ERAS Conference 2006

Cross-Multi Disciplinary Learning & Innovation

• Affective Factors in Learning
• Intelligence
• Inventive & Insightful Thinking
• Thinking Skills

New Paradigms in Teacher Education

• Innovative Strategies for Engaged Learning
• New Trends in Educational Research
• Entrepreneurship Development
• Industrial Attachment

School Change & Leadership

• Global Trends & Development
• Leadership and Management
• Real World Learning

Student Performance & Assessment

• Assessment of Creativity & Innovation
• Curriculum Innovation
• Workplace Assessment

Enterprise in Education

• Design of Learning Environment
• Development in Engaged Learning
• Problem-based Learning
• Project Work

Diversity in Curriculum Development & Practices

• Aesthetics, Music & Dance
• Humanities
• Language
• Science & Mathematics Education
• Sports Science
• IT & e-Learning

New Directions in Educational Research

• Cross-Cultural Research
• Psychological Research
• Quantitative & Qualitative Approaches
• Research in Cultural Development

Professor Yin Cheong, CHENG is the President of the Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association (APERA). He is also the Director of the Centre for Institutional Research and Development of the Hong Kong Institute of Education and the Head of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Education Leadership and School Quality. He has published internationally 18 academic books and nearly 200 book chapters and academic journal articles on educational leadership, school effectiveness, paradigm shift in education, and management reform. Some of his publications have been translated into Chinese, Hebrew, Korean, Spanish, Czech, and Thai languages. He is at present serving on the advisory boards of 9 international journals. Prof. Cheng’s research has won him a number of international awards and recognition including the Awards for Excellence from the Literati Club in UK in 1994, 1996-98, 2001, 2004 and 2005. In recent few years, Prof. Cheng has been invited to give over 30 keynote/plenary presentations by national and international organizations such as, APEC, UNESCO, UNICEF, ICER, ICSEI, IBO, Ford Foundation, etc.

Prof. David Hogan is Professor and Vice Dean for Research Methodology at Centre for Research Practices & Pedagogies in NIE. Prior to that, he was Professor of Education at the University of Tasmania, and before that, an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Prof Hogan has written extensively about the history of education in the US and won a series of awards for his work, including the American Educational Research Association Outstanding Book Award (1986), the Henry Barnard Prize, the History of Education Society Award, a Spencer Fellowship and a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship.

Prof. Julian (Joe) Elliott is currently Professor of Education at the University of Durham, England. Formerly a teacher in mainstream and special schools, he subsequently practised as an educational psychologist before entering higher education in 1990. After fourteen years at the University of Sunderland where he was latterly Acting Dean, he returned to Durham, where he was an undergraduate in the 1970s. His research interests include behaviour management, achievement motivation, dynamic assessment, cognitive education and special education. Recent books that he has co-authored, include Children in Difficulty: A guide to Understanding and Helping (2nd edition), Routledge Press (2004) and “Frameworks for Thinking”, Cambridge University Press (2005). He is the Immediate Past President of the International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology. Much of the material covered in his presentation will be drawn from a series of journal studies that have been synthesised to produce his most recent co-authored book: Motivation, Engagement and Educational Performance, published by Macmillan Palgrave (2005).

Prof. Susan Adler is Professor of Education and Director of Teacher Education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has been a social studies educator for many years, as a teacher and a teacher educator. She is a past president of the National Council for the Social Studies (2000 – 2001) and served on the NCSS Task Force in the development of curriculum standards for social studies. She is also a member of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Board of Examiners and a widely sought after consultant on curriculum design and development. She was a recent Visiting Senior Fellow at the National Institute of Education, Singapore.

David Tzuriel, Ph.D. is a clinical and educational psychologist who is an expert on dynamic assessment of learning potential. He is a Full Professor at Bar Ilan University and Chair of the School of Education. He graduated from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University at 1977 and was the president of the International Association for Cognitive Education (IACE) in 1999 to 2001. David Tzuriel published many studies on dynamic assessment including four books: (a) Interactive Assessment (edited book with H. Carl Haywood), (b) Cognitive Modifiability, (c) Mediated Learning Experience: Theory, Research and Practice and (d) Dynamic assessment of young children. He has developed six dynamic assessment tests and intervention programs based on these tests. The tests are mainly aimed at assessment but also at cognitive intervention for development of deficient cognitive functions. David Tzuriel has taught more than 100 workshops around the world during the last 20 years. Areas of interest include the role of mediated learning experience in mother-child interactions, cognitive modifiability, dynamic assessment as a substitute for conventional psychometric tests, assessment of learning potential following cognitive education programs, and the effects of peer-mediation on children’s mediation style and cognitive modifiability.

The Peer Mediation for Young Children Program: Effects on Mediation Teaching Style and Cognitive Modifiability
by Prof David Tzuriel School of Education, Bar Ilan University

Abstract
The Peer-Mediation with Young Children (PMYC) program is a novel cross-age peer assisted learning approach which is based on the theoretical approaches of Vygotsky and Feuerstein. The PMYC is aimed at developing mediation teaching style and cognitive modifiability among school students. A series of five studies was carried out at Bar-Ilan University using the Observation of Mediation Interaction (OMI) instrument to tap the peer mediation behavior. In all studies experimental children were compared to control children who received substitute training. The findings showed repeatedly that experimental groups participating in the PMYC program showed higher mediation teaching style as well as higher cognitive modifiability than control groups. Furthermore, not only the mediators who participated in the program showed superiority over control groups but also learners, who actually did not receive any treatment but were taught by their experimental peers, showed higher mediation and higher gains on various cognitive tasks than their control counterparts. The superiority of the experimental children was across type of task (domain general versus domain specific) and content domains. The program was found also to be efficient in developing children’s cognitive modifiability measured by dynamic assessment measures and enhanced children’s school achievements in math and reading comprehension. Mediation teaching style was found to be higher in domain general than in domain specific task. Learners who were taught by mediators trained in domain general tasks showed better pre- to post-intervention improvement in domain general task than learners who were taught by mediators trained in domain specific task. Children from the experimental group, who came from families with low mediation background, improved their cognitive modifiability more than children, from a control group, who came from families with high mediation background. Children who come from families deprived of mediation opportunities benefitted more from the PMYC in terms of enhancement of mediation teaching style and cognitive modifiability. The findings showed also that mediators’ cognitive level was not related to the level of mediation given and that a mismatch between the cognitive level of the mediator and learner produces better cognitive gains. The findings are discussed with reference to Feuerstein’s and Vygotsky’s theories.

Workshop on Dynamic Assessment of Young Children
by Prof David Tzuriel

A growing need has emerged recently for applying dynamic assessment (DA) for young children (4—7 year olds), especially since early educational decision may affect them in the future. The objectives of this workshop are (a) to present the theoretical foundations of the DA approach especially the theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability (SCM) and Mediated Learning Experience (MLE, Feuerstein, et al., 1979), (b) to describe the main goals of DA and the shifts from standardized testing to DA, (c) to portray the major characteristics of DA with young children, and (d) to present six measures developed by Tzuriel for young children (1997, 1998a, 1998b, 2000, 2001, 2002):

1. The Children’s Analogical Thinking Modifiability Test (CATM)
2. The Children’s Inferential Thinking Modifiability Test (CITM)
3. The Cognitive Modifiability Battery (CMB): Assessment and Intervention
4. The Seriational Thinking Modifiability Test (CSTM)
5. The Seria-Think Instrument
6. The Children’s Conceptual and Perceptual Analogical Modifiability
(CCPAM), Closed and Construction Analogies Versions.

Topics:
a) Theoretical foundations of the Dynamic Assessment approach,
b) Theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability (SCM) and Mediated learning
Experience (MEA)
c) Pre-school/primary school measures developed by the trainer himself and
their applications for cognitive intervention:

Target Audience:
Psychologists, teachers, special education practitioners, speech language therapists

Objectives:
At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
– Understand the specific cognitive functions that are responsible for cognitive
functioning
– Understand the basic mediation principles in dynamic assessment
– Understand the relationship between cognitive functions and school achievements
– Understand the meaning of analytical and problem solving skills, as exemplified by dynamic assessment
– Understand the procedures for using the 6 instruments above.
– Understand the philosophy and methods underpinning mediated learning approaches (as exemplified in the use of the above instruments).

Proposed Activities:
– Lecture and presentation
– Demonstration of mediation techniques with pre-school aged children