Gisella Paoletti

Improving the ability to detect comprehension problems: from revising to writing

Abstract Can an instructional treatment directly target the cognitive processes which lead to comprehension problem detection in revising? Can such a treatment be effective in enhancing not only the ability to detect such kind of error in revising texts written by others but also the attention to local planning in writing so that comprehensibility be assured? The results of an experimental investigation with 28 6th graders as subjects supported an affirmative answer to these questions. Subjects in the experimental condition, who individually participated in three treatment sessions, significantly outperformed controls in detection of comprehension problems in revising and in comprehensible writing. Some methodological problems are discussed.

Lifelong learning and e-learning 2.0: the contribution of usability studies

Usability assesses how easy and effi cient the use of ICT interfaces is, its measurement may show if and how much a tool allows its users to accomplish their tasks with profi t and without an excessive load, according to the designer’s goals and expectations. Therefore Usability tests with users can help in designing web interfaces, which are effi cient and easy to use. In the current development of web environments one sees the emergence of the RSS, blog, wiki, podcast technologies and the diffusion of web 2.0 interfaces. In this paper we pose the question of how to ascertain the role of Usability of new web 2.0 interfaces by testing a personal learning environment, LTEver, which allows document sharing and discussion within a community of learners. Results obtained with 10 novice users show that Usability problems within LTEver, related to web 2.0 interface, are similar to those commonly found within web interfaces, but do not affect the perception of utility and potentiality of these new tools and of new web 2.0 environments.

Un corso blended per i Percorsi Abilitanti Speciali. Percezione di utilità e distraibilità nell’uso delle risorse

Nel presente lavoro si descrivono gli esiti di un’indagine esplorativa, che analizza, considerando il punto di vista di un gruppo di insegnanti in formazione, in che modo le attività e le risorse messe a disposizione durante un percorso formativo di tipo blended vengono valutate e utilizzate dai discenti. È stato proposto a un gruppo di insegnanti al termine del percorso formativo PAS (Percorsi Abilitanti Speciali) un questionario che aveva l’obiettivo di esplorare due dimensioni principali: nella prima è stato chiesto ai corsisti di esprimere le loro preferenze rispetto alle attività e alle risorse messe a disposizione durante il corso e di valutarne l’utilità rispetto al raggiungimento di obiettivi di apprendimento; nella seconda è stato invece chiesto di attribuire un giudizio di distraibilità rispetto alla fruizione dei materiali. Nel contributo si illustrano nel dettaglio il metodo, le aree indagate e i risultati principali ottenuti dall’indagine, proponendo una riflessione critica sulle tematiche emerse.

Always connected: media multitasking during lectures and study

In this research study, we asked 100 university students to describe how they use their personal devices during study and lectures. The responses showed continuous and extensive use of mobile phones for exchanging messages, both in class and during study. The sample group we gathered appears to believe that this type of multitasking - messaging during learning activities - has no effect on the quality of learning, but only on its duration. The participants express a preference for an environment free of distraction, but at the same time attribute a positive value to the possibility of remaining in constant contact with their networks.

Powerpoint lessons: do students read or listen?

This paper describes a research study investigating the use of PowerPoint presentations as part of university lectures. It examines slide presentations of three different types: brief, bulleted slides with lengthy oral explanation from the lecturer; slide text read out aloud (redundancy); paraphrasing of slide text. The analysis focused on students’ processing of the oral and written sources. The results indicated that bulleted slides plus commentary is the form that makes optimal use of written and oral channels, generating an impression of ease and usefulness in double processing.

Effects of Redundancy and Paraphrasing in University Lessons: Multitasking and Cognitive Load in Written-Spoken PowerPoint Presentation

This paper is about the use of a widespread teaching tool: the slide presentation used in face-to-face, system-paced university lessons. It is produced by lecturers to support students’ comprehension during listening; nevertheless it poses elaboration requests to the audience which should be taken into consideration at the planning stage and in formulating its verbal content. The paper reports the results of a survey conducted with 163 University students who were asked to listen to a lecture accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, prepared according to the most frequent formats. The written presentation had 3 degrees of concision/redundancy: it had a fully redundant with the oral message, partially redundant (main points in key words), or had a different linguistic form (paraphrase of the message). Furthermore, information in written text and spoken message could have had the same order or they could be scrambled. The results showed that, subjectively, students judged comprehensible every kind of presentation. However, learning tests demonstrated that paraphrasing negatively affected learning, while changes in the order of presentation did not, at least in the synthetic main point – key word presentations. The study suggested that the concise, only partially redundant, presentation is the one which leads to better results, both in the ordered and in the scrambled version.

Presentation Manager And Web2.0: Understanding Online Presentations

The problem of the effectiveness of academic lessons and meeting presentations made available on the web through the usage of software and platforms like Slideshare and Moodle is fundamental for the development of new teaching technologies. We compared the recall and perceived cognitive effort in three groups of undergraduate students following the same lesson in different formats: audio, text, audio plus text. Students that acquired the contents of the lesson using both the auditory and the visual modalities substantially improved their recall performances relative to students that used either audio alone or text alone. Textual format complements (not hinders) auditory information by providing a frame of reference that can be utilized to identify basic contents. Double modality, allowing for the integration of information, is an extended presentation format.

Monitoring Local Coherence Through Bridging Integration

Two experiments are reported, which are aimed at verifying a main prediction: since the monitoring of the processes that are necessary for correctly maintaining or restoring text local coherence is a significant feature of both text comprehension and writing, educational treatment can improve this type of monitoring in writing. The treatment works directly on reading comprehension and/or on the writing revision phase that consists in detecting incorrect text gaps. The independent variables in Exp.l were three educational sessions that focused on text gaps requiring inference from both prior knowledge and previous text information in order to restore coherence. In Exp.2 as many sessions focused on a revision task concerning peers’ written texts containing impossible-to-bridge gaps. The common dependent variable was a local coherence measure applied to written texts produced by participants (18 approximately-12-yr-old children) These experimental participants were matched, based on their writing pre-tests scores, with 18 controls of the same age, and they outperformed the controls on the written post-test. In Exp.2 a writing revision post-test was also used, where experimentals again outperformed controls, but no correlation between the two dependent measures was found. New hypotheses were drawn from this datum.

Writing-To-Learn and Graph-Drawing as Aids of The Integration of Text and Graphs

Comprehending instructional texts often requires the integration of verbal and visual information. Visual information (especially diagrams) can be helpful for relating and integrating pieces of information and can therefore contribute to mental model building. However, they often fail in achieving any contribution to the instructional process, because of a number of factors.