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Abstract Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to worldwide initiatives aimed to provide school access to all children. Research in high income countries has shown that school quality indicators have a significant, positive impact on numeracy and literacy—skills required to participate in the increasingly globalized economy. Schools vary enormously in kind, resources, and teacher training around the world, however, and the validity of using diverse school quality measures in populations with diverse educational profiles remains unclear. First, we assessed whether children's numeracy and literacy performance across populations improves with age, as evidence of general school‐related learning effects. Next, we examined whether several school quality measures related to classroom experience and composition, and to educational resources, were correlated with one another. Finally, we examined whether they were associated with children's (4–12‐year‐olds,N = 889) numeracy and literacy performance in 10 culturally and geographically diverse populations which vary in historical engagement with formal schooling. Across populations, age was a strong positive predictor of academic achievement. Measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another, as were measures of access to educational resources and classroom experience and composition. The number of teachers per class and access to writing materials were key predictors of numeracy and literacy, while the number of students per classroom, often linked to academic achievement, was not. We discuss these results in the context of maximising children's learning environments and highlight study limitations to motivate future research. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTSWe examined the extent to which four measures of school quality were associated with one another, and whether they predicted children's academic achievement in 10 culturally and geographically diverse societies.Across populations, measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another as were measures of access to educational resources to classroom experience and composition.Age, the number of teachers per class, and access to writing materials were key predictors of academic achievement across populations.Our data have implications for designing efficacious educational initiatives to improve school quality globally.
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Programming as a language for young children to express and explore mathematics in school
Abstract Natural language helps express mathematical thinking and contexts. Conventional mathematical notation (CMN) best suits expressions and equations. Each is essential; each also has limitations, especially for learners. Our research studies how programming can be a advantageous third language that can also help restore mathematical connections that are hidden by topic‐centred curricula. Restoring opportunities for surprise and delight reclaims mathematics' creative nature. Studies of children's use of language in mathematics and their programming behaviours guide our iterative design/redesign of mathematical microworlds in which students, ages 7–11, use programming in their regular school lessonsas a language for learning mathematics. Though driven by mathematics, not coding, the microworlds develop the programming over time so that it continues to support children's developing mathematical ideas. This paper briefly describes microworlds EDC has tested with well over 400 7‐to‐8‐year‐olds in school, and others tested (or about to be tested) with over 200 8‐to‐11‐year‐olds. Our challenge was to satisfy schools' topical orientation and fit easily within regular classroom study but use and foreshadow other mathematical learning to remove the siloes. The design/redesign research and evaluation is exploratory, without formal methodology. We are also more formally studying effects on children's learning. That ongoing study is not reported here. Practitioner notesWhat is already knownActive learning—doing—supports learning.Collaborative learning—doingtogether—supports learning.Classroom discourse—focused, relevantdiscussion, not just listening—supports learning.Clear articulation of one's thinking, even just to oneself, helps develop that thinking.What this paper addsThe common languages we use for classroom mathematics—natural language for conveying the meaning and context of mathematical situations and for explaining our reasoning; and the formal (written) language of conventional mathematical notation, the symbols we use in mathematical expressions and equations—are both essential but each presents hurdles that necessitate the other. Yet, even together, they are insufficient especially for young learners.Programming, appropriately designed and used, can be the third language that both reduces barriers and provides the missing expressive and creative capabilities children need.Appropriate design for use in regular mathematics classrooms requires making key mathematical content obvious, strong and the ‘driver’ of the activities, and requires reducing tech ‘overhead’ to near zero.Continued usefulness across the grades requires developing children's sophistication and knowledge with the language; the powerful ways that children rapidly acquire facility with (natural) language provides guidance for ways they can learn a formal language as well.Implications for policy and/or practiceMathematics teaching can take advantage of the ways children learn through experimentation and attention to the results, and of the ways children use their language brain even for mathematics.In particular, programming—in microworlds driven by the mathematical content, designed to minimise distraction and overhead, open to exploration and discoveryen routeto focused aims, and in which childrenself‐evaluate—can allow clear articulation of thought, experimentation with immediate feedback.As it aids the mathematics, it also builds computational thinking and satisfies schools' increasing concerns to broaden access to ideas of computer science.
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- PAR ID:
- 10452107
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- British Journal of Educational Technology
- Volume:
- 52
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0007-1013
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 969-985
- Size(s):
- p. 969-985
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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