Role of the educator in social software initiatives in further and higher education: A conceptualisation and research agenda

Higher and further education institutions are increasingly using social software tools to support teaching and learning. A growing body of research investigates the diversity of tools and their range of contributions. However, little research has focused on investigating the role of the educator in the context of a social software initiative, even though the educator is critical for the introduction and successful use of social software in a course environment. Hence, we argue that research on social software should place greater emphasis on the educators, as their roles and activities (such as selecting the tools, developing the tasks and facilitating the students' interactions with these tools) are instrumental in a social software initiative. To address this gap, we have developed a research agenda on the role of the educator in a social software initiative. Drawing on role theory, both as the basis for a systematic conceptualization of the educator role and as a guiding framework, we have developed a series of concrete research questions that address core issues associated with the educator roles in a social software context. We have provided recommendations for further investigations. By developing a research agenda, we hope to stimulate research that creates a better understanding of the educator's situation and develops guidelines to help educators carry out their social software initiatives. Considering the significant role an educator plays in the initiation and conduct of a social software initiative, our research agenda ultimately seeks to contribute to the adoption and efficient use of social software in education.     

Teacher Educators’ Activity Aiming to Support Inquiry Through Mathematics and Science Teacher Collaboration

This study explores teacher educators’ (TEs’) activity as they support mathematics and science teacher collaboration in co-designing and jointly implementing tasks. We view TEs’ activity through the lens of Activity Theory and expansive learning and draw evidence from data generated within the mascil project that linked mathematics and science teaching with workplace situations through inquiry-based teaching. We focus on five TEs’ actions and goals, use data from their professional development sessions with teachers and from the TEs’ interactions during their own meetings, and highlight the illuminating case of one teacher educator. We trace evidence indicating paths of actions followed by each Teacher Educator and look for indications of their professional learning. Our analysis reveals generic and content-focused actions. All TEs faced different kinds of contradictions and had difficulties handling them. In terms of professional learning, all TEs adapted their prior teacher education practices and appreciated the critical role of epistemological differences between the two disciplines.

     

现代教育技术与学科教学的整合应用研究

现代教育技术的理论与实践在各种形式的教学实践中发挥着重要的指导作用。如何有效的将现代教育技术用于指导学科教学实践，这需要教育者对现代教育技术应用的定位有个深刻的认识。目前，在探讨将现代教育技术整合到各个学科的教学实践过程中，急待正确的分析教育技术环境下的课堂教学若干新特征分析，这也是教育者运用现代教育技术在尝试教育改革和实施素质教育中首先应该解决的问题。     

The Old Man and the Sea: Navigating the Gulf between Special Educators and the Content Area Classroom

The special educator in the content area classroom often experiences an ill‐defined role, which can translate into marginalization within instructional settings. Indeed, most students with learning disabilities (LD) receive content area instruction from a general education teacher with the support of a special educator. However, the literacy demands of the respective content areas often present content specific challenges for students with language‐based disabilities and their teachers. To date, proposed content area literacy interventions have not addressed the specific language‐based needs of students with LD. In this article, we highlight the similarities among history, science, English language arts, and mathematics texts from a language perspective, and present strategies specifically targeting students’ background knowledge. We also provide recommendations to researchers and practitioners for improving content area learning.     

大学教师社会角色论

大学教师作为社会的一个特殊群体 ,具有特定的社会角色。本文从大学教师的社会活动和社会关系出发 ,在分析大学教师的社会地位和作用之后 ,认为大学教师的社会角色是研究者、教育者、知识分子三者的统一体。作为研究者 ,其根本特性是为学术而学术 ;作为教育者 ,其根本特性是热爱学生 ;作为知识分子 ,其根本特性是深刻的社会关怀     

A case study of a career in education that began with “Teach for America”

In this article I share the results of a seven‐year case study of an educator who began his career without formal preservice teacher education, as a participant in Teach for America. Steven (a pseudonym) began teaching mathematics in an urban middle school, later teaching social studies to English language learners, and is currently a principal of an urban charter school. Using a narrative/biographical research method, I have documented how Steven combined his personal resources, the confidence he gained from participating in Teach for America, and, because he began taking professional coursework in his second year of teaching, his emerging understanding of the foundations of teaching and learning (i.e. what he learned at the university) to form the educator he has become. His growth in understanding the culture of his students is a particularly compelling part of his story. Implications for contemporary teacher education are discussed, including the role of multicultural education courses and why customized teacher education programs should become more commonplace.     

知识人社会角色视角下的教师角色反思

兹纳涅茨基将知识人的社会角色划分为技术顾问、圣哲、学者、新知识探索者四大类型15种亚型。从知识人的社会角色来审视教师,则大学教学科研间冲突的根源在于教师轻视与放弃教育者角色;而中小学教师专业化的关键是把他们从单一化的教育者角色中解放出来。生存性→发展性→享受性→超越性角色的层进式推进,或许是一种理想的教师角色抉择模式。     

The Roles of Technology in Mathematics Education

Abstract

We review literature relevant to using technology in the teaching/learning of mathematics to highlight four roles of effective technology use: (a) promoting cycles of proof; (b) presenting and connecting multiple representations; (c) supporting case-based reasoning; and (d) serving as a tutee. We then discuss how they intersect with good instruction. Finally, we provide specific examples to illustrate how these roles of technology can be used to maintain the focus of a technology course on mathematics.     

Roles of Abductive Reasoning and Prior Belief in Children’s Generation of Hypotheses about Pendulum Motion

The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that student’s abductive reasoning skills play an important role in the generation of hypotheses on pendulum motion tasks. To test the hypothesis, a hypothesis-generating test on pendulum motion, and a prior-belief test about pendulum motion were developed and administered to a sample of 5th grade children. A significant number of subjects who have prior belief about the length to alter pendulum motion failed to apply their prior belief to generate a hypothesis on a swing task. These results suggest that students’ failure in hypothesis generation was related to abductive reasoning ability, rather than simple lack of prior belief. This study, then, supports the notion that abductive reasoning ability beyond prior belief plays an important role in the process of hypothesis generation. This study suggests that science education should provide teaching about abductive reasoning as well as scientific declarative knowledge for developing children’s hypothesis-generation skills.     

Complex influences of mechanistic knowledge,worldview, and quantitative reasoning on climate change discourse: Evidence for ideologically motivated reasoning among youth

Anthropogenic climate change remains divisive in the United States, where skepticism of the scientific consensus is associated with conservative worldviews, resulting in political polarization. This study considers three hypotheses regarding U.S. polarization over climate change that have emerged from social psychology research and applies them to science education by showing how these hypotheses could relate to adolescents' science learning. We then test each hypothesis within an experimental educational intervention designed to study the influence of worldview, mechanistic knowledge, and quantitative reasoning on students' written arguments about climate change. We used mixed methods to analyze the results of this individually randomized trial with clustering involving 357 participants in grades 9–11 from 5 U.S. sites. Findings show that: (a) exposure to mechanistic knowledge about climate change increased odds of receptivity toward climate change; (b) increasingly conservative worldviews were associated with decreased odds of receptivity; (c) worldview and quantitative reasoning interacted, resulting in an amplified effect of worldview for students with greater quantitative reasoning. Results also suggest that the influence of worldview and mechanistic knowledge on receptivity work independently from one another in our dataset. This study demonstrates the value of teaching mechanistic understandings of climate change, yet also demonstrates the influence of worldview on receptivity to climate change for adolescents, as well as complex interactions between quantitative reasoning (something school science aims to develop) and worldview. It shows that moving the U.S. public toward the scientific consensus is complex and involves confronting ideologically motivated reasoning within science education.     

高职商务英语教学方法研究综述

商务英语属于专门用途英语。近年来,随着商务英语教学在我国的普及,对商务英语课程教学方法的研究也日益活跃起来。从分析高职商务英语课程的特点出发,指出现行教学方法的局限性,对目前教育界比较推崇的几种新型教学方法进行了归纳总结,希望能够起到推介的作用。     

Participating in Classroom Mathematical Practices

In this article, we describe a methodology for analyzing the collective learning of the classroom community in terms of the evolution of classroom mathematical practices. To develop the rationale for this approach, we first ground the discussion in our work as mathematics educators who conduct classroom-based design research. We then present a sample analysis taken from a 1st-grade classroom teaching experiment that focused on linear measurement to illustrate how we coordinate a social perspective on communal practices with a psychological perspective on individual students' diverse ways of reasoning as they participate in those practices. In the concluding sections of the article, we frame the sample analysis as a paradigm case in which to clarify aspects of the methodology and consider its usefulness for design research.     

The Educator's Dual Role: Expressing Ideals While Educating in Nonideal Conditions

In this essay, Jennifer Morton discusses educators as central examples of agents who engage in ideal and nonideal ways of thinking. The educator, as a representative of the political community, is tasked with two aims. The first is nurturing students with the skills and knowledge they need for the world as they will find it. In pursuing this goal, the educator is assuming certain social facts, some of them unjust, that constitute the present nonideal world. The second aim is civic — educating future citizens. Insofar as the educator is involved in pursuing this goal, his or her role is to work at making certain future social facts true, in the hope of making the future slightly more ideal. Morton argues that if we think of these two aims instrumentally, they can come into conflict. She does not suggest a resolution to this conflict, but rather develops an alternative expressive account of the civic role of the educator. Ideal thinking by educators, Morton maintains, should be thought of as constituting an expression of respect toward their fellow citizens here and now. Ultimately, she argues that this expressive component of the educator's job is crucial to the educator's role in the political community.     

浅谈孔子的个性差异心理思想

孔子在长期的教学实践中,通过观察分析、师生谈话等方式认识并论证了学生的个性心理差异,有针对性地进行教育教学;在此基础上首创性地提出了"因材施教"的教学思想,对今天全面实施素质教育,仍有着深远的指导意义。     

Teacher educators modelling their teachers?

The teacher educator is always also a teacher, and as a role model may have an important impact on student teachers’ views on teaching. However, what is the impact of these teacher educator’s own role models on their teaching views and practices? Do teacher educators simply imitate the positive role models and reject the bad? It is already clear that teachers and teacher educators learn more than how to play a role from their role models. Becoming a teacher or a teacher educator is a long‐term process of developing a professional identity, with role models being just one of the contributing factors. This study of 13 teacher educators addresses the impact of schoolteacher role models as part of the socialisation process of becoming a teacher.     

Becoming a Teacher Educator: A Self-Study of the Use of Inquiry in a Mathematics Methods Course

This article details the self-study of a beginning teacher educator in her first experience in teaching a mathematics methods course. The transition from teacher to teacher educator is explored through the experience of a course focused on inquiry. Inquiry is embedded within the course from two perspectives: mathematical inquiry and teaching as inquiry. The framework of teaching as inquiry is an important part of both the self-study and the mathematics methods course. Implications of the transition from teacher to teacher educator as well as the role of inquiry in mathematics teacher education are discussed.     

From disturbance to task design,or a story of a rectangular lake

We present a story of a teacher educator’s response to a situation of contingency and describe how her experience enhanced her personal mathematical knowledge and influenced her teaching. In our analysis, we attend to different levels of awareness that support a teacher educator’s work and illuminate the qualities of a teacher educator’s knowledge, in particular, knowledge at the mathematical horizon.     

大学教师的社会角色及责任与使命

大学教师的社会角色不同于一般教师,大学教师集教育者、研究者和知识分子三种社会角色于一身.不同的社会角色要求大学教师担当不同的社会责任与使命.作为教育者的教师,其责任与使命的核心是"教育爱";作为研究者的教师,其责任与使命的核心是追求真理、追求学术;作为知识分子的大学教师,其责任与使命的核心是通过社会文化批判而促进社会文化的进步.正确认识大学教师社会角色的特殊性,对于探讨大学教师的社会责任与使命具有重要意义.