Sexual history-taking: using educational interventions to overcome barriers to learning

Sexual history-taking is a basic medical skill that is traditionally taught poorly in medical school. Practising medical professionals have frequently reported feeling inadequately trained at taking these histories or discussing sexual risk. In order to promote and enhance the learning of this basic skill, those who teach sexual history-taking need to understand how it is that learners learn to take sexual histories and, crucially, the barriers that stand in the way of this being effectively done. This paper is therefore firstly concerned with identifying the barriers that health professionals in training might face when learning how to take a sexual history and, secondly, with proposing the use of well-recognised educational interventions, such as constructivist and experiential learning theories, to overcome these barriers and facilitate appropriate learning.     

“学习故事”的教育价值对促进师幼共同成长的探析

学习故事作为一种新的观察与评价方式,教师应在故事收集与撰写的过程中以真实、自发与教育为出发点,把握注意、识别、回应环节中对幼儿学习品质的观察、分析与评价。深刻解读学习故事的教育内涵,不仅有助于培养幼儿的学习品质,提升幼儿的学习能力,也能够有效助推幼儿园教师的教育理念更新与发展。     

加强教育合作促进学生个性发展

在职业教育改革不断深化和全面实施素质教育的今天，职校学生的个性应得到充分发展。教育合作是促进职校学生个性充分发展的重要途径，教育合作关键在于教师与学生之间、学生相互之间和学校与学生之间实行教育合作。     

适应开放教育需要全面提高教师素质

现代信息技术的发展,特别是计算机网络技术在教学中的运用,以及"人才培养模式改革和开放教育试点"项目研究工作,都对电大教师的素质提出了新的要求,使电大教师的社会角色发生了变化.为迎接这个挑战,电大教师角色必须随之转换,教师的作用也具有了全新的内容.为此,必须采取切实可行的措施,全方位的提高教师的素质,以适应开放教育的需要.     

The role of organizational learning in transformational leadership and organizational innovation

Leadership is an important factor affecting organizational innovation. Many studies show that transformational leadership has positive and significant influence on organizational innovation. Based on a literature review and previous work, this study aims to investigate the influence of transformational leadership on organizational innovation and to examine whether organizational learning is a mediator between their relationships. Structural equation modeling was used to test the model. The research sample consisted of 330 teachers in charge of administration in postsecondary schools. The findings of this study provide evidence that transformational leadership and organizational learning have significant positive relationship influence on organizational innovation. The research also demonstrates that there is significant effect on the role of mediation in organizational learning on the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation. The study suggests that if school principals use the strategies of transformational leadership and organizational learning at the same time, organizational learning was highly effectiveness to achieve organizational innovation in the postsecondary schools.     

Place-based learning: action learning in MA program for educational practitioners

The study presents a new pedagogical idea and practice for educational practitioners. The practice was developed as a workshop of MA program in order to change and expand the meaning of education for the wellbeing of the community. The ‘place-based learning’ workshop combined action learning (AL) with project-based learning (PBL). The students’ assignment was to develop and operate a plan for the contribution of specific places (e.g. parks, public buildings, organizations and industries) to the community. The findings indicate conceptual and behavioral changes among the students concerning educational processes. At the end of the workshop, the students tended to be more tolerant of ambiguity, sustain judgment and collaborate with peers. The new practice emphasizes coping with fundamental emotional needs such as autonomy, self-efficacy, engagement and belonging. The synergy between AL and PBL was found to have great potential for meaningful learning and doing.     

Learning theories for artificial intelligence promoting learning processes

This paper discusses a three-level model that synthesizes and unifies existing learning theories to model the roles of artificial intelligence (AI) in promoting learning processes. The model, drawn from developmental psychology, computational biology, instructional design, cognitive science, complexity and sociocultural theory, includes a causal learning mechanism that explains how learning occurs and works across micro, meso and macro levels. The model also explains how information gained through learning is aggregated, or brought together, as well as dissipated, or released and used within and across the levels. Fourteen roles for AI in education are proposed, aligned with the model's features: four roles at the individual or micro level, four roles at the meso level of teams and knowledge communities and six roles at the macro level of cultural historical activity. Implications for research and practice, evaluation criteria and a discussion of limitations are included. Armed with the proposed model, AI developers can focus their work with learning designers, researchers and practitioners to leverage the proposed roles to improve individual learning, team performance and building knowledge communities.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Numerous learning theories exist with significant cross-over of concepts, duplication and redundancy in terms and structure that offer partial explanations of learning.
• Frameworks concerning learning have been offered from several disciplines such as psychology, biology and computer science but have rarely been integrated or unified.
• Rethinking learning theory for the age of artificial intelligence (AI) is needed to incorporate computational resources and capabilities into both theory and educational practices.

What this paper adds

• A three-level theory (ie, micro, meso and macro) of learning that synthesizes and unifies existing theories is proposed to enhance computational modelling and further develop the roles of AI in education.
• A causal model of learning is defined, drawing from developmental psychology, computational biology, instructional design, cognitive science and sociocultural theory, which explains how learning occurs and works across the levels.
• The model explains how information gained through learning is aggregated, or brought together, as well as dissipated, or released and used within and across the levels.
• Fourteen roles for AI in education are aligned with the model's features: four roles at the individual or micro level, four roles at the meso level of teams and knowledge communities and six roles at the macro level of cultural historical activity.

Implications for practice and policy

• Researchers may benefit from referring to the new theory to situate their work as part of a larger context of the evolution and complexity of individual and organizational learning and learning systems.
• Mechanisms newly discovered and explained by future researchers may be better understood as contributions to a common framework unifying the scientific understanding of learning theory.

     

Liking and learning from educational television

Summary The WKAR-TV Program Analyzer,an electric rating summaration device,was used to test a inescope of a composite television program for farm men and homemakers entitledTown and Country. Additional phases of the experiment involved interviews with each group tested on the Analyzer and completion of a questionaire by each subject. The subjects consisted of 20 farm men, 20 rural homemakers and 20 urban homemakers. The WKAR-TV Program Analyzer tests included 10 subjects in each group. Testing the hypothesis that “like-dislike” ratings of a TV kinescope shown as a film correlate negatively with “I am learning” ratings, the author showed that the “liking” scale measured different attributes of the program than did the “learning” scale. Irving R. Merrill is Director of Research at TV Station WKAR-TV, Michigan State University.     

A new model of educational innovation: Exploring the nexus of organizational learning,distributed leadership,and digital technologies

This study presents the development process of a new model of educational innovation, that involves the use of digital technologies. The model is based on a broad theoretical framework together with research involving this long-term case study. The backbone of the model consists of a fundamental revision of a multi-level Organizational Learning Framework incorporating the influence of the external school context (outside of the school context) and various aspects of leadership. The conceptual model not only clarifies the learning capacity of the teachers and administration, in accordance with the organizational learning approach, but can also be used as a tool for the investigation of planned interventions in line with the ‘learning school’ conception. The incorporation of the concept of leadership practice strengthens the original Organizational Learning Framework on all levels in the school organization. The conceptual model integrates and improves theoretical frameworks for context-conscious leadership, organizational learning and distributed leadership. An important outcome of this study is an increased understanding of the relation between distributed leadership and collective sense-making as an important prerequisite for the incorporation of digital learning materials in teaching practice.     

Open educational resources: removing barriers from within

Enthusiasts and evangelists of open educational resources (OER) see these resources as a panacea for all of the problems of education. However, despite its promises, their adoption in educational institutions is slow. There are many barriers to the adoption of OER, and many are from within the community of OER advocates. This commentary calls for a wider discussion to remove these barriers to mainstreaming OER in teaching and learning and argues for a rethinking of the idea of ‘open’ to make it more inclusive by redefining the concept. It reminds us of the original thinking behind OER – which was to create universally available educational resources that can improve the quality of teaching and learning. This commentary posits arguments against conflating OER and open education, questions the narrow definitions of OER, and raises issues around how to be more flexible and open to mainstreaming OER and removing barriers from within the OER movement.     

A reflective learning taxonomy for an educational tour

This study is to investigate the reflective learning in a group of secondary school students who participated in an educational tour to Liannan, which is located in a rural area in Guangdong Province, Mainland China. The specific aim is to develop a framework to describe the learning in an educational tour. For this purpose, data were collected through students?? reflective writing in daily journals and end-of-trip sharing passages, triangulated with participant observation and interviews. The data analysis involved the use of grounded theory??s constant-comparative technique??an inductive method for generating hypotheses that are grounded in data. During the analysis of the data, the types of student learning which emerged were categorized in a Reflective Learning Taxonomy for an educational tour, comprising seven levels which are developmental in nature. The interpretative framework based on such a taxonomy of reflective learning reveals the rich context of learning in an educational tour and so makes a contribution to research on learning outside the classroom.     

A comparison of educational factors promoting or discouraging the intent to remain in engineering by gender

This study seeks to examine key extrinsic and intrinsic factors that encourage or discourage persistence in attaining an engineering degree and pursuing an engineering-related career among both male and female undergraduates. Quantitative and qualitative findings from nine participating undergraduate degree programmes reveal that career expectations formulated through educational experiences as undergraduates play a key role in motivating students. Among females, faculty interaction in the classroom, such as feedback received and the degree to which the faculty treat them with respect, is an important encouraging factor. For both males and females, discouraging elements of the undergraduate experience include the amount of time for coursework, competition in engineering classes and grades. The findings have several practical implications that faculty and administrators can employ in shaping the undergraduate experience to encourage short- and long-term interest in engineering among both male and female students.     

服务于学习化社会的教育资源共享——论陕西远程教育教学资源库构建的价值

学习化社会是一个以终身教育体系为基础,能够充分满足全民终身学习多样化需求的社会。陕西省远程教育教学资源库的构建对建立学习化社会具有极为重要的价值,它能整合全省优质资源,实现教育资源最大限度地共享;它将优势资源与区域发展相结合,促进本土特色教育资源与经济的发展;它可以为学习化社会搭建教学资源平台;此外,远程学习不仅能满足全体社会成员的学习需要,而且也实现了学习者个别化学习的需求,成为学习化社会的重要途径。     

Teacher-directed learning to self-directed learning transition barriers in Pakistan

Present paper explores the implications and barriers associated with the transition from teacher-directed learning (TDL) to self-directed learning (SDL) in the EFL classroom in Pakistan. This study intends to explore teachers’ views about the nature and viability of implementing the SDL approach to teach English in Pakistan. A qualitative approach is followed in data collection and a contrastive thematic method is employed for analysis. With a sample of 16 English language teachers from four public universities, data is collected through semi-structured interviews. The results show that teachers view SDL with a potential to make students self-sufficient and autonomous, but Pakistani education system, cultural background, and learners’ psychological aspects hinder the process of transition. These obstacles may be removed through creating awareness among teachers and students, and by bringing more flexibility into syllabi and teaching methods, and most importantly, through training local teachers.     

Strategic evaluation of the impacts on learning of educational technologies: Exploring some of the issues for evaluators and future evaluation audiences

The United Kingdom (UK) is not alone in its decision to move forward in major ways with technological provision in schools, and has had the experience of a wide range of evaluation studies conducted over many years on which to base its planning. The author argues in this paper that neither this basis nor the methods used will necessarily equip all future needs and requirements when planning and implementing such provision, because of the shifting contextual flux in which developments are taking place, particularly regarding the fundamental position of education within society. The author considers issues facing those involved in the strategic evaluation of educational technologies, when meeting future demands.