Prompting Socially Shared Regulation of Learning and Creativity in Solving STEM Problems

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a widely recommended method in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education through which students develop their scientific knowledge by collaboratively solving real-world problems. PBL benefits from both the activation of creative thinking and from socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL)-a group-level phenomenon whereby students collectively share common perceptions of their collaborative learning process and co-construction of knowledge. The current study examines the influence of three types of support (question prompts designed to promote SSRL, creative thinking, or a combination of both) on the participation of individuals in SSRL processes and on their knowledge acquisition, using a sample of 104 seventh-graders in accelerated science classes. Individuals' participation through the different stages of SSRL (forethought, performance, and reflection) was assessed using video recordings, and their scientific knowledge was measured through pre-and post-intervention knowledge tests. While all groups improved their scientific knowledge, individuals receiving only SSRL support improved their participation in most stages of SSRL compared with those receiving creativity or combined support, and a control group which received no support. The findings strengthen the case for SSRL-directed question prompts as a means to enhance student engagement in problem-solving tasks.

Revisionism in International Relations

International relations analysts often differentiate between status-quo and revisionist states. Revisionist states favor modifications to the prevailing order: its rules and norms, its distribution of goods or benefits, its implicit structure or hierarchy, its social rankings that afford status or recognition, its division of territory among sovereign entities, and more. Analyses of revisionist states’ foreign policies and behaviors have explored sources and types of revisionism, choices of revisionist strategies, the interplay of revisionist and status-quo states, and the prospects for peaceful or violent change in the system. Intuitive but imprecise, the concepts of revisionism and revisionist states often are used without explicit definition, reflective discussion, or rigorous operationalization. For these reasons, efforts to conceptualize and measure revisionism merit special attention. Highlighted works promise to improve understanding of revisionism as a phenomenon, as well as its use in theoretical and empirical analyses of international conflict, war, and the peaceful accommodation of rising powers. Three questions guide the survey. First, who is seeking to revise what? This question opens a foray into the realm of the status quo and its distinct components, particularly in the context of rising and resurgent powers. Second, what is revisionism, and how is it detected or recognized? This question prompts an exploration of the concept and how it is brought to life in scholarly analyses. The third guiding question invites theoretical perspective: How does revisionism help one understand international relations? Provisional answers to that question open avenues for future inquiry.

Supporting Pre-Service Teachers in Becoming Reflective Practitioners Using Conversation and Professional Standards

A significant goal of teacher education is to support the development of reflective practitioners. This intention, however, is not easily achieved when after-the-fact recall and reporting are key features of pre-service teacher learning rather than critique and contemplation. This research reports on a small-scale pilot study evaluating a novel approach to help pre-service teachers develop reflective skills in order to both understand and address the requirements of the profession. The approach involved a set of Conversation Cards with a series of question-based prompts directly linked to the APSTs and designed to enhance reflective conversations. Focus group interview discussions unveiled the surprising ways in which the pre-service teachers used the question prompts, not only as tools for reflection but for planning lessons and preparing for professional discussions with mentors. This research provides insight into a creative and meaningful approach for integrating reflection, professional standards and classroom practice through professional experience.

Exploring the Relationship Between Interaction and the Structure of Questions in Online Discussions Using Learning Analytics

While research has established the importance of questions as a key strategy used to facilitate student interaction in online discussions, there is a need to explore how the structure of questions influence students’ interactions. Using learning analytics, we explored the relationship between student-student interaction and the structure of initial questions with and without the Practical Inquiry Model (PIM). Degree centrality was used as the method to analyse the number of responses each student sent (out-degree centrality) and the number of responses each student received (in-degree centrality). Findings showed that the number of responses each student sent and received was higher in the discussions initiated by the PIM-question prompts. In addition, analysis revealed a positive relationship between students’ interaction and the discussions structured with PIM and non-PIM questions. Finally, there was a significant difference in out-degree centrality but no significant difference in in-degree centrality between discussions structured with the PIM and non-PIM questions. We conclude that initial questions can be structured using PIM as a guiding framework to facilitate student-student interaction in online discussions.

Strategy Instruction to Support Struggling Readers in Comprehending Expository Main Ideas

This article describes a comprehension strategy that can be used by teachers to help students identify and construct the main ideas for expository texts. The BURNS Strategy (i.e., Box. Underline. Reread. Note. Summarize.) was developed as part of a larger reading intervention to improve the comprehension performance of struggling readers in the elementary grades. The BURNS strategy was designed to incorporate thinking scaffolds and question prompts to guide students through a thinking process that might help them construct the main ideas. This article reports on the teaching process and instructional scaffolds used in the intervention, and discusses implications for teaching main ideas in the intervention setting.