Evaluation criteria as control variables in the design of instructional systems

Many of the concepts and principles used in cybernetics are helpful in examining and designing instructional systems. However, the operational utility of cybernetic models is dependent on the match between the phenomenon being modelled and the model itself. In this paper, the position is taken that except in those forms of learning where the criteria for success are independent, fixed, and few in number, the cybernetic paradigm cannot be applied to curriculum development without a modified interpretation of how evaluation criteria can act as system control variables.     

Portfolio People: Teaching and Learning Dossiers and Innovation in Higher Education

As teaching portfolios have become more commonplace in higher education, interest has grown in student portfolios. Both innovations embody the same core process—reflection—and both have similar potential benefits and similar drawbacks. This paper commends portfolios as innovative in themselves and as a response to the new mandates that are confronting higher education. Accounts of the potential of and problems with portfolios are summarized, and attention is then given to key issues in successfully introducing them. The underlying position is that students can best gain from their years of study when the systemic reflection that is characteristic of portfolios engages them (through learning portfolios) and their teachers (through teaching portfolios). Embedding such thinking in practice is, itself, a powerful and innovative approach to re-framing the curriculum.     

Traveling stories: Converging milieus and educative conundrums

Schwab (Schwab, J. J. (1970). The practical: A language for curriculum. Washington, DC: National Education Association, Center for the Study of Instruction) named the teacher, learner, subject matter, and milieu as the desiderata essential for curriculum making. In our research, the teacher commonplace has formed the entry point of inquiry. Increasingly, the milieu commonplace has perplexed us. In this article, we examine what we have termed “traveling stories” through different field texts focusing on what happens when individuals from different milieus are brought together in one school context. We explore how learning may be shut down in a miseducative way or opened up to educative possibilities through understanding the influence of diverse milieus—those we vicariously carry with us and those we currently share with others—and how they converge to shape the meanings individuals create in seemingly shared situations.     

A Taxonomy of Knowledge Types for Use in Curriculum Design

This article proposes the use of a taxonomy to help curriculum planners distinguish between different kinds of knowledge. Nine categories are suggested: empirical, rational, conventional, conceptual, cognitive process skills, psychomotor, affective, narrative, and received. Analyzing lessons into the sources of their resident knowledge helps the teacher proceed in a less dogmatic manner, distinguishing between categories of knowledge based upon where that knowledge originates. This taxonomy facilitates a meta-narrative on the nature of knowledge — how it is discovered, invented, decided upon, and so on — and the form that it takes in human experience and learning.     

The cybernetic institution: Toward an integration of governance theories

This paper presents a new conceptual approach to institutional governance, management, and leadership based upon a cybernetic model of organizations. The cybernetic paradigm integrates existing models by suggesting how bureaucratic, collegial, political, and anarchical subsystems function simultaneously in colleges and universities of all kinds to create self-correcting institutions. The cybernetic paradigm posits that organization control systems can be described in terms of sensing mechanisms and negative feedback loops that collectively monitor changes from acceptable levels of functioning and that activate forces that return institutions to their previous stable state. These self correcting (cybernetic) processes function as institutional thermostats. Administrators can function effectively by adopting leadership and management approaches that are consistent with cybernetic principles. These principles suggest that administrators should complicate themselves and use multiple frames to develop richer behavioral repertoires, increase the sensitivity of institutional monitoring systems, and focus attention on important issues through systems that report data and create forums for interaction.The major function of the cybernetic administrator is to coordinate and balance the various systems within the institution to move towards optimizing the administrator's values. This can be done by making incremental adjustments to administrative processes and procedures, by enunciating goals that establish constraints, and by emphasizing selected elements of organizational life.     

An ecological conception of teaching

Traditional theories of teaching and learning are premised on the belief that knowledge and skill are the properties of the individual. The concept of ecological intelligence shifts the focus from individual cognitive processing and technical action to the relationships and activities within environmental systems. Students (and teachers) come to classrooms as members of a variety of systems, each of which possess certain kinds of knowledge and information. The job of the teacher is to introduce learners to new systems of knowledge and processes and to model ways these systems—and the information and structure therein—can be connected to what the learners already know. Not recognizing the systems of which the students are members is to discount the diverse information and connections of students. Too often this happens because the potential contributions are not immediately apparent and require effort to be incorporated into the ongoing activity.     

Issues of relevance in Kenyan mathematics and science curricula

Are ‘Mathematics’ and ‘Science’ such universal notions that one curriculum can serve equally well in all societies, subject only to exemplification from local circumstances? Or do different human cultures construct and use ‘Mathematics’ and ‘Science’ so differently that each culture needs to construct its own curriculum to teach its own children? At issue is whether curricula developed in industrialised states can be readily transferred or adapted to developing countries.Taking as its starting point the fates of the Scools Mathematics and the Schools Science Projects in Kenya, — both adaptations of British models, — this paper reviews the research addressed to these questions. Its conclusion is that definitive answers are not yet possible. Nevertheless, what evidence there is seems to question the possibilities of transferability or even of simple adaptation.     

Concepts of globalisation and their impact upon curriculum policy-making: Rhetoric and reality - A study of Australian reform

In last few years there has been an increasing amount of attention paid to the concept of ‘globalisation’. A precise definition has yet to emerge but there is some agreement that it involves a worldwide shift in economic operation which is feeding down into a number of social institutions — not least, education. In response, it is often noted that school systems are all following one path.This paper seeks to examine and challenge the ‘one path’. Current conceptualisations do not account for the variety of examples already seen. It is argued that there are four related phenomena which can go under the heading of globalisation: globalisation per se (as a form of colonialism); globalism (a sharing of mental constructs); convergence (following a similar path); and mimicry (joining in hoping to gain benefits).Leaving aside the impact this has on the organisation of education it is argued that it has immediate effect on our conceptualisations of curriculum; the language we use and the conceptions it takes with it can constrain our educational opportunities. This is illustrated with reference to curriculum reform and environmental education in Australia.     

Attention to semantic versus phonetic verbal attributes as a function of individual differences in arousal and learning strategy

It has been argued that deep processing of semantic information helps students to learn faster and perform better on classroom tests. Using paired associates tasks, it has been found that high arousal subjects make more errors when the response terms are phonetically similar. Subjects low on arousal make more errors when response words are semantically similar. If the encodings of semantic features are assumed to be “deeper” and more durable than the encodings of “shallow,” phonetic features, then studies have suggested that anxious students process shallowly and are thus at a disadvantage when learning information. The present study treats deep processing as a learning style and used the Synthesis—Analysis scale of the Inventory of Learning Processes to assess it. It is hypothesized that arousal would be negatively related to the learning style of deep processing. It is also hypothesized that the interaction obtained in earlier studies, i.e., greater susceptibility to semantic interference with low arousal and phonetic interference with high arousal, would occur only when Synthesis—Analysis scores are low. It is assumed that the habitual use of a deep processing strategy by students high on Synthesis—Analysis could counteract the limiting effect of arousal on cue utilization. The study provides support for both hypotheses.     

普通高中新课程教学中学习方式的转变

新的课程改革目标之一就是培养学生以"自主、合作、探究"为特征的学习方式.对于普通高中学生,要从学生的学习动机和目的入手,促进学生自主学习方式的形成,从实践性、综合性、开放性、创新性的角度使学生形成探究的学习方式.根据高中学生的年龄特征和自主能力培养合作学习的学习方式.并且,根据学生的实际,形成个性的多样化的学习方式,通过自我评价强化新的学习方式的形成.     

知识管理视角下的E—learning课程体系设计研究

尽管E—learning已经成为教育机构的一种战略性知识传递模式,得到了广泛应用,但是由于课程体系设计理念局限在吸收模式,不能达成高层面的学习模式,而且学习者易产生“隔绝”感,因此其应用范围和效果受限。本文从知识管理视角重新审视课程体系设计,提出以知识管理的编码化策略和个性化策略为指导,广泛使用知识管理技术构建后台知识体系和前台互动界面实现有效的E—learning个体学习和群体学习。通过知识管理和E—learning的结合构建了一个由具有开放性、动态性、联通性、分布性和社交关注性等特点的知识库和有利学习环境组成的课程体系,改善学习者的学习绩效。     

Accountability, Student Learning, and the Preparation and Licensure of Teachers: Oregon''s Teacher Work Sample Methodology

This article describes Teacher Work Sample Methodology (TWSM) as one piece of an in-place accountability system for the initial preparation and licensure of teachers that includes evidence of student learning. The underlying tenets of both the methodology specifically and the notion of accountability systems generally are explored from the perspective of using evidence of student learning. This discussion includes the argument that teacher do indeed influence student learning and thus can ethically be part of an accountability system. However, the author also argues that the teaching and learning context is important and must be taken into account within such systems. The author also describes why, especially at the preservice level, the notion of accountability is part of a broader social contract. Finally, the author argues that the aim of any accountability system should be to develop personal, professional responsibility rather than to develop an external hammer for performance. A summary of the differences TWSM has made at the individual teacher level and within the institution, the state, and the nation generally is presented. The author concludes that the intended impact of the system—to develop personal, professional responsibility—has been largely achieved.     

Learning for and realising curriculum aspirations through schools as learning organisations

How can schools as learning organisations support the realisation of a new curriculum's aspirations? This article describes four common and interrelated challenges—depth, spread, reach, and pace—associated with enacting a new curriculum. It then argues that curriculum capital represented by schools and practitioners that address these challenges and meet associated learning demands—commitment, knowledge, understanding and capability—is essential to ensure that curriculum aspirations are realised. We propose that schools that are learning organisations create the kinds of conditions necessary for responding to the challenges and learning demands. In such schools the considerable individual, collaborative and collective learning needed at many levels is recognised. We highlight how each of the four challenges might be addressed by seven dimensions and four transversals of schools as learning organisations, while recognising that task will be more feasible in systems that are also learning and providing supportive conditions.     

Beyond the Personal Learning Environment: attachment and control in the classroom of the future

The Personal Learning Environment (PLE) has been presented in a number of guises over a period of 10 years as an intervention which seeks the reorganisation of educational technology through shifting the “locus of control” of technology towards the learner. In the intervening period to the present, a number of initiatives have attempted to create or instil the dispositions of technologically empowered personal learning, to varying levels of success, but none of which have been conclusive. At the same time, developments in education and learning technology have indicated some deficiencies in the models and rationale that was used to justify the PLE. In this paper, the cybernetic model of the PLE presented through the Joint Information Services Committee PLE project is re-inspected in the light of (a) evidence from implementation; (b) changes in technology infrastructure. A refined model is presented, enriching the cybernetic argument about the control of personal tools with Bowlby's related cybernetic model of attachment. The refined model is situated against the impact of the fast-emerging real-time web, and the approach justified with reference to a computer simulation of the dynamics of the new model.     

Multimodal literacy learning opportunities within a grade six classroom literacy curriculum: constraints and enablers

This case study of a grade six classroom literacy curriculum in Ontario, Canada was designed to produce new knowledge of how curricula can promote multimodal literacy learning opportunities for students. With a focus on constraints and enablers, the study found few opportunities for multimodal literacy learning due to standardised assessments, an outcomes-based programmatic curriculum with related standardised report card, and assessment-focused professional learning opportunities. Despite the print-centric nature of the curriculum, however, the study found that students did initiate their own multimodal opportunities. The study has implications for educators across the globe who are interested in expanding students’ literacies.     

Reconsidering curriculum development: A framework for co-operation

Conventional approaches to curriculum development employed in western countries have proved to be unsatisfactory. Much of the literature as well as the practice of curriculum development have focussed on two traditional stances — the administrative and grass-roots models — and neither has been able to accommodate concurrently the theoretical and practical objectives, skills, and needs of central administrators, teachers, and curriculum specialists. In this paper, a brief examination of the characteristics, prevalence, benefits, and major shortcomings of these two models provides a basis for describing an approach that may better fulfil the multiple and competing demands of educational administrators and users. The article elaborates upon and defends a theoretical plan for involving administrators and educators in co-operative curriculum development, and specifies additional organizational requirements and constraints which would need to be dealt with in order to effect its intent.     

School-college collaborations: A strategy for helping low-income minorities

Today, with all the talk about educational excellence, schools and colleges still live in two separate worlds. Presidents and deans rarely talk to principals and district superintendents. College faculty do not meet with their counterparts in public schools, and curriculum reforms at every level are planned in isolation. It's such a simple point—the need for close collaboration—and yet it is a priority that has been consistently ignored. Universities pretend they can have quality without working with the schools, which are, in fact, the foundation of everything universities do.--Ernest Boyer (1985, p. 11)     

Sesame street as a continuing experiment

After 22 years,Sesame Street continues to be a television experiment designed to prepare preschool children, especially poor inner-city children, for school. The success ofSesame Street can be attributed to the unique partnership the Children's Television Workshop forged early on between producers and researchers on the project. Three institutional mechanisms—curriculum seminars, theWriters' Notebook, and extensive child testing—create formal opportunities for producers and researchers to explore new topics and to learn more about preschool children and how they respond to the program. This article describes each of these mechanisms and presents a case study that exemplifies how researchers, producers, and writers worked together to developSesame Street's new geography curriculum.