The Impact of Direct Challenges to Student Endorsement of Teleological Reasoning on Understanding and Acceptance of Natural Selection

Background: Teleological reasoning is a cognitive bias purported to disrupt student ability to understand natural selection. Few studies have described pedagogical efforts to decrease student endorsement of teleological reasoning and measure the effects of this attenuation on the understanding and acceptance of evolution. This study examined the influence of explicit instructional activities directly challenging student endorsement of teleological explanations for evolutionary adaptations on their learning of natural selection over a semester-long undergraduate course in evolutionary medicine. In a convergent mixed-methods design this study combined pre- and post-semester survey data (N = 83) on understanding natural selection, student endorsement of teleological reasoning, and acceptance of evolution, with thematic analysis of student reflective writing on their understanding and acceptance of natural selection and teleological reasoning.Results: Student endorsement of teleological reasoning decreased and understanding and acceptance of natural selection increased during a course on human evolution with teleological intervention (p£0.0001), compared to a control course. Endorsement of teleological reasoning was predictive of understanding of natural selection prior to the semester. Thematic analysis revealed that students were largely unaware of the concept of teleological reasoning prior to the course, but perceived attenuation of their own teleological reasoning by the end of the semester. Conclusions: Students are unaware of their high levels of endorsement of teleological reasoning upon entrance into the undergraduate human evolution course, which is consequential because teleological reasoning is a predicter of natural selection understanding. We developed class activities to directly challenge student endorsement of unwarranted design teleological reasoning. As a result, students had decreased unwarranted teleological reasoning and increased acceptance and understanding of natural selection over the course of the semester. The data presented show that students are receptive to explicit instructional challenges to their teleological reasoning and that attenuation of this bias is associated with gains in natural selection understanding and acceptance.

Investigation of Teacher Roles in Educational Practices in The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Phenomenological Study

In the research, it is aimed to analyze the roles of teachers teaching in distance education in the Covid-19 pandemic period and to investigate the obstacles encountered in the realization of these roles. The aim of the research is examined with the post-positivist paradigm and analyzed with the phenomenological design which is one of the qualitative research methods. In the research, participants were chosen from the teachers of Mathematics, Foreign Language, Science, Turkish and Social Studies who teach at least 15 hours or more per week in distance education. The data collection process in which data triangulation was performed included diaries kept by teachers for five days, individual interviews and focus group interviews. Transcripted data were analyzed by content analysis technique. According to the findings of the research, it was observed that the roles of the teachers who participated in the study were “communicator”, “collaborator”, “facilitator” and “learner” teacher during the distance education in Covid-19 pandemic. It has been observed that there are obstacles in the realization of roles in issues such as injustice / inequality in education, subject-centered program, structure of the education program, professional development, student and parent unwillingness. Teachers stated the features that teachers should have in the process of distance education as technopedagogical content knowledge, planning instructional activities, being able to measure distance assessment and provide student motivation.

Integrating Project-based Activity in Improving the Science Academic Performance of Learners in the New Normal

The objective of this paper was to determine the efficacy of Project-based learning in increasing the academic performance of learners in remote learning amidst the pandemic. There were eight (8) Project-based instructional activities across six (6) most essential learning competencies in Earth Science were included in the Grade 9 Unit three Earth Science. The computed t value of 5.08 is greater than the t critical value of 2.0049 at level of significance of 0.05, the statistical decision is to reject the null hypothesis. There is a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test of the respondents who were subjected to project-based activity. Result implied that there is enough evidence to support the claim that integrating project-based activity can effectively improve the academic performance of the respondents. Based on the analysis gathered by the researcher, the use of project-based activity in on-line teaching is highly effective in improving the academic performance of students in Earth Science. Therefore, I, the researcher, recommends the use of project-based method of teaching in the on-line distance learning.

Engaging in dialogue during collaborative writing: The role of affective, cognitive, and social engagement

Collaborative writing (CW) involves two or more students writing a single text together. Previous studies mainly focused on students’ cognitive engagement in CW and investigated their attention to various language-related problems during task interaction. However, little CW research to date has considered that engagement in language-related discussions can manifest from three dimensions: cognitive, social, and affective. Focusing on the multidimensional characteristics of engagement, this study investigated how Russian learners’ social and affective reactions influence their focus on language use while they completed a CW task. Drawing on Svalberg’s framework of engagement with language to identify the three dimensions of engagement, I conducted a mixed-method approach towards analysing the audio-recorded collaborative dialogues by three student pairs ( n = 6), along with a qualitative analysis of their responses to a five-point Likert scale questionnaire. The analyses showed that when learners were interactive and viewed the activity as useful, they noticed many linguistic problems and elaborated on them. In contrast, when learners demonstrated social disengagement and perceived disadvantages from CW, they were likely to withdraw their attention from resolving the language issues they encountered. These findings indicate the complex and dynamic nature of task engagement. They can provide second language (L2) teachers with an in-depth understanding of how to fully engage students in instructional activities to better foster their L2 learning.

Teaching Writing Through Content: Six Instructional Activities to Improve Students’ Sentence-Level Writing Skills

Writing is a complex activity requiring a wide range of skills. Sentence construction, a foundational writing skill, is necessary for paragraph and composition writing. Unfortunately, many current approaches to teaching writing place a priority on the product—focusing on teaching the process of writing lengthy pieces rather than providing explicit instruction in the development of singular, well-constructed sentences. Many students with learning disabilities struggle with proficient sentence construction and acquiring content-area knowledge. Teaching sentence-level writing through content can aid in remediating sentence-level writing deficits while helping students build content-area knowledge. A framework for embedding writing across the curriculum and six sentence-level instructional activities are described.

Parents’ Involvement in Education Activities and Learners’ Academic Performance in 12YBE Schools in Rwanda

The participation of parents in the performance of their children’ schooling activities play a significant role in the promotion of their school status and performance. The purpose of this paper therefore, was to establish the relationship between parents’ involvement in education activities and learners academic performance in 12Year Basic Education (YBE) schools in Nyarugenge district in Rwanda. The study adopted correlation research design while questionnaire, interview guide and document analysis review were used as data collection instruments. The target population was 1343. The study used simple random and stratified sampling techniques to get the sample size of 308 respondents. The study findings revealed there is a high significant positive relationship between parents’ participation in education activities at school and high score grades with 0.852. The correlation between parents’ participation in education activities was 0.873 and the correlation between parent’s participation in education activities at school and marks in discipline was .949 thus P = 0.000< 0.05. The study recommended that government should consider developing and implementing policies that support parents’ involvement in education activities. Parents should assist their children in doing their homework and set within their families an adequate environment by stimulating instructional activities and also time related to their students to revise their lessons as they also need to be cared for regarding their special needs. School principals have to cooperate with teaching staff and parents to enhance academic performance in their schools. Keywords: Parental involvement to education, learners’ academic performance and 12 years basic education

Parents’ Involvement in Education Activities and Learners’ Academic Performance in 12YBE Schools in Rwanda

The participation of parents in the performance of their children’ schooling activities play a significant role in the promotion of their school status and performance. The purpose of this paper therefore, was to establish the relationship between parents’ involvement in education activities and learners academic performance in 12Year Basic Education (YBE) schools in Nyarugenge district in Rwanda. The study adopted correlation research design while questionnaire, interview guide and document analysis review were used as data collection instruments. The target population was 1343. The study used simple random and stratified sampling techniques to get the sample size of 308 respondents. The study findings revealed there is a high significant positive relationship between parents’ participation in education activities at school and high score grades with 0.852. The correlation between parents’ participation in education activities was 0.873 and the correlation between parent’s participation in education activities at school and marks in discipline was .949 thus P = 0.000< 0.05. The study recommended that government should consider developing and implementing policies that support parents’ involvement in education activities. Parents should assist their children in doing their homework and set within their families an adequate environment by stimulating instructional activities and also time related to their students to revise their lessons as they also need to be cared for regarding their special needs. School principals have to cooperate with teaching staff and parents to enhance academic performance in their schools. Keywords: Parental involvement to education, learners’ academic performance and 12 years basic education