Audio-visual education in urban school systems

Summary impressions In some ways, this report shows progress in audio-visual education. The work is being headed up by more widespread adoption of central coordination, more classroom teachers are prepared to use audio-visual materials in their classes, and there is more wide-spread use of the materials. On the other hand, there are some urgent needs that become so evident from these data. “More time” is the need, “more central coordination” is the need, “more adapted classrooms” is the need, and separately and behind all these is the need for “better support.” This article is a digest of a report given at the DAVI national convention in Los Angeles in April. The address was entitled “A First Look at Findings of the NEA Survey of the Status of Audio-Visual Education in City and County School Systems.” Victor Hornbostel is assistant director of the Research Division of the National Education Association and supervisor of the survey which is reported.     

The Effective Research-Based Characteristics of Professional Development of the National Science Foundation’s GK-12 Program

This study investigates the effective research-based characteristics of professional development (ERBCPD) of the National Science Foundation’s GK-12 Program—a program which partners institutions of higher education with local school districts and places science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates in the K-12 classroom with teachers. Final evaluations of 26 GK-12 sites were analyzed with a priori and emergent content analyses, which included rigorous inter- and intra-reliability testing. The results of the a priori analysis demonstrated that the GK-12 program incorporates all ERBCPD, but to drastically varying degrees (76–5%). The a priori characteristics that appeared most often were “Treats Fellows as professionals,” and “Professional development is on-going.” The two emergent characteristics included “Improves communication skills” and “Has real world application.”     

民国时期电化教育学术研究的发展演变

文章聚焦民国时期电化教育学术发展,梳理发展脉络,总结学术发展规律。通过对从网络数据库、其他研究者以及实体图书馆等渠道收集的民国时期有关电化教育的期刊、著作、报告以及政府文件等史料的分析和解读,认为民国时期我国电化教育学术研究经历了幻灯教学理论的形成(1912—1932年)、中国特色五论电影教育理论体系的形成(1932—1937年)、中国独特电化教育学术领域的形成(1937—1949年)三个发展阶段;是由幻灯、电影和播音技术推动的,由价值论、方法论和本体论构成的研究螺旋;技术更新与进步、教育思潮和理念的涌现、电化教育的实践需求是学术发展的三个动力;体现出紧扣国家社会需求、注重实践研究、具有国际视野和历史自觉四个方面的特点。     

Learning sets: Kinescope vs film

Conclusions For the population of subjects, and the films and kinescope recordings used in this series of experiments, it made little or no difference whether a given film was represented as being a “kinescope recording” or a training film, or whether a given kinescope was represented as being a “training film” or a kinescope recording of a TV program. This study was in no sense a comparison of the teaching effectiveness of training films and kinescope recordings as such. Since we did not have a film and a kinescope presenting the same material we could not compare the instructional effectiveness of a film and a kinescope. The results suggest, however, that substantial learning resulted from seeing all the films and kinescope recordings used in the study, but the exact learning gains, as measured by pre-and post-tests, are not solely dependent on the films or kinescopes, but include also the effect of the pretests. A possible reason for the discrepancy between these results and those of Jackson is that the “novelty effect” of television has “worn off” since the date of his study (April 1952). The reluctance of audio-visual communication researchers to replicate previous experiments has doubtless resulted in the acceptance of many invalid conclusions. Missing from social science research is that drive which is one of the characteristics of research in the physical sciences: to either verify or refute previous findings by repeating the experiment. In this study such a replication has been made of an earlier experiment—and with different results. Paul M. Hurst, Jr. is an instructor of psychology at Idaho State College. This report is based on a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the Master of Science degree at Pennsylvania State University.     

Student Flow Between Community Colleges: Investigating Lateral Transfer

The traditional unidirectional (“linear”) postsecondary path from high school to a community college to a 4-year institution into the workforce represents accurately a decreasing proportion of the pathways actually taken by students through higher education. Instead, students increasingly exhibit patterns of enrollment that take them through multiple postsecondary institutions, both within levels of the higher education system (e.g., multiple community colleges, multiple 4-year institutions) and across levels (e.g., movement back and forth between community colleges and 4-year institutions). These “swirling” patterns of enrollment are widely recognized by scholars of higher education, but they remain poorly understood. In this study, I employ data that address 89,057 first-time students in the California community college system to answer a number of key questions concerning lateral transfer between community colleges, which, according to prior research, constitutes one sizeable component of student “swirl”. Building on the very limited work on this topic, I examine whether the reported high prevalence of lateral transfer holds true under a more stringent operational framework than that employed in prior work. I explore whether lateral transfer is primarily an artifact of students enrolling simultaneously in multiple community colleges, sometimes called “double-dipping”. I investigate the timing of lateral transfer from several different perspectives to determine how lateral transfer fits in students’ progress and development. Finally, I probe the relationship between students’ level of academic investment in their current community college and the risk of lateral transfer.     

Individuals and Leadership in an Australian Secondary Science Department: A Qualitative Study

In this article, we consider the complex and dynamic inter-relationships between individual science teachers, the social space of their work and their dispositions towards teacher leadership. Research into the representation of school science departments through individual science teachers is scarce. We explore the representations of four individual teachers to the assertions of teacher leadership proposed by Silva et al. (Teach Coll Rec, 102(4):779–804, 2000). These representations, expressed during regular science department meetings, occur in the social space of Bourdieu’s “field” and are a reflection of the “game” of science education being played within the department. This departmentally centred space suggests an important implication when considering the relationship between subject departments and their schools. The development of an individual’s representation of teacher leadership and the wider “field” of science education appears to shape the individual towards promoting their own sense of identity as a teacher of science, rather than as a teacher within a school. Our work suggests that for these individuals, the important “game” is science education, not school improvement. Consequently, the subject department may be a missing link between efforts to improve schools and current organizational practices.     

Social development of 21st century and reform of China’s elementary education

The Chinese society of the 21^st century is at a critical period of transformation. The emergence of globalization and informationalization are the most striking changes of the current Chinese society. The profound change in the social transformation and its penetrating influence on people’s lives has revealed the disadvantages of the present education. For 10 years, the “New Elementary Education”, based on the background of Chinese society, and the demand for school education reform clearly puts forward the necessity of education reform in the period of social transformation, in other words, education should achieve its transformational development. This paper presents a deep research of globalization and informationalization, which are the background of Chinese social transformation. On this basis, the paper examines the implication of ‘school transformational reform” of the present-day Chinese elementary education, and finally proposes some steps for achieving “school transformational reform”. __________ Translated from Journal of the Chinese Society of Education, 2005 (1) It is very grateful for Bao Tongmei and Chen Jiagang who translated this article from Chinese into English.     

Television and education: A review of research

Summary The existing research on television of interest to educators was analyzed and found to be grouped into four general categories: (a) studies of the general social effects of television, (b) content analyses, (c) studies of the educational effects of television, and (d) technical studies. Studies in each of these four categories were reviewed and generalizations drawn from them. No attempt was made to review related research that is, no doubt, applicable to the problems of television. For example, the vast amount of research information developed in the audio-visual field during the past 30 years was not touched. Future investigators will find that the existing television research and the existing audio-visual research provide only a sketch map of the field of audio-visual communication. To use these important instruments wisely, and this is particularly true of television, it is necessary that we know and understand much more. This is the challenge for future research. To the knowledge of the editor, this is the first comprebensive review of educational television research to be published. The organizing of the research into four categories—general social effects, content analyses, educational effects, and technical problems—the rather detailed reviewing of the results, and the drawing of general conclusions should greatly aid the educator in understanding the unique contributions of educational television. An attempt will be made in future issues of Audio-Visual Communication Review to supplement this review of research by regularly publishing, in “Research Abstracts,” reviews of the most recent television studies. Dr. James D. Finn is Associate Professor of Education and Chairman of the Audio-Visual Education Department, University of Southern California. This paper was originally prepared at the request of the California State Department of Education for inclusion in theBrochure of Background Materials: Educational Television for the Governor’s Conference on Educational Television, held in Sacramento, California, December 15–16, 1952. It was necessary to develop the material in a very short time, and the writer wishes to express his indebtedness to F. Dean McClusky and May V. Seagoe of the University of California, Los Angeles, and to Lester F. Beck and Nicholas Rose, his colleagues at the University of Southern California, as well as to several of his graduate students for helping in locating copies of the studies reviewed.     

Change in teacher education: How holmes was hijacked

Summary A movement among universities noted for research and for rigorous scholarship that would have insured a significantly improved education for prospective teachers was transformed in a short time, about ten years, into another agency of centrally inspired “school refrom,” The Holmes Group’s initial program called for prospective teachers to undergo five years of general education and teacher education, devoting the undergraduate years largely to arts and sciences. It also called for a closer collaboration between teacher educators and arts and science faculty in order to prepare preservice teachers to teach more rigorous pedagogically organized subject matter. Included in the early Holmes agenda was the concept of a professional development school as a public school site for pedagogical application, under the direction of veteran teacher cadres. However, as a consequence of an increasingly liberal academic ideology, informing a persistent criticism of Holmes’s original proposals as elitist and insufficiently activist, the Holmes group came in a short time to underplay its call for a five-year program, to back off from a closer collaboration between teacher educators and arts and sciences faculty, and to transform its concept of an affiliated public school from a site for pre-service pedagogical classroom practice into an exemplary school-to-be. Some hope may remain: the Holmes staff recently distributed the “Conference Proceedings” of the January 1998 annual convention held in Orlando. On page 42 of those proceedings, Arthur Wise, the peripatetic head of NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education—now a Holmes “partner” at the national level) found Holmes neglectful of an appropriate concern for arts and sciences education for prospective teachers. Wise was a “ranconteur” in Orlando; as such he was expected to provide a “reflective response” to the conference. He said, apologetically, I might offer my one sound of criticism ... I just worry when I see that ... we may be paying too much attention to the external aspects of school and maybe not enough to the guts of the matter which is, after all, content and how to teach it.     

What kind of modern school system do we need?

The marketization of education cannot serve as the guiding principle in constructing the modern school system, nor can it be directly transplanted from modern enterprise system. Because the modern school system is a kind of “educational institution” rather than an “economical institution”, what it should focus on is not the ownership of property or the distinction of property, but on the core educational issue, that is, the students’ development. Such a kind of modern school system requires that the government delegates power to schools to realize academic autonomy in schools (selfgovernance). Translated from Jiaoyu Yanjiu 教育研究 (Educational Research), 2004, (12): 32–38     

A Quality Math Curriculum in Support of Effective Teaching For Elementary Schools

This paper presents a curriculum, textbook and test result analysis for the new (to California) elementary school “Key Standard” mathematics curriculum, transplanted in 1998 from it's foreign roots in Asia and Europe, locations with far different cultural and economic backgrounds. Based on topic analysis methods developed by Michigan State University, this curriculum is a “quality” curriculum, since it is closely aligned with the curriculum of the six leading TIMSS math countries. Five-year test results are presented for two cohorts totaling over 13,000 students, all from four “early adoption” urban districts where 68% of the students were economically disadvantaged. Included are two cohorts of English learning immigrants totaling over 4,400 students. Performance was found to be statistically superior to similar (control) districts which continued with the old 1991 curriculum and textbooks (0.003 < p < 0.015). The focus of this paper is on the transition from far-below to above average learning performance of these students over the 1998–2002 period.     

教育实验研究方法的再认识

The scientificalization of educational research methods was always the most predominant in the two tides of educational experiment in China in the twentieth century, the result of which was unexpectedly dissatisfactory, because researchers misunderstood the connotation of scientificalization in such a degree that resulted in the worship for methods and thought of replacement. If researchers reflect dialectically on the classic codes of experiment, and aim at reconstructing the viewpoint of experiment in education in the dimensions of ideas and pattern, they would guide the research on education by an “ideal type”, decently intervene the “logic of practice” with the “logic of theory”, so that the theorists and practitioners in education can finally coexist and co-develop.      

深刻反省我国教育的"重点制"

Since the 1980s, “key school system” (KSS) in basic education has contributed to teaching quality and the development of some schools. However, at the same time it brings about many serious problems such as failure to attain educational objective, being away from the goal of education equity, arising students’ mental or emotional problems, lack of moral education, vicious competition among schools and so on. It can be said that the present educational problems are tied closely to “KSS”. As a result, this paper attempts to do a deep reflection on it to promote the education reform of China. Translated from Jiaoyu Xuebao 教育学报 (Journal of Education Studies), 2006, 2(2): 36–42     

“New Basic Education” and me

Initiated in September 1994, “New Basic Education” first underwent a five-year Exploratory Research phase from September 1994 to May 1999, which was followed by a second five-year Developmental Research phase from September 1999 to May 2004. Thus during the past ten years, “New Basic Education” has undergone a complete research process, including the presentation of the problem, the formation of results, and finally the dissemination, application, perfection, and development of its research. This study has preliminarily explored the transformation of schools, educational theories and educational research methods in China. The author hopes to respond actively to educational changes caused by our transforming society through her professional research. She presents in this paper the retrospective notes of her subjective state, such as her thought process, planning, actions and experiences while conducting and developing “New Basic Education” research. “New Basic Education” research originated from ten years of theoretical preparation (amassing basic educational theory, the methodology for educational research, and meta-research of educational disciplines), as well as from the author’s personal experiences conducting field research during the past three years and her profound reflections on the nature of the social transformations taking place in late 20^th century China. During the Exploratory Research phase, “New Basic Education” research—which consists of reconstructive research on educational theory and practice—regards the rebuilding of educational aims as its theoretical starting point. Additionally, “New Basic Education” research regards schools, which provide nine-year compulsory education as the entire unit of practical research. The research also focused on classroom education, teaching reform, and school management for the experimentation and reform of the schools. As for the core issue of methodology, the crux of the issue lies in how to deal with the relations between theoretical research and practical research and the relationship between theoretical researchers and practical researchers.     

Public education matters: Reclaiming public education for the common good in a global era

This article argues that public education needs to be reclaimed to fulfill its role as a “democratising force” to address social and economic inequality and to respect and recognise diversity and difference. By analysing historical developments in federal policy, funding and economic contexts a case is developed to demonstrate that the role of the state has been dismantled and the public nature of education has been reduced. The factors responsible are articulated and discussed with particular reference to the impact of neo-liberal policy, the “marketisation” of education and new public management. Measures such as those taken by Education Queensland that support the development of school leaders and teachers to engage in research, development and critical debate are supported. International examples of how systems have revitalised and supported the public nature of education are discussed. These include more intelligent accountability systems that respect the professionalism of teachers and collaborative curriculum development strategies that engage with all, including those who are least powerful such as the students.     

Do comprehensive school teachers perceive themselves as active professional agents in school reforms?

This article focuses on exploring comprehensive school teachers’ professional agency in the context of the most recent school reforms in Finland (i.e., developing undivided basic education). In this article, the emphasis is on analyzing the premises on which teachers view themselves and their work in terms of developing their own school, catalyzed by the national school reform. Teachers’ perceptions and the relation between their perceptions of the development work and their educational backgrounds were empirically examined by means of essays entitled “Remembering the Future.” Results suggested that both teachers’ perceptions of undivided basic education and their perceptions of themselves in the development process varied considerably. Further investigation showed that teachers’ perceptions of the reform and of themselves within the reforms were interrelated. More specifically, perceiving oneself as an active subject in the development work seemed to promote a holistic and functional perception of the object of the development. On the basis of the results, it seems that as highly educated professionals, teachers were very capable of identifying and analyzing what should be changed in schools and/or the school districts. However, a challenge for the teachers’ active professional agency in educational reforms seems to be the lack of shared and informed assumptions of how change can be brought about.     

Information Access: A Project to Promote Interlibrary Information

Conclusion Library media specialists, teachers, students, university librarians, public librarians, and administrators have worked together resulting in the establishment of an information network linking major centers of information in the Cache Valley. Middle school and high school students can now access a much broader collection of current periodicals and reference materials. University library patrons and staff have access to curriculum materials for use in teacher education programs, children’s literature materials, and educational research. Public library patrons and staff have access to specialized periodicals and curriculum materials. The project has demonstrated that it is possible to “work together ” to build an information environment that benefits the entire community     

Programa de fortalecimiento de capacidades: reflections on a case study of community-based teacher education set in rural northern Peru

This article explores distinctive features of a 5-year international education development project set in rural northern Peru (PROMEB, the Proyecto de Mejoramiento de la Educación Básica). Grounded within a partnership between teacher educators from Peru, Mexico and Canada, and rural Peruvian teachers, students and their communities, we offer reflections on a teacher education initiative which sought to support action-orientated inquiries as a mechanism for school/community development. Set against a background of poverty, hunger, isolation and an “educational crisis”, we outline our pedagogy and describe two projects. We then reflect on the influences of our engagements and on associated tensions and ambiguities in our methods. We hope that such discussions might offer insights for others involved in international school/community development projects of this type.     

Teaching critical thinking skills in a Hong Kong secondary school

Hong Kong education has always been regarded as examination-oriented and students were taught only to memorize and not to think. This paper gives an account of a school project in teaching critical thinking in the junior classes of a secondary school. This project is a collaboration between lecturers in teacher education and teachers working in the frontline. As a first attempt, the topic “fact and opinion” was chosen. In this paper, both the teaching approach and the teaching materials used are presented. Teachers ’ feedback was obtained through informal sharing of information and student ’s evaluation were obtained through a simple student survey. Through this process, a number of problems and insights related to this issue were revealed. This experience had implications for ways in which critical thinking in a cultural context like Hong Kong where memorization of facts is the norm can be developed and promoted.     

Interactive technology: Can children construct their own technological design briefs?

This paper presents a study of the design questions that children ask as they work technologically in school. Thirty-nine school aged children's technological work on “cubby building” is mapped and discussed. Data sources included video recording, worksamples, photographs with annotations of work in progress and when completed, and ethnographic field notes. The findings support the view that children's design questions and briefs arise at various points throughout the lesson sequence, demonstrating the iterative nature of design, make and appraise within and across lessons. The formulation of design questions evolved as children interacted, negotiated, played and worked in technological ways. For young children, playing with the “product” or “process” was an important part of working technologically. For the older children, the possession of technological skills for joining materials to achieve the desired outcome was a key factor.