变应试测试为素质测试--论中学英语测试法

本文对传统的中学英语应试测试法的弊端及改革的必然性进行了简析,提出了应实施包括笔试、听力测试和口试在内的新的测试法--素质测试,并阐述了这三方面测试的形式和手段.     

Voluntary organizations and the contribution to social justice in schools: learning from a case study

Partnerships are seen as vital to the functioning of many social institutions and the contribution that the private and voluntary not‐for‐profit sector organizations can make to the provision of statutory services is particularly valued. The Church of England Children’s Society Genesis project worked for nearly 5 years in one urban, secondary school with a remit to promote inclusion. Despite much recorded good work, Genesis was not continued after its contract ended. The school had a series of head teachers and was in special measures for part of the period, but key problems centred around the extent of the project’s contribution to the school’s core business and the absence of a positive management of the multi‐professional project by the school. The evaluation examines ways of proceeding which are of relevance to more complex projects. The paper also reviews the place of voluntary and non‐profit making organizations in meeting current challenges to collaborative, multi‐agency working and proposes a more robust, directive, and managerialist approach to make the most efficient and effective use of the resources and expertise of voluntary and statutory agencies (Inter‐agency Czar and Stalinist environment!). Genesis has gone on to work more successfully in six further schools having absorbed the messages of the evaluation of this first enterprise.     

Turning around failing organizations: Insights for educational leaders

Purpose In this article, we review the literature from the organizational sciences to develop a grounded narrative of turnaround in education. Approach The approach is a review of literature. We employ an integrated process to unpack and make sense of the turnaround literature from the organizational sciences. We rely on strategies appropriate for document analysis, and borrow analytic strategies (e.g., memoing, coding) employed with interview data. Findings We examine seven defining themes that flow from our review of empirical and theoretical work on organizational recovery in firms, non-educational public agencies, and not-for-profit organizations: (1) not all failing schools are worth saving; (2) focus on leadership; (3) act quickly; (4) diagnose first; (5) emphasize efficiency moves; (6) create a sense of hope; and (7) backward map from the customer and focus on core activities linked to valued outcomes. Implications We posit that the literature on turning around failing organizations in sectors outside of education provides blueprints for recovery activity in failing schools. The implications for turnaround leadership are particularly strong. Originality This is the first systematic effort to mine research in the corporate, not-for-profit, and public sectors to develop insights for turning around failing schools.     

6 Urban schools as organizations: political perspectives

Reformed at the turn of the century toward top‐down, centralized administration, city school systems are frequently being reorganized today toward a bottom‐up, decentralized construction. The most radical of these is Chicago. But Chicago, in a condition shared widely throughout the USA, is a city school system experiencing serious budgetary and infrastructure decline ‐ a condition tending anew toward organizational centralization. Such political forces may not mesh well ‐ as a new politics of adaptive realignment at the grassroots encounters renewed strength in an ‘old politics’ of bureaucratic centralization. Largely unstudied and unknown at this time are the effects on the internal politics of the organization in city schooling ‐ a politics that may adapt in some unforeseen way to new battles between top‐down and bottom‐up.     

Open learning in schools

Open learning is fast catching on in schools, partly because teachers want to develop the curriculum and take advantage of new technology, partly because it is a way of keeping options open for 16 to 19 year olds as the numbers of pupils fall, and partly because it offers a better preparation for continuing and higher education. Brian Harris is a tutor‐counsellor for the Open University and a teacher at Hawthorn Comprehensive School in Pontypridd, Wales.     

Turning sunlight into electricity

The intensity of solar radiation in the Earth’s direction from the Sun is approximately 1353 kW/m², a number also called the ‘solar constant’. Accordingly, it is estimated that Earth receives about 96 billion kilowatts from the Sun each second. If this colossal and unlimited energy could be more fully utilized, our dependence on fast dwindling fossil cache will be drastically reduced. Solar energy is available in various forms such as direct solar radiation, wind, wave power, rain (in the form of hydropower), photosynthesis and ocean thermal gradients. Among these, the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity is clean and attractive. This article highlights various routes to directly harness electricity from sunlight. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Renewing professional organizations and action learning

This account concerns the renewal of established professional organizations though action learning. In order to revitalize one national organization, an executive group of leaders committed to co-leading and co-learning through a friendly, computer-supported governance structure. Manifestations of our work together were an accelerated decision-making process and creation of interdependent committees (e.g., research committee, policy committee). Keys to the innovative learning described are peer learning supported by turn taking of the executive leaders and synchronous learning buoyed by asynchronous communications technology. We awakened to the reality that if our organization was to grow, as executive leaders we had to manage our own teaching and learning and tap one another's expertise. We also learned that while face-to-face meetings and annual conferences foster goal attainment, collaboration and camaraderie, they limit the momentum necessary for organizational revival in a rapidly changing world. Organizational capacity is developing quickly as the leaders experiment with action learning interventions that are raising the overall caliber of this professional association.     

Cooperative learning in elementary schools

Cooperative learning refers to instructional methods in which students work in small groups to help each other learn. Although cooperative learning methods are used for different age groups, they are particularly popular in elementary (primary) schools. This article discusses methods and theoretical perspectives on cooperative learning for the elementary grades. The article acknowledges the contributions from each of the major theoretical perspectives and places them in a model that depicts the likely role each plays in cooperative learning outcomes. This work explores conditions under which each perspective may operate, and suggests further research needed to advance cooperative learning scholarship.     

Cooperative learning in German schools

Despite decades of appreciation of CL in scientific discussions of education and in curriculae, it is a rare event in the average German classroom. Rather than looking for external circumstances impeding the realization of a promising idea, this chapter focuses on internal conditions of dissemination strategies. The discussion offers the optimistic outlook that discrepant orientations toward CL may be resolved.     

Turning difficulties into possibilities: engaging Roma families and students in school through dialogic learning

Schools and communities may have a key role in reversing the cycle of inequality that the Roma suffer in Europe. Aiming at reducing existing inequalities, dialogic learning aims to ensure high levels of academic learning for all children, by involving the whole community through egalitarian dialogue. Less well known are the implications of this approach for the Roma in highly marginalised areas. This article presents the results of a longitudinal case study in a Spanish primary school, undertaken as part of the European Union-funded INCLUD-ED Integrated Project. It reports on educational actions grounded in dialogic learning, which have succeeded in engaging families and communities in the school, the classroom and other learning spaces. Based on a dialogic school-based transformation, Roma families participated in children’s learning activities and decision-making spaces. We explore how these actions involving Roma families are developed and the effect they may have in improving learning and engagement.     

The learning worker,organizations and democracy

A current turn of interest in notions of the ‘learning economy’ and the ‘learning society’ is fuelling discussions on promoting education, training and learning in contemporary organizations and workplaces. Although the education of workers has been variously theorized and practised throughout the 20th century, the current debates are marked by a prevailing economic perspective that places emphasis on constructing ‘learning organizations’ and on ‘human resource’ learning in service of organizational strategies for innovation and competitive advantage in economic activities. Critics point out that economic and managerial models scarcely attend to the human subjectivity of the learner‐worker and the worker's diverse learning interests. Broader socio‐cultural ends of worker learning such as lifelong human development and participatory citizenship in democratic society are very often overlooked. This article offers a critical discussion of current conceptions of learning organizations and learning workers. It argues that the prevailing focus on techno‐economic imperatives and of obscured managerial elite interests in organizations currently circumscribe and delimit learning in production organizations. It proposes that a more comprehensive approach to learning in organizations attends explicitly to the needs and interests of workers as learning persons. Taking a longer view, it proposes that organizational and worker learning may generate not only improved work practices but may regenerate links between lifelong learning, societal democratic citizenship and civilized organizations.     

创建学习型组织要反对浮躁

在日前召开的“学习型组织中国化与提高企业核心竞争力论坛”上，有专家指出：当前国内在创建学习型组织中出现一种十分不良的学风，乱炒概念，乱下标准，甚至以学习型组织之名，行沽名钓誉之实。一些企业为争牌而创建，为少数人的“政绩”而劳民伤财。如此下去，本在中国先天不足的创建大有砸了牌子，臭了行市之虞。同时，有些单位不求甚解，浅尝辄止，急于见到实效。应当看到，这股浮躁之风有其广泛的社会基础。今日中国，举凡政治、经济乃至学术领域，取巧之人众多，浮躁之风盛行，此风有愈演愈烈之势，且已蔓延至学习型组织领域。凡真信学习型组织之人要提高挚埸，反对这股浮躁之风，共同维护来之不易的局面。     

创建学习型组织提高企业核心竞争力

开展“创建学习型组织”活动的背景 当今世界政治多极化，经济全球化的发展和科学技术的日新月异，使整个人类社会处于剧烈变动之中。     

The disjuncture between raw scores and pass rates in New York State public schools: Turning success into failure

This paper demonstrates that ‘failure’ is not a direct reflection of student knowledge. Using five years of New York State school-level data, we compare passing rates to raw-scores. We find, first, that when ‘cut scores’ are raised, more students fail even if raw scores are increasing. Second, increasing cut scores disproportionately fails more poor students than non-poor students, despite that poor students have the fastest rates of raw score improvement. Third, raised cut scores transform the smallest raw score gaps between high- and low-poverty schools into the largest passing gaps. Thus, while students in poor schools know more than they did previously, and although they have learned at superior rates, they are recast as the biggest ‘failures’ they have ever been.     

Leading learning and teaching primary schools

This article argues that to base educational policy largely on the results of comparative studies which measure differences in test scores could be dangerous and may lead to unintended consequences. It is especially important to take note of the socio-cultural, political and economic differences which often have deep historic roots. In particular, the paper challenges the assumption that education has been the central determinant in the economic growth of what have become known as the ‘tiger economies’ situated around the Pacific Rim.     

论苏轼骈文的散化现象

苏轼破体为文,把古文的笔法渗入到各种文种之中,诸如以文为赋,以文为四六等,形成内涵丰富的诗文改革运动,完善了"古文"理论。他兼取骈散之长,在骈文因定体制中,或穿插单行句式,或加长骈句,或运以散体之法,不求切对工整,不用故事陈言,打破浮靡堆砌,风格追求疏散,语言力求平易,形成了独具特色的散体骈文,树立了散化骈文的典范。苏轼以自身的实践,改良着骈文,推动骈文的散化,影响了北宋文人的骈文创作。     

A case for collaboratives: Turning around the Bronx public schools

This article chronicles pace-setting collaborative educational programs which are succeeding in turning around Bronx public schools. It focuses on the results achieved when corporations, universities, cultural institutions, and health-care facilities become partners with the public schools to share their expertise, sophisticated technology, and superior financial resources with the city's children. The marshalling of new resources from outside the school establishment in support of a number of initiatives has set public education in the Bronx on a new course. The transformation of many troubled neighborhood high schools into theme schools which feature a particular career preparation has already brought dramatic changes in the borough's dropout rate and raised the aspirations of large numbers of students.