ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Measuring Disorientation Based on the Needleman-Wunsch Algorithm
Author: Güyer, Tolga
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Distance Education,Mathematics,Web Sites,Measurement,Learning Activities,Educational Environment,Navigation (Information Systems),Evaluation Methods,Online Courses,Scoring,Undergraduate Students,Mathematical Formulas

This study offers a new method to measure navigation disorientation in web based systems which is powerful learning medium for distance and open education. The Needleman-Wunsch algorithm is used to measure disorientation in a more precise manner. The process combines theoretical and applied knowledge from two previously distinct research areas, disorientation and string-matching. String-matching algorithms provide a more convenient disorientation measurement than other techniques, in that they examine the similarity between an optimal path and learners' navigation paths. The algorithm particularly takes into account the contextual similarity between partly relevant web-pages in a user's navigation path and pages in an optimal path. This study focuses on the reasons and the required steps to use this algorithm for disorientation measurement. Examples of actual student activities and learning environment data are provided to illustrate the process.
Participatory Literacy Learning in an African Context: Perspectives from the Ombaderuku Primary School in the Arua District, Uganda
Author: Ngaka, Willy
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Literacy Education,Elementary School Students,Observation,Interviews,Information Technology,Foreign Countries,Native Language,Language of Instruction,African Languages,Educational Policy,Reading Materials,Material Development,Technological Literacy,Teaching Methods,Program Descriptions,Political Influences,Workshops,Case Studies,Qualitative Research,Participatory Research,Ethnography,Home Visits

This study documents the experiences of volunteer teacher research assistants in relation to pupils' interaction with parents, texts, and informal literacy practices in the community, and considers how these practices may enhance literacy instruction and production of local reading materials. The research site was located in the context of Uganda's mother tongue education policy, driven by a whole language approach to teaching literacy in one primary school in the Arua district. Locating the research in sociocultural and ethnographic perspectives on literacy, the authors use observation, document analysis, and informal interviews to capture the phenomena of interest in the project. Findings show that although pupils, parents, and community members engaged in informal literacy practices and interact with cultural resources and written texts including Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacies on an everyday basis, such cultural resources, informal practices, and written texts outside the classrooms have not been adequately used to enhance participatory teaching and learning of literacy. Further, local materials development in the implementation of Uganda's current language policy was characterized by lack of local reading materials and declining literacy levels among pupils. The authors recommend building research, teaching, and materials development capacity for promoting various literacies including digital literacies and for enhancing authentic literacy instruction.
An Investigation into Pre-Service Special Education Teachers' Mathematical Skills, Self-Efficacy, and Teaching Methodology
Author: Hinton, Vanessa
Date: 2015-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Mixed Methods Research,Preservice Teachers,Special Education Teachers,Mathematics Skills,Self Efficacy,Teaching Methods,Teacher Competencies,Mathematics Instruction,Elementary School Mathematics,Computation,Problem Solving,Student Surveys,Teaching Skills,Scores,Questionnaires,Surveys

The purpose of this mixed method study was to investigate future special education teachers' preparation for effectively teaching mathematics. During the last semester of their program, pre-service special education teachers completed elementary level mathematics computation and problem solving assessments, a mathematics efficacy beliefs survey, and an open-ended question about their teaching methods. The assessments were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative methods. Analysis revealed that participants who described their instruction as solely procedural in nature rated their teaching outcome expectancies lower and achieved lower computation scores than other participants. The results and their implications will be discussed.
Do I Have to Teach Math? Early Childhood Pre-Service Teachers' Fears of Teaching Mathematics
Author: Bates, Alan B.
Date: 2013-08-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Preservice Teachers,Preschool Teachers,Early Childhood Education,Mathematics Instruction,Student Attitudes,Self Efficacy,Teaching Methods,Teaching Skills,Pedagogical Content Knowledge,Student Surveys,Qualitative Research,Coding,Anxiety

Eighty-nine early childhood pre-service teachers were asked to identify their specific fears towards mathematics and explain why they had those specific fears. The results showed that they possess a wide variety of fears towards mathematics including having a lack of confidence in their teaching ability, a lack of teaching methods, an inability to engage their students, and a lack of mathematical content knowledge. Their explanations as to why these fears exist were very closely related to what they feared and included responses related to teaching the content as well as having a lack of content knowledge. Implications on teacher education programs are also discussed.
Reading the News: The Statistical Preparation of Pre-Service Secondary Mathematics Teachers
Author: Chesler, Joshua
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Preservice Teachers,Secondary School Teachers,Mathematics Teachers,Statistics,Teacher Competencies,Newspapers,Undergraduate Students,Knowledge Base for Teaching,Hypothesis Testing,Prior Learning,Coding,Scoring Rubrics,Homework,Mathematical Concepts,Mathematics Tests,Curriculum

Undergraduate mathematics programs must prepare teachers for the challenges of teaching statistical thinking as advocated in standards documents and statistics education literature. This study investigates the statistical thinking of pre-service secondary mathematics teachers at the end of their undergraduate educations. Although all had completed a required upper-division two-course sequence in probability and statistics, most were challenged by two tasks which required a critical analysis of the use of statistics in newspaper articles. Some patterns emerged in the incorrect answers, including a tendency to focus on potential sampling issues which were not relevant to the tasks. The results have implications for, and reaffirm concerns about, the undergraduate statistics preparation of secondary teachers in the United States.
Individual Differences in the Mental Rotation Skills of Turkish Prospective Teachers
Author: Turgut, Melih
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Gender Differences,Academic Achievement,Preschool Education,Preservice Teachers,Undergraduate Students,Cognitive Processes,Mathematics Skills,Preschool Teachers,Interaction,Spatial Ability,Visualization,Statistical Analysis,Problem Solving,Grade Point Average

This study investigated the effects of gender, academic performance and preschool education on mental rotation skills among Turkish prospective teachers. A total of 525 undergraduate students (364 female) from a government university located in western Turkey completed the Mental Rotation Test (MRT). A three-way [2 (gender) × 5 (academic performance) × 2 (preschool education)] between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that males outperformed females in mental rotation performance (d = 0.86). Significant effects of preschool education and academic performance on MRT scores were also observed. Significant interactions were observed between gender and academic performance and academic performance and preschool education. There was also a significant three-way interaction of gender, academic performance and preschool education. An interaction between gender and preschool education failed to reach significance.
Multimodal Play and Adolescents: Notes on Noticing Laughter
Author: Vasudevan, Lalitha
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Humor,Adolescents,Play,Educational Technology,Video Technology,Psychological Patterns,Student Behavior,Teaching Methods,Ethnography,Interpersonal Communication,Learning Modalities,Personal Narratives,Youth Programs

In this article, I explore laughter as a form of multimodal play in which adolescents' engage across contexts and in various configurations. With a few recent exceptions, a focus on unscripted play is largely missing from ongoing research and discussion about the education of adolescents. Whereas the space to play has been vitally important to the ways that young people communicate and build relationships in the different settings where I have conducted fieldwork, the play of adolescents is also frequently misinterpreted within school-based and community settings and often remediated or punished. Adolescents' practices of manipulation and experimentation with various media and technologies are the focus of two scenes I include of adolescents' playful engagements with video and their immediate contexts in which laughter serves as a medium of play. This article was written with educators and researchers of/with adolescents in mind, with the hope of encouraging greater reflection about how and what we notice about young people's play: there may be glimpses of being and becoming in the space of a giggle.
Trading Spaces: An Educator's Ethnographic Exploration of Adolescents' Digital Role-Play
Author: Haynes-Moore, Stacy
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Ethnography,Role Playing,Computer Mediated Communication,Researchers,Teacher Attitudes,Discourse Analysis,Power Structure,Self Concept,Literacy Education,Technological Literacy,Writing (Composition),Art,Computer Graphics,Adolescent Literature,Teaching Methods,Secondary School Students,Qualitative Research,Participant Observation

In this work, the author examines a digital role-play in which participants composed an alternate version of &quot;The Hunger Games&quot; (Collins, 2008). Participants imagined characters and posted more than 400 scenes in the online collaboration. The author draws upon ethnographic methods (Merriam, 2009) to describe her participant-observer experience and discuss the digital role-play from the perspective of a classroom teacher and literacy researcher. Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain's (1998/2003) theory of figured worlds frames moments of participants' discourse to illuminate issues of identity and power that emerged. Analysis complicates the use of digital spaces with adolescent-driven literacy practices. This study provides educators with ideas about how to examine adolescents' online literacies and suggests that research of digital role-play within formal learning settings may help educators explore what it means to read and discuss texts in a digital world.
Spatial Stories with Nomadic Narrators: Affect, Snapchat, and Feeling Embodiment in Youth Mobile Composing
Author: Wargo, Jon M.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Telecommunications,Handheld Devices,Ethnography,Technology Uses in Education,Social Networks,Phenomenology,Story Telling,Student Experience,Time,Spatial Ability,Photography,Social Theories,Video Technology,Longitudinal Studies,Qualitative Research,High School Students,Writing (Composition)

While the vast majority of scholarship on mobile media, social semiotics, and multimodality highlights work done &quot;behind&quot; the screen, few studies have considered the embodied processes of youth composing &quot;with&quot; and &quot;through&quot; mobile technology. This study, drawn from a larger critical qualitative connective ethnography, works to fill a paucity of literature by examining how one youth participant, Ben, uses the digital mobile application Snapchat to create and compose a myriad of phenomenological experiences. By partnering approaches from queer phenomenology and multimodal (inter)action analysis, this paper illuminates how the affective intensities and push-and-pull of orientations deliver a narrative that is enfolded by several felt moments. By illuminating the rich processes of embodied composing with mobile media and accounting for the spatio-temporal scales and traversals that Ben navigates to architect his experience, this article works to spotlight how youth composers tell spatial stories and map nomadic narratives to explore their own embodied experiences with and through mobile media.
&quot;The Power of Our Words and Flesh&quot;: An Experienced Literacy Coach's Love Letter to Incoming Educators about the Transformational Roles of Relationships and the Body in Learning
Author: Woodcock, Christine
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Literacy Education,Coaching (Performance),Case Studies,Personal Narratives,Qualitative Research,Teacher Role,Human Body,Democratic Values,Teaching Methods,Interpersonal Relationship,Cooperation,Elementary School Teachers,Interviews,Reflection,Participatory Research

Framed by the importance of language, and the ways that knowledge is embodied, this study explores the &quot;coaching side&quot; of literacy coaching, providing tips to educators. Phyllis, an experienced coach nearing retirement, wanted to provide insights to incoming teachers as she reflected on the question &quot;Why 'do' we teach, anyway?&quot; Without realizing it at first, Phyllis highlighted &quot;the power of our words and flesh.&quot; The research evolved to center on the following three questions: How does an experienced, successful literacy coach develop sincere partnerships with teachers? How does the responsive literacy coach co-construct knowledge with teachers? What does it look like for coaches, teachers, and students to become responsible partners in social living? The authors co-constructed a participatory case study, informed by portraiture and autobiographical narrative methods, and analyzed using the Listening Guide, (e.g., Brown &amp; Gilligan, 1992) a qualitative, relational, voice-centered, feminist methodology. Three themes emerged from the research questions: the power of words alongside the implications of voice and silence in our work as educators, the role of the teacher's body in (dis)embodied knowledge, and the multidimensional partnerships necessary to work together in empowered, democratic schools. Last, the authors conclude with a love letter of sorts, with a particular focus on tangible pedagogical insights for educators, focusing on the importance of teacher narrative and the three postures of relationships.
What Are Disciplinary Literacies in Dance and Drama in the Elementary Grades?
Author: Frambaugh-Kritzer, Charlotte
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Dance Education,Drama,Theater Arts,Elementary Education,Qualitative Research,Case Studies,Preservice Teachers,Literacy Education,Constructivism (Learning),Active Learning,Experiential Learning,Teaching Methods,Comprehension,Reader Text Relationship,Knowledge Level,Pedagogical Content Knowledge,Human Body,Preservice Teacher Education,Methods Courses,Vocabulary,Elementary School Teachers,Elementary School Students,Content Analysis,Focus Groups

Disciplinary literacies in dance and drama are underrepresented in classrooms and in scholarship, especially at the elementary level. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine how preservice teachers constructed meaning of the disciplinary literacies in dance and drama. The theoretical framework guiding this study was drawn from social constructivism. Data was examined from three tenets: (a) learning from &quot;others&quot;; (b) learning through &quot;dialogue&quot;; and (c) learning by &quot;doing&quot;. Data sources included observation notes, artifacts, and a focus group interview. A combination of conventional and directed content analysis tools coupled with writing as an analytical tool were applied to examine the data. Five findings emerged: the preservice teachers (a) utilized instructional practices to teach comprehension with the complex texts of dance or drama, (b) supported students who had academic knowledge gaps in dance or drama, (c) taught the academic vocabulary unique to dance or drama, (d) customized literacy strategies unique to dance or drama, and (e) included instructional spaces for the inquiry process. We assert that in socially constructed environments, preservice elementary teachers can realize disciplinary literacies in dance and drama. Moreover, the notion of embodied literacies emerged as one of the disciplinary literacies in dance and drama.
Influencing Factors in OER Usage of Adult Learners in Korea
Author: Kim, Byoung Wook
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Educational Resources,Resource Units,Computer Uses in Education,Shared Resources and Services,Educational Technology,Electronic Learning,Adult Learning,Internet,Intentional Learning,Usability,Research Design,College Students,Student Surveys,Open Universities,Multiple Regression Analysis

Open Educational Resources (OER) is terminology that refers to educational resources (content and software) distributed through the Internet, free of charge and freely accessible, expanding learning opportunities for adult learners. This terminology first appeared around 2002, although its roots can be traced to the open architecture of the Internet. Until recently, OER development has focused more on quantity of contents rather than quality. In this study, we have examined the factors influencing the learning intention of adult learners in the OER context. Based on the relevant literature, we have identified a number of factors influencing a learner's intention to use e-learning content. We have also developed a questionnaire for conducting a survey on such influencing factors. The survey results show that ease of use and relation to immediate workplace needs affect the intention of adult learners in using OER. The findings of this study can inform those developing and designing a learning environment that employs OER while also providing general guidance for developers and educators on how to design OER content.
Uptake of OER by Staff in Distance Education in South Africa
Author: de Hart, Kerry
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Distance Education,Educational Resources,Resource Units,Computer Uses in Education,Shared Resources and Services,Open Education,Intellectual Property,Copyrights,Barriers,Certification,Educational Planning,Strategic Planning,Participation,Decision Making,Program Implementation,Universities,College Faculty,Surveys

Open Educational Resources (OER) emerged within the context of open education which is typically characterized by the sharing of knowledge and resources and the exchange of ideas. Unisa as a mega open distance learning (ODL) university has publicly communicated its intention to take part in the use and creation of OER. As global and local university research on OER is limited, this prompted an investigation to gauge the uptake of OER at Unisa, by staff, with the purpose of institutional information gathering for decision making and planning in this area. During 2014, a survey was undertaken for this reason. The survey examined knowledge of OER, Intellectual Property (IP) Rights and Licensing, participation in OER, barriers to OER and OER in the Unisa context with a view to determining the stage at which the institution is in terms of adopting and engaging with the OER initiative. The results indicated that although there is knowledge and understanding of OER, this has not been converted into active participation. It further highlighted the barriers that are prohibiting the operationalization of OER and resulted in recommendations for planning and activities in respect of OER. The constructs investigated and the results thereof might not be generalizable to other contexts, although commonalities are likely. The insights should prove useful to a variety of contexts. The paper illustrates the need for institutions, irrespective of context, to take stock of the impact of initiatives and in this case evaluate how the institution and staff mature through various phases in the uptake of OER in order to guide effective planning, decision making and implementation.
Coursera's Introductory Human Physiology Course: Factors That Characterize Successful Completion of a MOOC
Author: Engle, Deborah
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Physiology,Online Courses,Large Group Instruction,Distance Education,Educational Technology,College Students,Student Surveys,Student Characteristics,Academic Achievement,Language Skills,English,Educational Attainment,Intention,Academic Persistence,Goodness of Fit,Graduate Study,Graduate Students,Student Attitudes,Tests,Grades (Scholastic)

Since Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are accessible by anyone in the world at no cost, they have large enrollments that are conducive to educational research. This study examines students in the Coursera MOOC, Introductory Human Physiology. Of the 33,378 students who accessed the course, around 15,000 students responded to items on the pre-course survey about their age, educational background, proficiency in English, and plans for participating in the course. We categorized students who completed the pre-course survey into groups based on the number of exams completed and corresponding course achievement level. We used Chi-square goodness of fit tests to analyze the distribution of students' responses on the pre-course survey and associated achievement level. Of the students who responded to the pre-course survey and passed with distinction, a larger percentage self-identified as fluent in English while a smaller percentage self-identified as beginners. Students with graduate degrees were more likely to pass the course or pass with distinction than students with only some college experience or a bachelor's degree. Students who completed either some or all exams were more likely to self-report intention to complete all course activities than students who did not take any exams. A greater proportion of students who passed the course or passed with distinction posted two or more times on the course discussion forum. Understanding MOOC students and the characteristics that lead to their success will enable modification to courses for increased student achievement and may also inform teaching in the traditional classroom.