Just the right term... for some educational research

A teacher came to me today asking about the best place to find research on the optimum lesson length.

He and I sat there for a while, trying to get the right search term in Google Scholar and ProQuest Education Journals (NLB).

• "class length"
• "lesson length"
• "lesson duration"
• optimal

Nothing relevant was coming up. 

He had to leave, but I persevered a bit longer -- and then I hit it:  "block scheduling".

No one else may be interested in the issue, but here's what I was able to find in a very short time in ProQuest, once I had the magic words.

Eineder, Dale V., and Harold L. Bishop. “Block Scheduling the High School: The Effects on Achievement, Behavior, and Student-teacher Relationships.” National Association of Secondary School Principals. NASSP Bulletin 81.589 (1997): 45–54. Print.

Evans, William et al. “Block Scheduling: An Evaluation of Outcomes and Impact.” The Clearing House 75.6 (2002): 319–323. Print.

Hackmann, Donald G. “Constructivism and Block Scheduling: Making the Connection.” Phi Delta Kappan 85.9 (2004): 697–702. Print.

Lare, Douglas, Ann M. Jablonski, and Mary Salvaterra. “Block Scheduling: Is It Cost-effective?” National Association of Secondary School Principals. NASSP Bulletin 86.630 (2002): 54–71. Print.

Lewis, Chance W. et al. “The Effects of Block Scheduling on High School Academic Achievement.” National Association of Secondary School Principals. NASSP Bulletin 89.645 (2005): 72–87. Print.

McEwan, Anna E. “Time and Teaching.” The Educational Forum 76.1 (2012): 81–89. Print.

Muse, Frederic M. “Reasons Why a School Should Not Implement Block Scheduling.” Allied Academies International Conference. Academy of Educational Leadership. Proceedings 3.1 (1998): 66–72. Print.

Rettig, Michael D., and Robert Lynn Canady. “Block Scheduling: More Benefits Than Challenges. Response to Thomas (2001).” National Association of Secondary School Principals. NASSP Bulletin 85.628 (2001): 78–86. Print.

Thomas, Cheryl. “What Is Wrong with Block Scheduling?” National Association of Secondary School Principals. NASSP Bulletin 85.628 (2001): 74–77. Print.

Todd, Will. “An Examination of Block Scheduling: Teacher Perceptions and Relationship to Student Achievement.” 2008. ProQuest. Web. 4 June 2013.

Wright, Martha Kathryn Williams. “A Longitudinal Study of Block Scheduling in One South Carolina High School: A Descriptive Twenty-five Year Case Study from Traditional to Block.” 2010. ProQuest. Web. 4 June 2013.

Zepeda, Sally J., and R. Stewart Mayers. “An Analysis of Research on Block Scheduling.” Review of Educational Research 76.1 (2006): 137–170. Print.

The above bibliography was generated thanks to Zotero, where I created a folder in the UWCSEA group called Block Scheduling.  Feel free to add to it.

Copies of the full-text of the articles above are available as links to Google Docs attached to each of the Zotero items -- and the Google Docs are all stored in a Google folder called Block Scheduling -- accessible to anyone logged into their UWCSEA Gapps account.

I haven't read them yet, so I'm afraid I don't know what the consensus is.  I'll leave that to the inquiring teacher to tell us.

Update: 5 June:  His feedback was that the best summary of the issue is Donald Hackman's article "Constructivism and Block Scheduling: Making the Connection."  Having read it, I agree -- great article.  Highly recommended.

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Image: cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Earls37a

English/Literacy Teachers: Share Books and Student Reading

Book discussion groups for teachers on both campuses have started recently, with the aim of exploring young adult and children's literature.

On Dover a group meets Wednesday lunchtimes in the Middle School building to look at different kinds of YA (young adult) literature.  Next week (May 8th) the focus will be on Mysteries/Thrillers.  In the previous session, we discussed "decent tear-jerkers."  Contact Angie Erickson (ane@uwcsea.edu.sg) for more information. 

On East a group meets every Wednesday before school in the Think Tank for booktalks over coffee and croissants, alternately focusing on upper primary and middle school students. Next week (May 8th) we will each share some of our favorite books or recent reads suitable for Grades 6-8.  Check out this list of books for Grades 3-5 people booktalked on April 24.  Contact Katie Day (kda@uwcsea.edu.sg) for more information.

See our joint GoodReads Group:  UWCSEA English/Literacy Teachers & Texts -- where meeting dates/times and booklists can be found.

Feel free to join either group in person or online via our GoodReads page.

Update on professional journals - online

Philip Allan "Review" Journals

We now have access to the archives of:

20th Century History Review
Biological Sciences Review
Chemistry Review
Economic Review
Physics Review
Psychology Review
The English Review

(The same information is available at research.uwcsea.edu.sg/philipallan )

American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT)

• The Physics Teacher
• American Journal of Physics

Click on the image below and "sign in" using the login/password found in bit.ly/accessuwc

(The same information is available at research.uwcsea.edu.sg/aapt )

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Remember, all logins/passwords can be found in a Google Doc (accessible only to people logged into an @gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg account) -- just click bit.ly/accessuwc .

Books/Discussion groups for Professional Learning

How People Learn

Back in Term 1, Nick did a session on professional learning and in Term 2 we asked who might be interested in getting a discussion group together to explore one of the books he recommended -- which is available free online.  (See the previous blog post on Discuss When? How People Learn.)  

Several of you did respond -- see this spreadsheet -- but I failed to follow up in helping groups to form. (Sorry!)  Anyone interested in picking up the project?

Wednesday Morning Book Share

I'm starting a weekly professional learning group next Wednesday, 7:15 am in the Think Tank of the secondary library.  The focus will be on books good for upper primary school and middle school students -- in alternating weeks.  

Bring 5 books to share and quickly book-talk.  

The first week we'll look at books for an upper primary school audience (Grades 3-5).  The following week will be for middle school (Grades 6-8).  And so on.  Everyone is welcome to attend any week.

The goal is to learn about books to recommend to students, for pleasure and/or curriculum connections.

Coffee (Starbucks, if all goes to plan) and croissants will be provided.

Questions?  Contact kda@uwcsea.edu.sg 

Book icon: Nathan Thomson, from The Noun Project

Beyond Mindset:  The Cultural Foundations of Learning:  East and West

A book Nick has recommended to everyone (and which we have multiple copies of) is Mindset by Carol Dweck. 

Click here for the website of the book.

In 2002 Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article for The New Yorker on "The Talent Myth", which features Dweck's work.  

We also have a book in the library called Talent is Over-Rated by Geoff Colvin.



 If you liked Mindset and want to think further, try this more academic text:  Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West (2012) by Jin Li, a professor of education at Brown University in the States.  

Several of us have read it and think it raises important issues for a Western-oriented school located in an Eastern culture.

From a review in PsycCRITIQUES (Jan 2013):

Jin Li has a refreshing outlook on the cultural foundations of learning, comparing Eastern with Western learners. She is an “insider” with a Chinese perspective who was educated in the West at the graduate level. In her book Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West, Li examines East Asian foundations of learning after her Western education impressed upon her to reject and question their very validity. Her emic perspective enables her to understand the nuances within an Asian perspective often missed by those coming from an etic or outsider perspective. In returning to her roots, she finds new complexity and value in East Asian foundations of learning and presents an important conceptual distinction between the Western mind model and the East Asian virtue model. At the core of the East Asian learner is the aim of “transforming oneself,” consistent with Confucian principles, whereas at the core of the Western learner is the aim of “learning to master the universe,” consistent with Socratic principles

A good chunk of the book is available for preview via Google Books -- click here.

And, yes, we have multiple copies in the library.


Remember, you can always check what books we have by searching the school catalog.  Start here:   catalog.uwcsea.edu.sg

Heads Up: especially MS/HS English Teachers

First of all, happy World Read-Aloud Day!

This is the week of Red Dot Book Awards voting.  This is an annual event of Singapore international schools -- and the multiple copies bought for this reading initiative become valuable extended reading & literature circle resources.

Please encourage your class to participate - or invite me to speak to your class for a 5-minute get-out-the-vote pitch.  The books have been up in the library for the past several months and I know a lot of your students have read at least two - which is all that is required to choose ONE per category.

Last votes must be in by a week from Friday.  Winners to be announced on Saturday, March 16th.

See this post on Red Dot Voting on the general Kishore Mahbubani Library blog - which has short 1-minute videos of the book covers flipping like pages - a quick reminder to students of the books up for the awards this year.

There's a QR code for mobile devices to read - making it easy to vote.  I will have my 12 library iPads up on the front desk ready for anyone to use.

NB: Our school code for voting is simply UWCEAST (the voting form asks for a code - so we can tell which school students are voting from).

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Trial Databases from Gale Cengage

As you know from the Friday, Feb. 8th Research Skills Professional Learning Day, we are working hard to get our digital resources easy to find and easy to use.  The place to always start (excuse the split infinitive) for all our UWCSEA links & logins -- as well as the National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore eResources is:

research.uwcsea.edu.sg

For you English teachers, there are two trial subscriptions we have access to until March 15th -- and Susanne Clower, the Dover librarian, and I are anxious to know what you think of them.

You can access them via our Gale Cengage homepage -- on the right hand side.

Literature Criticism Online (read about it here) is a resource we buy once and own forever.  Like very expensive reference books.  Right now, I'm not sure we have the budget for it.

Literature Resource Center (read about it here) is an annual subscription.  It is also not cheap.  So if we buy it, we need to make sure it gets used.  Frankly, I think this is probably the better bet right now.  But if you don't think so, then I don't want to waste our money.

Please have a look at both of them.  Or feel free to tell me what kinds of research your students are likely to do and I will do some test searches myself.

Discuss when? How People Learn

Several of you expressed an interest in discussing the book Nick mentioned in his Professional Learning talk last term:  How People Learn -- which is available free online in PDF form and as an MP3 podcast.  Yes, the National Academies Press makes all their publications freely available as long as you register for an account.  What an amazingly generous institution!

The time has come to decide when and how we are going to organize these discussions.  Please fill out the form below.

Handwriting research, NLB, & Zotero

Have you ever wondered about the effects of increased usage of computers on students' handwriting ability?  

How might this affect them in exams (such as the IB Diploma) which are all hand-written?  Muscle cramp?  Lack of fine-motor stamina?  Illegibility?

What cognitive processes are involved in handwriting compared to typing on a keyboard?  

How important is handwriting these days?

Nick Alchin asked me to start exploring these questions -- and Frazer Cairns from Dover sent us a couple of articles to get the ball rolling.

What a good, small topic to demonstrate a few of our research tools.

First of all, the National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore has three major database collections aimed at educators - which are free for us to use. 

• Education Full Text - WilsonWeb - EBSCOHost  The WilsonWeb journals database crafted to meet the unique information needs of education students, professionals, and policy makers — now delivers full text contents from Springer, plus full text information from the classic library trade magazine, Wilson Library Bulletin. The recent additions expand on the database's coverage of an international range of English-language periodicals, monographs, and yearbooks.
• Educator's e-Collection - Gale Cengage  Available on the Gale PowerSearch platform, this collection provides resources in the field of education covering virtually every educational specialty, latest technologies, developments, instruction and coaching breakthroughs as well as information relating to administration, funding, policy, child health and development. The database covers multiple levels of education from preschool to college.
• ERIC - the Education Resources Information Center - EBSCOHost  ERIC - the Education Resources Information Center - is an online digital library of education research and information. The database available here via the EBSCOhost Web service provides access to indexed bibliographic records and full-text documents.

For information about how to search the NLB databases (as well as ones we subscribe to), see our Library Research Guides, e.g., on Professional Learning for Teachers: Magazines/Journals or Databases Overview.

Searching those NLB databases for "handwriting" and "technology" and "teaching" produced a number of results, which I collected using Zotero, the free online referencing and bibliographic tool, which all our IB Diploma students are using for their Extended Essays.  (If you're interested in trying it, see our library guide on Information Research & Fluency: Zotero for links to get you started.)

Click here to see the results of my "Handwriting" search in our UWCSEA East group in Zotero. (And feel free to join the group and add more to the "Handwriting" Folder.  That's what groups are for - joint collection and sharing of resources.)  

You can read the articles by clicking on the URL of items in the library.  I uploaded the PDFs in Google Docs and made the sharing available to anyone logged into a @gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg account.

The beauty of Zotero is you can produce reports and bibliographies in any desired referencing format.  Here is the "Handwriting" Folder exported in MLA format:

Anonymous. “As Cursive Wanes, Educators Wonder What Is Being Lost.” Education Week 29.5 (2009): 10. Print.

Berninger, Virginia Wise. “Strengthening the Mind’s Eye.” Principal 91.5 (2012): 28–31. Print.

Berninger, Virginia Wise Wise. Past, Present, and Future Contributions ofCognitive Writing Research to Cognitive Psychology. Psychology Press, 2012. Print.

Bloom, Adi. “Not so mighty any more.” The Times Educational Supplement 4963 (2011): 28. Print.

Enstrom, E. A. Handwriting: The Neglect of a Needed Skill. The Clearing House, 1966. eric. Web.

Furner, Beatrice A. Handwriting Instruction for a High-Tech Society: Will Handwriting Be Necessary? 1985. eric. Web.

“Increased use of Technology leads to handwriting difficulties amongst Chinese youth.” Digital Learning Apr. 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2012.

Judkins, Jason, Holli Dague, and Steven Cope. “Handwriting in the Schools: Challenges and Solutions.” Early Intervention & School Special Interest Section Quarterly / American Occupational Therapy Association 16.1 (2009): 1–4. Print.

Lee, Hye-Jung. “Evolutionary Change of Communication in e-Learning: in the era of synchronous e-text communuication.” Global Science and Technology Forum, 2011. 1–6. SOURCE: ProQuest Central - NLB. Web.

Medwell, Jane, and David Wray. “Handwriting--A Forgotten Language Skill?” Language and Education 22.1 (2008): 34–47. Print.

---. “Handwriting: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?” Literacy 41.1 (2007): 10–15. Print.

Mogey, N. et al. “Students’ Choices Between Typing and Handwriting in Examinations.” Active Learning in Higher Education 13.2 (2012): 117–128. Print.

Sülzenbrück, S. et al. “The Death of Handwriting: Secondary Effects of Frequent Computer Use on Basic Motor Skills.” Journal of motor behavior 43.3 (2011): 247–251. Print.

Supon, Vi. “Cursive Writing: Are Its Last Days Approaching?” Journal of Instructional Psychology 36.4 (2009): 357–359. Print.

Tucha, Oliver, Lara Tucha, and Klaus W. Lange. “Graphonomics, Automaticity and Handwriting Assessment.” Literacy 42.3 (2008): 145–155. Print.

Zubrzycki, Jaclyn. “Experts Fear Handwriting Will Become a Lost Art.” Education Week 31.18 (2012): 1,. Print.

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For an amusing blast from the past, read the article below from 1966 bemoaning the poor quality of high school students' handwriting - and putting the blame partly on teachers not modeling good chalkboard script - while also acknowledging the "day-long writing needs" of students, something which has definitely changed.