A Review of: ““Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out,Materialistic, and Miseducated Students”

The views of Jewish education articulated by Rosenzweig in his essays “It is Time” and in “The Opening of the Lehrhaus” are quite different. So different, in fact, that an account of how one mind can produce such different accounts is necessary. Following the lead of a 1950’s popular television quiz show, the authors ask “Will the Real Franz Rosenzweig Please Stand Up?” The authors end by exploring how the tensions within Rosenzweig's educational thinking can yield new insights into the contemporary challenges of Jewish education.     

如何激发学生学习动机和自主学习意识

1.My context:I was once greatly influenced by the traditionalteaching methodology applied by almost all my previousteachers,and my classroom teaching practice was quiteteacher-centered.As a college teacher,I placed a signifi-cant emphasis on bringingknowl…     

Exploring The Island: Mapping the Shifting Sands in the Landscape of English Classroom Culture and Pedagogy

I begin with an account of my own observation of an English lesson taught by one of my student teachers using a teaching resource, The Island, that I used myself as a new teacher more than 20 years ago and of my own responses on finding it transformed by two decades of change in educational policy and practice. It has become almost a given in academic articles on English teaching, to refer, in a sentence or two, to the reduction of the English curriculum, the narrowing of pedagogy and the loss of teacher agency due to the dominance of a high stakes assessment regime. The policy changes that have given rise to this change have been clearly analysed elsewhere, but part of my purpose here is just to look again at how it might be experienced by a particular pupil in a particular class. I am interested in analysing some of the features of The Island’s incarnation then and now, from three different angles: as it is inscribed in the project book, as I remember teaching it and as I observed it recently in a London classroom. I draw on theories of literacy and of the teaching of writing in particular in trying to account for some of the differences but beyond that, I argue that it is essential to link such theories to wider political debates about culture and to reflect back from this to the purposes of the English curriculum and culture of the English classroom.     

Bodies displayed on walls: are children’s bodies represented in an inclusive way in the pictures on the walls in their early childhood educational environments?

The messages conveyed by visual representations in the early childhood education (ECE) environment are critical to ensuring the success of inclusive practices. Given that anti-bias education permeates and affects everything which takes place in ECE institutions, the challenge for early childhood educators is to think creatively about how classroom walls can be used effectively as part of an educational environment rather than for purely decorative purposes. Our research aimed to examine, through a content analysis of the illustrations, the representation of the body taking into account the different categories as they are portrayed on nine different ECE classroom walls in Spanish public schools. Results show that the ECE walls are teaching gender equality to young children, with no single predominant role for girls or boys, but that they are not contributing to children learning about corporal diversity related to disability and ageing.     

阿卡姆人文主义教学思想初探

阿卡姆的人文主义教学思想是英国教育教学思想的宝贵遗产。深入研究阿卡姆的教学思想不仅有助于我们理解英国教育和教学思想的发展,而且可以促进我们对语言教学方法改革的思考。     

Higher education curriculum orientations and the implications for institutional curriculum change

This research is based on an empirical study exploring how academics make curriculum decisions and their perceptions of the influences that shape their decisions. Interviews were held with 20 academics from diverse disciplines, who were both research active and committed to teaching. The higher education curriculum was conceptualised as a field of decision-making shaped by academics’ beliefs about educational and contextual influences. The study identified five distinctive curriculum orientations representing coherent patterns of curriculum decisions aligned with academics’ beliefs about educational purposes. Case studies are presented to elucidate each of the curriculum orientations. Curriculum orientations were also found to shape academics’ responses to educational change. The following higher education change drivers are explored: graduate employability and the skills agenda, teaching–research relationships, changing understandings about teaching and learning, educational technologies and flexible delivery. The findings suggest implications for institutional curriculum change initiatives and academic development programmes.     

Knowledge and Politics of Social Change: The implication of anti-racism

This article is a reflection on educational change in Euro-American contexts, undertaken as I conclude two extensive empirical studies on minority student disengagement and strategies of inclusive schooling in the Ontario public education system. Specifically, the discussion explores the implications of race, difference and power for schooling and educational change in North America. It is argued that contemporary education needs to take into account how social difference and questions of identity implicate schooling. The search for genuine educational options must be reframed in the pursuit of anti-racism praxis so that students can engage critical knowledge as a way to rupture the social order of things. In conclusion, the article suggests ways for critical educators to work collectively to ensure that learning and teaching about ourselves is transformative.     

Adapting the boundaries in primary physical education: an account of my learning,my educational influence and improved practice

In this paper I explore how I have come to theorise my work as a critical emancipatory practice as a lecturer in primary physical education (PE). I give an account of what I understand to be the epistemological foundations and practices of practitioner research and my potential educational influence in my own and other practitioner-researchers’ learning. I explain how I have generated my living educational theory of practice and discuss the changes in my learning from a propositional approach towards a dynamic epistemology of practice that is grounded in inclusional and dialogical ways of knowing. Within my paper I position myself as a professional educator and researcher, and share the exciting and transformational experiences of teaching and learning in evolving action research cycles of practice. I view my learning to date as an active act, working with the novice teachers I support to offer improvement and change in our future practice. I celebrate my reconceptualised view of education as a learner from within my practice and explain my move from knowledge transfer to knowledge co-creation. I make an original contribution to educational knowledge by explaining how I try to inspire others to research their practice and contribute to a new scholarship of educational enquiry.     

Changing Places: some reflections

Essentially, this is an account of my recent change of post within the world of education, from Head of English in a comprehensive school to Lecturer in English in Education in a university department of education. In reflecting on this change of places, I consider various aspects of both professions, including my own expectations, the nature of the teaching involved, educational research, partnerships in teacher education and differences in management. I attempt to draw tentative conclusions about the relationship between school life and that of teacher education and how each, through the sort of cross‐fertilisation which inevitably occurs when practitioners change places, may draw benefits from the other.     

What is it worth? An empirical investigation into attitudes towards education amongst youngsters following secondary education in Flanders

This paper argues that whereas the social relevance of attitudes towards education is commonly confined to their direct impact on educational aspirations or attainment, attitudes may also impact on educational success in a way similar to cultural capital. Survey data were used to assess the support for three different attitudes with respect to the perceived value of attending school among youngsters (n = 853) following secondary education in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). The results revealed substantial differences according to the pupils’ cultural capital, time perspective, personal educational experiences and social mobility. These findings are taken as a starting point for a broader discussion about how attention to attitudes may enable us to account for the power struggles in which the educational field and the teaching profession are involved.     

优化课堂教学模式,培养学生创新素质

很多教师在教学实践中创造了一些教学模式,但是一些模式的构建都较多地着眼于怎样有利于大多数学生能够达到最基本的教学要求,而对于怎样有利于发展学生的创新个性,培养学生的创新能力和创新精神则考虑的不多.因此站在创新教育的立场来审视和优化课堂教学模式,是一项十分重要和迫切的任务.     

Goal conflicts and self-regulation: A new look at pupils’ off-task behaviour in the classroom

In this paper, pupils’ misconduct in the classroom is interpreted as a change from on-task to off-task behaviour. This change entails a switch from a current learning behaviour to an activity that is more attractive to the student but that is seen as a discipline problem by the teacher. Thus, academic and non-academic goals of pupils rival one another. Motivational conflict theory is used to elaborate on the premise that a discipline problem is a consequence of goal shift. The theory is used to model off-task behaviour as a failure to coordinate academic and non-academic goals, to ask new research questions, and to draw practical conclusions about educational interventions. The paper closes with suggestions about how to strengthen pupils’ ability to coordinate goals and how teaching can fulfil the various needs pupils pursue.     

The pedagogy of saneness: a schizoaffective storying of resisting sane pedagogy

This article is an autoethnographic account of a ‘schizoaffective’ sufferer learning about and navigating the environs of saneness as a graduate student resisting traditional sane pedagogic structures. Culling from theories found in adult education, Whiteness Studies, and Mad Studies to show that saneness can be conceptualized as a site of critical pedagogy, the author narrates numerous ways in which saneness is embedded in schools and society. In addition, he describes how sane performativity is taught and made educational by inducting a new notion into educational studies: the pedagogy of saneness.     

‘Teacher as Professional’ as Metaphor: What it Highlights and What it Hides

This article is concerned with the downsides of using the language of professionalism in educational discourse. It suggests that the language of professionalization can be a powerful rhetorical device for promoting welcome and necessary changes in the field of teaching but that, in doing so, it can unintentionally misrepresent the work that teachers do. Taking as a theoretical framework Lakoff and Johnson's metaphor theory, the article argues that ‘teacher as professional’ should be seen as a metaphor of teaching on par with other metaphors familiar from the history of educational thought. What metaphors of teaching have in common, the article advances, is that they systematically highlight certain aspects of teaching while hiding others. The significance of this conclusion is twofold. Appreciating the limits of the ‘teacher as professional’ metaphor provides guidance about how to use more effectively ‘professionalism’ as a normative standard for promoting change in teaching and teacher education. Second, appreciating the metaphorical character of ‘teacher as professional’ has heuristic value in that it offers a novel explanation for the controversial trend towards conceptualising teaching in narrowly instructional terms.     

Russian Schools

This article presents educational statistics that reflect the basic indicators describing the state of information technology infrastructure in secondary general education in 2014. This research seeks to analyze how Russia’s Federal State Educational Standards governing secondary general education facilitate the creation of information-based teaching methods and the supply of equipment. Special attention is paid to the interregional differences in information-educational infrastructure as well as the differences between how urban and rural schools are equipped with this infrastructure. This study may prove to be useful to regional education authorities and experts in the field of public educational policy as a starting point for analyzing educational statistics while taking into account regional contextual indicators.     

Knowledge based systems for teaching and learning maths

The main task of an educational system is to generate instructional situations which induce students to learn knowledge and problem solving abilities as applied to a cognitive domain.
To this end, an instructional dialogue must be seen as a process aimed at making student and teacher learn from each other: the student has to learn the subject matter from the teacher, while the teacher has in turn to learn from the student how to regulate instructional interaction. The process relies on different kinds of expert knowledge: experience of the domain, about the actual student, and of teaching methods and objectives. This means that an instructional dialogue cannot be realised without an explicit representation of all the kinds of knowledge involved.
Research has established that Knowledge Based Educational Systems (KBESs) can be the keystone in building effective learning tools, but because of the difficulty in realising a system of this kind, most existing systems are prototypes and are intended only as workbenches for the computational analysis of educational processes.
This paper analyses the main problems which underlie the realisation of such systems, with reference to research into knowledge based systems intended for use with teaching/learning mathematics.     

对外汉语问题化网络教学探讨——基于建构主义和教育目标分类的一种思路

当前,网络教育飞速发展,如何通过网络更好地向世界推广汉语是目前亟待解决的问题。在建构主义教学理论指导下,以教育目标分类为依据的问题化教学是行之有效的对外汉语网络教学模式。问题化教学既可以使教师紧密围绕教学目标展开教学活动,又能够帮助学生更好地理解和掌握汉语。     

Bibliotherapy and Teaching Jewish Texts: “Medicine for the Mind”

Bibliotherapy is an educational approach that attempts to engage learners in meaningful discussions about relevant, compelling, and complex issues that they confront in their lives. Bibliotherapy begins with reading and reflecting on stories that can draw participants into a process of reflection, in ways that are user friendly and non-threatening. This study examines the unique educational features of bibliotherapy, and then proposes a model for implementing this approach in teaching Jewish texts. In the study's final section, we describe a teaching unit that demonstrates how to introduce bibliotherapy into the teaching about death and mourning in Jewish schools.     

教学模式的建构——促进信息技术教师专业发展的途径

建构信息技术教学模式是教学研究的过程,也是教师专业发展的有效途径。由此提出教学模式的建构需要教育理念、教育理论和教育技术作为建构教学模式的基础;讨论教学模式的层次关系及结构;探究建构信息技术教学模式的方法：演绎法、归纳法、综合法,给出应用归纳法和综合法建构教学模式的操作步骤及其目标导向模式和情境整合模式实例。通过教学模式的建构,提高教学效果,促进信息技术教师专业发展。