Classroom Ecology Research Articles

The ICAP Active Learning Framework Predicts the Learning Gains Observed in Intensely Active Classroom Experiences

STEM classrooms (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in postsecondary education are rapidly improved by the proper use of active learning techniques. These techniques occupy a descriptive spectrum that transcends passive teaching toward active, constructive, and, finally, interactive methods. While aspects of this framework have been examined, no large-scale or actual classroom-based data exist to inform postsecondary education STEM instructors about possible learning gains. We describe the results of a quasi-experimental study to test the apex of the ICAP framework (interactive, constructive, active, and passive) in this ecological classroom environment. Students in interactive classrooms demonstrate significantly improved learning outcomes relative to students in constructive classrooms. This improvement in learning is relatively subtle; similar experimental designs without repeated measures would be unlikely to have the power to observe this significance. We discuss the importance of seemingly small learning gains that might propagate throughout a course or departmental curriculum, as well as improvements with the necessity for faculty to develop and implement similar activities.

Perceptions of differentiating pedagogy for gifted readers, typically developing readers, and students with reading difficulties in multi-grade primary classrooms

Multi-grade primary classroom contexts provide opportunities to address the different needs of diverse learners through differentiating instruction. This mixed-methods study is a smaller component of a larger study undertaken in Australia, with other elements reported elsewhere. The study used ecobehavioural assessment to examine the relationships between observed classroom environments, teacher instruction, and behavioural responses of gifted readers, typically developing readers, and students with reading difficulties during literacy lessons in New South Wales (NSW) regional schools. Semi-structured interviews provided observed teachers' perceptions of their classroom instruction. The observation results indicated some key relationships between teacher instruction, student learning responses, and classroom learning contexts or ecologies. While the interviews identified some teacher perceived differentiated instruction for students with different reading needs, both methodological approaches produced evidence of some use of research-based differentiated practices for students with different learning needs.

Fostering student creativity through teacher behaviors

Fostering student creativity has become an added responsibility of classroom teachers. Teachers therefore need to be aware of possible ways to foster student creativity. Student creativity can be enhanced through social modelling, reinforcement, and classroom ecology. It is argued that teachers’ own teaching behaviors play a critical role in fostering student creativity and the CFTIndex serves both as an instructional and measurement tool of creativity fostering in the classroom context.Advancement of research depends on the availability of relevant measurement instrument. The Creativity Fostering Teacher Behavior Scale (CFTIndex) was designed to meet the need of researchers working in this specific area of creativity. Since it first appearance in 2000, it has been used extensively over the world and translated into several languages. This article summarized the studies and discusses its further development.

Classroom-oriented research from a complex systems perspective

Bringing a complex systems perspective to bear on classroom-oriented research challenges researchers to think differently, seeing the classroom ecology as one dynamic system nested in a hierarchy of such systems at different levels of scale, all of which are spatially and temporally situated. This article begins with an introduction to complex dynamic systems theory, in which challenges to traditional ways of conducting classroom research are interwoven. It concludes with suggestions for research methods that are more consistent with the theory. Research does not become easier when approached from a complex systems perspective, but it has the virtue of reflecting the way the world works.

Metacognitive learning in the ecology classroom: A tool for preparing problem solvers in a time of rapid change?

AbstractBuilding communities that are resilient and adaptive to climate change requires the development of education strategies that train community members in higher order thinking skills that can be used to solve complex environmental problems. This study provides an empirical test of hypotheses within social‐ecological systems resilience theory that have suggested metacognitive learning strategies could increase resilience thinking skills such as scenarios thinking, systems thinking, and the ability to interpret and apply ecological data in complex problem solving. During a 6‐week long ecology unit with 108 seventh‐grade students, we taught half the students using standard inquiry teaching methods and the other half using the same method, with the addition of a daily metacognitive learning intervention. We investigated the short‐term (after six weeks of intervention) and long‐term (1 yr after the intervention ended) effects of the intervention on student's metacognitive ability and resilience thinking skills. Over the long term, we found a modest increase in the metacognitive ability of students who received the daily metacognitive journaling exercise. Interview data suggest that the structured metacognitive practice did most to improve the resilience thinking level of students who had low resilience thinking ability prior to the intervention period. However, the interaction between pre‐treatment ability level and the treatment group was not detected in the written assessment data. These data suggest that the metacognitive learning intervention we used can benefit metacognitive ability over the long term, but has limited transferability to resilience thinking skills for most students. We suggest additional instructional practices for implementing metacognitive teaching approaches that could enhance the generalizability of their benefits across resilience thinking skills and student's ability levels.

The classroom ecology paradigm and its contribution to understanding context in physical education

The purpose of this paper is to outline the essential tenet of the classroom ecology paradigm and to explain how it provides a useful heuristic when examining context with physical education. The first part of the paper describes how three task systems operate interdependently within lessons to determine the academic work that gets done. Descriptive accounts of the instructional, managerial and social task systems are provided, together with an explanation of how the accountability strategies put in place are critical in mediating original teacher intentions. The concept of a programme of action is introduced which is that point where content and management come together during instruction. The second part of the paper provides a review of the research in physical education that has followed an ecological framework, while the third provides a description of how the classroom ecology paradigm deals with context. Finally, the paper examines some of the under investigated, but equally helpful concepts within classroom ecology, which might be used as useful tools differentiating levels of teaching effectiveness.

Compatibility and Complementarity of Classroom Ecology and Didactique Research Perspectives in Physical Education

ABSTRACTA large diversity of theoretical frameworks exists in the physical education literature. This article focuses on two of those frameworks to examine their compatibility and their complementarity. The classroom ecology paradigm concentrates on the balance between three task systems, two vectors, and programs of actions proposed by the physical education teacher and negotiated by students. The didactique research program studies the teaching and learning processes using the concepts of didactic contract and didactic milieu that focus on how the knowledge content emerges within teacher and students’ joint action. The article underlines the complementarity and the compatibility of the two frameworks when analyzing teaching and learning in physical education. It argues that the gray areas left by the classroom ecology paradigm could be filled with the insights of the didactique research program. A concise example of how the two frameworks have already been utilized is presented.

Assessment of self-explaining effect in a large enrolment General Chemistry course

Self-explaining refers to the generation of inferences about causal connections between objects and events for one's own consumption. Self-explaining is amongst the practices of science deemed essential for scientific competence; therefore, a valued learning outcome in itself. Nonetheless, generation of authentic explanations is seldom promoted in college science instruction. This work examined the effect of engagement in self-explaining on conceptual understanding of chemistry. Learning and performance tasks were completed individually in the classroom ecology of a large-enrolment General Chemistry course in the US. The study spanned a period of five semesters including pilot-tests and replications. The self-explaining intervention followed a multi-condition comparison design that used performance on a post-test to assess learning. Students were randomly assigned to the following conditions: reviewing a correct explanation, explaining correct or incorrect answers, explaining agreement with answers produced by others, and explaining their own answers. A cohort of students who underwent standard instruction with no intervention and had prepared for formal examination served as reference. The self-explaining cohorts performed better than the reference group, and in one case was the difference statistically significant. Findings suggest that self-explaining activities support students’ conceptual understanding at least as much as instruction. This study contributes evidence for the self-explaining effect and the ICAP hypothesis in a discipline where no evidence is available. Furthermore, it adds to the relatively little work in self-explaining that has explored naturalistic learning environments. This work supports the incorporation of self-explaining activities in the repertoire of instructional practices for General Chemistry.

Improving Educational Outcomes in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Through Interagency Collaboration

Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) demonstrate a significant array of neurocognitive impairments including deficits in intelligence, attention, processing speed, executive functions, language functions, visual-spatial abilities, memory, and academic achievement. Neuropsychological impairments in children and adolescents with prenatal exposure to alcohol follow a continuum from no identifiable effects at one end to pervasive impairments across areas at the other end (i.e., Spohr, Willms and Steinhausen 1993; Streissguth, Randels and Smith 1991). Due to the continuum of impairments, interagency collaboration was developed to address the special educational needs of the children. The current paper has several purposes: (1) to allow school district staff who were offered an opportunity to share their perspectives and expertise on FASD and special need issues facing their students diagnosed with FASD; (2) to identify the school and social challenges faced by students diagnosed with FASD; (3) to describe the collaborative interagency program and potential impact on classroom ecology; and (4) to determine if the interagency collaboration had an effect on intervention practices of educators within the classroom.

Dynamics of need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behavior: the bidirectional relationship with student engagement and disengagement in the beginning of a lesson

Background: According to the classroom ecology paradigm, teachers and students interpret, predict, and respond to each other repeatedly in a reciprocal way. Such a reciprocal relationship is reflected in bidirectional interactions between a teacher's behavior and student (dis)engagement, an issue that has been confirmed in longitudinal studies including measures at different moments in a school year.Aims: Starting from the perspective of self-determination theory, the aim of the present study was to investigate bidirectional relationships between student (dis)engagement and need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behavior during the first 15 min of a lesson.Sample & method: The first three 5-minute intervals of 100 videotaped physical education lessons taught by 100 different teachers (51.9% male, M age = 37.5 ± 10.9 years) were observed and coded for need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behavior, student engagement, and student disengagement. Correlations were calculated to explore relationships between student (dis)engagement and teaching behavior over the first 15 minutes of a PE lesson. Next, path analyses were conducted to analyze 5-to-5 minute interactions between teaching behavior and student (dis)engagement.Results: Student engagement correlated positively and disengagement correlated negatively with need support, while engagement correlated negatively and disengagement correlated positively with need-thwarting over the first 15 minutes of the lesson. There were few significant relationships between student engagement and teachers’ behavior across and between each of the three 5-minute intervals. Only when teachers provided more need support during the first 5 minutes of the lesson, students were more engaged in the third 5 minutes of the lesson. When students were more disengaged during the first 5 minutes of the lesson, teachers displayed less need support in the following 10 minutes of the lesson. In contrast, student disengagement in the second 5 minutes of the lesson related to more need support in the next 5 minutes. Most of the within-interval relationships between student engagement and teachers’ behaviors were inconsistent, but we did find positive relationships between student disengagement and need-thwarting teaching behaviors in the first and third interval, suggesting a rather direct and momentary within 5-minute intervals interaction between teachers and students.Conclusions: Findings of the present observational study suggest that, although overall relationships between student (dis)engagement and teachers’ behavior were in the expected directions, the picture might become more complicated when relationships are investigated according to the timing of the lesson, an issue that has remained uncovered in self-reported studies. While student disengagement was related to less need support and more need-thwarting teaching behaviors, more detailed analyses showed that it was particularly student disengagement in the beginning of a lesson that elicited less positive teaching behaviors. When students display disengagement further along in the first 15 minutes of the lesson, teachers seemed to respond in a more need-supportive way to student disengagement. Such findings provide interesting insights to build interventions for teachers around certain critical moments during the lesson, for example when dealing with student disengagement at a specific moment in the lesson.

Scaffolding Engagement in the Immersive t-MALL Classroom

This paper focuses on engagement dynamics among foreign language students in coping within an immersive pedagogy in a tablet mobile assisted language learning (t-MALL) classroom ecology. This qualitative action research was implemented with 24 second-year undergraduates majoring in French as a foreign language in a Malaysian university. The pedagogical implementation included a task-based learning approach delivered according to personalized, meaningful and learner- controlled learning principles. In accordance with social constructivist theory, the implementation emphasized student-centered and controlled learning. Scaffolding choices involved instructor as well as peer and technological support in an immersive blended learning environment sustained with Facebook groups. The learners’ engagement was investigated according to grounded theory’s procedures. The learners’ perceptions of classroom learning processes were triangulated with the instructors’ reflections with a three-level coding applied to the constant comparative method of analysis. Findings supported the use of t-MALL as sustaining engagement in immersive learning environments. The learner-centered and controlled approach allowed just-in time triadic scaffolding which contributed to raising active participation throughout the tasks. The implementation of t-MALL enhanced the students’ perceptions of the learning environment which unleashed their willingness-to-communicate in the target language. Reaching volition further contributed to enhancing the students’ motivational factors of engagement towards acquisition and self-regulated learning. The discussion imparts recommendations and best practices towards efficient scaffolding for engaged language learning in immersive and participatory environments.

A Study of Business English (ESP) Learning Anxiety from the Perspective of Ecology

Business English (BE) language characteristics and many classroom teaching factors contribute to the anxiety of BE learning. The ecology can be put in use into BE teaching to make the ecological classroom. This research is taken to show relations between the ecological classroom teaching of BE (BEECT) and BE learning anxiety (BELA). The findings are as followed: 1) BEECT is in good order and students’ BELA is to the intermediate degree; 2) BELA has the generally negative correlation to students’ general English proficiency; 3) BEECT has the higher negative correlation to BELA, and they are significantly linearly dependent; 4) as to BELA, significant statistical differences exist between high score group and low score group in the classroom learning efficiency, the teacher-student affective intercommunication, and student-student intercommunication. In order to lower BELA, BE teachers are suggested cultivating learners’ academic English proficiency, strengthening learners’ ambiguity tolerance, and using ecologically multimodal discourses.

Analysis of Ecological Classroom Teaching of Senior High School English Under the Background of Two Tests of One Year in Foreign Language NCEE

The policy that “two tests of one year in Foreign language college entrance examination” requires English classroom teaching of taking “promoting the healthy growth of students' as the starting point and end point, reversing the one-sided test orientation and promoting quality education which is identical with the concepts of ecological teaching. This paper explains the reasons why it’s necessary to apply ecological teaching into English classroom, what principals should be adopted and how to carry out ecological teaching in classroom teaching.

Reflection on Discourse in Thinking: Conversation on a Country Path About Thinking

In this reflective essay, the author sublimates the ecological environment into an educational environment.In doing this, I quote and explain important quotations and concepts in Heidegger's (1966) Discourse in Thinking conversation pertinent to real life situations on social and educational issues affecting the regional learning environment in a given educational organization. These issues call for serious thinking, involvement, and willingness to participate and reify symbols of a collective vision in the organization, thus leading to the actualization and success of such vision in the organizational environment. In addition, I emphasize these concepts in the conversation such as: thinking, willing, non-willing, re-presenting, negation, difficult, releasement, weaning, "transcendental-horizontal" re-presenting and others. Also, I relate these concepts to multicultural education theory and open systems theory as postmodern collective visions for leaders to think, and be willing to participate with to re-present or reify academic success of students in the educational (ecological) environment. The ecological environment in this thinking is sublimated into the classroom's ecology -- the learning and teaching environment in outdoor science education.

디지털교과서 활용 교실생태계 분석 연구1)

In this study, I reported how teachers and students used 2014 digital textbooks based on interviews and proposed the ways to increase effectiveness in teaching and learning with digital textbooks. This study approached to the schools using digital textbooks based on classroom ecological perspective. Classroom ecology is one of the qualitative approaches to understand the phenomenon surrounding education and classroom using ecological metaphor. Interviews was conducted during 6 months(2014. 5〜10), and A total of 72 persons was participate in this interviews. Interviews with different stakeholders including teachers, students, publishers and policy makers were analyzed for similarities and differences. The results were further analyzed using the classroom ecosystem model with teachers, students, digital textbook, schools, the Ministry of Education, publishers, educational policies, and society as the agents. The analysis returned four keywords in digital textbook use: insufficiency, inconvenience, anxiety, and expectation. Upon close examination of each area identified through analysis, I proposed (1) to reestablish the direction that the development of digital textbooks is heading to and to enhance the quality of digital textbooks, (2) to build infrastructure for more efficient use of digital textbooks, (3) to improve the support system in teaching and learning with digital textbooks, and (4) to work towards enhancing students’ ICT capabilities and parents’ perceptions towards the use of digital textbooks. I then suggested policies and concrete strategies needed in four parts： (1) improvement of digital textbooks, (2) management and support for research schools, (3) enhancement of teacher competencies, and (4) support for students and parent.

Joint Action in Didactics and Classroom Ecology: Comparing Theories using a Case Study in Physical Education

This paper examines the respective contribution of two theoretical approaches to teaching and learning: the classroom ecology (CE) framework from Anglo-American research and the joint action in didactics (JAD) framework, which is part of French didactique research. This theoretical comparison is grounded in data from a case study in a Physical Education class in a French middle school located in an underprivileged area. Comparing how both frameworks account for classroom life (here, teaching and learning in Physical Education) enables us to uncover the unique contributions and limitations of each. As for commonalties, both frameworks examine the dynamics of teaching and learning based on ethnographic approaches. Although CE and JAD both focus on classroom settings and depict teacher-student interactions, they do not have the same background. We argue that the pragmatist and historico-cultural stances of the JAD framework have the potential for capturing in-depth the ways in which knowledge is enacted through teacher and student transactions, and therefore can help expand and deepen the CE epistemological approach.

Healthy school environments

Objective To determine factors that characterizes school environments and their relationship with student learning, welfare and health. Method This is a case study supported by a comprehensive qualitative paradigm applied to classroom ecology. The fieldwork was carried out in six public schools for students in economic strata one and two that use computers in virtual classrooms. The information was collected through field journals, film recordings, observation, and recordings of interviews. The information was analyzed by categories in open general and focused cycles. Results The virtual era has enriched the debate about the importance of the environment in pedagogical processes. Nonetheless, the emergence of new diseases is a risk which students are exposed to. Pollution and overcrowding factors prevail in traditional classroom activities, while in the computer rooms the environment is healthier. Hence the need to incorporate these issues into the curriculum reforms and action plans to guide healthy living of schoolchildren and their families. Despite budget constraints, innovative ideas and projects were found. Schools have developed free preventive and corrective strategies such as workshops, talks and lectures by invited specialists, trainees, and students writing theses. They have also introduced controlled Internet access. Conclusion The educational community understands that the concept of health is at the heart of a comprehensive concept of education. In addition, classroom ecology has determining implications for learning and living together in pleasant and healthy environments that are incorporated into institutional educational projects.

A design research study of a curriculum and diagnostic assessment system for a learning trajectory on equipartitioning

Design research studies provide significant opportunities to study new innovations and approaches and how they affect the forms of learning in complex classroom ecologies. This paper reports on a two-week long design research study with twelve 2nd through 4th graders using curricular materials and a tablet-based diagnostic assessment system, both designed around a learning trajectory on equipartitioning. A learning trajectory is a conceptual model of how students move from naive to more sophisticated understandings as they engage with a carefully sequenced set of tasks. The equipartitioning construct describes how students come to understand the ideas involved in sharing fairly an evenly divisible collection, a single shape or multiple shapes. The paper is organized around the three phases of design research: planning, conduct, and retrospective analysis Cobb et al. (Educ Res 32(1):9–13, 2003). It illustrates how the conjectures of the study are subjected to testing and revision, based on the students’ and teachers’ behaviors during the study, and how interpretations and theories evolve during the different phases.

An ecological analysis of a preschool mastery climate physical education programme

Background: Previous studies of mastery motivational climates within physical education have reported that providing students with opportunities to become self-directed leads to a number of positive outcomes, including skill attainment and increased perceptions of ability. Nonetheless, within all of these studies, there has been no account of the teaching/learning process or the behaviour of the students and teachers within the various interventions.Purpose: The purpose of this study was to provide a micro-analysis of life in a mastery climate which was grounded in the classroom ecology paradigm.Participants and setting: The participants in this study were 13 children (11 boys and 2 girls) all aged 4 years at the commencement of the programme. The children were attendees at a day-care centre that serves mostly African-American children from the local community who are environmentally at risk for developmental delay and poor health. The teacher in this study was a faculty member at the university where the programme took place. For 30 minutes each Tuesday and Thursday, the children participated in a programme of motor skill instruction that was based upon the key principles of a mastery-motivational climate. Selected station activities were designed to promote the acquisition of locomotor and object control skills.Methods: A mixed-methods approach was taken, with data sources including interviews with the teacher, and an analysis of the ecology of the gymnasium using a modified version of the task structure system. Focus was placed upon the task goals, the teacher's accountability strategies, as well as task accomplishment in both the managerial and instructional task systems.Findings: The key finding from this study was an appreciation of how time is a significant factor in the ways in which children initially responded to and eventually embraced the freedoms afforded to them in a mastery climate. Of particular note, the results show substantial differences in the children's lesson engagement not only across time, but also within lessons themselves. It is hypothesized that as they progressed through the programme, the children not only were more able to identify the demands of the task but were also able to filter out extraneous signals that might promote off-task or inappropriate behaviour.Conclusions: The design of this study reinforced the value of adopting an ecological analysis of life in a mastery climate. Further, the results of the study showed the value of examining young children's engagement over a lengthy intervention. While such climates are expected to have lower levels of engagement and higher levels of off-task behaviour than more teacher-directed formats, by the end of the study the children were able to achieve levels of appropriate task engagement above 80% of lesson time.

Aspects of Vocabulary Knowledge in German Textbooks

AbstractPrevious research on second language vocabulary acquisition has shown that learning to use a new word is not a simple matter of making a form–meaning connection. Knowing a word instead requires mastery of as many as nine different aspects of vocabulary knowledge (Nation, 2001). The current study uses data from five beginning‐level textbooks of German as a foreign language that are widely used at American universities to examine which of these aspects of vocabulary knowledge are addressed in textbook activities. The results show that activities in lower‐level German textbooks focus overwhelmingly on form–meaning connections and grammatical functions while ignoring other aspects, such as collocations, word parts, and concept and referents. A pedagogical approach that takes the entire classroom ecology into account is suggested.