Computer assisted instruction and individual cognitive style preferences in learning : does it matter?

This paper reports the findings of a pilot study aimed at improving learning outcomes from Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI). The study involved second year nursing students at the Queensland University of Technology. Students were assessed for their preferred cognitive style and presented with either matched or mismatched instructional material. The instructional material was developed in accordance with four cognitive styles (Riding & Cheema, 1991). The findings indicate groups that received instructional material which matched their preferred cognitive style, possibly, performed better than groups that received mismatched instructional material. The matched group was particularly better in the explanation and problem solving tasks.

Knowledge translation for effective consumers

With the emergence of patient-centered care, consumers are becoming more effective managers of their care—in other words, “effective consumers.” To support patients to become effective consumers, a number of strategies to translate knowledge to action (KTA) have been used with varying success. The use of a KTA framework can be helpful to researchers and implementers when framing, planning, and evaluating knowledge translation activities and can potentially lead to more successful activities. This article briefly describes the KTA framework and its use by a team based out of the University of Ottawa to translate evidence-based knowledge to consumers. Using the framework, tailored consumer summaries, decision aids, and a scale to measure consumer effectiveness were created in collaboration with consumers. Strategies to translate the products into action then were selected and implemented. Evaluation of the knowledge tools and products indicates that the products are useful to consumers. Current research is in place to monitor the use of these products, and future research is planned to evaluate the effect of using the knowledge on health outcomes. The KTA framework provides a useful and valuable approach to knowledge translation.

Order of instruction effects - do they make a difference when teaching senior chemistry with computer based visualizations?

This study investigated whether conceptual development is greater if students learning senior chemistry hear teacher explanations and other traditional teaching approaches first then see computer based visualizations or vice versa. Five Canadian chemistry classes, taught by three different teachers, studied the topics of Le Chatelier’s Principle and dynamic chemical equilibria using scientific visualizations with the explanation and visualizations in different orders. Conceptual development was measured using a 12 item test based on the Chemistry Concepts Inventory. Data was obtained about the students’ abilities, learning styles (auditory, visual or kinesthetic) and sex, and the relationships between these factors and conceptual development due to the teaching sequences were investigated. It was found that teaching sequence is not important in terms of students’ conceptual learning gains, across the whole cohort or for any of the three subgroups.

A voting mechanism for named entity translation in English-Chinese question answering

In this paper, we describe a voting mechanism for accurate named entity (NE) translation in English–Chinese question answering (QA). This mechanism involves translations from three different sources: machine translation,online encyclopaedia, and web documents. The translation with the highest number of votes is selected. We evaluated this approach using test collection, topics and assessment results from the NTCIR-8 evaluation forum. This mechanism achieved 95% accuracy in NEs translation and 0.3756 MAP in English–Chinese cross-lingual information retrieval of QA.

What Could Socially-just Literacy Instruction Look Like?

Schools in Australia today are expected to improve student outcomes in an increasingly constrained context focused on accountability. At the same time as teachers work within these constraints, they are also working to ensure that all students are able to achieve quality outcomes from schooling while dealing with increasing diversity of the student population. So what is a teacher’s role in providing equitable possibilities for all of the students in their care? Teachers are left with the difficult task of balancing the many mandatory requirements placed on them, and on their students, such as gaining improvements on high stakes test scores, with the important work of dealing with individual students and student cohorts in equitable and socially just ways. This impacts on the work of all teachers, however for those teachers working in schools in contexts of complexity and duress these pressures are never greater.

But does it work? Effectiveness of scientific visualisations in high school chemistry and physics instruction.

Scientific visualisations such as computer-based animations and simulations are increasingly a feature of high school science instruction. Visualisations are adopted enthusiastically by teachers and embraced by students, and there is good evidence that they are popular and well received. There is limited evidence, however, of how effective they are in enabling students to learn key scientific concepts. This paper reports the results of a quantitative study conducted in Australian physics and chemistry classrooms. In general there was no statistically significant difference between teaching with and without visualisations, however there were intriguing differences around student sex and academic ability.

The child, the text and the teacher : reading primers and reading instruction

From the late sixteenth century, in response to the problem of how best to teach children to read, a variety of texts such as primers, spellers and readers were produced in England for vernacular instruction. This paper describes how these materials were used by teachers to develop first, a specific religious understanding according to the stricture of the time and second, a moral reading practice that provided the child with a guide to secular conduct. The analysis focuses on the use of these texts as a productive means for shaping the child-reader in the context of newly emerging educational spaces which fostered a particular, morally formative relation among teacher, child and text.

Rethinking comprehension and strategy use in second language listening instruction

In second language classrooms, listening is gaining recognition as an active element in the processes of learning and using a second language. Currently, however, much of the teaching of listening prioritises comprehension without sufficient emphasis on the skills and strategies that enhance learners’ understanding of spoken language. This paper presents an argument for rethinking the emphasis on comprehension and advocates augmenting current teaching with an explicit focus on strategies. Drawing on the literature, the paper provides three models of strategy instruction for the teaching and development of listening skills. The models include steps for implementation that accord with their respective approaches to explicit instruction. The final section of the paper synthesises key points from the models as a guide for application in the second language classroom. The premise underpinning the paper is that the teaching of strategies can provide learners with active and explicit measures for managing and expanding their listening capacities, both in the learning and ‘real world’ use of a second language.

Verbal instruction abolishes fear conditioned to racial out-group faces

Previous research has shown resistance to extinction of fear conditioned to racial out-group faces, suggesting that these stimuli may be subject to prepared fear learning. The current study replicated and extended previous research by using a different racial out-group, and testing the prediction that prepared fear learning is unaffected by verbal instructions. Four groups of Caucasian participants were trained with male in-group (Caucasian) or out-group (Chinese) faces as conditional stimuli; one paired with an electro-tactile shock (CS+) and one presented alone (CS). Before extinction, half the participants were instructed that no more shocks would be presented. Fear conditioning, indexed by larger electrodermal responses to, and blink startle modulation during the CS+, occurred during acquisition in all groups. Resistance to extinction of fear learning was found only in the racial out-group, no instruction condition. Fear conditioned to a racial out-group face was reduced following verbal instructions, contrary to predictions for the nature of prepared fear learning.

The effects of verbal instruction on affective and expectancy learning

The current research assessed the effects of verbal instruction on affective and expectancy learning during repeated contingency reversals (Experiment 1 and during extinction (Experiment 2) in a picture–picture paradigm. Affective and expectancy learning displayed contingency reversal and extinction, but changes were slower for affective learning. Instructions facilitated reversal and extinction of expectancy learning but did not impact on affective learning. These findings suggest a differential susceptibility of affective and expectancy learning to verbal instruction and question previous reports that verbal instructions can accelerate the extinction of non-prepared fear learning in humans.

L1 Learning Strategy Instruction does make a difference in EFL listening: An empirical study.

In language learning, listening is the basic skill which learners should begin to develop other skills, namely speaking, reading and writing. This sequence of language learning in most English as Foreign Language (EFL) settings goes against the stream, learning first reading and writing and later listening and speaking. This study investigates the effects of cognitive, process-based approach to instructing EFL listening strategies over 11 weeks during a semester in Persian (L1). Lower intermediate female participants (N = 50) came from a couple of EFL classrooms in an English Language Institute in Iran. The experimental group (n = 25) listened to their classroom activities using a methodology that led learners through four cognitive processes (guessing, making inference, identifying topics and repetition) in Persian was basically successful in EFL listening. The same teacher taught the control group (n = 25), which listened to the same classroom listening activities without any guided attention to the learning strategy process in Persian. A pre and post listening test made by a group of experts in the language institute tracked any development in light of cognitive learning strategy instruction in EFL listening through L1. The hypothesis was that the experimental group received the guided attention in L1 during the classroom listening activities made greater gains and was verified despite the partial improvement of the control group.

Lost in translation : partnerships for authentic education in Papua New Guinea

Pacific Island countries are the recipients of considerable education reform projects, many of which are sponsored by various global donor agencies. These agencies have become partners as part of foreign aid for international development in the region. Research cautions that such projects may have detrimental influences as their designs and delivery ignore the economic, cultural and social contexts of recipient countries. This paper explores issues impacting on the capacity of educators to lead educational change in Papua New Guinea. While initiatives in capacity building are offered, contradictions within the reform processes identify serious questions of policy development, curriculum ownership and local capacity. These contradictions relate to the sustainability of such programs, collaboration and partnerships between the National Department of Education, universities, donor agencies and scholars who advocate for authentic education for Papua New Guinea.