Lifelong Learning Within Higher Education in South Africa: Emancipatory Potential?

In South Africa under apartheid higher education was inaccessible to the majority. This article argues that in the new South Africa there is an opportunity to redress this situation and promote equity though lifelong learning. This would involve greatly widening access and providing programmes to develop broadly applicable abilities such as computer literacy and problem-solving skills, which would increase the economic competitiveness and personal empowerment of learners. At the same time, the author argues, new educational approaches are needed to promote active citizenship.     

Learner Outcomes in Science in South Africa: Role of the Nature of Learner Difficulties with the Language for Learning and Teaching Science

Paul Leslie Gardner pioneered the study of student difficulties with everyday words presented in the science context (Gardner 1971); several similarly designed studies (e.g. Cassels and Johnstone 1985; Tao in Research in Science Education, 24, 322–330, 1994; Farell and Ventura in Language and Education, 12(4), 243–254, 1998; Childs and O’Farell in Chemistry Education: Research and Practice, 4(3), 233–247, 2003) have since been reported in literature. This article draws from an exploratory study of the difficulties South African High School physical science learners encounter with everyday English words when presented in the science context. The participants (1107 learners and 35 respective physical science teachers) were drawn from 35 public secondary schools in Johannesburg area of South Africa. Data were obtained through a word test to participant learners followed by group interviews but face-to-face interviews with each physical science teacher. This study has revealed that in similar ways as have been reported in each of the studies so far, South African learners also face difficulties with meanings of everyday words presented in a science context. The main source of difficulties encountered was learner inability to distinguish between the meanings of familiar everyday words as used in everyday parlance from the ‘new’ meanings of the same everyday words when used in the science context. Interpretations of learner interview responses revealed that fewer difficulties would have been experienced by learners if science teachers generally explained the context meanings of the words as used during science teaching. The findings suggest that focusing on contextual proficiency more than on general proficiency in the language of learning and teaching (LOLT) during teaching perhaps holds more promise for enhanced learning and achievement in science. Steps necessary to raise teacher awareness of the potential impact of context on meanings of everyday words of the LOLT are discussed. This article stands as an evidence-led discussion of the issues around the language-related difficulties that learners in South Africa may encounter as they learn school science.     

高校理工科学生高等数学学习现状的调查与分析

高等数学是高校理工科学生的基础课。为提高学生的学习积极性和自信心,改善学习现状,采用了问卷方式,对理工科学生的学习现状进行调查,客观分析了调查结果,针对调查中发现的问题提出一些想法和建议。     

Framing,Adapting, and Applying: Learning to Contextualize Science Activity in Multilingual Science Classrooms

Research in Science Education - In this article, we turn our attention to context-based approaches to science instruction. We studied the effects of changes to a set of secondary science teacher...     

Science on Television: Storytelling,Learning and Citizenship

In this article, we critically examine skills that are necessary for the effective learning of science in adolescent populations. We argue that a focus on twenty-first-century skills among adolescents within the context of science instruction must be considered in light of research on cognitive and social development. We first review adolescents’ emerging abilities in terms of five domains identified by the National Research Council Board on Science Education: adaptability, complex communication/social skills, non-routine problem-solving skills, self-management/self-development and systems thinking. We next describe practices that science teachers can use to enhance the development and use of emerging cognitive abilities in adolescents. We conclude by providing seven research-based recommendations for adolescent science instruction.     

为地方经济发展服务 促进高校科技成果转化

为地方经济发展服务是高等学校的职责,也是高校自身发展的需要。文章提出了促进高校科技成果转化、为地方经济发展服务的有效途径和方法。     

Sustainability,Higher Education and the Learning Society

The Dearing Report emphasised the idea of a 'learning society' as the new context of UK higher education, but conceived this on a model of adaptivity to economically- and technologically-driven change. While there are real shifts in their social relations here with which universities have to reckon, they can also be understood on a much richer model of exploratory social intelligence. The growing concern for environmental sustainability is both a recognition of the need for this alternative model, and a major ground of its importance.     

Resources for Science Learning: Tools,Tasks, and Environment

This article addresses the question of how science learning can be improved. It recognizes that, while learners themselves are responsible for their own learning, the quality of this learning is greatly influenced when appropriate resources are available to learners. These resources are provided through a partnership between teachers and learners. Three different types of resource are discussed. Tools, in the form of computer tools and conceptual tools, make tasks easier and allow learners to undertake tasks they would not otherwise be able to do. Tasks can facilitate effective learning by creating effective spaces for learners to work in, embodying key aspects of the disciplines of science, providing effective and authentic opportunities for learners to learn, and facilitating a dialogue between learners ideas and their experiences of the natural world. Environment – the ecology in which learning happens – provides three sources of information through the human, social, and conceptual worlds. When key aspects of these worlds are manifested in the environment, they scaffold the learning of science content, the nature of science, and the learning process itself, all of which are required for the deep understanding of science that constitutes improved science learning.     

深度学习:学习科学视阈下的最优整合

为超越认知心理学的局限,深度学习研究从狭义走向广义成为必然.复杂科学为广义深度学习研究提供了全新视角,学习科学为学习系统简化提供了合理依据,以此可重新审视深度学习的缘起、内涵、机制及过程.研究结合人工智能历史演变,指出深度学习缘起于认知心理学的重塑、课程与教学论的变革以及教育技术学的突破;基于对既有内涵的梳理,认为深度学习是学习科学视阈下对信息深度加工过程、教师深度引导过程、技术深度支持过程三者的最优整合;依托影响因素分析,点明深度学习的发生机制以知识内容为客观载体、以真实情境为客观条件、以心理机能为主观意识;从纵向优化和横向整合两个方面建立了深度学习的一般过程模型,其间三个"深度过程"和"三维机制"不断趋于最优整合,共同促进学习者深度学习.     

深度学习:学习科学视阈下的最优整合

为超越认知心理学的局限,深度学习研究从狭义走向广义成为必然.复杂科学为广义深度学习研究提供了全新视角,学习科学为学习系统简化提供了合理依据,以此可重新审视深度学习的缘起、内涵、机制及过程.研究结合人工智能历史演变,指出深度学习缘起于认知心理学的重塑、课程与教学论的变革以及教育技术学的突破;基于对既有内涵的梳理,认为深度学习是学习科学视阈下对信息深度加工过程、教师深度引导过程、技术深度支持过程三者的最优整合;依托影响因素分析,点明深度学习的发生机制以知识内容为客观载体、以真实情境为客观条件、以心理机能为主观意识;从纵向优化和横向整合两个方面建立了深度学习的一般过程模型,其间三个"深度过程"和"三维机制"不断趋于最优整合,共同促进学习者深度学习.     

Beyond Commercialization: Science, Higher Education and the Culture of Neoliberalism

Since the 1980s, scholars and others have been engaged in a lively debate about the virtues and dangers of mingling commerce with university science. In this paper, we contend that the commercialization of academic science, and higher education more broadly, are best understood as pieces of a larger story. We use two cases of institutional change at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to shed light on the implications of neoliberalism for public research universities in the United States. We conclude that instead of neoliberalization being a timely strategy for the specific fiscal and other problems facing public universities today, it has become an omnibus solution available to be employed when any opportunity arises and, in fact, helps to define the “problems” of the university in the first place.     

新形势下民办高校提升科技档案管理水平的思考

随着科技成果转化成生产力的速度加快,科技成果的价值越显重要,提升科技档案管理水平的要求也更加迫切。本文从国家教育十二五规划对高校科研工作的总体要求入手,通过分析当前民办高校档案管理的主要特色：高度集约性、档案意识欠缺、档案管理水平不高,与科技档案自身特点：专业性、多元性、成套性及价值的时效性,剖析了民办高校科技档案工作的难点与提升管理水平的创新思路。     

论高校科技创新型教师的培育

目前高校科技创新型教师在质量和数量上的不足，直接制约着大学培养和造就高素质的创造性人才。高校科技创新型教师的培养，一方面要以环境创新、制度创新为突破，实现培养科技创新型教师外部要素的最大优化，另一方面要加大对教师思想素质的培育，使教师对自身成长提出迫切要求。