Comments on carl Bereiter's referent-centred and problem-centred knowledge

Bereiter is right about the limitations of fact-based and Deweyian approaches to education, but his own approach has limitations as well: it views understanding too exclusively in scientific terms.     

Referent-centred and problem-centred knowledge: Elements of an educational epistemology

Two distinguishable kinds of knowledge are (1) knowledge organized around referents and (2) knowledge organized around problems. This is a different distinction from that between declarative and procedural knowledge and, it is argued, a more important one for educational design. Schooling, whether traditional or progressivist, has tended to emphasize knowledge organized around referents. Problems of motivation, verbalism, and inertness are thus exacerbated. Active learning generates knowledge organized around problems. Problem-centred knowledge, it is argued, should be the principal objective of instruction.     

Knowledge presented in concept maps: correlations with conventional cognitive knowledge tests

Our study focuses on the correlation of concept map (CMap) structures and learning success tested with short answer tests, taking into particular account the complexity of the subject matter. Novice sixth grade students created CMaps about two subject matters of varying difficulty. The correlation of the complexity of CMaps with the post-test was small but highly significant in both subject matters. The complexity of the CMaps correlated with the long-term knowledge in the difficult subject matter but not in the context of the easy one. Furthermore, the high number of technical errors makes it close to impossible to estimate students’ knowledge. In summary, CMaps do not provide an adequate alternative to conventional short answer knowledge tests, but together with them they may offer a better comprehension of a student’s knowledge structure and aid in the preparation of further instruction tailored to individual needs.     

科学教育的反思与对策

新中国成立以来特别是二十世纪八十年代以后,我国科学教育得到前所未有的发展。然而在巨大的成就后面,也存在着许多问题。这些问题的存在直接影响了我国科学教育事业的自身发展,同时也制约着效能的发挥。本文着重剖析我国学校科学教育、社会科普教育网络以及科学教育理论体系等方面存在的问题,并提出相应的改革和发展的对策。     

高等教育发展的知识解读

在以往与知识和社会的相互关系中,高等教育扮演着传授知识给社会的角色,有着自己的知识定义,知识的主旨是对学术的追问。然而到了当今社会,社会的旨趣已不仅仅是对学术的观照,人们日益把在劳动力市场中具有使用价值的操作知识置于优先考虑的地位,高等教育越来越被视为经济的产物,导致在对高等教育的描述和对学生质量的诉求上,直觉、理解、反思、智慧和批判被淡化了,高等教育的发展呈现出关注规划、数量、收入、产出、绩效、产品的提供能力,以及社会的贡献率的发展取向。为超越这一取向,有必要从知识认识论重新转向的角度探讨高等教育未来发展的走向。     

Bereiter on knowledge

Bereiter argues persuasively that we need to go beyond an understanding of knowledge as merely facts and skills. But what do we know in the cognitive science of science that can help to improve teaching? Attention to the kinds of conceptual and explanatory systems found in the history of science can provide some suggestions.     

对教师素质与教书育人的思考

优良的教师素质，是教书育人，为人师表的基础和前提。本文通过对教师素质的基本特征，教师素质的现状，以及提高教师素质的途径的分析阐述，说明作为一名人民教师，只有勤奋学习，广采博取，不断提高自身素质，才能教好书，育好人。     

Pedagogical content knowledge in science education: perspectives and potential for progress

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), since its inception as teacher‐specific professional knowledge, has been researched extensively. Drawing on a wide range of literature, this paper seeks to clarify how the potential offered by PCK could be utilised to further develop science teacher education. An analysis of PCK models proposed by various researchers, together with methods of elucidating PCK in experienced and novice teachers, is provided. The paper argues that making PCK more explicit in the teacher education process may help novices adjust to teaching, as well as aiding experienced teachers in developing more reflective practices.     

Changing students’ and teachers’ concepts and constructs of knowledge in RE in Greece

ABSTRACT

Based on a qualitative research (2012–15) this paper is concerned with the identification of concepts and constructs of knowledge in RE. It is based on participative enquiry and educational action-research methodology. Over a three-year period, the researcher, teachers and the students of a High School in one of the most difficult social, economic and pedagogic environments in Greece collaborated and the resulting data were analysed by a team of independent researchers using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Findings point to the consideration of knowledge in education as an experience in which the content (what) of education is as important as the process (how). RE teaches an additional invaluable language with different religious meanings of concepts, which facilitates students’ communication with self and others, and offers an interpretation of the world. Such religious literacy is essentially provided at school in the framework of multi-literacies and is a result of an intersubjective process of the interconnection between thinking, reflection and action on what the curriculum positions on the top of the didactic triangle (content, teacher, student). In that process, to ‘know what I know’ and to provide ‘events with meaning’ based on experiential learning and its principles, is of inestimable value.     

哲学视野下高等教育质量观的演进

高等教育质量观本质上是一个高等教育哲学问题。精英教育阶段的高等教育质量观以认识论哲学为基础,奉行学术至上的质量观。随着高等教育哲学由认识论逐渐向价值论转变,大众化阶段的高等教育质量观是合多样性与合需要性的统一。长期以来,高等教育机构作为政府部门的一部分必须为政治服务,高等教育奉行的是一种合规定性的教育质量观。当高等教育走出"象牙塔"面向市场后,以实用主义哲学为基础的面向市场的高等教育奉行的是合满意性与合适应性相统一的高等教育产品质量观。     

A study of practical‐moral knowledge in science teaching: Case studies in physical science classrooms

This study further extends a conceptual framework that explores science teaching as a “practice” not reducible to the application of formal knowledge, but as informed by teachers' practical‐moral knowledge. A hermeneutic model was developed to examine practical‐moral knowledge indirectly by investigating teachers' commitments, interpretations, actions, and dialectic interactions between them. The study also aimed to analyze teachers' actions in terms of their interpretations and commitments as they realize “internal goods” of their practice. Ethnographic case studies of three science teachers were conducted through classroom observation, in‐depth interviews and dialogues, and artifact analysis. A commitment of preparing students for national exams was common to the three teachers but was manifested differently in classroom practices. This commitment originated from interpretations about the duty of “good” teachers not letting students and schools down. Other emergent commitments were commitments: to conceptual understandings, to “challenge” learners, and to social modeling. We present each with associated interpretations and actions. The concepts of practical wisdom (phronesis) and gap closing are used to characterize teachers' practical knowledge and its development respectively. Implications for teacher education are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 929–951, 2010     

从知识经济视角看邓小平理论的历史贡献

邓小平理论的许多观点与知识经济的要求相吻合，对发展知识经济具有很重要的指导意义，其中“科学技术是第一生产力”的科学断把握了知识经济的精髓，“尊重知识、尊重人才”科学论断把握了知识经济的动力机制，提出的科教兴国战略思想是迎接知识经济挑战的重要举措。     

Navigating the divide between scientific practice and science studies to support undergraduate teaching of epistemic knowledge

There is an urgent need to strengthen undergraduate science students’ epistemic knowledge, which requires having the scientists qua teachers on board. The divide between scientists’ perceptions of science and the perceptions held by those who study science is in this context problematic. Even so, this remains a sorely understudied area. The aim of the study was to identify pragmatic ways that hold the potential to facilitate integration of scholarly studies of scientific knowledge production with experientially based knowledge held by scientists to support the teaching of epistemic knowledge content to undergraduate science students. Earlier studies suggest that trust building is a central component. Our exploratory case study focuses on instructor perceptions and is based on informal interviews, participatory observation and surveys with instructors in a first-year undergraduate science course under revision. We identified the following central components as central to successful navigation of the divide between the scientific practice and science studies: Explicit formulation of learning objectives tied to epistemic knowledge acquisition; Conscious attention to vocabulary that triggers scientists’ aversion to science studies; Careful selection of historic and contemporary cases; and Systematic scaffolding of course activities. The conclusion regarding a common vocabulary stands out: by ridding our instructions from the vocabulary that caused concern among science instructors we succeeded in engaging them in conversations with students about the knowledge-producing process and challenge the view of science as characterised by facts and truths, rather than a form of scholarly inquiry that aims to produce knowledge about the natural world.     

Revisiting the Translation of Nature of Science Understandings into Instructional Practice: Teachers' nature of science pedagogical content knowledge

This study (a) assessed the influence of an integrated nature of science (NOS) instructional intervention on inservice secondary science teachers' understandings, retention of those understandings, and their NOS instructional planning and practices; and (b) examined factors that mediated the translation of teachers' NOS understandings into practice. Nineteen teachers participated in an intensive, 6-week NOS course, which concluded with teachers developing plans to address NOS in their classrooms. Next, 6 participants were observed as they implemented their instructional plans. Data sources included pretest, posttest, and delayed-test NOS assessments, classroom observations, and several teacher-generated artifacts. The NOS course was effective in helping teachers develop informed NOS conceptions and retain those understandings 5 months after its conclusion. Teachers met with challenges and successes as they attempted to address NOS instructionally. The translation of NOS conceptions into practice was primarily mediated by the very nature of teachers' newly acquired NOS understandings, which were situated within the science contents, contexts, and experiences in which they were developed (i.e. the NOS course); thus, limiting participants' abilities to transfer their understandings into novel contexts and contents. The results helped build a model of the sources of science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge for teaching about NOS in content-rich contexts.     

Philosophy of Science,Critical Thinking and Science Education

In this article I explore a case for the inclusion of some aspects of critical thinking and of philosophy of science within science education that appeals to two commonly accepted aims of science education. Although motivated by reading Harvey Siegel's Educating Reason (1988), and emerging from his discussion there, the aspects I explore go beyond that discussion.     

Comparing balance and inverse methods on learning conceptual and procedural knowledge in equation solving: a cognitive load perspective

We examined the use of balance and inverse methods in equation solving. The main difference between the balance and inverse methods lies in the operational line (e.g. +2 on both sides vs ?2 becomes +2). Differential element interactivity favours the inverse method because the interaction between elements occurs on both sides of the equation for the balance method but only on one side of the equation for the inverse method. In an experimental study, 63 students (mean age = 13) were randomly allocated to either balance or inverse group to undertake a pre-test, study an instruction sheet, complete acquisition equations, sit for a post-test and a concept test. Procedural knowledge was assessed on performance on practice equations and post-test, whereas conceptual knowledge was assessed on performance on the concept test. The inverse group outperformed the balance group on practice equations but not the post-test. Both the balance and inverse groups scored higher on the inverse concept test than the balance concept test. Positive association between performance on procedural knowledge and performance on conceptual knowledge was found for the inverse group but not the balance group. Overall, the evidence obtained indicates a number of educational implications for implementation.     

21世纪大学生应掌握创新规律--评"十五"国家级规划教材《知识创新学》

知识创新规律是"知识创新学"教学的一个主要内容.站在哲学的高度上来谈知识创新规律的构成系统,是很有意义和价值的,对大学生的培养具有指导意义.     

科学教育中的知识、方法与信念——基于科学哲学的考察

科学教育强调学生理解科学的本质,而不仅仅是知识,这是因为科学与社会之间的联系越来越紧密,凸显了将科学看作了解世界的方式在认识论上的重要性。出于个体认识论的需要、科学研究的认识论特征以及科学外行与科学家在认知劳力上的区分,科学教育的目标转向受教育个体未来的社会行动,应培育学生建立对科学的信任和维护科学的认识论权威。为实现这种目标,科学教育应从理解科学的本质转向理解真实的科学实践的本质,在科学教育中呈现真实的而非理想化的科学实践,采纳基于科学哲学模型和理论的实用主义进路。科学哲学对科学实践的新近研究,虽然可以提供理论基础,但应该与科学教育进行建设性对话,更加关注非科学家理解科学的模式,将哲学模型转化为适合学生认知水平和需要、符合教学情境的教学资源。