A Review of: “Learning to Labor in New Times”

This article explores the limits of introductory social justice education and the ways in which a social foundations course could expand and deepen the social justice lens of current and future educators. The authors, members of an introductory graduate-level Social Foundations course, discuss the limitations they realized in their previous social justice education courses, and the importance of courses that further student's understandings of the ever-evolving ways people enact and experience identity, power, and privilege. The authors identify three main pedagogical and theoretical elements that advanced their social justice knowledge: examining theories for their potential to uncover or obscure lived experience; unpacking binary constructions of identity; and exploring the limits and possibilities of intersectional thinking. This article offers implications and suggestions for educators who seek to challenge and expand the social justice knowledge of future educators and administrators.     

A Review of “Interreligious Learning”

This article considers Religious Education (RE) from the perspective of socialization theory. After clarifying the concept of socialization, an understanding of socialization processes, requiring the simultaneous development of both a personal and a social identity, is linked with RE. The development of both a personal and a social identity calls for hermeneutic and critical reflective skills, which may be acquired in RE classes. Therefore, RE is an important means of socializing children and youths that may have great civic value and has a rightful place in the school curriculum. The article concludes with the argument that schools with an open religious identity are best suited to provide the type of RE advocated here.     

The Importance of Informal Learning in EFL

除了课堂上的正规学习,在日常生活中老师应如何抓住时机丰富学生的英语知识呢?您不妨一试以下作者的建议。     

Students’ Learning Processes during School-Based Learning and Workplace Learning in Vocational Education: A Review

Learning in vocational schools and workplaces are the two main components of vocational education. Students have to develop professional competences by building meaningful relations between knowledge, skills and attitudes. There are, however, some major concerns about the combination of learning in these two learning environments, since vocational schools are primarily based on the rationales of learning and theory, while workplaces are based on the rationales of working and practice. This study therefore aims to structure empirical insights into students’ learning processes during the combination of school-based learning and workplace learning in vocational education. A review-study has been conducted in which ultimately 24 articles were analyzed thoroughly. The review shows that students’ learning processes in vocational schools and workplaces are related to six main themes: students’ expertise development, students’ learning styles, students’ integration of knowledge acquired in school and workplace, processes of knowledge development, students’ motivations for learning and students’ professional identity development. Our results show that students are novices who use specific and different learning styles and learning activities in vocational schools and workplaces. It is concluded that the enhancement of students’ learning processes needs to be adaptive and differentiated in nature. Recommendations for further research are elaborated and suggestions for the enhancement of students’ learning processes are discussed using insights from hybrid learning environments and boundary crossing via boundary objects.     

A Review of “Constructing Identities in Online Communities of Practice: A Case Study of Online Learning”

ABSTRACT

This study addresses the issue of educational inadequacy and inequity for disadvantaged minority students. It estimates desired national standards and examines interrelated gaps in key school–teacher resources and mathematics achievement by linking national education data sets (National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP], Common Core of Data, and Schools and Staffing Survey). Although poor minority students’ chances to meet the national mathematics proficiency standard are undermined by the lack of their access to qualified teachers and adequate school funding, it turns out that the adequacy-based (absolute) gaps are much larger than the equity-based (relative) gaps. Meeting the NAEP Grade 8 mathematics proficiency standard requires substantial increases in per-pupil education spending (from $6,493 to $7,197 in year 2000 dollars) and in-field mathematics teaching rate (from 49% to 91%) across the nation. Research and policy implications are discussed.     

Analysis of STEM Activities in Primary Students’ Science Projects in an Informal Learning Environment

This study adopted a researcher-generated framework to analyze STEM activities demonstrated in primary students’ science projects in an annual extracurricular event held in Hong Kong. Ten students’ project reports were randomly selected from each of the three groups of 24 outstanding, 45 merit, and 68 consolation awarded projects. Content analysis was conducted to code the activities in each project. The coded information was then changed into numerical data for quantitative analysis. The results showed that, in general, more engineering and science activities than technology and mathematics activities were adopted by the primary students in their projects. More projects with the Outstanding Award conducted STEM activities than those projects with Merit and Consolation Awards, and significant group differences existed in the science and mathematics activities. Besides, science activities significantly positively related to engineering and mathematics activities. Furthermore, STEM-related content knowledge of discipline core ideas and crosscutting concepts were reported. This study sheds light on the pattern of STEM activities in students’ science projects, and has implications for promoting STEM integration in primary education.     

A Review of: “Jewish Lives,Jewish Learning: Adult Jewish Learning in Theory and Practice by Diane Tickton Schuster (UAHC Press, 2003)”

This articles explores how a group of women in the Former Soviet Union grapple with questions of Jewish identity and Jewish “authenticity” as they participate in adult Jewish learning program that employs methods of feminist pedagogy and transformative learning. The study reflects on areas of dissonance between the transformational learning process and the tenacity of the women's world assumptions that are shaped by background, history, and worldview. While the learning process seems to be prompting these women to seriously and critically reflect on and reframe their self-understanding as learners and as Jews, their limited content-knowledge combined with a tentative sense of personal authority about Jewish life seems to impede their ability to harmonize their learning with a clear sense of what constitutes authentic practice of Judaism.