How to Teach Integrated Skills to College Students

English is taught throughout China. What skills will be used and how many skills will be involved depends on the materials available and the classroom situation. However, given these circumstances, a major problem that has always concerned many teachers of English is how to make full use of techniques and approaches in the classroom to teach English effectively. To an English teacher, the only way to achieve this aim is to collect good and interesting coursebooks, to adopt a communicative methodology and to integrate the four skills, i.e. listening, speaking,     

How to Diagnose At‐risk Students in Chemistry: The case of prior knowledge assessment

This study explores the relationship between different types of prior knowledge and student achievement in an introductory chemistry course. Student achievement was regarded as the pace of completing the course as well as the final grade. A model of prior knowledge is proposed; this distinguishes between different types of prior knowledge and suggests how different types of prior knowledge should be assessed. The participants were 193 chemistry students from the University of Helsinki. Their prior knowledge was assessed with a questionnaire based on the prior knowledge model. The results indicate that the quality of prior knowledge is clearly reflected in the pace of completing the course and in the tendency to drop out of the course. Students who had deeper‐level prior knowledge were more likely to complete the course in the pre‐scheduled time and to get higher final grades, whereas students who performed lower in the prior knowledge test were more likely to either drop out or did not complete the course in pre‐scheduled time. The study implies that making a distinction between different types of prior knowledge is a potential way to identify students who are in need of more support.     

How to Enlarge the Students’ Vocabulary:in English Learning

Vocabulary is a very important element in English learning.Without a large vocabulary,no one can reach a high English level.However,it is very difficult to enlarge vocabulary.In fact there are many methods to enlarge vocabulary.     

How to Provide“Scaffold”in Reading for Secondary Vocational School Students

Many secondary vocational school students are afraid of reading, while teachers are often trapped in a dilemma as to how to teach reading. The present paper, based on scaffold theory, elaborates when a...     

How to Provide“Scaffold”in Reading for Secondary Vocational School Students

Many secondary vocational school students are afraid of reading,while teachers are often trapped in a dilemma as to how to teach reading. The present paper,based on scaffold theory,elaborates when and how to provide scaffold in reading teaching through a case study so as to promote the efficiency of English reading classes in secondary vocational schools.     

Minority Students’ Responses to Racism: The Case of Cyprus

While research has focused on the role of racism in (re)producing ethnic/racial inequalities in education, there is very little research that investigates how variability in minority students’ responses to racism can be explained. By using an ecological approach to integrate existing research on actors’ responses to racism, this study finds that researchers have generally neglected factors and processes situated at the micro- and meso-levels of analysis. Qualitative interview data with Turkish–Cypriot children enrolled in schools in the predominantly Greek-speaking part of the Republic of Cyprus are used to investigate their strategies in response to racism and the factors that explain the observed variability in their responses. The findings suggest the importance of and interactions between factors situated at different levels of analysis, including the level of organizations and social groups and face-to-face interactions in explaining variability in young people’s responses to racism.     

The Stuff of Legend,or Unpacking Cultural Baggage? Introducing First-year English Literature and Humanities Students to Foundational Literary Texts

This article explores teaching and learning perspectives in relation to a first-year English Literature module on foundational literary texts and considers the value of certain assessment modes. The essay discusses methodological and pedagogical questions and argues that the module provides a contextual platform from which first-year students are able to appreciate issues of cultural and textual transmission. The article concludes that the material and the assessment format contribute to furthering an undergraduate research agenda and provides students with the opportunity to reflect on their own learning.     

“This Group of Difficult Kids”: The Discourse Preservice English Teachers Use to Label Students

This study attempts to understand how achievement gap Discourse might be present in preservice teachers' (PSTs) Discourse about students they found challenging to teach. Using a Discourse analytic approach, the project considers: How do PSTs describe challenging students in their written reflections? Do PSTs draw on students' multiple identities? Findings reveal PSTs are taking up a Discourse prevalent in today's educational environment in which students, particularly ethnically and linguistically diverse students, are discussed in terms of inadequacy. PSTs typically describe students in terms of a single label, rather than as having multiple identities. Implications include that PSTs might enter teaching with a limited view and incomplete understanding of students and that even a teacher-education program aimed at pushing PSTs to question their assumptions about students might be reifying a systemwide Discourse that identifies students based on labels—sometimes deficit-oriented labels—rather than fuller understandings of students.     

The Shift from Teaching to Learning: How Well Designed for the Shift are University‐level History Teacher Training Programmes?

The author, the President of EUROCLIO, a major association of European history teachers, considers the present state of history teacher preparation in the universities of Europe. Her primary complaint is that university programmes that are intended primarily for the training and preparation of future historians may neglect the needs of students planning to teach history in middle or in secondary schools. Typical university undergraduate history programmes tend to be overly academic, failing to provide enough in the way of pedagogical training. Thus the author recommends a strong dose of pedagogical methods courses as well as practical training for future history teachers. Other European organizations, particularly the Council of Europe and the European Union, are taking an interest in the ways in which history is being taught in the schools of their member states. The article ends with a survey of some recent conferences sponsored by these two organizations as well as by EUROCLIO on pedagogical and topical aspects of history teaching.     

“The Military Taught Me How to Study,How to Work Hard”: Helping Student-Veterans Transition by Building on Their Strengths

Community colleges are experiencing growing numbers of student veterans. Unfortunately, much training for faculty and staff tends to stem from a deficit mindset: the focus is on remediating what student veterans lack rather than building on their unique strengths. Training programs, courses, and college interventions that acknowledge and build on the strengths student veterans bring from the military to the academy will likely be more effective than those that focus solely on lack. This article identifies three key strengths characteristic to student veterans, connects them to current research on student success, and recommends ways colleges can build upon these strengths to support student-veterans’ transition to college.     

“Students speaking to you”: teachers listen to student surveys to improve classroom environment

Learning Environments Research - While positive teacher–student relationships are at the heart of teaching and learning, it is no easy task to improve these relationships and cultivate caring...     

Avoid,Control, Succumb,or Balance: Engineering Students’ Approaches to a Wicked Sustainability Problem

Wicked sustainability problems (WSPs) are an important and particularly challenging type of problem. Science and engineering education can play an important role in preparing students to deal with such problems, but current educational practice may not adequately prepare students to do so. We address this gap by providing insights related to students’ abilities to address WSPs. Specifically, we aim to (I) describe key constituents of engineering students’ approaches to a WSP, (II) evaluate these approaches in relation to the normative context of education for sustainable development (ESD), and (III) identify relevant aspects of learning related to WSPs. Aim I is addressed through a phenomenographic study, while aims II and III are addressed by relating the results to research literature about human problem solving, sustainable development, and ESD. We describe four qualitatively different ways of approaching a specific WSP, as the outcome of the phenomenographic study: A. Simplify and avoid, B. Divide and control, C. Isolate and succumb, and D. Integrate and balance. We identify approach D as the most appropriate approach in the context of ESD, while A and C are not. On this basis, we identify three learning objectives related to students’ abilities to address WSPs: learn to use a fully integrative approach, distinguish WSPs from tame and well-structured problems, and understand and consider the normative context of SD. Finally, we provide recommendations for how these learning objectives can be used to guide the design of science and engineering educational activities.     

Development of an Instrument Designed to Investigate Elements of Science Students’ Metacognition,Self‐Efficacy and Learning Processes: The SEMLI‐S

The development and evaluation of science students’ metacognition, learning processes and self‐efficacy are important for improving science education. This paper reports on the development of an empirical self‐report instrument for providing a measure of students’ metacognition, self‐efficacy and constructivist science learning processes. A review of the range of literature related to metacognition, self‐regulation and constructivist learning processes resulted in the development of an initial bilingual (English and traditional Chinese) instrument composed of 72 items. This instrument was completed by 465 Hong Kong high school students. The data collected were subjected to exploratory factor analysis and Rasch analysis. The subsequent refinement process resulted in a final version of the Self‐Efficacy and Metacognition Learning Inventory—Science (SEMLI‐S) consisting of 30 items that can be used for either analysing and focusing on any or all of its dimensions or for assigning scores to individuals that enable comparison between them in relation to their metacognitive science learning orientations.     

The “Two Percent Students”: Considerations and Consequences of Eligibility Decisions

Since the 2001–02 school year, the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have shaped much of the work of public school teachers and administrators in the United States. NCLB explicitly prohibits schools from excluding students with disabilities from the accountability system and requires not only participation of all students in statewide accountability assessments but also reporting of the results for students with disabilities along with other students and as a disaggregated group. From the beginning of these requirements, lawmakers recognized that there would be a small group of students with disabilities for whom the regular assessment, even with accommodations, would not be appropriate and they authorized states to develop an alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS) for this group of students. More recently, responding to pressures from the field, additional flexibility has been granted to develop an additional alternate assessment based on modified grade-level achievement standards (AA-MAS) for students with disabilities who present with persistent academic difficulties. It is expected that approximately 2% of the total student population might be included in this new alternate assessment. This article examines the decisions that need to be made by individual states to determine the target population for this new alternate assessment and the policy implications of these decisions.     

How to use “never mind”

有这样一道习题，学习们由于对“never mind”理解不够，经常给出错误的回答。     

“I Wanted to Know How They Perceived Jail”: Studying How One Early Educator Brought Her Students’ Worlds into Her Standardized Teaching Context

Policymakers’ demands for standardization and improved student achievement increasingly define what early childhood educators working in publicly funded programs teach. Doing so has made it difficult for educators to engage in practices with children that incorporate their sociocultural worlds into their instruction. To begin to address this challenge, this article examines the experiences of one pre-kindergarten teacher who participated in a professional development course that asked her and her colleagues to implement culturally relevant lessons with their students in their high-stakes urban teaching context. She took up this challenge by examining the issue of parental incarceration with her culturally and linguistically talented students. Analyzing her and her students’ experiences in this investigation provides insight into how early educators can begin to address their students’ sociocultural worlds through culturally relevant pedagogical practices within their standardized teaching contexts.