From the Student Perspective: Experiences of Middle and High School Students in Online Learning

The authors conducted a study to examine experiences and preferences of middle and high school students in online learning environments. An online questionnaire was supplied to administrators of online schools, who then distributed the questionnaire to students enrolled in their schools. Topics addressed in the questionnaire included involvement in online and traditional school settings, use of special education services, participation in extracurricular activities, actual and preferred interactions with teachers and online peers, bullying, and overall opinions regarding online learning. The findings from this study are explained as well as limitations and implications for future research.     

Student Difficulties in Learning Density: A Distributed Cognition Perspective

Density has been reported as one of the most difficult concepts for secondary school students (e.g. Smith et al. 1997). Discussion about the difficulties of learning this concept has been largely focused on the complexity of the concept itself or student misconceptions. Few, if any, have investigated how the concept of density was constituted in classroom interactions, and what consequences these interactions have for individual students?? conceptual understanding. This paper reports a detailed analysis of two lessons on density in a 7th Grade Australian science classroom, employing the theory of Distributed Cognition (Hollan et al. 1999; Hutchins 1995). The analysis demonstrated that student understanding of density was shaped strongly by the public classroom discussion on the density of two metal blocks. It also revealed the ambiguities associated with the teacher demonstration and the student practical work. These ambiguities contributed to student difficulties with the concept of density identified in this classroom. The results of this study suggest that deliberate effort is needed to establish shared understanding not only about the purpose of the activities, but also about the meaning of scientific language and the utility of tools. It also suggests the importance of appropriate employment of instructional resources in order to facilitate student scientific understanding.     

Learning in Workplace Simulations in Vocational Education: a Student Perspective

In vocational education, workplace simulations (WPS) have been implemented to ensure a better connection between the educational setting and the labour market. Moreover, WPS are supposed to motivate students and promote self-directed learning. So far, however, not much is known about the way students experience these WPS. The aim of the present exploratory case study was to investigate students’ perceptions and preparedness for WPS and explore what factors they perceive to be relevant for their learning in these simulations. Forty students from three different pre-vocational secondary schools participated. Semi-structured group interviews were conducted and thematic analysis was used to examine the qualitative data. The results revealed that authentic WPS can increase student motivation and engagement. Learner characteristics regarded as relevant in WPS were motivation, responsibility, independence and discipline. For students, the presence and guidance of the teacher played an essential role in their working and learning effectively. They felt limited in making choices to direct their own learning. Assessment criteria were not transparent enough for students. Concluding, we found that students perceived factors closely related to self-regulated and self-directed learning to be relevant for their learning; however, these learning activities and processes have not yet been sufficiently promoted and supported in the investigated vocational schools. The study highlights design dilemmas for vocational practice and offers indications in how to match both learning environmental characteristics and teacher support tailored to learners’ needs.     

Senior High School Student Biology Learning in Interactive Teaching

This paper reports Grade 12 students’ biology learning during interactive teaching classes in 2001 in Taiwan. The researcher as teacher, working within an interpretive framework, set out to improve her senior high school student biology teaching and learning. An intervention based on a social constructivist view of learning was designed, implemented and evaluated. The findings of this study indicate that intervention students’ cognitive development was facilitated, their reasoning and social abilities were enhanced, and they enjoyed the lessons more. Their first term examination outcomes were comparable with those in the traditional teaching classes. This study, therefore, provides an example for how interactive teaching, based on a social constructivist view of learning, can be effectively used for teaching and learning biology in the senior high school in Taiwan.     

STEM Integration in Middle School Life Science: Student Learning and Attitudes

In many countries around the world, there has been an increasing emphasis on improving science education. Recent reform efforts in the USA call for teachers to integrate scientific and engineering practices into science teaching; for example, science teachers are asked to provide learning experiences for students that apply crosscutting concepts (e.g., patterns, scale) and increase understanding of disciplinary core ideas (e.g., physical science, earth science). Engineering practices and engineering design are essential elements of this new vision of science teaching and learning. This paper presents a research study that evaluates the effects of an engineering design-based science curriculum on student learning and attitudes. Three middle school life science teachers and 275 seventh grade students participated in the study. Content assessments and attitude surveys were administered before and after the implementation of the curriculum unit. Statewide mathematics test proficiency scores were included in the data analysis as well. Results provide evidence of the positive effects of implementing the engineering design-based science unit on student attitudes and learning.     

目标设置理论对学生学习动机激发的启示

目标设置理论是近年来研究最多、影响最大的一种激励理论，在管理学领域得到了广泛应用，该理论作为一种激励理论也可引入教育领域用来激发学生动机和指导学生的学习。目标设置在对学习动机激发方面有着前提指导的作用，教师与学生在对学习绩效目标的设置上各担负着不同的重要责任。     

Electrifying Engagement in Middle School Science Class: Improving Student Interest Through E-textiles

Most interventions with “maker” technologies take place outside of school or out of core area classrooms. However, intervening in schools holds potential for reaching much larger numbers of students and the opportunity to shift instructional dynamics in classrooms. This paper shares one such intervention where electronic textiles (sewable circuits) were introduced into eighth grade science classes with the intent of exploring possible gains in student learning and motivation, particularly for underrepresented minorities. Using a quasi-experimental design, four classes engaged in a traditional circuitry unit while the other four classes undertook a new e-textile unit. Overall, students in both groups demonstrated significant learning gains on standard test items without significant differences between conditions. Significant differences appeared between groups’ attitudes toward science after the units in ways that show increasing interest in science by students in the e-textile unit. In particular, they reported positive identity shifts pertaining to their perceptions of the beliefs of their friends, family, and teacher. Findings and prior research suggest that student-created e-textile designs provide opportunities for connections outside of the classroom with friends and family and may shift students’ perceptions of their teacher’s beliefs about them more positively.     

Lab Work and Learning in Secondary School Chemistry: The Importance of Teacher and Student Interaction

Laboratory work is considered essential in promoting students’ learning of science and of scientific inquiry. What the students perceive as important to learn from a regular laboratory exercise is probably affected by the teacher’s objectives. We study the extent to which one teacher’s objectives are fulfilled during lab work, and how teacher–student and student–student interactions contribute to developing learning experiences from the laboratory exercise. Do students encounter opportunities to learn in agreement with the teacher’s objectives? This explanatory single case study includes use of a palette of methods, such as pre- and post-interviews, observations and video documentation from an experienced secondary school teacher and her 8th grade (aged 13–14) students’ laboratory work. Our results point to the importance of teacher involvement to help students understand what to look for, how to do it and why. Especially teacher–student interactions during lab work seemed to influence what students perceived as important to learn. In the laboratory exercise in this case, the teacher helped the students to observe and to use their observations in their explanations. The lab work included learning experiences other than those addressed by the teacher, and the teacher’s intentions were partially fulfilled. Not only what the teacher says, but also how the teacher acts is important to help students understand what to learn from a laboratory exercise.     

学校变革视角下的教师学习

在教育现代化进程中,学校变革已经成为一种常态。只有教师成为学校变革的积极支持者和变革动力,学校才能走上具有生长性的持续变革轨道。支持教师成为变革动力的最重要途径是教师学习。教师学习具有传递经验、促进学校成员间融合与创生新知识等功能。指向支持学校变革的教师学习,要根据学校的变革需要精心设计教师学习活动,要引导变革阻力在教师学习活动中积极转化,要倡导指向教学研究的教师学习活动,要通过培育教师学习小团队建设合作的组织文化。     

师徒互动对师范实习生专业观念的影响——交换理论的视角

师范生在实习时是如何学习的?他们与指导教师是如何互动的?师徒互动对他们学习教学有什么影响?——现有研究对这些问题鲜有深入探究。对现有实习制度安排下师徒互动中师范实习生专业观念的发展状况进行探索,有利于检验制度安排与师范实习生专业培养的合理性。本文采用个案研究方法,深入观察反向阻抑型师徒互动模式下的实习活动,结合布劳的交换理论,对其中权力的社会交换关系进行微观分析。研究发现:指导教师和实习生依照理性原则启动互动,在互惠原则和公正原则立场上平衡自己的付出与报酬。当报酬被对方认可时,双方易产生整合的倾向;当报酬被对方否认或拒绝时,双方易产生对立与分歧。师徒互动中权力的对立与整合对实习生影响重大,导致他们对自己在实习期间完成教学任务、实现教育目标的自我预期、判断和评价产生很大差异,并在一定程度上影响了他们的专业观念。在一些地方院校,实习生不仅在大多数情况下没有获得制度所规定的指导,而且在当地"实习无用""指导教师不管事只管分"等不良集体观念"合法化"下,对实习失去认可和信心。不过,即使在获得指导机会不均等的情况下,依旧有一些实习生通过权力的社会交换,得到了改变自己境遇的机会。     

从活动理论看学校学习

本简要概述了活动理论对维果茨基思想的继承、发展及活动理论自身的发展情况，以活动理论的视角分析传统的学校学习中存在的问题并提出解决的途径，包括通过作为学习目标的知识向学习任务的转化，使学习成为一种探究性的活动，学生通过积极参与和主动建构获得新知识，了解知识的意义；同时关注学习过程中的个体和共同体；注重学习和教学过程的动态性和非预定性。     

Improving the School Learning Environment to Reduce Bullying: An Experimental Study

A framework based on research on bullying and on educational effectiveness was offered to schools to assist them in developing strategies and actions to improve their learning environment, their policy for teaching, and their evaluation mechanisms in order to reduce bullying. At the beginning and end of the intervention, the Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and a teacher questionnaire measuring three school factors (school policy for teaching, school learning environment, and school evaluation) were administered to the experimental and control groups. This experimental study reveals that the intervention had both a direct impact on the reduction of bullying and an indirect impact through improving the school factors. Implications for research into supporting schools to reduce bullying are given.     

Toward Improving Student Learning: Policy issues and design structures in course-level outcomes assessment

Conscientious instructors at all levels are constantly making decisions about how to improve their teaching. This is a natural, intuitive part of being a good instructor, but even faculty who value student learning and work hard to improve their teaching can fail to make the connection between what they do in the classroom and the continuous improvement philosophy of outcomes assessment. The connection can be missed because understanding course-level outcomes assessment requires understanding evaluation policies and structures that differ markedly from those employed for unit-level program accreditation. The purposes of this paper are two-fold: first, to address policy issues that impede adoption of systematic, course-level outcomes assessment for improving student learning; and second, to describe a design structure for applying outcomes assessment that addresses factors under control of the instructor that affect students' learning. The paper concludes with observations on the crossed purposes of collecting information for judging faculty merit in the annual review process as opposed to collecting information for course improvement in the outcomes assessment process.     

学习产出视角下高等职业教育学生学习评估探析

高职学生学习产出是指学生经过学习后,其职业知识、职业技能、职业行为及职业道德等方面发生的变化。高职学生学习产出具有职业性、实践性和应用性等特点。以学习产出视角反思当前我国高职学生学习评估现状,需要树立系统化的学习评估理念;学校需要从被评者转变为评估主体和主导者;行业企业和学生需要共同参与以学习产出为核心的学习评估标准制定;学习信息的复杂性和多样性需要采用多元收集方法。     

A Learning Patterns Perspective on Student Learning in Higher Education: State of the Art and Moving Forward

The aim of this article is to review the state of the art of research and theory development on student learning patterns in higher education and beyond. First, the learning patterns perspective and the theoretical framework are introduced. Second, research published since 2004 on student learning patterns is systematically identified and reviewed. This part includes two main sections. In the first section, new evidence on internal and external relationships of learning patterns is reviewed. Four themes are covered here: the dimensionality and the internal relationships of learning patterns and relationships of learning patterns with personal, contextual, and outcome variables. In the second section, new directions in learning patterns research are examined. These include studies on learning patterns in new international contexts and populations, longitudinal development of learning patterns over time, methodological advances in learning patterns research, and studies on fostering the quality of students’ learning patterns. Next, relationships with adjacent theories on student learning are discussed, the learning patterns perspective is critically examined, and pathways are derived to move the model forward. Finally, future conceptual and methodological directions for learning patterns research are derived.     

怀化市高一学生数学学习现状调查

对怀化市高一学生数学学习现状,从多个维度对进行了深入调查,并对结果进行了原因分析.调查结果显示:虽然学生对对数学学习兴趣较高,但没有养成了良好的数学学习习惯,学习方法欠妥,学生数学学习负担过重,学习效率不高.     

工程教育学生通用学习成果鉴别:基于工业界视角

在高等教育规模持续扩大及高等工程教育毕业生素质与工业界需求差距明显的背景下,从工业界视角识别工程教育学生通用学习成果,对提高高等工程教育人才培养针对性和有效性具有重要意义。综合运用内容分析、问卷调查、交叉比较的方法,识别出工业界版、适用本科院校工科专业类认证性通用学习成果"时间管理""组织承诺""终身学习""人际关系网络""诚信""主动性""沟通""团队合作""工程领导力""经验知识""问题解决""工程实践"等12项要素。工业界需求的通用学习成果与工程教育专业认证标准规定的学习成果之间有涵盖交集,但不完全相合。     

Hawthorne Elementary School: The Evaluator's Perspective

In this article I present comparisons of 1994 and 1995 criterion-referenced achievement data from the state's TAAS annual spring testing program for Hawthorne and an aggregation of the results for all other elementary schools in the SAISD. TAAS results are reported in terms of the percentages of students meeting the passing standard at each grade level and in terms of scale scores or the Texas Learning Index (TLI). The TLI scale-score system was developed in 1994 to determine whether students were meeting TAAS standards in Grades 3 through 8 that were predictive of the passing standard at the high school exit level.