类比法促进有效学习探析——以《物理化学》教学为例

《物理化学》是一门理论性、逻辑性极为突出的学科,其中的概念、公式、推理方法等知识具有很强的抽象性。运用类比思维的方法,可以帮助学生更容易、更有效地理解这些抽象知识。正确运用类比方法要注意尽量选用学生熟悉的类比源,并指导学生进行科学的类比,防止类比的负迁移发生。     

Coordinating principles and examples through analogy and self-explanation

Research on expertise suggests that a critical aspect of expert understanding is knowledge of the relations between domain principles and problem features. We investigated two instructional pathways hypothesized to facilitate students’ learning of these relations when studying worked examples. The first path is through self-explaining how worked examples instantiate domain principles and the second is through analogical comparison of worked examples. We compared both of these pathways to a third instructional path where students read worked examples and solved practice problems. Students in an introductory physics class were randomly assigned to one of three worked example conditions (reading, self-explanation, or analogy) when learning about rotational kinematics and then completed a set of problem solving and conceptual tests that measured near, intermediate, and far transfer. Students in the reading and self-explanation groups performed better than the analogy group on near transfer problems solved during the learning activities. However, this problem solving advantage was short lived as all three groups performed similarly on two intermediate transfer problems given at test. On the far transfer test, the self-explanation and analogy groups performed better than the reading group. These results are consistent with the idea that self-explanation and analogical comparison can facilitate conceptual learning without decrements to problem solving skills relative to a more traditional type of instruction in a classroom setting.     

Confronting the analogy: primary teachers exploring the usefulness of analogies in the teaching and learning of electricity

Abstract

Analogies are commonly employed in teaching and learning about abstract scientific phenomena such as electricity. There has been extensive research on the effectiveness of a range of analogies in promoting conceptual understanding with respect to the behaviour of simple circuits. Such studies focus on the development of learners’ thinking with respect to the transfer of understanding from the analogy to the target concept. This study attempts to explore what happens to individuals’ learning when analogies break down in the light of practical investigation. It proposes that the honest appraisal of such breakdown can constitute an effective learning tool. The implications for teacher education and classroom practice are discussed.     

Engineers' professional learning: a practice-theory perspective

With the increasing challenges facing professional engineers working in more complex, global and interdisciplinary contexts, different approaches to understanding how engineers practice and learn are necessary. This paper draws on recent research in the social sciences from the field of workplace learning, to suggest that a practice-theory perspective on engineers' professional learning is fruitful. It shifts the focus from the attributes of the individual learner (knowledge, skills and attitudes) to the attributes of the practice (interactions, materiality, opportunities and challenges). Learning is thus more than the technical acquisition and transfer of knowledge, but a complex bundle of activities, that is, social, material, embodied and emerging. The paper is illustrated with examples from a research study of the learning of experienced engineers in the construction industry to demonstrate common practices – site walks and design review meetings – in which learning takes place.     

Evaluating the effects of analogy enriched text on the learning of science: The importance of learning indexes

Research has shown that differences in the prior knowledge of the participants and in the learning indexes adopted can explain why some studies show positive learning effects of analogy enriched text while others do not. In the present studies, these two factors were combined into one through the construction of a learning index that measured incremental positive changes in the participants' prior knowledge after reading an analogy enriched or no analogy text. A second learning index was also used to evaluate whether the participants created well-formed conceptual models after reading the science text. These learning indexes were used in two studies in which the effects of analogy enriched versus no analogy text were compared on the learning of the scientific explanations of the day/night cycle and of the seasons. The participants were 3rd and 5th graders in the first study and 6th graders and college students in the other. Although only few of the participants learned the correct scientific explanation, those who read the analogy enriched text produced more incremental positive changes in their pretest explanations at posttest and delayed test and created more well-formed conceptual models close to the scientific one than those who read the no analogy text. They also recalled more information and created fewer invalid inferences in their recalls. The results indicate that analogies can be used without reservation to facilitate the learning of science and have broader implications about how to evaluate the learning of science in general.     

Design of learning objects for concept learning: effects of multimedia learning principles and an instructional approach

Literature suggests using multimedia learning principles in the design of instructional material. However, these principles may not be sufficient for the design of learning objects for concept learning in mathematics. This paper reports on an experimental study that investigated the effects of an instructional approach, which includes two teaching techniques – (a) variation theory and (b) representations of subject matter – on the design of learning objects for secondary school algebra concept learning. The results of this study showed that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group on algebra learning achievement. The results also showed that only the experimental design with the addition of the instructional approach resulted in higher-order mathematical thinking skills and improved procedural skills of the students. Further analysis reveals that concept learning was simplified when multimedia learning principles were applied and the information was presented by the instructional approach.     

Bilingualism in Southwest Louisiana

Abstract

The utility of signal detection theory as a framework for the interpretation of concept acquisition was studied in three experiments involving preschool children. In the first two experiments, one group was taught an unfamiliar line angle concept with an example sequence containing minimally different, juxtaposed positive and negative examples and the other group was taught the same concept with a sequence of positive examples. In both experiments, preschoolers taught with the sequence containing positive and negative examples correctly identified significantly more transfer items than the positive only group. In the third experiment, one group was taught an unfamiliar line angle concept with consistent wording from example to example. The other group was taught with instructions that changed from example to example. Subjects in the consistent group identified significantly more posttraining test items but did no better during transfer testing. The results are discussed in terms of signal strength and the signal-to-noise ratio of the instructional communication.     

计算机模拟环境中的科学发现学习 --过程、条件与学习支持

如何在计算机模拟情境中嵌入有效的学习支持是当前研究者关注的一个重要问题.科学发现学习活动中有三种基本活动线索:问题表征与假设生成、实验检验、自我监控与反思概括.这种学习活动可能主要受三个内在条件的制约:意义性、系统逻辑性和反思概括,据此,针对计算机模拟环境中的学习支持可以包括三个侧面:解释性支持、实验性支持和反省性支持.     

‘Émile’ reconsidered

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the concept of learner dispositions empirically and theoretically based on two related studies: one undertaken in the United Kingdom exploring students learning power, identity and their engagement in learning; and one undertaken in Australia, which explored the relationship between learning power and Dweckian self-theories. Three different measures of dispositions are used. Two of these – learning power and self-theories – approach dispositions as malleable but relatively slow to change attributes, while the third considers dispositions as potentially more contextually responsive. The two studies had the measure of learning power in common, enabling a statistical as well as a theoretical comparison between the two studies’ models of learning dispositions and their contribution to the notion of engagement. The implications of these related studies are that, in order to foster deep engagement in learning, pedagogical attention needs to be paid to the formation of learning identity and the development of learning dispositions in the process of knowledge construction. While the different approaches to conceptualising dispositions were broadly compatible, each provided a different insight into this complex concept and suggests different but related pedagogical strategies for building engagement. The paper concludes with an exploration of the implications for dispositional research of autopoetic theory as an integrating conceptual framework.     

Fostering Understanding by Structural Alignment as a Route to Analogical Learning

The purpose of this study was to extend previous research on the conditions that may promote understanding and abstraction via structural alignment, that is, through a comparison between two partially understood situations. Structural alignment is a route to analogical reasoning which differs from the typical route where an analogy is made by eliciting an unknown situation from a very familiar one. Ninety-nine eighth graders were presented with two pairs of scenarios; the first depicting two phenomena of heat flow and the second, two phenomena of the changing state of matter. Participants were randomly assigned to five different conditions which varied in the degree to which they required a comparisonbetween the phenomena in the scenario pairs. For each pair of scenarios, participants were asked to describe the differences between the two phenomena, explain what happens in the phenomena, rate the similarity between the two, and justify the ratings. Results show that analogical reasoning was promoted more in the condition where participants were asked to jointly interpret the phenomena depicted in the scenarios. For both pairs of scenarios, students in this condition reached a deeper understanding; they were more able to identify alignable differences between the phenomena, and recognize the abstract and general higher-order relational structure implied by the perceptually different situations.     

Promoting elementary students’ epistemology of science through computer-supported knowledge-building discourse and epistemic reflection

This study examined the role of computer-supported knowledge-building discourse and epistemic reflection in promoting elementary-school students’ scientific epistemology and science learning. The participants were 39 Grade 5 students who were collectively pursuing ideas and inquiry for knowledge advance using Knowledge Forum (KF) while studying a unit on electricity; they also reflected on the epistemic nature of their discourse. A comparison class of 22 students, taught by the same teacher, studied the same unit using the school’s established scientific investigation method. We hypothesised that engaging students in idea-driven and theory-building discourse, as well as scaffolding them to reflect on the epistemic nature of their discourse, would help them understand their own scientific collaborative discourse as a theory-building process, and therefore understand scientific inquiry as an idea-driven and theory-building process. As hypothesised, we found that students engaged in knowledge-building discourse and reflection outperformed comparison students in scientific epistemology and science learning, and that students’ understanding of collaborative discourse predicted their post-test scientific epistemology and science learning. To further understand the epistemic change process among knowledge-building students, we analysed their KF discourse to understand whether and how their epistemic practice had changed after epistemic reflection. The implications on ways of promoting epistemic change are discussed.     

The Home School Knowledge Exchange Project: linking home and school to improve children's literacy

The Government is urging teachers to engage more closely with families and is promoting the concept of the ‘extended’ school. This article reports on the literacy strand of the Home School Knowledge Exchange (HSKE) project, directed by Professor Martin Hughes at the University of Bristol. A selection of literacy activities developed during this project is discussed – activities that enabled teachers and parents to share their knowledge about children in order to enhance their learning. These included ‘school‐to‐home’ activities where the direction of knowledge was primarily from teachers to families and ‘home‐to‐school’ activities where families' knowledge of children impacted on school learning. Practical aspects of planning and conducting home–school knowledge exchange activities are discussed, and challenges are explored. The approaches presented in this article provide examples that could be considered and adapted by schools interested in extending their provision for families. This article draws on the recently published Improving Primary Literacy: Linking Home and School ( Feiler et al., 2007 ).     

Between work and learning: on pedagogic practice and interstitial space

In this paper I develop a response to a continuing problem in work–learning research, the connections between education, learning and work. These connections are commonly conceived in terms of the concept of transfer, integration or boundary crossing. Thinking these connections in this way, I claim, serves to consolidate a unitary, stable and fixed idea of the relationship between learning in educational institutions and work and inadvertently reduce its complexity. Drawing on empirical data collected over the course of qualitatively exploring the links between a problem-based program of teacher education (‘learning’) and the practice of participants in this program upon initial employment in schools (‘work’), and deploying actor network theory, I trace new sorts of associations between work and learning and propose a relational conception of their connection. Challenging the common counter-positioning of work and learning, empirical analysis reveals their mutual constitution and partial connection in practices, here, of a predominantly pedagogic and spatial/material kind. Practices that occupy interstitial spaces have a particular resonance with regard to challenging this counter-positioning and unsettling the hierarchies of value which often arise from it.     

简析高校科研管理的现状与创新

文章针对高校科研管理工作的现状,指出了高校科研管理工作存在的问题,提出要结合学校科研实际,明确目标定位,更新科研管理理念,创新科研管理体制,营造以人为本、诚信宽松的科研氛围,并以此推进高校科研管理工作。     

Learning across cultures: appropriateness of knowledge transfer

This chapter focuses on the issue of transfer of cognitions, motivations, and dispositions related to learning across different cultural-educational contexts. Research with learners from Confucian Heritage Culture, mainly from Singapore and Hong Kong, studying in their home country and as international students in Australia is used to establish the usefulness of the concept of socio-cultural appropriateness to understand transfer. The examples discussed reveal how some aspects of students learning travel extremely well and are congruent with the characteristics of learning valued in the host context, while others reflect ambivalent, difficult, or inappropriate transfer. The significance of mutual individual-context dynamic interactions, subjective nature of appropriateness, and emotional dimensions involved in transfer of learning is highlighted. Implications for educational practice in an international, multicultural perspective are outlined.     

Promoting fourth graders' conceptual change of their understanding of electric current via multiple analogies

For the past two decades, a growing amount of research has shown that the use of analogies in science teaching and learning promotes meaningful understanding of complex scientific concepts (Gentner, 1983 ; Glynn, 1989 ; Harrison & Treagust, 1993 ; Wong, 1993 ). This article presents a study in which multiple analogies were used as scaffolding to link students' prior understanding of daily life events to knowledge of the scientific domain. The study was designed to investigate how multiple analogies influence student learning of a complex scientific concept: the electric circuit. We used several analogies in a set of learning materials to present the concepts of parallel and series circuits. Thirty‐two fourth graders participated in this study and were randomly assigned to four groups. The four groups were named nonanalogy (control), single analogy, similar analogies, and complementary analogies, according to the materials they used in this study. The results demonstrated that using analogies not only promoted profound understanding of complex scientific concepts (such as electricity), but it also helped students overcome their misconceptions of these concepts. In particular, we found that the reason the students had difficulty understanding the concept of electricity was because of their ontological presupposition of the concept. Implications for teaching and learning are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 429–464, 2005     

Action learning,performativity and negative capability

The paper examines the concept of negative capability as a human capacity for containment and contrasts it with well-valued positive capability as expressed through performativity in organisations and society. It identifies the problem of dispersal – the complex ways we behave in order to avoid the emotional challenges of living with uncertainty. The action learning set is considered as a ‘container’ – a holding and enabling framework which temporarily holds the set member’s uncertainty until they can manage it for themselves. Finally, it is suggested that learning arises from working at the edges between knowing (positive capability/performativity) and not-knowing (negative capability) because it offers the possibility of exposure to truth ‘in the moment’ or insight. It involves living with uncertainty, yet still ultimately acting in the world.     

Small-group problem-based learning as a complex adaptive system

Small-group problem-based learning (PBL) is widely embraced as a method of study in health professions schools and at many different levels of education. Complexity science provides a different lens with which to view and understand the application of this method. It presents new concepts and vocabulary that may be unfamiliar to practitioners of small-group PBL and other educational methods. This article looks at small-group PBL from the perspective of complex adaptive systems (CAS). It begins with a brief review of the current understanding and practice of PBL. Next some of the characteristics of CAS are reviewed using examples from small-group PBL to illustrate how these characteristics are expressed in that context. The principles and the educational theory in which small-group PBL are embedded are related to CAS. Implications for health professions education are discussed.