Evaluate to improve: useful approaches to student evaluation

Many teachers in higher education use feedback from students to evaluate their teaching, but only some use these evaluations to improve their teaching. One important factor that makes the difference is the teacher’s approach to their evaluations. In this article, we identify some useful approaches for improving teaching. We conducted focus groups with award-winning university teachers who use student evaluations to improve their teaching, and we identified how they approach their evaluation data. We found that these teachers take a reflective approach, aiming for constant improvement, and see their evaluation data as formative feedback, useful for improving learning outcomes for their students. We summarise this as the improvement approach, and we offer it for other teachers to emulate. We argue that if teachers take this reflective, formative, student-centred approach, they can also use student evaluations to improve their teaching, and this approach should be fostered by institutions to encourage more teachers to use student evaluations to improve their teaching.     

土地利用分类及其用途管制研究

土地利用分类是研究土地利用的最基础工作,它直接影响着土地利用的科学研究和管理实践。本文在全面分析研究土地利用分类的基础上,阐明了当前土地利用分类的优劣,提出了符合多用途需要,利于用途管制的多层次统一标准的系统分类设想。     

Efficacy of the indirect approach for estimating structural equation models with missing data: A comparison of five methods

Incomplete or missing data are routinely encountered in structural equation problems. Although current literature supports the use of a direct approach for modeling the missing values in a structural equation model, many situations are not applicable for the effective use of this approach. This leaves the use of an indirect approach for dealing with missing information. There is a general lack of knowledge regarding the efficacy of the use of the indirect approach in structural equation modeling. This article assesses the efficacy of five indirect methods for estimating parameters in a structural equation model with various levels of missing data.     

Bottom-up approaches to strengthening child protection systems: Placing children,families, and communities at the center

Efforts to strengthen national child protection systems have frequently taken a top-down approach of imposing formal, government-managed services. Such expert-driven approaches are often characterized by low use of formal services and the misalignment of the nonformal and formal aspects of the child protection system. This article examines an alternative approach of community-driven, bottom-up work that enables nonformal–formal collaboration and alignment, greater use of formal services, internally driven social change, and high levels of community ownership. The dominant approach of reliance on expert-driven Child Welfare Committees produces low levels of community ownership. Using an approach developed and tested in rural Sierra Leone, community-driven action, including collaboration and linkages with the formal system, promoted the use of formal services and achieved increased ownership, effectiveness, and sustainability of the system. The field needs less reliance on expert-driven approaches and much wider use of slower, community-driven, bottom-up approaches to child protection.     

The Fifth Generation and training strategies*

Fifth Generation computers should not simply be regarded as an enhancement of current computer technology: the intention is that a fresh approach should be taken to computer science and to the use of computers. The argument of this paper is that the fresh approach must encompass education and training, with implications that extend far beyond the simple use of computers.     

城市地下空间使用权应用型估价方法初探

城市地下空间,是指城市规划区内地表以下的空间。我国地下空间使用权的相关政策法规目前还处于探索阶段,建立一套有效的地下空间使用权估价体系就显得尤为重要。应用型的地下空间使用权估价方法根据成本与价格的关系,以及相关土木工程概预算理论计算出地下空间使用权价格,该方法容易掌握而且准确性也较高。     

网络主题式大学英语教学模式改革探析

本文简要介绍了大学英语教学中的问题,着重阐述了网络主题式英语教学的课堂设计过程,该教学模式强调以学生为中心,教师作为问题设置者引导学生利用网络资源主动去发现问题,整堂课围绕一个主题展开,学生互相合作,共同探讨问题,并学会在网上用英语发表博客来进行语言的输出,该模式有效地提高了学生的英语综合应用能力,真正做到了学以致用。     

Memory strategy instruction is made of this: Metamemory and durable strategy use

Although the use of task‐appropriate strategies facilitate memory, newly acquired strategies often have two negative characteristics: They are neither durable nor generalizable. The present article considers an alternative approach to strategy instructions that leads to skills that are more general and better maintained after instruction has ceased. This approach focuses on the role of knowledge about strategies (metamemory) as a precursor of effective strategy deployment. Three perspectives on the role of metamemory in improving strategy use are considered: (a) occasions when metamemory develops simply as a function of using a strategy (the Laissez‐Faire approach); (b) situations in which Explicit Provision of metamemorial information increases strategy use; and (c) the production of higher‐level strategies that operate on other strategies, thus enhancing metamemorial knowledge about them (Metamemory Acquisition Procedures). Future research directions and educational implications associated with each approach are discussed.     

Instructional approaches to foster third graders’ adaptive use of strategies: an experimental study on the effects of two learning environments on multi-digit addition and subtraction

The adaptive use of strategies, that is selecting a strategy which allows an efficient solution for a given problem, can be considered as an important individual ability relevant in various domains. Based on models of subjects’ skills of adaptive use of strategies, two idealized instructional approaches are suggested to foster students in their strategy development. The explicit approach aims at reducing cognitive load by demonstrating and practicing strategies combined with an explicit identification of criteria for strategy efficiency by contrasting problem solutions. The implicit approach capitalizes on the generation effect and stimulates students to generate their own strategies and efficiency criteria based on the analysis of task characteristics and the comparison of problem solutions. In a 1-week experimental study (16 lessons) with 73 third-graders, we examined the effectiveness of these instructional approaches in the domain of multi-digit addition and subtraction. Results from post- and two follow-up tests after 3 and 8?months did not yield different effects of the two approaches on students’ skills in adaptive use of strategies. A comparison of strategies used by the students showed that the students of the explicit approach more frequently applied complex strategies whereas the students from the implicit approach showed a more sustainable use of self-generated strategies. Hence, for the adaptive use of those strategies students are able to generate, the implicit approach turned out to be more effective than the explicit approach. However, this generation effect does not hold for strategies which are too complex to be generated by students.     

互斥项目投资决策探讨

互斥项目备选方案间具有排他性,只能在备选方案之间选择其一。原始投资额相等且项目计算期相等的互斥项目比较决策,可选择净现值或内部收益率大的方案为最优方案;原始投资额不相等而项目计算期相等的互斥项目比较决策,可采用差额净现值法或差额内部收益率法来评判方案的优劣;项目计算期不相等的互斥项目比较决策,可选择方案重复法或最短计算期法来评判方案的优劣;原始投资额与项目计算期都不相等的互斥项目比较决策,可采用等值年金法。     

认知教学法的理论依据及其在大学英语教学中的运用

认知教学法理论强调将语言的学习和运用结合起来,在理解语言规则的前提下,进行有意识的学习和操练.我国的大学英语教学现状要求英语教师在教学实践中应采取符合学生认知心理和我国英语教学实际的认知教学法,切实提高教学效率和水平.     

交际教学法与初中英语教学

交际教学法立足于语言教学的交际性 ,真实性。自 2 0世纪 70年代开始 ,对各国外语教学产生了极大影响。本文讲述了在初中英语教学中使用交际教学法时应遵循的原则 ,同时还阐明了在教学中引入交际教学法的具体方法及使用该法时教师应注意的几个问题     

Multidisciplinary Decision Making Through Experiential Learning: Perspectives from Practical Trials

Recently many business management programs in institutions of higher learning have undergone significant change in orientation, content, and delivery. In order to ensure that the graduates acquire the education and skills needed in the organizations of the future, these institutions have attempted to bridge theoretical underpinnings with practical content. In so doing, administrators and instructors have given more emphasis to deliberate integration of discipline-specific material. In this article we draw on previous research in both adult and experiential learning to develop an innovative approach for role-playing using case studies in management education. However, unlike the traditional use of cases, our approach builds an experience around the case study company by surrounding learners with additional props to use in the decision-making process. We describe an experiential learning process that provides an opportunity for integration while capitalizing on the characteristics of adult learners. We have used the approach successfully in MBA programs in both Canada and the United Kingdom to challenge students to resolve some of the complex, multi-dimensional issues facing today's organizations. We have also found this approach to be transferable to other learning situations.     

Taking an insect-inspired approach to bird navigation

Navigation is an essential skill for many animals, and understanding how animal use environmental information, particularly visual information, to navigate has a long history in both ethology and psychology. In birds, the dominant approach for investigating navigation at small-scales comes from comparative psychology, which emphasizes the cognitive representations underpinning spatial memory. The majority of this work is based in the laboratory and it is unclear whether this context itself affects the information that birds learn and use when they search for a location. Data from hummingbirds suggests that birds in the wild might use visual information in quite a different manner. To reconcile these differences, here we propose a new approach to avian navigation, inspired by the sensory-driven study of navigation in insects. Using methods devised for studying the navigation of insects, it is possible to quantify the visual information available to navigating birds, and then to determine how this information influences those birds’ navigation decisions. Focusing on four areas that we consider characteristic of the insect navigation perspective, we discuss how this approach has shone light on the information insects use to navigate, and assess the prospects of taking a similar approach with birds. Although birds and insects differ in many ways, there is nothing in the insect-inspired approach of the kind we describe that means these methods need be restricted to insects. On the contrary, adopting such an approach could provide a fresh perspective on the well-studied question of how birds navigate through a variety of environments.     

外文歌曲在交际法外语课堂教学中的运用

交际法使用于外语课堂教学是近几年国内外语教学的潮流。在这样的课堂里引入外文歌曲,是很多教师尝试并且讨论的话题。本文将从概括交际法及其教学法引导下的外语课堂教学特点入手,论述外文歌曲在此课堂的优势,探讨如何对所用歌曲进行选择,进而研究按照何种步骤使用何种方法开发使用外文歌曲。     

Unawareness to Production,Dropout to Innovator—Primary teachers' understanding and use of a science,technology and society approach to science teaching

This paper investigates the process of teacher change in a group of 8 primary school teachers during their exposure to a science, technology and society (STS) approach to teaching Science in Swaziland. The research aimed to establish the effect of support given to teachers in using the approach through a series of workshops, followed by a 5-week supported implementation of the unit ‘matter and energy’. An analysis of the way in which the STS approach impacted on the classroom practice of the teachers yielded 2 outcomes that were hierarchical. First, teacher understanding of the approach was observed to go through levels of unawareness, recognition of differences in approach, utilisation, personalisation and production. Second, the teachers' level of use of the STS approach was observed to have been affected by their levels of understanding, characterised by the following typologies: dropouts, strugglers, domesticators, succeeders and innovators. Some relationship between levels of understanding and typology of use was found, however, the level of understanding was not the exclusive determinant of typology of use. Only teachers reaching the utilisation level were able to use the innovation in a sustainable way, while those at the level of unawareness were able to become domesticators, adapting the innovation to their usual teaching approach.     

Building Latent Class Growth Trees

Researchers use latent class growth (LCG) analysis to detect meaningful subpopulations that display different growth curves. However, especially when the number of classes required to obtain a good fit is large, interpretation of the encountered class-specific curves might not be straightforward. To overcome this problem, we propose an alternative way of performing LCG analysis, which we call LCG tree (LCGT) modeling. For this purpose, a recursive partitioning procedure similar to divisive hierarchical cluster analysis is used: Classes are split until a certain criterion indicates that the fit does not improve. The advantage of the LCGT approach compared to the standard LCG approach is that it gives a clear insight into how the latent classes are formed and how solutions with different numbers of classes relate. The practical use of the approach is illustrated using applications on drug use during adolescence and mood regulation during the day.     

Problem-Based Learning

Abstract

Problem-based learning has been described for use in medical education and is thought to be a superior approach to traditional didactic methods. We describe the use of PBL as an innovative approach to the education and training of social workers on an interdisciplinary health care team. An actual PBL case is described, and a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages to this approach is presented. The use of PBL on interdisciplinary teams helps educate social workers to work effectively on teams, and educates other professionals about the social work role and how to utilize social work services effectively.     

Internet Approach versus Lecture and Lab‐Based Approach for Teaching an Introductory Statistical Methods Course: Students’ Opinions

The use of the Internet as a teaching tool continues to grow in popularity at colleges and universities. We consider, from the students’ perspective, the use of an Internet approach compared to a lecture and lab‐based approach for teaching an introductory course in statistical methods. We conducted a survey of introductory statistics students. Contradictory to what was hypothesized by the authors, they favoured keeping the lecture and lab‐based approach for teaching the class.     

论外语教学中创造性培养的基本方法

根据创造学的一些原理,以及大学外语教学的实际,探讨了外语教学中如何运用探索发现法、发散集中法、定势打破法、趣味教学法、讨论(辩论)法培养学生的创造性问题.