Creating a Space to Learn: A Classroom of Fun,Interaction, and Trust

Abstract. By creating a space for fun, interaction, and trust, teachers and students together can build a learning environment that promotes engagement, deep learning, and meaning. Such a space emphasizes process, not product, personalizes learning, and contributes to whole person development. To facilitate the creation of this space, the teachers show respect for students as individuals, encourage original thinking, and expand the boundaries of the classroom through field trips and guest speakers, and the students share written reflections on critical issues that link to personal experience and conviction, contribute to dynamic class dialogues, and develop and present creative responses to environmental and social complexities.     

The Communicator's Role in Resource Decision–Making

Abstract

The experience of 8 teenage participants of a 12-day adventure trip was investigated through participant observation and semistructured posttrip interviews. The teen participants conceptualized nature as a place out there—a reality fundamentally different and removed from their home reality of civilization. The teens understood nature as undisturbed, natural, unfamiliar, without people or human material development, relaxing, not busy, and with a sense of freedom. The teens strongly suggested nature does not exist at home. It appears that, with this construction of nature, the teens felt diminished motivation to take care of their home environment.     

Undergraduates' orientations towards student–university relationships: Measurement and associations with student characteristics and engagement

This study explored students' orientations towards student–university relationships and how they differ with regard to student characteristics and engagement. We developed an instrument measuring student orientations and utilised it in a survey of Russian undergraduates. Using latent class analysis, we identified the following types of Russian students' orientations: instructivists, consumerists, constructivists, and students with mixed orientations. As the results showed, the majority of our respondents have consumerist or mixed orientations that mostly mismatch with the actual models of student–university relationships at Russian universities. We also found that students with these orientations are less engaged than instructivists and constructivists. These findings demonstrate the importance of seeking an optimal match between diverse undergraduate orientations and the actual educational model, which fits national and institutional contexts.     

基于学习过程的本科教育学情调查报告2009

全面提高质量,大力提升人才培养水平是中国高等教育当前面临的重要任务。本研究聚焦于大学生的学习过程及投入,从大学生作为独立自主的学习者,其学习行为与大学教育实践之间的互动来揭示和分析我国不同类型大学的本科教育状况。本文使用的调查工具是根据全美大学生学习性投入调查(NSSE)问卷,由清华大学教育研究院和美国印第安纳大学共同组成的研究团队完成的汉化版中国大学生学习性投入调查问卷(NSSE-China)。研究数据来自清华大学教育研究院主持的中国大学生学习性投入研究课题组2009年6月在全国23所自愿参加课题研究的本科院校,通过完全随机抽样获得的24252名本科生样本。论文运用五大可比指标、反映教育过程及环节的指标,根据参与院校的不同类型(985院校、211院校、地方本科院校),对大学本科生的学情状况进行实证性描述和分析。     

建构主义学习理论与现代远程开放教育

建构主义（Ｃｏｎｓｔｒｕｃｔｉｖｉｓｍ）是西方近些年来所提倡的一种学习理论，它说明了人类学习过程的认知规律，其现点对传统教学思想有很大的挑战性，因此吸引了很多教育工作者研究它的理论、探索它的应用性。现代远程开放教育是构筑知识经济时代终身学习体系的主要手段，同时也是终身教育和学习化社会的重要组成部分，用建构主义学习理论研究现代远程开放教育具有一定的实际意义。     

建构主义学习理论与高校体育教学改革的研究

建构主义是20世纪90年代以来兴起于西方国家的一种社会科学理论,它是学习理论中行为主义发展到认知主义后的进一步发展,被称为"当代教育心理学中的一场革命"。本文力图在建构主义理论的思想指导下,结合当前我国高校体育教学的实际情况,对我国高校体育改革进行研究与探讨,这对推进我国高校体育改革必将产生重大的影响。     

学习支持服务与学生参与度关系的调查研究——以浙江奥鹏远程教育为例

远程教育的质量和效益竞争离不开良好的学习支持服务,因此,关注远程教育的学习支持服务问题,提高学习支持服务的力度,是解决远程教育质量问题和持续发展问题的重要途径,其中学生学习参与度又是考量学习支持服务是否具有力度的重要方法。基于这样的认识,本研究在访谈和文献分析基础上设计了“学习支持服务问卷”和“学生学习参与度问卷”,就两者互相影响的问题专门展开了调查,调查数据显示学习支持服务和学习参与度之间存在显著正相关。希望本研究能对学习支持服务方面的决策提供支撑。     

The measurement of teacher efficacy: Hong Kong primary in‐service teachers

This study sought to measure general teacher efficacy levels of in‐service primary teachers in Hong Kong. Participants included 725 Hong Kong in‐service teachers, who were invited to take part in the study. These in‐service teachers came from 28 different primary schools ranging from government, aided, private and direct subsidy schools. The Chinese version of the 12‐item Teachers' Sense of Efficacy (C‐TSE) Scale was applied to investigate the efficacy of the teachers. A factor analysis of these 12 items when male and female datasets were combined led to the extraction of only one factor. But separation of the two datasets led to the extraction of different factor analysis models. This could reflect the different perceptions that male and female teachers had about the formation of teacher efficacy. Overall, this study showed that female teachers were significantly more efficacious than male teachers. Moreover, years of teaching experience showed a weak but significant correlation to levels of general teacher efficacy. Interestingly, educational levels did not have a significant effect on the efficacy of this group of in‐service primary teachers. Overall, the C‐TSE was found to be a valid and reliable scale for measuring the efficacy levels of this particular group of in‐service primary teachers in Hong Kong.     

建构主义学习理论与课堂讨论

在中高级汉语教学中，由于一般还是沿袭初级阶段的教学方法，致使中高级阶段的教学任务很难切实完成。本从中高级汉语综合课的课堂讨论入手，尝试用建构主义教学模式来组织课堂讨论，以期改进中高级阶段的汉语教学方法。     

Education for sustainable development (ESD): the turn away from ‘environment’ in environmental education?

This article explores the implications of the shift of environmental education (EE) towards education for sustainable development (ESD) in the context of environmental ethics. While plural perspectives on ESD are encouraged both by practitioners and researchers of EE, there is also a danger that such pluralism may sustain dominant political ideologies and consolidated corporate power that obscure environmental concerns. Encouraging plural interpretations of ESD may in fact lead ecologically ill-informed teachers and students acculturated by the dominant neo-liberal ideology to underprivilege ecocentric perspective. It is argued that ESD, with its focus on human welfare, equality, rights and fair distribution of resources is a radical departure from the aim of EE set out by the Belgrade Charter as well as a distinct turn towards anthropocentrically biased education. This article has two aims: to demonstrate the importance of environmental ethics for EE in general and ESD in particular and to argue in favour of a return to instrumentalism, based on the twinned assumptions that the environmental problems are severe and that education of ecologically minded students could help their resolution.     

An Exploratory Case Study of Dutch Children's Attitudes Toward Consumption: Implications for Environmental Education

This critical essay based on empirical study draws upon research on the differences in attitudes toward consumption among Dutch upper-elementary school children with different socioeconomic backgrounds. This article examines two strands of theory: critical literature on the conceptualization and practice of sustainable consumption, and the theory of postmaterialist values. By synthesizing these strands of theory the author outlines a number of paradoxes and challenges in theory and practice of consumption and lays a foundation for teaching sustainable consumption at the upper-elementary school level. The Cradle-to-Cradle framework is proposed as a form of strategically significant environmental education that can be used for teaching consumption.     

开放教育《Dreamweaver网页设计》课程改革实践

根据电大开放教育的特点,结合学生的实际情况,以"建构主义学习理论"为指导,探索实用、有效、可行的教学方法,对《Dreamweaver网页设计》课程的教学过程进行了改革实践。     

Mastery,insight, and the teaching of chemistry

The learning of chemistry is described as a process analogous to the process of making chemical discoveries. Historical examples are given to show how chemists have used their insight to break out of a conceptual loop in order to advance the science. Having the insight to make the intuitive leap necessary to break a conceptual loop is as important as having the mastery of the pertinent facts. As in making chemical discoveries, learning elementary chemistry requires developing insight as well as acquiring mastery of the facts. However, current general chemistry teaching tends to teach facts first and insight later. Suggestions for improving this situation so that insight and facts are learned together are given. Finally, the nature of insight is probed more deeply and presented as a two-step process where the first step is an evaluation of the perceptions about science which are held. Once the student, teacher, or researcher has a clear evaluation of the validity of the perceptions that he or she holds, further significant progress toward understanding or scientific discovery is possible.     

‘Feedback interpreters’: the role of learning development professionals in facilitating university students’ engagement with feedback

Understanding how students engage with assessment feedback is a key concern of higher education professionals. Research commonly represents the perspectives of students and academic staff, yet little consideration is given to the role of learning development staff, despite these individuals supporting students when interpreting and implementing feedback. We report the findings from interviews with learning developers working in a UK University, exploring their insights into the barriers students confront when engaging with feedback, and into the role of learning developers within the feedback landscape. This study suggests that, while many challenges exist for staff and students in the context of assessment feedback, learning development professionals are able to provide a meaningful source of guidance, in partnership with academic staff, and are able to promote students’ development through dialogic interactions. Hitherto these interactions have not been fully explored, yet they provide powerful insight into the hidden processes of feedback recipience.     

ESD Pedagogy: A Guide for the Perplexed

This article addresses issues regarding implementation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) within formal education systems. In particular, it seeks to identify the basic essential components of ESD pedagogy. The authors present a theoretical pedagogical framework based on accumulated theory and experience in the field. The framework aspires to encompass the majority of prevailing pedagogies within a simple set of four basic principles. It will be argued that the four principal pedagogies are basic and indispensable prerequisites for achieving the goals of ESD, and the lack of one is sufficient to undermine the ESD's pedagogical construct.