Situating Vocationalism

The approaches taken to the analysis of vocationalism within the sociology of education have been dominated by the concept of the New Right and have operated within a dominant strong‐state/free market paradigm based upon an analysis of the Thatcherite project. I argue that vocationalist ideologies should be more properly linked to an emerging ‘statist’ model of capitalism in which the state intervenes to create the conditions for greater international competitiveness. However neither this, nor other legitimations of vocationalism in terms of its supposed Jit’ with a new post‐fordist economy, can be seen to cany complete conviction.     

Situating Motivation

This article describes a situative approach to studying motivation to learn in social contexts. We begin by contrasting this perspective to more prevalent psychological approaches to the study of motivation, describing epistemological and methodological differences that have constrained conversation between theoretical groups. We elaborate on issues of the unit of analysis, the conceptualization of contexts, and the role of identity as a central construct. Finally, we argue that the design of learning environments and interventions to change learning environments are informed by attention to the relationships among meanings, identities, and motives in context. We illustrate our argument with examples of design-based research and design-based implementation research focused on motivation to learn in children and adults.     

Situating Cognition

In this article, I describe an epistemological framework and an associated research method. This framework focuses on the structural relations of individual and setting as experienced by the individual. Due to the fact that individuals may be perceptually attuned to phenomena at different ranges and time scales, researchers who want to understand cognition have to follow this changing field of attention. My analysis consists in zooming to identify patterns that simultaneously occur at multiple levels. Zooming, therefore, embodies a reflexive relation to different figure-ground relations in the attentional field of the individuals I study. To exemplify my approach to research, I use data from a physics classroom where students learn to explain computer-animated microworld events in terms of Newtonian theory.     

Situating graphs as workplace knowledge

We investigate the use and knowledge of graphs in the context of a large industrial factory. We are particularly interested in the question of “transparency”, a question that has been extensively considered in the general literature on tool use and, more recently, by Michael Roth and his colleagues in the context of scientific work. Roth uses the notion of transparency to characterise instances of graph use by highly educated scientists in cases where the context was familiar: the scientists were able to read the situation “through” the graph. This paper explores the limits of the validity of the transparency metaphor. We present two vignettes of actual graph use by a factory worker, and contrast his actions and knowledge with that of a highly qualified process engineer working on the same production line. We note that in neither case the graphs were transparent. We argue that a fuller account that describes a spectrum of transparency is needed, and we seek to achieve this by adopting some elements of a semiotic approach that enhance a strictly activity-theoretical view.     

Situating decolonization: An Indigenous dilemma

Abstract

Being Indigenous and operating in an institution such as a university places us in a complex position. The premise of decolonizing history, literature, curriculum, and thought in general creates a tenuous space for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples to confront a shared colonial condition. What does decolonization mean for Indigenous peoples? Is decolonization an implied promise to squash the tropes of coloniality? Or is it a way for non-Indigenous people to create another paradigm or site for their own resistance or transgression of thinking? What are the roles of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in this space of educational potential, this curriculum called decolonization? This article presents a multi-vocal reflection on these and related questions.     

Situating Learning of Human Performance Technology

The Organizational Communication, Learning, and Design Department at Ithaca College is experimenting with educational methods that situate learning in authentic contexts, for example, in real cases with actual clients. We hope that these methods will better prepare our students for skilled practice in the complex situations and environments where they will work. One of our efforts has focused on an upper-level undergraduate course titled Performance Technology, for which we have developed a variety of what we believe are innovative strategies and activities. Results have been encouraging and have suggested more direct and powerful links between preparation and practice.     

Situating teacher inquiry: a micropolitical perspective

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have become a popular strategy in various forms (e.g., data teams, grade-level teams) and with various champions (e.g., district leaders, university researchers, teacher advocates). Although well-implemented PLCs have been shown to distribute leadership, the tension between democratic inquiry processes and the demands of accountability remain understudied. This study asks how teacher inquiry is situated within conflicting school priorities and the impact of competing power structures on PLCs through a case study of a teacher inquiry initiative at 6 urban elementary and middle schools in the US. Data were collected over 3 years of PLC implementation. District officials, principals, reform coaches, and teachers at each setting participated in more than 300 interviews, regular site visits, and annual teacher surveys. The influences of power structures – such as district mandates, accountability pressures, and principal leadership – emerged as strong themes in teacher narratives of what it means to “do” inquiry in their PLCs.     

Situating ICT in early childhood teacher education

Education and Information Technologies - Preparing the next generation of preschool teachers who can integrate and make use of ICT to capitalise on and develop young children’s digital...     

Situating Adolescent Gender and Self-Esteem with Personal Memories

To identify social schemas that are associated with self-esteem in adolescence, the contents of approximately 1,400 memories from a longitudinal sample of 41 males and 43 females were correlated with a Q-sort measure of self-esteem. Each memory concerned an important or problematic encounter, and was coded for social motive, affect, and identity of significant other. For young women, memories about wanting to help female friends were associated with chronically high and increasingly high levels of self-esteem from ages 14 to 23. For young men, memories about successfully asserting oneself with male friends were associated with chronically high and increasingly high levels of self-esteem. Low self-esteem in women, both chronic as well as decreasing, was associated with memories about failing to get approval from friends. Decreasing self-esteem for males was associated with memories about wanting love from female friends. The results confirm and refine prior findings that adolescent self-esteem is localized in relationships with peers rather than parents, and is based on different relational schemas for females than for males. The findings may help to identify contexts for preventative interventions to enhance adolescent self-esteem.     

Optimizing Conditions for Learning: Situating Refutations in Epistemic Cognition

A refutation text is designed to promote conceptual change by explicitly acknowledging commonly held misconceptions about a topic, directly refuting them, and providing an accurate explanation. In this study, we determined the impact of different types of refutation texts on adolescent readers’ conceptual change learning in science. Specifically, we manipulated the way the correct conception was justified and explained following work in epistemic cognition. Three different types of justification were compared to a control condition: justification by authority, justification by multiple sources, and justification by personal opinion. The findings showed that learning effects were optimized when the correct conceptions were presented in terms of a corroborated consensus among multiple sources.     

Situating Educational Leaders as Prophetic Critics in Black Popular Culture

This article situates educational leaders as prophetic critics in Black popular culture. These leaders merge cultural criticism with moral and political judgment, analyzing urban youths’ lived experiences and representational practices as well as analyzing counter-narrative texts in Black popular culture that have implications for urban education. As new world bricoleurs, these educational leaders use a multi-vocal, polyphonic approach in Black popular culture to disrupt a Western culture of homogeneity that is less culturally responsive to the dynamic struggles Black youth face in urban communities. In addition, as critical organic catalysts, they locate life-pressing public concerns within subcultural communities of resistance as relevant knowledge to organize a radical democratic politics in educational leadership.     

Situating Data Science: Exploring How Relationships to Data Shape Learning

The emerging field of Data Science has had a large impact on science and society. This has led to over a decade of calls to establish a corresponding field of Data Science Education. There is still a need, however, to more deeply conceptualize what a field of Data Science Education might entail in terms of scope, responsibility, and execution. This special issue explores how one distinguishing feature of Data Science—its focus on data collected from social and environmental contexts within which learners often find themselves deeply embedded—suggests serious implications for learning and education. The learning sciences is uniquely positioned to investigate how such contextual embeddings impact learners’ engagement with data including conceptual, experiential, communal, racialized, spatial, and political dimensions. This special issue demonstrates the richly layered relationships learners build with data and reveals them to be not merely utilitarian mechanisms for learning about data, but a critical part of navigating data as social text and understanding Data Science as a discipline. Together, the contributions offer a vision of how the learning sciences can contribute to a more expansive, agentive and socially aware Data Science Education.     

数控技能鉴定考试中应试技巧

数控技能鉴定考试仿真操作要求学生在规定时间内完成给定零件图纸的编程及加工操作。本文总结在鉴定考试时关于数控机床操作过程中几个应试技巧,以期给授课教师和参加数控技能鉴定考试学生提供方法和思路。     

Situating Cognition and Crossing Borders: Resisting the Hegemony of Mediated Education

Advances in technology coupled with a changing social, political and economic climate is seeing a proliferation in the growth of mediated education. Recognizing that mediated education and the application of various technologies in mediated education is constructed from a particular cultural perspective, this paper proposes to challenge this perspective, arguing that we need to develop heuristic frameworks that help us think of meeting the needs of a culturally diversified population. Using the concept of communities of practice as an analytical lens it begins by making explicit the origins of mediated education and the implications this has had for culturally marginalized peoples. Arguing that mediated education, as it is constructed, is a form of neo-colonialism, it proposes to examine mediated education within the context Giroux's concept of border crossings. Implications for application are then explored.     

Situating teacher development: the view from two teachers’ perspectives

Using a narrative inquiry methodology, this 10-year study examined the situated nature of two teachers’ development. Research questions examined how the teachers situated their own learning, how they developed discourse communities for teaching and learning, and how they used tools in their work. Findings suggest that the following elements of situational learning were central to their development: questions that they drew from their practice; a balance between autonomy and collaboration found in peer collaboration focused on questions drawn from practice; the use of language and inclusion of new perspectives within discourse communities; improvisation and experimentation in practice, and support from administrators.A striking finding was that these teachers’ practice developed among multiple and sometimes contradictory pathways.     

Situating power potentials and dynamics of learners and tutors within self-assessment models

Many twenty-first century educational discourses focus on including and empowering independent learners. Within the context of five self-assessment models, this article evaluates how these practices relate to the realities of student involvement, empowerment and voice. A proposed new classification of these self-assessment models is presented and theories of power and student voice are utilised to build on the limited existing literature that examines issues of power in self-assessment. The results of the evaluations show that the standard self-assessment model, which has been the default model since the 1930s, is the least empowering for students and also detrimental to producing a dialogic forum with tutors. The other models are far more conducive to permitting a shared understanding of assessment protocols, processes and products and therefore potentially lead to more equitable and transparent assessment communities. The value of this study is that it helps to clarify the possible implications and impacts resulting from the use of each self-assessment model in order to make an informed choice, which will also support the alignment of assessment practices with learning and teaching and curriculum choices.     

Experiences Situating Mathematical Problem Solving at the Core of Early Childhood Classrooms

Our goal in this article is to discuss the importance of problems in early childhood education for the child’s development and engagement with the mathematics existing in childhood culture. Our assumption is that an important task for young children’s education is to create a democratic and critical environment, in which multiplicity of perspectives is celebrated, along with diversity of concepts and practices, with movement between imaginary and real worlds. In light of this, the goal of this article is to defend a perspective for curriculum and for the role of the mathematics educator, promoting the learning of mathematics through problem solving in early childhood years. In order to discuss and illustrate this perspective we describe the pedagogical practices of two teachers who teach 4- and 5-years-olds, who create for their students an environment rich in problem solving and investigations. In both classrooms, all children individually succeeded in sharing their unique solutions and new knowledge constructed as a result of their inquiries. The experience provides evidence that problem solving affords children the opportunity to raise conjectures, to discuss possibilities and to draw conclusions, even if partial ones, that are then vetted by the group as the authors share their solutions. In this way, the work with problem solving nurtures cooperative learning and promotes the exploration of a diversity of ideas.     

选词和翻译技巧

动词在语言表达中具有十分重要的作用。在将英文作品翻译成中文时 ,必须认真吃透原文 ,领会有关强意动词的“形”和“神”,然后以恰当的汉语形式进行表达 ,以收到形神兼备之妙