Examples of science talk
1. Look, it’s making them move. Those didn’t stick.
(Student talking in a small group)
2. We found out the pins stuck on the magnet.
(Student talking to a teacher)
3. Our experiment showed magnets attract some metals.
(Text from a student’s written report)
4. Magnetic attraction occurs only between ferrous metals.
(Text from an encyclopedia)
Source: Pauline Gibbon, Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Predictors of the Instructional Strategies that Elementary School Teachers Use with English Language Learners
Predictors of the Instructional Strategies that Elementary School Teachers Use with English Language Learners by Lucy Rader-Brown & Aimee Howley (2014), Teachers College Record Volume 116 Number 5, 2014, p. 1-34, Number: 17437
Findings:
Background/Context: According to demographers, the number of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S schools has been increasing and is likely to continue to increase in coming years. For various reasons relating to language acquisition, cultural adjustment, and persistent discrimination, these students tend to experience academic difficulties. Improvement in their performance depends on teachers’ use of effective instructional strategies, but few surveys have investigated the extent to which teachers use such strategies or the conditions that encourage them to do so.
Focus of Study: This study addressed the following research questions: (a) To what extent do elementary content-area teachers use various research-based practices for teaching ELLs? (b) In consideration of appropriate statistical controls, to what extent are elementary content-area teachers’ professional training, attitudes, bilingualism, and their schools’ characteristics, singly and in combination, associated with their reported use of a set of research-based strategies for teaching English language learners?
Participants: Participants were a random sample of Ohio elementary school teachers (n = 419) in schools in the highest quartile of ELL enrollment.
Research Design: The current study surveyed elementary teachers in Ohio and then used multiple regression methods to identify significant predictors of teachers’ use of research-based strategies with ELLs.
Conclusions/Recommendations: Findings point to the likelihood that continued efforts to prepare elementary school teachers to work with ELLs will entail the provision of additional resources to schools with large and increasing ELL populations. In addition, efforts to increase teachers’ use of research-based strategies with ELLs will involve professional preparation powerful enough to change attitudes. Instruction in a second language appears to be an approach that bears consideration.
Findings:
- Findings showed that teachers reported frequent use of research-based strategies, but their preference was for strategies recommended for all learners. They were less likely to use strategies specifically intended for ELLs.
- Regression results showed that teachers’ attitudes and the percentage of ELLs in their schools were significant predictors of teachers’ use of research-based strategies - a positive predictor in the first instance and a negative predictor in the second.
- Ancillary analyses revealed that teachers’ years of experience and bilingualism, as well as the schools’ resources, were significant predictors of teachers’ attitudes toward ELLs, with more experienced teachers exhibiting more negative attitudes, and bilingual teachers and those in higher resource schools exhibiting more positive attitudes.
Background/Context: According to demographers, the number of English language learners (ELLs) in U.S schools has been increasing and is likely to continue to increase in coming years. For various reasons relating to language acquisition, cultural adjustment, and persistent discrimination, these students tend to experience academic difficulties. Improvement in their performance depends on teachers’ use of effective instructional strategies, but few surveys have investigated the extent to which teachers use such strategies or the conditions that encourage them to do so.
Focus of Study: This study addressed the following research questions: (a) To what extent do elementary content-area teachers use various research-based practices for teaching ELLs? (b) In consideration of appropriate statistical controls, to what extent are elementary content-area teachers’ professional training, attitudes, bilingualism, and their schools’ characteristics, singly and in combination, associated with their reported use of a set of research-based strategies for teaching English language learners?
Participants: Participants were a random sample of Ohio elementary school teachers (n = 419) in schools in the highest quartile of ELL enrollment.
Research Design: The current study surveyed elementary teachers in Ohio and then used multiple regression methods to identify significant predictors of teachers’ use of research-based strategies with ELLs.
Conclusions/Recommendations: Findings point to the likelihood that continued efforts to prepare elementary school teachers to work with ELLs will entail the provision of additional resources to schools with large and increasing ELL populations. In addition, efforts to increase teachers’ use of research-based strategies with ELLs will involve professional preparation powerful enough to change attitudes. Instruction in a second language appears to be an approach that bears consideration.
Monday, January 4, 2016
EDR: Seriously Considering Design in Educational Games
Gaydos, M. (2015). Seriously Considering Design in Educational Games. Educational Researcher, 44(9), 478–483. http://doi.org/10.3102/
Abstract: Research suggests that well-designed games can be good for learning under the right conditions. How such games are designed remains poorly understood, as studies have focused more on whether games can produce learning than on how such games work or how they can be reliably developed. That is, though the design of a game is considered essential to its effectiveness, educational games lack a theory-informed definition and have predominantly shared design in terms of "principles" or "heuristics." The aim of this paper is to discuss how we define and share educational game design and why design is important for improving educational game research and development.
I liked this quote:
"They argue that investigations into whether games can be effective should give way to investigations into how or under what conditions they are effective (D. B. Clark, Tanner-Smith, & Killingsworth, 2015; Tobias & Fletcher, 2011). While game-based learning has shown potential, what is needed are ways to reliably convert that potential into action." [p.478]
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