Social cultural and situative perspective of studying emotions in teaching and learning: characteristics, challenges and opportunities

In this forum, I take a learning sciences perspective to examine the paper by Bellocchi, Ritchie, Tobin, Sandhu and Sandhu (Cultural Studies of Science Education, doi:10.1007/s11422-013-9526-3, 2013) titled “Examining emotional climate of preservice science teacher education.” I characterize their approach as a social cultural and situative perspective of studying emotions in teaching and learning. Such an approach overcomes the limitations of examining emotions as individual psychological constructs, but it also incurs other methodological challenges. I suggest an alternative approach of examining the individual’s emotions, as well as their aggregates as a group measure. This approach allows us to study variations in emotional outcomes at an individual level or at a group level. I also suggest examining interplay of emotions with other aspects of learning outcomes, for example, cognitive learning outcomes. Finally, I suggest studying development of meta-emotional knowledge among teachers as another fertile area of research that could benefit the teachers in their classroom practices.     

Computer‐assisted Social Skills Learning for Adolescents with Mild Retardation and Social Difficulties

The aim of this study was to evaluate an intervention model for computer‐assisted social skills learning. The integration of technology enables experimentations within a controlled, structured, and easily changeable mini‐environment, emphasising four critical aspects of social learning: active learning, controlled and fluent processing, structure and schema organization and strategy training. Twelve adolescents with mild retardation and social difficulties were trained on “I Have a Problem” social conflict scenarios, integrating the software with strategy training. The results demonstrated that the children increased their understanding of the social conflict situations as expressed on the software measures and on paper and pencil questionnaires. Three case studies were provided to demonstrate the students’ individual learning styles, assessed through students’ reports and teachers’ ratings.     

Recurring patterns in the development of high school biology students’ system thinking over time

The goal of this study was to identify and understand the mental models developed by 67 high school biology students as they learn about the human body as a complex system. Using concept maps, it sought to find an external way of representing how students organize their ideas about the human body system in their minds. We conducted a qualitative analysis of four concept maps created by each student throughout the 3-year learning process, which allowed us to identify that student’s systems thinking skills and the development of those skills over time. The improvement trajectories of the students were defined according to three central characteristics of complex systems: (a) hierarchy, (b) homeostasis and (c) dynamism. A comparative analysis of all of our students’ individual trajectories together revealed four typical learning patterns, each of which reflects a different form of development for systems thinking: “from the structure to the process level”, “from macro to micro level”, “from the cellular level to the organism level,” and “development in complexity of homeostasis mechanisms”. Despite their differences, each of these models developed over time from simpler structures, which evolved as they connected with more complex system aspects, and each indicates advancement in the student’s systems thinking.     

对话的特征及其教育意义

对话是人的存在方式,对话是个体意义生成的过程,对话是“我-你”关系的具体体现。教育活动应是一种对话行为,通过对话达到教育主体之间以及个体与人类文化之间精神能量的转换,从而促进个体生命质量的不断提升。对话教育是一种革新性的教育观。     

合作化小说“个人”故事的讲述及其问题——以马烽和《韩梅梅》为例

"集体"与"个人"之间的关系,是社会主义农村小说的一个极为重要的症结。由于前合作化时代并无"集体",两者的关系除了在利益层面的起源变化,更重要的,是它们在知识层面上的缘起。这预示着后来社会主义农村小说对于集体和个人话题的某种叙述范式。新中国教育部1953-1954年的教育整顿,造成了在个人认知的层面"集体"和"个人"的相遇,并引发了两者之间关系的难题。由此,"个人"的故事如何被讲述,将不仅仅与历史有关,同时也关乎文学自身。1954年马烽先生的小说《韩梅梅》,正是讲述了一个"个人主义"的故事,但是在历史化的视野上,它却呈现了多重隐晦与纠结的意味。     

Teaching Neoliberalism,in the Context of Corporate Reform,in the Undergraduate Social Foundations Classroom

This article presents an autoethnographic and theoretical reflection on my justifications for the use of neoliberal deconstruction in the undergraduate social foundations classroom. I engage the reader in a discussion concerning the need to make neoliberal agendas, as they pertain to corporate reform in education, salient to students. Further, I argue that cognitive apprenticeship is necessary to “help students map their own dialectics into thinking about their future practice as educators.” I share the integral elements of the cognitive apprenticeship undertaken in the course: “three prongs of foundational thinking,” four key conceptual frames for neoliberal deconstruction and associated foundational readings, and two representative assignments to illustrate the type of scaffolding offered to help education students move past naïve and complacent interpretations of current corporate reforms. My reflections rely on my teaching experience, in-class observations, assessment of students' work, and overarching themes in how students' have responded to the topic.     

Math Anxiety,Need for Cognition,and Learning Strategies in Quantitative Communication Research Methods Courses

To understand student learning in undergraduate quantitative communication research methods course, this study examined relationships between perceptions of course topic difficulty, course topic understanding, and their relationship with students’ level of math anxiety, need for cognition, and learning strategies. A total of 196 participants voluntarily took part in this study. Results revealed that a higher level of math anxiety leads to a higher level of perceived learning difficulty for topics in the course and leads to a lower level of content understanding of the topics. For topics related to “Research Methods and Measurement,” a higher level of need for cognition results in a lower level of perceived learning difficulty and results in a higher level of content understanding. Use of critical thinking learning strategy has a significantly positive effect on perceived content understanding of topics related to “Research Methods and Measurement,” as does elaboration learning strategy on that of “Statistics.”     

Liberal education reconsidered: cultivating humanity in the knowledge society

In the knowledge society, there is a conflict between “education for profit” and “education for humanity.” Education for profit is needed for students’ economic survival and success in the knowledge economy. Education for humanity is needed for their existential lives worthy of human beings. This paper deals with the question of whether it is possible to educate for humanity in the knowledge society. First, I suggested a complemented concept of “education for profit in the broad sense,” transforming the knowledge society for a better one. Second, I discussed Biesta’s criticism of “cultivation of humanity,” defending using this term as a general and honorific sense. Finally, I explained how an expanded concept of education for profit in the broad sense is compatible with the cultivation of humanity. Education for profit in the broad sense, considering the disadvantaged in the social and political sense, is to teach virtues such as caring, compassion, justice, etc. Teaching various values in addition to economic value also contributes to the cultivation of humanity by enriching human life. Teaching various learning skills for continuous learning, “social capital” as well as intellectual knowledge, global citizenship, communal relationship, is to cultivate one’s self-learning capacity. I concluded the paper by reconsidering directions of liberal education in the knowledge society.     

新时代何以育智：作为一种方法的“学习对质”

“对质”一词来源于法学学科,但巧妙地回答了教育科学中对学生“要我学”至“我要学”转变后关于“我该如何学”的持续追问。“学习对质”是深化学生思考的重要方法,能够达成学生以思考为核心目的之学习,可回应新时代育智问题,助力新时代学生学习。通过系统阐述“学习对质”的概念、内容、形式和结果,可进一步厘清“学习对质”的独特内涵。而梳理当前学习理论和实践变革发展需要,可肯定“学习对质”作为学习方法存在的意义。此外,要实现“学习对质”,应发挥教师“学习对质”的引导作用和发展学生的“学习对质”精神、能力,使学生在教师的引导下更好地掌握学习方法,有效开展“学习对质”,“解构”并“重构”广义知识,积极扩展思维界限,不断提升终身学习能力,不断实现自我发展、自我成就、自我超越。     

Teaching for identities, writing between the “we” and the “I” paradigms

Circumscribed by the culture of collectivist and Confucian traditions, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education in China has defaulted to an impersonalized provision and delivery. Much of teaching and learning is to assimilate individuals into a group identity. This epistemological model can be detected in learning outcomes, e.g., preferential use of ‘we’ over ‘I’, lack of authentic self-identity in student EFL writing, etc., and is characterized by ubiquitous rote learning. In this paper, we adopt a biographical approach to the teaching of stories expressed as personal narrative as part of the research framework. This is also applied to critical curriculum and pedagogical reforms that help students to write across their extant cultural constraint, enabling them to make a conceptual leap in understanding the difference between the collective, and the individual identities, of the “we” and the “I”. Once this conceptual awareness has been achieved, the individual viewpoint can be elicited and articulated in student writing of narrative accounts. Biographical narrative accounts of personal experience are found to have a creative and self-actualizing force in forming the individual’s identity, using his/her original voice. The findings suggest that EFL writing curriculum and pedagogy in the new era can be a useful strategy to empower students and EFL teachers to teach and write between the “we” and the “I” paradigms, and expand their ontological capability and flexibility through pedagogical effect.     

Coding Classroom Interactions for Collective and Individual Engagement

This article characterizes “engagement in science learning” from a sociocultural perspective and offers a mixed method approach to measuring engagement that combines critical discourse analysis (CDA) and social network analysis (SNA). Conceptualizing engagement from a sociocultural perspective, the article discusses the advantages of a mixed methodological approach, and specifically how mixed methods can expand and enrich our understanding of engagement in certain science learning situations. Through this sociocultural viewpoint, engagement is defined as meaningful changes in disciplinary discourse practice, which captures the dialectical relationship between the individual and collective. The combined use of CDA and SNA integrates an individual's relative position in a group with her situated language use.     

反思智能时代教学论研究的人文情结

智能时代的教学论研究因在“技术”的语境中守护“人性”而表现出一种集体研究心态,即教学论研究的人文情结,表征为追求生命心智发展的教学过程观,凸显非认知性交往的师生关系观和彰显个体精神自由的定制学习观。源于“人性-技术”二分的思维方式,技术偏见导致人性固化、知识育人回应乏力和历史文化根基缺失或是智能时代教学论研究的困境所在。以开放、发展和关注全体生命发展的立场,将技术纳入人性,促进规范升级,根植历史文化,重构智能时代教学论研究的人文追求,不失为一条可取的研究进路。     

Evolutionary Perspectives on Mind,Brain, and Education

Understanding about human origins informs our understanding of what it means to be human. It is reasonable, therefore, to consider that an evolutionary perspective can provide insight into the nature and processes of human learning and education. This article reviews how ideas about evolution have influenced educational thinking in the past. It then considers how understanding of brain development and function is helping to inspire “new thinking” about evolution. The review converges on a range of benefits that may arise from the inclusion of evolutionary concepts within the field of mind, brain, and education. These benefits include scrutiny of evolutionary neuromyth, reconsideration of the cultural and political status of education, insight into notions of individual difference, and help with stimulating and directing research efforts aimed at improving educational outcomes.     

Implications of a Learning Organisation for Social Justice in Poverty Stricken Communities: A Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

The term “social justice” cuts across disciplines and theoretical orientations. Critical theory underpinned the study reported on in this article. Many South African schools, particularly in poverty stricken communities, still experience insurmountable economic and social injustices despite progress since the apartheid regime. The injustices manifest in poverty, inequalities and unequal distribution of educational resources, impacting on the achievement gap. While social justice is a concern in the literature, South African literature has little on how to apply the concept of a learning organisation to reclaim a commitment to social justice. The article argues that schools perceived as learning organisations are sites of social and political struggle that can promote and encourage human rights to fundamental freedoms for all, without discrimination. This requires progressive teachers and critical thinking by students to transform dehumanising social milieus into communities of participation embodying the values of progress and human emancipation.     

Digital archives in the cloud: Collective memory,institutional histories and the politics of information

The archive is a cultural institution that creates a framework for the social and collective memory and as such is one of the collection of knowledge institutions that not only preserves and classifies “texts” but uses them to re-create collective memory and sometimes to invent cultural histories. Like all knowledge institutions, the archive is also a construction deeply implicated in knowledge politics or what Foucault calls power/knowledge. In the past the archive has functioned as a central metaphor for the construction of human knowledge in all it is different institutional forms and like the encyclopedia and the camera, the archive produces highly coded representations that make implicit validity claims to the truth and justice of the past. Politically speaking, those who control the archive control the past. In the digital world, the archive is used to describe a machine-readable location as a store for “data” and “information.” Digital technologies radically alter our existing institutions, making access to their embedded knowledge widely available and enable learning and research anytime, anywhere. Data analytics algorithmically can manipulate electorates and entire democracies in new ways, while destabilising the free press. This article asks what digitizing an archive means for collective memory, for the history of institutions and for politics in the Cloud.     

我国幼儿园教师教育研究学术史:70年回顾与展望

我国幼儿园教师专业发展观经历了理智取向、实践取向和精神取向的三次转变,由此带来了幼儿园教师职前教育课程从关注知能到关注实践再到关注精神的变革。随着幼儿园教师教育的深化发展,研究术语从“教师培训”改为“教师专业发展”,进而被“教师学习”所替代。这一转变凸显了幼儿园教师是自主的终身学习者,体现了幼儿园教师培训观从外铄论转向内发论,自主取向的幼儿园教师发展观得到了普遍认同。同时,这一转变还催生了个人和集体的教师文化之间的相互调适,营造合作共生、带有学习共同体特征的幼儿园教师文化生态成为共识。在方法论层面,哲学思辨范式、科学实证范式、人文诠释范式、社会批判范式等研究范式呈现出齐头并进、互取所长的横向格局,但在当前大数据和人工智能的时代背景下,同时也存在着过度推崇“基于证据”的实证研究的倾向。研究范式的多元化是幼儿园教师教育研究发展的内在要求,基于“复杂性思想”,从多元整合的视角开展研究应是未来幼儿园教师教育研究发展的重要趋势。     

人机协同化与学生发展核心素养——基于社会智能三维模型的分析

人机协同系统正在全面渗入人类的工作与生活,社会正快速地人机协同化。在弱人工智能时代,人工智能没有“意向性”,但其智能程度在迭代进化中。人机协同系统存在人类与机器两类智能主体,以及人类智能、人工智能和协同智能三种智能元素,其中协同智能的主体是人类,人机协同系统的智能是分布式的。受国际关系“软”“硬”“巧”实力三分理论启示,本研究构建了人机协同时代社会智能的三维模型。“三维”指硬智能、软智能和巧智能,机器拥有更多硬智能,并向人类“学习”软智能,人类拥有更强的软智能和巧智能,并把更多的硬智能“让渡”给机器。基于社会的快速人机协同化,教育所培育的学生核心素养应以发展学生的软素养和巧素养为重点,在硬素养维度着力培育学生的计算思维。未来人机关系将决定个体的社会存在,因此强调以人机协同的价值观、意识、能力等为重点的巧素养培育具有前瞻性。     

The effects of cooperative learning and feedback on e-learning in statistics

This study examined whether cooperative learning and feedback facilitate situated, example-based e-learning in the field of statistics. The factors “social context” (individual vs. cooperative) and “feedback intervention” (available vs. not available) were varied; participants were 137 university students. Results showed that the feedback intervention clearly supported learning. Feedback proved especially beneficial for students with little prior knowledge. Cooperation did not promote learning outcomes; however, group performance in the learning phase was superior to individual performance. Also, cooperative learning enhanced perceived performance and perceived competence. Probably, collective efficacy had a halo effect on self-efficacy.     

The Science of Human Interaction and Teaching

There is a missing link between our understanding of teaching as high‐level social phenomenon and teaching as a physiological phenomenon of brain activity. We suggest that the science of human interaction is the missing link. Using over one‐million days of human‐behavior data, we have discovered that collective activeness (CA), which indicates the simple high‐frequency‐motion ratio of a group to total time, plays a fundamental role. Even solo‐work performance, such as telephone‐sales success rate, is more influenced by CA than by one's individual skill level, which has been the conventional target of employee efficiency education. CA is experimentally found to drive people collectively to challenge for greater performance and happiness through a synchronized proactive mind. This is, in fact, deeply related to understanding the question “What is teaching?”     

Instructor Social Presence Effects on Learner Social Presence,Achievement, and Satisfaction

Instructor social presence involves instructors establishing their presence as “being there” in terms of frequency of communication and interaction with students as well as supporting students throughout the learning process (Lowenthal 2015). Instructor social presence can be constructed and maintained through the design and facilitation of online courses. Studies have indicated that instructor social presence can be correlated with increased learning satisfaction, engagement and achievement as well as learners perceptions of the instructor. This sequential explanatory mixed method study investigated the effects of instructor social presence on achievement, satisfaction and learner social presence and further sought to identify effective instructor social presence techniques in asynchronous online courses. The results of this study showed that the degree of instructor social presence significantly influenced instructor perceptions of student achievement. Findings also suggest that a well-designed collaborative learning activity can be an effective strategy for building instructor social presence.