对建设网络公开课优质资源的思考

自麻省理工学院开放课件运动以来,网络公开课逐渐成为了一种世界性的潮流。因此,如何建设本土化特色的网络公开课值得关注和思考。网络公开课是名校在网络上免费公开名师的优质教育资源,以便于感兴趣的学习者学习。其总体目标定位于开放共享优质教育资源,促进学习者学习,提高高等教育质量,搭建终身学习立交桥,构建学习型社会。其主要特点有：公益性、开放性、共享性、新颖性、自主性和数字化等。我国网络公开课建设具有政府支持、基础扎实、有可借鉴的经验等优势,但也存在理念上分歧、资金上缺乏、知识产权保护难等不足。我国网络公开课建设需处理好3个基本问题,即谁来开发网络公开课,为谁开发网络公开课及怎样开发网络公开课。     

Quality assurance for distance learning: a case study at Brunel University

Brunel University currently has four distance learning MSc courses, with over 500 students registered, and one undergraduate distance learning course. Some have been running for over five years, and well‐established practices have been developed and provide a basis of support for the university. Quality assurance in the university has always been considered in three, equally important, ways: the curriculum and its assessment; the handling of coursework and assignments; and the liaison with students. The lesson we have learned is that a distance learning programme must be based on an existing full‐time MSc programme, which is the gold standard for curriculum and its assessment, and where possible, common examinations and assessment be used. This can be further assured by scrutinisation by the associated research council. This is going to become ever more important with the increasing scrutiny by overseas governments on the academic quality of distance learning courses, which seek assurance on the comparability and quality of degrees. Quality assurance for the handling of coursework and assignments must be secure and demands a high overhead of paperwork. Detailed feedback to students on their assignments is essential, but this can, at the same time, form a quality assurance check for later progression decisions. We also copy and retain approximately 10% of the assignments for the same purpose. Rapid turnaround is essential if feedback is to be timely and therefore useful, and quality checks on processing time should be standard. Quality assurance for the procedures for liaison with distance learning students are somewhat harder to measure quantitatively. The mark of good distance learning must be its tutorial support. This demands good communications. Our own course, entitled Data Communications Systems, benefits from the high proportion of use of electronic communications, namely email, which allows fast turnaround of questions, yet is not intrusive. However, it is deemed essential that hard copy of all such correspondence is kept. Migration to other Internet support services, such as the World Wide Web, videoconferencing and groupware, is inevitable.     

On-line Compared with Face-to-face Introductory Food Science Courses: An Assessment

ABSTRACT: This study tracked and compared the performance of traditional classroom and on-line students in 2 introductory level food science classes. Student evaluations were also compared for the 2 groups. All of the Face-to-face (FTF) students were full-time college students. Seventynine percent of on-line students lived over 50 miles from campus. About 21% of the on-line enrollments were of skilled workers from the food industry. Performance on standardized exams was significantly higher for on-line students. Student evaluations were very positive for both forms of instruction. Differences in maturity, academic load, motivation, class standing, and experience/knowledge of the food industry may have all played a role in the observed results. Although our study cannot differentiate between these effects, it is apparent that on-line food science instruction can be an effective alternative for individuals who are unable to attend traditional courses.     

高职院校中国传统文化课程教学方法创新探索

中国传统文化课程重在培养高职学生的人文素质和人文精神。中国传统文化课程的教学方法应提倡灵活多样的教学方法,教学最忌"灌输"和"绝对化"。教学方法创新可以将教学内容设计成专题或模块式,采用讨论式的教学方法、开放式的教学模式,采用情感训练法,多开设活动课。     

Programme Quality Assessment by the Implication of Variable Entry Qualifications on Students' Performance

Since its inception 30 years ago, the then Department of Engineering Science, Institut Teknologi MARA (ITM) was given the responsibility of preparing all the students in the first year engineering programmes by giving enough knowledge in basic science and mathematics. The nation's vision to become a fully‐industrialised economy by the year 2020 required all institutes of higher learning (IHLs) in Malaysia to increase their intake of students in the science and technology courses, especially in engineering. However, at the upper secondary education level, students have the freedom to choose between the science‐based or non‐science combination of subjects. This has led to a dearth of science‐based students enrolling in IHLs. Because ITM believes that it is possible to educate individuals from various backgrounds, the engineering courses are open to students with a variety of academic qualifications. Special bridging courses were designed and created for such students since late 1996. The success or failure of the new courses can be assessed after the students have gone through the proper first year engineering courses which consist of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. This paper reports on a pilot study on the pioneer groups of students with variable entry qualifications to assess the effectiveness of the courses. The study involved the analysis of the students’ examination results as a performance indicator, and it was found that the bridging programme for non‐science students needed to be redesigned. It is also proposed that to improve the quality of the programme, and hence students’ performance, a regular review be conducted, student support activities be continued and to expand the use of self‐study materials.     

A Comprehensive Faculty,Staff, and Student Training Program Enhances Student Perceptions of a Course-Based Research Experience at a Two-Year Institution

Early research experiences must be made available to all undergraduate students, including those at 2-yr institutions who account for nearly half of America''s college students. We report on barriers unique to 2-yr institutions that preclude the success of an early course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE). Using a randomized study design, we evaluated a CURE in equivalent introductory biology courses at a 4-yr institution and a 2-yr institution within the same geographic region. We found that these student populations developed dramatically different impressions of the experience. Students at the 4-yr institution enjoyed the CURE significantly more than the traditional labs. However, students at the 2-yr institution enjoyed the traditional labs significantly more, even though the CURE successfully produced targeted learning gains. On the basis of course evaluations, we enhanced instructor, student, and support staff training and reevaluated this CURE at a different campus of the same 2-yr institution. This time, the students reported that they enjoyed the research experience significantly more than the traditional labs. We conclude that early research experiences can succeed at 2-yr institutions, provided that a comprehensive implementation strategy targeting instructor, student, and support staff training is in place.     

混合式教学在民族类院校大学英语教学中的应用研究

在信息化时代,传统的课堂教学已经难以满足学习者的要求,网络碎片式学习成为一种潮流。然而,教师必要的指导和示范作用是线上学习所不具备的。混合式教学涵盖传统与现代、线上与线下教学模式,是现阶段教学改革的必然趋势。结合民族类院校学生构成的特点,混合式教学为重构大学英语课程提供了新的指导方向。     

基础课分层教学的实践与思考

随着职业学校生源质量的普遍下降,生源的素质差异越来越大,基础课教学的改革势在必行。江西环境工程职业学院从基础课分层教学改革的实践中提出:基础课分层教学应因材施教;基础课教学目标的定位应与贯彻终身教育理念相一致;基础课教师应有强烈的角色意识。     

On-line Literature: The Challenge of Integrating Web-based Materials

This classroom research discusses the challenges of integrating face-to-face interactions with the use of on-line resources in secondary English classrooms. Examining the lesson plans of pre-service and early career teachers in the US, I found that the uses of on-line resources were frequently neither coherent nor consistent with the goals and objectives teachers had planned for their lessons. As well, on-line resources rarely furthered teachers’ attempts to support students’ analytical or close reading of literary texts, but instead were used primarily to foster student engagement with the literature. Although on-line literature resources provide almost unimaginable possibilities for enriching classrooms, teachers must learn to identify and clarify their objectives for reading, and they must distinguish their objectives from those of website developers and sponsors. If we want on-line resources to transform our classrooms, then we must be willing and able to transform those materials, to translate them for our students through developing robust questions that will guide their viewings and readings. Additionally, we must acknowledge that on-line contexts may themselves change reading behaviours, and that when using the World-Wide Web, our local contexts matter greatly.     

关于开设素质教育核心必修课的理论依据

我国教育已经进入素质教育阶段,传统的教育模式已经很难适应教育发展的需要,必须从根本上进行变革。从素质教育培养目标出发,在理论方面进行深入的研究,提出开设素质教育核心必修课的理论依据。     

An Evaluation of the Progress,Experience and Employability of Mature Students on the BEd Course at Westminster College,Oxford

There are many adults who left school without A levels who wish to further their education as mature students. Because many of these adults are being accepted by colleges without traditional A levels, and with very few GCSE/O level subject passes, it has been suggested that their acceptance as students may lower the standard of the college courses. This paper evaluates the qualities which mature and non‐traditional entry students bring to college courses, and concludes that their results compare favourably with those of traditional entry students. Many mature students appear to have needs in common with other students and meeting these needs would result in better practice within institutions of higher education (HE). However, mature students also have specific needs which are evaluated in this paper. Most require little additional expenditure, but are rather a matter of will and organisation on the part of the institution and tutors. Entry as mature students onto BEd courses seems to be particularly attractive to women but some of them experience difficulty in finding employment. The data collected demonstrate that maturity is likely to be a positive attribute and the mature applicant for a post to be a ‘quality product’.     

增强高校思想政治理论课吸引力的对策探析

当前高校思想政治理论课教学正处在新的改革和探索时期,增强思想政治理论课的吸引力和感染力,必须在吃透理论的基础上,做到理论与实践的有机结合;要提高教师的综合素质,以教师的人格魅力引导和打动学生;要以培养学生的思想素质和理论思维能力为着眼点,不断创新教学方法;要全面贯彻主体性教育思想,发挥学生学习理论的积极性和主动性,从而努力使思想政治理论课成为青年学生最需要、最喜爱的课程.     

高职课程计划制定及调整的若干问题

高职课程改革是高职院校教学改革的核心，制定或调整好课程计划是学校课程改革的起点，课程计划必须坚持以人为本，适应市场需求，增加新工课程，减少陈旧的知识内容和纯科性的内容，补充实践方面等内容，才能使高职改革顺利进行。     

A journey towards sustainable feedback

Meeting students’ expectations associated with the provision of feedback is a perennial challenge for tertiary education. Efforts to provide comprehensive, timely feedback within our own first year undergraduate public health courses have not always met students’ expectations. In response, we sought to develop peer feedback activities to support the development of ‘self-evaluative strategies’ that would acknowledge the centrality of students in the feedback process. We describe these activities, their staged development and the qualitative and quantitative data gathered from students and the teaching teams to evaluate this. Our first steps towards embedding peer feedback with first year students indicated they are willing to engage in the process and appreciated the opportunity to provide and receive feedback, but the quality and extent of the peer feedback was largely superficial. Students’ reflections on the feedback received were also shallow. Supporting students to develop self-evaluative skills cannot be achieved in the short term, but must be embedded in courses and consistently reinforced, with greater emphasis placed on the development of a dialogue around feedback that connects students with peers and educators.     

Who attends and completes virtual universities: the case of the open University of Catalonia (UOC)

A highly touted feature of the so-called global “revolution” in higher education is the trend to use information technology to reach a broader clientele. Although there is evidence that students may be learning the material in on-line courses as well as in traditional face-to-face universities, how well students learn content is not the only reason they persist to a degree, and student persistence is an important goal of higher education institutions. In this paper, we make the case that the life conditions for students attending virtual universities are different from those of “traditional” students in face-to-face universities, and that this difference puts a particular (largely non-pecuniary) premium on time to degree. With our data from a Catalan virtual university, the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), we are able to test this hypothesis directly by using the heterogeneous degree structure of the Catalonian/Spanish higher education system to estimate whether the number of courses required to get various degrees (the length of the degree program) is significantly related to student persistence. The study analyzes several cohorts of students (those who entered in 2000–2003) studying in the UOC and estimates the factors that influence their degree completion. We find that the completion rate is generally low, but that students taking shorter degree courses at the UOC are much more likely to complete their degrees. This suggests that, given their clientele, on-line universities operate under very different constraints from their face-to-face counterparts. Our results are important for higher educational researchers, who have mainly focused on younger populations attending face-face universities. They also can serve university administrators who launch distance education degree programs and make high stakes decisions about them with little of no information on the likely behavior of their older students, and can serve employers who are deciding whether to subsidize their employees to take advanced degrees through on-line programs of study.     

基于大学语文课程的高职生人文素养再审视

高职学生人文素质普遍偏低已经成为不容回避又亟待解决的问题,但高职教育依旧是重技能轻人文,压缩大学语文等公共基础课。以终身教育的理念来观照当前的高职教育,过多关注职业技能而忽略人文素质的提高是以牺牲受教育者的全面发展为代价的。好的职业教育,在培训技能的同时,更要教学生学会做人。因此,高职院校应创设多元课程结构,把职业技能的培训和人文素养的提升贯穿于整个高职教育全过程,充分发挥大学语文等相关课程对于提高学生的职业能力、陶冶情操、树立正确人生观和养成健康心理品格的作用。     

人文素质教育中文学类课程的设计

学类课程是人素质教育中所开设的科类选修课的重要部分，而合理设计这类课程，是保证和提高其教学效果的实际需要。本就理工院校人素质教育中学类课程的设计提出了初步的看法，对学类课程的门类，学时以及课程设置的理由与教学要求等有关问题作了初步设想。     

Faculty Development,Learner Support and Evaluation in Web-Based Programs

Student growth patterns in Web-enhanced and on-line courses lead the University of Central Florida (UCF) to expect large populations for both categories. The authors describe the UCF process for implementing and evaluating Web-based instruction. The office of Course Development and Web Services supports faculty in preparing and delivering their on-line courses. Additionally, faculties are given support for the transition through a semester-long course in Web-based teaching. The Center for Distributed Learning provides administrative and registration services in addition to coordinating and marketing interactive television, video, and Web-based courses. The Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning provides additional support for faculty as they work with the new technologies. Finally, UCF is conducting a comprehensive impact evaluation of distributed learning including differential success, demographic trends, impact on teaching, and impact on students with differing learni ng styles. The model used at UCF is compared with the Twente TeleTOP method (De Boer, 1999) and the generalizability of this model to other institutions is discussed.     

现代社会所需要的人才知识结构与汉语言文学专业的课程设置

我们现在所处的时代是一个知识不断更新的时代，大学生的知识结构必须适应社会的需要。汉语言学专业既要保持一些经过长期考验的基本课程，又要努力增添时代和社会需要的新课程。通修课程应增添“现代科学技术概论”；大科共同基础课程可设置“中国化史”和“世界化史”；选修课可按照二级学科分成若干系列，尤其要注意开设实用技术的选修课。     

Interactive Multimedia for Engineering Education

Our main educational objective is to support the new, multi-faceted, dynamically changing learning experiences that real life imposes on us and on our students. We have to recognize that traditional, mass produced, highly controlled static and rigid educational methods cannot cope with the increased amount of information, knowledge and inferencing requirements of this rapidly changing world. The life cycle of critical design and manufacturing technologies is contracting. Concepts such as time-to-market, total quality management, local design, global manufacture, concurrent or simultaneous engineering, parallel design and manufacturing, intelligent design and intelligent manufacturing systems are widely accepted. These new technologies require multi-skilled and well-educated engineers and managers as well as flexible and feedback-controlled manufacturing technologies, such as cellular manufacture, computer-integrated manufacturing, concurrent engineering and flexible manufacturing system. It is important to recognize that we are living in an era when the customers, not the designers or salesmen, are the kings. Customers require increasingly better products at a lower cost. In other words, products require continuous improvement and change, therefore flexible design and manufacture and the appropriate level of automation must be provided throughout the life cycle of product development. In the education business the customers are the learners, i.e. students entering access courses, college and university courses, mature students who are prepared to study in the evenings at home, at the university, or in open learning centres. Furthermore, there are a large number of continuing education students and other professionals seeking new focused knowledge in this rapidly changing and extremely competitive world.