This study used the Quality Talk and dialogic teaching approach with a group of secondary school teachers (N = 7) to train their facilitation of dialogical discussions by small groups of students. ...The study used video and audio analysis to assess the teachers’ observable behaviours during these discussions, before and after professional development; for example, types of Quality Talk questions asked. The study also used face‐to‐face interviews, held before and after the professional development, to investigate the teachers’ beliefs about learning through discussion. Results show that although the number of high‐quality questions from the teachers did not increase, the quality of the questions students asked of each other did improve, and resulted in extended periods of dialogic spells. Positive developments were found for teachers’ beliefs about the use of dialogue to foster deeper thinking with their secondary school‐aged students.
This article presents a synthesis of information about the massive oil spill in Brazil (2019/2020). The event affected 11 states; however, the majority of the oil residue was collected (~ 5380 tons) ...near nine states (99.8%) in northeastern Brazil. This spill was not the largest in volume (between 5000 m
3
and 12,000 m
3
) recorded in tropical oceans, but it was the most extensive (2890 km). This spill develops an overwashed tar that remains mostly in the undersurface drift (non-floating oil plume) below 17 m of depth while on the continental shelf. Ten ecosystems were impacted, with potentially more severe effects in mangroves and seagrasses. Certain negative effects are still understudied, such as effects on tropical reefs and rhodolith beds. A total of 57 protected areas in seven management categories were affected, most of which (60%) were characterized as multiple-use regions. The spill affected at least 34 threatened species, with impacts detected on plankton and benthic communities. Acute impacts were reported on echinoderms, coral symbionts, polychaetes, and sponges with evidence of oil ingestion. Socioeconomic impacts were detected in food security, public health, lodging, gender equality, tourism, and fishing, with reduced sales, prices, tourist attractiveness, gross domestic product, and employment. Moreover, chemical contamination was detected in some states by toxic metals (Hg, As, Cd, Pb, and Zn) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (acenaphthalene, fluoranthene, fluorene, naphthalene, and phenanthrene). This summary aims to aid in the design of science-based strategies to understand the impacts and develop strategies for the most extensive spill observed in tropical oceans.
This systematic review examined research on moderators in asynchronous online discussions (AODs) through a review of 52 sources published over the past four decades. Areas of interest included ...conceptual frameworks cited in research, publication trends, instructional contexts, research methods and characteristics, and descriptions of the role of the moderator with implications for practice. Results indicate: (1) nearly half of the publications did not cite a conceptual framework focused on moderation; (2) the field is diverse with a wide variety of themes for research designs, outcomes, foci, and questions; (3) half of reviewed publications involved case studies or similarly limited study designs; (4) the majority of publications collected data on students in higher education, but there was a lack of consistency in the reporting of demographic information; (5) research foci tended toward investigating peer moderators or the role of the instructor; (6) research questions tended to focus on strategies of moderators or student performance and discussion quality; (7) most definitions or expectations of a moderator included discussion and social management duties. We conclude by discussing the implications of some of the findings and future research options.
Classroom talk or verbal exchanges during lesson time play a central role in students' disciplinary understanding and intellectual development. It greatly influences not only what students learn but ...also how they learn it. Despite this, teachers can be unaware of teacher-student talk patterns and functions; thus, what is uttered during class time can go unnoticed. Results from classroom observational research show that this is often not utilised to maximise children's learning - teacher talk prevails in the classroom whilst few effective verbal interactions take place among learners. Research in this field started to take shape in the 1970s and has developed greatly since the 1990s. We review some types of productive classroom talk and talk interventions discussed in publications from the 1990s onwards. Further studies need to explore a more universal talk pedagogy employed across disciplines, whereas the process of change in teachers' beliefs and identities in adopting this pedagogical approach deserves scholarly investigations.
Some people live in social media “news deserts,” while others are embedded in online networks that are rich in news content. These news deserts represent a new form of digital inequality—distinct ...from problems of access, resources, or civic skills—that could foreclose one of the ways social media are believed to contribute to informing citizens and engaging them in democratic processes: providing opportunities for incidental news exposure. This study investigates incidental exposure on social media platforms, drawing on an online survey administered just before the 2018 US Midterm Elections (N = 1493). The study finds that even after controlling for key individual-level factors, characteristics of social media discussion networks play a role in explaining variation in incidental exposure. The results are discussed in light of prevailing theory about incidental exposure, public engagement, and digital inequalities.
A rejoinder to Neville Maxwell's "Olaf Caroe's Fabrication of the ' McMahon Line"' (EPW, 6 August 2016) claims that there are many factual inconsistencies. The author also asserts that Maxwell ...deliberately silences alternate explanations to his claims.
This article presents two trial studies using the gamification approach in online discussions to increase student engagement. A gamified online discussion tool, gEchoLu, was designed and implemented. ...The first trial focused on examining student engagement in online discussions. The results indicated that gEchoLu had positive influences on student behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, and cognitive engagement. The second trial aimed to investigate the effect of specific game elements implemented in gEchoLu on student motivation and engagement in online discussions. Findings from the second trial suggested that badges, thumps-ups, progress bars, and avatars in gEchoLu promoted student engagement in online discussions. The limitations and implications are discussed.
Directed self-learning (DSL) is an active learning approach where the learners are provided with predefined learning objectives and some facilitation through the learning process in the form of ...guidance and supervision. It can help establish a strong foundation for autonomous and deep learning.
The aim of this study was to introduce a modified form of DSL to second-year undergraduate medical students using pre-small group discussion (pre-SGD) worksheets. The authors intended to evaluate its effectiveness through theme assessment and investigate students' perceptions using a feedback questionnaire.
This was an analytical cross-sectional study. Modified DSL (MDSL) was introduced to 96 second-year undergraduate medical students in two themes. Students were divided randomly into two groups. One group was exposed to traditional DSL (TDSL), and the other was introduced to MDSL using pre-SGD worksheets for the first theme. Groups were reversed for the second theme. The activity was followed by a theme assessment, which was scored for research purpose only. The scores of this assessment were compared, and perceptions of the students were gathered using a validated questionnaire. Data were analyzed using IBM's statistical package of social sciences (SPSS) version 22.
The comparison of theme assessment scores revealed statistically significant difference (P = 0.002) in median scores between control TDSL and experimental MDSL groups. The percentage of students scoring ≥80% in theme assessment was significantly higher in the experimental group compared to the control group (P = 0.029). This strategy was well perceived by the students in terms of acceptability and effectiveness as depicted by a high degree of agreement on the Likert-scale.
Modified DSL resulted in significant improvement in academic performance of undergraduate medical students. MDSL was also well perceived as an active learning strategy in terms of acceptability, effectiveness, and comparison with TDSL.
While a great deal of research has studied the messages students contribute to electronic discussion forums, productive participation in online learning conversations requires more than just making ...posts. One important pre-condition for productive inter-activity and knowledge construction is engagement with the posts contributed by others. In this study, these actions (how learners interact with the existing discussion; which posts they attend to, when, and how) are conceptualized as "online listening behaviors" and are studied in the context of a large undergraduate business course taught in a blended format. Clickstream data was collected for 96 participants from 3 week-long online discussions to solve organizational behavior challenges in groups of 10–13. Listening behaviors accounted for almost three-quarters of the time learners spent in the discussions, and cluster analysis identified three distinct patterns of behavior: (1) Superficial Listeners, Intermittent Talkers; (2) Concentrated Listeners, Integrated Talkers; and (3) Broad Listeners, Reflective Talkers. The clusters differed in the depth, breadth, temporal contiguity, and reflectivity of their listening as well as in their patterns of speaking. An illustrative case study of how the listening behaviors were enacted by one student from each cluster over time was used to deepen the characterization and interpretation of each cluster. The results indicate that online listening is a complex phenomenon and a substantial component of students' participation in online discussions. Findings are compared to the previous work on student learning approaches and implications for practice and future research are discussed.
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