Learning Stories as cross-national policy borrowing: The interplay of globalization and localization in preprimary education in Contemporary China

Chinese kindergartens’ over 110 years of adaptation of foreign models is a vivid example of how globalization comes into direct contact with Chinese culture and creates cultural hybridities. Learning Stories as a narrative assessment tool to children’s development from New Zealand, has swept China with the endorsement from the professional organizations and local authorities, especially attracting many followers in Beijing. Based on a two-year participatory action research in Beijing, the article examines Learning Stories as policy borrowing, redesigned as an innovative reflection tool for professional learning community which results from processes of mutual influence between the global and the local. The article highlights the importance of culture and context in considering professional development and the ‘fluid’ and dynamic nature of ‘glocalization’ working towards integration of globalization and localization. Furthermore, borrowing or learning foreign policies in preprimary education can be seen as one of governmental strategies to assimilate education more thoroughly than ever before into a network of disciplinary procedures and voluntary self-control.     

Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order? A Review Article

John Field's Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order (2000) represents a substantial contribution to the literature on lifelong learning. Whilst Field brings a wealth of policy-related and sociological learning to his work, this article focuses on a number of philosophical questions arising from the study. It is suggested that Field's argument raises familiar questions about notions of 'learning', 'reflexivity', 'personal autonomy' and the conditions for knowledge. In each case, a number of considerations present themselves which have implications for our understanding of lifelong learning: its nature, prevalence and significance.     

学习合同在大学英语教学中的应用

作者探索了学习合同的应用以及它给学生带来的益处.教育必须是一个主动而不是被动的过程.为了让学生主动学习,必须让他们参加教育过程从而在学习中变得更加独立,并且对他们自己的学习负起责任.他们必须培养自主学习能力.学习合同正是这样一种能让学生自我指导学习,使他们能够主动参与教育过程的学习模式.     

Training Studies: An Experimental Design to Advance Educational Neuroscience

The promise of educational neuroscience lies in its potential to uncover mechanistic insights into the science of learning. However, to realize that promise, the field must overcome a fundamental difference between the constituent disciplines: neuroscience is primarily concerned with understanding how the brain works; whereas education attempts to change the brain regardless of its workings. Learning is one domain where these orientations align: it is a deep feature of nervous systems and a target outcome of education. This article proposes coupling training studies with neuroimaging to assess the impact of real‐world learning on brain activity patterns, and simultaneously ask fundamental questions about the causal role of specific patterns of brain activity in academic skill acquisition. Finally, planning and implementing these studies requires multiple forms of expertise and collaborating across disciplines, which will contribute to a more cohesive educational neuroscience research community.     

An evaluation of an out-of-school-hours learning project in South Wales

In early 2002, the DfES announced that it intends to relax the National Curriculum for certain sections of the 14 to 19 years school age population to enable less able, disadvantaged and disaffected pupils to be allowed to spend more time on alternative and vocational curriculum initiatives. This article is one of the first to focus on a major out-of-school-hours learning scheme along the lines currently being predicated by the Government. Specifically, this article focuses on the evaluation of the Mountain Ash Partnership Out-of-school-hours Learning Project (MAP) from the pupils' perspective. The MAP Project was supported by a grant of £198,065 from the New Opportunities Fund over a three-year period between 1999 and 2002. Findings support the view that alternative curriculum schemes can significantly change and improve disadvantaged pupils' attitudes towards learning and the way they perceive their schools.     

New learning and choices of secondary school teachers when arranging learning environments

The aim of this study was to determine the types of choices secondary teachers make when arranging learning environments and to determine how these choices change within the context of educational reforms aimed at the stimulation of New Learning. Interviews held with 15 Dutch secondary teachers showed three aspects of learning environments to which these choices of teachers are primarily related: (1) the division of teacher and learner roles, (2) learning goals, and (3) learning materials. The same three aspects emerged when teachers were specifically asked about arranging learning environments that stimulate New Learning. The interviews showed, however, that teachers have different conceptions of the instructional choices that will stimulate New Learning. In addition, teachers appeared to be thinking mostly in terms of learning products and not in terms of learning processes as a learning goal. Furthermore, teachers showed hardly any attention for arranging cooperative learner roles. For the successful transformation of education in the direction of New Learning, therefore, more support for teachers is recommended.     

Concepts of a higher hierarchical level require more dual situated learning events for conceptual change: A study of air pressure and buoyancy

This article examines the process of students' conceptual changes in respect of air pressure and buoyancy as a result of instructing with the Dual Situated Learning Model. The dual situated learning events of this model were designed according to the students' ontological viewpoint on the science concepts as well as on the nature of these concepts. Results demonstrated that the notion of buoyancy required more dual situated learning events for conceptual change to occur than that for air pressure. Instead of attributing the difficulty involved in conceptual change to the mismatch of ontological category of the concepts, the author proposes that the hierarchical level of the scientific concepts would determine how easy or difficult it is to bring out a conceptual change. Concepts of higher hierarchical level subsume more essential underlying concepts, thus making it more difficult for conceptual changes to occur.     

Teachers' conceptions of student learning and own learning

New learning theory, underpinning the idea of teaching for self-directed learning, provides new conceptions of learning: the self-regulation of learning, the construct-character of knowledge, the social nature of learning and a dynamic model of intelligence. What conceptions teachers hold may be related to their tolerance of uncertainty. We constructed a Learning Inventory and administered this to teachers in Dutch senior secondary education, where an innovation is heading for more independent learning. We found empirical confirmation of the five dimensions underlying teachers' conceptions of learning, both for student learning and for their own learning. Tolerance of uncertainty explained the other four dimensions in conceptions of student learning, but not in teachers' conceptions of their own learning. Teachers generally endorse the process-oriented conceptions, although some differences are noted between teachers' conceptions of student learning and their own learning.     

System leaders using assessment for learning as both the change and the change process: developing theory from practice

Many schools and school systems have been deliberately working towards full implementation of Assessment for Learning for more than a decade, yet success has been elusive. Using a leader's implementation of Assessment for Learning in one school as an illustration, this article examines eight positional leaders’ experiences as they implemented both the ‘spirit and the letter’ of Assessment for Learning at all levels. This longitudinal qualitative research study draws on the experiences of leaders from Alberta, British Columbia, Germany, Georgia, Hawai`i, Manitoba, New Zealand and Ontario. The authors identify five findings that show how positional leaders use Assessment for Learning as the focus for system-wide change, as well as the change process itself.     

Pondering purposes,propelling forwards

ABSTRACT

This article, based upon the closing plenarydelivered to the recent conference of Professional Practice, Education and Learning, reflects upon the developments of the ProPEL network over the past seven years and its possibilities for future directions. To provide some context for these reflections, the article begins by outlining key challenges facing contemporary professions and their education. Against these, I consider themes and emphases that have characterised ProPEL initiatives and the papers presented to its conferences. Then, I compare these to the sorts of questions and issues that appear to be most urgently debated in other scholarly communities concerned with changing professional work and knowledge, particularly the dramatic transformations of professional roles through new digital technologies and artificial intelligence, transnational demands and new organisational forms.The article ends with questions for educators researching professional practice: where we need more focus, where perhaps we need less, and what may be productive ways forward.     

Learning disabilities in New Zealand: where kiwis and kids with LD can't fly.

Learning disabilities (LD) has never been officially recognized as a category of special education in New Zealand. This article discusses the main reasons for the rejection of the LD category. The education system in New Zealand is described, and the nature of special education is outlined to provide a context for considering LD. Attempts by the parent group SPELD (New Zealand Federation of Specific Learning Disabilities Associations) to have "specific learning disabilities" (SLD) recognized in legislation are discussed, along with reasons for the rejection of these attempts by state education officials. It is concluded that LD/SLD will never be recognized as such in New Zealand. The needs of students with LD may potentially be met by new policies for "high incidence" special needs. But teachers' lack of skills and strategies for working with a range of learning difficulties is seen as an impediment to students with LD being adequately helped in the foreseeable future.     

LEARNING COMMUNITIES AND COMMUNITY COLLEGES: A CASE STUDY

Learning communities have been present in community college settings for more than a decade. The literature suggests that they are generally effective for both participating students and faculty. As economic development increasingly demands greater technological sophistication, and community colleges are faced with increasing numbers of developmentally challenged students, learning communities may be one means to effectively resolve this paradox. This article is directed to those faculty and staff who may be considering the initiation of a learning community. It provides a review of literature, and presents a set of issues currently being addressed at one small community college in Louisiana where a learning community is in the design stage.     

构建服务全民终身学习的教育体系:理论、趋势与路径

正值国家阔步迈入“十四五”规划启动开局之际,河北师大专家学者组织了一场关于“新时代中国特色终身教育体系构建“研讨会,与会领导和专家就新时代服务全民终身学习的教育体系构建如何起好步、开好局的热点问题提出了很多真知灼见。观点主要侧重:（1）新时代服务全民终身学习的教育体系构建的国际视域和历史方位;（2）新时代服务全民终身学习的教育体系构建的新内涵和理论突破;（3）终身教育推进实践及雄安新区国家区域推动实验样本;（4）扎根中国大地构建服务全民终身学习的教育体系的路径选择;等等。     

Young Lives,Learning and Transformation: Some theoretical considerations

The term 'learning' is now used to signal a range of political, social and economic aspirations. At the same time, the political, economic and cultural conditions under which learning occurs are changing. In these circumstances, it is appropriate to return to some fundamental questions about what learning is. This paper draws from a four-year longitudinal study of young people and their experiences of learning, jointly directed by Phil Hodkinson and myself. The study was based upon semi-structured interviews commencing with 50 young people in their final year of compulsory schooling. Over the four-year period, it witnessed transformations in their lives, including transformations in their dispositions to learning. In the paper, I draw from a range of theoretical sources for the illumination of these transformations and attempt to ground the work in a critical theoretical framework. I argue that theory must acknowledge the situated, positional, relational and participatory nature of learning if it is to capture adequately the complexities of learning and transformational processes. I conclude, also, that the explanatory power of theory is enhanced when it incorporates a temporal dimension and when it addresses how learning is embedded within the complex and continually changing patterns of other life experiences.     

Creating a space for student voice in an educational evaluation

Evaluation research focusing on educational initiatives that impact on the learning and lives of young people must be challenged to incorporate ‘student voice’. In a context of conventional evaluation models of government-led initiatives, student voice is a compelling addition, and challenges the nature of traditional forms of evaluation. It requires a student-first approach where young people actively report on their experiences, rather than being represented by others. This paper presents an evaluation that draws on large-scale ‘student voice’ contribution. Using the context of a mental health programme that was piloted in secondary schools in Aotearoa New Zealand, this paper explores the importance of a student voice agenda in evaluations. More than 2500 students participated through national surveys and an in-depth case study across five school sites. By foregrounding student voice as an evaluation tool, the ethics of student involvement becomes complex. When authentic student ‘data’ can change or challenge official thinking, students’ voice(s) can either be foregrounded or silenced. Commissioned evaluations are often fraught with wider political agendas, but evaluation researchers have a duty to ensure student voice is represented if it is to inform ongoing government policy that impacts on the lives and learning of young people.     

History,place and the learning society: towards a sociology of lifetime learning

This paper aims to shift the debate on the Learning Society away from the normative focus which has predominated hitherto. Rather than beginning with questions about what a Learning Society ought to constitute, we seek to engage with the patterns of participation in learning through the life‐course and their determinants. Our discussion begins with an examination of the way in which the official discourse of the Learning Society is dominated by human capital theory. The critical evaluation of the latter is thus a serious undertaking. Human capital theory involves an unwarranted abstraction of economic behaviour from social relations more widely; participation in lifetime learning cannot be understood in terms of the narrow calculation of utility maximization. This critique provides the basis for the development of a more satisfactory theoretical account, in which learning behaviour is conceived as the product of individual calculation and active choice, but within parameters set by both access to learning opportunities and collective norms. These parameters, by their very nature, vary systematically over space and time: accordingly, place and history must play a central role in any adequate theorization. We conclude that this kind of theoretical approach has important implications not only for empirical research, but also for strategies aimed at creating a Learning Society.     

Exploring connections between identity and learning

Abstract

Learning is situated in the practices of communities, such that children learn by participating in the communities they inhabit. Learning through participation in the practices of a community influences interpretation of and engagement with the social world, and has implications for the identity of the learner as a participant in a community. In this article, the connection between learning and identity will be explored from a sociocultural perspective. Children participate in many communities and must appropriately generalize learning across communities such as home and school. Research in the connection between identity and learning in schools will be reviewed because in many countries where schooling is mandatory it is an important context for this generalization. Then the paper will explore the choice of when and how to generalize across contexts and whether this choice is conscious. Lastly, the paper will propose some ways that the connection between learning and identity may complicate this generalization.