The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

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Book Review (1) �� Mäkitalo-Siegl, K.; Zottmann, J.; Kaplan, F.; and Fischer, F. (Eds.) (2010) Book Review by Heinz Neber; and Sarah Sennebogen The “classroom of the future“ will be more flexible, diverse, and interactive than the traditional, almost completely teacher-regulated classroom with its fixed roles, few non-changing settings, and a rigidly designed architecture. Getzels (1975) already emphasized in an earlier publication on learning environments that the traditional classroom with its rectangular arrangement of tables corresponds to a conception of learners as being non-intentional, cognitively “empty”, without having their own questions, creative thoughts or self-initiated communication. In the first chapter of the reviewed book, Schratzenstaller illustrates that the architectural and instructional design of most classrooms still reflects these misleading assumptions about learners. In classrooms that display the gap between the architecture of the 19th century and the constructivist learning theory of today they may attain only restricted learning effects (e.g., nontransferable inert factual knowledge). The potential of students, especially of gifted students, for actively constructing deep and complex knowledge cannot be productively used in such environments. For transforming classrooms into environments (“spaces”) with active learners, this book contributes a variety of solutions about recent developments in school architecture. Detailed information is provided about available computer- and internet-based components, about intelligent objects like interactive walls and desks that can be used by multiple users, as well as about educational approaches that provide frameworks and procedures for implementing such components and objects in meaningful ways. These new approaches come along with a change in the role of the teacher from providing knowledge to orchestrating the various activities and supporting the learning processes of the students. Altogether, the twelve chapters of the book describe possibilities to establish school-life transitions by transforming school-based learning environments into communities with intentionally engaged and interactive learners who generate individual and community-related knowledge on different levels. Although this book does not focus exclusively on gifted learners, it is highly important for realizing, and in particular for further developing gifted education. The “classroom of the future” enables to design environments that are required to implement teaching models of the gifted (e.g. as collected in Maker & Schiever, 2006; or recently presented by Vidergor, Harris & Yamin, 2012). The developments and models proposed by the book under review contribute to the knowledge of designing classrooms and schools with a larger diversity of students. Moreover, it illustrates how to promote individual advancement within an increased spectrum of individual differences. This not only provides new possibilities for integrating gifted and non-gifted students into the same environment, but also offers much better opportunities for multidisciplinary learning or effectively mixing a variety of instructional methods that have been considered as sharp contrasts in the past (e.g. direct instruction versus discovery approaches like project- or problem-based learning). Thereby not only the acquisition of meaningful disciplinary knowledge is promoted, but also of competencies to self-generate this knowledge by the learners in more complex multi-media and communicatively enriched environments. Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011. 165
The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children In addition, teaching is facilitated by advanced educational technology. Interactive components may trace activities, the progress of each student, and continuously inform the teacher about individual differences in the classroom or within a group of students. This enables individualized and adaptive teaching in heterogeneously composed classrooms needing much less effort and less resources of the teacher than in traditional classrooms. In the second and main section of the book, new technologies that can be used for scaffolding distributed and individual learning activities are presented. Holleis et al. describe a range of tools to support e.g. accessing information by the students, as well as to record and display collected information, to abstract knowledge structures from the data, to reflect and to communicate processes or products by the students. Various case studies illustrate the orchestration of such tools. Baraldi describes nature and functions of intelligent whiteboards, walls, tables, and other smart objects that may be used as “digital artefacts” for facilitating collaborative knowledge generation processes in classrooms. The development of these artefacts is based on principles of natural interaction to enable dialogues between user, digital artefacts and objects, persons, and groups in the environment. Digital tools undoubtedly add new functions to already existing methods and tools. Several scenarios exemplify their integrated use (e.g., the Wiki collaboration model for creating artefacts, or distributed concept maps for the collaborative building of conceptual knowledge). Kaplan & Dillenbourg supplement this information with well-elaborated evidence-based “scripts” as scaffolding procedures for prescribing and distributing roles in order to regulate and orchestrate collaborative learning in technology-enhanced learning environments. The “Argue Graph”, for example, triggers collaborative knowledge building through argumentation, whereas the “Concept Grid” represents a detailed method for distributing roles and managing processes in generating conceptual knowledge. Scripts are offered as easy-to-use scaffolds structuring the interaction within groups of learners and they can be adaptively applied by gradually fading them out. In addition, these authors tie architectural, technological, and scaffolding components together into a more general classroom ecology model, and outline its general characteristics (e.g. role switching, dynamic group formation). Part three continues this generalization or model-building process. In particular, Nistor discusses “knowledge communities” as a general framework for embedding the components and special purpose instructional methods that have been outlined in the previous chapters of the book. The important “feeling of belongingness” which is taken as a defining characteristic of such communities may be achieved in communities differing in size and purposes, in the range of (distributed) places involved, and in prescribed and designed as well as in spontaneously evolved communities. In all cases, communities are heterogeneously composed, offer reciprocal communication, provide recognition and sense of efficacy for their members. In everyday school life the development of “knowledge communities” proceeds in three stages: stage of pure information exchange among the members, co-construction of knowledge and constructing a long-lasting collective memory. A good starting point for stimulating the required cooperative learning processes is to offer authentic and ill-structured problems as it is the case in problem-based learning. The last section expands upon technology-based solutions for specific domains and purposes. Lingnau describes three projects that have been implemented in regular (traditional) classrooms. These projects aim to facilitate the existing classroom processes and to gain an added value for the teacher, the students and the learning process by using computers. Slotta provides a rather in-depth description on the development of the “Web-Based Science Environment” (WISE), and its recent transformation into a “Scalable Architecture for Interactive Learning” (SAIL) which allows everyone to contribute adaptations, modifications, and improvements. WISE and SAIL are well-described, illustrated, and documented examples for interdisciplinary projects that connect and integrate educational researchers, teachers and science 166 Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011.
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Examining Opinions and Challenging
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Finally, many thanks go to Kevin La
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undertaking the unit, with many com
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This article argues that competitio
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inborn. In the case of Vietnam, ano
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the exam. This implied that success
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Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ). S
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learning strategies employed and le
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