Search

Tutoring is often a useful supplement to traditional classroom teaching in Canada. Cross-age tutoring, which involves a tutor a few years older than a tutee, has been reported to be more effective than same-age tutoring, as it promotes responsibility, empowerment and academic performance. However, the current same-age classroom teaching may act as a barrier to cross-age tutoring because the latter requires plenty of coordination, preparation and organization. At Crescent School, an all-boys independent school in Toronto, Canada, a pilot online cross-age peer-tutoring program was launched in September 2014, named Crescent School vLearning. The purpose of this study was to formally assess the program, and quantitatively gauge its success. Thirty-six questions were randomly selected from the vLearning website, examined for response time and response quality as assessed by students and teachers. The fast response times as well as the high-quality of responses have resulted in the program gaining traction in the school. As vLearning continues to catch-on with students, the team of Upper School tutors will soon need to be expanded to accommodate the increasing volume of questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to develop best practices for online video library tutorials, this research study used an interview-based research method to investigate usability, findability, and instructional effectiveness. The findings document student learner preferences and are the basis for guidelines for future tutorial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective self-reflection is a key component of excellent teaching. We describe the types of self-reflection identified in tutors' reflective statements following a peer observation of teaching exercise. We used an adapted version of the categories developed by Grushka, McLeod and Reynolds in 2005 to code text from 20 written statements as technical (26% of comments), practical (36% of comments) and critical (33% of comments). Tutors also wrote about the affective aspects of the exercise and the majority of such comments were positive. Most tutors reflected in a holistic way about their teaching, noting the importance of getting the technical aspects right while also being concerned about pedagogical matters and issues beyond the classroom. The exercise was an effective way to prompt tutors to reflect on their teaching and helped tutors articulate and formalise their learning from the peer observation activity. Suggestions for further exploration of the reflective practice of tutors are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preschool teachers working in blended classrooms are faced with identifying which children need intensive instruction as well as being responsible for directly linking individualized learning outcomes with state or federal early learning standards. The series of studies presented were designed to illustrate how teachers working in blended preschool programs provided intensive instruction on individual skills that were related to a common early learning standard (i.e., prewriting). Results suggest that embedding intensive instruction during daily activities is not only effective but also efficient given the relatively short amount of time it took for children to acquire individualized skills. Future research should examine interventions that produce effective and efficient results given the constraints imposed by the schedule of publicly funded blended preschools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the significance of sport education to achieve an autonomy-supportive fitness curriculum for teachers to achieve their own obstacle- course fitness unit in the U.S. Sport education can be accomplished through integration of direct instruction, cooperative small-group work, and peer teaching. A season planning which was structured on a three-day instructional rotation including teacher instruction, team practice, and team competition is presented. Also discussed are recommendations which might be useful for teachers in promoting autonomy features in sport education.

In a simulated last-minute test preparation scenario, the authors examined the extent to which practice can influence accuracy of self-assessment, overall test performance, and memory of a familiar knowledge domain. They simulated test preparation by exposing students to practice questions, allegedly from a study guide. The test preparation consisted of either answering questions (retrieval practice) and then checking the correctness of the answers or reviewing questions along with their answers (review-only practice). Immediately after either form of practice, students took a test with questions whose content was conceptually related to the practice test questions. In this study, both forms of practice had a beneficial effect on self-assessment prior to the test and on overall test performance. When the authors examined specific memory responses, they found practice to benefit the frequency of correct responses that students defined as experiences of remembering and knowing. The effect of practice was not modulated by the recency of the acquisition of the domain being tested (at least within the time span of an academic semester). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an adaptive courseware generation of a Web-based C♯ Tutorial System. The novel points in this paper are how to teach C♯ for each learning style and intelligence types and how these factors can be included in the generation of adaptive courseware. Furthermore, the system will analyze the learner's habits and the student model will be updated according to the learner's changing goals, needs and preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the concerns of beginning teachers about managing classrooms. Frustration leads from the important mismatch between the teacher's expectations from teaching and the recognition of the actual experience. Whether the stressful experience has to do with the an angry-parent phone call or unruly class, the usual element is that the experience was not what the teacher had expected. Some novice teachers are anxious and frustrated when their expectations were not satisfied and was left to puzzle how to continue in the future. Moreover, the workload was the most stressful part of the job.

The purpose of this article is to discuss classwide peer tutoring as an effective instructional procedure. The article is organized into three major sections: (a) general principles of instruction, (b) description of classwide peer tutoring procedures, and (c) review of effectiveness data concerning classroom process (i.e., ecological and behavioral factors) and student achievement outcomes. It concludes with a discussion of the procedure and areas of future research and application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A percentage of students believe that the final exam is the signal to forget what was taught in prerequisite classes. This can be a serious problem when subsequent courses rely on this information. However, with some imagination and time, an instructor can create an hypermedia tutorial for review that students actually might enjoy using. Hypermedia applications are not used widely in many disciplines, but are accepted readily by a generation of students raised on television, and are an effective method for presenting different types of information and providing both supplemental and remedial information to students. The author discusses hypermedia and provides several ideas that could be developed into hypermedia supplements for marketing classes. In addition, he discusses an application used in an upper division class and presents student reaction. The author concludes with a brief discussion of hardware, software, and lime commitment required to develop hypermedia applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article determines the effects of general remediation on ninth-graders' achievement of the mole concept in the U.S. The author implies that general remediation on a limited basis does not appear to be a useful modification of Bloom's mastery learning strategy with ninth-graders studying the mole concept. He also added that further exploration of practical modifications of the mastery learning strategy needs to be pursued to identify feasible methods for improving science achievement. They have also found out that specific remediation and frequent diagnosis have demonstrated a positive effect on science achievement.

The article offers information about the study that analyzes the outcomes of two methods of instruction including the conventional lecture approach and the auto-tutorial approach, as related to the immediate achievement of student teachers who represent three undergraduate major groups in five processes of science. Data for the study were derived from a method-by-undergraduate-major arrangement and methods included the auto-tutorial approach and the control and the undergraduate majors included science, social studies, and humanities. Results indicated that there is a composite difference displayed by the student teachers exposed to the auto-tutorial approach in comparison to the control group. The auto-tutorial approach appears to more effective.