Children’s perceptions and learning about tropical rainforests: an analysis of their drawings

This study analysed 9 to 11 year old children’s drawings of tropical rainforests immediately before and after a visit to the Humid Tropics Biome at the Eden Project, Cornwall, UK. A theoretical framework derived from considerations of informal learning and constructivism was used as a basis to develop a methodology to interpret the children’s drawings and to measure the change in children’s perceptions and learning after their visit. The children’s pre‐visit drawings mainly showed tree and plant outlines familiar to an English countryside. Rainforest animals were to the fore in the pictures and there was a general lack of scale, depth and perspective in the drawings. In the post‐visit drawings, the animals had mainly disappeared. There was often remarkable accuracy in the shape and detail of the tropical rainforest trees and plants now drawn. The post‐visit drawings also demonstrated far greater depth, scale and perspective than the pre‐visit drawings. The interpretation and analysis of the drawings gave insights into children’s understanding and learning about tropical rainforests and demonstrated that analysis of children’s drawings can be an effective method of assessing some aspects of their learning.     

WORKFORCE TRAINING PROGRAMS IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES

Georgia has one of the largest distance learning networks in the United States with nearly 300 sites connected to a statewide network of two‐way interactive audio and video. Research was conducted to examine the nature and importance of participant interactivity in credit courses at technical institutes using the distance education technology. Six faculty and 62 students who enrolled at host and remote sites at the technical institutes constituted the population of the study. Data were collected from students through a structured, forced‐choice survey questionnaire. Information was collected from faculty through two questionnaires to measure changes in attitudes toward teaching the course. Overall level of satisfaction of both students and faculty was quite high. The students at the remote sites in this study reported more negative experiences with the various types of interaction, but overall they were satisfied with the experience. Experiences that enhance and maximize the various types of interaction need to be intentionally designed and used by instructors. Teaching behaviors, such as calling on students at remote sites frequently and by name, establishing eye contact by looking into the camera when speaking, and including both remote and host site students in discussions seem to be related to student satisfaction and perceptions of effective interaction. To overcome the differences between sites related to instructor presence in the room, instructors can occasionally travel to a remote site to conduct class and interact directly with students there, and use phone, fax, and e‐mail to be more accessible to students.     

Do zoo visitors come to learn? An internationally comparative,mixed-methods study

Zoo visitors go to see animals, but are they there to learn? This mixed-methods study examines visitor learning from both zoos’ and visitors’ perspectives using qualitative and quantitative data. Five hundred and forty zoo visitor interviews from nine case studies provide insight into visitor intentions, which indicate that the majority of visitors (72%) arrive at zoos with a learning agenda. Over 170 zoos across 48 countries also report, via an online questionnaire, that the majority of their visitors come to learn. In contrast, however, 28 face-to-face zoo education staff interviewed at the nine case study sites suggests a different conclusion. The study also indicates that zoos appear to determine visitors’ intentions through a number of methods, but are most heavily reliant on informal measures with only 15% of zoos using both formal and informal processes. Juxtaposing these findings suggests that zoos’ reliance on informal measures of visitor intentions appears to provide them with a less than accurate picture of their visitors’ learning agendas.     

University Admissions and the Prediction of Degree Performance: an Analysis in the Light of Changes to the English Schools’ Examination System

The United Kingdom's Department for Education has recently changed the nature of the AS‐level examinations normally taken by students aspiring to enter higher education degree courses one year into their post‐compulsory education. In the face of protests from universities and other institutions that this would both harm students’ progression towards the A‐level qualifications, on which entry to English universities is normally based, and make it difficult for universities determining which of their applicants were best placed to benefit from their degree courses, the Department conducted research which it claimed showed that degree outcome could be predicted as well from the results of GCSE examinations taken one year before AS‐levels as from AS‐levels themselves. This paper critiques those analyses and their conclusions showing, through a re‐analysis and extended interpretation of the Department's data, that AS‐levels provide a more reliable predictor of degree performance in 2011 than GCSEs and that many students who performed better at AS‐level than at GCSE gained a place, and performed well, at a university with high entrance standards.     

Healthism and Physical Education

Health has become a symbolic category of considerable importance, expressing a range of notions relating to well‐being, consumption and normality. A particular view of health as corporeal and individualistic has become pervasive within the new health consciousness, and school physical education represents one site among many where the ideology of healthism is produced. This paper draws on a study of an innovative programme in primary schools in Queensland, Australia. It explores how on the one hand the instructional discourse of ‘daily physical education’ varied across a number of sites of meaning production and how on the other hand this instructional discourse was embedded in the regulative discourse of healthism which set limits on the extent to which the people operating at these sites could make their own sense of daily physical education. We argue that a corporeal and individualistic concept of health, in which body shape and fatness play a central role, is being produced through health‐based physical education programmes like daily physical education. These programmes in turn represent an important site of the production of an individualistic and internalised mode of corporeal control.     

Analysis of the Educational Potential of a Science Museum Learning Environment: Visitors’ experience with and understanding of an immersion exhibit

Research pertaining to science museum exhibit design tends to be articulated at a level of generality that makes it difficult to apply in practice. To address this issue, the present study used a design‐based research approach to understand the educational potential of a biology exhibit. The exhibit was considered an educational environment which embodied a certain body of biological knowledge (Biological Organisation) in a certain exhibit type (Museographic Organisation) with the intention of creating certain learning outcomes among visitors. The notion of praxeology was used to model intended and observed visitor outcomes, and the pattern of relationship between the two praxeologies was examined to pinpoint where and how divergences emerged. The implications of these divergences are discussed at the three levels of exhibit enactment, design, and conjecture, and theoretically based suggestions for a design iteration are given. The potential of the design‐based research approach for educational exhibit design is argued.     

美国学校的教室文化建设

考察美国二十余所中小学,并在一所高中驻校研修六个月,笔者发现美国学校既重视教室内动态文化建设,更重视教室的静态文化建设。综合分析,我们会看到这种＂教室文化＂至少五个方面的内容：精神（动力）、方法、知识、骄傲、责任。这种文化也间接体现着美国教育的内涵,许多时候这种＂静态文化＂会自觉转化为＂动态文化＂。     

美国学校的教室文化建设

考察美国二十余所中小学,并在一所高中驻校研修六个月,笔者发现美国学校既重视教室内动态文化建设,更重视教室的静态文化建设。综合分析,我们会看到这种"教室文化"至少五个方面的内容:精神(动力)、方法、知识、骄傲、责任。这种文化也间接体现着美国教育的内涵,许多时候这种"静态文化"会自觉转化为"动态文化"。     

Using tourism free‐choice learning experiences to promote environmentally sustainable behaviour: the role of post‐visit ‘action resources’

This paper argues the need for the providers of ecotourism and other free‐choice environmental learning experiences to promote the adoption of environmentally sustainable actions beyond their own sites, when visitors return to their home environments. Previous research indicates that although visitors often leave such experiences with a heightened awareness of conservation issues and intentions to adopt environmentally responsible behaviours, only a minority translate these intentions into real actions. Building on research and theory in relation to visitor experiences in free‐choice learning environments, the paper identifies three different stages in the educational process and proposes a strategy for facilitating the translation of visitors' behavioural intentions into the adoption of sustainable actions through the provision of post‐visit action resources.     

Using Static and Dynamic Visuals to Represent Chemical Change at Molecular Level

The study examines the effectiveness of visually enhanced instruction that emphasizes molecular representations. Instructional conditions were specified in terms of the visual elaboration level (static and dynamic) and the presentation mode (whole class and individual). Fifty‐two eighth graders (age range 14–15 years) participated in one of the three instructional conditions (dynamic–individual, dynamic–whole class, and static–whole class) designed to improve molecular understanding on chemical change. The results indicated significantly higher performance for students who used dynamic visuals compared with those who used static visuals. Furthermore, students who used dynamic visuals on an individual basis were more consistent in their use of molecular representations compared with students who received whole‐class instruction with dynamic or static visuals. The results favour the use of dynamic visuals (preferably on an individual basis) over static visuals when presenting molecular representations. The results also imply that the effectiveness of instruction will improve if teachers challenge and question the inconsistencies and contradictions between verbal explanations and corresponding molecular representations     

The Dynamic Assessment of Reading Abilities

Dynamic assessment uses a response‐to‐instruction paradigm to complement traditional diagnostic assessment of word recognition and comprehension. The process helps the examiner to predict appropriate remedial intervention by exploring a student's responses to a series of instructional episodes in an interactive teaching‐learning relationship. Dynamic and traditional (or static) assessment differ in orientation (process vs product), procedure (response to instruction vs enumeration of existing abilities), and interpretation (patterns of response to instruction vs indices, for example percentiles or stanines). A dynamic approach to assessment provides the opportunity to evaluate systematically the instructional factors that influence reading performance.     

基于系统分析的旅游景区管理研究框架构建——以公共资源型景区为例

景区管理是一个动态的过程，在这个过程中，各类管理主体不断适应外部环境的变化，通过管理职能的发挥对景区系统进行有效管理，实现景区的多维目标。景区管理系统包含景区管理者系统（主体系统）、景区系统（客体系统）、管理职能系统、景区目标系统四个子系统，每一个子系统都包含一系列的要素，各个子系统及其构成要素相互作用构成景区管理系统。本文以公共资源型景区为例，运用系统理论、系统分析方法，在构建景区系统、景区管理系统的基础上，构建起景区管理四个层级命题的研究框架。     

Using post‐visit action resources to support family conservation learning following a wildlife tourism experience

Wildlife tourism experiences are often promoted for their ability to enhance visitors’ conservation knowledge, attitudes and behaviour; yet, studies exploring the long‐term influence of such experiences are rare. This research explores the impact of a wildlife tourism experience and post‐visit support on families’ adoption of conservation practices following their visit. In Stage 1, barriers and benefits associated with six conservation practices were identified and incorporated into the design of post‐visit action resources. Two hundred Australian families visiting Mon Repos turtle rookery in Queensland, Australia, were assigned to either a treatment group (given post‐visit support) or a control group (no support). Three months after their visit, families in the treatment group were significantly more likely to report changes in their conservation knowledge; their attitudes towards protecting wildlife and the natural environment; and the frequency with which they picked up litter. Treatment families also adopted significantly more conservation practices than the control group. Implications for wildlife interpretive practice and visitor management at wildlife tourism sites are discussed.     

混沌理论对大学生心理咨询的启示

从混沌理论的主要观点入手,对大学生的心理问题进行了新的诠释。指出心理咨询师应善于利用敏感性分析方法,把变化看作可利用的资源,等待恰当的时机进行干预,以促进来访者的自适应。     

Learning to design and implement educational web sites within pre‐service training: a project‐based learning environment and its impact on student teachers

This paper reports on a project‐based learning (PBL) environment targeted towards introducing student teachers to the design and development of educational web sites. The participants were 46 student teachers who constructed 16 web sites for primary school. A survey of their views, before and after the projects, and an evaluation of the web sites created by them were conducted with a view to assessing their responses to the learning environment, its impact on them, as well as the challenges faced during web site creation. The results showed that the PBL approach has been motivational and effective regarding the acquisition of web site design and development skills. The participants demystified the process of educational web site creation and became more interested in and self‐confident about it, although they encountered certain difficulties in image processing, file management and design of navigational structures.     

School visits to zoos and museums: a missed educational opportunity?

Recent studies in exhibitions have begun to consider the cognitive content of the ‘dialogue’ between visitor and exhibit designer. Such studies have focused on the leisure visitor and not on organised school visits. The study reported here compares the conversational content of primary school and family visitors at the London Zoo and the Natural History Museum, London. The data show that there are common features to the children's interactions with animal exhibits and that the content of the conversations varies little between family groups and school groups both within an institution and between institutions. The lack of any marked distinction between school and family visitors strongly suggests that schools are failing to make effective use of the educational potential of zoos. Secondly, the findings of this study are important in pointing to the features of animal exhibits to which children, and their accompanying adults, attend. The data suggest that there is a gulf between the level of knowledge and understanding visitors bring to the exhibits and the message that the museums and zoos may wish to communicate. It is suggested that more successful education will only be achieved when museums and zoos give more credence to understanding what the visitor already does, or does not, know.     

Threshold concepts in research education and evidence of threshold crossing

Most work on threshold concepts has hitherto related to discipline‐specific undergraduate education, however, the idea of generic doctoral‐level threshold concepts appeared to us to provide a strong and useful framework to support research learning and teaching at the graduate level. The early work regarding research‐level threshold concepts is further developed and reported in this paper using research carried out with supervisors into their identification of threshold concepts and research students' crossing of these thresholds. The research was conducted in two stages involving 65 experienced research supervisors across six countries (Australia, England, Jamaica, Malaysia, New Zealand and Trinidad) and across Humanities, Social Sciences, Engineering and IT and the Sciences. The first stage involved written responses from 26 experienced supervisors related to the learning challenges experienced by research students and their supervisors. The second stage of the research involved in‐depth interviews with 39 supervisors regarding student learning challenges and successes at the research level. Responses were analysed, resulting in the identification of six possible generic research threshold concepts, which evidence themselves in the quality and level of the students' work at different stages in that work: argument; theorising; framework; knowledge creation; analysis and interpretation; and paradigm. The data analysis also suggests a number of indicators that signal when learners have crossed conceptual thresholds to gain, articulate and put into practice one or more of these threshold concepts in their research learning.     

Self‐esteem in Children with and without Motor Co‐ordination Problems

This article presents results from a study of 36 pupils (8–10 years of age) in face‐to‐face conversations with their teachers about water as an environmental phenomenon based on a photograph of a rainforest. The teachers’ rather vague goal was to have the pupils talk about the water cycle. The sessions were audio‐recorded and analyzed with respect to: (1) scaffolding strategies used by the teachers, (2) possible implications of these strategies on the pupils’ sense‐making, and (3) what accounts of the water cycle as a school‐science learning‐content were made. Three different patterns of scaffolding strategies were found. Some pupils did not even come close to talking about the water cycle, whereas others arrived at a rather fragmented picture.     

Telemedicine for patient education

Abstract

A telemedicine project was conducted to explore the delivery of childbirth preparation classes originating at a large regional hospital to a remote site at a small rural hospital. Over six months, three series of classes were included in the project, with twenty‐four participants at the originating site and twenty participants at the remote site. A two‐way, audio/video teleconferencing system with multiple cameras and monitors was employed for instruction. A registered nurse taught the class and a site facilitator assisted at the remote site. Evaluation of the project was done through surveys, interviews, and observations. The classes were well received by project participants at both sites. Principal advantages cited were increased availability of the programs, improved attendance, and convenience to rural participants. The principal disadvantages cited focused on technical problems, particularly audio quality.