Implicit psychological concepts in architects' knowledge — How large is a large room?

Architects create environments for human behaviour. Therefore they need — in addition to technical and design knowledge — some sort of “psychological” knowledge of the effects of their planning decisions on the occupant. The structure of this knowledge, which is only touched upon during architectural training, is the subject of an empirical study. Experts (experienced architects) and novices (students of architecture in their first or second year) were asked to judge the quality of the floor-plan layout of a four-room flat under three different conditions. From the expert-novice comparison, it is possible to gain insight into how professional experience shapes the knowledge of occupant needs and occupant behaviour. The results show remarkably few differences between the two groups. One possible reason lies in the special structure of architectural practice, which, due to a lack of feedback, makes it difficult to accumulate knowledge by evaluating experience.     

布鲁姆教育目标分类的新发展

修订的布鲁姆教育目标设计在原有认知纬度的基础上增加了知识分类纬度,成为两维教学目标设计。该纬度将知识分为四类：事实性知识,概念知识,程序性知识,元认知知识。     

The dilemmas of teaching for creativity: Insights from expert specialist dance teachers

This paper offers part of the findings of a qualitative, interpretive Ph.D. study, which used a case study approach to explore and illustrate the conceptions of and approaches to creativity of three expert specialist dance teachers working with late primary age children. The specialists had extensive expertise as dance educators in different educational settings together with experience as dance artists. One way of framing their conceptions and practice was in terms of the pedagogical puzzles or dilemmas that they encountered. This paper focuses on the dilemma of ‘balancing personal/collective voice and craft/compositional knowledge’ when teaching for creativity. The findings articulate the foundations of embodied knowing (intrinsic to aesthetic understanding) and the processes fundamental to their teaching for creativity. This is followed by details of the key pedagogical spectra which emerged when responding to the dilemma: prioritisation of creative source—inside out or outside in; degrees of proximity and intervention—distanced reactivity or close proactivity; and spectrum of task structures—purposeful play to tight apprenticeship; and their use in action by the teachers in their different situations. The paper relates these findings to two current questions within education: that of the relationship between knowledge and creativity, and the ways in which adults/experts might engage in teaching for creativity. The paper concludes that this research supports calls for a re-evaluation of aesthetic understanding's role in creativity, grounded in embodiment, within dance pedagogy, which might also be fruitfully heeded within wider educational contexts. It also provides the findings as ‘images of possible’ approaches to inter-relating knowledge and creativity both within dance, and other disciplines, and argues for the use of dilemmas and their solutions as one way of acknowledging complexity and encouraging reflective practice in teaching for creativity, both within teacher training and continuing professional development. Finally, the paper highlights the unique perspective of a group of hybrid education professionals at the arts/education interface, and suggests future areas of research which might develop from this investigation of their practice.     

Apprenticeship in literacy

A four-level taxonomy is proposed for categorizing the ways in which literacy is defined operationally in education. The four levels—performative, functional, informational, epistemic—are distinguished in terms of conceptualizations of the relationships between writing and speaking and between writing and thinking. This taxonomy is then used to examine the results of recent research on early literacy development. Two major findings emerge: (a) the universal predisposition among children to develop actively an understanding of the forms and functions of written language and (b) differences between cultural groups in the ways literacy activities are organized. It is argued that an emphasis should be placed on the highest level of literacy in the school curriculum and that this should be the case forall children and at all ages.     

Documenting Science Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge Through PaP-eRs

This paper examines science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and ways in which that knowledge might be captured, articulated and portrayed to others. The research from which this paper is drawn has involved interviews with experienced science teachers in an attempt to make the tacit nature of their practice explicit. Initially, case methodology was envisaged as being a way of documenting these teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. However, over time, the form of knowledge and information that we were gathering and attempting to portray extended beyond that which could reasonably be described as being case-based. Hence we have developed an approach to articulation and portrayal based on what we call the CoRe (Content Representation) – which represents the particular content/topic of the science teaching – and PaP-eRs (Pedagogical and Professional experience Repertoire) – which help to illuminate specific aspects of the CoRe and therefore offer insights into pedagogical content knowledge itself. The results of this study offer new ways of conceptualising what pedagogical content knowledge is and how it might be captured, documented and disseminated.     

Philosophy,philosophy of education,and the education of teachers

The role of philosophy of education has become seriously blurred with constant cries for practical and immediate answers. The nature of the discipline is such that when practical solutions are demanded of it, it loses its vitality. Philosophy is an intellectual and contemplative exercise; it is a true activity of leisure, one which needs to be enjoyed for its own sake. This intellectual and contemplative activity is of service to the practical concerns of education because choice, action, and judgment — the concerns of the practical realm —depend upon intellectual knowledge. Philosophy of education is, therefore, an essential discipline in the education of the student-teacher.     

Assessment in a Rwandan higher education institution: a quest for aligned assessment to promote socio-economic transformation

Assessment in institutions of higher learning has been researched worldwide. However, there are gaps in research exploring the implications of assessment practices for learners’ access to the kind of knowledge enabling them to participate in their communities’ socio-economic transformation. This is the case in the African Great Lakes region, including Rwanda. This paper investigated the assessment practices at the University of Rwanda-College of Education to establish whether they enable students to access powerful knowledge for socio-economic transformation, which promotes critical thinking and creativity, or the knowledge of the powerful, which promotes memorization of knowledge produced by experts. The study adopted mixed methods, where 361 questions from 20 examinations papers for 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 academic years were analysed using Bloom’s revised taxonomy. Interviews with lecturers and group discussions with students were conducted. The findings revealed that assessment practices heavily encourage the knowledge of the powerful, with limited focus on the socio-economic transformative knowledge. Such practices are unlikely to lead to national socioeconomic transformation, which the government expects from education. The paper recommends revisiting assessment practices in Rwandan higher education to instil in the graduates the required knowledge for active contribution to socio-economic transformation.     

Responses to anomalous data on controversial topics and theory change

This qualitative study was concerned with the role of anomalous data on controversial topics in the process of theory change. Its main aim was to identify the types of reasons that eighth graders gave for accepting or refusing evidence conflicting with their held theory and to see whether those types of reasons fitted into the taxonomy of responses proposed by Chinn and Brewer (Journal of Research in Science Teaching 35 (1998) 623–654). Two controversial topics were chosen: the extinction of the dinosaurs and the construction of the great pyramids in Giza, Egypt. The results showed that the 24 categories of reasons given by the participants, who were much younger than those involved in the study by Chinn and Brewer, fitted into their revised taxonomy, which consists of eight responses, with the exception of the response “ignoring”. Educational implications are drawn.     

Content-Related Knowledge of Biology Teachers from Secondary Schools: Structure and learning opportunities

Teachers’ content-related knowledge is a key factor influencing the learning progress of students. Different models of content-related knowledge have been proposed by educational researchers; most of them take into account three categories: content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge. As there is no consensus about the empirical separability (i.e. empirical structure) of content-related knowledge yet, a total of 134 biology teachers from secondary schools completed three tests which were to capture each of the three categories of content-related knowledge. The empirical structure of content-related knowledge was analyzed by Rasch analysis, which suggests content-related knowledge to be composed of (1) content knowledge, (2) pedagogical content knowledge, and (3) curricular knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge and curricular knowledge are highly related (r_latent?=?.70). The latent correlations between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (r_latent?=?.48)—and curricular knowledge, respectively (r_latent?=?.35)—are moderate to low (all ps?<?.001). Beyond the empirical structure of content-related knowledge, different learning opportunities for teachers were investigated with regard to their relationship to content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge acquisition. Our results show that an in-depth training in teacher education, professional development, and teacher self-study are positively related to particular categories of content-related knowledge. Furthermore, our results indicate that teaching experience is negatively related to curricular knowledge, compared to no significant relationship with content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.     

Class and gender: Role model considerations and liberations in advanced capitalism

Conclusion In this paper, I have presented a model with very few nuances. My object has been to explore the most typical differences between the social classes and, therefore, I have not commented upon the situation of the lower-middle classes; nor have I given much attention to boys in bourgeois categories. My reason for this is that this special category has very often been the focus of socialization research. Rather I have tried to throw some light upon the socialization of working-class girls, where the concept of familism and of solidarity has been important in my analysis.However, the insights and thought patterns of boys and men in bourgeois categories must, in the same way as those of other social groups, be understood as a consequence of capitalism as a social system — and also be understood within a dialectical frame of reference. In other words, while boys in bourgeois categories are socialized in a way which often makes it possible for them to gain the most sought-after positions in society, they have to suffer certain disadvantages that may be costly for themselves as individuals and for society as a whole.My intention has been to discuss some relationships between socialization and the societal model of production. In a capitalist society, there is a need for some boys to be socialized into the elite and for some girls to be socialized into the reserve army of workers. The cause of women's liberation (as well as men's liberation) may be served in many ways and on many different levels. To me it seems especially important to understand the underlying societal forces that shape the roles of working-class girls and women.     

Complexities of learning with computer-based tools: A case of inquiry about sound and music in elementary school

Computer-based technology is increasingly becoming available for students at all grade levels in schools, and its promise and power as a learning tool is being extolled by many. From a constructive perspective, if individuals actively construct meaning from their experiences, then simply having particular tools to work with via a computer doesn't ensure that desired learning will result. Thus, it is important to examine how students construct meaning while using such tools. This study examined what fourth grade students learned from the use of two computer-based tools intended to help them understand sound and music: software that emulated an oscilloscope and allowed students to view sound waves from audio input; and software that turned the computer into an electronic keyboard, which provided students with standard pitches for comparison purposes. Principles ofselective attention andpior knowledge and experiences—foundational ideas of a constructivist epistemology—were useful in understanding learning outcomes from inquiry with these tools. Our findings provide critical information for future instruction with the goal of supporting learning about sound and music from such tools. They also indicate the need for more studies examining learning from computer-based tools in specific contexts, to advance our understanding of how teachers can mediate student activity with computer-based tools to support the development of conceptual understanding.     

An Expanded Taxonomy of Sorting Algorithms

I present an expanded taxonomy of sorting algorithms that is based upon Merritt's inverted taxonomy [1] and Lau's logic‐based derivations [2, 3]. The inverted taxonomy was based on a higher level, more abstract, and conceptually simple top‐down approach to sorting than the traditional taxonomy such as that given by Knuth [4], Work done in automatic program synthesis suggested the approach. Sorts were divided into two categories, hardsplit/easyjoin and easysplit/hardjoin, of which quicksort and mergesort are the canonical examples, respectively. Lau's [2, 3] logic‐based derivations strengthen the inverted taxonomy by deriving comparison‐based sorting algorithms that fall into the two categories of hardsplit/easyjoin and easysplit/hardjoin. Moreover, they expand the taxonomy by deriving distributive algorithms in a symmetric way.     

Integrating academic and practical knowledge in a teacher leaders' development program

This study examines an attempt to encourage integration of knowledge learned in the academy with knowledge learned in practice as a means to challenge educational practitioners' — teacher leaders and inservice teacher educators — existing conceptions and beliefs, and promote intellectual restructuring. The article centers on two components of the Manor Program for the development of teacher leaders and educators. The first component focuses on expanding academic knowledge, by helping the participants become acquainted with studies on students' and teachers' conceptions and ways of thinking in mathematics. The second component focuses on the integration of knowledge learned in the academy with knowledge learned in practice by conducting a mini-study.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Educational choice (vouchers) and social mobility

A quantitative approach to study the impact of vouchers is thought to yield more meaningful results than theoretical arguments. This paper makes use of a model of the behavior of young people and schools to simulate the effects of vouchers of varying sizes on students in different income categories, living in three communities — poor, average and wealthy — under two assumptions about how public schools spend their resources. The first assumption is that public schools minimize their offerings to individual students (i.e. maximize their surplus) in order to further objectives not valued by students. The second assumption is that public schools act as competitive firms, maximizing their educational offerings to individual students.Findings from the simulation are neither uniformly positive nor negative. They do not support the argument that poor young people will be better off with a voucher system. Even in the most favorable case — when public schools maximize surplus — a systemic choice system would not come close to equalizing educational opportunity across income groups.     

Exploring the NATURE OF MATHEMATICAL activity: USING theory, research and `working hypotheses' to broaden conceptions of mathematics knowing

What proficiencies are brought tobear when students work on mathematicsproblems? And to what extent may these becaptured by knowledge categories? These arequestions that I consider in this article,as I explore notions of competency, that gobeyond knowledge to include themathematical `dispositions' that studentsbring to problems and the `practices' withwhich they engage. This exploration willdraw from two frameworks that have recentlybeen introduced in the US. In addition, Iconsider the ways in which researchknowledge is conceived and developed,reflecting upon the important role oftheory and the potential of `workinghypotheses' for connecting with practice innew ways.     

Knowledge Integration in Science Teaching: Analysing Teachers' Knowledge Development

This paper tests the utility of a new sociocognitive frame for analysing the development of teachers' knowledge – the knowledge integration perspective (Linn, Eylon, & Davis, in press; Linn & Hsi, 2000). In doing so, the paper describes one prospective elementary teacher's developing knowledge and highlights its complexity. The prospective teacher demonstrates relatively well-integrated science subject matter knowledge, but she makes some problematic links to lessons and develops some instructional representations that show where she needs to distinguish between different scientific ideas. She also, however, links science concepts to appropriate real-world experiences, indicating that she has nascent useful pedagogical content knowledge. The paper discusses what teacher educators can learn about their learners from this analysis, argues for the utility of the knowledge integration perspective for conducting similar analyses, provides ideas to help science teacher educators apply the perspective easily as they teach their students, and points to areas ripe for future research.     

Does the study of Latin affect spelling proficiency?

This investigation explores Latin study as a possible route to superior spelling proficiency. The spelling ability of two groups of academically able eleventh graders — students of Latin and students of other second languages — is compared. It was found that the Latin students were superior in general spelling ability and were particularly proficient at spelling words of Latin origin. In addition, analysis of the spelling of derivatives for which knowledge of Latin could either facilitate or mislead the speller shows that Latin students were differentially affected by the two types of derivatives. In contrast, students of other second languages, lacking the knowledge of Latinate derivatives, simply made more errors on both types of words. Thus, it appears that Latin study does have an effect on spelling performance. Whether it can fully account for the superior spelling proficiency of the Latin students, however, remains a question to be answered by a prospective longitudinal investigation. Implications for instruction drawn from the present study are discussed.     

试论知识分类学说与“信息科技”学科教学

文章通过对认知心理学的知识分类学说理论阐述,并结合对中学＂信息科技＂学科教学的现状进行分析,提出了教师在＂信息科技＂学科教学实践中,要善于运用知识分类学说来解决学科教学中出现的问题的观点。特别是指出了＂信息科技＂学科的课堂教学中,教师要激发学生的学习兴趣,有效引导学生的课堂注意和学习预期。教师要努力调动学生各方面因素,促进对新知识的巩固及对知识和技能获得过程的理解。教师要在教学中不断加强变式练习,更好地使学生实现知识的转化。教师要重视学生学习方法指导,帮助学生学会学习。     

Keiyo Cattle Raiding, Kechui Mathematics and Science Education: What do They Have in Common?

In the context of globalization, indigenous educational systems of endangered cultures are faced with extinction. Biologists recognize that biodiversity is dependent upon sustaining and promoting knowledge and values of indigenous cultures. Education researchers have a similar responsibility — to promulgate educational diversity before several thousand years of valuable educational knowledge is extirpated. This paper presents the Keiyo of Kenya who have a rich educational system. Its focus is on an indigenous game, Kechui (using calculations to sharpen your mind), based on cattle raiding, and the Keiyos' use of the game for learning mixed strategy-based probabilistic problem solving. Kechui may also have international potential for teaching probabilistic problem solving in contemporary mathematics and science, especially genetics.     

论教育目标分类学中的“马氏理论”对“布氏框架”的超越

布卢姆的分类学开创了教育目标分类学研究的先河,影响了20世纪的教育。在当代教育体系中,"分类而教"已成为教学设计者的共识。2001修订版的布氏分类学沿袭了1956版的基本思路,对各要素进行了重新思考,强调有意义的学习,有着较强的科学性和实用性,是布氏分类的重大发展。而与2001修订版产生于同期的马扎诺分类,则以更为独特的视角,从人的行为模式出发,以人的意识控制程度作为依据,将人类学习活动的自我、元认知、认知和知识四大系统纳入一个统一的系统,构筑了一种层次分明而又合为一体的教育目标分类学。新分类力图打破布氏分类的"框架"局限,致力于"理论"的构建。他的分类理论反映了信息社会主流的知识观和以学习者为中心的教育理念。追求统一的心理学基础,提升了学习者学习过程中元认知的地位与作用,并把"自我"作为教育目标分类的最高层次,具有开拓性的意义,突破了以往教育目标分类"要素模式"的局限,丰富了分类学研究的内涵,体现了对原有的"布氏框架"的超越。