Teacher facilitating of group learning in science with digital technology and insights into students’ agency in learning to learn

ABSTRACT

The study provides an insight into how teachers may facilitate students’ group learning in science with digital technology, which was examined when Norwegian lower secondary school students engaged in learning concepts of mitosis and meiosis. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the teacher’s assistance draw on Galperin’s conceptualisation of learning.

Findings reveal patterns in the teacher’s guidance: the teacher fulfilled the orienting, executive and controlling functions while assisting students in identifying the key features of mitosis and meiosis and solving the compare and contrast task. The teacher relied on and interplayed with the available mediational resources: compare and contrast task, digital animations, and collaborating peers. However, it was the compare and contrast task that demonstrated an approach to study scientific concepts which may have contributed to the development of learners’ understanding about to engage in learning in science. By adopting such an approach, learning activity has the potential to not only help students to achieve learning outcomes but it acquires a functional significance, becoming a tool in the learning process aimed at the development of students’ as learners. The digital animations, in turn, demonstrated scientific processes that were otherwise invisible for students and triggered group discussions. The study, therefore, raises questions about the need for practitioners’ awareness of the type of support the technology and other resources provide to assist both conceptual learning and enhancing students’ agency in learning to learn.     

文本、过程与活动:ESL写作教学方法论略

对作为第二语言的英语的写作教学来说,新近出现的"以过程为中心"的方法较诸以往"以产品为中心"的方法似乎更为有效,因为"过程法"允许学习者自主探索并培育自己的写作方法.然而,无论如何也不能将写作教学降低为一种程式或一套公式,或者将"过程法"变成一种具有规定技巧和惯例的"办法".优秀的写作教师并不是为写作教学培育出了某种"方法"的人,而是创造出一种有效学习环境的人.在这种环境中,学习者不仅对写作感到轻松愉快,而且还能对写作的本质进行探索,从而发现自己的长处与弱点.在这个过程中,必须不断地就教师的角色和学习者的角色及二者之间的互动模式进行探讨,而教师对书面话语的本质和有效写作的特点以及成功的写手所用策略的理解,则更是提高写作教学尤其是ESL写作教学效率的制胜法宝.     

Effects of test media on different EFL test-takers in writing scores and in the cognitive writing process

The effects of computer and paper test media on EFL test-takers with different computer familiarity in writing scores and in the cognitive writing process have been comprehensively explored from the learners’ aspect as well as on the basis of related theories and practice. The results indicate significant differences in test scores among the test-takers who are less familiar with computers, showing that the computer test medium has greatly impacted this group of test-takers’ writing scores. From the perspective of the cognitive process, they are not significantly different in such stages as ‘goal-setting’, ‘generating ideas’ and ‘reviewing’, while their ‘organising ideas’ and ‘translating’ stages were greatly different, owing mainly to the nature of the test medium itself.     

Which difficulties and resources do vocational teachers perceive? An exploratory study setting the stage for investigating teachers’ resilience in Switzerland

ABSTRACT

Based on an ecological view of teacher resilience, the paper investigates perceived difficulties and resources among vocational education and training (VET) teachers as a first step for investigating teachers’ resilience. Given the substantial shortage of theoretical and empirical studies on this population, more research on resilience among VET teachers is necessary and relevant. In this exploratory qualitative study, interviews with VET teachers in Switzerland (n = 37) sought to identify the specific challenges faced by teachers, the resources to be addressed. As well as confirming the different critical challenges and protective factors emerging from the literature review, the results identify difficulties and resources specific to VET teachers in Switzerland. In terms of critical challenges at a macro-contextual level, teachers’ low social recognition is emphasised. Moreover, exposure to curricular reforms generates stress and pressure related to the required standardisation of content and subject changes. At a micro-system level, we detected teachers’ frustration in relation to students’ low vocational motivation and maturity and specific emerging instructional challenges in vocational subject teaching. In terms of resources, teachers perceived the possibility of diversifying their professional role by alternating school and extracurricular activities as a supportive factor. The results provide a basis for more extensive quantitative study investigating relationship among adversities and resources and resilient strategies.     

The teacher educator’s role as enacted and experienced in school-based development

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on teacher educators’ role and how it was enacted and experienced by teachers and leaders in a school-based development project. The arena for the teachers’ professional development was the school, and teacher educators at one teacher-education institution and three schools took part in the research. Teacher educators, teachers and school leaders were interviewed two years and two months after they formally took part in the project, for one year in a pilot program and afterward for three semesters. The findings show that the teacher educators enacted their roles differently, and that they realise that they should have collaborated more and coordinated their experiences from collaborations with teachers and leaders to learn from their experiences in school. The leaders and teachers were satisfied with the teacher educators’ lectures, but the teachers wanted more dialogue with teacher educators and felt that teacher educators should have helped them transform their knowledge into teaching actions in practice. Teacher educators taking part as supporters in teachers’ practice truly could infiltrate instruction and learning. The study demonstrates that culture, structure and content need to be coordinated to enhance school-based development.     

What lies beneath: exploring the deeper purposes of feedback on student writing through considering disciplinary knowledge and knowers

Feedback plays an integral role in students’ learning and development, as it is often the only personal communication that students have with tutors or lecturers about their own work. Yet, in spite of its integral role in student learning, there is disagreement between how students and tutors or lecturers perceive the pedagogic purpose of feedback. Central to this disagreement is the role that feedback has to play in ensuring that students produce the ‘right’ kinds of knowledge, and become the ‘right’ kinds of knowers within their disciplines. This paper argues that, in order to find common ground between students and tutors or lecturers on what feedback is for, and how to both give and use it effectively, we need to conceptualise disciplinary knowledge and knowers anew. We offer, as a useful starting point, the Specialisation dimension of Legitimation Code Theory as both practical theory and methodological tool for exploring knowledge and knowers in English Studies and Law as two illustrative cases. The paper concludes that this analysis offers lecturers and tutors a fresh understanding of the disciplinary knowledge and knower structures they work within and, relatedly, a clearer view of the work their feedback needs to do within these.     

加强毕业论文过程的指导,提高毕业论文的写作质量

毕业论文的写作在整个电大开放教育实践教学过程中有着十分重要的地位。但从目前我校开放教育学生完成毕业论文的总体情况来看,存在较多问题。在实践中,如何加强毕业论文的指导过程,减少学生过多的抄袭、剽窃现象,提高毕业论文的写作质量,笔者结合十多年来指导开放教育学生毕业论文工作的实践,对如何保证学生毕业论文的写作质量问题进行了认真的思考和探索,提出了指导学生完成毕业论文应把握的五个环节。     

Handling the loss of innocence: first-time exchange of writing and feedback in doctoral supervision

ABSTRACT

The first time of many significant encounters is the most intense, raising awkwardness, anxiety and hope. This article presents data from doctoral students (n?=?80) who described the first time that they submitted writing to their supervisor and received feedback. The first writing/feedback exchange is an initiation into the cultures of academia. Student accounts captured the intensity of the initiation for students, excitement or dread on submitting writing, with increased emotional reaction when going through the feedback process, that liminal first time. Close focus on the first-time writing feedback exchange makes a contribution to the literature on the social interactions of doctoral writing. Data backs our argument that students and supervisors need to carefully manage the first-time exchange of writing. Our findings are analysed thematically and through an autoethnographic lens of the lead author, who was both a research assistant for the research survey and an international doctoral student experiencing the same processes in his cross-disciplinary joint doctorate. We draw on conceptual threshold-crossing theories established in regard to doctoral learning.     

“另类”女性创作的后殖民审视

“另类”女性创作产生于二十世纪末,以“新人类记事”为标榜,以“前卫”为指向,主要描写了当代青年“另类”生活方式,展示了当代上海、广州等大都市中青年一代的生存状态,在一定程度上反映了全球化语境下我国大都市世纪末的物质、精神和文化状况。从后殖民的角度审视“另类”文学创作可以发现,“另类”女性创作中从人物的生活环境、生活方式、行为意识以及小说的语言和人物喜爱的艺术等方面都体现出鲜明的后殖民文化色彩。     

Collaborative writing in engineering: Perspectives from research and implications for undergraduate education

In engineering, like in many other disciplines, collaborative writing (CW) has been identified as a central practice in both the academy and industry. A number of studies have shown that both students and professionals in this field write most discipline-specific genres collaboratively. Despite its centrality, CW in engineering is still an under-researched area with very few empirical studies on how it happens as situated practice. This article reports on a study that used a variety of data sets as its empirical base to examine CW in four schools of the faculty of engineering at a university in the UK. It also reports on the views of CW in the workplace that lecturers involved in industry hold. The article aims at contributing to the understanding of CW in engineering by identifying its role, nature and dynamics. It also examines pedagogical implications resulting from the study with a view to making a contribution to developments in writing in engineering education. The article finishes by making a number of recommendations for future research.     

Increasing the uptake of peer feedback in primary school writing: findings from an action research enquiry

This article reports on how an action research strategy was used to increase children's uptake of feedback during peer assessment in primary school writing. Several different strategies were used in the study that had been successful in increasing students’ uptake of peer feedback in contexts such as higher education. In order to evaluate how successful these actions were, several different data collection methods were drawn upon to triangulate findings including children's work, observations, informal interviews and mind mapping. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data generated. Findings are consistent with those from research in other settings which suggest that pupils make better use of feedback if: it is task-involving and useful; there is sufficient time given for them to act on it and discuss it with their peers; and they are asked to reflect on how it has been used to improve the quality of the assessed work.     

Challenging the productivity mantra: academic writing with spirit in place

Academic writing groups aim to improve the quality and/or the rate of academic publications. In this article, the authors reflect on a writing group with academic and non-academic members that evolved over two years to uphold a deeper and arguably spiritual purpose. The group commenced with the aim of increasing its members' publication rates, but it developed to be a safe space for members to search for meaning as part of a fellowship of writers. This transition was based in the members’ shared commitment to social justice values and individual concerns to generate meaningful research and writing experiences. The group’s distinct processes, the shared values of its members and the site of the group meetings in a socially stigmatised community, all work to deepen its purpose beyond academic productivity. Though the group functions to strengthen individual and group norms that contribute to academic productivity, emergent norms and the fellowship of the writers foster a spiritual dimension in the group. This exploration of the spiritual dimension of a writing group adds to the long list of benefits of fellowship through academic writing groups.     

“以写促教，以写促说”英语教学法研究

“以写促教，以写促说”教学模式，即以“写”为课堂教学和学生开口说英语的铺垫，提高课堂教学效果和学生英语口语的质量，激发学生对英语的兴趣和自信心。通过对学生英语写作能力和口头交互能力的培养，全面提高学生对语言和化的应用能力。本系统介绍了这一教学模式的使用效果。     

科技时代的写作——从罗兰·巴特《写作的零度》谈起

本文从巴特的《写作的零度》开始,认为巴特提出的“零度写作”是科技时代理性对文学创作进行渗透的结果。从表面上看,“零度写作”拒绝了传统文学中的虚拟式写作和命令式写作,拒绝表现意义,但这种完全没有情感的、完全理性的机械式写作实际上已把文学推向科学理性的思维范畴中,因而丧失了文学本身的存在价值。在科技时代里,文学仍然要以探寻人的存在意义和价值为己任,因此,作家要当心科学理性的陷阱,保持“本心”而拒绝“机心”。     

精雕细刻的悲剧人生--从曹七巧看张爱玲写作特色

曹七巧是上个世纪四十年代的著名作家张爱玲中篇小说《金锁记》的主要人物。本文对这一人物形象的性格和作者塑造这一人物所用的多种艺术手段作了一些剖析，总结了张爱玲的写作特色，并对其成因作了简要的分析。     

浅谈应用写作教师也要与时俱进

信息技术正在逐步改变着人们的工作、学习和生活方式。应用写作也面临着网络时代的全新课题和严峻挑战。作为一名应用写作教师只有在观念上跟上时代,在技能上跟上时代,才不会被时代淘汰。     

Effective parental involvement in education: experiences and perceptions of Turkish teachers from private schools

Parental involvement has been associated with numerous student benefits. However, related literature reveals that neither parents nor teachers are content with the scope and depth of parental involvement in schools. This may be partly due to differential understandings that both sides have on the concept of parental involvement. In this study, teachers’ experiences and perceptions of effective parental involvement in the private middle school context of Turkey were examined. Participants are 38 teachers, from five different schools, who were selected by the maximum variation sampling technique. This study provides an insight into how teachers make sense of the educational involvement of the middle to high socio economic status (SES) parents with whom they theoretically share similar cultural capital. The findings of this collective case study demonstrate there are important misunderstandings and related tensions among parents and teachers over the roles of each party. Teachers believe that parents’ educational roles are mostly performed at home. On the contrary, parents are shown as having a higher desire to participate in educational decisions. This divergence between parents and teachers seems to decrease productive partnerships between the two parties. Future studies are needed in order to search for collaboration mechanisms that would work for all actors involved.     

Early years teachers and the influence of Piaget: evidence from oral history

In studying the historical development of early years provision, a clear factor in raising its profile was the growth in scientific study of children, especially the reception and interpretation of Piaget's research. For an understanding of how the mediation of new thinking and new discoveries influenced students and teachers, textbooks provide an important documentary source, but evidence is also available through oral history in the living memories of practitioners themselves. This paper draws on the testimony of early years teachers who began their careers between 1927 and 1955 and continued teaching into the 1960s and 1970s. The account below begins with reflections on psychology and education in the early decades of the twentieth century drawn from a 1936 conference organised by the Nursery School Association of Great Britain, and from a widely used textbook that represents the gradual trend towards ‘fragmentation’ of educational theory into a multiplicity of disciplines. Reference is then made to two popular textbooks by prominent Froebelians, Brearley and Hitchfield, and by Ruth Beard illustrating the growing influence of Piaget as a post facto rationale for a pedagogy that was proceeding by instinct. Walkerdine, Lister and Hall are researchers who have investigated from various angles the impact of Piagetian psychology on primary practice, but the process whereby this translation from the laboratory to the classroom takes place is one that demands further investigation. Vital evidence lies in the living memories of early years teachers whose careers spanned the 1930s to the 1970s and a rich quality and personal texture of the data is apparent as retired early years teachers recounted their professional careers. It offers a more complex account than the grand narratives that historians have traditionally compiled from purely documentary evidence centring on great thinkers, key texts and policy initiatives. The role of in‐service education was clearly important in the experiences recalled in this paper. Above all we find evidence of a distinctive shift in teacher–child relationships over that historical period and of the contribution made to this by psychological theory, epitomised in the figure of Piaget and in his focus on the individual learner.     

从教师角度谈新时期和谐师生关系的构建

和谐师生关系的构建有利于教学效果的优化和教学目标的完善。其中教师在和谐师生关系的构建中起到极其重要的作用。在新时期,构建和谐师生关系要从提升教师素养及转换其自身角色、树立以学生为本的教育观念两方面入手。随着教师整体素养的提高和教育观念的转变与新时期素质教育的逐步适应,和谐师生关系就会得到有效构建。