Understanding Students’ Reasoning: Argumentation Schemes as an Interpretation Method in Science Education

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the argumentative structure of students’ arguments using argumentation schemes as an instrument for reconstructing the missing premises underlying their reasoning. Building on the recent literature in science education, in order for an explanation to be persuasive and achieve a conceptual change it needs to proceed from the interlocutor’s background knowledge to the analysis of the unknown or wrongly interpreted phenomena. Argumentation schemes represent the abstract forms of the most used and common forms of human reasoning, combining logical principles with semantic concepts. By identifying the argument structure it is possible to retrieve the missing premises and the crucial concepts and definition on which the conclusion is based. This method of analysis will be shown to provide the teacher with an instrument to improve his or her explanations by taking into consideration the students’ intuitions and deep background knowledge on a specific issue. In this fashion the teacher can advance counterarguments or propose new perspectives on the subject matter in order to persuade the students to accept new scientific concepts.     

Cinema Education as an Exercise in ‘Thinking Through Not-Thinking’

In this article we explore the educational potential of cinema. To do this we first analyse how the American critical thinker Henry Giroux tries to give body to an educational theory in relation to cinema. His ‘film pedagogy’ is described as developing a critical response of the learner in relation to the public sphere of film. Giroux’s approach, however, seems to forget rather than explore the potential that is specific to the medium. Secondly, the article analyses Walter Benjamin’s (1936, Illuminations, London, Pimlico) essay ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’, because here we find not a different educational response to cinema, but one of the first studies on cinema that describes its ontological nature and the potential of moving images for thought. Finally, the article discusses the cinema philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, who, in contrast to Giroux, does not construct a Cartesian framework around cinema. Rather, he recognizes and explores cinema’s potential for thoughts like Benjamin did. In this way, Deleuze reverses Giroux’s question of how education should respond to cinema. A pedagogical discussion hereby comes to the fore that does not ask the question of what methodology should be used in education to think critically about cinema, but what the implications are of the nature of cinema for thought and for education.     

On Achebe＇s Writing as an Insider：Things Fall Apart as an Example

为了反击欧洲对非洲的定型化描写,阿契贝在创作中,始终坚持内部书写者的叙述位置。在他看来,非洲的故事必须由非洲人自己来讲述,非洲的文化和历史经验必须在自己的意义系统里来呈现。他所处的文化十字路口又赋予他一种独特的观察位置和理性审视视野。在《瓦解》中,阿契贝既作为内部人在描述着“我们的”传统,又作为与伊博传统文化有一定距离的观察者,对非洲传统文化命运的变迁进行着理性的思考。在建构现代非洲文学主体性方面,阿契贝的思考和实践具有启示意义。     

Fostering Students’ Scientific Inquiry through Computer-Supported Collaborative Knowledge Building

Research in Science Education - The aim of this study was to investigate whether and how engaging with a computer-supported collaborative knowledge-building environment helps students to develop a...     

Preschool as an Arena for Developing Teacher Knowledge Concerning Children’s Language Learning

The most important benefits of international comparisons are the indications that make hidden national characteristics visible and shed new light on the system in each country. From a comparative perspective, this article explores what Swedish and Norwegian preschool teachers emphasise as important to preschool student teachers about preschool as an arena for children’s language learning. The theoretical framework of the study is based on ecological system theories (Bronfenbrenner in The ecology of human development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1979; Bronfenbrenner in Dev Psychology 22(6):723–742, 1986) and socio-cultural theories concerning language learning (Vygotsky in Thought and language, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1986). The data are produced through interviews with 69 Swedish and 35 Norwegian preschool teachers. The analyses focused on what the preschool teachers stated to be the most important elements to work with concerning children’s language learning, how and why they worked like this, and what rationales may have led to their pedagogy. The two countries seem quite alike in terms of the values embedded in early childhood education and political ideas concerning a rich childhood based on play and democratic ideals. By comparing the two countries, the results reveal differences that can lead to a deeper knowledge of cultural concepts that are often taken for granted, such as pedagogical approaches, and how these create different conditions for children’s preschool language learning.     

A Brief Description of China High Education and College English Teaching—as an Example of Guizhou Province

High education become more important in developing national and regional economy,universities are the main bases to create.This article focuses on a brief talk of the development of Chinese college education and the college English teaching.It gives a general pic ture for readers to display the facts of high education’s history and the college English teaching(an example of Guizhou province).     

‘Knowledge Workers’ as the New Apprentices: The Influence of Organisational Autonomy, Goals and Values on the Nurturing of Expertise

This paper explores the concept of apprenticeship in the context of the professional formation of knowledge workers. It draws on evidence from research conducted in two knowledge intensive organizations: a research-intensive, elite university; and a ‘cutting edge’ software engineering company. In the former, we investigated the learning environments of contract researchers, whilst in the latter, we focused on the learning environments of software engineers. Both organisations have ‘global’ reach in that they operate within international marketplaces and see themselves as international players. The paper asks to what extent the important role of maturation with regard to the formation of expertise is being undermined by the pressurised nature of contemporary workplaces (in both the public and private sectors). It argues that conceiving the professional formation of knowledge workers as apprenticeship provides a way forward to improve the way employers construct and support that formation.     

‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ in the Education Marketplace: An Example from New Zealand

This paper details the impact of market policies in New Zealand on one low socio-economic school, raising questions about the underlyingassumptions of the programmes designed to turn around so called failing schools. The impact of macro policies on disadvantaged schoolsin the market place is documented, as is recent evidence on the impactof schools entering a spiral of decline on their examination outcomes.It is argued that school success and failure cannot be understood inisolation but needs to be placed in the wider context of stateeducational policy. Consequently, change strategies which ignore thewider policy settings risk failure.     

Computer Majors’ Education as Moral Enterprise: a Durkheimian analysis

Abstract

Recent commentators on Durkheim have stressed his work's emphasis on the moral dimensions of social reality. Building on this premise and using it to explore the contemporary education of aspiring computer professionals, we think many of Durkheim's claims are verified in the process. We posit that the college computer department studied has developed an interlocking set of images, maxims and operating assumptions‐‐a collective moral account‐‐which frames its curriculum, courses and student evaluation. In short, we contend that even in a profession dealing with arguably the most advanced edge of late 20th‐century technology, only a very thin boundary separates its technical professional education from its essentially moral claims.     

Developing Teachers’ Knowledge,Beliefs, and Expertise: Findings From the Alberta Student Assessment Study

This article reports on a subset of findings that emerged from the Alberta Student Assessment Study in relation to the preservice and in-service development of teacher knowledge of, expertise in, and beliefs underpinning their assessment practices. Findings indicate that, although there has been a lot of attention given to improving assessment, confusion remains for teachers about terminology, principles, and pragmatics that undermine teacher confidence about assessment and making sound judgments about students’ work.     

Global Ambitions: Internationalization and China’s Rise as Knowledge Hub

The four decades since reform and opening up have seen dramatic changes in China’s higher education system. Focusing on international dimensions, the analysis supports the view that reform and opening up was not merely an economic and political reform, but an opening of the mind to the outside world, after the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. But it is important to be reminded that China’s relations with the outside world have a much longer history, with the spread of Confucian ideas to East and Southeast Asia, and the importation of Buddhism from ancient India; both during the Tang dynasty. The article points to key ongoing debates in China about the extent to which it can incorporate ideas from outside, while still retaining a Chinese essence. The rise of China as a knowledge hub and destination for international students is also charted, and the prospects for further development are assessed.     

Exploring Interactive Writing as an Effective Practice for Increasing Head Start Students’ Alphabet Knowledge Skills

The current study used a pretest–posttest randomized control group design with 73 Head Start students, ages 3–5 years. The researcher served as the interactive writing teacher for the treatment group, rotating to five different classrooms in one Head Start center 3–4 days a week for 13 weeks. Children in the treatment group received a 10–15 min interactive writing lesson each day in small groups within their own classroom settings. Children in the control group received standard literacy instruction in small groups with their own classroom teachers. Child outcome data on upper case, lower case, and letter sound identification were collected before and after the intervention for both groups. Based on the large frequency of zeros on outcomes, zero-inflated Poisson regression analyses were performed. The results of the study showed that children receiving interactive writing identified more lower case and upper case letters at the end of the study relative to children in the control, but no differences were observed on letter sounds. While continued evaluation of the interactive writing strategy is needed in the preschool setting, the evidence from the current study shows encouraging trends in alphabet knowledge skill development as a result of this strategy.     

What is an Educational Good? Theorising Education as Degrowth

Greed and power have morphed into forms of capitalism unaddressed from a philosophical, moral or educative framework. This article seeks to address this important gap in the literature by first outlining how the financialisation of capital constitutes the new educational subject in primary, secondary and tertiary school. The author establishes how these new morphologies of power create an imagination that renders students and even the goal of education as a function of unending growth, extraction and disembodiment. In response, the author posits a different vision of habits, practices, postures and morals that root out power in education. Drawing from degrowth theory and an emphasis on simplicity, care, conviviality and the ritual destruction of accumulation, the author theorises what a pedagogy of degrowth may entail. Doing so answers an ever‐important question—what is an educational good?—by conceiving of the ‘value’ of education beyond the bounds of capitalism.     

On Developing Content‐oriented Theories Taking Biological Evolution as an Example

Both in Europe and the United States there is a growing interest in design research. One example is the design and validation of topic‐oriented teaching–learning sequences. This research may be said to have two objectives. One is to design and test “useful products”, such as teachers’ guides and study material for students, which may be put into practice in various ways. The second is to contribute to the development of educational science; for example, understanding conditions for learning of given topics under regular classroom conditions. This article concerns the latter objective and deals with the development of content‐oriented theories stating conditions that promote learning with long‐term understanding of given topics. We present one such theory, concerning evolution by natural selection, and describe the arguments and evidence that underlie the theory, which we regard as a well‐founded hypothesis. Some methodological problems associated with testing this type of theory are discussed, as well as the role of content‐oriented theories in strengthening science education research as an autonomous specialization within educational science.     

Nurturing Students’ Critical Knowledge Using Technology-enhanced Scaffolding Strategies in Science Education

Critique is central to the development of scientific knowledge. From a cognitive perspective, critique can be used to enhance understanding. From a social perspective, critique serves to maintain the standards of a professional field. In science education, it is of tremendous value to diagnose and nurture students’ critical knowledge. How students develop and apply criteria for critique, however, remains unclear. What factors influence students’ performance of critique, and how can educators incorporate technology-enhanced scaffolding strategies to help diagnose and nurture students’ critical knowledge? In this paper, I define critical knowledge as the criteria people use to evaluate other knowledge, the ability to use these criteria across contexts, and the reflective understanding of such processes. Building on existing literature, I develop a conceptual framework that describes the components and processes involved in a critique activity. Using this framework, I discuss the application of technology-enhanced scaffolding strategies to facilitate critique activities in science classrooms.