Hypertext and collaboration: Observations on Edward Barrett's philosophy

In a departure from the view that characterizes hypertext as a new writing paradigm based on old associationist ideas, Edward Barrett has proposed a model for hypertext that rejects cognitive and associationist language as both unnecessary and inaccurate. In this view, knowledge, reality, and even facts are community generated, “linguistic entities,” and hypertext supports the “social interface” rather than the “deep structure” of thought. This essay considers some of the premises of Barrett's proposal. A central issue is the rejection of the “authorial imperative” of structured information in favor of a view of writing as an open‐ended ever‐changing conversation in which readers and writers collaborate to discover—or generate—reality.     

Learning to Write: Plowing and Hoeing,Labor and Essaying

In this paper Amanda Fulford addresses the issue of student writing in the university, and explores how the increasing dominance of outcome‐driven modes of learning and assessment is changing the understanding of what it is to write, what is expected of students in their writing, and how academic writing should best be supported. The starting point is the increasing use of what are termed “technologies” of writing — “handbooks” for students that address issues of academic writing — that systematize, and smooth the work of writing in, Fulford argues, an unhelpful way. This leads to a reconsideration of what it means to write in the university, and what it is to be a student who writes. Fulford explores etymologically the concept of “writing” and suggests that it might be seen metaphorically as physical labor. Writing as physical labor is explored further through the agricultural metaphors in Henry David Thoreau's Walden and through Stanley Cavell's reading of that text. In making a distinction between writing‐as‐plowing and writing‐as‐hoeing, Fulford argues that some technologies of writing deny voice rather than facilitate it, and she concludes by offering a number of suggestions for the teaching and learning of writing in the university that emphasize the value of being lost (in one's subject and one's work) and finding one's own way out. These “lessons” are illustrated with reference to Thoreau's text Walden and to American literature and film.     

普通高中思想政治教科书的活动设计及其教学实施

“活动型学科课程”作为普通高中思想政治课程新的课程理念与学科定位,其实现需要通过教科书中的活动设计作为学科内容的载体和实践来支撑。普通高中思想政治教科书的活动设计可以从“有什么用”“怎么使用”“谁来使用”三个角度进行设计和理解,以此构成了“活动—内容—学科核心素养”(功能维度)、“活动—情境—议题”(实践维度)、“活动—学生—教师”(主体维度)三个层面的活动设计思路。以活动设计的这三个维度为指引,推进高中思想政治课教学形态的转变,从而在“活动型学科课程”理念的教科书呈现与教学落实上确立起行动共识。     

The opportunities to build on existing expertise in writing classrooms: a study of writing lessons in New Zealand primary schools

The present study investigated 15 Year 4–6 classrooms in two multicultural schools in New Zealand to understand what opportunities students had to draw on their diverse experiences of texts. A mixed-methods approach was taken, including classroom observations and student interviews. Results suggested that lessons were characterised by a consistent format of teacher-led, whole class instruction followed by independent writing. Conversations about prior knowledge typically sought display of taught items. Students saw few links between writing forms in school and texts out of school. The study highlights the role of lesson structure in framing incorporation of prior knowledge in writing lessons.     

Shifting epistemologies during instructional conversations about “good” argumentative writing in a high school English language arts classroom

A widespread instructional practice in the teaching of argumentative writing is the use of writing samples or models during instructional conversations about what counts as “good argumentative writing.” In this article, we focus on a set of lessons in a high school English language arts classroom in order to gain insight into how a teacher’s use of writing samples contributed not only to what counts as “good argumentative writing” in that classroom, but how her instructional conversations with a group of 11th grade students revealed a shift in her “argumentative epistemologies” for teaching literature-related argumentative writing. We examine simultaneously the impact of instructional conversations on the evolution of the socially constructed definitions of good argumentative writing and the teacher’s shifting argumentative epistemologies by tracing the teacher’s socially constructed definitions of good argumentative writing in the instructional conversations around argumentative writing samples as they evolve and change over time. The findings suggest that the interactional construction of “good argumentative writing” in instructional conversations was influenced by the broader instructional context (e.g., a testing regimen), by the teacher’s argumentative epistemologies for what counts as good writing, and by the conversational interaction of teachers and students in classroom lessons.

     

Nothing Human

In this essay C. C. Wharram argues that Terence's concept of translation as a form of “contamination” anticipates recent developments in philosophy, ecology, and translation studies. Placing these divergent fields of inquiry into dialogue enables us read Terence's well‐known statement “I am a human being — I deem nothing human alien to me” as a recognition of the significance of the “nothing human” for contemporary humanism. By recasting Terence's human/foreign pairing through Freud's concept of the uncanny, Wharram draws a parallel between a “nothing human” that is radically interior to the human subject and an exterior agency of “nothing human” described by actor‐network theory and object‐oriented ontology. Only through an “alien phenomenology” (a concept borrowed from Ian Bogost) dependent on metaphors and translations that are necessarily approximate (or “contaminated”) can we begin to approach this “nothing human.”     

流行文化与传统文化交叉视域下高中英语写作训练初探——以重庆市合川中学直升班为例

以十六年英语高考全国Ⅱ卷及所授课班级作文写作训练方式为研究对象,总结出以“流行文化高级短语”“传统文化长句识记”“微写作”“复句速记”“板书练习”为主的作文写作训练方式。     

Hypertext Design Issues

Hypertext is a computer technology for “nonsequential reading and writing” in which chunks or nodes of information are connected by fixed links. Users access hypertext by selecting cross-reference (or “buttons”) in the context of a given node that is connected via links to other nodes. Such an “associative” strategy for information storage and retrieval differs from the indexing and searching technology of conventional database management and text retrieval systems, and offers significant advantages when used instead of or in combination with search systems. Hypertext is an ideal medium for making job aids, reference materials, and ‘just in time training’ available online to information-based workers. This article reviews five commercially available hypertext systems, and discusses several key hypertext design issues. Among the most important of these issues are the critical role of navigational aids in preventing users from becoming “lost” in the hypertext, the application of structured writing techniques to hypertext development, and the potential contributions of the human performance technology approach to hypertext in the form of systematic analysis, design, and evaluation methods.     

What We Learned about Using Metaphors in College Teaching: Methods and Meanings

The field of education is rich with metaphors that reveal one's perspective on the nature of teaching and learning—ideas are “covered,” students “absorb” information, teachers offer writing “clinics.” Each of these metaphors indicate nuanced ideas about what schooling is and is for—to be checked off? Taken in unquestioningly? For those who are sick? Two teacher educators in the field of early childhood education share insights from their own experiences in considering novice teachers' metaphors in their preparatory experiences, particularly wondering what these unveil about heretofore unanalyzed beliefs and what instructors can learn so as to form further instruction. Methods are shared and reflection led educators to find important instructional and relationship-building implications for working with novice teachers.     

Effects of Class Size and Equipment Availability on Student Involvement in Physical Education

This study examined the effects of two different environmental conditions upon the classroom behaviors of teachers and students. Three primary school physical education teachers were videotaped teaching introductory soccer lessons to year 5 and 6 students. Class sizes were 12, 24, and 44; equipment availability was either unlimited or limited to two balls and four markers. The “academic learning time-physical education” instrument was used to measure teachers’ time allocations to subject matter and student involvement. Students in the double-sized class conditions spent significantly more time in nonacademic tasks and in game/scrimmage motor activities, whereas more time in the half-sized class condition was spent in skill practice. Student involvement showed significantly more motor-appropriate activity and more cognitive and less organizational activity in classes where there were unlimited amounts of equipment available, irrespective of class size. These data are interpreted as demonstrating that teacher decision making and resultant pupil opportunity to respond are strongly influenced by environmental variables and that such influence can be both systematic and predictable. The reporting of significant environmental features and increased attention to their effects is thus seen as essential for future research in the teaching of physical education.     

Fostering conceptual change and critical reasoning about HIV and AIDS

One of the challenges of science education is for students to develop scientific knowledge that is personally meaningful and applicable to real‐life issues. This article describes a middle‐school science intervention fostering adolescents' critical reasoning in the context of HIV by strengthening their conceptual understanding of HIV biology. The intervention included two components: critical reasoning activities that fostered knowledge integration and application to real‐world problem solving, and science writing activities that promoted argument building. Two seventh‐grade classes participated in the study. One class participated in the critical reasoning and writing activities (CR&W); the other class participated in critical reasoning activities only (CR group). Results demonstrate significant pre‐ and posttest improvements on measures of students' HIV knowledge, HIV understanding, and critical reasoning about realistic scenarios in the context of HIV, with the improvements being greater in the CR&W group. The discussion focuses on the role of conceptual knowledge in health reasoning, the role of science writing in fostering knowledge integration, and the benefits of a “thinking curriculum” approach to integrated health and science education. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 844–863, 2007     

Mastering as an Inferentialist Alternative to the Acquisition and Participation Metaphors for Learning

A tension has been identified between the acquisition and participation metaphors for learning, and it is generally agreed that this tension has still not been adequately resolved. In this paper, we offer an alternative to the acquisition and participation metaphors for learning: the metaphor of mastering. Our claim is that the mastering metaphor, as grounded in inferentialism, allows one to treat both the acquisition and participation dimensions of learning as complementary and mutually constitutive. Inferentialism is a semantic theory which explains concept formation in terms of the inferences individuals make in the context of an intersubjective practice of acknowledging, attributing, and challenging one another's commitments. We first introduce the key concepts of inferentialism and consider the perspective on learning that inferentialism inspires. Then, we condense the lessons of the inferentialist concepts into a single mastering metaphor for learning and argue that learning consists in the process by which learners come to master concepts and practices. We conclude by discussing how the mastering metaphor could be put to work in a theoretical reconciliation of the cognitive and sociocultural dimensions of learning.     

“Ourselves among others”: A new metaphor for business and technical writing

Business and technical writing grows out of a need to “build bridges” between ourselves and others. With today's diversifying readerships and increasingly global marketplace, business and industry face a new challenge that is reshaping our conception of business/technical writing and the metaphors of the genre. The metaphors of “selling” and “reader‐centeredness” demand especially to be recast and subordinated to a new metaphor of interculturalism/ internationalism—"ourselves among others.” Grounded in a social theory of language and communication, this new metaphor signifies that “bridge‐building” across differences will be the key in contexts becoming at once more heterogeneous and global.     

Is it possible to improve mathematical achievement by means of self-regulation strategies? Evaluation of an intervention in regular math classes

After the effectiveness of self-regulation training outside school was demonstrated, a self-regulation intervention was developed to foster the learning achievement in regular math classes. Based on the theoretical framework of self-regulated learning, self-regulation training was integrated into a math class unit. The evaluation of the intervention concerning 53 sixth-grade students took place in a pretest/posttest-control-group design. One teacher taught one class (control group) merely mathematical topics and another class (experimental group) in the same subject combined with self-regulative strategies. The results revealed that it is possible to support self-regulation competencies and mathematical achievement by self-regulation interventin within regular mathematics lessons of 6th-grade students.     

认知弹性理论指导下的中小学教师培训教学

认知弹性理论是一种关于结构不良的知识的习得与迁移的学习理论,对指导中小学教师培训教学具有较强的适用性。基于认知弹性理论,中小学教师培训教学宜采取如下教学设计策略:1.注重概念的多视角表征,实施概念的多维分析设计;2.运用概念的案例教学,实施概念与案例的交叉设计;3.创设真实的学习情境,实施学习任务的教学情境设计;4.运用认知弹性超文本,实施教学内容的立体网状结构设计。     

Classification of children with learning problems and the establishment of special classes in Delaware from the 1930s to the mid-1940s

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on J. E. Wallace Wallin, who recognised the rights of children with disabilities to receive an education, and who tackled the scientific classification of children and the provision of special classes in the state of Delaware from the 1930s to the middle of the 1940s. This study intends to clarify how Wallin recognised and classified children who exhibited learning problems, and how he provided an educational environment for them. Wallin advocated the democratic philosophy of providing differentiated education based on the individual differences among children. He classified children with learning problems as “mentally deficient”, “backward”, and “special subject-matter disabilities”. He also recommended special educational treatment in not only special classes but also regular classes. He insisted that regular class teachers and special class teachers share the responsibility of educating children with disabilities. However, in addition to tailoring education based on the diversity exhibited by children with learning problems, it is essential to tailor it for disabled children in public school special classes established in their communities. In terms of both human and material resources, it was difficult to address learning problems suitably in regular classes while improving the quality and quantity of education in special classes.     

Disability as Metaphor: Examining the Conceptual Framing of Emotional Behavioral Disorder In American Public Education

A growing, interdisciplinary field of cognitive linguistics has developed in recent decades, bringing together research from many fields to explore the ways that metaphors provide structure and semantic content to thought and language. In this article, the American public school disability emotional/behavioral disorder (E/BD) is examined in regard to the primary metaphors that frame the basic concepts of the disorder. The metaphors of 2 versions of E/BD, psychodynamic and behavioral, are investigated. A series of critical questions about the E/BD construct are posed, and possibilities for new metaphors are proposed.     

基于SIOP模式的大学英语教学对本科生批判性思维影响的实证研究

SIOP模式是“语言学习与应用能力相结合”､“学科知识与思维发展相结合”的教学模式,它为语言知识的学习和思维能力的培养提供了可行性途径。本研究以语言类课程——大学英语为依托,选取某省属 重点大学一年级157名学生,分为实验班和控制班,分别采用 SIOP 模式和传统模式教学。一学年之后,两班 前后测结果说明,SIOP 教学模式对大学英语学习者批判性思维能力的提升具有积极的促进作用。该研究结果对 SIOP 教学模式的本土化应用以及我国本科生批判性思维的培养具有一定的启示和参考价值。     

Exploring the use of multiple analogical models when teaching and learning chemical equilibrium

This study describes the multiple analogical models used to introduce and teach Grade 12 chemical equilibrium. We examine the teacher's reasons for using models, explain each model's development during the lessons, and analyze the understandings students derived from the models. A case study approach was used and the data were drawn from the observation of three consecutive Grade 12 lessons on chemical equilibrium, pre‐ and post‐lesson interviews, and delayed student interviews. The key analogical models used in teaching were: the “school dance”; the “sugar in a teacup”; the “pot of curry”; and the “busy highway.” The lesson and interview data were subject to multiple, independent analyses and yielded the following outcomes: The teacher planned to use the students' prior knowledge wherever possible and he responded to student questions with stories and extended and enriched analogies. He planned to discuss where each analogy broke down but did not. The students enjoyed the teaching but built variable mental models of equilibrium and some of their analogical mappings were unreliable. A female student disliked masculine analogies, other students tended to see elements of the multiple models in isolation, and some did not recognize all the analogical mappings embedded in the teaching plan. Most students learned that equilibrium reactions are dynamic, occur in closed systems, and the forward and reverse reactions are balanced. We recommend the use of multiple analogies like these and insist that teachers always show where the analogy breaks down and carefully negotiate the conceptual outcomes. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 1135–1159, 2005