Teaching teachers to teach ICT integration—T3

Based upon a nation wide campaign called Public Private Partnership—Schools in the Net (PPP-SiN) (Public Private Partnership—Schule im Netz (PPP-SiN), 2000) we were able to initiate an externally financed project of in-service teacher education. The paper describes the realization of this project. Reflections are given on why teachers hesitate to integrate ICT into their teaching. Media competencies are recognized to be key in this context. We reflect upon the following five questions:

1. How do we educate the right thing as well as educate the right way?
2. Which ambient conditions must be met?
3. Which preliminary actions have to be taken and implemented?
4. Which tools, methods and instruments do we need?
5. How do we make sure that the transfer of learned knowledge will take place to find its way into successful teaching?

     

Academic effectiveness of private,public and private–public partnership schools in Pakistan

In recent years, there has been major growth in low-cost or affordable private schooling in South Asia. This has applied in both urban and rural areas. In Pakistan, some 25%–33% of all children now attend private schools. Further, there has been substantial, consistent, developing country evidence that students of affordable private schools outperform academically their counterparts in government schools. This seems to remain true even after account is taken of intellectual ability, home and family characteristics.In this paper we use 2011 data collected by Pakistan's Annual Status of Education Report (ASER, 2012) to address three questions:

• (a)Do Pakistan's rural private school students outperform their public school counterparts?
• (b)Do Pakistan's public–private partnership (PPP) school students outperform their public school counterparts?
• (c)Are higher private school fees associated with higher student achievement?

Our results show that:

• •private school students in Pakistan, do outperform their government colleagues. This effect persists even after account is taken of other variables (child, household and school).
• •PPP students also outperform their government counterparts but this effect disappears when account is taken of private tuition.
• •students from the lowest-fee private schools outperform students from government schools and higher fee school students generally outperform the lowest fee schools but this latter difference seems attributable to factors other than solely the higher fee level itself.

     

Validation of a scheme for assessing argumentative writing of middle school students

Two studies tested factors influencing ratings of argumentative essays in order to develop a scheme for assessing essays written by middle school students. Study CLAIM-CLARITY assessed the effect of:

• 1.(a) claim clarity,
• 2.(b) reason strength,
• 3.(c) strength of rebuttals to counterarguments,
• 4.(d) the rater's personal values, and
• 5.(e) the rater's topic knowledge.

These factors explained a third of the variance in holistic scores. There was a significant interaction between raters' topic knowledge and the validity of evidential statements. Raters' values were not significant with respect to the range of topics included in this study. Study DEVELOPMENT assessed the effect of:

• 1.(a) development,
• 2.(b) voice, and
• 3.(c) conventions.

The factors explained 63 percent of the variance in holistic ratings. This result was attributed to an assessment scheme that fostered integrated rather than isolated consideration of argument elements.     

Table of Contents

• High‐achieving black collegians
  • by Sharon Fries‐Britt
  • How well do we understand the experiences of high‐achieving black students? The author says we have a lot to learn about their important roles in both our institutions and society at large.
• The search for a college commons
  • by Thomas Klein
  • How can we restructure our campuses to encourage the new kinds of learning we all know as so vital for the future of higher education? The author looks to the past for the answer.
• Listening to students: Richard J. Light talks to Charles C. Schroeder
  • What we can learn by simply giving students the chance to tell their stories and reflect on their experiences.

• DEPARTMENTS
• In practice—rainbow visibility: How one catholic university responded to intolerance
  • by Cheryl Getz and Evelyn A. Kirkley
  • When respect for the individual's dignity is threatened, education is often the best medicine.
• Campus commons—bulking up
  • by Lee Burdette Williams
  • How one university “mixes it with love and makes the world taste good.”
• Bottom line—imitate me
  • by William H. Willimon
  • Like it or not, example is the most potent instructor.

     

The preference of Asian overseas students for the United States: An examination of the context

Asian students in increasing numbers have over the postwar period decided to go overseas for tertiary education, and an increasing proportion of those overseas students have selected the United States as their place of study. Eight elements of the changing context of Asian-American relations are identified which influence the Asian preference for American higher education:

1. The improving Asian-American political links
2. The increased volume of Asian-American economic exchange
3. The sharp increase in Asian immigration to the United States
4. The increasing similarity in the structure and content of Asian and American educational systems
5. The absorptive capacity of American higher education
6. The quality of American higher education
7. The complementarity of Asian demand and American supply
8. The opportunities provided in American higher education to cover educational costs through part-time work

     

Writing assessment: Raters' elaboration of the rating task

This study examined how highly experienced raters do writing assessment, with a focus on how the raters defined the assessment task. Three raters followed a think-aloud procedure as they evaluated two sets of writing. Analyses of the think-aloud protocols showed that raters defined the task in three very different ways:

• 1.1) by searching the rubric to make a match between their response to the text and the language of the scoring rubric (search elaboration),
• 2.2) by assigning a score directly based on a quick general impression (simple recognition elaboration), or
• 3.3) by analyzing the criteria prior to score assignment without considering alternative scores (complex recognition elaboration).

Raters differed in their use of task definitions when they evaluated the same texts. These results are discussed in terms of the effect of different task elaborations on the validity of writing assessment.     

Marrying theory building and the improvement of school practice: a permanent challenge for instructional psychology

Recent research on learning and instruction has substantially advanced our understanding of the processes of knowledge and skill acquisition. However, school practices have not been innovated and improved in ways that reflect this progress in the development of a theory of learning from instruction.It is argued in this article that to be successful in making psychological theory and research applicable to education one should develop a strategy that combines the following basic characteristics:

• •good communication with practitioners which means that the relevant outcomes are translated in such a way that they become palatable, accessible, and usable for the teachers;
• •an orientation toward a fundamental change of teachers' belief systems about the goals of education and about good teaching and productive learning;
• •a holistic (as opposed to a partial) approach to the teaching–learning environment, i.e. all relevant components of the learning environment should be addressed.

Taking this into account a successful approach for bridging the theory–practice gap is presented. This approach consists in carrying out design experiments involving the creation and evaluation in real classrooms of complex instructional interventions that embody our present understanding of effective learning processes and powerful learning environments. In order to make a reasonable chance to be successful, such attempts at fundamentally changing the classroom environment and culture should be undertaken in partnership between researchers and reflective practitioners. Such partnership is essential to promote mutual good communication, but also in view of modifying and reshaping teachers' beliefs about education, learning, and teaching. This intervention approach which is illustrated with a recent research example, has a twofold goal: it intends to advance theory building, while at the same time contributing to the optimisation of classroom practices.     

Table of Contents

• Mi Casa Is Not Exactly Like Your House
  • By Vasti Torres
  • Latino students make up an ever increasing proportion of today's students. What do we really know about the experiences and needs that they bring to the task of being students?
• What's Going on in Higher Education? Charles Schroeder Talks to Russell Edgerton
  • Russell Edgerton has been driving change in higher education for over thirty years. What does he think about what is going on now? Edgerton shares his thoughts on the impact of the undergraduate reform movement, “deep learning,” and more.
• How Should We Talk about Student Drinking—And What Should We Do about It?
  • By Alan David Berkowitz
  • Does the language we use to talk about student drinking impede or enhance our ability to work with students on this problem? The author weighs in.

• DEPARTMENTS
• In Practice—A Model for Strategic Thinking and Learning
  • By Nannette Evans Commander
  • How can we help students truly take responsibility for their own learning? They need, says the author, strategies for learning that go well beyond the skills taught at many campuses.
• Campus Commons—Farcical Moments
  • By Lee Burdette Williams
  • When the going gets tough, the tough start laughing.
• What They're Reading—How Do These Colleges Do It?
  • By Elizabeth S. Blake
  • A look at the recent book Stand and Prosper: Private Black Colleges and Their Students.
• Bottom Line—The Color of Service
  • By Toby S. Jenkins
  • Do students of color have a special responsibility to serve their communities? The author says, yes.

     

Smaller,quicker, cheaper: alternative strategies for literacy assessment in the UN Literacy Decade

In the context of the UN Literacy Decade (declared in February 2003), the present paper suggests three parameters that should be considered when new tools for assessment are considered in less developed countries (LDCs), each of which poses a special challenge to international comparative literacy assessment, such as in the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS):

• •Smaller: Assessment methods do not need to be major entrepreneurial enterprises, but rather just robust enough to answer key policy questions at the national and local levels. International comparative studies often run counter to this perspective.
• •Quicker: Literacy assessments need to be completed in ‘real time’ so that results can affect policy and spending in the ‘lifetime’ of current ministerial appointments. Studies that take 3–5 years to generate results, even if robust, nonetheless fail to meet the test of timeliness.
• •Cheaper: LDCs cannot afford either the fiscal or human resources costs of deep involvement in highly technical assessment exercises. The higher the cost, the more difficult to get to an initial ‘yes’ to participate in such an exercise, and the more difficult to gather time-series data to follow policy decisions.

In sum, this paper finds that there is a very important need for improving literacy assessment methodologies and the empirical database in developing countries, especially in light of the new UN Literacy Decade. While the IALS presents interesting and important options for methodological consideration, it also has a number of inherent limitations as discussed herein. Other options exist which should also be considered, especially for poor countries, such as the smaller/quicker/cheaper (SQC) approach.     

Numeration a l'ecole elementaire

This paper presents results of research concerning the construction of the concept of natural integers by children. By testing the same children, whose school history was known with accuracy, at one year in tervals, we have sought to determine:

— How their competence in counting and numeration evolved during this period.

— What the mechanisms of this evolution were.

— What role school learning played.

     

Some aspects of children's ability to solve mathematical problems

This survey presents the essentials of a study concerning problem solving ability in children aged 12–13. It forms part of a large project concerning the impact of calculators and computers in school mathematics and the consequences for certain basic abilities. The contents of the survey are in brief:

? definition of problem solving ability;

? test construction;

? interviews;

? supplementary investigations.

     

Table of Contents

• How Benchmarking Can Help Us Improve What We Do—Jodi Levine Laufgraben Talks to Joseph A. Pica and Randy L. Swing
  • What is benchmarking and what can it help us achieve? An interview with Joseph Pica and Randy Swing, who have both been studying this approach and putting it into practice, sheds light on these and other questions.
• Helping Students Develop Vision and Voice—The Role Creativity Plays
  • Michele M. Welkener
  • Creativity is more than just a good thing, says the author, it is the cornerstone of learning and development.
• Leadership, Feminism, and Classroom Politics—Or, How I Gave Up the Fight and Learned to Love Resistance
  • Lee Burdette Williams
  • Resistance is not as bad as it seems. Indeed, argues the author, it may be the catalyst on which learning depends.

• Departments
• Letters—Plagiarism: Academic Dishonesty or Communication Problem?
  • Barbara J. Moore, Juan Flores, and John Gunter
• In Practice—The Tensions of Creating a Good First‐Year Experience Program: The Alpha Seminar
  • Jeanie K. Allen
  • Good first‐year experience programs don't come easy. Here are some of the challenges and opportunities the Alpha Seminar presents to educators at Drury University.
• Campus Commons—One Day at Hartman Rocks
  • Lee Burdette Williams
  • Hanging above the chasm of uncertainty and other learning opportunities.
• What They're Reading—The Truth About Writing
  • Paula Stacey
  • A primer on writing, life, and lousy first drafts.

     

Table of Contents

• Deepening the Commitment to Serve: Spiritual Reflection in Service‐Learning
  • By Kent Koth
  • Spirituality has long been associated with public service—witness the lives of Ghandi, Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King Jr. to name a few—but is it a key ingredient? Kent Koth argues that it is and that higher education is missing a critical opportunity by not helping students understand the spiritual aspects of serving others.
• Bridging Differences Through Dialogue
  • By Ximena Zúñiga
  • As campuses become increasingly diverse, it is more important than ever to promote understanding across differences. The author describes an approach for helping students from different backgrounds talk and learn from each other.
• Cultivating the Craft of Interdependence: Collaborative Learning and the College Curriculum
  • By Kenneth A. Bruffee
  • What is collaboration if not the transformation of strangers into peers and colleagues, into people we rely on rather than protect ourselves from? This, says the author, is the craft of interdependence and he explores how this craft can be nurtured on our campuses.

• DEPARTMENTS
• In Practice—Get on the Bus
  • By Joseph J. Gonzalez
  • How one graduate student's passion for teaching and interest in the Civil Rights Movement led to the creation of a unique learning community on wheels.
• Campus Commons—Wide Margins
  • By Lee Burdette Williams
  • Our students' lives are full of tough situations; we don't need to make them any tougher.
• Bottom Line—Christian Privilege
  • By Lewis Z. Schlosser and William E. Sedlacek
  • Does higher education—and the academic calendar in particular—privilege Christian students? What can we do to include other traditions and strengthen our commitment to religious diversity?

     

Teacher's role and reproducibility of didactical situations

Is it possible to specify teaching situations and to control their effects on students' learning? This general question is essential regarding the scientific character of research on mathematics education. It especially concerns the teacher's role in the class: can she ensure sufficient fidelity to a predefined scenario? This question is of special importance in the case of an experimental scenario the design of which is the result of a collaboration between a researcher and a teacher. This is considered here in the context of two case-studies. These case-studies exhibit two types of factors which tend to hamper fidelity in reproducing a given scenario:

- first, constraints on the teacher resulting from the didactical system: time constraints, success of the teaching process;

- second, teachers' conceptions about mathematics and learning. These results are considered with reference to prior research on didactical transposition and teacher's beliefs.

     

Table of Contents

• Changing Institutional Culture for First‐Year Students and Those Who Teach Them
  • By Raymond Smith
  • When one university took on the challenge of improving student retention something surprising happened to their institutional culture. The author tells us about it.
• How Are We Doing at Engaging Students? Charles Schroeder Talks to George Kuh
  • Research has told us a lot about what it takes to engage students. How well are we putting this knowledge into practice? George Kuh has made it his mission to find out.
• Small Wins
  • By James J. Rhatigan and John H. Schuh
  • It is easy for us to overlook small successes when we are overwhelmed by and preoccupied with large projects and goals. Can these small wins help us accomplish great things?

• DEPARTMENTS
• Letters
  • The debate about handling student drinking continues.
• Firstchoice: Innovative Academic Options for First‐Year Students
  • By Rhonda G. Mandel and Kathleen Evans
  • One university's struggle to create a first year program that can be taken seriously by both students and faculty.
• Gifts
  • By Shirley H. Showalter
  • A lesson in the benefits of generosity.
• A Woman's Education
  • By Kristen A. Renn
  • The author reviews Jill Ker Conway's latest book.

     

A hypertext open learning system for writers

In this article I describe three key design issues which underlie a CIRG project building an open learning hypertext package for teaching writing skills. These are issues in:

? combining flexible materials with fixed structures;

? giving students real flexibility in learning;

? the nature of interaction in hypertext writing teaching.

I outline a design strategy to meet problems in all these areas.     

All welcome! Everyone belongs!: Leadership from voices seldom heard

Two basic points are made in this article:

-We must make a choice whether we ‘isolate’ people from or ‘include’ people in our communities. Including people is the only viable option.

-The key to ‘including’ people is with the very people we most often label as ‘the problems’. These ‘problem people’ can help generate answers when we learn how to listen, and when we offer genuine learning opportunities and valid partnerships with those who have been ‘missed’ and discarded.

Examples from various Frontier College programs illustrate these points and elaborate the central philosophy of the College (Student Centred Individualized Learning — SCIL), which is based on the beliefs that:

-All are welcome

-All belong

-All can learn

-All have contributions to make

The programmes are focused on ‘literacy’, which is a great deal more than reading and writing — it is about what kind of society we want. Literacy is a tool for ‘inclusion’ in communities. It is hard work, and includes love and tears, grief and joy, families and friends. It is based on the Right to Learn, and builds dignity, self esteem and choices.     

The university and the technical revolution in Japan: A model for developing countries?

This article discusses the role of the university in Japan's technological and industrial development. In the first part the historical development of the university in terms of technological and industrial development is treated in four sections, as follows:

1. 1868–1886 - higher education and Westernization;
2. 1886–1914 - Japan's industrial revolution and the university;
3. 1914–1945 - industrial development between the wars and the expansion of the university;
4. 1945-the present - the new university system and post-war industrial progress.

In the second part of the article some of the problems observed in the above historical treatment are discussed under the following headings: Westernization of a non-Western society, coordination between education and industry, the government and freedom of the university, and nationalism and internationalism. Throughout the whole period of development, the university in Japan has played a crucial role in introducing Western science and technology into Japan and in training the personnel necessary for technological and industrial progress. While the university has to be given credit for this important contribution it has to be noted that the state itself made an equally important contribution by ensuring that industry was coordinated with the university. Such initiatives on the part of the state did, however, raise questions about the academic freedom of the university. The Japanese university thus played an important part in terms of the development of the national interest; it has, however, been criticised recently for being less ready to develop that spirit of internationalism which the modern world requires.     

Table of Contents

• Climbing Blind: Charles Schroeder Interviews Erik Weihenmayer
  • The first blind man to reach the summit of Mount Everest shares what he has learned about teamwork, leadership, and overcoming limitations.
• The Underside of Service Learning
  • by Susan R. Jones
  • Is service learning for everyone? Have we been seduced by its positive potential into underestimating, even ignoring, its complexities? Only by identifying, addressing, and incorporating these complexities into the service‐learning enterprise, says the author, can we better serve those students who just don't get it.
• What are Research Universities Doing for First‐Year Students?
  • by Marc Cutright
  • Research universities do not have the best reputation when it comes to the first‐year student experience, but is this reputation deserved? The author shares preliminary results of a new study that illustrates how research universities are working to create supportive environments.

• DEPARTMENTS
• The Electronic Campus—Bringing Technology to the Learning Enterprise: John Harwood Talks to Educause's Carole A. Barone
  • Using technology can be a big challenge for educators who still cling to more traditional teaching methods. What can we do to bridge the technology gap on campus and better support student learning?
• In Practice—Student Cheating: Encouraging Students to Reflect on their Actions
  • by Barbara J. Moore
  • What can we do about the increasing prevalence of cheating and plagiarism on today's campuses? How can we communicate the importance of responsible academic behavior to our students? Here is one approach used by Queens College.
• Campus Commons—A Dorm Is a Dorm Is a Dorm
  • by Colette M. Shaw
  • The peculiar potency of a simple word.
• What They're Reading—Mavens, Sticky Messages, and the Power of Context
  • by Michael D. Coomes
  • Our reviewer examines how Malcolm Galdwell's insights into social trends and epidemics can apply to our own work

     

Planification a long terme du systeme pedagogique Hongrois

This study is concerned with the problem of perspective planning of education. First it considers the underlying conception of the educational system, indicating what are the essential factors in Hungary's national education. The authors then seek, by means of a systems theory conception to give this education a place in society, and in civilization — bearing in mind that national education is “a system of relative independence”. From here they go on to examine the patterns imposed by planning for perspective development. An important section examines planning as a process and considers it as an essential concomitant of the strategy of development in the following phases:

1. the politico-scientific process of formulating the conception.
2. the process of checking the continuing validity of the conception.
3. the decision-making process by which the conception is accepted.
4. the process of initiating and implementing the conception.

The thinking of practitioners of national education may come to regard planning as a permanent and continuing activity. A method of planning the process of continuing-development must be created on three levels, that of the great corporations concerned, that of regional directors, and that of experts in educational practice.