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This research was initiated to examine instructional technologies and educational cultures in relation to identified cognitive and metacognitive strategies used in school tasks. The project involved activities from the social studies curricula that were presented through two new software programs intended to support the development of problem-solving and reasoning strategies—IDEA [Interactive Decision Envisioning Aid, Pea (76)] and Notecards (34)—and through instructional approaches based upon “cognitive apprenticeship” views of learning [Collins, Brown, and Duguid (36)]. After piloting the project, ten high school juniors participated in instruction with these technologies and redesigned methods, composing essays about their selection of arguments about a candidate for U.S. President and about a “most important social issue.” Essays about these topics written prior, during and after the project were collected and analyzed for their reasoning, using the work of Toulmin (40) and Hillocks (46). In addition, the ongoing interactions of the students with the instructional technologies were recorded and analyzed to assess their cognitive and metacognitive strategies as they occurred. Quantitative analyses revealed significant ( p < .05) increases in the “breadth” and “depth” of students' reasoning in the “presidential candidate” essays as a result of the project (independently of the presented knowledge base), but little or no improvement in their reasoning in the “issue” essays (intended as transfer tasks). Data collected from students' ongoing use of the technologies is also analyzed and reported, including positive correlations (Rho = .68, Rho = .78) between written reasoning and interactions with the “executive control” functions of the software programs. These results, as well as qualitative findings, are discussed in relation to recent literature about cognition and learning with instructional technologies.

This research initiative was undertaken to examine the effects of an intergenerational literacy program, held weekly for 2 hours over a 6-month period, on the measured English proficiency of nine bilingual families (9 parents, 15 children). The research was also conducted to explore the relationships among changes in the participants' use of identified categories of discourse during literacy activities and changes in their second-language competency on tests of literacy. Program goals were to encourage the parents to read storybooks to their children in the home as well as to provide literacy-based activities to family members, including storybook reading, hands-on projects related to the stories read, formal English instruction for the parents, and free play for the children. Sixteen observations (24 hours) of participants' discourse were conducted by the researcher and an assistant using a format adapted from research of family-based literacy learning and classroom discourse; semi-structured interviews with parents and teachers were also held. Results of pre-post comparisons of children's scores on the PLS and parents' scores on the CTBS revealed significant improvements. Frequencies of identified categories of parent-and-child discourse between the third and fifteenth observations were also compared and revealed several significant differences. Significant correlations were also found between participant test scores and differences in their use of identified categories of discourse. These empirical results, as well as descriptive findings, are interpreted using Vygotsky's (1978Vygotsky's ( ,1987 sociocultural theory of learning. It is proposed that teacher scaffolding strategies, as well as the parents' and children's efforts to linguistically mediate each other's learning, were integral to the gains in the families' second-language proficiency.Few educators would now quarrel with the conviction that children of cultural backgrounds dissimilar from the mainstream culture are more at risk of school

This research initiative was undertaken to examine family beliefs about alternative forms of educational assessment in an effort to guide policy in this aspect of educational reform. Observations of the interactions of 84 families were made and surveys of their beliefs about assessment received from 172 families. Teachers of the participant families' children were asked to rate the children's effort and involvement on alternative assessment measures. Discourse analyses of family interactions during assessments and interviews were conducted. Analyses of the survey data found significant differences among these three variables in such areas as assessing student progress and single-discipline versus integrated assessments and significant correlations between family beliefs and teacher ratings of their children's responses to alternative assessments. These findings are discussed within a constructivist framework of learning and the implications for family-school relations are outlined.

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