The Analysis of Students’ Conceptions as a Support for Designing a Teaching/Learning Sequence on the Acoustic Properties of Materials

We believe that finding out how students think about certain topics that are covered in science classes should not be ??the end of the story?? but the starting point for planning lessons and designing materials. From this perspective, the research study presented here is intended to explore secondary school (15?C18?year old) students?? preconceptions of sound attenuation, and of the properties and internal structure of materials. Specifically, we analysed students?? explanations for the fact that some materials attenuate sound more than others. This study was conducted within a particular scenario, in which 72 students participated in laboratory sessions aimed at developing students?? understanding of the nature, propagation and attenuation of sound. From the analysis of students?? explanations, we could identify some conceptions of sound attenuation in materials (e.g. as a result of hindering the entrance of sound, or as a result of capturing sound). The results of this study also indicate that the role of properties of a material and the role of the internal structure that students associate with its acoustic behaviour depend on their conceptions of sound attenuation. We used these results as support for the design of a research-based teaching/learning sequence on the Acoustic Properties of Materials, which is intended to facilitate students?? overcoming the specific conceptual difficulties identified in this research study and promote students?? development of conceptual models of sound attenuation.     

Teaching How to Use the Language Instead of the Usage of the Language——Brief Introduction to the Teaching Design of Unit 8 Festivals

(1)Content of the material:This unit is the eighth unit in English(Book 1)written by Zhang Yina and published by Jiangsu Education Publishing House.The topic is talking about festivals and customs.The unit consists of the following five parts:warming up,listening,speaking,reading and grammar,the material of which live up to the two     

Why is the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning such a hard sell?

Advocates have difficulty convincing colleagues Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a worthwhile use of time and resources. This article highlights problems impeding SoTL. First, scholarship of teaching gets used as a synonym for other activities. Second, Boyer’s definition was conceptually confused. Third, SoTL is difficult to operationalize. Fourth, much discourse concerning SoTL is anti‐intellectual and located in a narrow neoliberalism. Fifth, there is uncritical over‐reliance on peer review as the mechanism for measuring scholarship. Each impediment makes SoTL a hard sell – particularly in research‐intensive universities. Taken together, they constitute a formidable problem for SoTL advocates and contain incendiary implications for promotion candidates and committees.     

Investigating the Impact of Using a CAD Simulation Tool on Students’ Learning of Design Thinking

Engineering design thinking is hard to teach and still harder to learn by novices primarily due to the undetermined nature of engineering problems that often results in multiple solutions. In this paper, we investigate the effect of teaching engineering design thinking to freshmen students by using a computer-aided Design (CAD) simulation software. We present a framework for characterizing different levels of engineering design thinking displayed by students who interacted with the CAD simulation software in the context of a collaborative assignment. This framework describes the presence of four levels of engineering design thinking—beginning designer, adept beginning designer, informed designer, adept informed designer. We present the characteristics associated with each of these four levels as they pertain to four engineering design strategies that students pursued in this study—understanding the design challenge, building knowledge, weighing options and making tradeoffs, and reflecting on the process. Students demonstrated significant improvements in two strategies—understanding the design challenge and building knowledge. We discuss the affordances of the CAD simulation tool along with the learning environment that potentially helped students move towards Adept informed designers while pursuing these design strategies.     

Meeting of the Minds: Online Matching Program for Teaching and Learning Styles?

Although there are many disagreements on the major causes of problems in the educational system in the United States, few would disagree that the importance of ensuring the success of our students is not only a moral obligation to our youth, but imperative to our national resilience. And, as a nation, we are responding to this urgent need. The College Completion Agenda mandates that 55% of the nation’s 25-to-35-year olds will be degree holders by the year 2025 (Lee & Rawls, 2010). But how do we accomplish the ambitious challenge and a necessary aspiration to elevate America’s status as a world leader in educational attainment among its citizenry? Innovative ideas and technologies that can counterbalance the barriers that threaten student success must be identified and advanced. The purpose of this article is to discuss the opportunity to leverage the marvel of online phenomena and technology in innovative ways to help students reach their full potential. Specifically, we introduce a new conceptual tool that replicates the power of social networking online matching services to link student learning preference with faculty instructional style.     

Teachers’ Learning Communities for Developing High Order Thinking Skills—A Case Study of a School Pedagogical Change

Interchange - This study deals with an elementary school that is undergoing a process of pedagogical change. The teachers understood that their weak point was excessive use of teaching based on...     

Learning to ‘site-see’: place-reflexivity as a methodological tool for qualitative researchers

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to further examine ‘place-reflexivity’ as a methodological tool for engaging in site-seeing in qualitative research. Qualitative research often involves a site or field. Yet, the ‘where’ of qualitative research has often been overlooked in methodological discussions. This approach is akin to sightseeing where sites are a backdrop rather than foregrounded. We draw on scholarship that conceptualizes site, place, field, and context from sociological, geographical and anthropological disciplines, as well as on concepts of third space as they apply to qualitative inquiry. We offer an argument for the fuller inclusion, and expanded treatment of sites including tools to assist qualitative researchers with this type of thinking.     

From Green to Red Tomatoes or Is there a Shortcut by which to Change the Conceptions of Teaching and Learning of College Teachers?

No general shift from a teaching to a learning paradigm in higher education is possible without a parallel change in the conceptions that college and university teachers have of teaching and learning‐‐from teaching, conceived as transmission and reception of knowledge, to teaching as facilitation of student learning. Staff development and action research can play a useful role in “defreezing” the existing conceptions and attitudes. But for a substantial change in teaching practices in the direction of learning of high quality to occur, more substantial changes in organization, curricula, funding, staff recruitment, and professional development policies are needed. The international academic community can play an important role in this paradigm shift by presenting models of good practice as well as exchanges of experiences and incentives. Such assistance is especially important for small countries in transition, like Slovenia.     

The Shift from Teaching to Learning: Staff Recruitment and Careers Development Policies for the Universities of the Twenty‐First Century

This article examines some of the contextual factors underlying the move from teaching to learning in universities over the next two decades. It considers the major characteristics of and elements in emerging learning processes. It assesses the likely impact of the above on personnel policy and practice in universities and suggests some broader organizational issues for universities as a consequence of the analysis. The article draws on research conducted by the author for two recent international studies, sponsored by the Association of European Universities and UNESCO, and on perspectives derived from various strategic evaluation exercises undertaken under the auspices of CRE.     

Learning from religions as ‘skilful means’: a contribution to the debate about the identity of religious education

This article is a revised version of the author’s contribution to the 2006 meeting of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values in Driebergen, the Netherlands and is concerned with the need for continuing discussion about the identity of religious education. The article begins by arguing that, despite current criticisms, Smart’s original intentions for phenomenological religious education were far from inappropriate for a critical religious education. It then attempts to introduce some fresh ideas about how we might understand the commonly used terms of learning about and from religion. It suggests that in learning about religion it is important to engage students with the soteriological dimensions of religious traditions. The article then goes on to offer a revised version of learning from religion based on the Mahayana Buddhist concept of upaya or ‘skilful means’.     

English as a Medium of Teaching and Learning in a Resource-Poor Country: The Case of Malawi’s New Language Policy

Abstract

This article discusses the resource implications of Malawi’s new language-in-education policy. Whilst previous publications on the English as a medium of teaching and learning policy, which was announced in Malawi in 2014, have sharply criticised and dismissed the new language policy from pedagogical and other educational grounds, the current article is the first to dwell exclusively on the resource implications of the new language policy. The qualitative study reported on, which utilised Barron’s learning ecologies framework, was based on information drawn from one key informant; readers’ comments extracted from a Malawian online newspaper; and some scholarly publications. The article argues that the available resources are too inadequate to lead to a successful implementation of English as a medium of teaching and learning in the non-English-dominant Malawi. The article recommends that Malawi should return to the previous language policy, which was UNESCO compliant, and that adequate and enabling resources be channelled to improving the teaching and learning of English as a subject. Resources should also be injected into the professional development of teachers in order to capacitate them to effectively handle English as a medium of teaching and learning from Grade 5 onwards.     

Learning for the future: the emergence of lifelong learning and the internationalisation of education as the fourth way?

This article explores the discourse of international educational reform that aims at meeting the various challenges of globalisation and a knowledge-based economy and preparing students for a better future in the twenty-first century. Specifically, it reviews the dominant themes, trends and goals of modern education. It does so by exploring the shared themes of curriculum adaptation, the emerging models of learning and innovation, the trend towards lifelong learning for all and the growing need for the internationalisation of education. It concludes by suggesting an overall trend of the sectorisation and de-sectorisation of education emerging under new social and economic circumstances in the twenty-first century.     

The Relation Between Language Variation and the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language

Language is a means of communication.Without language,it would beimpossible for people to communicate,and the society would break down.However,language is not a simple,single code used in the same manner byall people in all situations, It is a very complicated social phenomenon. It isthe most characteristically human of all human activities. It enters naturallyand essentially into virtually everything we do, from greeting an acquaintanceto making a trip on the moon.Therefore, a careful study of the languagevariation might help us to understand the relationship betweem language andsociety better.     

Teaching on video as an instructional strategy to reduce confirmation bias—a pre-registered study

Instructional Science - The aim of this experiment was to examine the effect of different instructional strategies on student teachers’ confirmation bias. Confirmation bias refers to the...     

Bolzano‘s Approach to the Paradoxes of Infinity: Implications for Teaching

In this paper we analyze excerpts of Paradoxes of the Infinite, the posthumous work of Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848), in order to show that Georg Cantor‘s (1845–1918) approach to the problem of defining actual mathematical infinity is not the most natural. In fact, Bolzano‘s approach to the paradoxes of infinity is more intuitive, while remaining internally coherent. Bolzano‘s approach, however, had limitations. We discuss implications for teaching, which include a better understanding of the responses of students to situations involving actual mathematical infinity, for it is possible to draw a kind of parallel between these responses and Bolzano‘s reasoning.     

Conversation as a key to the understanding of human nature∗

Using the transactionist perspective in our communication with others involves constructing those others with whom we communicate. An exercise called “Reflections” focuses on the inferences, assumptions, and guesses we make as we select from the cues others give off — cues necessary for the process of determining our definition of them. Useful in secondary, community college and college classrooms, “Reflections” can serve as a valuable, interesting, and unique classroom experience. This essay discusses the implementation and the outcome of the exercise as well as some of the reactions students have to it.