Presuming Competence

This study discusses my attempt to improve educational experiences of fifth-grade students living in public housing. The context of a social justice-oriented classroom is revealed through reconstruction of my thought processes while teaching and learning with students. The narrative portrayal that emerges demonstrates the impact our theorizing together had on our growth, outlook, and learning in an effort to make substantive change in the community. Although this curriculum was not explicitly grounded in a service-learning framework, the processes, activities, and results of the classroom typify the potential and possibilities of a justice- and service-oriented elementary classroom. Reflections of classroom occurrences and struggles I engaged in privately and with students are conveyed through vignettes of the change-focused, integrated curriculum based on students' priority concerns—particularly the attempt to replace their dilapidated school. The role of theorizing with students and curriculum realizing democratic principles in a poor neighborhood is depicted.     

Changing the Learning Environment to Enhance Explaining and Understanding in a Year 12 Chemistry Classroom

Internationally there is concern in relation to the traditional learning environments evident in many science classrooms and the levels of understanding of science developed by students in such environments. Further, students have generally been found to be poor in relation to thinking in terms of models or theories and in terms of evidence to support their theories. The majority of research on classroom environments has focused on characterising the learning environment in classrooms rather than monitoring changes to a class's or an individual's perceptions to their learning environments as a consequence of interventions. This study reports an attempt to change the learning environment in a classroom and documents changes in participants' perceptions of their learning environments and the corresponding changes in a teacher's and her students' perceptions of their reasoning and understanding that such changes facilitated. A community of learners in which students and teachers began to understand the processes and the value of reasoning in terms of theories and evidence was developed as a result of the involvement of the researchers with the teacher and her class of students. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Narrative multiculturalism

This is the first of three papers based on a 20-month study of teaching and learning in a diverse classroom in a downtown community school in Toronto, Canada. The purpose of the study was to examine teaching and learning in a multicultural classroom and to document successful strategies in working with immigrant and minority students. The three papers detail the process by which this focus on classroom life led to a critique of the literature and to a new way to think about multicultural teaching and learning that I call 'narrative multiculturalism'. In this paper, I explore the place of multiculturalism in education and describe several limitations of the traditional ways of examining the issue. I also outline the understanding with which I began the study and describe the nature of my inquiry. I use my autobiographical experiences of multiculturalism and multicultural research to reflect on the literature of multicultural education. The narrative of my relationship with a teacher participant provides a conceptualization of the field and suggests the nature of narrative multiculturalism.     

Secondary school renewal: the effect of classroom learning culture on educational outcomes

The study was grounded on theoretical propositions and empirical research concerning school effectiveness, classroom effectiveness, school improvement and school renewal. In particular, improving student learning outcomes through improving and renewing schools is dependent on changing classroom cultures of learning and teaching. A model of classroom culture consisting of student educational values (dependent variable), formal learning outcomes (dependent variable), and the attitudes and behaviours of students, teachers and parents (independent variables) was proposed. Hypothesised relationships between the dependent and independent variables were tested by multiple regression analysis of data from 988 students obtained from administration of a Rasch-model instrument assessing classroom culture. The classroom learning attitudes and behaviours of students were found to relate directly to educational outcomes, as were teacher expectations and parent attitudes and behaviours. The attitudes and behaviours of students and teachers towards classroom collaboration and caring were not confirmed to relate directly to learning outcomes. The findings of the investigation are discussed in the light of the theoretical assumptions upon which the study was based, including identification of the implications of the empirical results for understanding and facilitating renewal of secondary schools with the intention of improving educational outcomes in classrooms.     

当代中国课堂教学观念的变迁及其启示

课堂教学观念是指在一定历史时期的教学实践中形成和发展起来的、能够反映课堂教与学本质特征的、具有时代特色的思想观点。新中国成立以来,课堂教学观念的演绎过程可概括为四个阶段：以教代学,以教带学,以教促学,变教为学。其中。近年兴起的“变教为学”观念颠覆了前喻文化的“过去时”,转而面向后喻文化的“未来时”,它以个人主体为逻辑起点,旨在培养学生的思想力和表达力。“变教为学”顺应了基础教育课程改革的价值取向,引领着未来课堂教学观念的发展潮流。     

叙事取向下的再概念化教学

教学不只是应用学习理论或强调成就表现,更重要的是对人类复杂文化的习得与创造过程;教师与学生应该是教学的主体。以"叙事"作为对教学进行再概念化的途径,叙事模式的思维,可以让师生在教学的历程中,绘制属于自己的位置与网络,建构对世界的看法;叙事的情感让教学成为一种生命的陪伴与呼唤。通过叙事,我们可以得到教学的新概念——一种生命交互、移情想象、政治理解与教育创造的教学。     

Developing a Primary Science Methods Classroom

The purpose of this paper is to describe how and why a primary science methods classroom was conceived, designed, and developed for preservice and inservice teachers. Just as science educators believe that students learn best by constructing their knowledge of the natural world with the aid of a teacher and colleagues, science educators also believe that preservice and inservice teachers should learn in a collaborative and constructivist environment. Multiple dimensions relating to the dynamic processes of learning to teach, a ‘technical factor’ related to the physical and resource constraints that exist within a school, and sociocultural theory were used for the theoretical framework. A survey was given to 97 students who took a course in the classroom, six instructors were given a questionnaire, and three of these instructors were interviewed. These data sources sought to determine the effect of design features on student learning and instructor teaching. The results of the evaluation suggest students who used the classroom found their learning positively affected by the room design and instructors who taught in the classroom benefited by being able to teach in an inquiry and constructivist manner.     

Classroom stories of multicultural teaching and learning

This is the second of three papers based on a 20-month study of teaching and learning in a diverse classroom in a downtown community school in Toronto, Canada. The purpose of the research was to describe the details of teaching and learning in a multicultural classroom and to document successful strategies in working with immigrant and minority students. The three papers detail the process by which this focus on classroom life led to a critique of the literature and to a new way to think about multicultural teaching and learning, which I call 'narrative multiculturalism'. In this paper, I provide a sampling of stories that illustrate what contributed to my changing thinking about multiculturalism. Four short stories focus on a participant teacher in her school, in her classroom and in interaction with her students. The stories illuminate the complexity of multicultural teaching and qualities of narrative multiculturalism. In the analysis of the stories I explore multicultural understandings that developed from the experience of being in the classroom, being in relationship with a teacher participant, and our on-going dialogue.     

Feats of Strength for Weak Utopianism: Giorgio Agamben,Educational Potentiality and the Studious Spatiality of the Active Learning Classroom

One outcome of the increasing interest from philosophy of education circles in the work of Giorgio Agamben has been the possibility of apparently small alterations to enact a radical emancipatory change. This ‘weak utopianism’ (Lewis, 2013) found in Agamben's work means that traditionally radical changes are viewed with skepticism, as grand alternative designs often merely result in the operationalisation and actualisation of new ordering rather emancipation. In a recent commentary on Agamben's philosophy of education, Igor Jasinski (2018) argues that the theory of weak utopianism means that innovative classroom designs ‘should not be considered’ examples of Agambenian philosophy of education at work. In this article, I respond through an analysis of the case of active learning classrooms. Despite existing as a form of innovative classroom design, I argue that they nevertheless abide Agambenian principles in the philosophy of education as spaces open to—without demanding—study. The active learning classroom is not the ideal‐type studious space but a paradigm, the case that stands outside of (while standing in for) the rest of the set. Situated in‐between inspiration and implementation, I argue that active learning classrooms are the paradoxically strongest form of weak utopianism, leaving educational potentiality open while also representing a significant rethinking of the spatiality of the classroom. Active learning classrooms thus pose significant questions both for Agambenian philosophy of education in particular and critical pedagogy in general.     

关于开设中国传统哲学选修课的思考

开设中国传统哲学选修课是对大学生实施通识教育的重要内容,可以培养大学生的爱国主义精神,有助于传承中华文明、促进中华民族的伟大复兴,还能满足大学生了解传统文化的需求。在教学中,可采用抓重点、讲专题的教学模式,既注意生动性,又注意学术性。教学内容必须有现代意义,必须贴近学生的生活实际,能激起学生的学习兴趣。教师对于传统哲学要用历史主义态度,教学的方式要宽松,还要注意营造富有传统特色的课堂气氛。     

Using activity theory to evaluate a professional learning and development initiative in the use of narrative assessment

Analysis of the impact of professional learning and development (PLD) programmes for educators is complex. This article presents an analysis of a PLD initiative in which classroom teachers learned to use narrative assessment for students with ‘high’ and ‘very high’ learning needs. Using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), the analysis showed how various tensions arose across the activity system of participants during the initiative. Tensions were associated with the roles of those involved, the narrative assessment approach, and the rules of the initiative. While the new narrative assessment approach resulted in benefits for the students and their parents, role conflict emerged in relation to established assessment approaches already used by the educators. It is argued that CHAT enables a more nuanced understanding of the complex ways in which teachers actually engage with official curriculum, pedagogy or assessment PLD initiatives, than do theories that position teachers as simply resistant to change.     

试论课堂学习共同体的建构

随着新一轮基础教育课程改革的开展,为了使课堂成为学生乐学,教师乐教,时刻焕发出生命活力的课堂,把课堂建设成学习共同体这一新的教育理念日渐提上日程。在探讨课堂学习共同体内涵的基础上,提出课堂共同体的以下五个特征：充满和谐的互动;具有共同愿景;具有共同的课堂规范;具有异质性;具有宽松积极的课堂文化氛围。建构有效的课堂学习共同体的策略有：创建和谐的课堂学习共同体;确立共同愿景;制定课堂规范;安排多元化的学习任务;关注学习者的兴趣;创造快乐的课堂文化氛围。     

“洋思模式”与素质教育

洋思中学“先学后教,当堂训练”的课堂教学,加上“堂堂清”、“日日清”、“周周清”“三清”验收制度,形成了“洋思模式”的核心。它启发我们：转变学生观;转化后进生作为教师考核一项标准;改革课堂教学,变“教堂”为“学堂”;重视对学生非智力因素的培养：减轻学生负担。     

Introducing a fifth pedagogy: experience‐based strategies for facilitating learning in natural environments

Educators have identified four categories of ‘productive pedagogies’ that are considered to lead to authentic student engagement and learning in the classroom. This study was designed to explore and extend these pedagogies in the context of learning in natural environments, in particular, through the programmes of Queensland environmental education centres. In‐depth interview and observation data were collected from students, classroom teachers and centre teachers who had participated in 12 environmental education programmes across Queensland, in order to identify the strategies that are most effective in facilitating learning in the natural environment. A fifth productive pedagogy category, ‘experience‐based learning’, is proposed. Experience‐based learning is particularly important in addressing students’ environmental attitudes and actions. The implications for the delivery of environmental education programmes both within and outside the classroom are discussed.     

Lost and Found in Translation: An Education in Narrative in Fieldwork and the Classroom

One of the most important questions I ask as both a cultural anthropologist and a university teacher is: How do people come to know what they think they know? In this article, I adopt a narrative approach to processes of learning and discovery in two very different locales, an indigenous society in the South Pacific, and a senior seminar on contemporary anthropological theory in a Canadian university. I show how I developed an exercise to “bring the field into the classroom” and how my students helped me to take what we learned in the classroom back to the field. In my conclusions, I discuss lessons I and my students learned about the link between experience and understanding, about the nature of interpretation, and about the role of reflexivity in the construction of meaning.     

“Do I Really Hafta?” WebCal,A Look at the Use of LiveMath Software in Web-based Materials that Provide Interactive Engagement in a Collaborative Learning Environment for Differential Calculus

This paper describes the use of a Web-based Computer Algebra System (CAS) called LiveMath in a computer supported collaborative learning environment for Differential Calculus. The instructional design incorporated a Reform Calculus notion of Calculus and a constructivist philosophy of learning. Based on interviews with students, independent observations in the classroom, and observations by the teacher, this paper provides insight for students, instructional designers and classroom educators into the issues raised in this environment. The study was exploratory in nature, concerning itself with testing and revising both the materials and the setting in which they were used. The intent was to discover interaction between characteristics of students and the environment which warrant future study. For example, the use of LiveMath seemed in some cases to cause cognitive overload. In addition, student epistemological beliefs, prior knowledge of symbolic representations of functions and propensity for self-directed learning interacted with the ability of students to use LiveMath inserts to attain conceptual understanding. While students appear to have learned some concepts more deeply, and others more rapidly than anticipated, they reported that they judged that they were working harder than friends in other sections. Further, being in a student centred learning environment was unsettling for both the students and the instructor.     

新课程背景下聋校语文课堂学习起点刍议

随着课程改革的深入推进,改善聋校语文课堂中与新课程实验不协调的现象,树立"以生为本"的教学理念,构建"以生为本"的语文课堂是非常有必要的。在课堂教学中,凸显学生的主体地位,确实做到把握学生的学习起点,找准教学的切入点,生成课堂教学的新起点,把实现学生的主动发展真正落实到教学活动的每一个环节。     

小学数学合作学习有效对策的探讨

在小学数学课堂教学中,由于应试教育的影响,很多时候都依然沿用传统的"满堂灌"授课方式,但不利于发展学生的个性。新课改提出,小学数学教学要积极引进合作学习的理念,加强学生与学生之间的合作交流,凸显学生课堂主人翁的地位,体现出以生为本的教育理念。笔者根据多年的教学经验,分析了在小学数学教学中采用合作学习模式给学生带来的积极影响,并总结出了提高合作学习有效性的策略。     

长短协同,让语文课程一脉相承

语文课程一脉相承,要体现语文课程的整体性和阶段性,语文教学必须注意长期规划和短期安排相结合,既着眼于规划语文课程的长线,又着力于建构教学活动的短线,注重短线与长线的协同作用,近期效果与长期效应的高度融合,准确定位语文教学活动序列之间的相互关系及其在近阶段的应有作用,实现课文与课文之间的互动,单元与单元之间的整合,学期与学期之间的照应,进而生成学生语文素养整体提高的发展轨迹。