TPC Program Snapshots: Developing Curricula and Addressing Challenges

This article reports results from a survey of US technical and professional communication undergraduate programs concerning core concepts emphasized and most commonly taught procedures, skills, and tools. Snapshot views of current programs are derived from the results, and the developmental processes and directions of four new programs are described in more detail. The article concludes with challenges for programs to maintain humanistic concerns while also providing effective professional and technical preparation.     

新课程对课程资源的挑战

新一轮基础教育课程改革有不少亮点,包括课程结构的变化,课程标准与教材多样化,综合实践活动和校本课程等,这些新的变化给课程资源的建设提出了一定的挑战,所以,有必要对这些挑战有一个全面的认识。一、课程结构的变化对课程资源的挑战1.教师面临的挑战。课程结构的变化对教师提出了新的要求。第一,综合课程需要教师有综合性背景知识,而目前师范院校还没有设置这样的课程,因此教师在专业准备上还不成熟。第二,教师之间需要加强合作与交流。第三,教师要区分综合课程和综合实践活动课。综合并不等于活动,如果只重视学生的“亲历实践”,把学生…     

Developing New Curricula

In 1964, The Schools Council was established for the purpose of organizing the review and reform of the school curriculum in England and Wales. An organization of teachers, local education officers, and the Department of Education and Science, the Council also provides a meeting ground between schools and universities, and it works closely with representatives of business and industry. It seeks to operate as "a free association of equal partners representing all the principal education interests."     

Pressures Confronting Islamic Studies Curricula in Kuwait: Perspectives of Curricula Planners on Challenges and Confrontations

This study examines challenges for Kuwaiti Islamic Studies curricula planners, investigating their perspectives regarding interventions in textbooks. It attempts to explore motivation under pressures to change textbooks in Kuwait and determining if such pressures are related to globalization or to internal or external forces. A questionnaire identified internal and external pressures, showing that 43 of 75 Islamic Studies planners and designers indicated that the curricula are subject to political and societal pressures. They noted that politicians may interfere to pursue political goals or meet social needs. Planners confirmed that they plan and design curricula carefully to avoid controversy.     

高职项目课程的理论基础与设计

高职办学特色的重要体现是课程特色。近年来,许多高职院校出现了以“项目课程”为名的改革热潮。它是本土生成的,具有中国特色。其内涵既不同于其他类教育中的项目课程,也不同于以往的模块课程。要形成有中国特色的高职课程模式,必须加强对其理论与设计研究。     

Design of Engineering Curricula for Developing Countries

This paper suggests chat engineering curricula should be designed on the basis that engineering is a vocation. It outlines how curricula might be developed by identifying engineering jobs and proceeding from job specification through engineering capability profiles to subjects of instruction. The need for manpower planning is stressed. Some problems related to small student numbers are outlined and some options offered for solution of such problems.     

Addressing Orthodox Challenges in the Pluralist Classroom

The American public landscape has shifted in concert with a newly emboldened political right, and the public school has again become an important battlefield in the latest culture wars. In addition to confrontations over educational policy issues is a largely untheorized area where the everyday classroom takes center stage: Teachers face a difficult situation when it is students’ spontaneous utterances, rather than curricula or policy issues, at the center of religiously rooted controversy. How teachers respond to these situations, and the basis for their responses, is crucial as they continue to navigate the increasingly problematic relationship between the religiously orthodox and pluralist public schooling. Pushing the conversation into the everyday workings of the real, live public school classroom is critical to liberal theorists if they are to significantly impact discourse related to the purposes and aims of public education in pluralist societies.     

职业教育课程开发的新路径——姜大源新著《职业教育学研究新论》解读

职业教育发展是政府和社会关注的热点,职业教育的课程开发是职业教育的核心问题。然而,在职业教育的改革过程中,学科体系的课程内容和抽象思维的逻辑结构体系束缚着人们的思想,使职业教育的课程开发与建设远离了职业教育发展的需要。姜大源的新著《职业教育学研究新论》为职业教育课程开发与建设开辟了新的路径。     

应对我们时代工商管理的挑战

我们这个时代工商管理的重大挑战主要有三点,这三点紧密联系.一是需要重建商务中的信任和社会角色;二是需要建立社会可持续和环境可持续的组织;三是需要建立一份新的社会契约,该契约保证那些工作的人和将他们的人力资本投资在工作上的人将受到尊重的对待,并得到他们帮助创造的经济价值的公平的份额.当前管理和社会所面临的问题要求回归到以问题为中心、以分析为基础的多学科研究.     

The Teacher Education Development Program: New Challenges

The article reviews the general context of the situation that has arisen in Russian education after the new provisions of the Federal Law of 29 December 2012 “On Education in the Russian Federation” went into effect. The law has been enacted in response to the need to develop a new concept of teacher education. Currently, about 270 institutions of higher education, about 30 percent of Russian universities, are implementing programs in the field of teacher education, and the proportion is growing. The author presents the main results of monitoring the activities of teacher training institutions in Russia and notes the new content and organizational challenges facing the project of modernizing teacher education.     

Promises and Challenges for the Use of Adapted Primary Literature in Science Curricula: Commentary

The papers in this collection provide compelling arguments that the use of Adapted Primary Literature (APL) in science education holds great promise for enriching inquiry science instruction at the secondary level. The integration of this genre of written text into science curricula illustrates the ways in which reasoning in reading and reasoning in science are tightly connected. I discuss three major themes that arise from a reading of the papers in this set: (1) the concept of authenticity as an adherence to scientific reasoning and practice within science education, and the ways in which APL is a welcome complication to simpler notions of “authentic” experiences for learners, (2) issues around the use of tools such as APL in science curriculum design and implementation, including the need to consider discipline-specific science reading strategies and ways to support teachers in their use of APL, and (3) the possible implications for extending the concept of APL into younger (primary age) and older (college age) classrooms than those examined in these papers.     

An Ecological Inventory Approach to Developing Curricula for Rural Areas of Developing Countries

The paper describes a curriculum development pilot study in a rural village in India. The purpose of the study was to develop and test application of an ecological inventory approach to curriculum development integrating academic and functional skill training. Ecologically valid curricula teach the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values required by students to function effectively in current and future environments (e.g., urban and/or rural, academic, vocational, domestic, community and recreational) in which the students perform. The discussion illustrates application of ecological inventories and describes several related data collection instruments and procedures. The paper also describes an Integrated Core Curriculum Structure (ICCS) as a guide for designing curricula based on ecological inventories. An example is provided of a practical Thematic Unit Plan derived from the ICCS and integrating a variety of functional and academic skills into a guide for instruction and evaluation. The discussion provides a clear insight into many of the problems faced by students, school leavers and graduates in rural areas of developing countries, both in their daily lives and as they plan for their futures.     

Developing Coherent Conceptual Storylines: Two Elementary Challenges

The ‘conceptual storyline’ of a lesson refers to the flow and sequencing of learning activities such that science concepts align and progress in ways that are instructionally meaningful to student learning of the concepts. Research demonstrates that when teachers apply lesson design strategies to create a coherent science content storyline, student learning is positively impacted (Roth et al., 2011). Because the conceptual storyline is often implicit within a lesson, and teachers often have difficulty articulating this aspect of lesson design (Lo et al., 2014), our professional development program engages elementary teachers in analyzing and developing graphic representations of a lesson’s conceptual storyline to make that element explicit. In this exploratory study, we present typologies that represent two primary challenges teachers faced in developing coherent conceptual storylines in their lesson design, and examine the extent to which professional development enhanced their capacity to develop a coherent conceptual storyline.     

An Ecological Inventory Approach to Developing Curricula for Rural Areas of Developing Countries

The paper describes a curriculum development pilot study in a rural village in India. The purpose of the study was to develop and test application of an ecological inventory approach to curriculum development integrating academic and functional skill training. Ecologically valid curricula teach the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values required by students to function effectively in current and future environments (e.g., urban and/or rural, academic, vocational, domestic, community and recreational) in which the students perform. The discussion illustrates application of ecological inventories and describes several related data collection instruments and procedures. The paper also describes an Integrated Core Curriculum Structure (ICCS) as a guide for designing curricula based on ecological inventories. An example is provided of a practical Thematic Unit Plan derived from the ICCS and integrating a variety of functional and academic skills into a guide for instruction and evaluation. The discussion provides a clear insight into many of the problems faced by students, school leavers and graduates in rural areas of developing countries, both in their daily lives and as they plan for their futures.     

Addressing the Challenges of Inquiry-Based Learning Through Technology and Curriculum Design

Inquiry experiences can provide valuable opportunities for students to improve their understanding of both science content and scientific practices. However, the implementation of inquiry learning in classrooms presents a number of significant challenges. We have been exploring these challenges through a program of research on the use of scientific visualization technologies to support inquiry-based learning in the geosciences. In this article, we describe 5 significant challenges to implementing inquiry-based learning and present strategies for addressing them through the design of technology and curriculum. We present a design history covering 4 generations of software and curriculum to show how these challenges arise in classrooms and how the design strategies respond to them.     

Major Issues in Developing Modern Curricula in Engineering and Technology Education

Curriculum development in engineering and technology education has become one of the most important issues for academic institutions concerned about the quality and effectiveness of their courses in an era of rapidly changing technology and production processes. The paper addresses some major issues which engineering and technology educators have to take into account when developing their university curricula. It demonstrates the use of the modelling method in the development of new curricula and educational structures. This particular method has been used in science, technology and engineering for many years and has already had a strong impact on this educational endeavour. The method is extremely efficient in planning a modem curriculum. Its chain structure provides an excellent opportunity for further system development Moreover, it allows for the restructuring and modernization of existing study systems without undesirable disturbances and heavy expenditures. The author and his colleagues have gathered enormous experience in designing, developing and implementing modem electrical engineering curricula with the application of the modelling method. This has been achieved by carrying out research and developmental activities under the auspices of the Electrical Engineering Education Research Group. The group was established in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Sydney and is currently an integral part of the UNESCO Supported International Centre for Engineering Education at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. This paper discusses an integrated approach to modelling a didactic process in engineering education and its application to designing a teaching‐learning system. It also discusses the important issues and strategies in the development of educational systems, showing some practical examples.     

英语专业进行西方修辞学学习必要性研究

西方修辞学是西方人文教育的重要组成部分,其具有重要的教育功能和悠久的教育历史.西方修辞学在维系西方社会运作中起着至关重要的作用.对于英语专业学生而言,了解和掌握西方修辞学的基本理论和基本方法是其认识西方以及和西方打交道的必要工具,对英语专业学生日后从事工作有着重大的帮助作用.但目前我国英语专业的修辞学教育却存在种种不足之处,发展修辞学教育必须改革学科建制等方面的不足之处.在英语专业课程中设置西方修辞学课程不仅是一种需要,也是一种趋势.     

水路运输管理类专业群产学合作教育模式的实践

本文重点探索了水路运输管理类专业群浅表、中观、深层面的三种产学合作关系。     

An Institutional Theory Analysis of Charter Schools: Addressing Institutional Challenges to Scale

This article presents a conceptual framework derived from institutional theory in sociology that offers two competing policy contexts in which charter schools operate—a bureaucratic frame versus a decentralized frame. An analysis of evolving charter school types based on three underlying theories of action is considered. As charter school leaders pursue new and different forms of schooling, they are challenged by well-established bureaucratic rules and norms that define what it means to be a legitimate school. Microlevel institution-building efforts, however, may represent viable alternatives to the institutional order of public education as charter school leaders attempt to achieve scale.