Some current issues in the administration of Australian universities

The Australian universities have entered a steady-state period in which enrolments and funding are being held with limits predetermined by government instead of being allowed to expand to levels compatible with institutional goals. A model of a university system is emerging from the recommendations of the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), and the guidelines set by the Federal Government and the proposals of the State Governments. This model aims to be equitable, accountable, efficient and well co-ordinated but it allows for Federal and State government intrusion into areas of decision-making that the universities have traditionally regarded as their preserves for autonomous action.The Tertiary Education Commission, as the Federal system-authority, has concentrated on the evidence and the need for change in four major areas: the nature of the student population; funding and, consequently, staffing, and procedures for co-ordination and rationalization. The states have shown particular interest in the fourth area and have aligned themselves with the TEC as it has devised a series of proposals, for all four areas, which have ultimately been placed upon the universities in the amended, and sometimes more restrictive form of Federal government guidelines.An examination of the new model of university education that is taking shape and the universities' reaction to it suggests that the universities are faced with three alternatives. They can capitulate and subscribe fully to this model being formulated beyond their campuses or they can unilaterally resist its imposition. Their third option, however, involves both compromise and initiative and it is emerging as the most effective choice for survival in the steady state environment.In taking the third option, the universities will have to adopt a two-pronged approach. Firstly, they will need to anticipate and to adjust to external initiatives by shortterm tactics conducted by an efficient centralized administration. Secondly, and most importantly both the administrative and academic communities will have to accommodate these adjustments to a long-term plan that will determine the role and function of their university and, ultimately, of the entire university system of education amongst the economic, political and social realities of the late 20th century.     

Training,stability and control

This paper presents a system-theoretic approach to the analysis of the problem of training formally relating it to the control of an abstract dynamic system, the adaption automaton of the trainee. The utility of this formulation and the possibility of basing real training strategies upon it are discussed, and it is argued that further constraints upon the automaton are both necessary, and available, in so far as the theory corresponds to practical reality. The minimal constraints generate an extended theory in which training is related to the stability of the adaption automaton. More practical constraints lead to theoretical foundations for strategies of feedback or adaptive training. Corresponding to each set of constraints a training theorem is proved which demonstrates that the constraint is adequate to lead to a simple universal training strategy.Although this paper is highly theoretical it is argued that the formal concepts introduced correspond to intuitive models of the phenomena of learning and training which are implicit in the design of many training systems. It is hoped that the formal analysis will throw new light on these implicit assumptions and help to clarify discussion of practical approaches to training, including the possibility of computer-aided instruction given on our present level of knowledge of human cognitive skills or individual students.     

Do transitional classrooms really provide transitional time?

In the United States, kindergarten marks the beginning of formal schooling for more than 3 million children each year (Shepard & Smith, 1986). At the end of the kindergarten year, most of these children demonstrate expected levels of achievement and are promoted to traditional first-grade classrooms. Others are labeled unready or immature for successful performance in today's academically rigorous first grade. In most elementary schools, the placement for these at-risk children is either retention in kindergarten or social promotion to first grade. An alternative in approximately 17% of the nation's elementary schools is assignment to a transitional classroom between kindergarten and first grade (Educational Research Service, in press). This additional year of instruction is often viewed as a gift of time — time for children to mature and make a gradual transition from kindergarten to first grade.Judith E. Stroud is Assistant Professor of Elementary Education, Ball State University, Munice, IN. R. Ann Williams is Professor of Elementary Education, Ball State University, Muncie, IN.     

Marginalized Youth, Delinquency, and Education: The Need for Critical-Interpretive Research

There is a lack of critical, interpretive research on marginalized youths' schooling experiences. There is a significant need for research that furthers theoretical and empirical understanding of how these youths experience school. I posit that a specific type of critical, interpretive research is required in order to understand and improve the educational experiences of marginalized youths. This paper argues that the vast majority of current delinquency and education research, while providing important and useful information, is limited by its adherence to the positivist paradigm and quantitative methods. I suggest that researchers must critically investigate schooling objectives and processes to explore how the educational system may be implicated in reproducing marginalized youths' academic failure and delinquency. Such critical research would investigate how the substantive content and processes of schools correspond with students' everyday lives and values. Such an approach will enable us to learn how to make better schools that serve marginalized youths and create more effective learning environments.     

A Textbook Case of the Nature of Science: Laws and Theories in the Science of Biology

The two concepts law and theory are among the most important elements of the nature of science. They represent both the tools and products of science itself. Unfortunately, the variable meanings and use of these terms in general discourse and in other school disciplines results in much confusion with respect to their proper application in a science context. The project included the design of a six-part model definition for law and theory based on a review of the literature of the philosophy of science with special reference to biology. These model definitions were then compared with those provided in a range of U.S. secondary school biology textbooks. The majority of all current major U.S. secondary school biology texts were reviewed and analyzed with respect to how the concepts of law and theory were defined and applied, in an attempt to determine whether students and teachers using such texts would gain an accurate impression of these terms and the distinction between them. This study focuses on biology instruction since a life science course is completed as a graduation requirement by virtually all U.S. high school students and as such serves as a widely shared educational experience across the nation. The term law is rarely defined in any text but various laws such as those found in genetics are frequently included as examples. The term theory is frequently defined but with a wide range of completeness of the definitions. Only rarely are theories in biology included as examples.     

Alternative schools and the crisis of education in developed countries

One of the growing concerns of educationists is the rigidity of traditional educational systems and their apparent inability to respond to social change, much less to stimulate it. Out of this concern with the inadaptation, in particular of schools, to contemporary demands, have come a number of different responses, from the theoretical to the concrete, both reformist and revolutionary.Prospects has given considerable space to discussion of the inadequacy of formal schooling in many parts of the world; deschooling, ‘conscientization’, alternative models have been discussed in theory and practice in the pages of the journal. The following article by Dwight Allen describes one type of response to disenchantment with formal school schooling, spontaneous and increasingly widespread, by the clients—pupils and parents—of the school system in one highly developed country. It could be argued that the very existence of ‘alternative’ schools indicates an economic system advanced and healthy enough to absorb the products of a ‘non-traditional’ school, and that therefore the experiences sketched below are irrelevant to developing countries. It seems to us, on the contrary, that the issues raised are fundamental, relating to the very concept of educational systems. The style of the article is not controversial, but the implication of its arguments is very much so: the system and the experiences described by the author, although they are set in a specific social and educational system, are none the less interesting as indicators, reference points, for highly centralized systems and even more so for all those systems which are in the process of moulding themselves in the likeness of one or the other model. We hope our readers will express their opinions and thus carry the discussion farther afield, into the developing world.     

“Trickle-down” reform: Hispanics,higher education,and the excellence movement

The current excellence-in-education movement has dealt a heavy blow to the advancement of Hispanics seeking degrees in higher education. Attempting to reform education while ignoring the concerns of minorities who traditionally have not fared well in schools strongly suggests that reformers expect the benefits of reform to trickle down to minorities after first benefiting mainstream students. The result is that reform measures such as the raising of college admission standards, the restructuring of financial aid, curriculum changes, and competency tests for teachers have added additional hurdles for Hispanic students, placing greater restrictions on their access to higher education. Reconceptualizing the definition ofexcellence to include not only higher standards, but educational equity, is a demographic imperative as the nation moves to a minority majority.     

Three-dimensional art and sculpture

I am making it BIG (Evan). A secret slide with gold in there (Sydni). Look even a little car could fit in it (Joshua). This is a circle! Round, a tiger jumps through this hoop (Emily). Excitement runs high when children experiment with three-dimensional art projects using paper, boxes and styrofoam.Liz Seelhoff Byrum teaches four- and five-year-olds at a private school in New York City.     

Educational “excellence” versus teacher “professionalism”: Towards some conceptual clarity

The educational literature of the last several years is replete with both continuing calls for educational excellence reforms and for enhancing and upgrading the teaching profession. Importantly, both types of calls rely on the contribution of science. The educational research-and-development community continues to push for and believe in the notion that educational innovation is based on scientific advances in understanding child development and school functioning. Similarly, many teachers and teacher educators continually call for increased classroom autonomy and social status among teachers, based upon the supposedly scientific nature of their professional training. This paper takes issue with both of these points, arguing that the origin and success of most educationally innovative policies have as their origin the changing political, economic, and social forces visible in the country during the history of American education. Relatedly, since the science of teaching and learning takes a back seat in issues of school policy, teachers cannot and will not be able to convince the public and those in authority in the school that their insights and practices derive from any privileged understanding of the real needs of children. Arguing that teachers should, in fact, have more input into policy decisions in education, the paper concludes with a review and discussion of various strategies currently visible for improving the autonomy and control of classroom educators.     

The role of counselling in developing countries: A reply to Soliman

Counselling, and in particular school counselling, is evolving very slowly in developing countries because of failure to place it in the mainstream of the school curriculum. If counselling is to perform any role in the social and economic development of these nations it must be able to influence the goals and priorities of schooling as well as suggest new methods of teaching. In this way, counselling would lead to adoption of school curriculum promoting not only intellectual development but also personal and psychological development. By so doing all the perceived obstacles to counselling's growth would disappear.     

Education Markets,Choice and Social Class: the market as a class strategy in the UK and the USA

The market alternative in education is gaining ground in policy‐making circles on both sides of the Atlantic. Parental choice and school competition are seen as ways of achieving reform and raising standards while at the same time reducing State intervention into education planning. This paper interrogates the arguments made for markets and against public monopoly schooling; and it is argued that on both counts the claims of advocates are partial and flawed. The failure to address the bases and effects of inequalities of the market are given particular attention. It is argued that markets in education provide the possibility for the pursuit of class advantage and generate a differentiated and stratified system of schooling.

     

Whitehead and a new look at teaching elementary science

If Whitehead is right, science teachers who try to increase student interest by making the science they teach more pure and by covering more material are going about their work in just the wrong way. Science, for purposes of precision in measurement, translates the dynamic world of feeling and force, of causal efficacy (for example, the San Francisco earthquake), into a static representation spatialized and given presentational immediacy (for example, the Richter scale). But notice that the Richter scale isn't very interesting (even as abstract art) apart from its connection, via symbolic reference, to the earthquake. Such reference is essential to give both a sense of reality and a feeling of interes to the subject, but it makes the science less pure, and it takes more time to cover the material. An example of teaching pure and impure formal logic is given as a case study.     

School size and effectiveness: Policy implications

For the first 75 years of this century, the only good schools were considered to be large. Today the buzz word is small. Educators who still promote the idea of biggest, largest, or strongest are living in the post-sputnik era, when for national pride we had to be number one. Today small is related to school effectiveness, community and school identity, and individual fullfillment and participation. Big corresponds with school inefficiency, institutional bureaucracy, and personal loneliness.     

A Lakatosian Framework to Analyze Situations of Cognitive Conflict and Controversy in Students' Understanding of Heat Energy and Temperature

The objective of this study is to analyze secondary school students' interactions (conflicts, controversies, and arguments) as they participate in an intact classroom activity designed to facilitate their understanding of heat energy and temperature. The study is based on 32 ninth-grade students in a public school in Londrina, Brazil. Results obtained show that the differentiation between heat energy and temperature constitutes considerable difficulties for the students, and can be considered as part of the hard-core of their understanding (Lakatos, 1970, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 91–196). Student interactions (video taped) were classified into an Alternative Model, Transitional Model, and Scientific Model, depending on the degree to which they reflected a progressive transition in their hard-core. Students generally resisted a change in their conceptual understanding. Some students were able to question the hard-core of their beliefs and construct a Transitory Model. Some students experienced a further progressive transition by constructing a Scientific Model, based on the understanding that Temperature only measures the energy of agitation. Methodology used also provided a glimpse of how a particular student grappled with the conflicts in order to facilitate progressive transition in understanding. It is concluded that given the opportunity to discuss, reflect, consider alternative/conflicting situations, students can construct models that increase progressively in their heuristic/explanatory power.     

From ideal to real: Understanding the development of new educational settings

Summary and Conclusion In this paper we presented a framework for viewing the development of new educational settings. We also postulated the necessity of two conditions for the creation of a coherent self-renewing educational program: the development of a community, especially in a linguistic sense, and on-going practical dialog that defines and redefines the setting over time in light of collective action and experience. In doing so, we took the position that educational program and program development mean something more than what is implied in most theories of organizational and program development. We argued that a collection of educational activities constitutes a program only when the activities are grounded in a commonly perceived core of beliefs and values about what is and what ought to be.Clearly, we have only begun to sketch out the nature and operation of the processes by which a new educational setting evolves and develops into an organization. We need to know why development and growth through the application of the dialectic are typically not present in new programs. Our future research efforts are oriented in this direction and we hope that by setting forth our tentative ideas at this point we may encourage others to react to them and perhaps to pursue a similar line of inquiry.OISE     

伊里奇“非学校化”思想述评

伊里奇是“非学校化社会”理论的创始人和‘‘非学校化运动”的倡导者。他认为,学校不仅不能有效地履行它的教育职能,而且妨碍真正的学习和教育,使教育发生异化,应废除学校。     

Alternative frameworks,conceptual conflict and accommodation: Toward a principled teaching strategy

Students' alternative frameworks (frequently regarded as misconceptions) play a crucial role in science concept learning. Accumulated research findings indicate that alternative frameworks are resistant to extinction despite formal instruction.This paper presents an instructional strategy based on the thesis that science concept learning involves cognitive accommodation of an initially held alternative framework. The strategy consists of three phases: (1) exposing alternative frameworks, (2) creating conceptual conflict, (3) encouraging cognitive accommodation. The first phase is facilitated through an exposing event, while the second and third focus on a discrepant event.The authors have used previous research findings about student alternative frame-works for the structure of a gas to create exposing and discrepant events for an introduction to the particle model of gases. The paper presents a case study of two lessons in a sequence on the particle model, accompanied by an analysis of the phases of the instructional strategy employed for cognitive accommodation.Based on a paper presented at the AERA convention, Los Angeles, California, April, 1981.This paper was prepared while the first author was a visiting professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.     

Print and reading: What do preschoolers know?

John Downing, an eminent reading researcher at Canada's University of Victoria, says that many children come to school in a state of cognitive confusion about the functions of reading and the terms we use when we start to teach them to read formally. Adults take for granted that young children know what they mean when they talk about a word, a letter, a sound, and other print-related terms. In his studies done in England and in Canada, Downing (1970; 1973–74) has found that many children, especially those who have not been read to regularly, simply don't understand the conventions of print and really don't understand what reading is all about.Joan T. Feeley is Professor of Reading and Language Arts at William Paterson College in Wayne, New Jersey.     

Model-Based Teaching and Learning with BioLogica™: What Do They Learn? How Do They Learn? How Do We Know?

This paper describes part of a project called Modeling Across the Curriculum which is a large-scale research study in 15 schools across the United States. The specific data presented and discussed here in this paper is based on BioLogica, a hypermodel, interactive environment for learning genetics, which was implemented in multiple classes in eight high schools. BioLogica activities, data logging, and assessments were refined across this series of implementations. All students took a genetics content knowledge pre- and posttests. Traces of students' actions and responses to computer-based tasks were electronically collected (via a log file function) and systematically analyzed. An intensive 3-day field test involving 24 middle school students served to refine methods and create narrative profiles of students' learning experiences, outcomes, and interactions with BioLogica. We report on one high school implementation and the field test as self-contained studies to document the changes and the outcomes at different phases of development. A discussion of design changes concludes this paper.     

Coteaching in a Secondary Science Methods Course: Learning Through a Coteaching Model that Supports Early Teacher Practice

Coteaching as a form of situated learning supports early induction into science teaching. A coteaching model for secondary science methods students and what has been learned from this model is described. Secondary science methods students in pairs were placed with a science teacher to begin teaching as peripheral participants. A cooperative inquiry method was used to study this model. In-depth learning about the model and how to make it work effectively came from a process of research cycling over multiple semesters. This learning has been put in practical form as a primer for cooperating teachers and methods students participating in coteaching. Constraints and limitations of this coteaching model are discussed.