Academics’ experiences of understanding of their subject matter and the relationship of this to their experiences of teaching and learning

In this paper we focus on the issue of how academic staff experience the understanding of their subject matter and the relationship of this understanding to their experience of teaching. In recent years there has been a substantial amount of research into how academic staff conceive of teaching and learning, how they approach their teaching, and how their approaches to teaching relate to how their students approach their learning. In our present project this research is being extended by looking at the way 31 academics from four broad fields of study experience their understanding of their subject matter and how this relates to the way they experience their teaching. Using a phenomenographic approach we show that academics who experience their subject matter in atomistic and less integrated ways experience their teaching in more information transmission and teacher-focused ways, while those with a more integrated and holistic experience of understanding their subject experience their teaching in more conceptual change and student-focused ways.in final form: 9 September 2004     

Using Phenomenography in the Design of Programs for Teachers in Higher Education

This article describes two academic development activities which exemplify how phenomenographic ideas and the results of phenomenographic research, can be built into the design of teaching development workshops for staff teaching in higher education. The activities focus on two important tenets of a phenomenographic approach to teaching and learning—the experience of variation and relevance to the participant. They are structured in terms of the examination of experience of the participants and their students. They seek to help the participants see variation within the experience as a way of helping them examine their own experience and change their way of seeing teaching. They also set the experience in a context where staff can see the connections between teaching and learning such that the goal of changing teaching to improve student learning appears to the teacher as relevant.     

试论高校世界古代史学习兴趣的培养

很多高校历史专业学生学习世界古代史的兴趣普遍不高,这既有客观原因,又有主观因素。教师要以学生为主,采取灵活多样的教法和手段,同时进行积极引导,培养他们的学习兴趣;还需结合教学实际和学生特点,从根本上转变教育理念。     

Physics students' understanding of relative speed: A phenomenographic study

It is important that students of physics develop both quantitative and qualitative understanding of physical concepts and principles. Although accuracy and reliability in solving quantitative problems is necessary, a qualitative understanding is required in applying concepts and principles to new problems and in real-life situations. If students are not able to understand what underlies quantitative problem-solving procedures nor interpret the solution in physical terms, it is questionable whether they have developed an adequate understanding of physics. The research reported here is part of a larger phenomenographic study that is concerned with the assessment of physics students' understanding of some basic concepts and principles in kinematics. In this article students' understanding of the concept of relative speed is described. A variety of ways of understanding relative speed and of viewing a problem that dealt with this concept were uncovered. The results are used to suggest ways for teachers to proceed in assisting students to enhance their understanding of this concept. The teaching principles outlined concern both teaching relative speed, in particular, and teaching scientific concepts and principles, more generally.     

‘I'd rather be seen as a practitioner,come in to teach my subject’: Identity Work in Part‐Time Art and Design Tutors

This article explores issues of identity as part‐time tutors engage in teaching in further and higher education. It is based on a phenomenographic research approach that examines variation in experience. Based on interviews with 16 creative practitioners who also teach, it draws on the narratives of identity resulting from the interview process. The five possible ways that the relationship between practice and teaching can be experienced can also be associated with five different experiences of identity. The research also draws on case studies more aligned with one category of experience than another, enabling aspects of identity work to be related to the worlds of practice and teaching and to individual histories of participation in these worlds. Factors that help to contribute to particular forms of identity are therefore discussed, as well as the impact that tutor identity can have on the students' learning experience.     

Solidarische Rivalen: Geschwisterbeziehungen in der Frühen Neuzeit aus der Sicht der Emotionsgeschichte

Teaching science is again receiving increased attention in educational science, didactic and political debates. This review article will present the focal points of research concerning the didactics of science and perspectives for the development of science teaching. It will look at the goals of science education, on the one hand, and at the topics of empirical research and studies concerning a substantive development of teaching and lessons in science, on the other. The contribution closes with an outlook on the implementation of new developments and future perspectives for science education.     

Beginners and programming: insights from second language learning and teaching

This paper will consider issues that are important in the teaching and learning of programming to students in their first year of an undergraduate course in a computer science discipline. We will suggest that the current educational climate offers the opportunity to move the focus onto the learner and their experience, and that second language learning and teaching in the field of English as a Second, or Foreign, Language may be a fruitful area on which to draw. We will review a particular aspect of second language pedagogy-learner strategies-and discuss their applicability to students who are starting to learn how to program. We will consider ways in which these strategies might be useful to support learning programming at this level.     

Second Life的教育应用现状及其功能述评

Second Life虚拟世界自2003年问世,获得了语言学、商业、医学、教育学等众多领域研究者青睐,成为其理论与实践研究的创新视角。当前国内外SL教育应用现状及其功能的研究成果主要聚焦于5个方面:(1)SL可作为多学科教育教学的实践环境;(2)SL提供不同学习情境体验与能力迁移;(3)SL可作为网络学习社区;(4)SL提供多样化教学实践形式;(5)SL提供创新性教学活动设计。当然SL教育应用研究也存在一定缺陷,如技术门槛、硬件需求、活动设计以及资源创设等方面。未来的SL教育应用研究将会在研究方法、呈现工具、技术强度以及沉浸体验等方面获得更多的关注。     

教育研究、教育的科学研究与我们的选择——我国教育研究的现状分析与趋势研究

教育研究,特别是教育的科学研究的重要性已为世界各国所公认。在概念上,教育研究和教育的科学研究是有区别的。就教育的科学研究而言,国际教育界已经形成了一套通行的研究方法:提出问题、形成研究假设、搜集资料、分析资料、检验假设并形成研究结果。我国教育研究与世界教育研究相比,存在很大差别,具有群众性参与、行政参与和以思辨为主等特点。一方面,可以说,我们形成了中国特色的教育研究体系,另一方面,在中国加入世界的进程加快的大环境下,我们不得不遵从教育研究的通行规则和方法。提倡基于科学的教育研究,规范研究方法,提高研究质量应该成为我们的选择,从而使教育的科学研究真正地科学化,为教育实践和教育政策制订提供真实可靠的依据。     

女性主义视野下的教育研究方法论探析

方法论问题,不仅是哲学、科学研究领域中的重要内容之一,而且方法论始终在科学研究的进步与发展中扮演着象征性的角色,它的发展和变革一方面引起教育研究方法论发生变革,使教育研究的方法论基础得以拓宽和发展,另一方面也引起不同学科领域的研究者和学者,特别是女性主义学者对科学研究方法论基础的质疑,她们认为科学研究无论在结构内容上还是在方法论上都充满了男性的思想和意识。因此,诞生于女性解放运动的女性主义,在20世纪末的社会发展中形成了一种独特价值观念和思想方法原则,给社会的思想、文化、教育领域带来了新的革命和更宽广的思考空间。女性主义作为思想、或观念、或方法,通过对科学研究的组织结构和科学研究的方法论基础的质疑,对深刻理解和把握教育研究方法论具有重要意义。     

Learning Computer Science and Engineering in Context

The growing tendency away from transmissive pedagogy to a broadly constructivist pedagogy in higher education is characterised as a cultural change which lacks a strong theoretical foundation within the culture. In this paper, learning is considered from a phenomenographic perspective, which teachers can ground in their own experience of teaching and work with to gain insights into their students' experience of learning. Thereby the theoretical foundation of the culture can successively be strengthened. The message is illustrated with the results of empirical research into students' experience of learning in groups in a project-focused induction course to a computer science and engineering programme.     

网络环境下的中学语文教材变革及研究策略

网络的迅速发展是重要的时代特征之一,对今后的中学语文教育教学活动正产生着深远的影响.在网络环境下,语文教材的内涵更加丰富了,教材的内容和形式也更具有弹性和开放性.面对丰富的网络资源,教师应结合课程标准、编写说明等五个方面内容,采用建立搜索档案、积累记录原生经验等策略,使教材研究工作能真正落到实处.     

Exploring Gender and Phenomenography

A critical feature of phenomenographic study is its generation of the “outcome space” which constitutes the results of the study. The central idea underlying this article is that women may be “lost in space" — the phenomenographic outcome space. First, women seem to be literally missing in the majority of phenomenographic studies. These studies have usually been in fields in which women are poorly represented and in research samples in which women have not been present. Second, the traditional disciplines of study, the values of which largely determine the structure of the typically hierarchical outcome space, are patriarchal. Without attention to the hidden as well as the explicit aspects of what learners are coming to know, the understanding that we gain from the outcome space may be distorted. Third, the outcome space tends to be defined in many studies in cognitive terms, excluding or neglecting the affective dimension often associated with women's ways of knowing. This article explores the implications of looking for and elaborating on women's experience in phenomenographic research and suggests several ways in which women's experience might be recognised: by ensuring that women are included in research; by questioning in gender‐sensitive ways; by collecting and analysing the data with attention to the gendered construction of disciplinary knowledge and gendered ways of knowing.     

Knowing your students in large diverse classes: a phenomenographic case study

The problem which this paper addresses is the difficulty of knowing students in large diverse classes in pedagogically useful ways. The paper discusses how the phenomenographic methodology can be employed to address this problem. It describes how phenomenographic studies and their results can enable teachers to ‘know their students’ at a collective level in terms of a set of qualitatively distinct idealised types rather than at a personal level of individuals with their particular characteristics, and demonstrates the pedagogical utility of this kind of knowing. The means used to describe the approach and to demonstrate its utility when teaching large classes is to present, as a case study, a phenomenographic investigation into the learning practices among students in a large, diverse cohort of entrants to an engineering programme in South Africa. General principles are drawn from the case study and are discussed as they apply to the teaching of large classes.     

论教师的生活体验写作与教师专业发展

实现教师专业发展最重要的因素就是反思与学习。教师的生活体验写作是促成中小学教师进行有效的反思与学习的最重要的方式之一。教师的生活体验写作是一种自我存在的彰显、一种思维的训练、一种个人知识的管理、一种反思习惯的养成;教师的生活体验写作亦是一种教育科研的基本方式,这使“教师成为研究者”获得了其基本的现实性。生活体验写作是一种随机写作,要求教师保持对教育学世界的敏感性与亲切性,以质朴、简单、直接的语言及描述性语言呈现生活世界,要求教师在不断“重写”的过程中实现“描述”与“解释”的统一。通过生活体验写作,中小学教师将成为一个敏行的教育学实践者。     

Academic development for knowledge capabilities: Learning,reflecting and developing

In this paper, we look backwards to educational development principles and practices as implemented in the 1990s at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and forward to ideal principles and practices for the design of courses for teachers in higher education. The bridge between the two lies partly in an evaluation study, which we will describe, and partly in the theoretical work of John Bowden on knowledge capabilities for learning for an unknown future. The underlying framework depends on phenomenography, with its theoretical emphasis on learning as becoming able to discern the whole from its background, and how the constituents of the whole relate to one another and to the whole, and its empirical emphasis on qualitative variation in the ways in which students understand, conceptualize or experience phenomena they meet in their studies. A PET model and PET process are described, relating Practice, Experience and Theory through reflective problematization.     

Semiotics as a basis for educational software design

Semiotics has recently been used to support formalisms for software design. On the other hand, every program has a certain educational potential as it exposes the user to a world of entities with which to interact. In this paper, we present a group of semiotic principles for software design and use them to show how they explain different educational possibilities. Our approach is illustrated by Theatre in the Computer: a software environment for children to experience the theatre.