Why Minimally Guided Teaching Techniques Do Not Work: A Reply to Commentaries

Knowledge, although seemingly available, is often not used for problem solving. That means it remains "inert." Three types of explanations exist for this phenomenon. Metaprocess explanations assume that the relevant knowledge is available, but it is not used because of disturbed access processes (e.g., lacking metacognitive control). Structure deficit explanations suppose that the deficit is rooted in the structure of the knowledge itself (i.e., the knowledge is not available in a form that allows for its application). In situatedness explanations, the traditional concepts of knowledge and transfer are questioned. One basic assumption of this perspective is that knowledge is fundamentally situated (i.e., context-bound). In the last decade, instructional models have been developed that try to remedy the inert knowledge problem and take into account important aspects that have been raised by the different explanations.     

A Framework of Effective Science Explanation Videos Informed by Criteria for Instructional Explanations

Research in Science Education - Science explanation videos, especially online ones, have become popular. They cover nearly all topics from school science curricula. Teachers use them in a flipped...     

Practicing Connections: A Framework to Guide Instructional Design for Developing Understanding in Complex Domains

Educational Psychology Review - Research suggests that expert understanding is characterized by coherent mental representations featuring a high level of connectedness. This paper advances the idea...     

A Psychometric Framework for the Evaluation of Instructional Sensitivity

Although there is a common understanding of instructional sensitivity, it lacks a common operationalization. Various approaches have been proposed, some focusing on item responses, others on test scores. As approaches often do not produce consistent results, previous research has created the impression that approaches to instructional sensitivity are noticeably fragmented. To counter this impression, we present an item response theory–based framework that can help us to understand similarities and differences between existing approaches. Using empirical data for illustration, this article identifies three perspectives on instructional sensitivity: One perspective views instructional sensitivity as the capacity to detect differences in students' stages of learning across points of time. A second perspective treats instructional sensitivity as the capacity to detect differences between groups that have received different instruction. For a third perspective, the previous two are combined to consider differences between both time points and groups. We discuss linking sensitivity indices to measures of instruction.     

为什么高等教育市场不遵循经济学教科书

2013年11月1日至3日,第十届北京论坛教育分论坛成功举行。论坛以"高等教育的全球参与和知识共享"为主题,邀请了来自中国、韩国、马来西亚、老挝、以色列、美国、加拿大、巴西、德国、英国、希腊、挪威、澳大利亚、南非和中国香港等15个国家和地区的30位学者到会演讲,来自校内外的50多位师生参与了会议讨论。     

深度参与:理解型教学设计的学生视角

理解型教学的关键不在于采用哪种教学形式,重要的是学生一定要全身心地投入,进行深入地思考,找到解决问题的贯穿线索,才能真正达到理解的目的。所以,理解型教学就是灵活地思考和运用所学知识的过程,而学生能灵活运用所学知识的有效途径就是"深度参与"。为使学生切实理解所学知识,关键是要让他们体验知识的建构过程,积极参与各个教学环节。即在理解型教学设计与实施过程中,从理解型教学目标的制定,学习活动的设计到持续性评价等阶段,学生都要积极参与。"深度参与"会激发学生学习的信心,树立学习的责任感,表现出持续的进步。     

Discourse Generation for Instructional Applications: Identifying and Exploiting Relevant Prior Explanations

To reap the benefits of natural language interaction, tutorial systems must be endowed with the properties that make human natural-language interaction so effective. One striking feature of naturally occurring interactions is that human tutors and students freely refer to the context created by prior explanations. In contrast, computer-generated utterances that do not draw on the previous discourse often seem awkward and unnatural and may even be incoherent. The explanations produced by such systems are frustrating to students because they repeat the same information over and over again. Perhaps more critical is that, by not referring to prior explanations, computer-based tutors are not pointing out similarities between problem-solving situations and therefore may be missing out on opportunities to help students form generalizations. In this article, we discuss several observations from an analysis of human-human tutorial interactions and provide examples of the ways in which tutors and students refer to previous explanations. We describe how we have used a case-based reasoning algorithm to enable a computational system to identify prior explanations that may be relevant to the explanation currently being generated. We then describe two computational systems that can exploit this knowledge about relevant prior explanations in constructing their subsequent explanations.     

i-MMOLE: Instructional Framework for Creating Virtual World Lessons

Today virtual world instruction faces many of the same educational challenges faced by Web-based instruction during its infancy. There is a lot of jargon and visions of the future being bandied about, but as Hirumi et al. note in the May/June and July/August 2010 issues of TechTrends there little understanding of how to apply pedagogical practices in video game settings. i-MMOLE is a research-based instructional design framework created specifically for designing instruction that incorporates virtual world environments. To date, i-MMOLE has been utilized by university students in the creation of more than 300 lesson plans across multiple disciplines and age groups. This article describes the underlying foundation of this framework and how to utilize i-MMOLE in the creation of one’s own virtual world based instruction.     

A Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Supervision Effectiveness

The authors attempt to bridge the gap between the research literature on supervision and its application to evaluating individual supervisor effectiveness. A conceptual framework is presented for making decisions about evaluation. In this framework the decision maker is directed to consider three issues—the purpose of evaluation, the developmental stage of the counselor, and the focus of evaluation—in selecting measures of effectiveness. Within this context, some promising measures of supervision effectiveness are discussed, and methods for linking changes in supervisee functioning to supervisor interventions are considered.     

Complementary Kinesiology: Why It Is Not Wise to Choose Sides or Work Alone

In this essay I argue in favor of a holistic vision for our field under the heading of complementary kinesiology. I argue that battles over reified dichotomies and even compromise solutions have impeded our progress as a profession. I describe the theory of complementation as an alternative. I say it is a strange and paradoxical way of conceptualizing our values and our direction, one that is difficult to grasp intellectually. But I also suggest that it helps us see how and why there really are no “sides” in our profession and why “working alone” is not a viable option. I argue that complementation will allow us to be a more flexible, effective, and otherwise smarter field. Thus, I conclude that any difficulties inherent in understanding complementation are well worth the effort.     

Preliminary Evolutionary Explanations: A Basic Framework for Conceptual Change and Explanatory Coherence in Evolution

This study aimed to explore secondary students’ explanations of evolutionary processes, and to determine how consistent these were, after a specific evolution instruction. In a previous study it was found that before instruction students provided different explanations for similar processes to tasks with different content. Hence, it seemed that the structure and the content of the task may have had an effect on students’ explanations. The tasks given to students demanded evolutionary explanations, in particular explanations for the origin of homologies and adaptations. Based on the conclusions from the previous study, we developed a teaching sequence in order to overcome students’ preconceptions, as well as to achieve conceptual change and explanatory coherence. Students were taught about fundamental biological concepts and the several levels of biological organization, as well as about the mechanisms of heredity and of the origin of genetic variation. Then, all these concepts were used to teach about evolution, by relating micro-concepts (e.g. genotypes) to macro-concepts (e.g. phenotypes). Moreover, during instruction students were brought to a conceptual conflict situation, where their intuitive explanations were challenged as emphasis was put on two concepts entirely opposed to their preconceptions: chance and unpredictability. From the explanations that students provided in the post-test it is concluded that conceptual change and explanatory coherence in evolution can be achieved to a certain degree by lower secondary school students through the suggested teaching sequence and the explanatory framework, which may form a basis for teaching further about evolution.     

Modelling Molecular Mechanisms: A Framework of Scientific Reasoning to Construct Molecular-Level Explanations for Cellular Behaviour

Although molecular-level details are part of the upper-secondary biology curriculum in most countries, many studies report that students fail to connect molecular knowledge to phenomena at the level of cells, organs and organisms. Recent studies suggest that students lack a framework to reason about complex systems to make this connection. In this paper, we present a framework that could help students to reason back and forth between cells and molecules. It represents both the general type of explanation in molecular biology and the research strategies scientists use to find these explanations. We base this framework on recent work in the philosophy of science that characterizes explanations in molecular biology as mechanistic explanations. Mechanistic explanations describe a phenomenon in terms of the entities involved, the activities displayed and the way these entities and activities are organized. We conclude that to describe cellular phenomena scientists use entities and activities at multiple levels between cells and molecules. In molecular biological research, scientists use heuristics based on these intermediate levels to construct mechanistic explanations. They subdivide a cellular activity into hypothetical lower-level activities (top-down approaches) and they predict and test the organization of macromolecules into functional modules that play a role in higher-level activities (bottom-up approaches). We suggest including molecular mechanistic reasoning in biology education and we identify criteria for designing such education. Education using molecular mechanistic reasoning can build on common intuitive reasoning about mechanisms. The heuristics that scientists use can help students to apply this intuitive notion to the levels in between molecules and cells.     

数字化教学游戏三维评价体系架构

数字化教学游戏的评价对数字化教学游戏的设计与开发具有导向作用。针对当前数字化教学游戏评价方法的不足,在借鉴布鲁姆教学目标分类修订版基础上,提出了数字化教学游戏评价体系的三维架构,并以此为依据,着重从游戏教学目标实现的角度对国外的几个数字化教学游戏实例进行了分析和评价。     

Innovative Work Behaviour in Vocational Colleges: Understanding How and Why Innovations Are Developed

In workplaces, innovative products and processes are required to address emerging problems and challenges. Therefore, understanding of employees’ innovative work behaviour, including the generation, promotion, and realisation of ideas as components of this behaviour is important. In particular, what fosters innovation development and what triggers these activities is important for its promotion and adoption in contemporary workplaces. To investigate how and why innovations at work are developed and enacted, an explorative study comprising structured interviews with vocational teachers in the German vocational system was conducted. The teachers reported on activities they undertook during the development of a specific innovation. Furthermore, they provided information on factors that made this innovation necessary and that they were activated by. The study indicates that even when opportunities for innovation development existed in a workplace, the needs and goals of teachers were pivotal for these opportunities to be recognised and teachers’ innovative work behaviour to be triggered. By analysing vocational teachers’ work activities, we found that the development of innovations was a complex, iterative and primarily social process. By encouraging teachers to act on opportunities for change and by establishing a collaborative structure at schools, innovation development can be facilitated. We also found that throughout the development of an innovation, reflection played an important role. If the importance of reflective activities is acknowledged by workplaces such as these participants’ vocational schools, this not only fosters innovations but also the teachers’ professional development.     

增强教师教学行为有效性的思考——对课堂中常见的教师教学行为的反思

教师的教学行为是关乎教学成败的关键,在课堂教学中,很多被教师频繁使用的、被教师视为有效的教学行为,却并未如教师预期的那样收到良好的教学效果。这就需要我们正确地理解这些教学行为在具体教学情境中的价值,把握住教师教学行为的价值内涵及实现条件,才能真正使教师教学行为发挥出促进教学的推动作用。     

Understanding Technology Literacy: A Framework for Evaluating Educational Technology Integration

Federal legislation in the United States currently mandates that technology be integrated into school curricula because of the popular belief that learning is enhanced through the use of technology. The challenge for educators is to understand how best to teach with technology while developing the technological expertise of their students. This article outlines a framework of technological literacy designed to help educators understand, evaluate, and promote effective and appropriate technology integration.     

Five Essential Practices for Communication: The Work of Instructional Coaches

The work of instructional coaches, both general and discipline-specific, has become increasingly important as more schools rely on their leadership for improvements in teaching and learning. Much of their work hinges upon their effective communication with teachers and school administrators. This article outlines five practices for instructional coaches to use in order to achieve and maintain effective communication; these five practices draw upon the author's prior work as an instructional coach and upon her own research. The practices are presented by sharing the voices of three mathematics instructional coaches, their teacher colleagues, and their school administrators.     

Understanding by Design: A Framework for Effecting Curricular Development and Assessment

Successful learning outcomes require the integration of content and meaningful assessment with effective pedagogy. However, development of coherent and cohesive curriculum is seemingly overwhelming even to experienced teachers. Obviously this creates a barrier to successful student learning. Understanding by Design (UbD) overcomes this impasse by providing concise and practical guidance for experienced and inexperienced teachers. In programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, teams composed of University of Wyoming graduate students and science teachers from grades 6 to 9 designed motivating, inquiry-based lesson plans intended to get students to think and act like scientists. In this process, teams utilized principles outlined in UbD with great success. UbD describes a practical and useful “backward” design process in which anticipated results are first identified; acceptable evidence for learning outcomes is established and, only then, are specific learning experiences and instruction planned. Additionally, UbD provides procedures to avoid content overload by focusing on “enduring principles.” WHERE, the UbD sieve for activities, was used effectively to develop tasks that are engaging, that are consistent with state educational standards, and that promote self-directed, life-long learning.     

Teacher-Directed Learning Approaches and Science Achievement: Investigating the Importance of Instructional Explanations in Australian Schools

Research in Science Education - This study investigated the relationships of teacher-directed approaches with science achievement in Australian schools. The data for this study were drawn from the...