ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Sciencey Girls: Discourses Supporting Working-Class Girls to Identify with Science
Author: Godec, Spela
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Working Class,Females,Science Education,Self Concept,Gender Differences,Qualitative Research,Ethnic Groups,Minority Groups,Disproportionate Representation,Interviews,Group Discussion,Science Teachers,Teacher Attitudes,Student Attitudes,Caring,Identification (Psychology),Social Differences,Secondary School Students,Foreign Countries

Women from working class and some ethnic minority backgrounds continue to be underrepresented in science, particularly in areas such as physical sciences and engineering. Many find it difficult to see science as something that is &quot;for them&quot;, which then has implications for their learning and participation in science. In this paper, I discuss findings from a U.K.-based qualitative study with 15 working-class girls, aged 11 to 13, from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Data were collected over the course of one academic year, through interviews and discussion groups with the girls and interviews with their science teachers, and analysed through a post-structural gender lens. The paper foregrounds five science-identifying girls, who negotiated their identification and engagement with science through the following discursive strategies: (1) rendering gender invisible, (2) drawing attention to the presence of women in science, (3) reframing &quot;science people&quot; as caring and nurturing, and (4) cultural discourses of desirability of science. The findings contribute to the understanding of how working class girls--who are often &quot;othered&quot; and constructed as &quot;unintelligible&quot; within the dominant discursive regime of prototypical science--find identification with science possible. The paper discusses the affordances and challenges of each discursive strategy.
Integrated STEM: Focus on Informal Education and Community Collaboration through Engineering
Author: Burrows, Andrea
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: STEM Education,School Community Relationship,Engineering,Interdisciplinary Approach,Middle School Students,Females,Relevance (Education),School Community Programs,Focus Groups,Observation,Action Research,Community Programs,Youth Programs,Water Quality

This article showcases STEM as an interdisciplinary field in which the disciplines strengthen and support each other (not as separate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines). The authors focus on an open-ended, complex problem--water quality--as the primary teaching and learning task. The participants, middle school female students (aged 9-15 years), interacted in an informal educational setting (i.e., Girl Scouts) on a research project investigating river quality following the river's restoration. The community, including Girl Scout participants, leaders, parents, university faculty, graduate students, and others, utilized an action research (AR) approach when interacting with the participants. Methods such as observational field notes, focus groups, and collected artifacts were commonly employed. The authors describe the history of STEM and AR leading to authentic science research projects through eight engineering skills/practices (incorporating science, technology, and mathematics) and showcase participant interactions, implementation, and community engagement in the STEM water quality river project. Findings indicate that informal engineering based projects can serve as opportunities for participants to connect with integrated STEM. Implications include the need for engaging participants in informal authentic science to support traditional school STEM learning and encouraging community engagement in integrated STEM to support traditional K-12 classroom instruction.
In-Place Training: Optimizing Rural Health Workforce Outcomes through Rural-Based Education in Australia
Author: May, Jennifer
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Rural Areas,Undergraduate Students,Experiential Learning,Program Effectiveness,Medical Education,Graduates,Medical Students,Physicians,Student Characteristics,Statistical Analysis,Student Records,Geographic Location,Influences,Regression (Statistics)

The medical workforce shortfall in rural areas is a major issue influencing the nature of undergraduate medical education in Australia. Exposing undergraduates to rural life through rural clinical school (RCS) placements is seen as a key strategy to address workforce imbalances. We investigated the influence of an extended RCS placement and rural origin on the rural principal place of practice (PPP) of the first 3 graduate cohorts (2012-2014) from a Joint Medical Program offered by two universities based in northern New South Wales. Data was available for 426 eligible graduates. Participation in an extended RCS placement (odds ratio (OR), 6.075, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.716-13.591), rural background (OR 3.613, 95% CI 1.752-7.450) and being 25 years or older at completion of a medical degree (OR 2.550, 95% CI 1.252-5.194) were all independently associated with rural PPP. Being bonded into a program to practice rurally was not associated with rural PPP. Participation in an extended RCS placement is strongly associated with rural practice in the first 3 to 5 years of practice for graduates from both rural and metropolitan backgrounds. This finding indicates that strategies to improve the rural workforce should focus on the promotion of rural placements, in addition to rural background.
Improving the Success of First Term General Chemistry Students at a Liberal Arts Institution
Author: Stone, Kari L.
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Chemistry,Science Instruction,College Science,Intervention,Science Achievement,Readiness,Student Needs,College Entrance Examinations,Student Records,Statistical Analysis,Academic Persistence,Scores,Grades (Scholastic),Science Curriculum,Correlation,Peer Teaching,Undergraduate Students

General Chemistry is a high impact course at Benedictine University where a large enrollment of ~250 students each year, coupled with low pass rates of a particularly vulnerable student population from a retention point of view (i.e., first-year college students), make it a strategic course on which to focus innovative pedagogical development. Although our institution is not alone in the challenges that this particular course presents, we have prioritized implementing interventional strategies targeting academically underprepared students to increase their success by providing a preparatory course prior to this gateway course. Focusing on the persistence framework to guide curricular decisions, progress towards aligning our general chemistry curriculum to the academic profile of our students has afforded much higher pass rates than even two years ago.
Cultural Lessons Learned: When a U.S.-Trained Chinese Professor Meets Home-Grown Chinese Pre/In-Service Teachers in a Hong Kong Teacher Education Classroom
Author: Zhao, Weili
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Preservice Teachers,Teacher Education Programs,Student Projects,Interviews,Cultural Influences,Teaching Methods,Student Attitudes,Peer Teaching,Discourse Analysis,Decision Making,Career Development,Asian Culture,Case Studies

What is special about the pedagogical interaction between the mainland Chinese in/pre-service teachers and the author in a Hong Kong classroom? Trained at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a critical curriculum scholar, the author highly endorses and has implemented a student-centered research-based project-learning pedagogy with the homegrown mainland Chinese students who have been used to a predominant spoon-feeding pedagogy from K-College. One key element of that pedagogy is for students to do peer presentations in class, hoping to create an engaging learning community for all. An interesting phenomenon occurred: while the students warmly welcomed the idea of project-based learning, they seemed to always hold a nonchalant attitude to all their peers' presentations. Nonchalant in a double sense of seldom looking at the presenters and rarely posing interactive questions. In other words, the intended goal of creating an interactive learning community through peer presentations was not fulfilled. In-depth individual interviews were conducted afterwards and a close analysis of their discourses finds some interesting Chinese historical-cultural-educational styles of reasoning shared among the students that help to account for students' seemingly nonchalant engagement, whether cognitive, behavioral, or emotional. Before unpacking these styles of reasoning, the author gives a brief introduction of this Hong Kong university teacher education program, its appeal to (these) mainland Chinese students, and her project-learning pedagogy. This article, by unpacking the shared historical-cultural-educational styles of reasoning that legitimate and constrain the way the mainland Chinese pre/in-service teachers thinks, hopes to provide some implications for internationalized or cross-cultural pedagogical engagement with (teacher) education programs in mainland China, Hong Kong, and beyond.
Preparation and Experiences for Implementation: Teacher Candidates&apos; Perceptions and Understanding of Unversal Design for Learning
Author: Takemae, Natsuko
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Preservice Teachers,Student Attitudes,Access to Education,Preservice Teacher Education,Phenomenology,Special Education,Special Education Teachers,Elementary Education,Elementary School Teachers,Qualitative Research,Teaching Experience,Disabilities,Regular and Special Education Relationship,Interviews,Curriculum Development,Curriculum Implementation,Focus Groups

As public schools strive to provide all students access to and success with the general curriculum, potentially leading them to postsecondary educational opportunities that prepare them for fulfilling and engaging careers, recent federal legislation clearly reflects the need to ensure that all students are supported in achieving rigorous educational goals. One of the instructional supports addressed in the legislation is Universal Design for Learning (UDL). In order to further explore effective use and implementation of UDL in classrooms, the present study examined special education teacher candidates' perceptions toward UDL principles and applications to their field-based teaching experiences. This phenomenological study with six teacher candidates in special education and the dual major in elementary education and special education may add an insight into effective ways of preparing teacher candidates acquire and apply UDL principles to their teaching practices.
Views of Prospective Science Teachers on Including the Concept of Plasma in Science Curricula
Author: Balbag, Mustafa Zafer
Date: 2018-04-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Preservice Teachers,Science Teachers,Science Curriculum,Foreign Countries,Science Instruction,Scientific Concepts,College Science,Undergraduate Students,Phenomenology,Qualitative Research,Questionnaires,Semi Structured Interviews,Grade 4,Grade 5,Grade 6,Grade 7,Grade 8,Elementary School Teachers,Middle School Teachers,Elementary School Science,Physics

States of matter are structures that we may easily encounter in the universe as well as our close environment. The plasma state is the fourth state of matter, and it has much different properties in comparison to the solid, liquid and gas states of matter. In order to understand the universe and the environment we live in better, one needs to have knowledge on the fundamentals of the concept of plasma. Therefore, it is believed that the fourth state of matter, plasma, should be included in science curricula based on the cognitive development levels of students. Based on this idea, this study investigated the views of prospective science teachers who took the course &quot;plasma physics and technologies&quot; which is an elective course in the undergraduate science teaching program at the faculty of education at a state university in Turkey on the class levels and methods to teach students the concept of plasma. Accordingly, the aim of the study is to determine the views of prospective science teachers about plasma concept and teaching. The prospective science teachers stated that the concept of plasma should be included in science curricula on the levels of primary school and middle school.
Socially Challenged Collaborative Learning of Secondary School Students in Singapore
Author: Pang, Christopher
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Grounded Theory,Cooperative Learning,Secondary School Students,Computer Assisted Instruction,Educational Technology,Interaction,Interviews,Qualitative Research,Coding,Group Dynamics,Group Activities,Barriers,Interpersonal Relationship

Using a grounded theory research design, this paper examined the collaborative learning experiences of secondary school students in Singapore. The core phenomenon that emerged was the need for social interactions in collaborative learning, both in classroom and online settings. Educators often take for granted that effective collaborative learning will occur naturally once students are assigned to work in groups. In examining students' dissatisfaction when working in groups, this study highlighted the importance of surfacing these hidden assumptions for careful scrutiny. The key factors identified were centered on the need to address social challenges within collaborative learning. These included a pragmatic, results-oriented approach with limited interpersonal engagement used by students that can compromise collaborative learning outcomes. Having a deeper understanding of the challenges that resulted from limited social interactions provides educators with insights when designing classroom and online learning activities. This paper contributes to the understanding of groups' active learning to inform pedagogical practices for educators engaged in designing better collaborative learning experiences. Educators and curriculum designers need to be aware of the social drawbacks in collaborative learning in order to design a more socially engaging learning environment.
The Flipped MOOC: Using Gamification and Learning Analytics in MOOC Design--A Conceptual Approach
Author: Klemke, Roland
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Games,Online Courses,Educational Research,Data Collection,Data Analysis,Blended Learning,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Video Technology,Higher Education,Design

Recently, research has highlighted the potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for education, as well as their drawbacks, which are well known. Several studies state that the main limitations of the MOOCs are low completion and high dropout rates of participants. However, MOOCs suffer also from the lack of participant engagement, personalization, and despite the fact that several formats and types of MOOCs are reported in the literature, the majority of them contain a considerable amount of content that is mainly presented in a video format. This is in contrast to the results reported in other educational settings, where engagement and active participation are identified as success factors. We present the results of a study that involved educational experts and learning scientists giving new and interesting insights towards the conceptualization of a new design approach, the flipped MOOC, applying the flipped classroom approach to the MOOCs' design and making use of gamification and learning analytics. We found important indications, applicable to the concept of a flipped MOOC, which entails turning MOOCs from mainly content-oriented delivery machines into personalized, interactive, and engaging learning environments. Our findings support the idea that MOOCs can be enriched by the orchestration of a flipped classroom approach in combination with the support of gamification and learning analytics.
Optimal Weighting for Exam Composition
Author: Ganzfried, Sam
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Weighted Scores,Test Construction,Student Evaluation,Multiple Choice Tests,Objective Tests,Computation,Computer Assisted Testing,Intelligent Tutoring Systems,Error Patterns,Prediction,Regression (Statistics),Test Items,Evaluation Methods,Least Squares Statistics,Statistical Analysis

A problem faced by many instructors is that of designing exams that accurately assess the abilities of the students. Typically, these exams are prepared several days in advance, and generic question scores are used based on rough approximation of the question difficulty and length. For example, for a recent class taught by the author, there were 30 multiple choice questions worth 3 points, 15 true/false with explanation questions worth 4 points, and 5 analytical exercises worth 10 points. We describe a novel framework where algorithms from machine learning are used to modify the exam question weights in order to optimize the exam scores, using the overall final score as a proxy for a student's true ability. We show that significant error reduction can be obtained by our approach over standard weighting schemes, i.e., for the final and midterm exam, the mean absolute error for prediction decreases by 90.58% and 97.70% for linear regression approach respectively resulting in better estimation. We make several new observations regarding the properties of the &quot;good&quot; and &quot;bad&quot; exam questions that can have impact on the design of improved future evaluation methods.
Teaching Management System with Applications of RFID and IoT Technology
Author: Tan, Ping
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Radio,Telecommunications,Information Technology,Internet,Management Systems,Audience Response Systems,Technology Uses in Education,Handheld Devices,Coding,Video Technology,Student Motivation,Attendance,Learner Engagement,College Students,Foreign Countries

Currently, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are used in many areas, such as intelligent transportation, smart city, hospital, games, education. Earlier interactive response system uses infrared or radio frequency (RF) wireless communication technologies to transmit the students' answer to teachers' management system, where there exists high cost, inconvenient usage, difficult deployment. How to use IoT to improve the quality of higher education becomes a very important topic in the research area of teaching. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is one of the key technologies to implement IoT applications, and most universities use the High Frequency (HF) RFID card as the students' identification devices in China. In this paper, a kind of WiFi-supported RFID reader (WiRF) is implemented using open source hardware platforms, such as Node MCU and RFID-RC522. Then the proposed WiRF system is used to assist teachers to perform automatic attendance record and students' behavior record. In addition, Quick Response (QR) code is another technology to enable IoT. In this paper, QR code is designed to quickly access course video and perform real-time interactive response in the classroom, which will provide multidimensional learning and strengthen the motivation of students' learning. This IoT system can improve the attendance of students and give a positive impact on students' learning process for higher education.
Comparison of Loneliness and Social Skill Levels of Children with Specific Learning Disabilities in Terms of Participation in Sports
Author: Yilmaz, Atike
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Psychological Patterns,Learning Disabilities,Participation,Athletics,Children,Early Adolescents,Surveys,Statistical Analysis,Gender Differences,Family Structure,Correlation,Age Differences,Interpersonal Relationship,Foreign Countries

This study was conducted in order to compare loneliness and social skill levels of children with specific learning disabilities in terms of participation in sports. For this study, a screening model was used. The study group was composed of 56 children who were aged between 7 and 14 years and diagnosed with a specific learning disability (30 boys and 26 girls). &quot;Personal Information Form&quot;, &quot;Children's Loneliness Scale&quot;, &quot;Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters (MESSY)&quot; were used in this study. For the data processes and data analyses, SPSS 22 was used. According to the test of normality, non-parametric tests were employed for those data that did not follow a normal distribution and the correlations among variables were tested with correlation analysis at p &lt; 0.05 while differences among variables were tested with Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests at p &lt; 0.05. According to the findings obtained in this study, there were no significant differences in terms of sex, the number of family members and the number of brothers and sisters while there were significant correlations in terms of age, sports status, MESSY-subscales and loneliness. In sum, it may be concluded that sports played a positive role in social skill and loneliness levels among children with specific learning disabilities.
Assessing Conceptual Understanding via Literacy-Infused, Inquiry-Based Science among Middle School English Learners and Economically-Challenged Students
Author: Lara-Alecio, Rafael
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Middle School Students,English Language Learners,Inquiry,Active Learning,Literacy,Economically Disadvantaged,Low Income Students,Concept Formation,Science Instruction,Intervention,Comparative Analysis,Instructional Effectiveness,Science Tests,Test Validity,Pretests Posttests,Language Proficiency,Grade 6,Statistical Analysis

The overarching purpose of our study was to compare performances of treatment and control condition students who completed a literacy-infused, inquiry-based science intervention through sixth grade as measured by a big idea assessment tool which we refer to as the Big Ideas in Science Assessment (BISA). First, we determine the concurrent validity of the BISA; second, we investigate the differences in the post-test of the BISA between treatment and control English Learners (ELs), controlling for their performance in the pre-test; third, we analyze the differences in the post-test of the BISA between treatment and control non-ELs, controlling for their performance in the pre-test; and fourth, we examine the relationship between students' English language proficiency as measured by standardized assessment, and their performance in the BISA among ELs and non-ELs, respectively. Our findings indicate: (a) literacy-infused science lessons with big ideas, implemented through the tested intervention, improved students' language acquisition and science concept understanding for ELs and economically challenged students (ECs); (b) there was a positive relationship between language and content for both ELs and non-ELs, with a similar magnitude, suggesting that students with a higher level of English proficiency score higher in science assessment; and (c) the lesson plans prepared were successful for promoting a literacy-infused science curriculum via a 5E Model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) that includes three to five of the Es used daily. A pedagogical approach for a literacy-infused science model with big ideas is proposed.