Exploring Opportunities for Argumentation in Modelling Classrooms

On several levels it can be said that the act of modelling in science is inherently an argumentative act. That is, in virtually all aspects of modelling, from developing a question to judging between competing models that might answer that question, an individual is engaged in persuasive acts. Those acts may be private or public. They may be mental, written or oral, but they are about judging ideas and making sense of them; convincing oneself or others that the ideas and ways of looking at and explaining a phenomenon are useful. These acts are what scientists find exciting. They are what make science intellectually interesting and challenging. Inviting students into this practice is one way to help them learn both the content and process of science. This paper introduces a framework that is attentive to the research on how people learn while simultaneously pushing for curriculum and instruction that engages students in elements of the practice of science. We explore how this framework can be used to foster argumentation by describing the theoretical underpinnings of the framework and using classroom examples to illustrate the utility of the framework for promoting argumentation.     

Student peer review: enhancing formative feedback with a rebuttal

This study examines the use of peer review in an undergraduate ecology programme, in which students write a research proposal as a grant application, prior to carrying out the research project. Using a theoretical feedback model, we compared teacher and student peer reviews in a double blind exercise, and show how students responded to feedback given by each group. In addition, students wrote a rebuttal for every feedback point before re-drafting and submission. Despite students claiming they could tell if the reviewer was a teacher or student, this was not always the case, and both student and teacher feedback was accepted on merit. Analysis of feedback types and rebuttal actions showed similar patterns between students and teachers. Where teachers differed slightly was in the use of questions and giving direction. Interviews with students showed the rebuttal was a novel experience, because it required a consideration of each comment and justification as to why it was accepted, partially accepted or rejected. Being a reviewer helped students to learn about their own work, and it changed the way they understood the scientific literature. In addition, some students transferred their new peer review skills to help others outside of the ecology programme.     

Follow-up Evaluation of a Faculty Training Program in Aging Research

In collaboration with distinguished scholars and National Institute on Aging (NIA) staff, we designed, implemented, and evaluated a research training program in aging for psychology faculty from 4-year colleges. The goal of the program was to build and sustain a community of college faculty committed to conducting aging research, incorporating recent advances in their courses, and engaging undergraduate students in aging research. Program design included an initial 2-week summer institute, ongoing consultation, a midyear meeting during the intervening year, and a follow-up institute. The initial institute focused on research methodology, selected content areas, and procedural matters related to preparation and submission of grant applications. There were 2 follow-up meetings that provided participants with extended opportunities to discuss the proposal they were developing. Between 1998 and 2004, 6 cohorts of psychology faculty (with 13–15 members in each cohort) participated in the program. This paper reports the results of a follow-up evaluation we conducted in September 2004.     

Preparing Computer Literate Social Workers

This paper brings together and adds to the current thinking on how to introduce microcomputer technology to MSW students and how to integrate this content with practice and research courses. A new framework suggested by the authors facilitates the integration of computer literacy training into an MSW curriculum. This framework conceptualizes computer literacy as a composite of both analytic and end-user administration, or research - each will have a different priority and emphasis. Computer literacy objectives are identified and discussed in each area of curriculum and numerous ideas and exmaples are provided that will assist schools of social work to plan their computer coursework.     

Old Advice for New Researchers

In this paper, I offer advice to new researchers on how to conduct a successful research project in educational psychology. I break the research task into three parts: creating a research question, creating a research methodology, and creating a dissemination plan. The criteria for creating a research question include personal interest, educational relevance, theoretical grounding, and empirical testability. The criteria for creating a research methodology include that the method provides relevant evidence, is feasible, and is as simple as possible. The criteria for creating a dissemination plan include basing your argument on research evidence, presenting your argument in coherent style that links your main findings with theoretical and practical implications, and seeking the best possible peer-reviewed publication venue.     

《毛泽东思想概论》教学之我见

《毛泽东思想概论》既是一门理论性很强又是一门历史性很强的课。笔者以为要讲好这门课必须作好以下几方面的工作：一、通过多种途径，充分了解学生实际情况；二、立足学生实际，改革教学内容，精心设计教案；三、以课后作业为平台，引导学生开展研究性学习；四、利用多媒体，丰富教学手段，巩固教学效果；五、开展课外活动，实践毛泽东思想。     

The Strategies of Modeling in Biology Education

Modeling, like inquiry more generally, is not a single method, but rather a complex suite of strategies. Philosophers of biology, citing the diverse aims, interests, and disciplinary cultures of biologists, argue that modeling is best understood in the context of its epistemic aims and cognitive payoffs. In the science education literature, modeling has been discussed in a variety of ways, but often without explicit reference to the diversity of roles models play in scientific practice. We aim to expand and bring clarity to the myriad uses of models in science by presenting a framework from philosopher of biology Jay Odenbaugh that describes five pragmatic strategies of model use in the biological sciences. We then present illustrative examples of each of these roles from an empirical study of an undergraduate biological modeling curriculum, which highlight how students used models to help them frame their research question, explore ideas, and refine their conceptual understanding in an educational setting. Our aim is to begin to explicate the definition of modeling in science in a way that will allow educators and curriculum developers to make informed choices about how and for what purpose modeling enters science classrooms.     

师范生免费教育政策设计建议

师范生免费教育政策近来已成为教育系统内外热烈讨论的一个焦点话题.鉴于政策的科学设计对于政策初衷的实现至关重要,因此有必要从教育政策学的视角就政策目标定位、政策方案设计、政策试点实施等方面对师范生免费教育政策的设计加以更多思考并提出相应建议.     

Accelerating the introduction of the case method into Chinese business schools: an action research approach

ABSTRACT

This paper is unique in that it demonstrates how a national education department used action research to stimulate the use of the case method of teaching in business schools and other departments in universities in China. It illustrates how four different players; a teacher, her students, a government department in charge of setting education policy and selected faculty in Chinese universities were involved in the research. The research suggests that, contrary to widely held beliefs, given a well-trained and motivated Chinese instructor and careful course design Chinese students will readily accept the case method of teaching. Methods used in influencing potential adopters of the case method are discussed. Current faculty and institutional related barriers to the introduction of the case method are noted along with a proposal to institute the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning as a potential solution. The paper also illustrates how videotapes of classroom processes can be used in multiple ways within an action research project.     

Positioning participation in the NGSS era: What counts as success?

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) strives to shift science learning from the teacher as a single cognitive agent, to a classroom community in which participants are working together in directing the classroom's communal knowledge to figure out questions about how phenomena occur, and building, testing, and refining their ideas to address those questions. To achieve this type of classroom environment, teachers should attend to students' knowledge and ideas and pay attention to how students are located within teacher-led interactions, such as being positioned as active discussants or designated listeners. In this study, we explore if and how this is occurring in the NGSS era. We used a naturalistic inquiry to explore how an experienced first-grade teacher used a new NGSS-aligned unit that called for students to use the science and engineering practices (SEP) to build content knowledge. We used a macro-analytic lens to answer the research question “how are class discussions shaped to address the SEP”? We used a micro-analytic lens to answer the research question “how are students positioned during these science discussions in this classroom?” Evidence suggests that the teachers' whole class discussions incorporated and involved the SEP which were specified in the unit lessons for content learning. However, on a micro-analytic level, we found that few students were positioned as active discussants. The teacher heavily relied on those students who could provide succinct and clearly relevant answers while positioning the remainder of the students as silent spectators. Implications from this research suggest that not only new NGSS curriculum materials need to focus on what students should know and do but they also need to address heuristics for teachers that show them how to position all of their students as active doers of science so all students have opportunities to build deeper, core science knowledge.     

Teaching Probability for Conceptual Change La Enseñanza De La Probabilidad Por Cambio Conceptual

This work presents a theoretical proposal for a methodology for the teaching of probability theory. The theoretical proposal has a dual inspiration: (1) the epistemological approach of Lakatos (1978b) regarding the quasi-empirical nature of mathematical theories; (2) the perspective of conceptual change for the teaching-learning process, as formulated by Strike and Posner (1992). The scientific content taught and the didactic methods used in the classroom should, according to this proposal, respect and conform to this dual inspiration. We also present an evaluation of the methodology in a real context: six Spanish high school classes of students aged 14–15. The main purpose of the research was to answer this question: Is our didactic proposal more effective than traditional methodology? We operatively identify the concept of traditional teaching, and establish several indicators of effectiveness: the mastery of elementary probability calculations, the quality of intuitive reasoning in probability, and the conceptual and attitudinal change produced. We found significant differences on all indicators, except for attitudinal change, in favour of the group that followed our proposal.     

用正确理念推进高职教育科学发展

自1999年中央提出“大力发展高等职业教育”工作要求以来,我国高等职业教育得到快速的发展。2008年全国普通高校本专科招生计划安排599万人,其中普通本科生300万人,高职生299万人。高职教育已占据高等教育的半壁江山。那么,怎样才能充分发挥高职教育的作用呢？关键需要用一套正确的理念,来引导推进高职教育科学发展。     

生活方式与生活质量:中国社会福利研究的独特视角

生活方式是中国社会学研究的重要课题，社会福利与社会政策研究是新兴议题，生活方式与生活质量是社会学与社会政策研究共同关注的重大理论与政策议题。中国社会如何处理社会学取向与社会福利政策取向的生活方式研究，是个既关系到如何深化中国社会生活方式研究，又关系到如何推进中国社会福利与社会政策研究的重大理论与现实问题。本文从中国社会状况与欧美学术传统的角度，探讨生活方式与社会福利研究的关系模式。     

Exploring Third-Grade Student Model-Based Explanations about Plant Relationships within an Ecosystem

Elementary students should have opportunities to develop scientific models to reason and build understanding about how and why plants depend on relationships within an ecosystem for growth and survival. However, scientific modeling practices are rarely included within elementary science learning environments and disciplinary content is often treated as discrete pieces separate from scientific practice. Elementary students have few, if any, opportunities to reason about how individual organisms, such as plants, hold critical relationships with their surrounding environment. The purpose of this design-based research study is to build a learning performance to identify and explore the third-grade students’ baseline understanding of and their reasoning about plant–ecosystem relationships when engaged in the practices of modeling. The developed learning performance integrated scientific content and core scientific activity to identify and measure how students build knowledge about the role of plants in ecosystems through the practices of modeling. Our findings indicate that the third-grade students’ ideas about plant growth include abiotic and biotic relationships. Further, they used their models to reason about how and why these relationships were necessary to maintain plant stasis. However, while the majority of the third-grade students were able to identify and reason about plant–abiotic relationships, a much smaller group reasoned about plant–abiotic–animal relationships. Implications from the study suggest that modeling serves as a tool to support elementary students in reasoning about system relationships, but they require greater curricular and instructional support in conceptualizing how and why ecosystem relationships are necessary for plant growth and development.     

Diversity of Students' Views about Evidence,Theory, and the Interface between Science and Religion in an Astronomy Course

Arguments for teaching about the nature of science have been made for several decades. The most recent science education policy documents continue to assert the need for students to understand the nature of science. However, little research actually explores how students develop these understandings in the context of a specific course. We examine the growth in students' understanding about the nature of astronomy in a one‐semester college course. In addition to student work collected for 340 students in the course, we also interviewed focus students three times during the course. In this article we briefly describe class data and discuss in detail how five students developed their ideas throughout the course. In particular, we show the ways in which students respond to instruction with respect to the extent to which they (a) demand and examine evidence used for justifying claims, (b) integrate scientific and religious views, and (c) distinguish between scientific and nonscientific theories. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 340–362, 2000.     

Enhancing Research Capacity in Gerontological Social Work

There is an untapped potential of social work faculty to conduct aging research aimed at enhancing the well-being of older adults. To better exploit this resource, we have designed, implemented, and evaluated a postgraduate training program in aging research. The goal of the program is to build and sustain a community of social work faculty committed to conducting aging research, to incorporating recent advances in their courses, and to engaging their students in aging research. Program design includes an initial institute (which focuses on research methodology, selected content areas, and procedural matters related to preparation and submission of grant applications); ongoing consultation; and a midyear meeting during the intervening year and a follow-up institute that provide the participants with extended opportunities to discuss the proposals they develop. Evaluation data presented in this paper focus on the first two cohorts (who entered in summer 2004 and summer 2005). These data indicate that the program has been highly effective in expanding the pool of faculty engaged in aging research. Lessons learned with regard to program structure, content, recruitment, evaluation, and sustainability are shared.     

Intercultural postgraduate learning the acquisition of study skills: An institutional response to the results of the research

The need for research into inter-cultural postgraduate, post experience learning stems from changing educational, political and social policies which affect higher education in the United Kingdom.The British Government's policy concerning the financing of overseas students and their encouragement of continuing education students; the research boards' policy concerning postgraduate students; the changing role of University Counselling Services in a time of financial constraint, are shown as the background to the development of systematically conducted research into postgraduate overseas students.The Author decided to carry out an exploratory rather than a confirmatory study, using an ecological theoretical model from developmental psychology. She considered cognitive tasks as interactive settings, and using this methodology, investigated how the students acquired the study skills required for their academic course.The results of the pilot study are presented and these have already resulted in institutional changes.The Author is now involved in a three year research project to further investigate this subject.Paper presented at the International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling Conference, University of Aarhus, Denmark.     

Inscribing the Winch: Mechanisms by Which Students Develop Knowledge Structures for Representing the Physical World With Algebra

I propose and test an account of mechanisms by which students develop knowledge structures for modeling the physical world with algebra. The account begins to bridge the gap between current mathematics curricula, in which modeling activities play an important role, and theoretical accounts of how students learn to model, which lag behind. After describing the larger study, in which I observed 12 pairs of 8th-grade students introduce and refine algebraic representations of a physical device called a winch, I then focus on 1 pair that generated an unconventional yet sound equation. Because the prevailing genetic accounts of knowledge structures in mathematics education, cognitive science, and information-processing psychology do not explain key characteristics of the data, I begin to construct a new developmental account that does. To do so, I use forms, a class of schemata that combine patterns of algebra symbols with patterns of experience in the physical world, and 2 mechanisms, notation variation and mapping variation. I then use forms and the 2 mechanisms to analyze how the selected pair of students introduced and refined initial, faulty algebraic representations of the winch into an unconventional yet sound equation.     

再论大学招生的卓越性与公平性——兼谈中国人民大学自主招生“圆梦计划”的价值与局限

大学招生在高等教育实现“卓越性”与“公平性”的目标中起着至关重要的作用。美国的大学在招生中享有极高的自主性,它们有权制定反映本校办学特征的招生政策,并最终有效地实现大学招生的卓越与公平目标。中国人民大学积极尝试在自主招生中兼顾“卓越”与“公平”理念,今年推出的“圆梦计划”具有表率和实践作用,可以激发其他大学在招生中更加合理地追求“卓越”与“公平”。但是由于受自主招生人数的限制,“圆梦计划”受益学生人数少、候选学校有限,因而有一定的局限性。     

Students' choice of universities in Germany: structure,factors and information sources used

Student recruitment is an increasingly important topic for universities worldwide. But in order to develop sophisticated recruitment strategies, recruitment officers need to have a clear understanding of how and why students choose colleges. This review compares the German and US research concerning university choice models, choice criteria and information sources prospective students use when exploring their options after school. The paper emphasizes the complexity of the decision-making processes of freshmen and reveals three gaps in the German student recruitment research literature. The development of a German university choice model, an increased application of explorative research methodologies, and the consideration of additional aspects possibly impacting the college choice could help to refine German research approaches.