Scaffolding students' knowledge integration: prompts for reflection in KIE

Encouraging students to be autonomous is an important goal of the scaffolded knowledge integration framework. Knowledge integration requires students to expand their repertoire of ideas but unless those ideas are reflected upon, they cannot be linked to and reconciled with current ideas. Students are capable of doing this kind of reflection but, many need scaffolding. Scaffolding here in the form of reflection prompts can help students be autonomous integrators of their knowledge. This research investigated learning and design questions. It determined whether reflection prompts promote knowledge integration for students working on science projects and investigated the effects of students' different dispositions on their reflection. It explored which characteristics of prompts best support students in knowledge integration. The learning results indicate that prompting students to reflect significantly increases knowledge integration in science projects. Yet similar prompts elicit qualitatively diverse responses from students. Students who focus on their ideas perform significantly better on the end product than do other students who focus on their actions or activities. Furthermore, students who indicate that they understand everything perform significantly worse on the final project than do other students. The design results show that self-monitoring prompts, which encourage planning for and reflection on activities, help students to demonstrate an integrated understanding of the relevant science; while activity prompts, which guide the inquiry process, are less successful in prompting knowledge integration.     

Balancing Teacher and Student Roles in Elementary Classrooms: Preservice elementary teachers’ learning about the inquiry continuum

Using the National Research Council's inquiry continuum framework, we use a multiple-case study research design to investigate the teacher- and student-directedness of elementary preservice teachers’ planned and enacted science lessons and their pedagogical reasoning about science instruction during a semester-long science methods course. Our specific research questions were (1) What ideas do elementary preservice teachers bring to a science teaching methods course about the inquiry continuum? and (2) How do their ideas about the inquiry continuum change over the course of the semester through engaging in planning, enactment, and reflection upon science instruction? Participants’ course artifacts (journals, reflective teaching assignments, and lesson plan rationales), interviews, and field observations of their enacted science lessons served as data for this study. Findings show that although the preservice teachers began the semester defining inquiry as highly student-directed, their ideas and definitions broadened over the course of the semester to include and embrace more teacher-directed forms of inquiry. Their early science lessons were more student-directed but, as they encountered challenges engaging in inquiry-based instruction and increasingly emphasized students’ learning needs, they began to plan and enact lessons that were more teacher-directed. Teacher education programs need to explicitly emphasize these variations of inquiry as a core component of supporting preservice teachers’ learning to teach science as inquiry.     

《大学生职业生涯规划》课程的行动研究综述

行动研究是教育领域的一个重要的研究范式,包括计划、行动、观察、反思的循环过程。教师可积极采用行动研究法来进行《大学生职业生涯规划》课程的教学改革,相关文献主要包括教学设计和信息化技术手段等方面的行动研究。今后需要加强《大学生职业生涯规划》课程的行动研究,并更深入地运用职业生涯规划理论、教育心理学理论。     

Use of self-determination theory to support basic psychological needs of preservice science teachers in an environmental science course

In this paper, we examine how the basic psychological needs of preservice science teachers (PSTs) were supported in a series of environmental science course activities informed by self-determination theory (SDT). We collected qualitative data about the PSTs’ sense of competence, autonomy, and relatedness through interviews, group discussions, assignments, and reflection papers. Data were analyzed in relation to the instructional design features of the course; namely, collective construction of ideas, student guided discussions, real life connection, and consistent group dynamics. Findings illustrate primary support for cognitive features, including, how course activities supported a sense of confidence in action, sense of self-initiation, awareness of personal role in the system, and awareness of environmental actions. Overall, results suggest that SDT can be effectively utilized as a framework for environmental education in courses designed to foster environmental self-determination and long-lasting pro-environmental behaviors.     

突破我国高校体育课程改革瓶颈的研究

运用文献资料法、访谈调查法、辩证分析法、数理统计法对中国普通高校体育课程改革进一步发展需要突破的瓶颈进行研究表明,体育课进一步深入改革的制约因素主要为:认识瓶颈,课程缺失瓶颈,责任缺失瓶颈,激励机制缺失瓶颈。要突破这些瓶颈,应该提高认识,明确含义;改革课程结构;实行问责制,并接受社会监督;建立普通高校一至四年级体育成绩激励机制,将课程合格分数至少与一门文化专业主干课程同等进入评优、评奖范围。     

Taking teachers' continuous professional development (CPD) beyond reflection: adding shared sense-making and collaborative engagement for professional renewal

While reflection continues to be promoted as a central feature of teachers' continuous professional development (CPD) activities in Scotland and elsewhere, a wider debate across professions and national boundaries has opened as to how reflection might be re-conceptualised to restore its social and critical dimensions. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate, arguing that drawing ideas from the literatures on both reflection and communities of practice provides a sounder foundation upon which to build CPD activities that are likely to support professional renewal than that provided by either concept by itself. In particular, the authors draw on their participation in a number of Scottish research and development projects to focus on shared sense-making and collaborative engagement as activities that can enhance reflection. The paper concludes with a set of design principles for CPD activities.     

The making of personal meaning: Some thoughts for teacher educators

Much of the focus in schools today is on teaching critical thinking skills. This article challenges the current practice of teaching thinking as a set of skills and procedures. We propose a more thoughtful way of encouraging learners to make personal meaning of what they are learning by searching for insight, making connections between their past and present learning experiences, and using reflection as a tool for gaining understanding, all of which we do quite naturally.This article focusses on the experience of one post-secondary teacher as she attempts to take a more thoughtful approach to her practice with a class of student teachers. Specific ideas for assisting students in using reflection as a learning tool for furthering understanding and for promoting thoughtfulness are provided.     

《化工原理》在线课程建设探索与实践

本文结合化工原理的课程特点,阐述了该课程在线课程建设的思路,着重从教学内容、教学方法、习题库建设、课内课外活动等方面介绍了课程平台的设计与实践。     

Planning introductory college courses: Content, context and form

Course planning is an important faculty role requiring expertise and effective decision-making. Despite the centrality of planning activities in the teaching-learning process, relatively little research has explored the process by which instructors in higher education plan their classes. Thus, the author and colleagues pursued a three-year series of studies of college instructors in the US who were teaching introductory classes. The study explored faculty members' underlying assumptions about planning and their decision-making processes. This chapter summarizes these empirical studies that inform us about the general and discipline-specific purposes faculty express for their classes, the contextual influences that modify their intentions, and the way they arrange discipline content for teaching. A key finding was that differences in course planning reflect varied assumptions about students and about their discipline that faculty in different fields bring to the planning process and which strongly influence them.     

Body‐Building: A Female Student's Use of the Transitional Spaces of a Painting Degree Course to Explore her Sexual Desirability and Aesthetics as a ‘Grotesque’ Female Body

Whilst a part of the fine art degree course is about teaching technical skills and learning from tutor/peer group crits, a larger part is about the facilitation of a ‘safe’ and structured space in which students gain the confidence to experiment with personal ideas, to hone a self‐critical reflection and understand who they are as individuals, before being cast out into the world as ‘artist’. In this article I examine the thought processes and decision‐making of one undergraduate female painting student. For this student, who struggled to find her own ‘grotesque’ female body image in the canon of art historical works or contemporary popular media, the spaces of the painting degree course created a frame for possible enactments of identity and desire, as well as for playing with roles and practices. Through a mix of interviews with the student, viewing her visual work and written narratives, I analyse how she was able to carve out a space for her visual representation within the institutional frame. My analysis reveals how this student uses the transitional spaces of the degree course to develop creative strategies through which to explore her sexual desirability and aesthetic self. As an individual who felt marginalised from the visual realm of the ‘body beautiful’, the degree course offered an important refuge where she could examine how she felt about her own body and develop a confidence and character to present her body to the world.     

“Oh,I have a story”: narrative as a teacher's classroom model

This paper examines the teaching practices of one American Indian teacher in a high school literature class. It explores the teacher's use of narrative as an instructional strategy designed to convey abstract concepts through concrete experience. The narratives engage students in critical thinking and personal reflection, and provide them with the opportunity to make connections between social and historical contexts. In addition, the teacher uses stories to contrast multiple contexts with personal experiences, which reflects teaching strategies previously identified as those used by effective teachers. There is evidence that sharing ideas and concepts through story is an important way of encouraging social relations and helping students make connections between what they are learning in school and what they know of the world. Based on data analysis, this study presents a model of the teacher's use of narrative as a strategy to pose critical questions, frame a context for discussion, encourage students to reflect on personal perspectives, and introduce ideas and concepts. The model provides a visual representation of the teacher's use of narrative as a way of clarifying course content, contextualizing meaning, and reinforcing understanding.     

中国学生口语能力差的原因分析及对策研究——实现阅读教学与口语训练的有机统一是提高学生口语能力的关键环节

我国相当部分大学生的英语口语能力差。这是我们大学英语教育亟待解决的一个重大现实问题。为此,本文就这个问题进行了研究。研究表明,造成中国学生口语能力差的一个重要原因是：在我们的英语教学过程中,将阅读教学与口语教学割裂开来、各行其道所致。大量的教学实践证明,单纯的阅读教学和单纯的口语教学都不利于提高学生的实际口语能力。要提高学生的口语能力,必须实现阅读教学与口语训练的有机统一。为此,笔者选择了部分班级进行试验,试验表明：在英语教学中实现阅读教学与口语训练的有机统一,能有效地提高学生的口语能力。     

中国古代文学课程研讨式教学模式的实践与思考

从优化教学内容、丰富课堂组织形式、改革评价机制等分析了＂研讨式教学模式＂,认为对中国古代文学课程实施＂研讨式教学模式＂,既坚持对学生传统文学知识和文化素养的培育,也注重对学生实际能力的提升,提出在教改实践过程中需要以作品为基础,以能力培养为中心,注意凸显课程的特色。     

浅析网络课程的设计

网络课程是通过网络表现的课程教学内容及实施的教学活动的总和。网络课程设计为开发新的教学资源,解决教学服务无形性、难以触知性、难以储存性、品质差异性、提供与接受同时性等难题,提供了新的思路和表现形式,对优化教学质量、普及教育信息具有积极作用和现实意义。     

Uniting epistemological perspectives to support contextualized knowledge development

The nature of knowledge and how it is developed have been debated in philosophy and research for centuries. In the literature on teachers’ knowledge, two perspectives have been particularly visible. One perspective stresses cognitive processes and deliberate knowledge acquisition. Another perspective stresses the situated nature of teachers’ learning and knowledge development through awareness. This theoretical article proposes that uniting both epistemological perspectives is beneficial for developing teachers’ contextualized knowledge of how to teach at all phases of career development, and especially early on. In so doing, action and reflection are positioned as central to the development of teachers’ knowledge, and affordances from both the deliberate and the aware perspectives are articulated. Specifically, this article explains why uniting the two perspectives supports better sense-making, more refined instructional planning, and more responsive teaching, before offering a united reflection model. These processes are then discussed in the context of video coaching interventions for early-career teachers. After presenting a blueprint for video-based reflection and key design features that could support teachers’ learning, important differences compared to other reflection models are discussed and implications for (the design of) teachers' professional development based upon this united perspective are presented.

     

关于《职业生涯规划》课程的思考

目前,许多高职院校都开设实践性很强的《职业生涯规划》课程,在准确定位课程、合理选择课程内容和优化教学方式的基础上,着重提高职业生涯课的有效性是关键。     

Acquiring Cultural Knowledge for Counselors in Training: A Multifaceted Approach

In the cross-cultural counseling literature many writers have suggested that counselors and counselor trainees should acquire knowledge about ethnic minority populations. More concrete suggestions are needed, however, regarding specific structures through which such knowledge might be gained. In this article the authors describe a multifaceted approach to acquisition of cross-cultural knowledge that is a culmination of experiences and activities the writers have used in a course titled Counseling Ethnic Minorities. This approach is based on the premise that knowledge and cultural sensitivity can be achieved through a combination of cognitive, affective, and behavioral procedures. The course includes assessment of cultural knowledge, reading ethnic literature, multicultural action planning, and small-group presentations. Students taking this course have judged the multifaceted approach to be a valuable experience for acquiring cross-cultural knowledge and for developing cross-cultural sensitivity. Most participants viewed the course as an important beginning to a lifelong process of learning.     

Literature Review of Student Characteristics and Performance in an Accounting Course

This article explores the current literature on student characteristics and performance in an accounting course. When planning to teach or design a course, student characteristics play a role as part of the “situational factors” (Fink, 2003). Research has widely shown that college graduation rates are associated with student characteristics (e.g., Astin & Oseguera, 2005; Gold & Albert, 2006). This article focuses on student characteristics and performance in an accounting course. The following factors are discussed: math, English, gender, age, and prior accounting course. These factors are chosen, as they are often available from course enrollment data. The literature shows that some characteristics (math, prior accounting course) have a positive relationship with performance in an accounting course, while other characteristics (English, age, gender) have a mixed effect on performance.