scholarly journals Enhancing Student Meaning-Making of Threshold Concepts via Computation: The Case of Mohr’s Circle

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayden Fennell ◽  
Genisson Coutinho ◽  
Alejandra Magana ◽  
David Restrepo ◽  
Pablo Zavattieri
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Threshold Concepts ◽  
Student Meaning ◽  
Mohr’S Circle

scholarly journals College Student Meaning Making and Interest Maintenance During COVID-19: From Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) to Science Learning Being Off-Campus and Online

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cong Wang ◽  
Melanie Bauer ◽  
Alita R. Burmeister ◽  
David I. Hanauer ◽  
Mark J. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Undergraduate Research ◽  
Situational Interest ◽  
Laboratory Research ◽  
Student Interest ◽  
Spring Semester ◽  
Research Experiences ◽  
Undergraduate Research Experiences ◽  
Student Meaning ◽  
Based Instruction

In response to the outbreak of COVID-19 the national landscape of higher education changed quickly and dramatically to move “online” in the Spring semester of 2020. While distressing to both faculty and students, it presents a unique opportunity to explore how students responded to this unexpected and challenging learning situation. In four undergraduate STEM courses that incorporated course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs)—which are often focused on discovery learning and laboratory research—we had an existing study in progress to track students' interest development at five time points over the Spring 2020 semester. Via this ongoing study we were able to investigate how students stay engaged in their college science courses when facing unexpected challenges and obstacles to their learning. Longitudinal survey data from 41 students in these CURE courses demonstrated that students' situational interest dropped significantly when their CURE courses unexpectedly shifted from hands-on, discovery-based, and laboratory-based instruction to online instruction. Although we observed a dramatic decline in student interest in general after the CURE courses moved fully online, the decline rates varied across students. Students who were able to make meaningful connections between the learning activities and their personal or career goals were more likely to maintain a higher level of interest in the course. Implications for practice are discussed.

scholarly journals Training Kuwaiti Teachers to Lead: A Case Study of Competitive Debate at the Basic Education College

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Reem Al-Rubaie
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Basic Education ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
National Education ◽  
Future System ◽  
Education College ◽  
Student Meaning

This paper presents a case study of a competitive debate program designed for teachers-in-training at the Basic Education College in Kuwait. Stakeholders at different levels have expressed an interest in introducing more constructivist-based pedagogies into the Kuwaiti national education system, but institutional and ideological challenges have hindered implementation. Teachers at the college designed and implemented a debate program based on constructivist principles of authenticity, student meaning-making, collaboration, and high performance expectations. Survey data suggest that participants experienced debate as a transformative experience, changing their perception of themselves, of the world, and of their ability to effect change in it. Participants came to imagine themselves as future system leaders preparing future generations with higher-order skills involving complex solving, which an increasingly complex social reality demanded. From 2015 to 2018, a group of professors formed debate teams at the Kuwait University National English Debate League. This endeavour formed the empirical research presented here as evidence to support a move from instructivist teaching to constructivist learning for future teachers in Kuwait.

Digital Story-Making in Support of Student Meaning-Making

2013 ◽  
pp. 192-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail Matthews-DeNatale
Keyword(s):  
Student Learning ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Learning Sequence ◽  
Digital Story ◽  
Digital Stories ◽  
Student Meaning ◽  
The Impact

Learning design is critical to success when using visual media to enhance learning. This process involves beginning with the end goals in mind and working backwards to craft a thoughtful learning sequence. Through a pair of case studies, this chapter demonstrates the role student-generated digital stories can play in helping students make meaning of firsthand learning experiences. Digital story-making engages students in a multi-modal, multi-sensory experience that deepens engagement and improves the memorability of learning. Educators are under increasing pressure to provide evidence of the impact that coursework has on student learning, and student-generated digital stories provide valuable artifacts of learning.

Special Education Teachers Interpret Constructivist Teaching

1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 267-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. KIM REID ◽  
CATHERINE KURKJIAN ◽  
S. SALLY CARRUTHERS
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Constructivist Teaching ◽  
Rich Description ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Student Meaning ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Use Of Knowledge

THIS EMIC, QUALITATIVE STUDY EXAMINES HOW MASTER'S-LEVEL SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS OPER-ATIONALIZED CONSTRUCTIVIST TEACHING. WE ANALYZED 21 VIDEOTAPED TEACHING DEMONSTRATIONS AND INFORMATION GLEANED FROM THE TEACHERS' ESSAYS, JOURNALS, AND UNIVERSITY CLASS DISCUSSIONS TO DESCRIBE THE TEACHERS' BELIEFS (TRADITIONAL), THE INSTRUCTIONAL TASKS THEY DEVISED (HANDS-ON AND TEXT-BASED), AND THE DYNAMIC INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS THEY PURSUED: (A) STRUCTURE AND ORDERLINESS, (B) SHARED TASK UNDERSTANDING, (C) OBJECTIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE, (D) INDEPENDENT USE OF KNOWLEDGE, AND (E) POSITIVE MOTIVATION AND AFFECT. THEIR LESSONS VARIED CONSIDERABLY FROM WHAT WE HAD MODELED IN THEIR UNIVERSITY CLASS AND FROM THE LITERATURE DESCRIPTIONS OF CONSTRUCTIVIST TEACHING, WHICH EMPHASIZE STUDENT MEANING MAKING THROUGH SELF-REGULATION, SOCIAL INTERACTION, AND PROBLEM SOLVING. OUR PURPOSES WERE TO PROVIDE A RICH DESCRIPTION OF THE WAY PRACTITIONERS FRAME AND TRANSFORM THEIR FIRST EXPOSURE TO CONSTRUCTIVISM AND TO CONTRIBUTE TO A SCHOLARLY DISCOURSE IN WHICH PRACTICE INFORMS THE KNOWLEDGE BASE OF THE PROFESSION.

scholarly journals The effect of topic selection on writing fluency among Japanese high school students

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Lin Lubold ◽  
Sarah Forbes ◽  
Ian Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Writing Fluency ◽  
School Students ◽  
Student Meaning

Written fluency and fluency building activities have been shown to promote linguistic choice and student voice development, increased ability to express ideas using complex grammatical structures and greater intrinsic motivation in English language learners. Since the 1970’s, process-oriented writing has been emphasized, yielding an amplified focus on meaning of student content over linguistic form precision. Current research of writing fluency must delve deeper into questions of student ownership of topic and the outcomes for low-risk activities that support fluency practice and encourage confidence building in students. The purpose of this replication study is to further explore previous findings on the effects of topic selection on writing fluency for high school English as foreign language learners. Building off of the work of Bonzo (2008), this study focused on a timed, non-graded writing activity administered to groups of Japanese engineering students in three departments: mechanical, electrical, and global engineering. The six subsequent samples for each participating student were analyzed using online text-analysis for total and unique word counts, providing data used to perform a t-test. Responses to bi-lingual student questionnaires, with prompts on self-perceived written English ability, self-efficacy and strategies for success while writing, provided additional insight into the facets of fluency. The results of these writing sessions offer both confirmation of and contrast to Bonzo’s original work, demonstrate increased student meaning making, and support the use of free writing activities in English language classrooms as a means by which student written fluency may be improved.

scholarly journals Cultivating historical consciousness in the history classroom: Uncovering the subtleties of student meaning making with the help of found poetry

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Popa
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
History Education ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Classroom Context ◽  
Student Work ◽  
School History ◽  
Student Meaning ◽  
Found Poetry ◽  
Second World

This article explores student meaning making in a Grade 11 US history unit on the Second World War. The 10-lesson unit was designed as an experiment that aimed to apply an instructional model of historical consciousness to a classroom context. Although the notion of historical consciousness has gained significant interest in the field of history education, translating it into educational practice remains a challenge. In this study, it refers to a disposition to make meaning of the past for oneself, which is manifested in three meaning-making abilities and processes (Boix Mansilla and Gardner, 2007; Nordgren and Johansson, 2015; Rüsen, 2004). To study the manifestation of historical consciousness in the learning process during this unit, I employed found poetry on collected classroom transcripts and observations, as well as student work. I turned to this qualitative, arts-informed method when I realised the analytic methods that I had employed so far failed to capture important subtleties of students’ historical consciousness emerging from the data. In this paper, I present and discuss the results of my analysis, offer a rationale for using found poetry in history education research and reflect on the need for relevant and meaningful school history.

Exploring a pedagogy for meaning-making in physical education

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 1093-1109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justen O’Connor
Keyword(s):  
Physical Education ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Range Of Movement ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Embodied Meaning ◽  
Student Meaning ◽  
Shed Light

This paper responds to calls for an exploration into pedagogies of meaning within physical education. Developing meaningful educational experiences in physical education for lifelong movement involves supporting students to explore their personal experiences in movement and to use these to derive a greater understanding of themselves and the world in which they live. Following a brief overview of the role of meaning-making in physical education, a case study is offered as a practical example for how reflection can be utilised to explore movement as meaningful. The case study presents a series of steps that provide detail about a meaning-making process undertaken during a physical education class. Data suggest that setting aside time for reflection and the generation of rich movement narratives aligned to a ‘first rush of movement’, can shed light on what students find meaningful ‘in’ movement in ways that link physical education to experiences across varying social and environmental contexts. Through giving priority to bodily understandings of movement as felt, sensory experience, participants ( n = 44) were able to express meaning across a wide range of movement contexts. I contend that the exploration of student meaning in physical education is engaging, informative, and serves to extend possibilities for what curriculum is seen as legitimate in physical education by/for whom. The paper sheds light on the use of embodied meaning-making stories as a potential springboard for further exploration and activity in physical education.

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