Classroom Experience Research Articles

Una experiencia de aula basada en la gamificación para la enseñanza de ciencias de la naturaleza

The present article aims to find new methodological strategies that promote active learning and motivate students when they do not show a receptive interest in traditional masterclasses. In this way, this research strives to base the implementation of a classroom experience in a school by employing gamification as a game-focused methodology in non-ludic contexts. A theoretical review is exposed, and the essential elements needed to gamify a teaching-learning process are presented. A didactic proposal for the area of Natural Sciences with second-year Primary Education scholars is designed and described. Ultimately, this paper includes a set of reflections regarding the influence this methodological strategy holds on the involvement and motivation of students, as well as the limitations encountered at the time of implementation.

A comparative study of university students’ ‘English as medium of instruction’ experiences in international faculty-led classrooms in Taiwan and Thailand

A comparative study of university students’ ‘English as medium of instruction’ experiences in international faculty-led classrooms in Taiwan and Thailand

Analysis of English Learning Anxiety of English Pre-service Teacher Education Students in Mainland China

This study aims to investigate the anxiety of preservice English EFL teachers in a normal Chinese university. This article identifies and analyzes the various types of anxiety students experience in their typical classroom experiences. We used a survey research design with the FLCAS questionnaire in this study, along with the FLCAS questionnaire, to conduct this research. 74 preservice English teachers participated. The results showed that communication apprehension represented the highest anxiety among the three categories. As preservice English teachers, participants had less test anxiety. Further research on how their anxiety in teachers' preparation programs affects their subsequent teaching performance at schools would be helpful. This is based on the study participants' perceptions of classroom anxiety as a preservice English teacher.

Analysis of English Learning Anxiety of English Pre-service Teacher Education Students in Mainland China

This study aims to investigate the anxiety of preservice English EFL teachers in a normal Chinese university. This article identifies and analyzes the various types of anxiety students experience in their typical classroom experiences. We used a survey research design with the FLCAS questionnaire in this study, along with the FLCAS questionnaire, to conduct this research. 74 preservice English teachers participated. The results showed that communication apprehension represented the highest anxiety among the three categories. As preservice English teachers, participants had less test anxiety. Further research on how their anxiety in teachers' preparation programs affects their subsequent teaching performance at schools would be helpful. This is based on the study participants' perceptions of classroom anxiety as a preservice English teacher.

Do Gender Differences Influence Students' Perceptions of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Clickers in an Introductory Biology Course?

The use of clickers in the lecture classroom has increased in recent years. Clickers have been widely used to improve teaching effectiveness in various lecture classroom settings. Most introductory biology courses are taught using direct instruction. One of the ways that students may be engaged in the lecture classrooms is by using a clicker. Clickers have been linked to several positive outcomes for students. Although clickers have been used in several prior studies, few studies have explicitly focused on BYOD clickers (smartphones, tablets, laptops). This study examined the influence of gender on students’ perceptions of using BYOD clickers in an introductory biology course at a Midwestern private college. The findings suggest that male students have more positive perceptions about using BYOD clickers than females in the introductory biology lecture. The BYOD clicker can foster active learning in the classroom and improve classroom experiences and perceptions for all students in biology and other STEM courses.

“Breathe and Be Ready to Learn”: The Issue with Social-Emotional Learning Programs as Classroom Management

As social-emotional learning (SEL) has become a more acknowledged and central part of early schooling in the last two decades, many schools and educators, particularly those in progressive spaces, have adopted SEL programs to supplement or substitute other systems of classroom management. While research demonstrates that children’s social, emotional, and cultural practices and experiences are central to inclusive, humanizing, and culturally relevant learning, SEL programs are often implemented to more closely resemble behaviorist systems of classroom management. This article presents findings from a progressive first-grade classroom of Latinx children from immigrant families led by a white teacher. Examples from ethnographic observations of the classroom illustrate the ways that the teacher used an SEL program alongside a discourse of “readiness to learn” to manage and control children’s behavior. These classroom experiences proved to be closely connected to the ideas about learning that children in Mr. Walsh’s class shared in video-cued interviews, namely that students need to be calm, quiet, focused, and “ready” in order to learn. The article considers the ways that larger systems of whiteness, individualism, and control weaving through SEL programming and progressive schooling create, foster, and perpetuate discourses of control and “readiness” that ultimately prevent children from meaningfully contributing and engaging in the type of deep learning that results from focused, structured agency and relationships of mutual trust and respect.

A Study on the In-depth Teaching of English Reading in Senior High School Aiming at Core Literacy

This study uses methods like a questionnaire survey, teacher interviews, micro-lectures teaching, etc. to ask questions like: What is the current situation of teachers' cultivation of students' core literacy in the teaching of English reading? How can in-depth teaching of high school English reading help to cultivate core literacy? Making good use of micro-lectures teaching, applying diversified reading teaching methods, taking students as the main body to improve students' participation and experience in reading classrooms, and maximising teaching evaluation methods are some of the teaching inspiration drawn from the study.

Do visual constructs in social science textbooks evince gender stereotypes and bias? A case study from India

ABSTRACT India presents a heterogeneous socio-economic ethos, rooted within structures of patriarchy and caste, rendering any transformation of traditional gender roles, increasingly challenging. Gender socialisation begins in childhood and is assimilated through schools. Students imbibe gender concepts through textbooks and classroom experiences, which either reinforce their social perceptions or influence them to critique inequalities and bias. Adopting a multi-pronged approach through feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA) and content analysis, this research evaluates the images used in Indian school social science textbooks, for constructs of gender representation, structures, and stereotyping. The research reveals that gender structures depicted in textbooks foster patriarchy and gender bias. There is minimal effort to depict feminist activism and little scope to foster gender reflexivity and social debate, which only sustains stereotypical perceptions of gender roles within Indian society.

Early Education Program Racial and Ethnic Composition and Associations with Quality and Children’s Language and Social-Emotional Development

ABSTRACT This study identified patterns of classroom and family experiences and developmental outcomes for young children in segregated early education. This study is based on data from a high-quality early education program serving young children from low-income households in 19 schools across the U.S. The sample included 1,521 children during the 2016–2017 school year. The analysis examined patterns of association between the racial/ethnic composition of Educare sites and family risk factors, classroom quality, and children’s language and social-emotional performance and growth across the academic year. Research Findings: Findings indicated that although classroom quality, measured through traditional tools, did not vary by school racial/ethnic composition, sociodemographic risk factors, children’s language and social-emotional outcomes did vary by this variable. Practice or Policy: We discuss our results in relation to promotive and inhibitive processed within and outside early education programs, as well as the continued impact of structural equities and lack of culturally responsive pedagogy on children’s learning opportunities and development.

The knowledge produced through student drawings.

Drawings have been extensively used as a research method to gather data from research participants including school students regarding their perceptions of mathematics and its teaching and learning. What is valued in drawing-based research in mathematics education, and what kind of knowledge is produced through student drawings, however, is not known. This study examines drawing-based research studies to understand these questions by applying a novel framework - the legitimation code theory (LCT). The study focuses on two cases: one of which looked at middle school students' images of mathematicians (draw a mathematician) and the other examined the same age group students' descriptions of mathematics classrooms (draw a mathematics classroom). Within both studies, greater emphases are on the students' perceptions relating to the discipline-related issues such as teaching and learning of mathematics, mathematics classroom experiences, and practices and tools of mathematicians. Students' perceptions of the mathematics discipline and their attitudes toward mathematics and perceptions of the attributes of mathematicians are also a focus. The study offers the LCT approach to critically analyze the drawing-based research in the mathematics education field to contribute to the production of significant and needed knowledge in the field.

What Do You Get from Turning on Your Video? Effects of Videoconferencing Affordances on Remote Class Experience During COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19 forced schools to swiftly transition from in-person classes to online or remote offerings, making educators and learners alike rely on online videoconferencing platforms. Platforms like Zoom offer audio-visual channels of communication and include features that are designed to approximate the classroom experience. However, it is not clear how students' learning experiences are affected by affordances of the videoconferencing platforms or what underlying factors explain the differential effects of these affordances on class experiences of engagement, interaction, and satisfaction. In order to find out, we conducted two online survey studies: Study 1 (N = 176) investigated the effects of three types of videoconferencing affordances (i.e., modality, interactivity, and agency affordances) on class experience during the first two months after the transition to online learning. Results showed that usage of the three kinds of affordances was positively correlated with students' class engagement, interaction, and satisfaction. Perceived anonymity, nonverbal cues, and comfort level were found to be key mediators. In addition, students' usage of video cameras in class was influenced by their classmates. Study 2 (N = 256) tested the proposed relationships at a later stage of the pandemic and found similar results, thus serving as a constructive replication. This paper focuses on reporting the results of Study 1 since it captures the timely reactions from students when they first went online, and the second study plays a supplementary role in verifying Study 1 and thereby extending its external validity. Together, the two studies provide insights for instructors on how to leverage different videoconferencing affordances to enhance the virtual learning experience. Design implications for digital tools in online education are also discussed.

Envisioning nutrition teaching as a three-course meal: a blended approach to knowledge, application and assessment

ABSTRACT Medical students receive inadequate training in nutrition counselling, but the best way to teach this topic is unknown. To address this research gap, we developed a longitudinal blended programme – combining physical classroom experiences with online education – to teach nutrition counselling in a primary care clinical course. The learning experience comprised a pre-class online module to convey knowledge; a formative, ungraded standardised patient exercise on dietary modification to practise skills; and a written exam on nutrition knowledge and an Objective Structured Clinical Exam assessing nutrition counselling skills. We likened this three-part curriculum to a complete meal, with its self-paced online ‘appetiser’, in-class ‘entrée’ of clinical practice with patients, and ‘dessert’ of an assessment. We ascertained feasibility, discovered positive student reactions, and, via exam performance analysis, noted achievement of the learning objectives. This three-course meal model can be applied to any learning experience that teaches and assesses skills.

Breaking the silence: unpacking students’ journeys in sexuality discussions in Hong Kong classrooms

ABSTRACT Situated in Hong Kong’s considerably limited discourse on sexuality, this paper aims to examine how introducing the topic of masturbation into our college’s gender-and sexuality-related course created pedagogical conundrums (in the words of Kathleen Quinlivan). We discuss how attempts to confront these conundrums enabled us to begin the journey of understanding and breakthe silence about having sexual desire discussed in the classroom and written assignments. Drawing on our earlier classroom discussion of sexual topics, which resulted in moments of silence, and the written assignments of 10 students on the topic of masturbation, this paper borrows Quinlivan’s discussion of the possibilities in ‘uncomfortable analytic reflexivity’ to explore how education can be a highly contested space carved out by students to express, both ‘silently’ and ‘openly’, their perceptions of masturbation. Classrooms can be flipped to discover the cracks that allow the journey towards breaking the silence to begin and to provide space for students to discuss sexual desires and pleasures that were previously deemed negative and unspeakable in their previous classroom experience. Remembering and reflecting on such silence can allow it to be reconceptualised as illuminating and meaningful.

Illuminating the Role of Classmates in Reducing the Participation Gender Gap in Lecture-Based Engineering Classes

Contribution: This work sheds light on how classmate behaviors influence gender gaps in verbal participation in lecture-based engineering classes. It is found that after a woman participates in class, there is a temporarily increased likelihood a woman will participate again afterward. Background: Women continue to be underrepresented in STEM higher education, particularly in engineering. Positive classroom experiences are key to retaining women undergraduates, but despite research into the value of interactive teaching that allows classmates to aid each other’s learning, lecturing is still most common in collegiate STEM classrooms. Research Questions: This study considers how classmates influence gender gaps in student verbal participation, even during traditional lecturing. Methodology: One thousand and three hundred and eighty seven student comments are observed over 89 class periods in ten engineering courses. The variation in student verbal participation levels with gender is analyzed, and its correlation with student speaking order, as well as other factors related to the classroom structure, is investigated. Findings: A statistically significant gender gap in class participation is observed, which is not fully explained by factors like class size or comment type. It is found, however, that when one woman participates, it increases the likelihood a woman will participate afterward, pointing to the role of classmates. This trend and the participation gender gap overall are eliminated when isolating classes taught by women. These results suggest that hearing either a woman classmate or instructor speak in class makes other women more likely to do so. As participation is linked to everything from student performance to confidence, this provides an avenue to increase gender equity in classroom experiences through small pedagogical changes that can be readily implemented into traditional lecturing.

Behind the Silence of the Professional Classroom in Universities: Formation of Cognition-Practice Separation among University Students-A Grounded Theory Study in China.

Classroom silence is a negative form of classroom performance that is particularly prominent in the Chinese learner population. Existing research has mainly explored the silence phenomenon among Chinese university students in two types of learning contexts: overseas university classrooms and foreign language classrooms at local universities, without focusing on the Chinese undergraduates' reticence in courses mediated by native language at domestic universities. However, the last type is the most common habitat for Chinese university students' learning in higher education. Therefore, a sample of Chinese undergraduates majoring in education (n = 394) was recruited to determine the mechanisms of silence formation in professional classrooms. This study was based on grounded theory and in-depth interviews, and the recorded material was processed using NVivo 12. After a series of steps including open coding, axial coding, selective coding, and theoretical saturation testing, the core feature of the phenomenon of silence in professional classrooms of Chinese university students majoring in education was found to be the separation of students' cognition and speaking practice. Then, a theoretical model of the formation and development of the phenomenon of classroom silence in professional classrooms of these undergraduates was constructed. The study showed that these university students had professional perceptions of classroom silence and displayed strong opposition to it, but they continued to maintain silent classroom behavior under the combined influence of individual characteristics, classroom experience, and learning adjustment. Following this, implications for existing research and suggestions for future practice are discussed.

‘It’s dynamite!’: The role of popular music and the home–school connection in the special music education classroom

When teaching children with disabilities, the home–school music connection can be the key to keeping our students engaged and motivated while increasing students’ self-regulation and positive interactions with peers. This article aims to shed light on classroom experiences with popular music of two third-grade students with sensory processing disorder and on how ‘music sharing turns’ influenced their overall engagement and ability to self-regulate in music classes. Music sharing turns, a weekly music ‘show and tell’, provided opportunities to bring popular music and activities they enjoy at home into the classroom. The results show that the participants were easily engaged and experienced greater self-regulation and awareness of others during music sharing turns. Music sharing turns also provided a predictable environment for peer interaction with opportunities to take on leadership roles within the classroom while remaining open-ended in a way participants could make their own.

Editorial Policy and Style Information

Editorial Policy and Style Information

Five Essential Steps for Faculty to Mitigate Racial Bias and Microaggressions in the Classroom

Educators must recognize the pharmacy curriculum itself is an instrument that can propagate or discourage systemic racism. The role of pharmacy education in disseminating racial bias through didactics deserves further consideration. While microaggressions have begun to be acknowledged in the pharmacy learning environment, specific guidance on mitigating racial microaggressions in the classroom has not been provided. This paper aims to suggest actionable strategies pharmacy educators may use to mitigate or prevent these negative classroom experiences. As such, it combines five experiences of racial biases and microaggressions in the classroom with suggested action items in a practical guide for pharmacy faculty members. It is our hope that this commentary will challenge faculty to self-assess their teaching, with the aim of preventing racial biases from propagating and creating better learning environments for future pharmacists.

The College Fed Challenge: A roadmap for instructors

The purpose of this article is to provide guidance for instructors who wish to develop a course associated with student participation in the College Fed Challenge (CFC), an academic competition designed to test students’ knowledge of current economic events and monetary policy. We eschew a lecture-only methodology and use small-group and team-based learning to effectively prepare students for this endeavor. Under this framework, students play an active role in the classroom experience, develop critical research and public speaking skills, and benefit from cohesive peer interaction. Samples of in-class activities and the accompanying grading rubrics are provided for seamless instructor implementation.

Measurement of hearing impairment among Greenlandic school-children: association between self-reported data and clinical examinations

BackgroundMultiple ear infections is causing hearing impairment among children all over the world and the health and social consequences track into early adolescence and later in life, if not treated. The monitoring of prevalence in a population is important to assess the need for interventions in a population.MethodsOne hundred eighty five children from 5 to 10th grade from Sisimiut town and the nearby settlements participated in a clinical examination to have ear-examination and pure tone audiometry. Participants filled out a questionnaire at home with their parents before the clinical examination, and hearing impairment was collected as individual self-reports and as audiometric measurements.ResultsA total of 185 children between 9 and 15 years of age (median: 11 years, IQR: 10–13) were included, 60% (n = 111) were girls. 247 (70%) of the 355 available otoscopies were clinically assessed as normal. Cohen’s Kappa coefficient was 0.31. Eighteen children (10%) were found to have hearing impairment. None of the children had hearing aids. Test performance for self-reports were that sensitivity was 56% and specificity was 87%. The predictive value of a positive test was 31%, and the predictive value of a negative test was 95%. 32 children (17%) reported hearing impairment to the extent that they were not able to keep up in school, of which half reported that it had lasted for more than one year. 7 of the 32 children reporting hearing impairment (22%) reported that the extent of their hearing impairment was affecting their classroom experience so they were not able to follow.ConclusionSelf-reported and clinically screening for hearing impairment are two different concepts. Even though the two concepts are statistically correlated, the correlation coefficients are low. The test performance indicated that self-reported data might be measuring hearing as an experience in a social environment and not directly comparable to pure tone audiometry which examines hearing in controlled testing conditions. Since both measure hearing impairment, they supplement each other in research on impaired hearing, and the choice of measure should relate to the purpose and method of the investigation.