Developing a networked VRML learning system for health science education in Taiwan

This study discusses applying virtual reality (VR) and Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) to promote health science education in Taiwan. It first describes the needs of health science education in Taiwan, and the advantages of using computer technology in health science teaching and learning. A networked desktop VR-based system and courseware entitled “Travelling with Our Food” were developed for health science learning. The design of the course, the development of the system (platform and software), and expert-based and user-based evaluations are reported. Evaluation results, research issues, and possible future work are also discussed.     

Contra Aquam Remigare*: Reimagining Humanistic Paideia Through Comparative-Historical Analysis of Education

This article attempts a reading of Andreas M. Kazamias’s work and method as a persistent and firmly grounded attempt to “go against the tide” of an empirical/instrumentalist comparative education and toward a “modernist episteme.” Kazamias has been explicitly critical of the social-scientific-cum-positivist comparative education, while at the same time acknowledging the limitations of the traditional historical-philosophical-humanistic approach. His “revisionist” comparative-historical analysis seeks to combine history with social science toward an “anthropocentric” comparative education, “concerned with the great problems—political, social but also ethical—which ‘mankind’ faces.” Consistent with his rejection of instrumental/“techno-scientific” approaches to comparative education, Kazamias argues for a promethean humanistic education (i.e., paideia, liberal education, culture générale, bildung) cultivating the soul and the mind, aiming at both the Platonic/Socratic psyche and the Aristotelian phronesis.     

Status Quo and Outlook of the Studies of Entrepreneurship Education in China: Statistics and Analysis Based on Papers Indexed in CSSCI (2004–2013)

Abstract

We utilized cross tabulation statistics, word frequency counts, and content analysis of research output to conduct a bibliometric study, and used CiteSpace software to depict a knowledge map for research on entrepreneurship education in China from 2004 to 2013. The study shows that, in this duration, the study of Chinese entrepreneurship education experienced a progression through three stages, an “exploratory stage of learning from foreign models,” a “developmental stage geared toward employment problems,” and a “transformative stage promoting cultivation of student abilities,” and featured three primary characteristics, “multidisciplinary fusion,” “imbalanced regional distribution,” and “policy orientation.” In the future, popular fields in the study of entrepreneurship education are to be concentrated in the three areas, namely “entrepreneurship education and talent cultivation,” “entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial environments,” and “entrepreneurship education and innovation education.”     

Model construction as a learning activity: a design space and review

Modeling is becoming increasingly important both as a way to learn science and mathematics, and as a useful cognitive skill. Although many learning activities qualify as “modeling”, this article focuses on activities where (1) students construct a model rather than explore a given model, (2) the model is expressed in a formal language rather than drawings, physical objects or natural language texts and (3) the model's predictions are generated by executing it on a computer. Most research on such learning activities has focused on getting students to successfully construct models, which they find very difficult to do. In the hope that new research can find ways to remove this bottleneck, this article attempts to list all the major ideas that have appeared in the literature and might be useful to those developing new learning activities involving model construction. The ideas are organized into a design space with five dimensions: (1) modeling language types, (2) ways for describing the systems that students should model, (3) instructional objectives and their corresponding assessments, (4) common student difficulties and (5) types of scaffolding.     

An outsider's perspective on a provocative proposal: What would Flexner think?

This viewpoint commentary focuses on a proposal for integrated anatomy education in undergraduate college from Dr. Darda published in the Anatomical Sciences Education. Although the proposal is for college level education, the proposal echoes some ideas proposed a century ago by Abraham Flexner when he wrote his report titled “Medical Education in the United States and Canada.” It begins with an acknowledgement of the author's status as an outsider. There have been numerous calls for change in basic science education, particularly in medical education. Interestingly, however, the monumental reforms of the “Flexner Report” were impelled largely from outside the specific discipline of medical education. The commentary discussion then moves to observations about the proposal for Integrative Anatomy and support for the proposal from both the Flexner Report and the 2009 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians.” The essay considers the benefits of the research on the learning sciences that now inform our work in education; the influence of competency‐based education that frees education from a lock‐step approach of course completion to a student‐focused integrative approach to learning; and the availability of online resources for anatomy education through repositories, such as MedEdPORTAL. The final observation is that the changes underway in education and in the sciences basic to medicine, in particular, are substantial and will require the dialogue that Dr. Darda is promoting with his provocative proposal. Anat Sci Educ 3: 101–102, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.     

Mapping inequality in access to meaningful learning in secondary education in Ethiopia: implications for sustainable development

ABSTRACT

The rapid expansion of primary education in Ethiopia has enabled most children to attend primary education—or at least to start schooling. This expansion, however, is largely “symbolic” rather than “substantive” where “substantive” refers to access that generates meaningful learning. The article explores spatial inequality in access to meaningful learning in secondary education in Ethiopia with a particular focus on the Amhara region, and addresses the question: Is substantive learning equitably distributed? To operationalise this question, “access-to-learning” is conceptualised using a new method of constructing a learning-oriented measure of educational quality that combines grade survival (access) and test score (quality). Moreover, the “zones of exclusion” framework has been used to see the systematic loss of students from the education system at different points in time. Using GIS tools, the extent of spatial inequality in access-to-learning was determined by mapping the proportion of students who achieved the required level of performance, and geographical variation in the distribution of inequality factors. The paper concludes with implications for educational policy and planning and recommendations for further research.     

“Beyond Bali”: a transformative education approach for developing community resilience to violent extremism

The Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005 confronted Australia and its neighbours directly for the first time with the dangers of violent extremism. Since then, the Bali Peace Park Association (BPPA), consisting of former victims, their families and other interested parties, has been lobbying for the creation of the “Bali Peace Park” to be built on one of the bombing sites. Peace parks have been conceived as community-driven projects against violent extremism, and the planned Bali Peace Park embodies this principle. In 2012, the BPPA initiated “Beyond Bali”, an ambitious and highly relevant curriculum development project, and secured funding from the Australian Attorney General’s Department. Drawing on the expertise of a counter-terrorism expert, two university education experts and the first-hand experiences of victims and their families, the Beyond Bali curriculum package was created. Beyond Bali covers a range of topics and activities, including social science studies and ethical dilemma learning, is suitable for Years 8 and 9 students studying the Australian Curriculum, and is available for free from the BPPA: http://www.balipeacepark.com.au/beyond-bali-education-package.html. In this paper we position Beyond Bali as a transformative education resource within the fields of peace and global education and argue that it embodies UNESCO’s “learning to be” principle.     

Science teacher identity and eco-transformation of science education: comparing Western modernism with Confucianism and reflexive <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bildung</Emphasis>

This forum article contributes to the understanding of how science teachers’ identity is related to their worldviews, cultural values and educational philosophies, and to eco-transformation of science education. Special focus is put on ‘reform-minded’ science teachers. The starting point is the paper Science education reform in Confucian learning cultures: teachers’ perspectives on policy and practice in Taiwan by Ying-Syuan Huang and Anila Asghar. It highlights several factors that can explain the difficulties of implementing “new pedagogy” in science education. One important factor is Confucian values and traditions, which seem to both hinder and support the science teachers’ implementation of inquiry-based and learner-centered approaches. In this article Confucianism is compared with other learning cultures and also discussed in relation to different worldviews and educational philosophies in science education. Just like for the central/north European educational tradition called Bildung, there are various interpretations of Confucianism. However, both have subcultures (e.g. reflexive Bildung and Neo-Confucianism) with similarities that are highlighted in this article. If an “old pedagogy” in science education is related to essentialism, rationalist-objectivist focus, and a hierarchical configuration, the so called “new pedagogy” is often related to progressivism, modernism, utilitarianism, and a professional configuration. Reflexive Bildung problematizes the values associated with such a “new pedagogy” and can be described with labels such as post-positivism, reconstructionism and problematizing/critical configurations. Different educational approaches in science education, and corresponding eco-identities, are commented on in relation to transformation of educational practice.     

Knowledge engineering: An alternative approach to curriculum design for science education at a distance

Most of the curriculum design models within the technical-scientific approach utilise the rational and sequential process of designing and inter-relating the various elements of the design process. While this procedure may be efficient and adequate for conventional education in which the designers are professional science educators, there is doubt if it satisfies the particular needs of distance education. The experience accumulated through a multi-disciplinary team approach to distance learning courseware development for higher education at the University of Southern Queensland Distance Education Centre motivated this study which primarily focused on a search for an alternative approach to curriculum development with a more satisfactory functional value. Using selected units in Engineering as a focus, an experiment was designed in which a variant of the classical Wheeler model was used. This paper reports the results of this experiment. The implications for contemporary curriculum development initiatives in science especially within distance education settings are pointed out. Specializations: science education, learning strategies, curriculum development, instructional design, research and development in distance education. Specializations: Cognitive Science, curriculum development, instructional design, expert systems, research and development in distance education. Specializations: science education, learning strategies, curriculum development, instructional design, research and development in distance education.     

The place of qualitative research in science education

This article develops a way to conceptualize the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative research in science education. The differing sets of metaphysical presuppositions that give rise to the two approaches are systematically examined by using Stephen Pepper's “world hypotheses”: it is argued and demonstrated that quantitative research is formist/ mechanist in its metaphysical preoccupation, while qualitative research is contextualist/organicist. The vehicle for demonstrating how these metaphysical systems actually influence science education research is Stephen Toulmin's “argument pattern.” It is demonstrated through analysis of examples that quantitative and qualitatitive research reports follow the same pattern of argument, even though the metaphysical roots behind the approaches, which control their differing methodologies and other features, are obviously different. Given the emergence of qualitative research styles, implications are explored for the development of science education research as a total enterprise. Special attention is paid to the problems of appraising the quality of qualitative research reports and to the need for a comprehensive view of what constitutes legitimate research in science education.     

Postgraduate Research: Some Changing Personal Constructs in Higher Education

This paper discusses how computer programs, such as FOCUS and SOCIOGRIDS, can aid students and staff in learning about their own formerly tacit perceptions of research effectiveness. The programs are designed to elicit and analyse one's own construct system and theory of, for example, learning, teaching, or research. The computer printout can be used to facilitate “learning conversations” either with oneself or with others. A greater awareness and understanding of one's own theory and that of expert others can lead to improved learning, teaching or research.

Kelly's (1955) theory of personal constructs and its repertory grid technology made it possible for the present study to demonstrate and measure both how the construing of a group of continuing postgraduate students changed over the three‐months period of their professional preparation as researchers and how it differed from that of four experienced staff researchers. This study shows how computers can help promote greater personal control over the construction and negotiation of meaning in higher education.     

Early Childhood Educators' Perceptions of Nature,Science, and Environmental Education

This study examined early childhood educators' perceptions about nature, science, and environmental education. Preservice early childhood teachers (n = 195) and early childhood professionals currently practicing in the field (n = 162) rated the importance of providing specific nature/science experiences for young children, the importance of specific nature/science learning outcomes, and their confidence implementing specific activities. Research Findings: Consistent with our hypotheses, both professionals and students rated the curricular domain of nature/science as the least important for young children in terms of experiences and learning outcomes in comparison to other curricular domains. Similarly, both professionals and students reported that they were least confident implementing nature/science activities compared to activities in other curricular domains. Qualitative analysis of open-ended questions yielded themes related to definitions of nature, specific activities in and about nature that can promote children's learning and development, and what educators need to know and be able to do in order to be effective “nature educators.” Practice or Policy: Preservice and in-service teacher professional development would benefit from (a) the inclusion of content on nature, science, and environmental education, including the interrelatedness of human and natural systems; (b) a focus on place-based education and/or emergent curriculum; and (c) the provision of experiences in nature that help teachers to develop confidence implementing activities in nature. [Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Early Education & Development for the following free supplemental resource: Appendix A: Teacher Survey Questions.]     

Resource Reviews

Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age Carl Bereiter Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002 ISBN 0 8058 3943 7 The expression “Iapos;m losing my mind” holds new meaning for me, or at least is now a declaration that I will use less frivolously when overwhelmed by daily life. Carl Berieter's book, Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age, conceives of the mind in an illuminating way; something new for most readers. Bereiter disputes the “folk theory of mind” as termed in his book, the common comprehension of the “mind as a container”. This metaphor, as he explains, in extreme depth and with numerous detailed examples, is the basic tenet upon which many current educational systems establish daily policies and procedures. The idea of the “mind as a container” informs and influences most aspects of education ranging from curriculum development to standardized testing, preservice teacher education and professional development. Most of our routine teaching and subsequent student representation of learning begins and ends with the process of filling up the container. However, this “folk theory of mind”, or common understanding of how the mind works, does not allow us to consider the brain, the mind and knowledge as distinct, but interconnected entities. We often see them as one single object or phenomenon Bereiter suggests that we need to disentangle our understanding of knowledge and the mind in order to understand the mind in a fresh way (p. 55). The theory of the “mind as a container” prevents us from viewing the mind, knowledge and consequently education, differently. This commonly accepted perception dooms us to recreate, chronically, our current, mostly static educational practice. Our view of teaching and learning, then, remains the vision of pouring knowledge into little brains, assisting students in filing each new piece of information in certain location to be accessed and used at a later date. Bereiter asserts that a second common perception of the brain “as a computer” reflects a similar fixed interpretation of human understanding and learning as the “mind as a container” theory. With these “folk theories” of understanding in place, when problems arise in teaching and learning, we do not consider the theory behind it. Instead, we question the student's abilities, our presentation of the material intended to be put into the container or the computational expectations of the computer-like brain.     

Science Learning in Special Education: The Case for Constructed Versus Instructed Learning

Throughout the history of education, debate has existed between the relative merits of instructed versus constructed knowledge. In this article, we review our program of research in science education for students with disabilities in order to reveal some insights into this debate. We review research in science curriculum, mnemonic strategies, text-processing strategies, hands-on approaches, coached elaborations, “discovery” learning, correlates of effective inclusive science classrooms, and class-wide peer tutoring with differentiated curriculum enhancements. Overall, both instructed and constructed knowledge are important and can be facilitated with appropriate instructional strategies. Implications for practice and future research are provided.     

The Role of Intuitive Rules in Science and Mathematics Education

During the last two decades many researchers in mathematics and science education have studied students’ conceptions and ways of reasoning in mathematics and science. Most of this research is content‐specific. It was found that students hold alternative ideas that are not always compatible with those accepted in science. It was suggested that in the process of learning science or mathematics, students should restructure their specific conceptions to make them conform to currently accepted scientific ideas. In our work in mathematics and science education it became apparent that some of the alternative conceptions in science and mathematics are based on the same intuitive rules. We have so far identified two such rules: “More of A, more of B”, and “Subdivision processes can always be repeated”. The first rule is reflected in subjects’ responses to many tasks, including all classical Piagetian conservation tasks (conservation of number, area, weight, volume, matter, etc.) in all tasks related to intensive quantities (density, temperature, concentration, etc.) and in all tasks related to infinite quantities. The second rule is observed in students’, preservice and inservice teachers’ responses to tasks related to successive division of material and geometrical objects and in seriation tasks. In this paper, we describe and discuss these rules and their relevance to science and mathematics education.     

The Application of Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms to an Educational Computational Model of Science Information Processing: a Computational Experiment in Science Education

Conflicting explanations and unrelated information in science classrooms increase cognitive load and decrease efficiency in learning. This reduced efficiency ultimately limits one’s ability to solve reasoning problems in the science. In reasoning, it is the ability of students to sift through and identify critical pieces of information that is of paramount importance in science and learning. Unfortunately, the ability to accomplish the identification of critical ideas is not one that develops without practice and assistance form teachers or tutors in the classroom. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the application of an evolutionary algorithm works within a cognitive computational model to solve problems in the science classroom and simulate human reasoning for research purposes. The research question is: does the combination of optimization algorithms and cognitive computational algorithms successfully mimic biological teaching and learning systems in the science classroom? Within this computational study, the author outlines and simulates the effects of teaching and learning on the ability of a “virtual” student to solve a science task. Using the STAC-M computational model the author completes a computational experiment that examines the role of cognitive retraining on student learning. The author also discusses the important limitations of this powerful new tool.     

Science and Technology Education in the STES Context in Primary Schools: What Should It Take?

Striving for sustainability requires a paradigm shift in conceptualization, thinking, research and education, particularly concerning the science-technology-environment-society (STES) interfaces. Consequently, ‘STES literacy’ requires the development of students’ question asking, critical, evaluative system thinking, decision making and problem solving capabilities, in this context, via innovative implementable higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS)-promoting teaching, assessment and learning strategies. The corresponding paradigms shift in science and technology education, such as from algorithmic teaching to HOCS-promoting learning is unavoidable, since it reflects the social pressure, worldwide, towards more accountable socially- and environmentally-responsible sustainable development. Since most of the STES- and, recently STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics)-related research in science education has been focused on secondary and tertiary education, it is vital to demonstrate the relevance of this multifaceted research to the science and technology teaching in primary schools. Our longitudinal STES education-related research and curriculum development point to the very little contribution, if any, of the traditional science teaching to “know”, to the development of students’ HOCS capabilities. On the other hand, there appears to be a ‘general agreement’, that the contemporary dominant lower-order cognitive skills (LOCS) teaching and assessment strategies applied in science and technology education are, in fact, restraining the natural curiosity and creativity of primary school (and younger?) pupils/children. Since creative thinking as well as evaluative system thinking, decision making, problem solving and … transfer constitute an integral part of the HOCS conceptual framework, the appropriateness of “HOCS promoting” teaching, and the relevance of science and technology, to elementary education in the STES context, is apparent. Therefore, our overriding guiding purpose was to provide any evidence-based research to the vital LOCS-to-HOCS paradigm shift in STES education. The findings of, and conclusions derived from our longitudinal research on HOCS development within STES-oriented and traditional education, suggest that both—science and technology education (STE) and STES education—are relevant to primary school education. Based on this, what it should take to insure success in this context, is thoroughly discussed.     

Social constructivism: Infusion into the multicultural science education research agenda

This article focuses on (a) theoretical underpinnings of social constructivism and multicultural education and (b) aspects of social constructivism that can provide frameworks for research in multicultural science education. According to the author, multicultural science education is “a field of inquiry with constructs, methodologies, and processes aimed at providing equitable opportunities for all students to learn quality science.” Multicultural science education research continues to be influenced by class, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, and different lifestyles; however, another appropriate epistemology for this area of research is social constructivism. The essence of social constructivism and its implications for multicultural science education research includes an understanding of whatever realities might be constructed by individuals from various cultural groups and how these realities can be reconstituted, if necessary, to include a scientific reality. Hence, multicultural science education should be a field of study in which many science education researchers are generating new knowledge. The author strives to persuade other researchers to expand their research and teaching efforts into multicultural science education, a blending of social constructivism with multicultural science education. This blending is illustrated in the final section of this article. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

“ Suggestive Books”: the Role of the Writings of Mary Somerville in Science and Gender History

In 1874 the eminent Scottish scientist, James Clerk Maxwell, said of Mary Somerville's On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences that it was one of those “suggestive books” which communicate intelligibly the “guiding ideas” already in the minds of “men of science” and so lead the latter to further discoveries. ^{1 1} Elizabeth Patterson, “ Mary Somerville”, British Journal for the History of Science, IV (1968/1969), p. 322. Mary Somerville's three main publications, all of them updated and reedited a number of times, had a significant impact upon the scientific world of Britain in the nineteenth century. She was seen and, indeed, saw herself, as an expert expositor of science rather than a scientist in her own right. Unusually for a woman, however, she wrote for adults ‐ students and practitioners of science ‐ not children. This paper will explore how influential her scientific writings were in the nineteenth‐century, how and why they came to be written,for whom they were intended and what were the reactions to their publication. This case study will be used as an exemplar of how far, as authors of influential books, women could find a niche in science education or the academic world, or even within the changing cultural construct of “science” itself.