Teaching that is responsive to students' ideas can create opportunities for rigorous sense-making talk by young learners. Yet we have few accounts of how thoughtful attempts at responsive teaching ...unfold across units of instruction in elementary science classrooms and have only begun to understand how responsiveness encourages rigor in conversations. In this study, the first author taught an electric circuits unit to four upper elementary science classes, exercising a responsive teaching stance. We found that rigorous episodes of whole-class talk were associated with the teacher's use of open-ended questions, follow-up prompts, references to activity or representations, prediscussion tasks, and asking students to comment on their peers' ideas. Overall, higher rigor talk co-occurred with these conditions when used in combination. Despite being responsive to students' emerging ideas, all four classes addressed the science ideas for the unit-an outcome we attribute to the use of an anchoring phenomenon and the teacher's awareness of the concepts required to construct evidence-based explanations for it. Finally, concerted attempts to teach in responsive ways-while also attending to rigor-surfaced pedagogical tensions that problematize efforts to create such discourse-rich environments and inform how this type of instruction might be enacted by others.
The main purposes of this study were to test the effects of teaching at-risk 4th graders to provide explanations for their mathematics work and examine whether those effects occur by compensating for ...limitations in cognitive processes. We randomly assigned 212 children to 3 conditions: a control group and 2 variants of a multicomponent fraction intervention. Both intervention conditions included 36 sessions, each lasting 35 min. All but 7 min of each session were identical. In the 7-min component, students were taught to provide high quality explanations when comparing fraction magnitudes or to solve fraction word problems. Children were pretested on cognitive variables and pre/posttested on fraction knowledge. On accuracy of magnitude comparisons and quality of explanations, children who received the explaining intervention outperformed those in the word-problem condition. On word problems, children who received the word-problem intervention outperformed those in the explaining condition. Moderator analyses indicated that the explaining intervention was more effective for students with weaker working memory, while the word-problem intervention was more effective for students with stronger reasoning ability.
Metacognition is theorized to play a central role in children's mathematics learning. The primary goal of the current study was to provide experimental evidence in support of this role with ...elementary school students learning about mathematical equivalence. The final sample included 135 children (59 first graders and 76 second graders) who participated in the study across three sessions in their classrooms. They completed a pretest during Session 1, a lesson and posttest during Session 2, and a 2-week delayed retention test during Session 3. For Session 2, children were randomly assigned to receive a lesson on mathematical equivalence with or without integrated metacognitive questions. Relative to the control lesson, children who received the metacognitive lesson demonstrated higher accuracy and higher metacognitive monitoring scores on the posttest and retention test. Further, these benefits sometimes extended to uninstructed items targeting arithmetic and place value. No condition effects were observed for children's metacognitive control skills within any of the topics. These findings suggest a brief metacognitive lesson can improve children's mathematics understanding.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
The current study provides novel insights into children's learning of mathematical equivalence (e.g., 3 + 4 = 5 + _ _) and their metacognitive skills, including their ability to evaluate their own knowledge (e.g., did I get that right?). Our results suggest that these skills can be improved after a brief classroom lesson for first and second grade children. Key components of the lesson included (a) a correct strategy for making both sides of the problem the same amount, and (b) a set of reflective questions (e.g., How can I check that my solution is correct?). Importantly, the lesson often resulted in better performance and metacognitive skills on arithmetic and place value items, which were not included in the lesson. These findings have implications for the development of classroom lessons focused on mathematics and metacognition.
This study examined the effects of a teacher-led learning-strategy intervention program on fourth-grade students’ reported use and perceived effectiveness of rehearsal and comprehension-oriented ...learning strategies. During 18 program units, teachers taught about learning and various learning strategies, including visualisation, elaboration and categorisation. Strategies were practised in math, language and science classes. Participants were comprised of 82 fourth-grade students in the intervention group and 387 fourth-grade students in the control group. Students’ reported use and perceived effectiveness of learning strategies were assessed before and at least 4 months after intervention using a web-based word-memorisation task and associated reflection questions. The intervention group tended to use more comprehension-oriented learning strategies in post-tests, and the intervention group also showed an increase in perceived effectiveness of comprehension-oriented learning strategies. Still, rehearsal was evaluated as the most effective strategy in both the control group and the intervention group. Explanations for these findings and possible future directions are discussed.
Students often learn about measurement uncertainty as an isolated topic, with a focus on generalizable strategies to manage uncertainty in scientific investigation. In this study, we report and ...analyze a case of emergent learning about measurement and uncertainty, in which students in a Chinese elementary school science class explored and reconciled discrepancies in hypotheses by constructing and using measures and making inferences. Adopting a model‐based view of measurement, we show that when allowed to take on emergent measurement uncertainty while inquiring into causes for phenomena, late elementary students with no prior experience can engage in sophisticated reasoning characterized by a variety of theoretical modeling practices. Developing and aligning models of the phenomenon, the measure and the measurement data supported students in constructing an intuitive solution to their discrepancies. Our analysis also identified (1) a pattern of thinking and some common assumptions students adopted in their modeling practice that were productive, and (2) contextual elements affording and constraining emergent learning on measurement and uncertainty. In our discussion, we reflect on the educational potential of adopting a model‐based account of measurement and of treating measurement and uncertainty as integrated into investigative practice. We also discuss the necessary contexts for realizing the potential of the model‐based account.
Pedagogical content knowledge forms the core of teachers' professional knowledge; it refers to knowledge about making subject matter accessible to students. Thus, the formation of pedagogical content ...knowledge constitutes a crucial issue for educational research and practice. We investigated the contributions of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge to the formation of pedagogical content knowledge about fractions and fractional arithmetic in 6th grade mathematics in a between-participants study with 100 German preservice teachers. The three experimental and two control groups received 7 hr of intervention spread out over two days. We assessed participants' pedagogical content knowledge before intervention, between the two days, after intervention, as well as at 6-week follow-up. The control groups exclusively received instruction on either pedagogical knowledge or pedagogical content knowledge; each of the experimental groups embodied a specific hypothesis about the formation of pedagogical content knowledge. Providing support for a mechanism of amalgamation, a combination of instruction on content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge produced small but statistically significant growth in pedagogical content knowledge. Similarly, instruction on content knowledge exclusively was sufficient to cause small but statistically significant growth in pedagogical content knowledge. Prior instruction on content knowledge did not facilitate learning from instruction on pedagogical content knowledge. Nevertheless, direct instruction on pedagogical content knowledge caused medium and statistically significant growth in pedagogical content knowledge.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
We conducted a brief experimental study-interventions lasted 7 hr-with German preservice elementary school teachers to investigate the relevance of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge for the formation of pedagogical content knowledge about teaching fractions. A combination of instruction on content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, as well as exclusive instruction on content knowledge, produced small gains in pedagogical content knowledge. In contrast, despite preservice teachers' limited content knowledge, direct instruction on pedagogical content knowledge produced medium gains in pedagogical content knowledge. For elementary mathematics, the results suggest that teacher education programs that deliver early and explicit instruction on pedagogical content knowledge are more efficient in fostering pedagogical content knowledge than programs that provide instruction of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge consecutively or that exclusively provide instruction on content knowledge.
Purpose: A systematic review was conducted to identify facilitators and barriers to movement integration (MI) in elementary school classrooms. Method: Online databases (Educational Resources ...Information Center, Google Scholar, PsycINFO, and PubMed) served as data sources for the study. Following the PRISMA guidelines, relevant published research on MI was identified and screened for inclusion in a qualitative synthesis. Content analysis of the included articles (N = 28) was used to identify themes of MI facilitators and barriers. Facilitators and barriers were then categorized using a social-ecological framework. Results: A total of 12 themes of MI facilitators and barriers were identified and categorized into two social-ecological levels: institutional factors (e.g., administrative support, resources) and intrapersonal factors (e.g., teacher confidence, ease of implementation). Conclusion: This review can inform research and practice aimed at supporting the implementation of MI in elementary classrooms.
In this study I explored the relationships among the locus of control, self-efficacy, and subjective well-being (SWB) of elementary school teachers in China, with a focus on the mediating effect of ...self-efficacy in the relationship between external locus of control and SWB. A survey
was conducted with 305 elementary school teachers using the Adult Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, and SWB measurements. External locus of control was found to be negatively correlated with SWB, and selfefficacy was positively correlated
with SWB. Structural equation modeling analysis showed that self-efficacy partially mediated the effect of external locus of control on SWB, with the indirect effect accounting for 36.34% of the total explained variance. Promoting a sense of control and self-efficacy may be effective in improving
elementary school teachers' SWB.
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