Table of Contents

Closing the Loop: How an Assessment Project Paved the Way for GE Reform Call for Contributions Value‐Added? Committing to Quality: Guidelines for Assessment and Accountability in Higher Education Creating a Cadre of Assessment Gurus (at Your Institution) Assessment as a Communication and Management Tool for Presidents and Trustees Assessing Institutional Assessment: One Institution's Progress in Developing Quality Assessment Practices From the States: Learning and Accreditation: The Elites Push Back     

Developmentally appropriate practices and children's perception of self-competence in Head Start classrooms

The present project studied the relationship between the use of developmentally appropriate practices and children's perception of self-competence in Head Start classrooms. Self-competence is defined as children's confidence in succeeding in certain tasks. Developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) as proposed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) are teaching practices that are age appropriate, individually appropriate and culturally appropriate. Seventy-two children attending six Head Start centres participated in the study. Trained researchers filled out the Rating Scale to assess the use Developmentally Appropriate Practices in Early Childhood Classrooms. The participating children's perceived self-competence was measured using the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance. Correlational analysis showed that some of the subscales assessing the use of developmentally appropriate practices were correlated with two of the subscales of the children's perception of self-competence. The above results provide some insight into the importance of the use of developmentally appropriate practices and their effects on children.     

高考考生物理观念发展水平的诊断与分析———以高考天津物理试卷为例

在教育部颁布的《普通高中物理课程标准(2017版)》中,凝练了学科核心素养。为帮助教师了解学生核心素养发展水平,推进基于核心素养的教学,天津市高考评价项目物理学科组以2018年天津市高考物理试卷实测数据和抽样题卡为依据,结合往年相关试题的作答情况,对本市高中学生物理观念的发展状况进行分析,找出学生的优势和不足,并据此提出在教学中落实核心素养培养的具体建议。     

高考考生科学思维关键要素水平诊断与分析——以2019年高考(天津卷)理科综合物理部分为例

教育部颁布的《普通高中物理课程标准(2017版)》凝练了学科核心素养。为帮助教师了解学生核心素养发展水平,推进基于核心素养的教学,天津市教育质量评估监测中心高考评价项目物理学科组以2019年高考(天津卷)理科综合物理部分实测数据和抽样题卡为依据,结合往年相关试题的作答情况,对天津市高中学生科学思维中模型建构和科学推理两个关键要素的发展状况进行分析,找出学生的优势和不足,并据此提出在教学中落实核心素养培养的具体建议。     

Researching and developing interdisciplinary teaching: towards a conceptual framework for classroom communication

Calls for teaching and learning that cross subject boundaries have been making themselves heard in recent Higher Education literature in different national contexts. Communication is pivotal in any such learning encounter: it is in the process of negotiating meaning across disciplines that its rewards and challenges lie. And yet, the question of what characterises interdisciplinary classroom communication in the sector is little researched and little understood. How such interaction differs from that in the monodisciplinary university classroom is under-theorised. Adapting Applied Linguistic theory in Intercultural Communicative Competence (Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.) and drawing on a taxonomy of academic disciplines (Becher, T., & Trowler, P. R (2001). Academic tribes and territories.Buckingham: Society for Research in Higher Education/Open University Press.), the article proposes a model of Communicative Competence as a conceptual tool to shape thinking in developing and researching interdisciplinary teaching and learning in the university classroom.     

美国《国家科学教育标准》倡导的课堂评价

美国《国家科学教育标准》倡导在课堂教学中实施形成性评价,形成性评价的一般模式,师生均需明确的问题:学生想达到什么目标?学生现在所处的是什么位置?如何能够达到目标?评价要遵循平等原则、有效性原则和可靠性原则。评价的重点要转向最被重视的内容、"活性"知识、科学理解力和推理能力、学生的进步和成绩及学习机会、学生自我评价以及教师参与外部评价。课堂评价还需要着力避免走进误区。     

Reviews

Change and Reform in Higher Education: Great Expectations and Mixed Performance: The Implementation of Higher Education Reforms in Europe. Teaching Thinking by Discussion, Donald Bligh. Teaching in Laborutories, David Boud, Jeffrey Dunn, Elizabeth Hegarty-Hazel (London. Crisis?What Crisis?: Educational Policies in Crisis, William K. Cummings.     

Reviews

Reviews in this articles: Professionalism and Competence in Higher Education Developing Professional Knowledge and Competence, Michael Eraut A future for quality? Managerialism and the Academic Profession: Quality and Control, Martin Trow International policy patterns Higher Education Policy: an international comparative perspective, edited by Leo Goedegebuure, Frans Kaiser, Peter Maassen, Lynn Meek, Frans van Vught and Egbert de Weert     

The Competence Screening Questionnaire for Higher Education: Adaptable to the needs of a study programme

There is a lively discussion on how to evaluate competence-based higher education in both evaluation and competence research. The instruments used are often limited to course evaluation or specific competences, taking a rather narrow perspective. Furthermore, the instruments often comprise predetermined competences that cannot be adapted to higher education needs. The aim of this paper is to provide a flexible screening instrument into which practitioners/evaluators of study programmes can themselves insert the competences they are interested in, i.e. competences students ought to acquire through their study programme. The present study describes the development of the Competence Screening Questionnaire for Higher Education (CSQ-HE) in different domains of higher education. Results show that the CSQ-HE provides plausible screening information whilst fulfilling evaluation standards. It can be integrated into a higher education institution’s internal quality management system to demonstrate a programme’s legitimacy and enhance competence-based teaching and learning. Strengths, weaknesses and implications for practice are discussed.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed:
Jacqueline Hayden (ed), Landscapes in Early Childhood Education: Cross-National Perspectives on Empowerment – A Guide for the New Millennium
Stephen Gorard, Education and Social Justice
Stephen J. Ball, Meg Maguire and Sheila Macrae, Choice, Pathways and Transitions Post-16: New Youth, New Economics and the Global City
Ian Davies (ed), Teaching the Holocaust: Educational Dimensions, Principles and Practice
Trevor Gale and Kathleen Densmore, Just Schooling Explorations in the Cultural Politics of Teaching
Helen Simmons and Robin Usher, Situated Ethics in Educational Research
Otto Peters, Learning and Teaching in Distance Education: Pedagogical Analyses and Interpretations in an International Perspective
Peter Jarvis (ed), Twentieth Century Thinkers in Adult and Continuing Education (2nd edition)
Martin Monk and Kathleen Osborne (eds), Good Practice in Science Teaching: What Research has to say
C. Hoy, C. Bayne-Jardine and M. Wood, Improving Quality in Education
Jane Thompson, The Politics and Practice of Widening Participation in Higher Education
C. Aubrey, T. David, R. Godfrey and L. Thompson, Early Childhood Educational Research
R. Griffith, National Curriculum: National Disaster? Education and Citizenship     

Improving pre‐service teacher learning through peer teaching: process,people and product1

This research investigates the perceptions of first‐year Bachelor of Teaching students (primary and secondary) and Diploma of Education students (secondary) about their peer teaching experience in a postgraduate subject called Curriculum and Assessment. Peer teaching is a learner‐centred approach to teaching and learning that is intended to provide significant benefits for learners' knowledge, skills and metacognition. However, concerns have been raised over the quality of the learning and teaching and the risks associated with such a pedagogy. In the present study, student responses to questionnaires and semi‐structured interviews were analysed, using a mixed methods approach, with respect to three broad and somewhat interconnected categories: process, people and product. These responses suggested a wide range of reactions to peer teaching, but overall students feel they benefited from the experience. The findings of this study should be of interest to lecturers and students in pre‐service teacher education courses, especially. Knowledge about peer teaching, learning and assessment would be especially valuable for both education lecturers and beginning teachers seeking to design and manage learner‐centred pedagogy in their own primary, secondary and tertiary classrooms. However, the results of this research would have far‐reaching appeal for all teaching and learning contexts.     

HOW CAN SCIENCE HELP US CARE FOR NATURE? HERMENEUTICS,FRAGILITY, AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE EARTH

In this review essay, Clarence Joldersma argues for a novel role for science in developing an affirmative answer to his title question, “How can science help us care for nature?” He does so in dialogue with Clare Palmer's edited volume, Teaching Environmental Ethics, Dirk Postma's Why Care for Nature? and Michael Bonnett's Retrieving Nature. Joldersma suggests that although each book can help address the issue of how to teach students to care for nature, he parts company with their stance that we must go beyond science to develop a metaphysics of nature adequate to the task. Relying on the same Heideggerian framework as Postma and Bonnett, Joldersma comes to a different assessment of the role of science. He does so by arguing for a hermeneutic understanding of science as social practice and by claiming that science so construed can disclose the planet as earth (in the later Heidegger's sense), for which we owe thanks. This disclosure reveals earth as that which is fragile and for which we are responsible.     

Thematic Review Reflecting Upon and Changing Teaching and Learning within Education

Book Reviewed in this article: Learner‐centered Teaching: five key changes to practice Maryellen Weimer Competence in the Learning Society John Raven & John Stephenson (Eds) Developing Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Gill Nicholls     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Open and Closed Minds: The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, Allan Bloom Democratic Education, Amy Gutmann The State and the University: Calling British Universities to Account, Tony Becher and Maurice Kogan Diamonds into Glass: the Government and the Universities, Elie Kedourie The Enterprise Culture in Australian Higher Education: Privatizing Higher Education: A New Australian Issue, David R. Jones and John Amyl A British Bias against Adult Participation in Higher Education?: Adults in Higher Education, Centre for Educational Research and Innovation     

Regulating the writing process in the teacher training practicum guided by feedback at the University of Barcelona

This is a longitudinal study that focuses on blog-writing for the purpose of self-assessing competencies, and which was carried out within the practicum of a degree course in Primary Education Teaching at the University of Barcelona. Over the course of three academic years, students and a teacher have used a Platform 2.0 program, specially created for the study, to reflect on their learning processes and to self-assess with respect to the benchmark competences selected. The results show, first, a significant increase in students’ levels of awareness of their own competences, thanks to the optimisation of their communicative competency to explain same, and guided by the teacher’s feedback; and second, a growing level of satisfaction that can be observed in the assessment surveys on the process implemented.     

A Longitudinal Study of Physics Students' Conceptions on Energy in Pre-Service Training for High School Teachers

Journal of Science Education and Technology - How physics students teachers' understanding of energy develops during their pre-service high school teacher university program? How do their...     

COLLABORATIONS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER EDUCATION: CHALLENGES AND PROMISE

Abstract

This article describes the reflective process used by a group of early childhood faculty members to study national standards in order to improve their teacher education program. The standards studied included those from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC/ECE). The reflective process and study resulted in changes in field experiences, course requirements and activities and assisted in state and national accreditation.     

Hybridising Sport Education and Teaching for Personal and Social Responsibility to include students with disabilities

The present study aimed to explore the impact of the combination of two pedagogical models, Sport Education and Teaching for Personal and Social Responsibility, for learners with disabilities experiencing a contactless kickboxing learning unit. Twelve secondary education students agreed to participate. Five had disabilities (intellectual and motor). Additionally, three physical education teachers and the mother of one of the students contributed. Five different research instruments were used to obtain information from all participants: drawings, open-ended questions, discussion groups, diaries and semi-structured interviews. Thematic content analysis and constant comparison guided data analysis resulted in three major categories: part of the team, learning and enjoyment. Several ideas were also identified: inclusion, friendship, cooperation, students’ important role and transference. In conclusion, the hybridisation of Sport Education and Teaching for Personal and Social Responsibility seems to be a powerful tool for including students with disabilities in physical education, helping them and their classmates connect in and out of class.     

简化英语课堂教学：回归符号实跬——读《教育激扬生命》有感兼评一堂生本英语课

在生本教育理念的指引下,英语课堂教学应由以往注重语言符号研究回归符号实践。符号实践简化课堂教学——一方面,教学过程得到简化,学生拥有更多时间自主学习;另一方面,教学内容得到浓缩,学生拥有更广阔的思维空间。     

Validation of the Test of energy concepts and values for high school

The Test of Energy Concepts and Values (TECV) was developed to assess knowledge about and attitudes towards energy for grades 9–12. The TECV, a modification of the Energy Knowledge and Attitude Test,

1 See: National Assessment of Educational Progress. Energy knowledge and attitudes: a national assessment of energy awareness among young adults. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States, 1978.

consisted of 35 knowledge and 39 attitude items. The reliability for the attitude and knowledge sections was 0.70 and 0.76, respectively. Factor analysis was done for the attitude and knowledge sections separately. Item comparison showed that TECV students responses were very similar to the young adults response to the National Assessment instrument.