Article Abstract

Person-centered education is a counseling-originated, educational psychology model, overripe for meta-analysis, that posits that positive teacher-student relationships are associated with optimal, holistic learning. It includes classical, humanistic education and today’s constructivist learner-centered model. The author reviewed about 1,000 articles to synthesize 119 studies from 1948 to 2004 with 1,450 findings and 355,325 students. The meta-analysis design followed Mackay, Barkham, Rees, and Stiles’s guidelines, including comprehensive search mechanisms, accuracy and bias control, and primary study validity assessment. Variables coded included 9 independent and 18 dependent variables and 39 moderators. The results showed that correlations had wide variation. Mean correlations (r= .31) were above average compared with other educational innovations for cognitive and especially affective and behavioral outcomes. Methodological and sample features accounted for some of the variability.

MARIO Connections

The MARIO one-to-one relationship between educator and student is deeply rooted in Cornelius-White’s meta-analysis. This is particularly true for elements relating to the growth of independent student learning behaviors including, but not limited to, motivation and effort.

Article Abstract

This chapter describes the wisdom of practice that explains the lessons learned from the study of highly effective tutors. This chapter presents that in the 21st century, tutoring remains the ideal of education. The tutorial is inherently individualized. This individualization, in turn, permits the tutor to elicit from each student a much higher level of on-task attention and effort. It is, in addition, a virtual prerequisite for the high levels of both immediacy and interactivity that also characterize the tutorial process. Thus, in an individual tutorial, both knowledge of results and other forms of feedback and instruction are received by students. Highly effective or “expert” tutors are then identified on the basis of their actual degree of observable success, across a number of different tutees, in promoting student learning and motivation. The tutoring sessions conducted by the highly effective tutors are analyzed from a number of perspectives, and are contrasted with tutoring sessions conducted by less experienced or by equally experienced but objectively less successful tutors. The tutors share a generally Socratic approach, in the sense that tutors seek to draw as much as possible from the student and to impose as little as possible of themselves on the student. Finally, the goal of the analyses is to begin to identify the goals, strategies, and specific techniques that might contribute to the success of an individual tutorial.

MARIO Connections

Lepper and Woolverton’s study is the heartbeat of the MARIO Educator’s role. MARIO is a learner-centered framework and the role of the educator as a “highly effective tutor” by utilizing questioning strategies which encourage deep cognitive growth is central to the framework.

Article Abstract

This study investigates interpersonal processes underlying dialog by comparing two approaches, interactive alignment and interpersonal synergy, and assesses how they predict collective performance in a joint task. While the interactive alignment approach highlights imitative patterns between interlocutors, the synergy approach points to structural organization at the level of the interaction—such as complementary patterns straddling speech turns and interlocutors. We develop a general, quantitative method to assess lexical, prosodic, and speech/pause patterns related to the two approaches and their impact on collective performance in a corpus of task-oriented conversations. The results show statistical presence of patterns relevant for both approaches. However, synergetic aspects of dialog provide the best statistical predictors of collective performance and adding aspects of the alignment approach does not improve the model. This suggests that structural organization at the level of the interaction plays a crucial role in task-oriented conversations, possibly constraining and integrating processes related to alignment.

MARIO Connections

Fusaroli and Tylén’s study informs the MARIO Approach through their description of the synergy approach to dialog. Through an understanding of the nuances of a synergistic approach, MARIO Educators are able to foster deep connections with their students, resulting in greater outcomes for both.

Article Abstract

Evidence-based practices (EBPs) emerge as inherent to the successful implementation of a comprehensive and combined multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) model. The intended result of multi-tiered intervention progression combined with EBP is a validated, data-based approach to understanding students’ needs along with a description of what promotes or inhibits their academic and social–emotional and behavioral performance. The purpose of this chapter is to present a combined research- and practice-based framework for integrating a comprehensive MTSS model with EBP, and thus, optimize the results stemming from school improvement efforts. Toward this goal, EBPs and strategies are reviewed to address concerns in the academic and social–emotional and behavioral domains along with recommendations for their application within MTSS.

Schools are in the midst of intensive educational reform. A comprehensive multi-tiered model to address a full range of academic, behavioral, and social needs among children and youth is envisioned as a preferable practice model in response to reform initiatives. To attain the goal of successful multi-tiered intervention implementation, however, the model must incorporate evidence-based practices (EBPs). The chapter begins with an overview of EBPs and the rationale for incorporating them within a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) model. Next, applications of MTSS and EBP in academic domains and social–emotional and behavioral domains are provided. These sections highlight specific strategies for successful implementation at tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3. Key questions that have emerged regarding EBP approaches within MTSS are addressed. Finally, a summary of the current status of EBP and MTSS is presented along with future research and practice implications.

MARIO Connections

Stoiber and Gettinger’s study connects to the MTSS thread woven throughout the MARIO Framework. In particular, this study drives our work around evidence-based practices and how we measure the success of the interventions we utilize. 

Article Abstract

Problem solving and goal setting are important components of self-determination that young people learn over time. This study describes and validates a model of teaching in early elementary grades that teachers can use to infuse these activities into existing curricula and programs. Can young children set goals for learning using the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction, and can teachers implement this model in a variety of subjects and settings with students having diverse learning needs? Our results show that even the youngest students (ages 5 – 6) were able to set goals and use the model to achieve. Teachers used the model effectively to support the investigation of student interests, the facilitation of choices, and the goal setting and attainment of young children.

MARIO Connections

Palmer and Wehmeyer’s work motivates MARIO’s commitment to setting personalized learning goals at all stages of development. This study has implications for MARIO Educators at all levels, but particularly those who are supporting younger learners. 

Article Abstract

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has long been thought to reflect dysfunction of prefrontal-striatal circuitry, with involvement of other circuits largely ignored. Recent advances in systems neuroscience-based approaches to brain dysfunction have facilitated the development of models of ADHD pathophysiology that encompass a number of different large-scale resting-state networks. Here we review progress in delineating large-scale neural systems and illustrate their relevance to ADHD. We relate frontoparietal, dorsal attentional, motor, visual and default networks to the ADHD functional and structural literature. Insights emerging from mapping intrinsic brain connectivity networks provide a potentially mechanistic framework for an understanding of aspects of ADHD such as neuropsychological and behavioral inconsistency, and the possible role of primary visual cortex in attentional dysfunction in the disorder.

MARIO Connections

Castellanos and Proal’s study has influenced MARIO’s envisioning of the teacher-student relationship in that an educator with a solid understanding of neuropsychological functioning can better optimize the interventions utilized with learners. This study also presents a pathway for exploring how neuroplasticity can be considered when planning for productive conversations with MARIO learners.

Article Abstract

This article presents an integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment. This theory states that psychological procedures, whatever their form, alter the level and strength of self-efficacy. It is hypothesized that expectations of personal efficacy determine whether coping behavior will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences. Persistence in activities that are subjectively threatening but in fact relatively safe produces, through experiences of mastery, further enhancement of self-efficacy and corresponding reductions in defensive behavior. In the proposed model, expectations of personal efficacy are derived from four principal sources of information: performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states. The more dependable the experiential sources, the greater are the changes in perceived self efficacy. A number of factors are identified as influencing the cognitive processing of efficacy information arising from enactive, vicarious, exhortative, and emotive sources. The differential power of diverse therapeutic procedures is analyzed in terms of the postulated cognitive mechanism of operation. Findings are reported from microanalyses of enactive, vicarious, and emotive modes of treatment that support the hypothesized relationship between perceived self-efficacy and behavioral changes. Possible directions for further research are discussed.

MARIO Connections

This study has informed how intrinsic motivation and the development of self-efficacy are supported in the MARIO Framework. Bandura’s framework directly relates to the intentional design of personalized goal setting, feedback cycles, self-assessment and self-reflective practices as well as the choice of high-Impact learning strategies found throughout the MARIO Framework. 

Article Abstract

This individual differences study examined the separability of three often postulated executive functions-mental set shifting (“Shifting”), information updating and monitoring (“Updating”), and inhibition of prepotent responses (“Inhibition”)-and their roles in complex “frontal lobe” or “executive” tasks. One hundred thirty-seven college students performed a set of relatively simple experimental tasks that are considered to predominantly tap each target executive function, as well as a set of frequently used executive tasks: the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Tower of Hanoi (TOH), random number generation (RNG), operation span, and dual tasking. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the three target executive functions are moderately correlated with one another, but are clearly separable. Moreover, structural equation modeling suggested that the three functions contribute differentially to performance on complex executive tasks. Specifically, WCST performance was related most strongly to Shifting, TOH to Inhibition, RNG to Inhibition and Updating, and operation span to Updating. Dual task performance was not related to any of the three target functions. These results suggest that it is important to recognize both the unity and diversity of executive functions and that latent variable analysis is a useful approach to studying the organization and roles of executive functions.

MARIO Connections

This study enriched our understanding of executive functions and how they interact or operate independently depending upon the task a student engages in. This increased awareness is present in both the design of our course elementary EF skills module and throughout the MARIO Framework when self-directed learning is referenced.

Article Abstract

In November 2008, John Hattie’s ground-breaking book Visible Learning synthesized the results of more than fifteen years research involving millions of students and represented the biggest ever collection of evidence-based research into what actually works in schools to improve learning. The author offers concise and user-friendly summaries of the most successful interventions and offers practical step-by-step guidance to the successful implementation of visible learning and visible teaching in the classroom. Hattie’s book includes the following key components:

  • links the biggest ever research project on teaching strategies to practical classroom implementation
  • champions both teacher and student perspectives and contains step by step guidance including lesson preparation, interpreting learning and feedback during the lesson and post lesson follow up
  • offers checklists, exercises, case studies and best practice scenarios to assist in raising achievement
  • includes whole school checklists and advice for school leaders on facilitating visible learning in their institution
  • now includes additional meta-analyses bringing the total cited within the research to over 900
  • comprehensively covers numerous areas of learning activity including pupil motivation, curriculum, meta-cognitive strategies, behavior, teaching strategies, and classroom management.

MARIO Connections

The design of the one-to-one sessions and conferences were informed by Hattie’s work on quality feedback and student motivation. His work can also be recognized in the high-impact learning strategies recommended throughout the MARIO Framework.

Article Abstract

This work, a second edition of which has very kindly been requested, was followed by La Construction du réel chez l’enfant and was to have been completed by a study of the genesis of imitation in the child. The latter piece of research, whose publication we have postponed because it is so closely connected with the analysis of play and representational symbolism, appeared in 1945, inserted in a third work, La formation du symbole chez l’enfant. Together these three works form one entity dedicated to the beginnings of intelligence, that is to say, to the various manifestations of sensorimotor intelligence and to the most elementary forms of expression. The theses developed in this volume, which concern in particular the formation of the sensorimotor schemata and the mechanism of mental assimilation, have given rise to much discussion which pleases us and prompts us to thank both our opponents and our sympathizers for their kind interest in our work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

MARIO Connections

Piaget’s introduction of the term “schema” and discussion of how children assimilate new information, from the earliest of stages primarily through the sensorimotor system, has influenced MARIO’s conception of the developmental continuum of learning. This continuum is embedded within the structure of both the elementary and secondary frameworks.