The nature of teacher authority and teacher expertise

The so‐called ‘soft skills’ utilised by teachers – including relationship building, awareness of the pupil's context and background and the demonstration of authority – to develop an appropriate learning culture in their classrooms have long been recognised as being a major contribution to effective promotion of positive behaviour. This article considers some of the dimensions of these, focusing on how these help in contributing towards ‘teacher authority’. The article draws on the parallel experiences of teachers and researchers in England, Russia and the United States to illustrate some of the international dimensions of this theme.     

Common features of expertise in working life: implications for higher education

ABSTRACT

We need to know what it means to be an expert in working life today. Universities are often accused of neglecting the basic idea that higher education should be relevant to working life, and research on the subject of expertise in today’s workplace is lacking. Thirteen experts from different fields were interviewed and the obtained data were analysed using grounded theory as an analytical approach. The research questions were: (1) How do experts define expertise? (2) What kind of problems persist in their work? and (3) How are ‘routine’ and ‘adaptive’ expertise performed? The results revealed that expertise is more a social and collaborative phenomenon than an individual property. Experts develop new solutions and seek constant learning in their work. They excel at spontaneous problem solving. These findings suggest that, to prepare students to become experts, deliberate learning and practice should be provided within a framework of collaborative problem solving.     

Teacher expertise and the development of a problem representation

This study examined ways in which expert and novice teachers mentally represent classroom problems in matters of instruction, assessment, and curriculum planning. A triad judgement task was administered to expert teachers (n=20) and novice teachers (n=98) to determine whether deep, structural features (i.e. the theoretical underpinnings associated with the problem) and/or surface features (narrative characteristics of the problem including grade level and subject) were used to interpret and represent a problem situation presented in a classroom context. Findings were consistent with results from previous studies examining problem representation among experts and novices in other domains. That is, the experts in this study primarily relied on the deep features to form a mental representation of a problem situation whereas the novices tended to rely on surface structures to do so. However, findings also revealed that novice teachers relied on the deep, structural features of the problem under certain conditions.     

西方国家教师学习研究动态及其启示

西方国家教师学习研究自20世纪80年代后发生的变化主要表现在对教师学习的重视与定位,学习目标、内容、方式、研究方法更为具体、细腻,关注课堂实践的有效性以及教师专业发展。从西方国家教师学习研究的趋势看,许多国家着重探讨教师学会教学、学会反思和学会为师等基本问题,力求说明教师学习与教师专业成长的关系。     

建立新型司法鉴定制度和体系刍议

司法鉴定结论作为确定事实的法定证据,对诉讼、仲裁、行政执法等公正性起着重要乃至决定性作用。但现行司法鉴定体制存在许多弊端,使之公信力下降,导致司法公正的不能实现。因此提出建立与司法改革发展相适应的新型司法鉴定制度十分重要。     

论司法鉴定与医疗鉴定之差异

鉴定结论的客观准确性直接影响着法院对证据的可采信度及其医疗纠纷处理的结果.通过研究司法鉴定与医疗鉴定各自的启动程序、鉴定人员的组成情况以及对鉴定组织、鉴定的监督机制、鉴定的内容等诸多问题的分析,可以找出两种鉴定在司法公正方面的差异.     

语境知识下的英汉隐喻翻译

隐喻从旧时被作为修辞学的研究焦点,到现在成为一种基本的人类认知方式被大众所接受。准确的隐喻翻译可以向目的语读者准确地传递原语中隐喻要表达的语义特征和认知方式。通过研究隐喻翻译的现状,从认知语义学的角度出发,分析语境对隐喻理解的影响,试图阐述语境知识下的英汉隐喻翻译。     

语境线索模式探索

基于Gumperz的“语境化”概念和“语境线索”理论,借助语义学、语用学、话语分析等学科的研究成果,分析语境线索的功能,认为语篇完整意义的获得是通过语篇中的语境线索激活知识框架,同时借助语境线索链的功能,运用认知和推理机制而最终获得的。在此基础上,试图通过语境线索理论的新思考,建构语境线索模式,以期更好地描写语篇意义的建构和诠释过程。     

地方性知识及其对课程开发的诉求

地方性知识是地方居民为适应当地环境而创制并积淀下来的一套行之有效的意义系统与生存智慧。地方性知识内容具有地域性、经验性、丰富性等特征。地方性知识的表达形式具有叙事性、零散性,其探究形式为经验型思维与神秘型思维,其检验形式为价值检验、效果检验。控制外部世界、追寻生活意义是地方性知识生产的基本旨趣。地方性知识的内容、形式与旨趣功能对课程开发有着特殊的诉求。     

司法鉴定本质属性的探讨

对司法鉴定的本质属性的认识,决定了其具体制度的建设。在对“司法”二字的不同层次理解下,司法鉴定也有不同层次的涵义。司法鉴定的本质属性取决于委托机关的性质,及委托主体所要遵循的程序,应同时兼顾其自然属性、社会属性。因此司法鉴定的本质属性在于其手段性、工具性。     

论教育知识发展的实质

教育知识是人类对教育进行认识的结果,它经历了漫长的历史发展过程,其最高形式就是体系化的教育学。教育知识发展,概括地讲,就是教育知识类型的不断丰富、教育知识体系的不断成熟和教育知识反思的不断自觉过程。这既是教育知识历史的实际进程,也是教育知识发展的实质性内容。     

浅析促进幼儿教师专业发展的两类知识

理论知识对教育价值观、教育目的的实现起着关键性作用,并使教育活动符合教育规律;而实践知识则使教学实践活动充满智慧和艺术性。幼儿教师专业发展在知识方面就是要培养既具有深厚理论知识．同时又拥有教育智慧的专业工作者。     

Examining the influence of expertise on the effectiveness of diagramming and summarising when studying scientific materials

A 2 (learning strategies: diagram vs. summary) × 2 (levels of expertise: low vs. high) experiment was conducted to compare the effectiveness of using diagrams to writing summaries for students given biological information to learn and who possessed different levels of expertise in that topic area. A main effect of learning strategy used on number of idea units encoded (in diagrams or summaries) was found: drawing diagrams was superior to writing summaries. However, no interaction effect between learning strategies and expertise was found. An examination of students’ subjective ratings of cognitive load revealed that those with low expertise reported higher levels of cognitive load when constructing diagrams. These findings suggest that using diagrams is effective for identifying and encoding important information when learning, but that it would be helpful to provide guidance about diagram use particularly to students who are novices in the topic area to reduce cognitive load.     

Types and Qualities of Knowledge and their Relations to Problem Solving in Physics

Based on empirical findings and theoretical considerations related to the field of expertise research, the importance of “types” and “qualities” of knowledge in relation to problem solving in physics was investigated. The students (N =138) in this study had a level of competence that corresponds to an intensive beginner college course in physics. It was found that conceptual declarative knowledge and problem scheme knowledge are excellent predictors of problem solving performance. However, a detailed analysis shows that the first knowledge type is more typical for low achievers (novices) in physics problem solving whereas the second type is predominately used by high achievers (experts). Regarding types and qualities of knowledge and their relations to problem solving, the results of a multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS) indicate that two dimensions of knowledge can be distinguished. On the extreme limits of the first dimension, which could be named “problem solving relevance vs. structure of discipline”, are the types of knowledge and the qualities of knowledge, respectively. The second dimension of knowledge could be named “single knowledge elements vs. organised knowledge units”. There are types of knowledge as well as qualities of knowledge distributed along this dimension. Consequences of these results for improving physics education are discussed.     

Learning stories from IT workers – development of professional expertise

In the knowledge economy, many companies are well aware of the vital need to maintain the professional expertise of their workers at a high level. Though there have been a lot of research studies in the areas of professional expertise and workplace learning, few examined the learning pathways novice workers went through to become experts in their professions. Most of the research studies on expertise focused on the nature of expertise and few on its development. As for workplace learning research, most studies focused on the learning resources and methods workers used and the affordances of the workplace in making learning possible. Based on the accounts of expertise development collected from individual information technology (IT) workers in Hong Kong, this paper proposes a four-phase model of professional expertise development in the workplace and discusses its similarities to and differences from extant theories of expertise and skill development.     

Developing Teachers’ Knowledge,Beliefs, and Expertise: Findings From the Alberta Student Assessment Study

This article reports on a subset of findings that emerged from the Alberta Student Assessment Study in relation to the preservice and in-service development of teacher knowledge of, expertise in, and beliefs underpinning their assessment practices. Findings indicate that, although there has been a lot of attention given to improving assessment, confusion remains for teachers about terminology, principles, and pragmatics that undermine teacher confidence about assessment and making sound judgments about students’ work.     

Distributed Cognition in Sports Teams: Explaining successful and expert performance

Abstract

In this article we use a hybrid methodology to better understand the skilful performance of sports teams as an exemplar of distributed cognition. We highlight key differences between a team of individual experts (an aggregate system) and an expert team (an emergent system), and outline the kinds of shared characteristics likely to be found in an expert team. We focus on the way that shared knowledge contributes to expert team performance. In particular, we suggest that certain kinds of shared knowledge (both embodied and declarative) and shared skill, potentially developed through a team’s history of playing and training together, facilitate successful coordination. These kinds of shared knowledge and skill may be less developed in a team of experts without a shared history. Exploring the expert performance of sports teams informs our understanding of distributed cognition and collaboration more generally and creates avenues for further philosophical and empirical investigation.     

‘Impact’, educational influence and the practice of shared expertise

This paper argues that participants and locals should be seen as at the centre of all development, including international and health development work. Consequently, in contexts of health and wellbeing, patients should be seen as active participants, which also implies the need for the independence and freedom of all and the development of dialogical spaces in which all may negotiate what counts as a life worth living. ‘Impact’, on this view, should be seen from a lifeworld perspective of evaluating the effects of dynamic evolving practices where all are seen potentially as donors and beneficiaries within contexts of mutually negotiated reciprocal relationships. Data drawn from extensive fieldwork with local trauma surgeons, midwives and healthcare personnel in rural Cambodia provide the basis of new perceptions about processes of ‘passing on’ knowledge and expertise. The ideas presented have potential implications for normative understandings of the social organisation of healthcare in domestic and international settings.