Teaching and Learning in World Wide Web-Connected Classrooms

Summary

Use of the Web as an instructional tool is growing rapidly as the nation's classrooms increasingly come online with high capacity bandwidth. To optimize the use of the Web as an instructional tool, the traditional roles of students and teachers must shift to that of an “engaged model” of teaching and learning. This article presents strategies for effectively teaching and learning on the Web and introduces SUR-WEB as an Internet-based multimedia resource for engaged learning.     

Schema abstraction with productive failure and analogical comparison: Learning designs for far across domain transfer

Although there has been considerable research into knowledge transfer for over a century, there remains a need for specific, validated techniques for teaching for transfer. This article reports on classroom-based research in which students learned about complex systems and climate change with agent-based computer models using two different instructional approaches based on productive failure (PF). In both PF approaches, students initially explored a problem space on their own and then received teacher-led instruction. One treatment group used climate computer models whereas the other group engaged in analogical comparisons between the same climate computer models and complexity computer models in different domains. The study found both groups demonstrated significant learning gains by posttest on assessments of declarative and explanatory knowledge and on within domain near transfer. However, students in the two models treatment group performed at a significantly higher level on an across domain far transfer problem solving task. Theoretical and practical implications are considered.     

论《导游英语》课堂中对学生导译技能的传授

英语导译员不仅要有扎实的旅游专业知识、良好的英语语言应用能力,还要有现场随机应变的跨文化交际技能。现阶段很多院校在教学过程中往往只侧重导游英语知识的灌输,而缺乏对学生进行导译实战技能的传授。因此,《导游英语》课堂应突出实践性,即以培养能力为本,在培养学生的语言交际能力和非语言交际能力的同时,还要传授给学生现场随机应变的跨文化导译技能。其课程内容设置和教学模式可以采取专业素质化教学、案例教学、课堂模拟实践教学等教学方法和手段,通过导译活动的示范与演练,传授给学生导游英语知识及带团过程中的跨文化交际导译的实战技能。     

Embedding engaged learning in high enrollmentlecture-based classes

Engaged learning opportunities have become powerful foundations upon which students build lifelong skills and organizational capacities. Research has empirically validated the long-term positive learning impacts of active and experiential learning opportunities for students. As such, institutional administrators and external stakeholders have encouraged and, in some cases, required that faculty use engaged teaching methods. At the same time, difficult economic circumstances continue to batter higher education, with class sizes increasing to improve efficiencies and reduce instructional costs. The confluence of those two trends has resulted in calls to integrate engaged learning opportunities in large higher education classes, engendering special challenges for educators. It is within this particular gap—practical guidance for transforming passive course designs to active ones—that our article contributes to the international higher education literature. We share our experiences implementing engaged learning practices into large university classes over a 4-year period, guided by an experiential learning theoretical framework. By analyzing text from our individual teaching journals and collaborative post-mortems, we are able to introduce an integrative model highlighting important contextual and logistical issues that must be considered: pre-class planning, in-class facilitation, assessments and feedback, training and renorming student expectations, and institutional context. We end the article with caveats and ethical considerations when introducing engaged learning into large classes.     

从“知性教学”走向“德性教学”——论当代教学的价值重构与实践转向

当代教学变革是一场从＂知性教学＂走向＂德性教学＂的价值重构,并以此为背景完成其实践转向。既有的＂知性教学＂以机械传递知识为特征,因其秉持工具理性与功利主义的教学价值观而终将走向异化。教学变革的方向在于重建＂德性教学＂,高扬以人为本、科学发展的教学价值观,为此需要从人性假设和知识观出发,做好教育学的理论重建工作。当前对引导学生有效学习以及教学手段伦理意义的关切等,可谓指向＂德性教学＂的核心表征。     

A new way in describing the quest for knowledge

We regard the quest for knowledge as the basic motive of intellectually stimulating learning situations. The results of two studies, performed in a natural classroom setting (real-life learning situation) show that gifted children, when engaged in inquiring, experimenting and discovering learning activities, form goals which entail the independent acquisition of knowledge (study 1). They prefer methods of teaching that provide numerous hints and optimal opportunities for independent intellectual work, for gathering additional information and for delving into the laws that govern processes and phenomena (study 2). From these findings recommendations for shaping motive-arousing learning conditions at school can be derived.     

Teachers' Conceptions of Education: A Practical Knowledge Perspective on 'Good' Teaching

Research on teachers' practical knowledge is considered to be an alternative to several other research approaches to teaching which study teaching from a limited point of view and from an outsider's perspective, often with the aim of exerting control over teachers. It is argued that research on teachers' practical knowledge takes into account in a better way what really matters in teaching because it emphasizes the knowledge and beliefs of teachers themselves about teaching. In this study, the issue of 'good' teaching is highlighted from a perspective on teaching based on teachers' practical knowledge. The conceptions of education of eight experienced teachers were investigated with a multi-methodical approach. Teachers' conceptions of education consist of their views on the objectives of education, the contents of the curriculum, and the role of the teacher and the students in the teaching and learning process. Several contextual factors and teachers' interpretations of these factors seem to exert influence on teachers' conceptions of education, such as the schools in which they work, the characteristics of the students and subjects they teach, and general developments in society. It is concluded that it is difficult to give a precise definition of good teaching from a practical knowledge perspective because of the personal and context-embeddedness of teachers' practical knowledge. However, the results indicate that research on teachers' practical knowledge adds new information to the discussion of good teaching when compared with the results of more traditional research approaches to teaching.     

高师英语语言学课程教学的问题与改革设想

高师英语语言学课程教学存在着课时偏少、缺乏合适教材、教学方法和评价形式单一、学生畏难情绪大、教师难教等问题,基于相关学习理论提出在人才培养方案中开设英语语言学方向的系列课程、编写一部高师英语语言学教材、引导学生开展探究性学习、利用互联网实现学生自主性学习和采用形成性评价和终结性评价相结合进行课程评估等改革设想,以期提高英语语言学课程的教学质量。     

Apprenticeship Revisited

The article attempts to consider sympathetically the value of practice in the acquisition of skills both practical and intellectual, and more particularly its value in learning the art of teaching. In so doing the writer accepts a Polanyian point of view, which affirms the existence of a tacit element in all our acts of knowing and stresses the distinction between knowledge of subsidiary elements and knowledge of the comprehensive entities to which they stand in relation.

Further to this, the rules which guide our teaching are seen, not as explicit directives derived from theory, but as maxims interpreted in the light of practice. The conclusion arrived at is that the art of teaching is at least partially unspecifiable and must therefore be passed on from master to apprentice.     

Conflicting Interpretations of Scientific Pedagogy

Not surprisingly historical studies have suggested that there is a distance between concepts of teaching methods, their interpretations and their actual use in the classroom. This issue, however, is not always pitched to the personal level in historical studies, which may provide an alternative insight on how teachers conceptualise and engage with concepts of teaching methods. This article provides a case study on this level of conceptualisation by telling the story of Rómulo de Carvalho, an educator from mid-twentieth century Portugal, who for over 40 years engaged with the heuristic and Socratic methods. The overall argument is that concepts of teaching methods are open to different interpretations and are conceptualised within the melting pot of external social pressures and personal teaching preferences. The practice and thoughts of Carvalho about teaching methods are scrutinised to unveil his conflicting stances: Carvalho was a man able to question the tenets of heurism, but who publicly praised the heurism-like “discovery learning” method years later. The first part of the article contextualises the arrival of heurism in Portugal and how Carvalho attacked its philosophical tenets. In the second part, it dwells on his conflicting positions in relation to pupil-centred approaches. The article concludes with an appreciation of the embedded conflicting nature of the appropriation of concepts of teaching methods, and of Carvalho’s contribution to the development of the philosophy of practical work in school science.     

论职业教育中程序性知识教学的特点与规律

职业教育以教学程序性知识为主。职业教育中程序性知识教学的特点表现为:教学的目的是为了学生"会做",学习的途径主要是通过实际性的活动,教学内容具有职业性与实用性。职业教育中程序性知识的教学规律表现为:程序性知识获得的前提是掌握程序性知识的陈述性形式,程序性知识的学习是学中做和做中学的辩证统一以及"技术的知识"与"实践的知识"的辩证统一。     

Teachers' in-flight thinking in inclusive classrooms

This article explores the thinking of five junior high school teachers as they teach students with learning difficulties in inclusive classrooms. Insights into the ways these teachers think about students in these inclusive secondary school contexts were obtained through triangulating data from semistructured interviews, stimulated recall of in-flight thinking, and researcher field notes. Exploration of teachers' in-flight thinking (i.e., the thinking of teachers as they engaged in classroom teaching) revealed a knowledge of individual students that was not related to categorical notions of learning difficulties. This research has implications for the practice of teaching in inclusive settings as well as for teacher preparation. Specifically, it suggests that attention to student differences should be replaced by the development of teachers' knowledge about individual students as a rich source of practical knowledge and the basis for developing effective instructional techniques.     

The ivory tower revisited

The corollary of the concept of the ‘ivory tower’, as reflected in the writings of Plato and Newman amongst others, was, paradoxically, the vital importance of the university for wider society. Nevertheless from the mid-twentieth century, the esteem in which a ‘liberal’ university education was held was diminished by rising expectations that higher education institutions would actively contribute to addressing broader socio-economic challenges through ‘knowledge-transfer’, education for employment, and community service. However while this linear conception of universities' ‘third mission’ eroded their ‘ivory tower’ status, the death knell of the ‘ivory tower’ rings in contemporary literature on higher education, which articulates a dialectical view of its historical development in which the university and wider society are synthesised in the ‘engaged university’. With its focus on reciprocal ‘knowledge-exchange’, the co-creation of knowledge through teaching and learning, and civic engagement, the ‘engaged university’ embraces the ‘other’ as intrinsic to its identity. Yet arguably the increasing instrumentalism and democratisation of higher education are irrevocably eroding the academic freedom and institutional autonomy upon which universities' immeasurable contribution to society ultimately depends.     

谈《工程地下水》课程的教学与实践

工科类学校有许多课程是与工程实践相关的,然而由于教学时数的限制,在课程的讲授过程中学生很少有机会能够亲临工程现场学习,因此学生往往对于课本上所学的知识不能够很好地掌握,并熟练运用。本文通过介绍《工程地下水》这门课程教学与实践,将《工程地下水》课程教学过程中的理论教学与多种教学手段相结合,包括现场实践教学手段的运用,使学生在学习过程中能在理论上、理论与实践的结合上有一感性认识,充分调动学生学习的积极性,达到提高学生将理论联系实际以及分析问题、解决问题和动手能力的目的。     

教师课堂教学技能变革的理论探讨及结构模式分析

传统教学观点从教育学的角度对教师的课堂教学技能进行了探讨,本文从现代认知心理学出发,提出课堂教学技能是操作知识表征系统与教学操作系统的整合,是以教学操作知识为基础的心智技能与动作技能的统一,并在此基础上构建教师教学技能的结构模式。     

煤矿地质教学与实践研究浅析

为提高我院采矿工程专业煤矿地质课程教学质量,培养适应21世纪需要的高素质实用型专业人才;通过改革理论教学内容、制作和利用标本模型、野外现场实习等方面探讨,强调理论学习与实践能力相结合的方法,激发学生求知欲,提高学生的感性认识,培养学生实际操作技能,取得较好的实践教学的实用性效果,同时,探讨了高职院校煤矿地质课程实践教学的方法。     

Preparing teachers as researchers in courses on methods of teaching science

The four standards for professional development of teachers of science from the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996) provided a frame for reflection upon ways in which prospective teachers engaged in research in my courses on methods of teaching science. Students learned both science content and science pedagogy by inquiry. An extended research project helped students to integrate knowledge of science, learning, pedagogy, and students, and to apply that to teaching science. Students built knowledge, skills, and attitudes for lifelong learning by participating in a research festival and presenting at conferences. I designed this science-teaching methods course in the context of a teacher education program that is attempting to implement reform approaches to instruction. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 791–809, 1998.     

Learning through remote practical experiments over the internet: a case study from teacher education

Abstract

The article focuses on a cross-national Internet module employing a remote device for learning about control and intended to promote the professional development of a group of student teachers from England and the Netherlands. The practical activity was one component of an integrated conferencing package that sought to encourage shared pedagogical discussions of the teaching of control technology in schools. Microanalysis of the activities highlighted a number of difficulties affecting the execution of the tasks. An instrument of analysis based on the non-neutrality of technology is described which offered a particular lens with which to interpret participant actions and the extent to which learning took place. The article addresses ways in which remote access transformed those practical experiments and affected the learning experiences.     

Support for Engaged Scholars: The Role of Mentoring Networks with Diverse Faculty

As internationalization initiatives on university campuses have increased in the past decade, the practice of mentoring diverse scholars has increased. In an exploratory study conducted at a doctoral/research-extensive university in the Midwest, researchers investigated the nature and functions of mentoring and the role of mentoring networks in nurturing the careers of engaged scholars in the teaching and human service professions. The twelve participants in the study self-identified as engaged scholars who (a) have been mentored within a mentoring network throughout their professional careers, and (b) are currently involved in mentoring diverse engaged scholars within mentoring networks. The study findings suggest the benefits of mentoring networks for diverse, engaged scholars and outline the nature of effective mentoring.     

促使教师在教师教育技术培训中进行投入性学习

为改善教师教育技术培训的效果,促进受训教师的投入性学习至关重要。促使投入性学习的方式有参与式培训、体验式培训、奥尔夫教学法在培训中的应用,此外还可向优秀培训项目如英特尔未来教育培训汲取经验。