scholarly journals Experiences to develop creativeness in the language arts in the fourth grade.

1948 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy Harris
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
Fourth Grade

scholarly journals Why Teachers Select Specific Literacy Assignments and Students' Reactions to Them

1993 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel D. Miller ◽  
Treana Adkins ◽  
Mary Louise Hooper
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Elementary Teachers ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Student Learning ◽  
Test Scores ◽  
Fourth Grade ◽  
Achievement Test ◽  
Extrinsic Rewards ◽  
Language Arts Instruction ◽  
Student Interviews

This study evaluated the literacy assignments elementary teachers use in their reading and language arts instruction, the reasons why they use a particular assignment, and how students react to different assignments. The project was initiated by teachers (three third-grade and three fourth-grade) and their principal because they believed students failed to see how various reading and language arts skills were related to one another, had difficulties applying such skills whenever they had to read or write lengthy prose, and did not want to complete assignments unless they received extrinsic rewards. Furthermore, teachers said teaching was no longer as satisfying as it had been in previous years. To evaluate their concerns we examined whether their literacy assignments included those characteristics that foster student learning and motivation and we interviewed the teachers and principal about why they believed teaching was no longer as satisfying as it had once been. Interviews indicated that teachers and the principal believed accountability pressures to increase standardized achievement test scores strongly influenced their school's reading and language arts instruction. Teachers said they attempted to raise students' scores by emphasizing the standardized achievement test skills. To maximize skill coverage, teachers said they avoided literacy assignments that required the reading of lengthy texts, sophisticated writing, and lengthy discussions. Evaluations of their literacy assignments confirmed their statements; students seldom completed classwork which required sophisticated writing or reading. Student interviews showed that they were bored with these assignments or did them because they expected extrinsic rewards. Whenever they completed a more complex literacy assignment (i.e., those that required the writing of single or multiple sentences or paragraphs), students said they were challenged and enjoyed learning for learning's sake. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for school improvement studies and students' learning and motivation.

Computer Science Meets Education: Natural Language Processing for Automatic Grading of Open-Ended Questions in eBooks

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (7) ◽  
pp. 1227-1255
Author(s):  
Glenn Gordon Smith ◽  
Robert Haworth ◽  
Slavko Žitnik
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Real World ◽  
Fourth Grade ◽  
Science Students ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Science Professor

We investigated how Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms could automatically grade answers to open-ended inference questions in web-based eBooks. This is a component of research on making reading more motivating to children and to increasing their comprehension. We obtained and graded a set of answers to open-ended questions embedded in a fiction novel written in English. Computer science students used a subset of the graded answers to develop algorithms designed to grade new answers to the questions. The algorithms utilized the story text, existing graded answers for a given question and publicly accessible databases in grading new responses. A computer science professor used another subset of the graded answers to evaluate the students’ NLP algorithms and to select the best algorithm. The results showed that the best algorithm correctly graded approximately 85% of the real-world answers as correct, partly correct, or wrong. The best NLP algorithm was trained with questions and graded answers from a series of new text narratives in another language, Slovenian. The resulting NLP algorithm model was successfully used in fourth-grade language arts classes for providing feedback to student answers on open-ended questions in eBooks.

VoiceThread and iPad Apps Supporting Biological Change Concept

2015 ◽  
pp. 91-119
Author(s):  
Emily Bodenlos ◽  
Lesia Lennex
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Science Achievement ◽  
Fourth Grade ◽  
Instructional Technologies ◽  
Achievement Data ◽  
Core Content ◽  
Student Reading ◽  
Science Standard

Kentucky science achievement data (KCCT, 2008-2011) for Biological Change indicated that middle grades students had little achievement compared to other concepts. The prior grade level for teaching this concept was fourth grade. A case study was designed to address the needs of three Fourth Grade classrooms. As part of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), language arts scores were supplemented with science and social studies. Objectives for the study were production of science and social studies curriculum using 3D instructional technologies for fourth grade in the following Kentucky Core Academic Standards (KCAS) Language Arts: Reading Standards for Informational Text K-5, Writing Standards K-5, Language Standards K-5, Range-Quality-and-Complexity of Student Reading; Core Content 4.1 Science Standard Biological Change; Core Content 4.1 Social Studies Standard Geography. Important findings for heterogeneous populations were made regarding the use of instructional technologies apps VoiceThread and Pangea Safari.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document