No Child Left Behind: Implications for college student learning

What does No Child Left Behind (NCLB) have to do with higher education? Turns out plenty, according to Teniell L. Trolian and Kristin S. Fouts. They argue that NCLB has signifcant consequences for college learners.     

论学习型组织视域下高校学生干部的共同愿景

共同愿景是学习型组织的重要元素,也是实现高校学生干部培养共同目标的关键,它为高校学生干部的成长成才提供持续不断的焦点和能量。本文在学习型组织的视域下研究高校学生干部培养达成共同愿景存在的问题,并针对问题提出了相应的解决对策,使师生在实现共同愿景中共同成长。     

Self-directed learning readiness and performance in the workplace

Deep and rapid changes in a high-tech society exceed the ability of formal educational systems to respond to new learning needs. Therefore, the future of post secondary education will increasingly include emphases on self-directed learning skills and activities. Despite recognition of such a trend, knowledge of self-directed learning and self-directed learners is in its infancy.This study of self-directed learning and performance was designed to determine the relationship of self-directed learning readiness and performance in an occupational setting. Business, government and industry are expected to depend heavily upon self-directed learning in the future. Because of the increasingly close relationship between education and these sectors of the economy, educators should have a keen interest in this kind of research.The sample included 753 individuals selected from the population of a large American utility company: 421 were managers and 318 were non-managers; 14 subjects did not define their occupational status. Subjects provided information on their management level, sex, age, education, race, job performance rating, creativity required on their jobs, problem-solving ability needed in their jobs and degree of change in their work. Nine hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of significance.Selected conclusions are as follows: (a) outstanding performers in jobs requiring a very high level of creativity had significantly higher SDLRS scores than others; (b) outstanding performers in jobs requiring a very high degree of problem-solving skill had significantly higher SDLRS scores than others; and (c) individuals who have completed higher levels of education tend to have higher SDLRS scores.     

高校学生学风建设存在问题分析及策略研究

大学生学风建设是高等学校教学管理亟需解决的问题,决定着学校人才培养的质量和素质。针对今年来大学生学风下降的现象,通过调查问卷形式,从学生学习目标、动力、态度及学生课余生活等方面统计分析,对大学生学风建设存在的问题进行了深入探讨,提出了解决对策。研究结果将为科学有效进行学生管理,提高人才培养质量起到积极作用。     

Distance and intrastate college student migration

Most studies of student migration focus on interstate migration of college students, largely because the aggregate data typically used are limited in geographic specificity to states. However, interstate migration is only a small part of the total student migration. Public institutions generally get most of their students from within their state; for example, 88 percent of first-time freshmen who enrolled in University System of Georgia institutions in 2002 graduated from Georgia schools. Such intrastate migration is seldom considered. This paper examines intrastate college student migration, using data for Georgia. Aside from such traditional measures of benefits and costs like tuition, financial aid, and school quality, a crucial explanatory variable in our analysis is the distance from a student's home to the different Georgia state institutions. Our empirical results indicate that student intrastate migration is strongly discouraged by greater distance, but with effects that differ across types of higher education institutions.     

一村一名大学生计划专业学员自律学习能力的培养

本文在分析“一村一名大学生计划”专业学员的构成情况、影响其自律学习因素的基础上,从转变观念、掌握学习方法、整合资源等三个方面提出了培养“一村一名大学生计划”专业学员自律学习能力的途径。     

Self-directed learning and schooling: Identifying pertinent theories and illustrative research

Changing modern societies offering diversified opportunities for self-education require citizens who are self-directed in their approach to learning. In this review, self-directed learners are characterized as manifesting personal attributes of self-acceptance as a learner, planfulness in learning activities, intrinsic motivation for learning, ability to internalize the evaluation process, openness to experience, flexibility in the approach to learning, and autonomy in the setting of learning goals and selection of the means of learning.Contemporary writers critical of the school maintain that learner attributes like the above are suppressed or prevented from developing because schools require conformity and induce dependency. Others feel that the right kind of schooling can enhance self-direction in learners. Unfortunately, evidence of the latter is lacking. Six theoretical positions on human learning that have relevance to the development of self-direction are identified and are here labelled: modeling, reinforcement, curiosity motivation, competency motivation, attribution theory and personal causation, and humanistic.All of the suggested attributes of the self-directed learner are found to be related to one or more of the theories examined. Finally, four approaches to educational practice explicity associated with self-direction are identified: experiential learning, discovery learning, the open classroom,and structured individualization.In general, there is some positive evidence that attributes of self-directed learning can be deliberately taught, though more intensive studies of particular types of school environments as well as longitudinal research are badly needed.

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Zusammenfassung Im Wandel befindliche moderne Gesellschaften mit differenzierten Selbstbildungs-Möglichkeiten brauchen Bürger, die auf selbstbestimmtes Lernen ausgerichtet sind. In dieser Studie werden selbst bestimmende Lernende charakterisiert durch Eigenschaften wie Selbst-Anerkennung als Lernender, geplantes Lernen, innere Lern-Motivation, die Fähigkeit, den Evaluationsprozess zu verinnerlichen, Erfahrungsoffenheit, Flexibilität in Lernansätzen, und Autonomie in Festlegen von Lernzielen sowie in der Wahl von Lernmitteln.Zeitgenössische Kritiker der Schule behaupten, Eigenschaften wie die obigen würden unterdrückt oder in ihrer Entwicklung behindert, weil die Schule Konformität verlangt und Abhängigkeit anerzieht. Andere sind der Ansicht, dass die richtige Art von Schulunterricht die Selbstbestimmung bei den Lernenden verstärken kann; hierfür fehlt es jedoch leider an Beweisen. Sechs theoretische, für die Entwicklung von Selbstbestimmung relevante Positionen in bezug auf menschliches Lernen werden vom Verfasser herausgearbeitet. Er bezeichnet sie als Lernen am Vorbild, Verstärkung, Neugier-Motivation, Kompetenz-Motivation, Attributionstheorie und persönliche Kausation,und Menschenbildung.All diese Eigenschaften stehen in Bezug zu einer oder mehreren der untersuchten Theorien. Schliesslich werden vier verschiedene Ansätze zur Bildungspraxis identifiziert: erfahrendes Lernen, entdeckendes Lernen, offener Unterrichtund strukturierte Individualisierung.Allgemein gesprochen, gibt es einige Hinweise darauf, dass selbstbestimmtes Lernen gezielt gelehrt werden kann; doch bedarf es noch eingehender Untersuchungen über bestimmte Unterrichtstypen sowie longitudinaler Forschung.

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Résumé Les sociétés modernes en évolution qui offrent des opportunités diversifiées d'autodidaxie, doivent avoir des citoyens capables d'auto-diriger le procesus d'acquisition de leurs connaissances. Dans ce compte-rendu, les individus auto-dirigés sont caractérisés comme capables de diagnostiquer leurs propres besoins de connaissances, faisant preuve d'une motivation intrinsèque,, d'une aptitude à intérioriser le processus d'évaluation, d'une ouverture à l'expérience, d'une flexibilité dans l'approche de l'acquisition des connaissances, d'une autonomie dans la fixation des objectifs et le choix des moyens d'apprentissage.Les auteurs contemporains qui critiquent le système scolaire soutiennent que les qualités de l'individu autodirigeant son apprentissage, telles qu'elles sont mentionnées ci-dessus, sont étouffées, ou qu'un obstacle est mis à leur développement, parce que les écoles exigent la conformité et incitent à la dépendance. D'autres auteurs estiment qu'une scolarité bien comprise peut développer l'autodirection chez l'individu qui apprend; malheureusement ils n'en fournissent pas les preuves.Six positions théoriques sur l'acquisition des connaissances ayant un rapport avec le développement de l'auto-direction sont identifiées et désignées comme suit: imitation d'un modèle, renforcement, motivation de la curiosité, motivation de la compétence, théorie de l'attribution de la causalité personnelle et théorie humaniste. On a trouvé que toutes les qualités avancées comme étant celles de l'individu autodirigé, s'apparentent à une ou plusieurs des théories examinées.Finalement, quatre approches de la pratique pédagogique, explicitement associées à l'auto-direction, sont décrites: l'apprentissage empirique, l'apprentissage par la découverte, la classe ouverte, l'individualisation structurée. Il existe en général quelque preuve positive que les qualités de l'apprentissage auto-dirigé peuvent être délibérément enseignées, mais le besoin d'études plus poussées sur des types particuliers d'environnement scolaire, et de recherche longitudinale, se fait fortement sentir.

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This review is a part of a multinational research project, Lifelong Education and the School: Organizing the Learning Process to Enhance Self-Direction, (Project 4.17), currently being conducted by the Unesco Institute for Education.     

从“大学生列车员“看大学生兼职现象

大学生兼职是高校普遍存在的现象.本文从大学生作列车乘务员为切入点,调查和分析了大学生兼职的成因、内容和一些问题,提出了一些解决问题的方法;同时,以大学生列车员为例也提出在学校、社会和大学生三者之间如何建立一个完善系统的新的管理和教育模式.     

Lower college costs and improved student learning: Real answers missing from the Spellings Commission Report

The Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education too often focused on what's wrong with American higher education and too seldom offered real solutions to vexing problems. Commission member Robert Zemsky takes a look at how two issues in particular, high costs and inadequate student learning, might have been better addressed by the Spellings commission.     

浅谈高校学生干部队伍建设

本文笔者结合自身在高校指导学生社团联合会的工作经验,就学生干部队伍建设中存在的几点问题加以总结分析,并提出自己的对策建议。     

Analysis of written language of a language learning disabled (dyslexic) college student and instructional implications

This paper examines spontaneous writing of a college student with a history of language learning problems. Writing samples, collected from tests and papers in college courses, were analyzed for syntactic complexity, spelling, grammatical errors, semantic errors, and organization. Metacognitive factors were analyzed by examining student’s responses to questions about his perceptions about writing. Results showed: (a) the dyslexic student produced syntactically complex structures comparable to nondyslexic writers; (b) the student averaged 9% spelling errors per essay and 17 grammatical errors per essay; (c) primary semantic errors were inappropriate word choices, incorrect determiners, and overuse of “so” as a transition; (d) major problem with organization involved difficulties with expanding an idea beyond “saying the same thing in a different way;” (e) metacognitive strategies included difficulties with separating self from writing and recognizing ambiguity in writing. The paper then describes six instructional strategies to assist in remediation of the student’s writing problems. Paper presented at the Second Miami University Sentence Combining Conference, October, 1983.     

国家助学贷款制度与高校学生欠费问题思考

学费拖欠问题在提供国家助学贷款前提下仍然存在,原因有多个方面。完善助学政策可以使国家助学贷款的政策惠及高校每一个贫困生,又能使其自觉缴费还款。     

A study of teaching presence and student sense of learning community in fully online and web-enhanced college courses

This paper focuses on two components of a model for online teaching and learning—“teaching presence” and “community”. It is suggested that previous research points to the critical role that community plays in academic success and persistence in higher education. Through a review of recent literature it is proposed that teaching presence–viewed as the core roles of the online instructor–is a promising mechanism for developing learning community in online environments. This investigation presents a multi-institutional study of 1067 students across 32 different colleges that further substantiates this claim. An instrument to assess instructor teaching presence (“The Teaching Presence Scale”) is presented and validated. Factor and regression analysis indicate a significant link between students' sense of learning community and effective instructional design and “directed facilitation” on the part of course instructors, and highlights interesting differences between online and classroom environments. Alternative hypotheses regarding student demographics associated with variables such as age (the “net generation” effect) and gender are also examined. Despite recent assertions that younger students are or soon will be too sophisticated to “feel at home” in largely text-based asynchronous learning environments, no significant effects were found by demographic differences examined. Recommendations for online course design, pedagogy, and future research are included.