The Learning Research Cycle: Bridging Research and Practice

A science teacher and her mentor reflect on their participation in the Learning Research Cycle, a professional learning model that bridges research and practice in both university and public school contexts. Teachers do scientific research in scientists’ laboratories, then bridge their scientific experiences with the design of new classroom learning environments and teacher-driven educational research projects. Science students do scientific research via their teachers’ lessons that bridge laboratory research with classroom learning. Scientists and educational researchers bridge their research interests to create new questions centered on teaching and learning in authentic science learning environments. The authors engaged in this qualitative inquiry present their perspectives on “what goes on,” “what we have learned,” and “what it means to the larger community.”     

国家精品课程创新推广特性及策略研究——以“学习科学与技术”课程为例

作为世界开放教育资源运动的重要组成部分,中国国家精品课程建设项目在创新推广和共建共享的过程中遇到了一系列的困难和问题。本文以首届国家精品课程学习科学与技术近八年来在国内9个省、20所高校创新推广和共建共享的实践为案例,总结和反思了精品课程共建共享的经验与主要问题,并在对世界开放教育资源运动的经验和问题进行总结、比较的基础上,提出了六条建议。     

Problem-Based Learning Meets Case-Based Reasoning in the Middle-School Science Classroom: Putting Learning by Design(tm) Into Practice

This article tells the story of the design of Learning by Design(tm) (LBD), a project-based inquiry approach to science learning with roots in case-based reasoning and problem-based learning, pointing out the theoretical contributions of both, classroom issues that arose upon piloting a first attempt, ways we addressed those challenges, lessons learned about promoting learning taking a project-based inquiry approach, and lessons learned about taking a theory-based approach to designing learning environments. LBD uses what we know about cognition to fashion a learning environment appropriate to deeply learning science concepts and skills and their applicability, in parallel with learning cognitive, social, learning, and communication skills. Our goal, in designing LBD, was to lay the foundation in middle school for students to be successful thinkers, learners, and decisionmakers throughout their lives and especially to help them begin to learn the science they need to know to thrive in the modern world. LBD has students learn science in the context of achieving design-and-build challenges. Included in LBD's framework is a set of ritualized and sequenced activities that help teachers and students acclimate to the culture of a highly collaborative, learner-centered, inquiry-oriented, and design-based classroom. Those ritualized activities help teachers and students learn the practices of scientists, engineers, and group members in ways that they can use outside the classroom. LBD is carefully crafted to promote deep and lasting learning, but we have learned that careful crafting is not enough for success in putting a collaborative inquiry approach into practice. Also essential are fostering a collaborative classroom culture in which students want to be engaged in deep learning and where the teacher sees herself as both a learner and a facilitator of learning, trusts that with her help the students can learn, and enthusiastically assumes the roles she needs to take on.     

Learning,Media, and the Case of Dax Cowart: A Comparison of Text,Film, and Interactive Multimedia

Alternate reality games (ARGs) are a relatively new form of collaborative game that make use of both the virtual and real worlds to engage players in a series of challenges within a compelling narrative. The Alternate Reality Games for Orientation, Socialisation and Induction (ARGOSI) project aimed to use this game format to provide an alternative way to support the student induction process at Manchester Metropolitan University. The ViolaQuest game provided a mechanism for new university students to meet with others, navigate a new city and undertake information literacy induction activities within a purposeful context. The project ran from April 2008 to March 2009, and while the game itself had limited success in terms of student participation and impact, there were many lessons learned in terms of appropriate design and implementation of alternative reality games to support learning. This article describes the evaluation, results, lessons learned and raises a number of questions as to the suitability of ARGs in higher education.     

Getting In (and Staying In) When Everyone Else Wants to Get Out: 10 Lessons Learned from Conducting Research with Inmates

The current study aims to provide researchers interested in conducting research using inmates with information and recommendations based on our experiences studying jail inmates. While prior research has begun to identify lessons learned about obtaining access to criminal justice agencies and lessons about establishing positive researcher–practitioner relationships during the process, little is known about the specific challenges associated with data collection efforts after obtaining access to facilities. Therefore, this article aims to provide researchers with information and recommendations primarily on the issues and challenges of studying inmates after gaining entry to correctional facilities. Ten lessons are offered that highlight a variety of challenges that arise from conducting research with inmate populations.     

Let the (Board) Games Begin: Creative Ways to Enhance Teaching and Learning

Gaming, in its many forms, is becoming a more active force in classrooms. To prepare preservice candidates for this trend, one teacher education program asked candidates (n = 60) to develop games in varied curricular fields tied to curriculum standards. This article describes the development of a model game, assignment requirements, provides a content review of eight games (geography and novels), their features, and highlights benefits and lessons learned from this experience.     

Cooperative learning across classrooms in electronic Learning Circles

This paper discusses electronic Learning Circles on the AT&T Learning Network¹ in the light of cooperative learning theory. Findings reported for students in cooperative learning settings were also found for teachers who participated in Learning Circles on the Learning Network. Teachers acquired knowledge, developed new instructional strategies, increased their self-esteem and developed professional and personal relationships with their peers. Computer networking provides a mechanism for developing cooperative learning among students in distant locations and at the same time provides a vehicle for the professional development of teachers within the classroom environment.     

论学生语文学习中的体验性学习

语学习是学生学习汉语言的具体的实践活动。语学习中的体验性学习是学生在主体接受性参与的基础上迈向主体体验性参与的过程。在这个过程中，学生所学的知识和主体人格得以升华和超越。体验性学习在语学习中的具体体现就是：学生与教师是主客一体，自然融合；学生与学生是交往合作，共同进步；学生与知识是物我交融，息息相通。     

“网络学习共同体”的构建初探——一个基于“北京大学教学网”的实证案例

如何利用网络教学方式促进研究型大学教学水平的提高?在融合学习共同体与网络学习的概念之后,我们构建了"网络学习共同体"的理念,并提出垂直、水平、自我和延伸学习等四个层级为特征的教学方法,认为这一教与学的模式可以结合传统课堂与网络教学的优势,为普通高等教育提供一个新的教学思路。基于"北京大学教学网"提供的B lackboard平台,我们对这一模式进行了初步的实践,并对实践结果进行了实证分析。     

Science Professional Learning Communities: Beyond a singular view of teacher professional development

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are frequently being used as a vehicle to transform science education. This study explored elementary teachers' perceptions about the impact of participating in a science PLC on their own professional development. With the use of The Science Professional Learning Communities Survey and a semi-structured interview protocol, elementary teachers' perceptions of the goals of science PLCs, the constraints and benefits of participation in PLCs, and reported differences in the impact of PLC participation on novice and experienced teachers were examined. Sixty-five elementary teachers who participated in a science PLC were surveyed about their experiences, and a subsample of 16 teachers was interviewed. Results showed that most of the teachers reported their science PLC emphasized sharing ideas with other teachers as well as working to improve students' science standardized test scores. Teachers noted that the PLCs had impacted their science assessment practices as well as their lesson planning. However, a majority of the participants reported a differential impact of PLCs depending on a teacher's level of experience. PLCs were reported as being more beneficial to new teachers than experienced teachers. The interview results demonstrated that there were often competing goals and in some cases a loss of autonomy in planning science lessons. A significant concern was the impact of problematic interpersonal relationships and communication styles on the group functioning. The role of the PLC in addressing issues related to obtaining science resources and enhancing science content knowledge for elementary science teachers is discussed.     

Seeding HPT in the High Desert

A passing comment at a chance meeting led to students from the University of New Mexico's (UNM) Organization, Information, and Learning Sciences (OILS) program participating in the University Case Study Competition (CSC) at the 2013 ISPI international conference. The teams’ involvement in the contest resulted in many lessons learned and in the transformation of an academic program. This article discusses the benefits accrued from CSC participation by a student team, one of the team's professors, and the OILS program. The article also illustrates the impact that a single individual can have on others, a program, and a community.     

History,place and the learning society: towards a sociology of lifetime learning

This paper aims to shift the debate on the Learning Society away from the normative focus which has predominated hitherto. Rather than beginning with questions about what a Learning Society ought to constitute, we seek to engage with the patterns of participation in learning through the life‐course and their determinants. Our discussion begins with an examination of the way in which the official discourse of the Learning Society is dominated by human capital theory. The critical evaluation of the latter is thus a serious undertaking. Human capital theory involves an unwarranted abstraction of economic behaviour from social relations more widely; participation in lifetime learning cannot be understood in terms of the narrow calculation of utility maximization. This critique provides the basis for the development of a more satisfactory theoretical account, in which learning behaviour is conceived as the product of individual calculation and active choice, but within parameters set by both access to learning opportunities and collective norms. These parameters, by their very nature, vary systematically over space and time: accordingly, place and history must play a central role in any adequate theorization. We conclude that this kind of theoretical approach has important implications not only for empirical research, but also for strategies aimed at creating a Learning Society.     

基于Blackboard平台的网络探究学习实验研究

网络探究学习主要是指通过互联网提供的资源去获得和运用知识的一种学习。该文构建了基于Blackboard平台的网络探究学习模式,并以＂媒体理论与实践＂课中＂多媒体教室的构建＂专题为例进行了实验研究,以此探求提高大学生自主探究学习能力的有效途径和方法。     

面向知识建构的教师区域网络协同备课模式研究——一项基于学习元平台的实践探索

网络教研对促进教师专业发展有着至关重要的作用,本文尝试将知识协同建构理论引入到区域网络协同备课中,借助学习元所提供的协同编辑、微批注、评论等功能,通过在安徽肥西10所试验小学的实践探索,按照知识的外化、协作知识的建构和社会化、知识的实践化以及知识的内化和组合化过程,归纳出基于学习元的区域网络协同备课的一般模式,梳理了基于学习元的协同备课的7个基本环节,并提出了技术、认知、内容和群体动力这四方面的支持策略,在收集教师对协同备课模式问卷反馈的基础上,对该协同备课的实施效果进行了讨论和小结。     

Evaluating Technology-Supported Teaching Learning: A Catalyst to Organizational Change

Lessons Learned1 1 The name of the project was deliberately chosen to focus attention on the organizational learned outcomes expected from the initiative. The paper makes an adjective from the project title to form, lessons learned team, lessons learned project and lessons learned materials. This was a feature of the project and we hope it does not distract the reader. was a provincially funded educational technology project based at the University of Calgary in Canada. Within a broader technology-enhanced learning program, Lessons Learned set out to provide project development support, evaluation support, and dissemination mechanisms. The paper describes some of the resources and communication structures provided. A short case study reviews the benefit of the approach through the experience of evaluating a virtual reality multimedia toolkit developed for use in biological science. We make several observations about the role of evaluation as a catalyst to improved teaching and learning as well as its contribution to desirable organizational change.     

用研究性学习的方法培养学生自主学习物理的意识

研究性学习是一种全新的学习方法和课程形式，在高中物理教学中，利用它可以转变学生的学习方法，培养学生自主学习的意识，可以发挥学生自我学习的潜能，培养学生科学探究的精神。     

Children's participation in school grounds developments: creating a place for education that promotes children's social inclusion

This paper advances the idea that ‘education for the social inclusion of children’ is similar but different to ‘inclusive education’ as it has come to be understood and used by some authors and UK government documents. ‘Inclusive education’ tends to carry an inward emphasis on the participation of children in the education system (with discussions on school culture, transitions, truancy, exclusion rates, underachievement, and school leaving age). In contrast, education for the promotion of children's social inclusion requires an outward emphasis on children's participation in ‘mainstream’ society while they are still children. The latter emphasis is seen to be lacking in educational policy discourse in Scotland though a recent shift in policy towards education for active citizenship is noted. Examples are provided to show how many policy statements enact a limitation on the scope for education to promote children's social inclusion by emphasizing children's deficits as social actors and focussing on the ‘condition’ of social exclusion. The paper draws on an empirical study of children's participation in changing school grounds in Scotland. The analysis shows how the enclosure of learning in books, classrooms and normative curricula was challenged. Learning from school grounds developments was constructed relationally and spatially, but the scope of what was to be learned was often delineated by adults. The paper closes with a discussion of how education that promotes the social inclusion of children will benefit from seeing both children and adults as current though partial citizens and using socio-spatial opportunities for the generation of uncertain curricula through their shared and/or differentiated participation.     

Towards a Participatory Multimedia Learning Model

The purpose of this paper is to present a participatory multimedia learning model that can be used in designing multimedia learning environments that support an active learning process and creative participation. Participatory multimedia learning can be defined as learning with systems that enable learners to produce part of the learning materials themselves. The aim of the model is to represent the human information processing system and to support the transformation of free cognitive resources into a germane cognitive load needed for knowledge construction. The paper also elaborates on the results of an empirical study examining the effectiveness of student-generated illustrations. Finnish elementary school students (N = 187) learned about the human immune system by interacting with multimedia learning materials. Students performed better on a retention test when they generated their own illustrations by drawing and when explanations were presented as animations, compared to students who received only textual material or generated illustrations from images offered.     

Joining the Learning Society and working in the NHS: some issues

In this paper we discuss the concept of the Learning Society in relation to staff working in the NHS (National Health Service) and taking part in formal courses. We outline the changing context within the NHS and draw on evidence from interviews with 38 participants on two courses. While motives for participation in courses were mixed, many staff felt under some pressure to engage in formal courses and in some cases undertook work‐related training in their own time and at their own expense. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the development of a Learning Society.