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Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 11: Standardized and Other Formal Assessments/Issues about Standardized Tests

Many people have very strong views about the role of standardized tests in education. Some believe they provide an unbiased way to determine an individual’s cognitive skills as well as the quality of a school or district. Others believe that scores from standardized tests are capricious, do not represent what students know, and are misleading when used for accountability purposes. Many educational psychologists and testing experts have nuanced views and make distinctions between the information standardized tests can provide about students’ performances, and how the tests results are interpreted and used. In this more complex view, many of the problems associated with standardized tests arise from their high stakes use, such as determining selection into educational programs, eligibility for graduation or for licensure, or publicizing the "success" of a school as high vs. low performing.

Are Standardized Tests Biased?
In a multicultural society one crucial question is, are standardized tests biased against certain social class, racial, or ethnic groups? This question is much more complicated than it seems because bias has a variety of meanings. An everyday meaning of the term often refers to the fairness of standardized test results for predicting future performance of disadvantaged students who may have previously had few educational resources. For example, should Dwayne, a high school student who worked hard but had limited educational opportunities because of the poor schools in his neighborhood and few educational resources in his home, be denied graduation from high school because of his score on one test? It was not his fault that he did not have the educational resources, and if given a change with a change his environment (e.g., by going to college), his performance may improve significantly. Viewed this way, standardized test scores reflect societal inequalities and can therefore punish students who are less privileged. The scores can also be interpreted erroneously as reflecting students' fixed inherited capacities.

Educational researchers, however, typically consider bias in three more technical ways: item content and format; accuracy of predictions, and stereotype threat. These ideas have special meanings not necessarily shared in everyday conversations about testing.

Item Content and Format
Test items may be harder for some groups than others. An example of social class bias in a multiple choice item asked students the meaning of the term field. The students were asked to read the initial sentence in italics and then select the response that had the same meaning of field (Popham 2004, p. 24):
 * My Dad’s field is computer graphics
 * A. The pitcher could field his position
 * B. We prepared the field by plowing it
 * C. The doctor examined my field of vision
 * D. What field will you enter after college?

Children of professionals are more likely to understand this meaning of field as doctors, journalists and lawyers have “fields” whereas cashiers and maintenance workers have jobs so their children are less likely to know this meaning of field. (The correct answer is supposed to be D).

Testing companies try to minimize these kinds of content problems by having test developers from a variety of backgrounds review items and also examining statistically if certain groups find some items easier or harder. However, problems do exist and a recent analyses of the verbal SAT tests indicated that Whites tend to scores better on easy items whereas African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans score better on hard items (Freedle, 2002). While these differences are not large, they can influence test scores. Researchers think that the easy items involving words that are used in every day conversation may have subtly different meanings in different subcultures whereas the hard words (e.g., vehemence, sycophant) are not used in every conversation and so do not have these variations in meaning. Test format can also influence test performance. Females typically score better at essay questions and when the SAT recently added an essay component, the females overall SAT verbal scores improved relative to males (Hoover, 2006).

Accuracy of Predictions
Standardized tests are used among other criteria to determine who will be admitted to selective colleges. This practice is justified by predictive validity evidence – i.e., that scores on the ACT or SAT are used to predict first year college grades. Recent studies have demonstrated that the predictions for Black and Latino students are less accurate than for White students and that predictors for female students are less accurate than male students (Young, 2004). However, perhaps surprisingly the test scores tend to slightly over predict success in college for Black and Latino students, i.e., these students are likely to attain lower freshman grade point averages than predicted by their test scores. In contrast, test scores tend to slightly under predict success in college for female students, i.e., these students are likely to attain higher freshman grade point averages than predicted by their test scores. Researchers are not sure why there are differences in how accurately the SAT and ACT test predict freshman grades

Stereotype Threat
Groups that are negatively stereotyped in some area, such as women’s performance in mathematics, are in danger of stereotype threat, i.e., concerns that others will view them through the negative or stereotyped lens (Aronson & Steele, 2005). Studies have suggested that test performance of stereotyped groups (e.g., African-Americans, Latinos, women) declines when it is emphasized to those taking the test that (1) the test is high stakes, (2) measures intelligence or math, or (3) they are reminded of their ethnicity, race or gender (e.g., by asking them before the test to complete a brief demographic questionnaire). Even if individuals believe they are competent, stereotype threat can reduce working memory capacity because individuals are trying to suppress thee negative stereotypes. Stereotype threat seems particularly strong for those individuals who desire to perform well. Standardized test scores of individuals from stereotyped groups may significantly underestimate actual their competence in low-stakes testing situations.

Do Teachers Teach to the Tests?
There is evidence that schools and teachers adjust the curriculum so it reflects what is on the tests and also prepare students for the format and types of items on the test. Several surveys of elementary school teachers indicated that more time was spend on mathematics and reading and less on social studies and sciences in 2004 than 1990 (Jerald, 2006). Principals in high minority enrollment schools in four states reported in 2003 that had reduced time spend on the arts. Recent research in cognitive science suggests that reading comprehension in a subject (e.g. science or social studies) requires that students understand a lot of vocabulary and background knowledge in that subject (Recht & Leslie, 1988). This means that even if students gain good reading skills they will find learning science and social studies difficult if little time has been spend on these subjects. Taking a test with an unfamiliar format can be difficult so teachers help students prepare for specific test formats and items (e.g., double negatives in multiple choice items; constructed response). (At the beginning of this chapter, for example, a middle school teacher, Erin, and a Principal, Dr Mucci described the test preparation emphasis in their schools.) There is growing concern that the amount of test preparation that is now occurring in schools is excessive and students are not being educated but trained to do tests (Popham, 2004).

Do Students and Educators Cheat?
It is difficult to obtain good data on how widespread cheating is but we know that students taking tests cheat and others, including test administrators, help them cheat (Cizek, 2003). Steps to prevent cheating by students include protecting the security of tests, making sure students understand the administration procedures, preventing students from bringing in their notes or unapproved electronic devices as well as looking at each others' answers. Some teachers and principals have been caught using unethical test preparation practices such as giving actual test items to students just before the tests, giving students more time than is allowed, answering students’ questions about the test items, and actually changing students’ answers (Popham, 2006). Concerns in Texas about cheating led to the creation of an independent task force in August 2006 with 15 staff members from the Texas Education Agency assigned investigate test improprieties. (Jacobson, 2006). While the pressure on schools and teachers to have their student perform well is large, these practices are clearly unethical and have lead to school personnel being fired from their jobs.

(back to Chapter 11...)


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User talk:60.242.59.174

Welcome to Wikibooks. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our collection. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing. However, unconstructive edits are considered vandalism, and if you continue in this manner you may be blocked from editing without further warning. Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the hard work of others. Thanks. – Mike.lifeguard  | talk 16:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:60.242.59.174


text:
Cookbook:Cuban Sandwich I

Ingredients

 * Ham
 * Pernil (pork leg)
 * Swiss cheese, sliced
 * Tomatoes, sliced
 * Yellow deli mustard
 * Onions, sliced
 * Bread roll
 * Lettuce
 * Mayonnaise
 * Dill pickle
 * Spanish sausage (chorizo; optional)

Procedure

 * 1) Assemble like a normal sandwich.

Notes, tips, and variations

 * Can be toasted.
 * Lettuce and onions must be fresh.

title: Cookbook:Cuban Sandwich I


text:
User:K428

Have a TI Calculator? This is all you need to learn TI-Basic!

title: User:K428


text:
Category:Book:First Aid/Templates

These templates are for use in First Aid.

title: Category:Book:First Aid/Templates


text:
User talk:166.127.1.215

Thanks for experimenting with Wikibooks. Your test worked, and has now been removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing material in modules will normally be removed quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our project. Thanks. – Mike.lifeguard  | talk 19:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:166.127.1.215


text:
Cookbook:Peanut Chicken Stir-Fry

| American cuisine | Midwestern U.S. cuisine | Rice | Poultry

Ingredients

 * 2 tablespoons butter
 * ¾ cup celery
 * ¼ cup onion
 * 2 cups cooked chicken or turkey
 * 1 small can (8–10 ounce) mushrooms, drained
 * 1 tablespoon cornstarch
 * 3 tablespoons soy sauce
 * 1 cup clear chicken broth
 * 1 cup peanuts
 * Cooked rice

Procedure

 * 1) Melt butter in wok or skillet.
 * 2) Stir-fry celery and onions.
 * 3) Add chicken and mushrooms and stir over lowered heat 5 minutes.
 * 4) Combine (in separate bowl) cornstarch, soy sauce, and broth; slowly add to hot mixture in wok and cook 5 minutes.
 * 5) Stir in peanuts.
 * 6) Serve over hot rice.

Notes, tips, and variations

 * You could use cashews.

title: Cookbook:Peanut Chicken Stir-Fry


text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 12: The Nature of Classroom Communication/Communication in Class vs. Elsewhere

Communication in Classrooms vs. Communication Elsewhere
Classroom events are often so complex that just talking with students can become confusing. It helps to think of the challenge as a problem in communication—or as one expert put it, of “who says what to whom, and with what effect” (Lasswell, 1964). In classrooms, things often do not happen at an even pace or in a logical order, or with just the teacher and one student interacting while others listen or wait patiently. While such moments do occur, events may sometimes instead be more like a kaleidoscope of overlapping interactions, disruptions, and decision—even when activities are generally going well. One student finishes a task while another is still only half-way done. A third student looks like she is reading, but she may really be dreaming. You begin to bring her back on task by speaking to her, only to be interrupted by a fourth student with a question about an assignment. While you answer the fourth student, a fifth walks in with a message from the office requiring a response; so the bored (third) student is overlooked awhile longer. Meanwhile, the first student—the one who finished the current task—now begins telling a joke to a sixth student, just to pass the time. You wonder, “Should I speak now to the bored, quiet reader or to the joke-telling student? Or should I move on with the lesson?” While you are wondering this, a seventh student raises his hand with a question. And so on.

One way to manage situations like these is to understand and become comfortable with the key features of communication that are characteristic of classrooms. One set of features has to do with the functions or purposes of communication, especially the balance among talk related to content, to procedures, and to controlling behavior. Another feature has to do with the nature of nonverbal communication—how it supplements and sometimes even contradicts what is said verbally. A third feature has to do with the unwritten expectations held by students and teachers about how to participate in particular kinds of class activities—what we will later call the structure of participation.

Functions of Talk: Content, Procedures, and Behavior Control
Classrooms are different from many other group situations in that communication serves a unique combination of three purposes at once: content, procedures, or behavior control (Wells, 2006). Content talk focuses on what is being learned; it happens when a teacher or student states or asks about an idea or concept, for example, or when someone explains or elaborates on some bit of new knowledge (Burns & Myhill, 2004). Usually content talk relates in some obvious way to the curriculum or to current learning objectives, as when a teacher tells a high school history class, “As the text explains, there were several major causes of the American Civil War.” But content talk can also digress from the current learning objectives; a first-grade student might unexpectedly bring a caterpillar to school and ask about how it transforms into a butterfly.

Procedural talk, as its name implies, is about administrative rules or routines needed to accomplish tasks in a classroom. It happens, for example, when the teacher says, “When you are done with your spelling books, put them in the bins at the side of the room,” or when a student asks, “Do you want us to print our names at the top of page?” Procedural talk provides information that students need to coordinate their activities in what can be a relatively crowded space—the classroom—and under conditions in which time may be relatively short or tightly scheduled. It generally keeps activities organized and flowing smoothly. Procedural talk is not primarily about removing or correcting unwanted behavior, even though certain administrative procedures might sometimes annoy a particular student, or even though students might sometimes forget to follow a procedure. Instead it is intended to provide the guidance that students need to coordinate with each other and with the teacher.

Control talk is about preventing or correcting misbehaviors when they occur, particularly when the misbehaviors are not because of ignorance of procedures. It happens, for example, when a teacher says, “Jill, you were talking when you should have been listening,” or “Jason, you need to work on your math instead of doodling.” Most control talk originates with the teacher, but students sometimes engage in it with each other, if not with the teacher. One student may look at a nearby classmate who is whispering out of turn and quietly say, “Shhh!” in an attempt to silence the behavior. Or a student may respond to being teased by a classmate by saying simply, “Stop it!” Whether originating from the teacher or a student, control talk may not always be fully effective. But its purpose is, by definition, to influence or control inappropriate behavior. Since control talk is obviously important for managing class effectively, we discussed it at length in Chapter 6.

What can make classroom discourse confusing is that two of its functions—content and procedures—often become combined with the third, control talk, in the same remark or interaction. A teacher may ask a content-related question, for example, as a form of control talk. She may, for example, ask, “Jeremy, what did you think of the film we just saw?” The question is apparently about content, but the teacher may also be trying to end Jeremy’s daydreaming and to get him back on task—an example of control talk. Or a teacher may state a rule, “When one person is talking, others need to be listening.” The rule is procedural in that it helps to coordinate classroom dialogue, but it may also control inattentive behavior. Double functions like these can sometimes confuse students because of their ambiguity, and lead to misunderstandings between certain students and teachers. A student may hear only the content or procedural function of a teacher’s comment, and miss an implied request or command to change inappropriate behavior (Collins & Michaels, 2006). But double functions can also help lessons to flow smoothly by minimizing the disruption of attending to a minor behavior problem and by allowing more continuous attention to content or procedures.

Verbal, Nonverbal, and Unintended Communication
Another way to understand classroom communication is to distinguish verbal from nonverbal communication, and intended both unintended forms of communication. As the name suggests, verbal communication is a message or information expressed in words, either orally or in writing. Classrooms obviously have lots of verbal communication; it happens every time a teacher explains a bit of content, asks a question, or writes information or instructions on the chalkboard. Non-verbal communication is any gesture or behavior that conveys information, often simultaneously with spoken words (Guerrero, 2006). It happens, for example, when a teacher looks directly at students to emphasize a point or to assert her authority, or when the teacher raises her eyebrows to convey disapproval or disagreement. Nonverbal behaviors are just as plentiful as verbal communications, and while they usually add to a current verbal message, they sometimes can also contradict it. A teacher can state verbally, “This math lesson will be fun,” and a nonverbal twinkle in the eye can send the confirm message nonverbally. But a simultaneous nonverbal sigh or slouch may send the opposite message—that the lesson will not, in fact be fun, in spite of the teacher’s verbal claim.

Whether verbal or non-verbal, however, classroom communications often convey more meaning than is intended. Unintended communications are the excess meanings of utterances; they are the messages received by students without the teacher’s awareness or desire. A teacher may say, “This section of the text won’t be on the test, but read it anyway for background.” But a student may instead hear the message, “Do not read this section of the text.” What is heard is not what the teacher intended to be heard.

Like many public settings that involve a diversity of people, classrooms tend to rely heavily on explicit, verbal communication, while at the same time recognizing and allowing nonverbal communications to occur (Neill, 1991). This priority accounts for the characteristically businesslike style of teacher talk—a style that we discuss in detail in the next chapter. A major reason for relying on an explicit, businesslike verbal style is that diversity among individuals increases the chances of their misinterpreting each other. Because of differences in background, the partners may differ in how they expect to structure conversation as well as other kinds of dialogue. Misunderstandings may result—sometimes without the partners being able to pinpoint the cause. Later in this chapter we suggest how to minimize these problems.

(back to Chapter 12...)


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User talk:Andresmh

Come introduce yourself at the new users page. If you have any questions, you can ask there or contact me personally. – Mike.lifeguard  | talk 19:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:Andresmh


text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 12: The Nature of Classroom Communication/Verbal vs. Nonverbal Communication

Effective Verbal Communication
Communicating effectively requires using all forms of classroom talk in combinations appropriate for particular utterances and interactions. In various places earlier in this book, we have suggested ways of doing so, though in those places we usually did not frame the discussion around the term communication as such.

Effective Content Talk
In Chapter 8, for example, we suggested ways of talking about content so that it is most likely to be understood clearly, but in that chapter we described these as instructional strategies. In explaining ideas, for example, whether briefly or as a extended lecture, we pointed out that it helps to offer advance organizing ideas, to relate new content to prior knowledge, and to organize and elaborate on new information. In the same chapter, we also suggested strategies about content talk intended for students, so that students understand their own thinking as well as possible. We especially highlighted two: inquiry learning and cooperative learning. Table 12-1 summarizes instructional strategies both for students and for teachers, and indicates how they contribute to effective verbal communication about content.

Effective Procedural and Control Talk
In addition to communicating about content, teachers need to communicate procedures and expectations about appropriate classroom behavior. In Chapter 7 we described quite a few ways to communicate with students about these matters, though, in that chapter we did not refer to them as methods of communication, but as methods of classroom management, of creating a positive learning environment, and of resolving conflicts in the class. (Table 12-2 summarizes several of the major strategies described in that chapter.) By framing communication in these ways, we called attention to their importance as forms of communication. As we pointed out earlier, procedural talk and control talk matter when teaching simply because clear procedures and appropriate classroom behavior if students are to learn.

Effective Nonverbal Communication
In spite of their importance, words are not the only way that teachers and students communicate. Gestures and behaviors convey information as well, often supporting a teacher’s words, but sometimes also contradicting them. Students and teachers express themselves nonverbally in all conversations, so freely and automatically in fact that this form of communication can easily be overlooked.

Eye Contact
One important nonverbal behavior is eye contact, which is the extent and timing of when a speaker looks directly at the eyes of the listener. In conversations between friends of equal status, for example, most native speakers of English tend to look directly at the speaker when listening, but to avert their gaze when speaking (Kleinke, 1986). Re-engaging eye contact, in fact, often signals that a speaker is about to finish a turn and is inviting a response from the listener.

But conversations follow different rules if they involve someone of greater authority talking with someone of lesser authority, such as between a teacher and a student. In that case, the person in authority signals greater status by gazing directly at the listener almost continuously, whether listening or speaking. This alternate pattern can sometimes prove awkward if either party is not expecting it. For students unused to continuous eye contact, it can feel like the teacher is staring excessively, intrusively, or inappropriately; an ironic effect can be for the student to feel more self-conscious rather than more engaged, as intended. For similar reasons, inexperienced or first-time teachers can also feel uncomfortable with gazing at students continuously. Nevertheless research about the effects of eye contact suggests that it may help anyone, whether a student or teacher, to remember what they are seeing and hearing (Mason, Hood, & Macrae, 2004).

Communication problems result less from eye contact as such than from differences in expectations about eye contact. If students’ expectations differ very much from the teacher’s, one party may misinterpret the other party’s motivations. Among some non-White ethnic groups, for example, eye contact follows a pattern that reverses the conventional White, English-language pattern: they tend to look more intently at a partner when talking, and avert gaze when listening (Razack, 1998).

The alternative pattern works perfectly well as long as both parties expect it and use it. As you might imagine, though, there are problems if the two partners use opposite patterns of eye contact. In that case one person may interpret a direct gaze as an invitation to start talking, when really it is an invitation to stop talking. Eventually the conversational partner may find himself interrupting too much, or simply talking too long at a turn. The converse can also happen: if the first person looks away, the partner may take the gesture as inviting the partner to keep listening, when really the first person is inviting the partner to start talking. Awkward gaps between comments may result. In either case, if the conversational partners are a teacher and student, rapport may deteriorate gradually. In the first case, the teacher may even conclude, wrongly, that the student is socially inept because the student interrupts so much. In the second case, the teacher may conclude—also wrongly—that the student is very shy or even lacking in language skill.

To avoid such misunderstandings, a teacher needs to note and remember students’ preferred gaze patterns at times when students are free to look wherever and at whomever they please. Traditional seats-in-a-row desk arrangements do not work well for this purpose; as you might suppose, and as research confirms, sitting in rows makes students more likely to look either at the teacher or to look at nothing in particular (Rosenfeld, Lambert, & Black, 1985). Almost any other seating arrangement, such as sitting in clusters or in a circle, encourages freer patterns of eye contact. More comfortable eye contact, in turn, makes for verbal communication that is more comfortable and productive.

Wait Time
Another important nonverbal behavior is wait time, which is the pause between conversational turns. Wait time marks when a conversational turn begins or ends. If a teacher asks a question, for example, the wait time both allows and prompts students to formulate an appropriate response. Studies of on classroom interaction generally show that wait times in most classes are remarkably short—less than one second (Good & Brophy, 2002). Unfortunately wait times this short can actually interfere with most students’ thinking; in one second, most students either cannot decide what to say or can only recall a simple, automatic fact (Tobin, 1987). Increasing wait times to several seconds has several desirable effects: students give longer, more elaborate responses, they express more complex ideas, and a wider range of students participate in discussion. For many teachers, however, learning to increase wait time this much takes conscious effort, and may feel uncomfortable at first. (A helpful trick, if you are trying to wait longer, is to count silently to five before calling on anyone.) After a few weeks of practice, discomfort with longer wait times usually subsides, and the academic benefits of waiting become more evident.

As with eye contact, preferred wait times vary both among individuals and among groups of students, and the differences in expected wait times can sometimes lead to awkward conversations. Though there are many exceptions, girls tend to prefer longer wait times than boys—perhaps contributing to an impression that girls are unnecessarily shy or that boys are self-centered or impulsive. Students from some ethnic and cultural groups tend to prefer a much longer wait time than is typically available in a classroom, especially when English is the student’s second language (Toth, 2004). When a teacher converses with a member of such a group, therefore, what feel to the student like a respectful pause may seem like hesitation or resistance to the teacher. Yet other cultural groups actually prefer overlapping comments—a sort of negative wait time. In these situations, one conversational partner will begin at exactly the same instant as the previous speaker, or even before the speaker has finished (Chami-Sather & Kretschmer, 2005). The negative wait time is meant to signal lively interest in the conversation. A teacher who is used to a one-second gap between comments, however, may regard overlapping comments as rude interruptions, and may also have trouble getting chances to speak.

Even though longer wait times are often preferable, therefore, they do not always work well with certain individuals or groups. For teachers, the most widely useful advice is to match wait time to the students’ preferences as closely as possible, regardless of whether these are slower or faster than what the teacher normally prefers. To the extent that a teacher and students can match each other’s pace, they will communicate more comfortably and fully, and a larger proportion of students will participate in discussions and activities. As with eye contact, observing students’ preferred wait times is easier in situations that give students some degree of freedom about when and how to participate, such as open-ended discussions or informal conversations throughout the day.

Social Distance
When two people interact, the physical space or distance between them—their social distance—often indicates something about how intimate or personal their relationship is (Noller, 2006). Social distance also affects how people describe others and their actions; someone who habitually is more distant physically is apt to be described in more general, abstract terms than someone who often approaches more closely (Fujita, et al., 2006). In White American society, a distance of about two to four feet is what most people prefer when talking face-to-face with a personal friend. The closer end of this range is more common if the individuals turn sideways to each other, as when riding on an elevator; but usually the closest distances are reserved for truly intimate friendships, such as between spouses. If the relationship is more businesslike, individuals are more likely to situate themselves in the range of four to twelve feet. This is a common distance, for example, for a teacher talking with a student or talking with a small group of students. For still more formal interactions, individuals tend to allow more than twelve feet; this distance is typical, for example, when a teacher speaks to an entire class.

Just as with eye contact and wait time, however, individuals differ in the distances they prefer for these different levels of intimacy, and complications happen if two people expect different distances for the same kind of relationship. A student who prefers a shorter social distance than her partner can seem pushy or overly familiar to the partner. The latter, in turn, can seem aloof or unfriendly—literally “distant.” The sources of these effects are easy to overlook since by definition the partners never discuss social distance verbally. But they are real. The best remedy, again, is for teachers to observe students’ naturally occurring preferences as closely as possible, and to respect them as much as possible: students who need to be closer should be allowed to be closer, at least within reasonable limits, and those who need to be more distant should be allowed to be more distant.

(back to Chapter 12...)


text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 12: The Nature of Classroom Communication/Structures of Participation

Many class activities take on communication patterns that class members learn to expect without even being reminded. Each pattern is a participation structure, a set of taken-for-granted rights and responsibilities expected from students and teacher during an activity. Sometimes the teacher announces or explains the rights and responsibilities explicitly, though often they are just implied by the actions of class members, and individual students learn them simply by watching others. A lecture, for example, has a particular participation structure: students are responsible for listening, for raising a hand to speak, and for keeping comments brief and relevant if called on. The teacher, on the other hand, has the right to talk at length, but also the responsibility to keep the talk relevant and comprehensible.

In principle, a host of participation structures are possible, but just a handful account for most class activities (Cazden, 2001). Here are some of the most common:

 * Lecturing—the teacher talks and students listen. Maybe students take notes, but maybe not.
 * Questions and Answers—the teacher asks a series of questions, calling on one student at a time to answer each of them. Students raise their hands to be recognized and give answers that are brief and “correct.” In earlier times this participation structures was sometimes called recitation.
 * Discussion—the teacher briefly describes a topic or problem and invites students to comment on it. Students say something relevant about the topic, but also are supposed to respond to previous speakers if possible.
 * Group work—the teacher assigns a general task, and a small group of students work out the details of implementing it. The teacher may check on the group’s progress before they finish, but not necessarily.

Each of these structures influences how communication among teachers and students tends to occur; in fact each is itself sort of an implied message about how, when, and with whom to interact. To see how this influence works, look in the next sections at how the participation structures affected classroom communication for one of the contributors to this book (KelvinLeeSeifert as he taught one particular topic—children’s play—over a twenty-year period. The topic was part of a university-level course for future teachers. During this time, Kelvin’s goals about the topic remained the same: to stimulate students’ thinking about the nature and purposes of play. But over time he tried several different structures of participation, and students’ ways of communicating changed as a result.

Lecture
The first time one of the contributors to this book, (KelvinLeeSeifert, taught his students about children’s play, he lectured about it. He used this structure of participation not because he believed on principle that it was the best, but because it was convenient and used widely by his fellow university teachers. An excerpt from Kelvin’s lecture notes is shown in Table 12-3a, and gives a sense of what he covered at that time.

In some ways the lecture proved effective: Kelvin covered the material efficiently (in about 20 minutes), related the topic to other ones in the course, defined and explained all key terms clearly, and did his best to relate the material to what he thought were students’ own interests. These were all marks of good lecturing (Christensen, 2006). Students were mostly quiet during the lecture, but since only about a third of them took notes, Kelvin had to assume that the rest had committed the material to memory while listening. Students quietness bothered him a little, but as a newcomer to university teaching, Kelvin was relieved simply to get through the class without embarrassment or active resistance from the students.

But there were also some negative signs. In spite of their courtesy, few students lingered after class to talk about children’s play or to ask questions. Worse yet, few students chose children’s play as a term paper topic, even though it might have made a highly interesting and enjoyable one. On the final exam few seemed able to relate concepts about play to their own experiences as teachers or leaders of recreational activities.

There was an even more subtle problem. The lecture about play focused overtly on a topic (play) that praised action, intrinsic motivation, and self-choice. But by presenting these ideas as a lecture, Kelvin also implied an opposite message unintentionally: that learning is something done passively, and that follows an intellectual path set only by the teacher. Even the physical layout of the classroom sent this message—desks faced forward, as if to remind students to look only at the person lecturing. These are features of lecturing, as Kelvin later discovered, that are widely criticized in educational research (McKeachie & Svinicki, 2005; Benedict & Hoag, 2004). To some students the lecture format might even have implied that learning is equivalent to daydreaming, since both activities require sitting quietly and showing little expression. An obvious solution might have been to invite students to comment from time to time during the lecture, relating the topic to experiences and knowledge of their own. But during Kelvin’s first year of teaching about play, he did little of this. The lecture medium, ironically, contradicted the lecture message, or at least it assumed that students would think actively about the material without ever speaking.

Questions and Answers
Because of these problems, Kelvin modified his approach after a few years of teaching to include more asking of questions which students were invited to answer. This turned the lecture on children’s play into something more like a series of explanations of key ideas, interrupted by asking students to express their beliefs, knowledge, or experience about children’s play. Kelvin’s preparation notes changes in appearance as a result (see Table 12-3b). Asking questions and inviting brief responses was reassuring because it gave indications of whether students were listening and understanding the material. Questions served both to motivate students to listen and to assess how much and how well they knew the material. In this regard Kelvin was using a form of communication that was and continues to be very popular with many teachers.

But there were also new challenges and problems. For one thing the topic of children’s play took longer to cover than before, since Kelvin now had to allow time for students to respond to questions. This fact forced him to leave out a few points that he used to include. More serious, though, was his impression that students often did not listen to each other’s responses; they only listened carefully to Kelvin, the teacher. The interactions often become simply two-way exchanges between the teacher and one student at a time: Kelvin asked, one student responded, Kelvin acknowledged or (sometimes) evaluated. (Mehan, 1979; Richards, 2006). Some of the exchanges could in principle have happened just as easily without any classmates present.

In general students still had little control over the course of discussion. Kelvin wondered if he was controlling participation too much—in fact whether the question-and-answer strategy attempted the impossible task of controlling students’ very thought processes. By asking most of the questions himself and allowing students only brief responses, was Kelvin trying to insure making sure that students thought about children’s play in the “right” way, his way? To give students more influence in discussion, it seemed that Kelvin would have to become less concerned about precisely what ideas about children’s play he covered.

Classroom Discussion
After several more years of teaching, Kelvin quit lectures altogether, even ones interspersed with questions and answers, and began simply leading general discussions about children’s play. The change again affected his planning for this topic. Instead of outlining detailed content, he now just made concise notes that listed issues about children’s play that students needed to consider (an abbreviated version of the notes are shown in Table 12-3c). The shift in participation structure led to several major changes in communication between teacher and students as well as among students. Since students spoke more freely than before, it became easier to see whether they cared about the topic. Now, too, more students seemed motivated to think and learn about children’s play; quite a few selected this topic, for example, for their term projects. Needless to say, these changes were all to the good.

But there were also changes that limited the effectiveness of classroom communication, even though students were nominally freer to speak than ever. Kelvin found, for example, that certain students spoke more than their share of the time—almost too freely, in fact, in effect preventing more hesitant students from speaking. Sometimes, too, it seemed as if certain students did not listen to others’ comments, but instead just passed the time waiting for their turn to speak, their hands propped permanently in the air. Meanwhile, there were still others who passed the time apparently hoping not to speak; they were busy doodling or staring out the window. Since the precise focus of discussion was no longer under Kelvin’s control, furthermore, discussions often did not cover all of the ideas about children’s play that Kelvin considered important. On one occasion, for example, he meant for students to discuss whether play is always motivated intrinsically, but instead they ended up talking about whether play can really be used to teach every possible subject area. In itself the shift in focus was not bad, but it did make Kelvin wonder whether he was covering the material adequately. In having these misgivings, as it happened, he was supported by other educators who have studied the effects of class discussions on learning (McKeatchie & Svinciki, 2005).

Group Work
By the time he had taught about children’s play for twenty years, Kelvin had developed enough concerns about discussion as a communication strategy that he shifted approach again. This time he began using a form of collaborative group work: small teams of students carrying out projects on aspects of children’s play that interested them, making observations of children at play, reporting on their results to the class, and writing a common report about their work. (Kelvin’s work guidelines given to the groups are shown in Table 12-3d.) Kelvin hoped that by giving students a common focus, communication among them would improve. Conversations would deal with the tasks at hand, students would necessarily listen to each other, and no one could afford either to dominate talk excessively or to fall silent.

In some ways these benefits did take place. With a bit of encouragement from Kelvin, students did listen to each other more of the time than before. They also did diversify their tasks and responsibilities within each group, and they did seem to learn from each other in the course of preparing projects. Participation in the unit about children’s play reached an all-time high in Kelvin’s twenty years of teaching at university. Yet even now there were problems. Some groups seemed much more productive than others, and observing them closely suggested that differences were related to ease of communication within groups. In some groups, one or two people dominated conversations unduly. If they listened to others at all, they seemed immediately to forget that they had done so and proceeded to implement their own ideas. In other groups, members all worked hard, but they did not often share ideas or news about each other’s progress; essentially they worked independently in spite of belonging to the group. Here, too, Kelvin’s experience corroborated other, more systematic observations of communication within classroom work groups (Slavin, 1995). When all groups were planning at the same time, furthermore, communication broke down for a very practical reason: the volume of sound in the classroom got so high that even simple conversation became difficult, let alone the expression of subtle or complex ideas.

(back to Chapter 12...)


text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 12: The Nature of Classroom Communication/Communication Styles in the Classroom

Teachers and students have identifiable styles of talking to each other that linguists call a register. A register is a pattern of vocabulary, grammar, and expressions or comments that people associate with a social role. A familiar example is the “baby-talk” register often used to speak to an infant. Its features—simple repeated words and nonsense syllables, and exaggerated changes in pitch—mark the speaker as an adult and mark the listener as an infant. The classroom language register works the same way; it helps indicate who the teacher is and who the student is. Teachers and students use the register more in some situations than in others, but its use is common enough that most people in our society have no trouble recognizing it when they hear it. In the following scene, for example, the speakers are labeled only with letters of the alphabet; yet figuring out who is the teacher and who are the students is not difficult:

 * A: All right now, I want your eyes up here. All eyes on me, please. B, are you ready to work? We are going to try a new kind of math problem today. It’s called long division. Does anyone know what long division is? C, what do you think it is?
 * C: Division with bigger numbers?
 * A: Any other ideas? D?
 * E (not D): Division by two digits.
 * A: …I only call on people who raise their hands. D, can you help with the answer?
 * D: Division with remainders.
 * A: Close. Actually you’re both partly right.

In this scene Person A must surely be the teacher because he or she uses a lot of procedural and control talk, and because he or she introduces a new curriculum topic, long division. The other Persons (B, C, D, and E) must be students because they only respond to questions, and because they individually say relatively little compared to Person A.

In general, effective classroom communication depends on understanding how features of the classroom talk register like these operate during actual class times. In the following sections therefore we describe details of classroom talk, and then follow with suggestions about how to use the register as effectively as possible. In both of these sections we assume that the better the communication, the better the learning and thinking displayed by students. For convenience we divide classroom talk into two parts, teacher talk and student talk.

How Teachers Talk
Although teacher talk varies somewhat with the tasks or purposes at hand, it also has uniformities that occur across a range of situations. Using detailed observations of discourse in science activities, for example, Jay Lemke identified all of the following strategies from observations of teachers’ classroom talk (1990). Each strategy simultaneously influences the course of discussion and focuses students’ attention, and in these ways also helps indirectly to insure appropriate classroom behavior:

 * Nominating, terminating, and interrupting speakers: Teachers often choose who gets to speak. (“Jose, what do you think about X?”). On the other hand, they often bring an end to a student’s turn at speaking as well, or even interrupt the student before he or she finishes. (“Thanks; we need to move on now.”)
 * Marking importance or irrelevance: Teachers sometimes indicate that an idea is important (“That’s a good idea, Lyla.”). On the other hand, they sometimes also indicate that an idea is not crucial or important (“Your right, but that’s not quite the answer I was looking for.”), or fully relevant (“We’re talking about the book Wuthering Heights, not the movie that you may have seen.”). Marking importance and relevance obviously helps a teacher to reinforce key content. But the strategy can also serve to improve relationships among students if the teacher deliberately marks or highlights an idea offered by a quiet or shy student (O’Connor & Michaels, 1996; Cohen, et al., 2004) In that case marking importance can build both a student’s confidence and the student’s status in the eyes of classmates.
 * Signaling boundaries between activities: Teachers declare when an activity is over and a new one is starting—an example of the procedural talk that we discussed earlier. (“We need to move on. Put away your spelling and find your math books.”). In addition to clarifying procedures, though, signaling boundaries can also insure appropriate classroom behavior. Ending an activity can sometimes help restore order among students who have become overly energetic, and shifting to a new activity can sometimes restore motivation to students who have become bored or tired.
 * Asking “test” questions and evaluating students’ responses: Teachers often ask test questions--questions to which they already know the answer. Then they evaluate the quality or correctness of the students’ answers (Teacher: “How much is 6 x 7 ? Student: “42.” Teacher: “That’s right.”). Test-questions obviously help teachers to assess students’ learning, but they also mark the teacher as the expert in the classroom, and therefore as a person entitled to control the flow of discourse.

There are additional features of teacher-talk that are not unique to teachers. These primarily function to make teachers’ comments more comprehensible, especially when spoken to a group, but they also help to mark a person who uses them as a teacher (Black, 2004):

 * Exaggerated changes in pitch: When busy teaching, teachers tend to exaggerate changes in the pitch of their voice—reminiscent of the “sing-song” style of adults when directing speech to infants. Exaggerated pitch changes are especially characteristic of teachers of young students, but they happen at all grade levels.
 * Careful enunciation: In class teachers tend to speak more slowly, clearly, and carefully than when conversing with a friend. The style makes a speaker sound somewhat formal, especially when combined with formal vocabulary and grammar, mentioned next.
 * Formal vocabulary and grammar: Teachers tend to use vocabulary and grammar that is more formally polite and correct, and that uses relatively few slang or casual expressions. (Instead of saying “Get out your stuff,” they more likely say, “Please get out your materials.”) The formality creates a businesslike distance between teachers and students—hopefully one conducive to getting work done, rather than one that seems simply cold or uncaring. The touch of formality also makes teachers sound a bit more intelligent or intellectual than in casual conversation, and in this way reinforces their authority in the classroom.

How Students Talk
Children and youth also use a characteristic speech register when they are in a classroom and playing the role of students in the presence of a teacher. Their register—student talk—differs somewhat from the teacher’s because of their obvious differences in responsibilities, levels of knowledge, and relationships with each other and with the teacher. Student-talk and teacher-talk are similar in that both involve language strategies that guide content and procedures, and that sometimes seek to limit the inappropriate behavior of others. Compared to teachers’, though, students’ language strategies often pursue these goals a bit more indirectly.

 * Agenda enforcement: Sometimes students interrupt a discussion to ask about or remind others, and especially the teacher, of an agreed-on agenda. If the teacher tells students to open their text to an incorrect page, for example, a student may raise her hand to correct the teacher—or even do so without raising a hand. This communication strategy is one of more public, direct ways that students influence activities in the classroom, but its power is limited, since it does not create new activities, but simply returns the class to activities agreed on previously.
 * Digression attempts: During a discussion or activity, a student asks a question or makes a statement that is not relevant to the task at hand. While the teacher is leading students in a discussion of a story that they read, for example, a student raises his hand and asks, “Mr. X, when does recess begin?”
 * Side talk: One student talks to another student, either to be sociable (“Did you see that movie last week?”) or to get information needed for the current assigned task (“What page are we on?”). Sometimes side talk also serves to control or limit fellow students’ behavior, and in this way functions like control-talk by teachers (as when a student whispers, “Shhh! I’m trying to listen” or “Go ahead and ask her!”). The ability of such talk to influence classmates’ behavior is real, but limited, since students generally do not have as much authority as teachers.
 * Calling out: A student speaks out of turn without being recognized by the teacher. The student’s comment may or may not be relevant to the ongoing task or topic, and the teacher may or may not acknowledge or respond to it. Whether ignored or not, however, calling out may change the direction of a discussion by influencing fellow students’ thinking or behavior, or by triggering procedural and control talk by the teacher (“Jason, it’s not your turn; I only call on students who raise their hands.”).
 * Answering a question with a question: Instead of answering a teacher’s “test” question directly, the student responds with a question of her own, either for clarification or as a stalling tactic (“Do you mean X?”). Either way, the effect is to shift the discussion or questioning to content or topics that are safer and more familiar.
 * Silence: The student says nothing in response to a speaker’s comments or to an invitation to speak. The speaker could be either the teacher or a fellow student. The silence makes the speaker less likely to continue the current topic, and more likely to seek a new one.
 * Eye contact, gaze aversion, and posture: The student looks directly at the teacher while the teacher is speaking, or else deliberately averts gaze. The student may also adopt any of a variety of postures while sitting (sit up straight vs. slouching). As we discussed earlier in this chapter, the timing of eye gaze depends partly on cultural expectations that the student brings to school. But it may also represent a deliberate choice by the student—a message to the teacher and to classmates. The same can be said about sitting posture. In classroom situations, listening is conventionally indicated by looking directly at the teacher, and either sitting up straight or leaning slightly forward. Although these behaviors can be faked, they tend to indicate and to be taken as showing interest in and acceptance of what a speaker is saying. By engaging in or avoiding these behaviors, therefore, students can sometimes influence the length and direction of a discussion or activity.

(back to Chapter 12...)


text:
User talk:80.136.103.41

 – Mike.lifeguard  | talk 20:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:80.136.103.41


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User talk:Wion~enwikibooks

Come introduce yourself at the new users page. If you have any questions, you can ask there or contact me personally. – Mike.lifeguard  | talk 20:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Wion. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Wion~enwikibooks that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

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Renamed
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Talk:Nanotechnology/Health effects of nanoparticles

=Additional sections for the health effects section=

 * 1) Something about the nanoparticles around us in nature
 * 2) Sooth
 * 3) Asbestos
 * 4) Silicate particles
 * 5) the blue sky etc.
 * 6) smog and ultrafine particles
 * 7) Ways of characterizing Particles
 * 8) Biodistribution - where do they end up when they are ingested.

nanoparticles have a detrimental effect on the brain
Scientists at the University of Plymouth have shown, for the first time in an animal (?!? September 19, 2011), that nanoparticles have a detrimental effect on the brain and other parts of the central nervous system. [Source] --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:47, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


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WHy Is my name not showing up on the topic that I have selected

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Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 12: The Nature of Classroom Communication/Classroom Talk to Stimulate Thinking

Using Classroom Talk to Stimulate Students' Thinking
The various features of classroom talk characterize the communication of most teachers and students, at least when they are in a classroom and “doing school.” (Communication outside of school is a different matter: then teachers as well as students may speak, listen, and behave quite differently!) As you might suppose, the most desirable balance among the features depends on grade level, curriculum area, and personalities of students or teachers. But failing to use a classroom register at all can easily create communication problems. Suppose, for example, that a teacher never asks informal test questions. In that case the teacher will learn much less than otherwise about her students’ knowledge of the current material. Then also suppose that a student does not understand teachers’ questions as test questions. That student may easily respond in ways that seem disrespectful (Teacher: “How much is 23 x 42?” Student: “I don’t know; how much do you think it is?”) (Bloome, et al., 2005).

The classroom talk register, then, constrains how communication between teachers and students can take place, but it also gives teachers and students a “language” for talking about teaching and learning. Given this double-edged reality, how can teachers use the classroom talk register to good advantage? How in particular can teachers communicate in ways that stimulates more and better thinking and discussion? In the next, final section of the chapter, we offer some suggestions for answering these questions. As you will see, the suggestions often reinforce each other. They are more like a network of ideas, not a list of priorities to be considered or followed in sequence.

Probing for Learner Understanding
How do you know whether a student understands what you are saying? One clue, of course, is by whether the student is looking at and concentrating on you and your comments. But this clue is not foolproof; we have all had moments of storing at a speaker while daydreaming, only to realize later that we have not heard anything that the speaker said. It is sometimes important, therefore, to probe more actively how much students are actually understanding during lessons or other activities.

Strategies for probing understanding generally involve mixing instruction with conversation (Renshaw, 2004). In explaining a new topic, for example, you can check for understanding by asking preliminary questions connecting the topic to students’ prior experiences and knowledge about the topic. Note that this strategy combines qualities of both instruction and conversation, in the sense that it involves combining “test” questions, to which you already know the answer, with real questions, to which you do not. When introducing a science lesson about density to kindergarten children, for example, the teacher might reasonably ask both of the following:

 * Teacher: Which of these objects that I have do you expect will sink and which ones will float? (A test question—the teacher already will know the answer.)

 * Teacher: What other things have you seen that float? Or that sink? (A real question—the teacher is asking about their experience and does not know the answer.)

By asking both kinds of questions, the teacher scaffolds the children’s learning, or creates a zone of proximal development, which we described in Chapter 2 as part of Vygotsky’s theory of learning. Note that this zone has two important features, both of which contribute to children’s thinking. One is that it stimulates students’ thinking (by asking them questions), and the other is that it creates a supportive and caring atmosphere (by honoring their personal experiences with real questions). The resulting mix of warmth and challenge can be especially motivating (Goldstein, 1999).

When warmth and challenge are both present in a discussion, it sometimes even becomes possible to do what may at first seem risky: calling on individual students randomly without the students’ volunteering to speak. In a study of “cold calling” as a technique in university class discussions, the researchers found that students did not find the practice especially stressful or punitive, as the teachers feared they might, and that spontaneous participation in discussion actually improved as a result (Dallimore, et al., 2006). The benefit was most likely to happen, however, when combined with gestures of respect for students, such as warning individuals ahead of class that they might be called on, or allowing students to formulate ideas in small groups before beginning to call on individuals.

Helping Students To Articulate Their Ideas and Thinking
The classroom talk register is well designed to help students articulate ideas and thoughts, particularly when used in the context of discussion. In addition to the conversational probes, like the ones we described in the previous section, there are other ways to support students in expressing their ideas fully and clearly. One way is for the teacher to check repeatedly on her own understanding of students’ contributions as a discussion unfolds. Consider this exchange:

 * Student (during a class discussion): It seems to me that we all need to learn more climate change.
 * Teacher: What do you mean by “learn more”? It’s a big topic; what parts of it are you thinking about?

Still another strategy for helping students to articulate their ideas is to increase the wait time between when the teacher asks a question and when the teacher expects a student to answer. As we pointed out earlier in this chapter, wait times longer than average—longer than one second, that is—give students more time to formulate ideas and therefore to express themselves more completely and precisely. In addition, longer wait times have the added advantage of indirection: instead of telling a student to say more, the teacher needs only to wait for the student to say more.

In general any communication strategy will help students become more articulate if it both allows and invites further comment and elaboration on their ideas. Taken together, the invitations closely resemble a description of class discussion, though they can actually be used singly at any time during teaching. Consider these possible conversational moves:

 * The teacher asks the student to explain his initial idea more completely.
 * The teacher rephrases a comment made by a student.
 * The teacher compares the student’s idea to another, related idea, and asks the student to comment.
 * The teacher asks for evidence supporting the student’s idea.
 * The teacher asks the student how confident he is in his idea.
 * The teacher asks another student to comment on the first student’s idea.

Promoting Academic Risk-Taking and Problem-Solving
In Chapter 8 we described major features of problem solving, as well as three techniques that assist in solving problems—problem analysis, working backwards from the beginning, and analogical thinking. While all of the techniques are helpful, they do not work if a student will not take the risk of attempting a solution to a problem in the first place. For various reasons students may sometimes avoid such risks, especially if he or she has sometimes failed at a task in the past, and is therefore concerned about negative evaluations again (Hope & Oliver, 2005).

What can a teacher say or do to counteract such hesitation? There are several strategies, all of which involve focusing attention on the process of doing an activity rather than on its outcome or evaluation.

 * Where possible, call attention to the intrinsic interest or satisfaction of an activity. Consider, for example, an elementary-level activity of writing a Japanese haiku—a poem with exactly seventeen syllables. This activity can be satisfying in itself, regardless of how it is evaluated. Casually reminding individuals of this fact can contribute to students’ sense of ease about writing the haiku, and encourage them indirectly to do better work.
 * Minimize the importance of grades where possible. This strategy supports the one above; by giving students less to worry about, they become freer to experience the intrinsic satisfactions of an activity. In writing that haiku mentioned above, for example, you can try saying something like, “Don’t worry too much about your grade; just do the best you can and you will come out well enough in the end.”
 * Make sure students know that they have ample time to complete an activity. If students need to rush—or merely just thinks they do—then they are more likely to choose the safest, most familiar responses possible. In writing an amusing story from their early childhood, for example, middle years students may need time to consider and choose among story possibilities. Then they may need additional time to experiment with ways of expressing the story in writing. In this case, to make sure students know that they have such time, try saying something like, “Writing a good story will take time, and you may have to return to it repeatedly. So we will start working on it today, but do not expect to finish today. We’ll be coming back to it several times in the next couple of weeks.”
 * Show that you value unusual ideas and elegant solutions to problems. When a student does something out of the ordinary, show your enthusiasm for it. A visually appealing drawing, a well-crafted essay, a different solution to a math problem than the one you expected—all of these deserve an explicit compliment. Expressing your interest and respect does more than support the specific achievement. It also expresses a more general, underlying message that in your classroom, it is safe and rewarding to find and share the unusual and elegant.

Note that these communication strategies support not only problem-solving, but also the related skills of creativity that was discussed in Chapter 8. In describing creativity in that chapter, in particular, we called attention to the difference importance of divergent (open-ended) thinking. As with problem-solving, though, divergent thinking may seem risky to some students unless they are encouraged to do so explicitly. The strategies for encouraging academic risk-taking can help to communicate this encouragement—that process matters more than product, that there will be time enough to work, and that you, as teacher, indeed value their efforts.

Promoting a Caring Community
A caring community is one in which all members have a respected place, in which diversity among individuals is expected, and in which individuals assist each other with their work or activities wherever appropriate. Classrooms and even entire schools can be caring communities, though moving them in this direction takes work on the part of teachers and other school staff (Noddings, 1992, 2004). The key work in promoting a caring community involves arranging for students to work together on tasks, while at the same time communicating the teacher’s commitment to mutual respect among students and between students and teachers. Many of the instructional strategies discussed earlier in this book, such as cooperative learning and inquiry learning (in Chapter 8), therefore contribute to community in the classroom.

More specifically, you can as a teacher encourage community by doing any or all of the following:

 * Tell students that you value mutual respect, and describe some of the ways that students can show respect for each other and for school staff. Better yet, invite students themselves to describe how they might show respect.
 * Look for ways to sustain relationships among students and teachers for extended times. These ways may be easier to find in elementary school, where a teacher and class normally remain together for an entire year, than in middle and secondary school, where students learn from many teachers and teachers teach many students. But still there are ways. Participating in extra-curricular activities (like sports teams or drama club), for example, can sometimes provide settings where relationships develop for relatively long periods of time—even more than a single school year.
 * Ask for input from students about what they want to learn, how they want to learn it, and what kind of evaluation they consider fair. Although using their ideas may feel at first as if you are giving up your responsibility as the teacher, asking for students’ input indicates respect for students. It is likely that many of their suggestions need clarification or revision to become workable, especially if the class must also cover a particular curriculum during a set time. But even just the asking for input shows respect, and can contribute to community in the classroom.
 * If conflicts arise between students or between a student and teacher, encourage respectful communication as explicitly as you can. Some communication strategies about conflict resolution were described in Chapter 7 and are helpful in this regard: identifying true problem ownership, listening actively, assertive (not aggressive) I-messages, and negotiation.
 * Find times and ways for the class to experience itself as a community. This suggestion may look a bit vague at first glance, but in practice it is actually quite concrete. Any action builds community if it is carried out by the group as a whole, especially if it is done regularly and repeatedly and if it truly includes every member of the class. Such actions become rituals, not in the negative sense of empty or mindless repetitions, but in the positive sense of confirmations by group members of their commitment to each other (Ehrenreich, 2007). In the elementary grades, an obvious example of a ritual is reciting the pledge of allegiance (or its equivalent in classrooms outside the United States). But there are many other examples of classroom routines that gradually acquire the (positive) qualities of ritual or community-affirmation, often without deliberate intention or effort. A daily, regular time to work through homework problems together in class, for example, may serves obvious academic purposes. But it may also gradually contribute to a classroom’s identity as a class. With time and familiarity the group homework time may eventually come to represent “who we are” and of “what we do here” for that class.

(back to Chapter 12...)


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Talk:Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 12: The Nature of Classroom Communication

Basic text is now posted for Chapter 12, but missing tables and figures as usual.

KelvinLeeSeifert 20:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


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User talk:68.212.51.161

Welcome to Wikibooks. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our collection. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing. However, unconstructive edits, such as those you made to Cell Biology/History, are considered vandalism. If you continue in this manner you may be blocked from editing without further warning. Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the hard work of others. Thanks.  – Mike.lifeguard  | talk 21:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

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User:Björn Klippstein~enwikibooks

You can find more information about me at bjoern.klippstein.com or 4webmaster.de.

My profile in the german Wikipedia is Björn Klippstein de:Benutzer:Björn Klippstein Wikipedia:de:Benutzer:Björn Klippstein

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User talk:170.185.208.19

Thanks for experimenting with Wikibooks. Your test worked, and has now been removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing material in modules will normally be removed quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our project. Thanks. – Mike.lifeguard  | talk 21:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

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User talk:212.149.218.45

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Radiation Oncology/Peds/ATRT

Epidemiology

 * Estimated 2-3% of primary CNS tumors in <18 population.
 * Majority of patients present at age <3 yrs.
 * A workshop on ATRT (PMID 12142780) reported that pathologic review of a recent CCG study suggests ATRT may represent a significant proportion of brain tumors in children <3 yrs old.

Diagnosis

 * Major diagnostic dilemma is distinguishing from medulloblastoma.
 * IHC necessary for diagnosis (vimentin, EPA, and SMA found in rhabdoid tumors but not medulloblastoma)
 * INI1 gene mutated in ~85% of ATRT.

Treatment

 * Treatment strategy includes maximum surgical debulking, chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Radiation Therapy

 * Neurological Institute, Taipei, 2006 (1990-2003) - PMID 16406394 -- "Impact of radiotherapy for pediatric CNS atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor (single institute experience)." Chen YW et al. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2006 Mar 15;64(4):1038-43.
 * 17 pts w/ ATRT who received radiotherapy as part of their treatment regimen.
 * Time interval b/w surgery and RT initiation was important prognostic factor on multi-variate analysis for overall survival.
 * No difference in OS was seen for patients receiving > or < 50Gy

 * St. Jude's, 2005 (1984-2003) - PMID 15735125 -- "Atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumors (ATRT): improved survival in children 3 years of age and older with radiation therapy and high-dose alkylator-based chemotherapy." J Clin Oncol. 2005 Mar 1;23(7):1491-9.
 * 37 pts w/ ATRT (22 pts 3 yrs or younger)
 * Majority of pts >3 yrs received CSI.
 * 2yr OS was significantly better for pts >3 yrs old.
 * The only survivors who were <3 y/o received RT as part of their tx.

•	Following diagnosis, patients underwent maximal surgical resection. Patients were reported as GTR, Subtotal or biopsy according to surgical opinion and MRI after surgery. •	All patients underwent brain and spine MRI, CSF examination, CT chest and abdomen, bone marrow aspiration and trephine. Staging was according to that of Chang (REF) •	Chemotherapy was begun within 50 days of surgery. Blocks of chemotherapy were given as follow: 1/ Pre-irradiation induction (weeks 1-6) 2/ Chemo-radiation induction (weeks 7-12) 3/ Post-irradiation induction (weeks 13-18 4/ Maintenance (weeks 19-44) 5/ Continuation ± Doxorubicin (weeks 45-51) Outcome from this study Three patients underwent biopsy alone, and all died rapidly. Five of seven who had subtotal resection and 9/10 who had gross total resection were alive at the time of publication. Fifteen patients received RT on study, 11 focal and 4 craniospinal. Status after radiotherapy was prognostic. All ten patients in CCR (n=9) or CR (n=1) after RT were alive, although one had ongoing disease. Two patients with persistent stable disease remained alive with disease. All others (n=8) had died.
 * Boston Regimen - PMID 15803379 -- "Continuous remission of newly diagnosed and relapsed central nervous system atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor."
 * Early pilot data, reported in detail in:
 * "'The DFCI study (02-294)"' - PMID: 19064966 -- "Intensive multimodality treatment for children with newly diagnosed CNS atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor." (2008) had the following design:
 * Two year PFS was 53±13% and OS 70 ±10%.
 * 20 evaluable patients: 14 M0, 1 M2 and 5 M3.
 * 1 treatment-related death, 4 PD in the first 13 weeks, 1 radiation recall, 1 transverse myelitis.
 * Metastatic stage was prognostic. Eight of fourteen patients with localized disease were alive, NED. One patient with M2 disease remained alive with disease. Four of five with M3 disease died of disease, but one achieved CR with induction chemotherapy, received CSRT and remained alive, NED.
 * The degree of surgical resection was of prognostic value.
 * Response to chemotherapy was prognostic. Seven of seven in continued CR, and a further 2 of 2 who achieved CR after induction chemotherapy were alive with NED at publication. One of 6 with a mixed or PR remained alive (with disease). This patient had stable disease after radiotherapy. Three patients had stable disease after induction. One achieved CR after RT and remained alive, NED. One had continued SD after RT, and remained alive with disease. One progressed after RT and died.

Reviews

 * Brown; 2007 - PMID 16855864 — "Atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor: the controversy behind radiation therapy." (Squire SE, J Neurooncol. 2007 Jan;81(1):97-111.)

title: Radiation Oncology/Peds/ATRT


text:
Talk:Find Employment/Find Prospects

This page needs a lot of cleanup. I mass moved a lot of stuff that was under "Your Career" to being here, since it seemed more relevant to be under finding a prospective employer instead of determining a career path. It seems that it had been forked earlier, and now the content here is double, when I copied and pasted, so it needs to get reintegrated on this page. --Jacob Walker 00:11, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

title: Talk:Find Employment/Find Prospects


text:
Talk:Find Employment/Your Career

I just through in some sections that need to be verbosified :-) But I thought they were important to have in this article, and I hope to come back soon to make them more verbose, unless someone comes in sooner to help out with that. --Jacob Walker 00:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

title: Talk:Find Employment/Your Career


text:
User talk:Chowbok

Welcome message
Come introduce yourself at the new users page. If you have any questions, you can ask there or contact me personally.

You might also be interested to read our Cookbook policy page and talk to other Cookbook editors. Webaware talk 00:25, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:Chowbok


text: Algorithms/Find maximum/Php method 1

title: Algorithms/Find maximum/Php method 1