Learning to Play the Game: Professional Development and Mentoring

ABSTRACT

During the course of a career, community college administrators are engaged in activities that are believed to enhance their skills, knowledge, and abilities. Career-related activities such as furthering one's education, participating in professional development activities, and cultivating mentoring relationships may impact the career advancement of administrators. They may also provide opportunities for administrators to grow and develop as leaders. Using social and human capital as a theoretical lens, this article provides an increased understanding of the types of formal and informal activities that senior community college administrators participate in, as well as their perceptions of whether these activities are important for career advancement and development. It also further explores the role that mentors play in the lives of administrators. Findings reveal that administrators in this study participated in a variety of professional development activities both off- and on-campus, and a majority of administrators indicated that they had a mentor in higher education. Implications and areas for future research are discussed.     

A Conceptual Change Approach to Learning Science

Summaries

English

Learning science is complex‐‐a student has at different times to acquire new information, reorganize existing knowledge and even discard cherished ideas. In addressing this issue, the analogy between individual learning and conceptual change in scientific disciplines has been fruitful in providing aspects of a suitableframework for analysing science learning. In this paper a model of learning as conceptual change is developed. It investigates the conditions under which an individual holding a set of conceptions of natural phenomena, when confronted by new experiences will either keep his or her conceptions substantially unaltered in the process of incorporating these experiences, or have to replace them because of their inadequacy. The model illuminates the importance of addressing an individual's existing conceptions. It also pinpoints the importance of an individual's metaphysical commitments in influencing scientific learning.     

Learning by Collaborating: Convergent Conceptual Change

The goal of this article is to construct an integrated approach to collaboration and conceptual change. To this end, a case of conceptual change is analyzed from the point of view of conversational interaction. It is proposed that the crux of collaboration is the problem of convergence: How can two (or more) people construct shared meanings for conversations, concepts, and experiences? Collaboration is analyzed as a process that gradually can lead to convergence of meaning. The epistemological basis of the framework of analysis is a relational, situated view of meaning: Meanings are taken to be relations among situations and verbal or gestural actions. The central claim is that a process described by four primary features can account for students' incremental achievement of convergent conceptual change. The process is characterized by (a) the production of a deep-featured situation, in relation to (b) the interplay of physical metaphors, through the constructive use of (c) interactive cycles of conversational turn-taking, constrained by (d) the application of progressively higher standards of evidence for convergence.     

Learning to Play Soccer: Lessons on Meta-cognition from Video Game Design

Over the past decade, there has been ongoing debate relating to the use of suitable pedagogical approaches for designing learning environments to develop skillful games players. There has, however, been little consideration of the “digital age of learning” and the global success of the digital video game industry. Using the educational work of James Gee, this article attempts to rationalize how a “digital video games approach” differs from other learner-centered pedagogies currently employed for teaching and coaching games. Examination of the literature suggests that the learning gains from Teaching Games for Understanding and the Constraints Led Approach ignore the meta-cognitive dimension of learning how to play games—surely an important consideration for long-term development. Accordingly, by drawing on experiences from digital video game design, we examine how games practitioners might utilize such an approach for meta-cognition in coaching or teaching practice to stimulate player learning.     

Facilitating Conceptual Change Learning: The Need for Teachers to Support Metacognition

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Beyond Conceptual Change: Using Representations to Integrate Domain-Specific Structural Models in Learning Mathematics

ABSTRACT— Effective teaching should focus on representational change, which is fundamental to learning and education, rather than conceptual change, which involves transformation of theories in science rather than the gradual building of knowledge that occurs in students. This article addresses the question about how to develop more efficient strategies for promoting representational change across cognitive development. I provide an example of an integrated structural model that highlights the underlying cognitive structures that connect numbers, mathematical operations, and functions. The model emphasizes dynamic multiple representations that students can internalize within the number line and which lead to developing a dynamic mental structure. In teaching practice, the model focuses on a counting task format, which integrates a variety of activities, specifically addressing motor, visual, and verbal skills, as well as various types of learning transfer.     

基于建构主义的数学概念转变学习

概念转变学习是学生原有概念的改变、发展和重建,是学生的前概念向科学概念的转变.日常概念、概念意象、迁移等因素是数学概念转变学习中产生错误概念的主要原因.根据概念转变的途径、机制和条件理论,概念转变学习的教学策略:(1)了解学生已有知识经验,促进日常概念向科学的数学概念转变;(2)引发认知冲突,辨清新旧界限以实现数学概念转变学习;(3)重视概念生成的凝聚,构建概念网络.     

Quiz game:数字化学习评价方式的新取向

数字化学习是信息时代学习的重要方式.在这种学习方式下,学习评价应重视保持学生学习的自主性和积极性.quiz game作为一种教育游戏,能够有效实现数字化学习环境下学习者的自我评价;quiz game作为数字化学习的新型学习评价方式,对于实现教育评价与游戏的完美结合、促进教育游戏的发展与完善都具有较高的借鉴价值.     

概念转变学习：一种基于建构主义的科学教学模式

建构主义认为，科学概念的学习就是学生由前概念向科学概念的转变过程。西方学者对此做了大量的研究。本文着重分析了概念转变学习的内涵、支持条件、途径和模式，以及促进前概念转变为科学概念的教学策略。     

Learning to Play Together

Encouraging cooperative play must become a function of teachers and parents of physically handicapped children, writes Christine Simons, teacher at Ethel Davis School for physically handicapped children, London Borough of Redbridge     

Preschool Children and iPads: Observations of Social Interactions During Digital Play

Research Findings: Digital play is now commonplace in many young children’s lives, but not in preschool settings. This situation is likely due to the fact that the existent literature seldom highlights what digital play looks like, the various ways it can be situated, and what young children do when they play together with digital devices in the preschool setting. The present study addresses this limitation by providing a close examination of the social interactions of young children as they engage with different types of iPad apps and each other. Observational data of 20 dyads of children during digital play analyzed qualitatively revealed that children exhibited a range of social behaviors from competitive to collaborative as they engaged in 4 types of digital play: practice/task, exploratory, construction, and pretense. Forms of play and exhibited behaviors were shaped by interrelated factors of children’s individual characteristics and relationships, classroom culture and routines, adult views and actions, as well as aspects of the digital device itself. Practice or Policy: Selecting open-design apps, attending to digital play structures, and monitoring peer play more closely may lessen competition, enhance collaboration, and lead to more complex digital play.     

Understanding Conceptual Change and Science Learning through Educational Neuroscience

Although the field of educational neuroscience has grown in recent years, little research has been conducted on conceptual change and science learning through an educational neuroscience framework. Educational neuroscience is frequently used to study processes of language and mathematics cognition, but is not extensively applied to conceptual change and science learning. This review integrates insights from extant conceptual change educational neuroscience studies to inform the fields of educational psychology and science education. These new insights shed light on the persistence of misconceptions and the roles of error detection, inhibition, executive function, and memory in conceptual change. Future directions for the study of conceptual change and educational neuroscience are discussed.     

概念转变研究对学习环境设计的启示

概念转变研究为我们提供了有关人是如何学习,尤其是如何进行深度理解与学习的"新认识论"视角。众多基于实证的重要研究发现启示我们,学习环境的设计应该:重视并运用学习者的先前概念;分析并转变先前概念背后的本体论和认识论假定;发展学习者的元概念意识;创设安全、包容的学习环境;精心安排课程材料。     

The Relation of Story Structure to a Model of Conceptual Change in Science Learning

Although various reasons have been proposed to explain the potential effectiveness of science stories to promote learning, no explicit relationship of stories to learning theory in science has been propounded. In this paper, two structurally analogous models are developed and compared: a structural model of stories and a temporal conceptual change model of learning. On the basis of the similarity of the models, as elaborated, it is proposed that the structure of science stories may promote a re-enactment of the learning process, and, thereby, such stories serve to encourage active learning through the generation of hypotheses and explanations. The practical implications of this theoretical analogy can be applied to the classroom in that the utilization of stories provides the opportunity for a type of re-enactment of the learning process that may encourage both engagement with the material and the development of long-term memory structures.     

Designing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Physlet-Based Learning Materials in Supporting Conceptual Learning in Secondary School Physics

Many educational researchers have investigated how best to support conceptual learning in science education. In this study, the aim was to design learning materials using Physlets, small computer simulations, and to evaluate the effectiveness of these materials in supporting conceptual learning in secondary school physics. Students were taught in two different physics courses (conditions): one group of students (n = 40) was taught using Physlet-based learning materials, and the other (n = 40) was taught using expository instruction. To evaluate the designed materials, we assessed students’ thinking skills in relation to physics after the course and analyzed the results using an independent t test, multiple regression analyses, and one-way analysis of covariance. The results showed better thinking skills among students in the experimental group and supported a clear relationship between the physics course using Physlet-based materials and this improvement (p < 0.05). These results indicate that properly designed Physlet-based materials can effectively support conceptual learning.     

Conceptual Change, Text Comprehension and Eye Movements During Reading

In the two studies presented in this article, we examine the interplay of conceptual change, text comprehension, and eye-movements during reading and develop and test methods suitable for such explorations. In studies 1 and 2, university students (N = 15 and 23) read a text on photosynthesis, explained their reading processes retrospectively cued with their own gaze videos, and answered written pre- and posttests. In Study 1, a case study demonstrated connections between re-readings and high-level cognitive processing. Out of all of the participants' retrospective reports, categories were formed based on the expressions referring to either situation model or textbase construction during reading. In Study 2, conceptual change learners differed from other learner groups in terms of prolonged overall reading time and a relatively high amount of expressing textbase construction at the beginning of the retrospective reporting. The results emphasise the importance of careful construction of the textbase in conceptual change and point to the benefits of complementing the eye tracking with cued retrospective reporting when examining high-level cognitive processes during reading.     

Development of the Efficacy Beliefs for Conceptual Change Learning Questionnaire

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to assess college students’ efficacy beliefs for conceptual change and to examine the psychometric properties of the instrument. Participants were 692 students. Results of the confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized single factor structure of Efficacy Beliefs for Conceptual Change Learning Questionnaire providing evidence for the construct validity. Evidence for concurrent validity also is provided. On the basis of the evidence provided in this study, the questionnaire appears to produce valid and reliable scores for college students. With the use of the questionnaire, conceptual change researchers might be able to better assess the relationship between students’ efficacy beliefs and the change in their conceptual understandings of various science concepts.     

Electroencephalographic Coherence and Learning: Distinct Patterns of Change During Word Learning and Figure Learning Tasks

One likely mechanism in learning new skills is change in synchronous connections between distributed neural networks, which can be measured by coherence analysis of electroencephalographic patterns. This study examined coherence changes during the learning of two tasks, a word association task and a figure association task. Although learning curves were similar for both tasks, distinct patterns of coherence change were observed. Coherence tended to increase as learning progressed in the figure association task. In contrast, coherence tended to decrease in the word association task, especially within hemisphere. Word learning was coupled with negative intrahemispheric and positive interhemispheric performance–coherence relations in the gamma frequency. Unique to the figure learning task was an increase in the number of positive coherence–performance relations in both delta and theta frequencies across blocks. Results are discussed in light of ongoing efforts to identify the mechanisms that coordinate distributed brain activities during the process of learning. Further research is needed to define patterns of coherence change for different tasks, goals, and brain regions.