Cooperative group work: A perspective from the U.K.

This chapter explores three major strands in the development of CL approaches in the U.K. The first examines the role of cooperative group work in facilitating the personal growth of the individual; the second focuses on cooperative group work as a means of enhancing the child's thinking abilities; and the third looks at some wider social outcomes for the child which participation in cooperative group work may imply. Educational practice and research findings form the basis for the argument in the chapter.     

Culture,role and group work: A social network analysis perspective on an online collaborative course

This paper discusses the patterns of network dynamics within a multicultural online collaborative learning environment. It analyses the interaction of participants (both students and facilitators) within a discussion board that was established as part of a 3‐month online collaborative course. The study employs longitudinal probabilistic social network analysis (SNA) to identify the patterns and trends within the network. It conjectures and tests a set of hypotheses concerning the tendencies towards homophily/heterophily and preferential attachment. The paper presents identified interaction network patterns in relation to cultural differences. It also evaluates network dynamics by considering participant roles and group work in the course under study. Results of social network analyses are reported along with measures of statistical confidence in findings. The potential for extending exploratory SNA methods and visualisation techniques in educational research are discussed here.     

Learning from group work in science

Abstract

This paper addresses itself to the question of how effective group work is in promoting ‘learning from others’. It follows an earlier report in which verbal interactions between pupils engaged in group work were analysed. The tasks attended to during the group work were all concerned with the planning of scientific investigations.

The findings obtained indicate that a significant amount of ‘learning from others’ occurs as the result of pupils being involved in group work: in the present case, about 40% of information points included in pupils’ independent written accounts had previously been contributed to the group discussion by other pupils. However, the accounts also contained information points that had not been mentioned during the preceding group discussions.

The extent of pupils’ achievement and ‘learning from others’ in group work appeared unrelated to their actual group behaviours, which suggests that even seemingly ‘inactive’ group members benefit from their involvement in group learning experiences.     

Emotions and Teacher Identity: A poststructural perspective

This article illustrates the significance of teachers' emotions in the construction of teacher identity by invoking a poststructuralist lens in discussing the place of emotion in identity formation. In suggesting a poststructuralist perspective of emotions and teacher identity, it is argued that teacher identity is constantly becoming in a context embedded in power relations, ideology, and culture. In theorizing about teacher identity two ideas are developed: first, that the construction of teacher identity is at bottom affective, and is dependent upon power and agency, i.e., power is understood as forming the identity and providing the very condition of its trajectory; and second, that an investigation of the emotional components of teacher identity yields a richer understanding of the teacher self. This discussion is motivated by a desire to develop analyses that investigate how teachers' emotions can become sites of resistance and self-transformation. The emphasis on understanding the teacher-self through an exploration of emotion opens possibilities for the care and the self-knowledge of teachers and provides spaces for their transformation.     

音乐哲学视野中的音乐情感美

音乐哲学揭示的是音乐的美的本质,音乐美学本身就带有哲学范畴的意味.艺术家们在阐释一部作品或者一个流派的音乐时,几乎都把注意力集中在音乐表达了怎样的情感这样一个问题上.因为有情感因素的强大推动力,才创造出许多出色的音乐作品.情感不仅仅是音乐内容的全部,而且还决定着音乐的形式美.     

Liberal Studies in Hong Kong: A new perspective on critical thinking through group work

This article reports research that is contextualised within reforms of secondary education in Hong Kong and the reintroduction of Liberal Studies, which jointly emphasise the need for a learning environment that facilitates the practice of group work and the development of critical thinking. A study is described that explores the relevance of group work for fostering critical thinking, looking in particular at the participation of teachers in small group activity. While attention is paid to the results of critical thinking tests and excerpts extracted from the students’ dialogues, the research also seeks to highlight the role of the teacher in breaking stalemates in discussion with appropriate interventions. In sum, this article concludes by illustrating the importance of collaborative group work in the development of students’ critical thinking skills.     

Time for review: supporting the work of an advisory group

This paper raises methodological issues about the challenges and dilemmas of inclusive research practices reflecting on the work of an advisory group carrying out research on using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to enhance community participation. The interests of three parties can be identified – the commissioning agent, the researchers and the researched – and these interplayed throughout the course of the research determining the outcomes. Given the relationship between inclusive research and advocacy, there were particular gains in enabling the voice of the advisory group to shape the way in which the research was conducted and to disseminate the findings both within the organisation and beyond. However, the fragility of these new structures required organisational changes for the research to be truly empowering. The experience of the group suggests the need for their involvement at all stages of the research process.     

Teachers’ Emotions: an illustrated discussion

A cognitive theory of the emotions would suggest that emotional development can be pursued through challenge to the understandings and judgments on which emotions are based. The situation of two mature women teachers is here considered. They are found to have profound commitments to the pupils they teach and to gain considerable emotional security therefrom. They tend to define school matters outside their teaching as distractions and frustrations. It is suggested that professional development requires a whole‐school approach, one which would contribute to a fuller emotional commitment to the educational project.     

Postretirement work from a gender perspective: in-depth analysis of the Chilean case

ABSTRACT

Due to the ever-increasing life expectancy rates worldwide, there has been an emerging need to conduct more research on older adults’ participation in the labor market after reaching the state pension age. This study aims to analyze the factors associated with postretirement work in Chile, a country characterized by a strong persistence of a male-breadwinner model endorsed by deeply-rooted traditional gender roles, and at the same time characterized by a dual-earner model strongly encouraged by a neoliberal system. Relying on a gendered life course perspective and using a nationally representative survey, we conducted logistic regression analyses to explore how a number of cumulative advantages and disadvantages (such as work trajectory, job satisfaction, and caregiving duties) shape working beyond legal retirement age and the intrinsic motivation to continue working among economically active older adults in Chile. One of the main findings of the present study is that intrinsic motivation to continue working was a remarkably significant predictor of postretirement work among older Chilean adults, especially among women. The results also suggest that even though older women are motivated to continue working, the national labor market is unlikely to offer such possibility. The findings of this study have implications for practice in the sense that they demonstrate the imperative need for organizations to focus on intrinsic motivation-related factors in striving to improve employees’ willingness to stay within the company after the state pension age.     

OBE视角下的PLC纵向课程群建设

成效为本(OBE)的教学法是通过结果的考核来反推教学方法和内容的新型教学法。在研究成效为本教学法的基本原理基础上,通过对企业和学生的调研获取了自动化专业学生的核心能力需求,结合3P模型,建立了基于PLC控制器的纵向课程群体系,提出了课程结构、课程间的内在联系、预期成果及考核方式等内容。该课程群体系以统一的控制器平台、由浅入深的渐进内容、多样的成果考核方式为特点,为自动化专业的专业课程体系提出了新的模式,可操作性较强。     

International work in early childhood education: a UNESCO perspective

After defining UNESCO's place in the United Nations system, the author outlines the new situation that has arisen in recent years for the world's children. Although infant mortality rates continue to give concern, the major problem that international organisations have now to face is not the question of children's survival but their development. Research shows that the vital age for developmental inputs is early childhood, without which the chances of later learning achievement are severely diminished. The proposed ECD Programming Model attempts to take into account present research on early child development as well as the socio‐economic context of developing countries, where governments are increasingly unable to provide basic services.     

Instructional conceptions: Analysis from an instructional design perspective

Learners are active actors in learning environments and not mere consumers of instructional designers' products. In line with mediating paradigm instructional conceptions of students are analysed. These conceptions act as cognitive filters that affect students' use of both instructional interventions and support in learning environments. To gain insight in the complexity of students' instructional conceptions, the concept is analysed and its theoretical assumptions scrutinised. Next, research findings regarding instructional conceptions are reviewed. Attention is paid to the nature and development of students' instructional conceptions and to the relationship with similar conceptions. In the Discussion section, current limitations of both the conceptualisation and instrumentation of instructional conceptions are described and perspectives are opened on further research.     

Promoting teacher scaffolding in small-group work: A contingency perspective

Given the scarcity of scaffolding in classrooms, we developed a professional development program (PDP) focusing on scaffolding. The PDP was based on a model of contingent teaching consisting of three steps: diagnostic strategies, checking the diagnosis and intervention strategies. The development of four social studies teachers’ scaffolding knowledge, use of scaffolding in practice and reflections on practice were analyzed. Insights regarding openness, students’ understanding, and co-construction - that occurred while reflecting with the model of contingent teaching - appeared to foster teachers’ scaffolding development. A fourth step, checking students’ learning, is suggested as an additional step in contingent teaching.     

Experimenting with group work

Summary

In order for group analysis to be successful and to achieve the atmosphere which allows student cooperation to flourish, it is essential that adequate physical and financial resources are provided. These can be summarized as follows:

• (i)Adequate budget to allow for expenditure on models, visual materials, acquisition of background information, etc.

• (ii)Secretarial staff for typing and administration

• (iii)Laboratory technicians

• (iv)Visual aid staff

• (v)All resources available to the industrialist viz: information library, telephone, typing, stationery, workspace, storage, etc.

• (vi)The active cooperation of academic and technical staff

• (vii)Flexibility in timetabling and room allocations

• (viii)Seminar members who will command the respect of the students and will readily adapt to role playing where necessary

• (ix)Studio masters who are totally committed to the group analysis method of teaching and are, therefore, willing to allot substantial proportions of their time to student consultation

• (x)A cooperative administrative staff.

It is not difficult to provide such resources to make a new experience for a considerable number of college administrators and teachers alike.     

Emotions recognition in an intelligent elearning environment

ABSTRACT

For the purpose of improving the quality in Elearning process and overcoming the limitations of the current online educational environments, we propose to take into consideration the emotional states of students during Elearning sessions. Our objective is to ensure the ability of emotional intelligence: Emotion Recognition, in an eLearning environment. Thus, we present an architecture of Emotionally Intelligent Elearning System (EIES). Within the development of a computational probabilistic model of emotions, we proposed a Bayesian Network (BN) model to deal with emotions in Elearning environments and handle the uncertain nature of emotion recognition process. In a second phase, we focus on the incorporation of the emotion recognition in the Elearning systems by developing a simulation of EIES based on the BN model, able to predict the students’ affects. Consequently, we reached positive and promising results related to the fact that simulated EIES based on the BN model of emotions predicts correctly the student’s emotion when an event occurs during an Elearning session.     

Structuring cooperative group work in classrooms

Cooperative, small-group learning is widely recognised as a pedagogical practice that promotes learning and socialisation across a range of curriculum areas from primary school through to high school and college. When children work cooperatively together, they learn to give and receive help, share their ideas and listen to other students’ perspectives, seek new ways of clarifying differences, resolving problems, and constructing new understandings and knowledge. The result is that students attain higher academic outcomes and are more motivated to achieve than they would be if they worked alone. This paper provides an overview of five different studies that the author has conducted that demonstrate clearly the importance of explicitly structuring cooperative small-group work in classrooms if children are to derive the benefits widely attributed to this pedagogical practice.     

Putting threshold concepts to work in health sciences: insights for curriculum design from a qualitative research synthesis

The idea of threshold concepts (TC) has been well received across the higher education community. However the concept’s framework is still evolving and the literature uses the framework in different ways. Just over a decade since the idea first captured interest, it is opportune to explore the nature of that discourse, and the kinds of enquiry undertaken to date. This article reports on a qualitative synthesis that analyses published research on TC in health sciences. It provides a fresh perspective on the literature to identify key themes. Inducting students into complex practices; beyond concepts and developing students’ agency, are the three themes to arise from our findings. These themes offer insights on the ways TC have been used to develop scholarly curriculum, teaching and learning practices. They not only reflect the concerns of the community, but represent a set of empirically based principles for curriculum and course design.