Learning In Language Arts Research Articles

Perspectives on Practice: Language Arts Learning through Digital Game Stories

In this column, the author makes the case for using digital game stories in the language arts classroom, juxtaposing exemplary games with more traditional texts.

Educational Technology: Barrier or Bridge to Equitable Access to Advanced Learning Opportunities?

Project OCCAMS (Online Curriculum Consortium for Accelerating Middle School) is a collaboration between the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University, the Center for Gifted Education at The College of William & Mary, and Columbus Public Schools with a goal of providing accelerated learning in language arts aimed at increasing achievement and increasing participation in advanced courses in high school among students from racial and economic subgroups underrepresented in traditional gifted education services. Using a critical technology theoretical framework that examines the impact of technology on people at the individual, educational, and global levels and addresses questions around appropriate use, accessibility, and impact, project outcomes are explored through an interpretive focus on equity, including impacts on student achievement as well as students’ subjective experiences in the program. Potential implications for broader efforts in the field of gifted education to reduce disproportionality in gifted identification and close opportunity and excellence gaps beyond gifted identification reforms are also explored.

The effects of digital game-based learning on children’s Chinese language learning, attention and self-efficacy

ABSTRACT This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of digital game-based learning (DGBL) on elementary-school students’ Chinese language learning, self-efficacy and attention. In total, 126 fourth-graders participated in the study for 6 weeks. Two digital games with different mechanisms (completion-contingent and performance-contingent rewards) that integrated content from the fourth-grade Chinese language-arts curriculum were developed. Data on attention were collected from wearable electroencephalographic sensors while participants played the games. Students’ playing behaviours were coded into five patterns. Students in the DGBL groups outperformed those in the control group in Chinese language-arts learning. Different game mechanisms had significant positive effects on children’s attention and self-efficacy. The performance-contingent reward game significantly enhanced students’ attention, and the completion-contingent reward game significantly enhanced their emotions and confidence in the Chinese language arts. The performance of more leaning behaviours in the DGBL environment was associated with higher Chinese language-arts achievement scores, especially among players with high levels of attention and self-efficacy during game play. These findings support the effectiveness of DGBL in enhancing students’ Chinese language learning.

Positive technological and negative pre-test-score effects in a four-year assessment of low socioeconomic status K-8 student learning in computer-based Math and Language Arts courses

Motivated by the Federal Title I program to improve the Math and Language Arts learning of underachieving students of low socioeconomic status, the Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) at Stanford University has developed computer-based online Math and Language Arts courses for such students in elementary and middle schools. Using several large student samples, the four-year statistical assessment of state test performance is the focus of this report. The main statistical conclusion is that sustained and careful computer-based work, guided by motivated teachers, can be done by many, when taught on an individualized basis, at their current level of competence. The gains made by individual students are, to a large extent, monotonically increasing in their amount of net correct computer-based course work, and to an even larger extent monotonically decreasing as pre-test scores rise, a result that favors technological support of the more underachieving students.

Transformative Learning in Language Arts as a Method of Guidance and Counseling

Learning in language arts as method of guidance and counselling has three levels: 1. Art level (interaction with the literature); 2 Psychology level (counselling); 3 Art level (interaction with the same piece of literature as in the beginning of the session, poetic summary of the session). Disclosure of personally important meanings is a key to self understanding and poetical thinking, our developed methodical system reduces emotional tension and strengthens interconnectedness between inner and outer world, and improves poetical understanding. In this article the methodical system of transformative learning and guidance is discussed.