Students can develop their creative thinking processes and problem scenarios with robotic applications. Therefore, the research objective is that robotic applications can solve students' problem scenarios. This study was conducted in Samsun/Turkey in the Ministry of Education for 10 weeks and involved 8 elementary school students.. For this study,…

Speech technology (automated speech recognition -- ASR and text-to-speech) offers great promise in the field of automated literacy and reading tutors for children. Students in third and fourth grades struggle with generating longer strings of text on a QWERTY keyboard because they still "hunt and peck" for AQ1 the letters and symbols…

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) can be used to score oral reading fuency (ORF) assessments to ameliorate current inadequacies (e.g., administration errors, high opportunity cost), and represents an important part of a larger solution to improve traditional ORF. But more research is needed on how ASR performs for diverse student groups. The…

Through a theoretical framework emphasizing the importance of fidelity of implementation (FOI), this paper explores how 3rd and 4th grade teachers implemented an early algebra intervention, and the extent to which the FOI related to student learning. The data for this report are taken from the first two years of an experimental research project.…

Contemporary learning in Australia necessitates that students develop the capability to play an active role in their own learning. Yet, the student's role as an active agent in the learning process has not been fully examined. Drawing on the notion of assessment as generations informed by conflicting theoretical viewpoints, this paper explores how…

In this paper, we describe our learning progressions approach to early algebra research that involves the coordination of a curricular framework, an instructional sequence, written assessments, and levels of sophistication describing the development of students' thinking. We focus in particular on what we have learning through this approach about…

We detail a learning progressions approach to early algebra research and how existing work around learning progressions and trajectories in mathematics and science education has informed our development of a four-component theoretical framework consisting of: a curricular progression of learning goals across big algebraic ideas; an instructional…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the i3-funded SPARK program on the literacy development of students in kindergarten through third grade. The SPARK program represents a collaboration between Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Public Schools. In the study, two cohorts of students were randomly…

A study examined the concerns of five third-grade teachers over the first year of implementation of a district mandate to evaluate narrative writing using holistic scoring. Each teacher collected writing samples from six representative students. Teachers reported their responses throughout the year on two self-report instruments, and they were…

This paper presents the full results from a 2008/2009 research study examining the application of a "learning environment" paradigm to the school library setting. The preliminary results from the examination of the Fifth Grade science classes were presented at the IASL 2009 Research Forum. We now report the process of completing our…

A cafeteria-style approach for evaluating primary grade programs in a large metropolitan school district is described. This evaluation approach involved planning between one and four evaluation options for each of 17 program options available to the district's 70 elementary schools. About 20,000 kindergarten through grade 3 students were enrolled…

Often there is a desire to evaluate a program, but there is no comparable comparison group available. This paper focuses on an evaluation model that can be used when there is no comparison group and when there is no pretest. The method--Model A--used by the Chapter 1 compensatory education program is described. Model A, which uses a…

A study investigated two questions regarding the validity of holistic writing evaluation: (1) How well do holistic scores predict sentence length, passage length, and spelling errors in grades 3, 6, and 9 narrative and explanatory writing? and (2) Which model best predicts these variables (across grades within type, or within grade within type)?…

The present study compared item and ability invariance as well as model-data fit between the one-parameter (1PL) and three-parameter (3PL) Item Response Theory (IRT) models utilizing real data across five grades; second through sixth as well as simulated data at second, fourth and sixth grade. At each grade, the 1PL and 3PL IRT models were run…

This paper describes the development of a criterion-referenced, performance-based measure of third grade reading comprehension. The primary purpose of the assessment is to contribute unique and valid information for use in the formative evaluation of a whole literacy program. A secondary purpose is to supplement other program efforts to…