职业技术教育教学改革论

职业学校要提高教学水平,必须创造出适合自身需要的教学模式,这种模式必须体现职业性与活动性.理论教学可以采用集体的、个人的或小组的问题探究模式,技能教学则可运用以活动为核心的项目式、任务式教学模式,而非智力素质的培养则更应偏重渗透于活动情境的情境体验模式、行为训练模式等.要推进职业教学改革,还需进行教学制度、教育资源管理、教学组织方式的相应变革.     

Boundlessly entangled: non-/human performances of education for health through open-air schools

ABSTRACT

This article starts from histoire croisée to develop a genuinely relational analysis of performances of health education in the context of open-air schools. It interrogates, through places, people, and things conceived of as being performatively entangled, the notion of an internationalisation of school hygiene. These places, people, and things – “international” conferences and exhibitions, “figureheads” of the aspiring New Schools and open-air schools movements, and printed, photographed, and designed materials – reveal open-air schools as “practice[s] and movement[s]” unbound by national or otherwise (real-)imagined borders. Fragmentation accompanied their circulation and ensued from their co-constitutive role in the mediation of knowledge and praxis around hygiene. While still underexplored, economic factors were key to this process. Their analysis from within the “meshwork” in which non-/humans were (are) entangled opens up new lines of enquiry.     

Climate change? A comparison of language and literacy practices relating to the teaching of science across the Key Stage 2/3 interface in two school clusters

This paper reports the findings of a study of the literacy perceptions and practices of general primary teachers (Key Stage 2) and post‐primary science teachers (Key Stage 3) within two clusters of schools. The study also explores the possible impact on pupils of any difference in the language climate which may accompany them on their journey across this curricular interface. Interviews with science managers and teachers suggest a quite restricted view of literacy is taken in both phases of schooling with no evidence of any practices which may support the notion of curricular continuity. The different approaches to the introduction of scientific terminology, writing, reading and classroom discussion were reflected in pupils' accounts of their experience and clearly posed a problem for some. We suggest there would be merit in teachers adopting a much wider perspective on literacy which recognises the opportunities for developing the interrelated strands of “general literacy” and “the discourses of science” alongside “learning through language”. By addressing each of these domains, and sharing practice across the key stages, a more comprehensive and coherent approach to “language, literacy and science learning” may result, in turn helping minimise the adverse effects of “language climate change”.     

Faculty Response to the Implementation of an Open Source Learning Management System in Three Tertiary Institutions in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

In spite of their apparent benefits, learning management systems can be regarded as a hindrance to effective online learning. Their design, functionality, complexity, price, and value are beginning to be questioned by some users. As a new generation of Web-based tools and approaches evolves, Web-based learning management systems are becoming better suited to meet the need for dynamic online learning, interaction, collaboration, and networking. The new tools and collaborative approaches these systems provide allow learners to take proactive control of their own learning. In June 2004 a consortium of New Zealand Tertiary Institutions led by the Waikato Institute of Technology secured a one-year Ministry of Education grant to support the “Open Source Courseware Initiative New Zealand” (OSCINZ). The OSCINZ project focused on the development and implementation of “Moodle” (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) to create a uniquely New Zealand learning management system, based on quality open source code developed and tested by leading educational providers. This paper describes the response of faculty in three of the project's partner tertiary institutions to the implementation of Moodle in their institutions.     

The changing face of creativity in Australian education

Traditional ties between “arts” education (that is, discipline-based arts subjects and activities in schools) and an emergent notion of “creativity” in educational discourses and policy documents are loosening, with implications for both. While creativity seems to be on the ascendant, the arts may not be as fortunate; creative skills and capacities are emerging as a central focus of twenty-first century learning, while the arts continue to fight for room in an overcrowded curriculum. In this article, we examine some policy-level shifts in focus towards creativity and its conflation with innovation, and its trickle-down effects in secondary and tertiary learning environments. Central to this analysis is the diffuse and often contentious constructions of discourses of creativity, and its inability to be clearly and consistently defined or measured in the education sector. The need to quantify creativity and its presence in schools is on the rise, and this article tracks its implications for teacher education, policy development and curriculum and pedagogical evolution in the twenty-first century.     

Praxis und Verhältnis interner und externer Evaluation im Schulsystem im internationalen Vergleich

The overview article deals with the interaction of internal and external evaluation within the current paradigm of school governance. The actual practice of both approaches and the current state of research about the effects on school development is described. Both evaluation approaches are less focused on aspects of school output such as student performance, and more on school processes such as school management or the quality of teaching. External evaluation in the form of school inspection mainly fulfills the function of accountability and the identification of weak schools. Internal evaluation is probably a better way to achieve school development. However, the necessary competence to use internal evaluation as a systematic process of quality management for which each individual school takes responsibility is currently underdeveloped. Considerations about the future relationship between internal and external evaluation focus on using external evaluation as a kind of “meta-evaluation”. But before external evaluation can build on results of internal evaluation in this way, a broad capacity building in schools and a different understanding of the role of inspectors are necessary.     

高职师资“校企双向流动”:阻滞因素与实施路径

推动高职师资“校企双向流动”,有利于破解存量师资“双师”素质短缺,推动高职院校承担责任使命,实现人才资源社会效能优化。高职师资“校企双向流动”制度演变具有组织模式由“自发流动”向“协作流动”转变、流动要素由“身份流动”向“知识流动”转变、企业人员由“全职流动”向“兼职流动”转变、学校人员由“挂职流动”向“切换流动”转变的鲜明导向。为破解观念守旧、价值错位、制度低效等阻滞因素影响,提升“校企双向流动”实效,需要推动工程实践由“大水漫灌式”向“任务驱动型”回归,推动校企合作由“利益结合体”向“命运共同体”升级,建设一批内置于企业的“校企双向流动”支撑平台,构建有利于人才社会性流动的治理体系和社会环境。     

Variation in the conduct and the quality of self‐evaluations: a multi‐level path analysis

While self‐evaluation leads to valuable results in some schools, it appears that in other schools this is true only to a lesser extent or not at all. This raises the question of how differences in the results of self‐evaluations can be explained. This study looks at to what extent the results of self‐evaluation are determined by the way in which self‐evaluation is conducted, by characteristics relating to the general functioning of the school and by the support which schools enjoy. One thousand seven hundred and eighty‐six school principals and team members from 96 schools (primary and secondary) were surveyed by means of a written questionnaire. The data collected were then analysed using multi‐level structural equation modelling. The results provide strong empirical evidence that “attitude with regard to self‐evaluation”, “self‐evaluation as a policy action” and “self‐evaluation as an act of research” are powerful predictors of the quality of self‐evaluations.     

Cues,Codes, Complexity,and Confusion Lessons from Complexity Regarding Productivity and Resilience

The very notion of productivity improvement involves measurement against a context. The success of computers and other quantitative approaches during the past half century has led to an ideational context wherein transmitters of information often assume that the content of their message is like code—ascertainable to the recipient by means of a look‐up table. Complexity science suggests that contexts themselves need to be continually examined lest a boundary or frame be inappropriately assumed. When, for example, efficiency improvements are the result of externality creation, a loss of resilience is often the price and a shift in frame would reveal the“improvement”to be either an increase in risk or a resetting of a boundary. Improvements are not al‐ways“code”for“better,”but may, in the light of a complex systems approach, be a cue for danger ahead.     

Becoming a “Foreigner”: The Principle of Equality,Intersected Identities,and Social Exclusion in the Norwegian School

This article explores how some minority pupils’ self-definition as “foreigners” leads to their inability to also consider themselves diligent and talented pupils in the Norwegian school. The minority pupils’ self-definition as “foreigners” creates binary understandings of being a diligent and conscientious pupil, a definition that is often interpreted as being “Norwegian.” Through observations and conversations with young minority pupils in upper secondary school about their everyday lives, this article shows how the bodies and behavior of some minority pupils are excluded in a firm and often instinctive understanding of equality conceived as sameness. It is argued that even if the concepts of diversity and tolerance are important foundations in the Norwegian education policy, this principle creates a specific notion of a “normal pupil.” This tacit normality has different consequences for different minority pupils, creating complex intersected identities along the categories of gender, social class, and ethnicity. While the notion of a normal pupil creates social exclusion for some pupils with a minority background, this article argues that the entanglement of other categories provides opportunities for success for other minority pupils in the same educational system.     

Sustaining the adoption of gamified outdoor social enquiry learning in high schools through addressing teachers’ emerging concerns: A 3-year study

Gamified Authentic Mobile Enquiry in Society (GAMES) is a GPS-supported mobile application for gamifying social enquiry learning in outdoor environments. Teachers are always the “educational innovation gatekeepers” in schools. This paper reports on a 3-year study in which the Stages of Concern model was employed as a quantitative diagnostic instrument to continuously understand and address the emerging concerns of 91 social humanities teachers (from 91 high schools in Hong Kong) about adopting GAMES in their teaching practice. With adequate interventions for addressing the participants’ ongoing needs, their peak categorical concern shifted initially from “Management” (in Year 1) to “Consequence” (in Year 2), and finally to “Refocusing” (in Year 3). The results reveal that the participants largely intended to go on harnessing GAMES to facilitate outdoor social enquiry learning in their schools. This work provides the field with profound strategic insights into sustaining technological innovations in schooling from the perspective of teachers—an important stakeholder of education.     

Community participation in school governance: The Maasai community in Kenya

The Free Primary Education (FPE) policy in Kenya created a dichotomy between the widespread notion that the government should be responsible for everything and the reality that the government had stopped recruiting teachers. This article investigates the current state of the accountability system for school governance in public schools in the Maasai community in Loitokitok District, Kajiado County, by focusing on the client power of parents and communities. A case study of eight schools in the Masai community reveals that a sense of “working together” and a substantial degree of client power are present in various school initiatives. Elements that enhance client power include information sharing, collaboration and coordination with stakeholders, critical-thinking ability, respect and trust, and other unique efforts. The study also indicates the limitations of the dichotomous lens of “service provider” and “client” and questions the instrumental approach to community participation in school management.

     

Impact of school inspections on improvement of schools—describing assumptions on causal mechanisms in six European countries

School inspection is used by most European education systems as a major instrument for controlling and promoting the quality of schools. Surprisingly, there is little research knowledge about how school inspections drive the improvement of schools and which types of approaches are most effective and cause the least unintended consequences. The study presented in this paper uses interviews with inspection officials and a document analysis to reconstruct the “program theories” (i.e. the assumptions on causal mechanisms, linking school inspections to their intended outcomes of improved teaching and learning) of Inspectorates of Education in six European countries. The results section of the paper starts with a summary of the commonalities and differences of these six national inspection models with respect to standards and thresholds used, to types of feedback and reporting, and to the sanctions, rewards and interventions applied to motivate schools to improve. Next, the intermediate processes through which these inspection models are expected to promote good education (e.g. through actions of stakeholders) are explained. In the concluding section, these assumptions are critically discussed in the light of research knowledge.     

High School Students’ Understanding of the Human Body System

In this study, 120 tenth-grade students from 8 schools were examined to determine the extent of their ability to perceive the human body as a system after completing the first stage in their biology curriculum - “The human body, emphasizing homeostasis”. The students’ systems thinking was analyzed according to the STH thinking model, which roughly divides it into three main levels that are arranged “pyramid” style, in an ascending order of difficulty: 1. Analysis of system components—the ability to identify the components and processes existing in the human body system; 2. Synthesis of system components—ability to identify dynamic relations within the system; 3. Implementation—ability to generalize and identify patterns in the system, and to identify its hidden dimensions. The students in this study proved largely incapable of achieving systems thinking beyond the primary STH level of identifying components. An overwhelming majority if their responses corresponded to this level of the STH model, further indicating a pronounced favoring of structure over process, and of larger, macro elements over microscopic ones.     

Bureaucratic Control or Professional Autonomy?: Performance management in New Zealand schools

Since 1997 appraisal has been a mandated requirement of New Zealand schools. While the management of teacher performance is not new, schools are increasingly being faced with difficult and complex decisions regarding accountability mechanisms for teacher performance. Moreover, in a climate of school self-management the potential exists for tensions between bureaucratic systems and the professional autonomy of teachers to surface. This article reports on research conducted in 2001 that investigated teachers' perceptions of the bureaucratic and professional approaches to performance management in their schools. In a climate of increasing control of teachers' work and professional activities by the State, results from recent research indicate that school managers have adopted a professional approach to the appraisal of staff. Moreover the involvement of teachers in developing school-level appraisal systems is pinpointed as fundamental to the long-term success of appraisal in New Zealand schools.     

Principles of educational systems design

In November 1989, there was a meeting of people who had been involved in helping to bring about fundamental restructuring in public schools. This chapter reports on one person's view of the results of that “Asilomar Conference.” It describes 15 activities that appear to enhance the success of systemic restructuring, but more importantly it describes principles or guidelines that appear to enhance the success of each activity. Hopefully, this tentative process model will contribute to building a knowledge base that will help practitioners and other stakeholders to attain a quantum improvement in the quality of their educational systems.     

Building and Application of the “Relay” Volunteer Teaching Model for Pre-service Teachers under “Internet Plus”

The educational practice of pre-service teachers is an essential part of teacher training. As an important form of educational practice, volunteer teaching can effectively improve the quality of teacher training and bridge the serving of basic education. Upon the literature review on existing volunteer teaching models, this paper develops a teaching community of teachers under “Internet Plus” and the prototype of a “relay” volunteer teaching model towards the integrated design of training undergraduate pre-teachers and improving the educational quality of small rural schools. The sound “relay” volunteer teaching model has been formed upon revisions around checking its completeness, optimizing its operability, and enhancing its stability using the design-based research paradigm according to the research path of “planning-application-reflection-improvement.” The practice has indicated positive effects of the new model in promoting the academic development of students in small rural schools, enhancing the classroom teaching competency of rural teachers, and improving the professionalism of pre-service teachers. The quality and efficiency of the new model can be improved through initiatives such as providing timely and efficient technical support, establishing a favorable and harmonious relationship between teachers and students, adopting guidance with double-qualified instructors for instant companionship, and implementing flexible incentives and restraints.     

THE PRIVATIZED PUBLIC: ANTAGONISM FOR A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IN SCHOOLS?

In an extended era of privatization initiatives, when accountability principles and competitive business logics pervade school discourse and practice, what is left of the “public” part of public schooling? When market rationality privileges individualism and competition and provides much of the justification for the aims of U.S. schools, how is the notion of the public good evidenced? In this essay Deron Boyles makes the claim that public schools inordinately function as private markets—as places where a unidirectional narrative of “givens” reinforce individualism, competition, and corporatization under the guise of merit, testing, and school‐business partnerships.     

Between kudzu and killer apps: Finding human ground between the monoculture of MOOCs and online mechanisms for learning

Although MOOCs have not lived up to previously breathless predictions of disruption, they have had an outsized influence on university administrators who see online learning as a “savior solution” for ever-shrinking budgets. Despite lower student persistent rates, faculty skepticism, and burdensome faculty workloads, the general public and administrative embrace of online learning has been enthusiastic, which may be explained in part using Foucault’s concept of the episteme to view the convergence of the parallel tracks of educational and technological development--the idea of a kind of mechanism for learning. While MOOCs once promised “best professors,” other institutions now promise the “best designed” mechanisms for learning, certified through corporatized quality assurance programs and learning management systems. While this may be appropriate for shopping educational products in a neoliberal marketplace, it seldom addresses human needs. Moreover, the temporal and human constraints that online promises to banish, in fact, continue to exist. Therefore, a more realistic examination of psychological and social factors, pedagogical tools, and the nature of online communication, is needed in order to create a more humane way of teaching, and learning.     

Moral Pluralism and Sex Education

How should common schools in a liberal pluralist society approach sex education in the face of deep disagreement about sexual morality? Should they eschew sex education altogether? Should they narrow its focus to facts about biology, reproduction, and disease prevention? Should they, in addition to providing a broad palette of information about sex, attempt to cover a range of alternative views about sexual morality in a “value‐neutral” manner? Should they seek to impart a “thick” conception of sexual morality, which precisely articulates how individuals should lead their sexual lives? In this essay, Josh Corngold cautions against the adoption of each of these various approaches. He argues that schools should instead adopt an “autonomy‐promoting” approach, which will aim to empower students, cognitively and emotionally, to exercise sovereignty over their own sexuality.