Felt Board Research Articles

KHẢ NĂNG SỬ DỤNG KỊCH VẢI TRONG PHÁT TRIỂN GIAO TIẾP CHO TRẺ RỐI LOẠN PHÁT TRIỂN Ở BẬC HỌC MẦM NON: TIẾP CẬN TRÊN GÓC ĐỘ LÍ LUẬN

Panel Theatre is a new type of expression method using the context of a theater with simple material made of P paper and felt board at school. Panel theatre helps increase children's concentration, emotion, interest, motivation to speak and ability to respond, and develops their communication skills. Panel Theatre can be used to develop communication skills for children with developmental disorders. Teachers can flexibly change the speed of performance, adjust and sub-divide the content of the drama, adjust the acting in gestures, faces expression, especially adjust words and way of interacting with children, the way of using rhythm to encourage participation and responsiveness, engage children in activities to develop emotions, pleasure and develop basic communication skills. Teachers need to use panel theatre for specific case studies to test the impact of each characteristic element of panel theatre on the development of specific communication skills of children with developmental disorder in the future.

The impact of touchscreen interactivity on U.S. toddlers’ selective attention and learning from digital media

ABSTRACT This study tested the extent to which the presence and relevance of interactive features influence toddlers’ visual attention and learning from videos. Two-year-olds (N = 88) watched an animated bear hide on video and then searched for a bear sticker on a corresponding felt board. To watch the bear hide, toddlers watched without touching the screen (non-interactive condition), touched a relevant part of the screen (the bear; relevant condition), or touched an irrelevant part of the screen (a star; irrelevant condition). A subset of 60 children (68%) wore a head-mounted eye-tracker to record their eye movements while watching the bear hide. A relevant touchscreen feature did not increase toddlers’ learning compared to non-interactive video, despite increasing toddlers’ visual attention to target information. Conversely, the irrelevant touchscreen feature had a positive effect on learning, particularly on later search trials. The findings are discussed with respect to toddlers’ mental representations of on-screen versus real-life events and implications for the design of touchscreen media for children. IMPACT SUMMARY a. Prior State of Knowledge: Toddlers learn less from video than from real-life experiences. It is widely believed that interactive media support toddlers’ learning, but research is mixed, sometimes finding neutral or even negative effects of interactivity compared to noninteractive video. b. Novel Contributions: A simple, relevant touchscreen feature increased toddlers’ encoding of target information but did not improve learning. Conversely, an irrelevant touchscreen feature improved toddlers’ learning, perhaps by increasing slightly the effort required to complete an otherwise simple task. c. Practical Implications: Interactive media do not always increase toddlers’ learning. Simple learning tasks may not benefit from simple interactivity. Instead, media creators may be able to maximize educational value by balancing the difficulty of the lesson with the complexity of media features.

Touchscreens for Whom? Working Memory and Age Moderate the Impact of Contingency on Toddlers' Transfer From Video.

Toddlers exhibit poor transfer between video and real-world contexts. Contingently responsive video such as that found in touchscreen apps appears to assist transfer for some toddlers but not others. This study investigated the extent to which toddlers' working memory moderates the impact of contingency on toddler's transfer of learning from video. Toddlers (24–36 months; N = 134) watched a hiding event on either (a) contingent video that advanced only after touch input or (b) non-contingent video that proceeded automatically. Toddlers then searched for a corresponding object on a felt board. Additionally, toddlers' working memory (WM) was assessed. Findings indicate WM and age moderated the impact of contingency on transfer: Contingency decreased transfer in younger children while increasing transfer among older children. However, this was only true for children with relatively low WM. Contingency had little impact on transfer among children with relatively high WM, regardless of age. Results from this study suggest that WM is one specific moderator that predicts whether toddlers are likely to learn from contingent vs. non-contingent video, yet WM does not operate in isolation. Together, these findings underscore the importance of considering multiple child characteristics when identifying the optimal conditions for toddlers' learning from symbolic media.

Fighting the Crocodiles: Immigrant Students and Their Perilous Routes at Campus

This article is about what institutional frameworks do to our immigrant students, or how such frames may open or close opportunities. As my text unfolds, my students will speak. What stories do they provide us with? and What stories pass unnoticed? This text is also about voice and academic texts as muted lives, or as flat versions on a felt board.

Endodontic Board Certification: A Review of Factors Affecting the Certification Rate

IntroductionBoard certification identifies clinicians who possess advanced proficiency and expertise within their field. Only 23% of endodontists are board certified (the lowest among all dental specialties). The aim of this study was to determine the factors that influence endodontists' decisions regarding the completion of board certification. MethodsA 16-question survey was e-mailed to 5073 US endodontists and residents who are American Association of Endodontists members. ResultsA total of 1603 endodontists and residents responded, corresponding to an overall response rate of 31.6%. Of those respondents, 73.8% felt board certification was important. Among endodontists, 32% were board certified, 24.4% had plans of becoming board certified, and 43.6% had no plans to become board certified. The most common reasons for not pursuing board certification were “graduated too long ago,” “don't have time,” “process is too long,” and “not required to become an endodontist.” Board-certified endodontists were more likely to believe board certification was important compared with their non–board-certified counterparts (97.5% vs 60.3%, P < .0001), and were more likely to have received training at programs that encouraged and provided assistance in completion of the certification process. Residents were more likely to plan on becoming certified compared with non–board-certified endodontists (89.6% vs 35.9%). ConclusionsDespite widespread agreement regarding the importance of board certification, a strikingly low percentage of endodontists are board certified. Views provided by endodontists and endodontic residents provide insight that may be used to guide changes that will effectively increase the percentage of board-certified endodontists.

Understanding the Transfer Deficit: Contextual Mismatch, Proactive Interference, and Working Memory Affect Toddlers' Video-Based Transfer.

Researchers tested the impact of contextual mismatch, proactive interference, and working memory (WM) on toddlers' transfer across contexts. Forty-two toddlers (27-34months) completed four object-retrieval trials, requiring memory updating on Trials 2-4. Participants watched hiding events on a tablet computer. Search performance was tested using another tablet (match) or a felt board (mismatch). WM was assessed. On earlier search trials, WM predicted transfer in both conditions, and toddlers in the match condition outperformed those in the mismatch condition; however, the benefit of contextual match and WM decreased over trials. Contextual match apparently increased proactive interference on later trials. Findings are interpreted within existing accounts of the transfer deficit, and a combined account is proposed.

Associations Between Toddlers' Naturalistic Media Experience and Observed Learning from Screens.

Using secondary analysis, researchers examined associations between two-year-olds' (N=135) naturalistic use of interactive and noninteractive media with performance on a screen-based learning task. Parents reported the number of minutes that children spent the previous day doing nine media-related activities (e.g., watching television, playing handheld videogames). The object-retrieval task required children to watch a hiding event on video and then search for the object on another screen or a real felt board. Results indicated that toddlers' naturalistic experience with interactive (but not noninteractive) media predicted their screen-based learning in the laboratory. This was true regardless of whether children were tested using interactive or noninteractive video, suggesting that using interactive media (but not watching noninteractive video) is associated with children's learning from screen media generally.

Touch or Watch to Learn? Toddlers’ Object Retrieval Using Contingent and Noncontingent Video

The experiment reported here was designed to examine the effect of contingent interaction with touch-screen devices on toddlers’ use of symbolic media (video) during an object-retrieval task. Toddlers (24–36 months old; N = 75) were randomly assigned to watch an animated character hiding on screen either in a no-contingency video (requiring no action), a general-contingency video (accepting touch input anywhere on screen), or a specific-contingency video (requiring touch input on a particular area of interest). After the hiding event, toddlers searched for the character on a corresponding felt board. Across all trials, younger toddlers were more likely to search correctly after a specific-contingency video than after a no-contingency video, which suggests that contingent interaction designed to emphasize specific information on screen may promote learning. However, this effect was reversed for older toddlers. We interpret our findings with respect to the selective encoding of target features during hiding events and the relative strength of memory traces during search.

Video Deficit in Toddlers’ Object Retrieval: What Eye Movements Reveal About Online Cognition

The purpose of this study was to determine whether toddlers exhibit different eye‐movement patterns when watching real events versus video demonstrations in an object‐retrieval task. Twenty‐four‐month‐olds (N = 36) searched for a sticker on a felt board after watching an experimenter hide it behind a felt object in person or via video. Eye movements during the hiding event were recorded. Compared to those watching in‐person events, children watching video spent more time looking at the target location overall, yet they had relatively poor search performance. Visual attention to the target location predicted search performance in the video condition only; children who watched in‐person hiding events had high success rates even if they paid relatively little visual attention to the correct location. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that toddlers process information more quickly for in‐person (versus video) events, enabling them to learn as well (or better) despite relatively low selective attention. Thus, relatively poor encoding, as well as memory retrieval, may underlie the video deficit.

The Use of Stories in Education

The Use of Stories in Education Charles, Veronika Martenova. Fairy Tales in the Classroom: Teaching Stu- dents to Write Stories with Meaning Through Traditional Tales. Brighton, MA: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2009. Paperback, $34.95.Using her own journey of experiencing fairy tales in her native Czechoslovakia, Veronika Martenova Charles begins her text, Fairy Tales in the Classroom, with an explanation of the power of fairy tales in this age of electronic media. Com- bining theory, research, and practice, Charles presents teachers with an invaluable resource to bring story listening, storytelling, and story creation into the classroom in courses of language arts, communication, and writing.Charles's premise is that stories are powerful learning tools. She outlines the theories of folk- and fairy tales of Vladimir Propp, Bruno Bettelheim, C. G. Jung, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jack Zipes, Arthur Applebee, F. Andre Favat, and Gianni Rodari and interprets these for the reader (and uses these theories as the basis of her approach to using story in the classroom). Thus structural, Freudian, Jungian, and feminist analysis and theories of children's relationship with folk- and fairy tales serve as the basis of the approach Charles uses to storytelling in the classroom. The research study testing her approach is impressive. Charles used her approach with over 700 hundred students in 23 classrooms in 15 schools of diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Most of the students were in grade 3, but the approach was also used with students from grades 1-8. Charles's basic research question was, Can children liberate the folktale they heard from its fixed narrative and make it their own? Her research demonstrates they can.Charles used a Proppian approach to answer this question. Vladimir Propp, a Russian linguist, analyzed over a hundred Russian fairy tales and concluded that all tales, no matter how different their characters or setting, contained the same basic structure. Using Propp's basic sequence of action that all tales follow, Charles created graphic symbols of these actions to guide the children in creating their own story after listening to a fairy tale. Using the graphic symbols to create action-symbol maps, children create their own version of the tale. Essentially, Charles's approach consists of six steps:1. Tell the story you have chosen. (Sample tales are included throughout the text and in Chapter 11.)2. Demonstrate the hero/ine's journey on the action-symbol map. (A master set of symbols, which can be laminated, and an action-symbol template for a magnetic board or felt board is provided in Chapter 11.)3. Ask the students guiding questions to help them create a new story. (A guiding question sheet is provided in Chapter 11.)4. Summarize the student's story with the new characters and replay it on the action-symbol map. …

Mothers' attachment security predicts their children's sense of God's closeness

The current research reports that mothers' security of attachment predicts their children's sense of God's closeness. A total of 71 mother–child dyads participated (children's M age = 7.5). Mothers' attachment organization was studied with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; Main, Goldwyn, & Hesse, 2003) and their religiosity and attachment to God were measured with questionnaires. Children were told stories about visually represented children in attachment-activating and attachment-neutral situations, and placed a God symbol on a felt board to represent God's closeness to the fictional children. Children of secure mothers placed the God symbol closer (d = .78) than children of insecure mothers across both types of situations, suggesting that children's experiences with secure-insecure mothers generalize to their sense of God's closeness. Also, girls (but not boys) placed the God symbol closer in attachment-activating than in attachment-neutral situations, giving partial support for an attachment normative God-as-safe-haven model. Finally, mothers' religiosity and attachment to God were unrelated to child outcomes.

Learning Japanese by Reading ‘manga’: The Rise of ‘Soft Power Pedagogy’

Multimodal examples of Japanese language input (such as ‘manga’ and anime) have now become the default choice for curriculum designers, material developers, and classroom teachers to make learning ‘fun’. More traditional written only text-based materials are now in direct competition with such materials. While there has been a comfortable relationship in additional language (L2) teaching between using text and image, for example, pictures, fuzzy felt boards, and now much more sophisticated technology (e.g. Rosetta Stone™) to explicitly teach the lexico-grammar, the proliferation of ‘manga’ in Japanese language textbooks and as stand alone course materials, for example, has largely been left unproblematized. In this paper I explore three issues to using material examples of Japanese popular culture in the Japanese language classroom and beyond. First, I focus on ‘manga’ as a case study and relate it to a course that I have been teaching for the last five years using ‘manga’ as artefact. Second, I explore how using ‘manga’ and other J-pop artefacts can impact on how the notions of legitimacy and appropriateness are linked to constructions of learner and teacher identities. Third, I will introduce the concept of what I’ll call ‘soft power pedagogy’ as a way of theorizing the use and potential abuse of ‘manga’, anime and other examples of Japanese popular culture in and out of the classroom.

Young Children's Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors

Two reliable and valid instruments to assess first- and second-grade children's ( N = 100, M = 6.8 years) environmental attitudes and behaviors are presented. A series of games derived primarily from dimensions of the new ecological paradigm theory of environmental attitudes are described for the assessment of environmental attitudes. The games include felt board construction, a board game, and an adjustable worry thermometer. Environmental behaviors are assessed in the same sample using magnitude estimation (jumping different distances to indicate frequency of engagement in behavior) based on an adoption of Kaiser's General Environmental Behavior Scale for adults. The behavior scale employs a Rasch measurement model because environmental behaviors are viewed as a consequence of attitudes in concert with difficulties to implement actions.

God is nowhere, God is now here: Attachment activation, security of attachment, and God's perceived closeness among 5 – 7-year-old children from religious and non-religious homes

God's perceived closeness (GC) is greater when the attachment system is activated. This conclusion is based primarily on adult studies, but some findings suggest its validity also in childhood. Adult studies have shown GC to vary in relation to security of attachment, but child studies have been few and methodologically limited. In this study, we tested differences between securely and insecurely attached children on GC in attachment activating and neutral conditions, as well as whether parental religiousness acted as a moderator. Participants were forty 5 – 7-year-olds, from non-religious and Christian homes. The adapted Separation Anxiety Test was used to assess attachment. Participating children were told brief stories about visually represented children in different situations, and placed a God symbol on a felt board to represent GC to the fictional child. Results showed that GC was greater in attachment activating situations, particularly for secure children, supporting a hypothesis of internal working model correspondence between models of Self/Others and God. Although a religious type of home emerged as predictive of GC, no support was found for a moderating role of parental religiousness.

Facilitating Emergent Literacy Skills: A Literature-Based, Multiple Intelligence Approach

Educators have continually sought to achieve a balance between a phonics-based, code-emphasis program and a more holistic, meaning-based approach to emergent literacy instruction. This article describes an integrated phonics and literature-based approach to developing children's emergent literacy skills. These skills included alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, phonics and nonsense word competence, and language usage. Using Howard Gardner's (1983) theory of multiple intelligence, the program's literacy activities addressed children's interpersonal, intrapersonal, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, musical, naturalistic, and visual-spatial abilities and interests. Stories from children's trade books were told in a variety of storytelling methods, such as draw talk, character imagery, felt board, group role play, and chant. These approaches were matched to children's interests and multiple intelligence areas. All of the storytelling sessions were followed by related activities that incorporated the children's emergent literacy skills. Results from this study of 13 inner-city children indicated that this integrated, seven-week program resulted in significant gains in phonemic awareness, nonsense word competence, and word usage fluency. The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) was used as a pretest and a posttest to assess children's initial and later competence on the basic emergent literacy skills. Implications for further research on this integrated approach are discussed.

Feeling the Tug: Creative Use of Ropes and Felt Board to Promote Family Change

Experiential metaphor has been used in marriage and family therapy for many years. One example of metaphor application involves the use of ropes and felt board to identify and explore relationships in families. In this case, the mother of a son who was socially isolated is treated by a marriage and family therapy intern, using ropes and felt board as media to exemplify the tugs of relationships, demands, and expectations. Responding to the metaphors, the mother changed relationships with her son, other children, and her former and current husbands. Literature supporting the use of metaphors in therapeutic contexts sets the stage for the description of the efficacy of ropes as metaphor in therapy. The case study offers a detailed account of techniques used.

Low-tech Devices for Collecting, Processing, and Planting Seeds: Racquets, Hoppers and Felt Boards—Low-tech Devices for Processing Seeds

Abstract In Utah, racquets and hoppers are used to collect small lots of long-leaf hawksbeard (Crepis acuminata Nutt. [Aster-aceae]) and pale mountain dandelion (Agoseris glauca (Pursh) Raf. [Asteraceae]). These seedlots are often contaminated with squirreltail (Elymus elymoides (Raf.) Swezey [Poaceae]) and cheatgrass (Broumus tectorum L. [Poaceae]). We toss the mixed seeds at a large piece of plush felt—the composite seeds fall to a collection container but the appendages on the grasses stick to the felt.

Racquets, Hoppers, and Felt Boards--Low-Tech Devices for Processing Seeds

In Utah, racquets and hoppers are used to collect small lots of long-leaf hawksbeard (Crepis acuminata Nutt. [Asteraceae]) and pale mountain dandelion (Agoseris glauca (Pursh) Raf. [Asteraceae]). These seedlots are often contaminated with squirreltail (Elymus elymoides (Raf.) Swezey [Poaceae]) and cheatgrass (Broumus tectorum L. [Poaceae]). We toss the mixed seeds at a large piece of plush felt—the composite seeds fall to a collection container but the appendages on the grasses stick to the felt.

The Good Behavior Game

The Good Behavior Game was implemented with four children attending a church-affiliated preschool in efforts to increase concurrent compliance and cooperation. Sessions were conducted individually with each child pair while in free play. The children were given various instructions by “Buddy Bear” (a puppet). Children were praised individually for compliant behavior while noncompliant and inappropriate behaviors were ignored. Further instances in which children complies (i.e., cooperation) were rewarded with tokens make of felt, shaped like happy faced or dinosaurs and placed on a large felt board. If the children earned their criterion levels of tokens, they received animal snacks. Improvements in compliance were noted, with generalization occurring across therapists but not settings. Factors influencing the results and implications of the findings are discussed.

Presentational features for young children's production and recall of information

Young children's production and recall of information presented at varying levels of action and verbal labels was compared on a computer versus a felt board. Forty children, equally distributed by Grades Preschool and Kindergarten, were randomly assigned to a computer or felt board condition. Within each condition, the same 24 objects (6 sets of 4 objects) were presented with or without action and verbal labels. Both action and labels increased children's recall of verbal information, regardless of the medium in which that information was presented. The results suggest that action facilitates, rather than disrupts, children's learning of verbal information.