Assistive Technology Interventions and Equity Within Literacy Instruction

This study examines ways to provide assistive technology interventions within literacy courses for adolescents and young adults with disabilities. Instead of separating students from their peers during reading and writing assignments, literacy teachers who implement assistive technology can support equitable access to school curricula and technology-based learning resources. Unresolved questions about teacher training and accessibility led to the problem statement: What technology resources have special education service providers found useful during literacy instruction for students with support needs? Research reporting findings from intervention studies and/or interviews with educators showed differences between activity systems in secondary and post-secondary environments. Teachers' beliefs and expectations about student characteristics and the need for individual assistance could contribute to inequities in access to literacy instruction. The thematic analysis revealed practices within literacy classes that can decrease or maintain inequities for students with support needs.

How Students' Perceptions in Narrative Class (The Lord of Flies) Through Online Collaboration Learning.

Mariwan Hasan (2020), suggests that Golding’s novel can be used in a second language classroom to teach democratic values such as the right to free speech using reader-response theory. Curriculum requires that democratic values be taught through each subject, suggests that students can be taught about democratic values through classroom discussions and writing assignments based on the novel (Ghazal Kazim Syed, 2020). In addition to academic learning, researchers believe that students also gain confidence through the collaboration work. When students conform each other’s opinions in activities involving group work, it makes them confident and comfortable with each other. When the teacher is not around to ask a question, they will be less at pressure. against them (Cynthia S, 2020). The practice of collaborative learning in online education is increasing steadily as many curriculum creators and online course teachers are starting to understand its positive effects on the learning of students. This study aimed to analyze students' perceptions in narrative class (The Lord of Flies) through online collaboration learningu used a qualitative research design was followed by this study. As it is a study of perceptions, a qualitative methodology using a phenomenological approach, the participants of this study were twelve the eleventh grade students, data for this article was gathered through semi-structured interviews. The researcher checked part of the coding against each other to ensure trustworthiness of data. Keeping in light the usefulness of online collaboration learning shown in this study, it is recommended that teachers should take effort to include students in literature online discussion group. Furthermore, it is recommended that similar studies should be conducted in schools and colleges. As this study is recommended for future researchers to check the adaptability of the findings in other contexts.

Animal industry survey: The importance of technical and soft skills, coursework, and extracurricular activities on the success of undergraduates entering animal industries

A survey instrument was developed to inquire about the skills and experiences needed to be successful in an entry-level position within an animal industry. The instrument called upon industry representatives to rank the importance of skills, experiences, and coursework as they relate to success. A five-point scale was used for ranking (1=not important, 2=somewhat important, 3=moderately important, 4=very important, 5=extremely important). Industry representatives ranked personal and team-based soft skills as the most important skills related to success. Animal science coursework and hands-on animal handling and welfare experiences also ranked very high. Non-animal science coursework, agricultural business skills, collegiate experiences, and scientific/laboratory skills were ranked the lowest in terms of importance, but rankings of these categories still fell in the moderately important range. These rankings indicate the need for well-rounded students that have gained technical and personal skills throughout their collegiate education. This also signals a need for projects, writing assignments, and hands-on animal-related activities that promote development of soft skills within the animal science curriculum.

‘Babe… you're a bit of a know it all’

This study employed a novel user experience method, the love/breakup letter, to evaluate the usefulness of an online information literacy (IL) tutorial for students writing assignments with research requirements. Thematic coding of the letters showed that this method elicited revealing responses from students about their confidence in doing library research, preferred learning styles, and intentions to use such a tool again. In contrast with highly-favourable prelaunch user testing results, the majority of students wrote breakup letters to the tutorial and several bypassed it altogether despite their explicit assignment instructions. The findings have implications for librarians exploring new research methods and investigating practical applications of online IL teaching tools designed for self-directed learning.

“Please Let me Use Google Translate”: Thai EFL Students’ Behavior and Attitudes toward Google Translate Use in English Writing

The present study aims to investigate how Thai EFL university students use Google Translate (GT) in English writing, how they post-edit (PE) its outputs, and how they view GT use in English writing. The participants were 15 third-year non-English major students from three universities in Thailand. The data collection tools were an interview and two writing assignments. After the data analysis, the findings revealed the students’ behavior of GT use and their output PE as well as their attitudes toward GT use in English writing. The results reported the students always used GT in completing writing tasks at both sentence and paragraph levels, and most students did PE the outputs before applying them. However, a few students used the outputs with no PE because they trusted in GT more than they did in themselves. Regarding the PE level, the students intended to address lexical and syntax errors, so their correcting covered the light level. The results also revealed mixed messages in their attitudes toward GT use in English writing. Most students viewed GT as a helpful, reliable assistant enhancing their writing quality, but some raw GT outputs of phrases, idioms, long sentences, and paragraphs were found incomprehensible. Also, the students acquired some bad habits from using GT. However, most students disagreed with not being allowed to use GT in English writing. The study recommended language teachers to provide Thai EFL students adequate instructions for the effective use of GT and its output PE.  

Analyzing Grammatical Errors Committed by Students in Writing in the Academic Year 2020/2021

This study aimed to analyze the types of errors in writing recount texts and identify the source of errors in students. The subjects of this study were tenth-grade students of Languages major ??at SMA Negeri 1 Kuta Selatan with a total of 31 students. This research was qualitative descriptive research. Data were collected from students' writing assignments, questionnaires, and interviews. This study used the theory of Dulay et al. (1982) to find out the types of errors supported with the theory from Sawalmeh (2013) regarding spelling errors which was supported by the theory from Besten & Granger (2011). The theory from Brown (2007) was used to find out the source of students' errors. The results of this study indicate that the types of errors found in student texts are omission, misformation, addition, misordering, and spelling. Sources of student errors are interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer, the context of learning, and communication strategy.

Menulis Cerita Pendek dengan Model Pembelajaran “CANTIK” Bagi Siswa SMA Negeri 1 Tawangsari Tahun Pelajaran 2019/2020

This study aims to 1) find out the technique of writing short stories with the "CANTIK" learning model, 2) improve students' skills in writing short stories. In this study, the subjects were teachers and students of class XI MIPA1 SMA N 1 Tawangsari in the even semester of the 2019/2020 school year. The object of research in general is the implementation of learning to write short stories. The data obtained by the technique of giving short story writing assignments, observation and documentation. The data were analyzed using a qualitative description method, namely data presentation and conclusion drawing/verification. The results showed that learning to write short stories in class XI MIPA1 SMA N 1 Tawangsari in the even semester of the 2019/2020 school year was carried out based on the 2013 Curriculum, the Indonesian language learning syllabus for class XI, and was carried out according to the Indonesian RPP for short story text teaching materials. The obstacles faced in learning to write short stories are 1) the implementation of the right learning model in learning to write short stories, 2) the low motivation of students in participating in short story writing lessons, 3) decreased concentration of students when learning Indonesian is scheduled in the final hours. learning. The ways to overcome these obstacles are 1) the application of learning methods to write short stories that are appropriate and interesting for students, 2) provide motivation and enlightenment to students about the benefits of having the ability to write short stories in everyday life. 4) variations in the allocation of learning schedules for writing short stories.

Towards Figurative Expression Enhancement: Effects of the SVVR-Supported Worked Example Approach on the Descriptive Writing of Highly Engaged Students

During the past decades, many researchers have attempted to explore effective teaching methods for developing students’ descriptive writing performance. In this study, the worked example was implemented as an effective way of guiding students to provide step-by-step solutions to learning tasks. Moreover, a spherical video-based virtual reality (SVVR) environment was provided to place students in real-world situations which enabled them to experience the learning contexts in depth. A pretest-posttest quasi experimental study was conducted to explore the influence of the SVVR-supported worked example approach and engagement level on students’ Chinese descriptive writing performance. A total of 79 fourth-grade elementary school students participated in this study. The experimental group used SVVR with worked examples to complete Chinese writing assignments, whereas the control group used videos and worked examples. The results showed no significant effects of the SVVR-supported worked example approach compared with the conventional worked example approach regarding organization, sensory details, or creativity dimensions. As for the figurative expression dimension, students in the SVVR-supported worked example approach condition scored significantly higher. Moreover, high engagement students significantly outperformed low engagement students in all four writing performance dimensions. Additionally, a significant interaction effect between learning approach and engagement level on figurative expression was found.