Playing the game: critical literacy,gender justice and issues of masculinity

This paper explores issues of critical literacy, gender justice and masculinity through ‘Mr A’s’ story. Mr A is head of English at ‘Grange College’ – an all boys’ school in a large urban centre in Queensland (Australia). The paper highlights how the privileging of rationality, control and ‘the masculine’ within Mr A’s ‘teaching‐as‐usual’ discourse constrains his efforts to pursue gender justice through critical literacy. While Mr A scaffolds his students’ critical analysis of gender and power in texts, his investments in teacher/student binary relations draw rigid boundaries between himself and his students in ways that delegitimise the terrain beyond the rational and ignore a theorising of the self. Drawing on Mr A’s story within Davies’ theorising about the possibilities of critical literacy, this paper adds to key work in arguing the importance of teachers’ interrogating their classrooms as lived texts where the relations of domination and power that derail the social justice possibilities of critical literacy can be made both recognisable and revisable. Such interrogation is foregrounded here as particularly urgent within the current moment where rationalist discourses within and beyond schools are increasingly working to circumscribe and constrain teacher practice in ways that stifle transformative social agendas.     

English progressive educators and the creative child

Abstract

This article explores an approach to initial teacher education which emphasises the process of ‘practical theorising’ as the context in which educational theory can contribute to this professional education. The practical theorising approach is exemplified by reference to the Oxford Internship Scheme, and the article focusses especially on arguments against a practical theorising approach presented by Paul Hirst in a commentary on the Oxford scheme. These arguments are concerned with: the need for a public rationally defended consensual body of professional knowledge; the unreasonable demands which a practical theorising approach makes of student‐teachers; and the perceived failure of a practical theorising approach, at least in the Oxford context, to differentiate adequately among different kinds of theory and their place in initial teacher education.     

What is Lesson Study?

This article addresses the conceptual question “what is lesson study?” as an issue that arises in the context of the globalisation of lesson study as a method for improving teaching and learning beyond its presumed origins in the Japanese education system. To what extent can adaptations of the method in different national settings be interpreted as faithful representations of its practically significant “critical features” in the country of origin? In order to address this question, the article begins by examining the comparative classroom research by Stigler and Hiebert that culminated in the publication of The Teaching Gap. This work is generally acknowledged to have been seminal for the global development of lesson study as a method for improving teaching and learning. Sponsored by the 1997 TIMMS testing programme, the research sought to explain pronounced differences in measured educational attainment between students of all ages in Japan, and the US and Germany. In the process Stigler and Hiebert discovered the extensive use of lesson study in Japanese primary schools as a school‐based research method for securing consistency between learning goals and teaching methods. In doing so, they identified six principles which underpinned the method and pinpointed its practical significance. In this article, the author claims that the principles identified by Stigler and Hiebert can be used as a framework for assessing adaptations of lesson study in the context of globalisation, and connecting it to related methodological ideas that are internationally circulating. In particular, the author stresses links between lesson study, the tradition of classroom action research forged by Lawrence Stenhouse and his colleagues at the University of East Anglia, UK and the theory of variation developed in Sweden and Hong Kong by Ference Marton, Lo Mun Ling and others. Such links can deepen a theoretical understanding of “lesson study” and safe‐guard it against a “cherry‐picking” approach to its implementation in a context of globalisation. The article particularly highlights the importance of understanding the ways in which the organisational cultures of schooling in many countries shape and distort the implementation of lesson study. It argues for the greater involvement of school leaders and administrators in a form of second‐order action research aimed at transforming the organisational context of teachers’ work in classrooms and creating more space for them to spend less time as test data managers and more time as lesson researchers in accordance with the six principles outlined.     

Special educational needs: a public issue

This article explores the contribution of sociological scholarship to understanding and analysing the notions of ‘special educational needs’ and ‘disability’ and the ways in which the two notions have been reconfigured and theorised as ‘public issues’ rather than ‘personal troubles’. Barton's contribution is signified both in terms of his contribution to the evolution of the ‘sociological imagination’ – as a powerful theoretical tool for unravelling the highly political and contested nature of disability and special educational needs – and also in terms of his analysis of the emergence and development of sociological theorising in the field. The parochial obsession with deficit and medical‐oriented approaches to dealing with ‘difference’ and ‘need’ have been significantly challenged through the ‘sociological imagination’ aimed at pointing up the highly political and complex nature of disability and ‘special educational needs’. Times have changed and sociological theorising has evolved, but presumed ‘personal troubles’ are still not unequivocally conceptualised as being intertwined with, resting upon and emanating from ‘public issues’ embedded in the social, cultural and political edifice of educational, social and national communities. The ‘sociological imagination’ should be constantly invoked and deployed in order to expose and challenge the sophisticated ways in which individual pathology accounts and special educational imperatives re‐invent themselves through more inclusive linguistic veneers.     

Language in Use

The conference set up one commission to look at the particular place of the English lesson within a framework of Language across the Curriculum. Such a view of language in school could have awkward implications for English: that either a pupil's growth in language might be provided for by the work of the whole curriculum, or that the English lesson should ‘service’ a pupil's language for his work in other studies. Two questions arise: are there certain responses and experiences which pupils need time for and which can only be allowed for in the English lesson ? And are there particular studies in language that only the English lesson can take responsibility for ? In order to set this discussion on its way, Peter Doughty was invited to talk about the special work which his team at University College, London, had been doing on language in English, and which has now been incorporated into material known as Language in Use. We print here an extract from his paper, published by the Schools Council, a fuller version of which is available on application from Great Portland Street, London, W.1. Fred Inglis took issue with this point of view about language in English.     

网络环境下高校计算机公共课教学模式研究

对当前高校计算机公共课教学现状进行了分析，通过对当前高校计算机公共课网络教学模式研究与探讨；提出了目前适合多媒体教室教学与网络教学相结合，最终发展到计算机公共课以网络教学模式为主的教学方式。     

The Attitude of Universities and Colleges Toward the Problems of Childhood

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to assess the extent to which the college instructor is able to influence the opinions of his students in evaluating a familiar task. The Ss were enrolled in seven college classes of a standard course in science methods and materials. The “familiar task” to be evaluated was a television lesson in science. By introducing the lesson with positive or negative comments, the instructor was able to exert a significant influence on the students’ evaluations of the lesson. The instructor’s influence, positively and negatively, was enhanced through the support of a student confidant. The findings of this study point to the relative ease with which a college instructor can manipulate the judgments of his students.     

高校政治理论课实行教练式教学对学生的影响

教练式教学是将教练技术与教学结合的一种新的教学方式。政治理论课实行教练式教学能够帮助学生理清思维方式,改善学生学习心态,促进学生长远发展,从而提高政治理论课教学的实效性。     

新课程背景下高一化学有效教学策略

如何在新课程背景下进行有效的化学教学是当前众多化学教学工作者探索和研究的一个重要课题。不妨将备学情、备教材、备实验三者有机的结合起来,同时将观课和反思落到实处,通过功夫花在课外,赢得课堂教学的有效性。     

Pedagogical content knowledge of experts and novices—what knowledge do they activate when analyzing science lessons?

In the current debate on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), the term is used to refer to the context‐specific knowledge that teachers activate when reflecting on practice. Against the background of this debate, we conducted an empirical study and sought to answer the question of which knowledge experts and novices activated in assessing a videotaped lesson in relation to its effectiveness for learning. Our assumption was that the participants activate their PCK as a blending of content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical knowledge (PK) as suggested by Shulman's amalgam thesis. The participants (9 experts and 9 novices) were shown a lesson on optics, in which the law of refraction (Snell's law) was being studied. In a subsequent interview, the participants were asked to analyze the observed lesson. A qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the interviews showed that experts activated both CK and PK intensively and in this respect they differed significantly from novices. Further analysis of the expert statements also proved that they do not activate their CK and PK in isolation, but instead combine both kinds of knowledge together, in line with Shulman's amalgam thesis. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 55: 44–67, 2018     

黄遵宪的地方自治思想

黄遵宪地方自治思想的形成直接根源于中国传统的地方自治理论,结合了西方资产阶级启蒙思想家的民权思想。其地方自治的主要内容是开民智,兴绅权,设议会;目的是为了实现君主立宪;保卫局、南学会、课吏馆的设立则是其具体形式。在中国近代史上,黄遵宪的地方自治制度代表着由封建专制向君主立宪过渡的一种制度,是中国近代以来先进中国人对中国政体的有益探索。作为资产阶级改良派的先驱,在当时特定的时代,其地方自治理论的先进性和缺陷是同时存在的。     

Biology Teachers Designing Context-Based Lessons for Their Classroom Practice—The importance of rules-of-thumb

In science education in the Netherlands new, context‐based, curricula are being developed. As in any innovation, the outcome will largely depend on the teachers who design and implement lessons. Central to the study presented here is the idea that teachers, when designing lessons, use rules‐of‐thumb: notions of what a lesson should look like if certain classroom outcomes are to be reached. Our study aimed at (1) identifying the rules‐of‐thumb biology teachers use when designing context‐based lessons for their own classroom practice, and (2) assessing how these personal rules‐of‐thumb relate to formal innovative goals and lesson characteristics. Six biology teachers with varying backgrounds designed and implemented a lesson or series of lessons for their own practice, while thinking aloud. We interviewed the teachers and observed their lessons. Our results suggest that rules‐of‐thumb, which differed substantially among the teachers, indeed to a great extent guide the decisions teachers make when designing (innovative) lessons. These rules‐of‐thumb were often strongly associated with intended lesson outcomes. Also, teachers’ personal rules‐of‐thumb were more powerful in determining the lesson design than formal innovative goals and lesson characteristics. The results of this study encourage more research into how rules‐of‐thumb reflect teachers’ practical knowledge, for which suggestions are made.     

The Exilic Classroom: Spaces of Subversion

This paper explores the possibility of the classroom as an exilic space of subversion in which we can pursue anarchist notions of personal transformation, relationships and society. Classroom environments in higher education institutions in Britain, particularly following the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework in September 2016, are premised upon relationships shaped by specific external standards: Employability, the instrumental pursuit of degrees, provider/consumer exchange, among others. Any notions of personal transformation are economic, and the broader goal is the pursuit of economic gain for individual, company and country. In an act of subversion of these external standards, I propose theorising the classroom as an exilic space: a temporally and spatially bracketed space in which participants and their relationships are not beholden to these various external referents. Instead, I put forward the exilic classroom as an anarchic space in which the interactions of the participants are not pre‐defined but are formed in the process of the interactions themselves. In theorising the exilic classroom I draw on the work of Obika Gray, and push his notion of exilic space further by integrating the works of Michel de Certeau, Jamie Heckert and Gustav Landauer to help propose a classroom defined as a positive subversive everyday space that is not bound by its opposition to wider structures. The creation of such an exilic classroom assists the participants in stepping out of their expected roles as ‘provider’ and ‘consumer’, or ‘teacher’ and ‘student’, and allows the creation of a space of possibilities for our relationships     

经验教师数学课堂教学策略的个案研究——以九年级“二次函数图像平移”的教学为例

在课程改革的背景下,选择了对初中学生而言具有一定难度的教学内容——二次函数图像的平移,并以此为载体探究一位中国经验教师课堂教学策略.发现这位数学教师在教学中采用了"先整体,后细节"的教学策略,体现了数学课程改革的教学理念,不过教师对学生认知特征的认识还有待进一步提高。     

在高职数学教学中关于操作性教学的研究报告

数学作为高职院校理工科重要的一门基础课,既为专业基础课和专业课提供了必要的数学知识和数学方法,又在培养具有良好数学素养的各类创新型人才、应用技术型人才方面起着特别重要的作用。针对高职学生的特点,展开关于＂在高职数学教学进行操作性教学＂的教学尝试,能够在有限的教学时间里,结合学生的个性特质,培养学生既能运用理论、定义等来解决问题,又能利用数学软件来解决数学问题。     

An interaction of screen colour and lesson task in CAL

Colour is a common feature in computer‐aided learning (CAL), though the instructional effects of screen colour are not well understood. This investigation considers the effects of different CAL study tasks with feedback on posttest performance and on posttest memory of the lesson colour scheme. Graduate students (n=68) completed a computer‐based vocabulary lesson that included either multiple‐choice or constructed‐response study tasks with feedback. Each lesson section used a different colour theme, while the posttest did not use colour. The constructed‐response study task was a little more effective for posttest memory of lesson content but was substantially less effective for posttest memory of the lesson colour scheme. These results show a clear interaction of screen colour and lesson study task, a memory‐context effect. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Now that we have all these people,what are we supposed to do with them? a field guide to workforce optimization by Ken Johnson

Ken Johnson has been helping people realize their job performance potential for 20 years. He switched from being a department manager to a career in training in 1989, completing his master's degree in instructional systems design in 1992. Today he works with people in 16 countries, applying the real‐world lesson that employee development must show its clear tie to bottom‐line results if it is to survive in the boardroom. Now That We Have All These People, What Are We Supposed to Do with Them? (ISBN: 1‐4196‐9167‐8) is published by Booksurge.     

语文“说课”的得失与发展

说课的“得”表现在内容的拓展、特点的体现及对教学改革思路的构想以及“说课”效能在实际操作中的发挥等。“说课”的“失”表现在生硬套仿,缺少个性与创新,过于表现“理论依据”,评委素质差,评判标准不统一。“说课”的发展要加强理论体系的形成,并和语文基本素质的提高,教学科研结合起来。     

现代数学课堂教学评价构成模式探讨

传统的课堂教学评价通常就独立的一节课展开,这容易导致教师注重形式上的"好看"而忽视了许多实质性内容.笔者以为,一堂好的数学课应作为整个数学知识体系中的一个环节来考量,同时又要符合教学主体(学生)的实际状况.相应地,对课堂教学的评价应采用教师说课和课堂教学相结合的形式,即在说课中阐明教师的教学理念和设计缘由,而把课堂教学作为这一理念和设计的实践检验.