemented in informal learning contexts? To address these questions, 79 parent-child dyads with children 6-10 years old participated in a controlled study in which half of the parents used their natural conversational style and the other half were trained to use particular conversational strategies during family observations of pollination in a botanical garden. Parents were also assigned to high and low knowledge groups according to their disciplinary knowledge of pollination. Data sources included video recordings of parent-child observations in a garden, pre-post child tasks, and parent surveys. Findings revealed that parents who received training used the conversational strategies more than parents who used their natural conversational style. Parents and children who knew more about pollination at the start of the study exhibited higher levels of disciplinary talk in the garden, which is to be expected. However, the use of the conversational strategies also increased the amount of disciplinary talk in the garden, independent of what families knew about pollination. The extent to which families engaged in disciplinary talk in the garden predicted significant variance in children’s post-test scores. In addition to these findings, an Observation Framework (Eberbach & Crowley, 2009) that hypothesizes how everyday observers become scientific observers is proposed

Garden Design for Children

This thesis develops recommendations for the design of children's gardens which are sensitive to the preferences, perceptions, interests, and activities of middle childhood, Children's gardens are not a new phenomenon. For over the past century, public gardens, schools, and private industries established extensive youth gardens, gardening programs, and resource manuals. Believed to teach important cultural values, these gardens typically followed a specific design which included rows of small, rectangular plots linked together by pathways and community areas. Although well informed about how to garden with children, little is known about children's perceptions and use of gardens. Such information would be invaluable when designing gardens for children. To facilitate this understanding, middle childhood development, playground, and phenomenal landscape studies are reviewed, with a focus on child/nature relations. These studies disclose principles relevant to planning children's environments, and ultimately, children's gardens. More specifically, a study of children's artwork reveals how some elementary school students perceive gardens, suggesting that children have aesthetic, color, and landscape element preferences. Overall, youngsters prefer ornamental and colorful gardens with elements which stimulate activity and participation. The Children's Garden at Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania incorporates the observations and principles gleaned from this research. The layout of this garden is explained, followed by design recommendations for gardens created for children's use and pleasure

Balancing broad ideas with context:an evaluation of student accuracy indescribing ecosystem processesafter a system-level intervention

Promoting student understanding of ecosystem processes is critical to biological education. Yet, teaching complexlife systems can be difficult because systems are dynamic and often behave in a non-linear manner. In thispaper, we discuss assessment results from a middle school classroom intervention in which a conceptual representationframework is embedded in a suite of technology tools. We use both hand-drawn models and openendedwritten responses to evaluate student understanding. While we speculated that our intervention wouldhelp students use ecosystem mechanisms to describe broader processes, we found instead that students tended toexpress constructs in isolation (as opposed to a unified picture of ecosystem processes). In addition, studentsprovided greater elaboration of ideas mostly when specifically prompted. Specific prompts also tended to producemore accurate representations of the ecosystem processes our curriculum covered. Our findings haveallowed us to refine our intervention to better translate these critical concepts, and how they are interrelated,to young learners. As such, these findings have important implications for encouraging broader ecosystemthinking in K-12 classrooms