Naïve Empiricism and the Nature of Science in Narratives of Conflict Between Science and Religion

Scientific inquiry is both theoretical and empirical. It succeeds by bringing thought into productive harmony with the observable universe, and thus, students can attain a robust understanding of the nature of science (NOS) only by developing a balanced appreciation of both these dimensions. In this article, I examine naïve empiricism, a teaching pattern that deters understanding of NOS by attributing to observation scientific achievements that have been wrought by a partnership of thought and empirical experience. My more specific concern is the naïve empiricism promoted when teachers illustrate NOS through historical anecdotes about conflict between science and religion. Since the religious actors depicted in such accounts appear to reject evidence, these narratives lead readers to suppose that scientists draw their conclusions in exactly the opposite way, from empiricism alone. I illustrate this pattern by examining two representative treatments of the Copernican revolution. My methods are historical and critical.     

《牛津高中英语》中口语教材评估

外语教材在我国外语教学中具有举足轻重的地位。而教材评估对教材的优化与改进具有很大的促进作用。虽然教材评估在国外已有三十余年的发展,但在我国对教材评价和研究起步较晚。其中对已被广泛使用的《牛津高中英语》[1]的评价的研究较少,而其口语教材的分析与评价更是屈指可数。本文对该教材的口语材料进行评估,综合分析了其优势与不足,提出了改进意见及对口语教学的启示。     

Pedro Gutiérrez Bueno’s Textbooks: Audiences, Teaching Practices and Chemical Revolution

Pedro Gutiérrez Bueno wrote two editions of a chemistry textbook between 1788 and 1802. The paper offers a comparative view of both editions taking into account Gutiérrez Bueno’s biography, his intended audience and the changes related to the so-called chemical revolution. Some conclusions are at odds with common images about scientific revolutions and the role of textbooks in science. The analysis aims to shed some light on the multiple historical forces shaping textbooks and the way in which scientific change is assimilated by their writers. This research was partially supported by the program BHA2002-04611-CO3-02     

Numbers are Just Not Enough: A Critical Analysis of Race,Gender, and Sexuality in Elementary and Middle School Health Textbooks

Textbooks are a multimillion dollar publishing business in the United States. Even as 21st-century classrooms become more multimodal, digital and hardcopy textbooks remain a key feature of American education. Consequently, classroom textbooks have been shown to control knowledge dissemination across the content areas. In particular, health texts have been uniquely shown to communicate values that validate or marginalize students and encourage healthy or harmful activity. Thus, what textbook makers choose to include as worthy of study, and how they portray various groups of people with regard to race, gender, and sexuality has societal implications. Employing quantitative and qualitative content analysis methods, we analyzed 1,468 images across elementary and middle school health textbooks to examine the portrayal of race, gender, and sexuality. We found that, although gender and racial diversity are well-represented in texts, women and people of color were frequently portrayed in stereotypical roles. For example, girls were depicted daydreaming about heterosexual marriage. Furthermore, this analysis revealed limited representations of sexuality. Findings suggest that focusing on the numerical representation of marginalized groups is not enough to address issues of equity and power in classroom curricula. Instead, we argue, educators must consider the ways in which people are positioned in curricular materials, and ask if portrayals perpetuate or challenge traditional stereotypes.     

Encyclopedia as Textbook

Textbooks and encyclopedias represent different genres of scientific literature. Textbooks help the students to prepare for their examinations in various subjects taught at schools, such as logic, metaphysic, chemistry. In the 17th Century some Calvinist professors, mostly in Germany, thought that a universal wholeness should be taught for the students. Encyclopedias adequately expressed this vision. Some of these professors, including Johannes Alsted, were invited to Hungary, Transylvania, to introduce the encyclopedic spirit to the local schools. This act fostered the first textbook in Hungarian language written by János Apáczai Csere. This book was an encyclopedia born mostly in the Netherlands where the author studied. The Cartesian philosophy combined with a Ramist system served as the basis of the book. Its history shows how the local conditions influence the content of knowledge incorporated into a textbook.     

对一部部评优秀教材的错误分析

高校政治理论课教材必须具有科学性、权威性和严肃性。但是由于种种原因，部分教材质量堪忧。由甘自恒教授主编、被教育部评估为优秀、在高校广泛使用的《邓小平理论和“三个代表”重要思想概论》，存在较多瑕疵，包括知识与文字方面的瑕疵，页脚注释方面的瑕疵，引文方面的瑕疵等。很大程度地影响了本课程的教学质量。     

Teaching Intercultural Communication in a Technical Writing Service Course: Real Instructors' Practices and Suggestions for Textbook Selection

This article addresses the problem of textbook selection for teaching intercultural communication in the service course. The study analyzes the pedagogical elements of textbooks, using a model of awareness, information, and practice. Applying the Burkean pentad as an analytical tool, the article situates the pedagogical elements of textbooks in four areas: the instructor's experience, course goals, classroom situation, and teaching techniques. It then describes a tool for textbook and context assessment useful for guiding textbook selection. It reports the results of a contextual inquiry to validate the assessment tool. We conclude that the assessment tool offers instructors a valuable predictor of the fitness of a given textbook to a given instructional situation.     

关于高职《应用文写作》教材建设的思考

高质量的教材是培养高质量人才的基本保证,高职院校加强《应用文写作》教材建设对提高人才培养质量具有十分重要的意义。高职《应用文写作》教材建设要突出职业教育的特点,强化学生写作能力的培养,要符合培养高素质劳动者和技术技能人才的要求。教材的编写体例要科学合理,教学内容要力求最新,例文的编写格式要规范,并可展现公文格式的嬗变。     

Tell me a Story: the use of narrative as a learning tool for natural selection

Grounded within literature pointing to the value of narrative in communicating scientific information, the purpose of this study was to examine the use of stories as a tool for teaching about natural selection in the context of school science. The study utilizes a mixed method, case study approach which focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of narrative-based curriculum materials. The data consisted of questionnaires, classroom observations, and interviews with the students and teachers. The analysis of the data showed that most of the students developed adequate scientific understandings about natural selection and they perceived the narrative as easier to comprehend than the textbook. The findings speak to the need for examining ways of blending narrative effectively into science lessons.     

Images in biology: are instructional criteria used in textbook image design?

This paper analyses the extent to which textbook images are designed using the Instructional Criteria for Image Analysis (ICIA) model in textbooks. The ICIA proposed that learning through images involves interaction between the learner, the image, and the activities with images proposed to the student. Images from the main text and activity section of eleven primary and secondary school textbooks on the human body were analysed regarding the extent to which they fit the proposed criteria. Images in the main text were analysed according to size and type, presence of visual elements (graphical elements, colour, enlarged details), verbal elements (caption, labels) and reference to the image within the text, while images in the activity sections were analysed according to learning involved (task type, procedure, processing level). Results show unequal presence of these criteria in both primary and secondary school textbooks. There are some differences between primary and secondary levels (predominant image type, degree of image contextualisation and processing level required). Images should not be considered self-evident. Images should be designed based less on aesthetic and decorative criteria and more on instructional criteria such as ICIA proposed in order to support image-based learning processes and increase the potential value of images as learning tools.     

Do Biologists’ Conceptions of Science as a Social Epistemology Align with Critical Contextual Empiricism?

From literature on understandings of the “nature of science” (NOS), we know that sometimes scientists and others that participate in teaching and mentoring in the sciences lack an informed view of the philosophical underpinnings of their discipline. In this study, we ask whether biologists who are also teachers or mentors for college students agree with the tenets of critical contextual empiricism (CCE), a social epistemology of science that foregrounds the importance of a diversity of voices in knowledge-producing communities. We used a Q-sort methodology to examine beliefs about social knowledge construction that are related to teaching science inclusively. Overall, we found that biologists-teachers held viewpoints somewhat consistent with the tenets of Critical Contextual Empiricism. Although participants shared many beliefs in common, we found two significantly different groups of participants that were characterized under the themes “knowledge is constructed by people” and “the truth is out there.” Overall, although participants believed a diversity of cognitive resources aids scientific communities, they failed to recognize the more nuanced ways certain social interactions might impact objective knowledge production. For one group, outside of a belief that collaboration in science is valuable, other social influences on science were assumed to be negative. For a second group, the search for universal truth and the separation of rational and social aspects was critical for scientific objectivity. We use the results of our Q-sort to identify areas for professional development focused on inclusive science teaching and to recommend the explicit teaching of CCE to science educators.

     

有关特师手语教材编写的两点思考

本文针对目前各特殊教育大专师范院校无正规手语教材的现状,结合多年来自身手语教学的经验强调手语教材的编写应紧密围绕教学大纲,采取圆周式的编排方式;教学内容的特点要体现出知识的系统性、实用性和功能性.     

研究生培养模式改革下应用数理统计教材改革的思考

应用数理统计是在应用型研究生培养中起到重要作用的数学课程,目前迫切需要构建便于教师教学、学生自学并注重工科应用的教材."大工程观"和建构理论是对应用数理统计教材改革的理论基础.新模式下的教材,应由理论为主转为以应用为主;应使教材中的知识模块化,使得教材宜于教学并便于自学;应增加统计思想的历史介绍和应加大统计软件的学习和应用.     

To What Degree Do the Currently Used Physics Textbooks Meet the Expectations?

Textbooks play an important part in the instructional process. The purposes of this study were to develop an instrument to identify the characteristics of high school physics textbooks, and examine how appropriate the currently used textbooks were for teaching and learning physics. The criteria were identified and the instrument was developed with the pre-service physics teachers to evaluate the physics textbooks approved by the Turkish Ministry of Education. This study described some problems in the content and design of the physics textbooks that might be caused by the narrow criteria used by the Ministry to approve science textbooks. The criteria in this evaluation instrument would provide an empirical base in analysis of high school physics textbooks and be used by not only the Turkish Ministry but also by physics teachers and textbook evaluators from other countries. Moreover, these criteria can be modified and used in selection of appropriate textbooks of other science disciplines.     

An Analysis of Problem-Posing Tasks in Chinese and US Elementary Mathematics Textbooks

This paper reports on 2 studies that examine how mathematical problem posing is integrated in Chinese and US elementary mathematics textbooks. Study 1 involved a historical analysis of the problem-posing (PP) tasks in 3 editions of the most widely used elementary mathematics textbook series published by People’s Education Press in China over 3 decades. Study 2 compared the PP tasks in Chinese and US elementary mathematics textbooks. This allows for the examination of PP tasks from an international comparative perspective, which provides one point of view about the kinds of learning opportunities that are available to students in China and the USA. We found evidence that the inclusion of PP tasks in the Chinese textbook series reflected, to some degree, changes in the curricular frameworks in China. However, the distribution of PP tasks across grade levels and content areas, as well as the variety of types of PP tasks included, suggest a need for greater intentionality in the design and placement of PP tasks in both the Chinese and US textbook series. Findings from the 2 studies reported in this paper not only contribute to our understanding about the inclusion of PP tasks in curriculum both historically and internationally, but also suggest a great need to systematically integrate PP activities into curriculum and instruction. The fact that both Chinese and US curriculum standards have heavily emphasized PP in school mathematics, despite there being only a small proportion of PP activities in both Chinese and US elementary mathematics curricula, suggests the existence of challenges that are delaying the implementation of reform ideas such as problem posing in school mathematics.     

Childhood sexual violence in Zimbabwe: Evidence for the epidemic against girls

Sexual abuse during childhood is a public health and human rights concern throughout the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2011, Zimbabwe initiated national prevalence data collection on violence against children to inform government policy and programs. We interviewed 567 females and 589 males, aged 18–24 years following standardized and previously tested survey methods from the region. Of females 32.5%, and of males 8.9%, reported experiencing sexual violence before age 18. Most female (62.7%) and male (47.9%) victims of sexual violence experienced more than one incident of sexual violence prior to age 18 years. Three in four females (77.7%) and one in four males (26.7%) of those who experienced sexual violence reported that the first incident was perpetrated by a boyfriend or girlfriend. Few victims received professional help (2.7% of females and 2.4% of males who had reported experiencing sexual violence). Violence against girls is at epidemic levels in Zimbabwe. Most sexual violence against girls occurs within the context of peer relationships. Child victims who seek potentially life-saving support tend not to receive it. This study is evidence of a national public health and child rights emergency in the country and a case for increased, longer-term investment by the government and its development partners in policy reform for enhancing adolescent girls’ empowerment and protection.     

民初欧美留学生与中国现代教科书的成型——基于商务印书馆1922年新学制教科书的分析

商务印书馆新学制教科书是凝聚海洋文化视域与寄托的教科书盛宴,全新的名称与种类展现出教科书的多样与完备,全新的编撰队伍荟萃学术精英,全新的开拓进取精神展现了一场波澜壮阔的文化自信与创新运动。教科书围绕儿童及其生活展开,凸显教育之人性意义;教科书设计问题并且引导探究,积极建构智能之发展;教科书尝试多样类型及编制,满足各种教学之需求。于是,从1903年中国第一套现代意义的教科书的出现到1922年新学制教科书编撰出版,经历黄金二十年,中国现代教科书发展成型。     

Conceptual Variation or Incoherence? Textbook Discourse on Genes in Six Countries

The aim of this paper is to investigate in a systematic and comparative way previous results of independent studies on the treatment of genes and gene function in high school textbooks from six different countries. We analyze how the conceptual variation within the scientific domain of Genetics regarding gene function models and gene concepts is transformed via the didactic transposition into school science textbooks. The results indicate that a common textbook discourse on genes and their function exist in textbooks from the different countries. The structure of science as represented by conceptual variation and the use of multiple models was present in all the textbooks. However, the existence of conceptual variation and multiple models is implicit in these textbooks, i.e., the phenomenon of conceptual variation and multiple models are not addressed explicitly, nor its consequences and, thus, it ends up introducing conceptual incoherence about the gene concept and its function within the textbooks. We conclude that within the found textbook-discourse ontological aspects of the academic disciplines of genetics and molecular biology were retained, but without their epistemological underpinnings; these are lost in the didactic transposition. These results are of interest since students might have problems reconstructing the correct scientific understanding from the transformed school science knowledge as depicted within the high school textbooks. Implications for textbook writing as well as teaching are discussed in the paper.     

Effects of Elaborations Included in Textbooks: Large Time Cost,Reduced Attention,and Lower Memory for Main Ideas

Educational Psychology Review - Textbooks currently include many elaborations that describe, illustrate, and explain main ideas, increasing the length of these textbook chapters. The current study...