Lifelong learners: in their own words

This paper draws on research that utilized principles of grounded theory to inquire into the most significant learning relationships throughout the lives of individuals. The partners in this informal learning alliance are defined as ‘learner’ and ‘mentor’. The structure of these alliances is described and the learners' perspective of the alliance is presented. Some meaningful relationships are ascribed to formal settings of schools and colleges, but most take place in social, familial, and community settings, with learning outcomes reported as important for personal development and citizenship. Traditional mentor partnerships are primarily learning relationships and as such are valuable sources of data for those interested in the process of lifelong learning, and what learners value in learning alliances. Traditional mentoring should be considered as valuable as more formal teaching, as it promotes sustainable learning by means of reflection and reflexivity, and appears to be self-perpetuating.     

Knowledge of words, knowledge about words: Dimensions of vocabulary in first and second language learners in sixth grade

Despite acknowledging the complex nature of vocabulary knowledge, researchers have rarely investigated the dimensionality of this construct empirically. This study was designed to test a multi-dimensional model of English vocabulary knowledge for sixth-grade students from linguistically diverse backgrounds (n = 584). Participants included language minority students learning English as a second language (L2) and students who learned English as a first language (L1). Students were assessed on 13 reading-based measures tapping various aspects of vocabulary knowledge. Using multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis, we found that vocabulary was comprised of three highly related, but distinct dimensions—breadth, contextual sensitivity, and morphological awareness. This three-dimensional model was found to hold for L2 learners as well as L1 speakers. Although the L2 learners were statistically significantly lower than the L1 students on all three dimensions, the magnitude of the difference for morphological awareness (d = .37) was somewhat smaller than that for vocabulary breadth (d = .52) and contextual sensitivity (d = .49). Results were similar for a subsample of Spanish-speaking L2 learners and for the full sample of L2 learners from various home language groups. Findings support a distinction between word-specific and word-general knowledge in understanding individual and group differences in vocabulary.     

在线课程质量观和质量要素的质性研究--基于专家、实践者和学习者的视角

本文采用扎根理论研究方法,通过对学术专家、实践者和学习者三类相关群体的访谈,调查高等教育和继续教育在线课程相关人群关于在线课程的质量观与对质量构成的认识,探索在线课程质量框架与要素,以期为促进人们对在线课程质量的共识,为改进和优化现有在线课程质量标准提供参考。研究通过对20位受访者累计22万字访谈文本的编码分析,发现四种质量观--服务质量观、系统性质量观、目标性质量观和增值性质量观,并定义出设计开发与实施运行两大类的九个在线课程质量要素--课程目标、课程内容、学习过程、学习支持服务、学习评价、媒体与技术环境、实施效果、改进发展和社会影响。其中,课程目标、学习内容与实施效果被定义为核心要素。本文基于TF-IDF关键词统计方法对三类群体的在线课程质量观差异进行了分析,并结合已有远程教育质量观和在线课程质量标准相关成果对本研究发现和定义的在线课程质量观、质量框架和质量要素进行了讨论与反思。     

Fragments: the implications for teachers,learners and media users/researchers of personal construal and fragmentary recollection of aural and visual messages

A theory is advanced which proposes that when experience is recalled, it is recalled in fragments. The fragments are then woven logether to make a story about the experience, which is what is often called construal, or making sense. There are manifold implications of the theory: in the design of instruction which explicitly employs the theory in the ways in which students are invited to work on materials in different media; for assessment which explicitly calls upon fragment processing skills; for research into the effective use of educational media.     

Beyond mere knowledge of mathematics: The importance of knowing-to act in the moment

Knowing-to is active knowledge which is present in the moment when it is required. To try to produce knowing-to, formal education focuses on forms of knowing which are easier to teach and to test: knowing-that (factual), knowing-how (technique and skills), and knowing-why (having a story in order to structure actions and from which to reconstruct actions). Together these constitute knowing-about the subject. Expertise is demonstrated by being able to respond to assessments: to write essays and to solve routine problems. The central problem of education is that knowing-about does not in itself guarantee knowing-to, as teachers have attested throughout the ages. For example, Edward Fitzgerald (Harrison, 1937) captures it beautifully in one stanza of his purported translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:Myself when young did eagerly frequent,Doctor and Saint and heard great argument,About it and about: but ever more Came out by the same door as in I went (p. 341).Instead of trying to reach definitions, we illustrate distinctions amongst kinds of knowing as used by various authors in the past. Then we turn to our own experience, for it is in one's own experience that one can locate and enliven sources of metaphoric resonances and metonymic triggers which constitute understanding. Drawing on our experience we distinguish knowing-to from other forms of knowing, and explore implications of that distinction for teaching and learning mathematics. We propose that knowing-to act in the moment depends on the structure of attention in the moment, depends on what one is aware of. Educating this awareness is most effectively done by labelling experiences in which powers have been exhibited, and developing a rich network of connections and triggers so that actions come to mind. No-one can act if they are unaware of a possibility to act; no-one can act unless they have an act to perform.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

辨义析字在古代汉语词语教学中的重要性

对古汉词语尤其是词语本身含义的把握是古汉语词汇教学中的重要内容也是教学难点。把握文言文词语含义最有效的办法就是辨析词义分析字形,当然这也是古汉语词汇教学的重要教学内容。本文针对辨义析字在古汉语词语教授中的重要性、教学方法等内容进行了探讨,着重分析了辨析字义分析字形在古汉语词语教授中的重要用途。     

论认知语境视角下英语思维方式对EFL学习者的重要性

思维与语言密切相关,思维对人类的语言形式具有重要的影响。思维支配语言,并且不同民族有着不同的语言文化和思维方式。而在EFL学习过程中,英语思维方式却常常被忽略,因此造成了学习过程中的诸多困难。本文以关联理论的语境观——"认知语境"为基础,通过对EFL学习者认知语境的分析,阐明了EFL学习者认知语境的主要来源,并通过英汉思维方式的对比揭示了英语思维方式在EFL学习过程中的重要性。最后,本文就如何在EFL学习者的认知语境中建构完善的英语思维方式提出了若干建议,旨在帮助学习者们更好地掌握并运用英语这门语言。     

Mature adult learners and the need to know

Sterns and Mitchell (in H. L. Sterns, et al., Gerontology in higher education: Developing Institutional and Community Strength. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1979) point out that Maslow's concept of the need to know is as basic a need as the physical, security, and belongingness needs. And so, mature (25–55 years) and older (55 years and above) adult learning has flourished within the community: in museums, libraries, churches, in trade unions, business and industry, in evening programs emphasizing self-enrichment and vocational advancement, in a range of postsecondary noncollegiate, occupational, and adult education programs. Higher education and its academic disciplines, in contrast, have notably been age segmented and youth oriented. This paper outlines four major sociocultural changes which at once challenge higher education's youth orientation while simultaneously offering educational psychology opportunities for significant research, teaching, and service, for fertile dialectic within the higher education communities, and for wider support of the adult's need to know.     

The special magic of the eighties: Shaping words and shape-shifting words

She has a Master's degree in children's literature and a Ph.D. in Australian literature. One of her particular research interests is in teaching literature to ESL students.     

A Community of Learners: promoting teachers to become learners

Abstract

This paper describes how the use of video helped us create dialogic intersub‐jective educational spaces in which transformative learning can take place. Focusing simultaneously on two learning contexts: action research and teacher‐student conferencing, it shows how the development of a dialogical space between researchers and teachers in action research enhances the development of such a space between teachers and students in classrooms. In addition, it describes how the participatory research relationship helped illuminate both for teachers and for students what they implicitly know is important to change, as they become aware of new possibilities for pedagogical improvement. Most of all, dialogic video viewing helped them step outside of themselves in order to see each other and return to look at themselves as others’.

     

Indigenous learners: what university educators need to know

Abstract

Canadian citizens of Indigenous ancestry have statistically lower than national averages with respect to secondary and postsecondary completion rates. In an attempt to understand and assist Indigenous university students in Ontario, the purpose of the study was to identify teaching and learning strategies and support systems for Indigenous students that will result in increased academic success and retention among Indigenous youth and adults attending university. The results were summarised in an introductory handbook for faculty and staff at Nipissing University, a destination of choice for many Indigenous students pursuing undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. The specific purpose of the handbook was to provide an introduction to the diversity of cultures and their related perspectives amongst our Indigenous students. The literature and the results provide specific pathways for educators to begin to decolonise their pedagogy to support success for Indigenous university learners.     

From failure to success: Changing the experience of adult learners of mathematics

For the last few years, the author has been part of a team developing a mathematics course for students most of whom are women, many of whom are black and all of whom are attempting to gain entry to a teacher-training course by successfully completing a one year re-entry course. It is a requirement that teacher-training students should have attained a suitable standard in mathematics. Further Education colleges where re-entry courses are sited have a sad history of student failure in mathematics. The theoretical environment in which the development of this course took place is described in order to place the course in context. In particular, attention is drawn to the re-definition of mathematics which encourages student enquiry and experimentation in order to establish a basis for understanding the subject, and to the teaching/learning model which creates an environment of respect and confidence. The roles of students and staff in a learning environment of this kind are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the attitudes and feelings of the students and the effects on their expectations.     

Beyond the difference: from the margins to inclusion

In recent years mounting evidence reveals that many children, for different reasons, do not receive equal opportunities for learning, and therefore are marginalised. However, despite the fact that many education systems have attempted to solve this problem and respond to the contemporary needs of all children by deploying a variety of policies for inclusive education, and despite the improvements already achieved, the phenomenon of marginalisation still persists as a difficult problem still awaiting a solution. The paper attempts to deconstruct the term ‘difference’ from a post‐modern point of view, and also considers it genealogically from a philosophical perspective. The purpose is to improve teaching practice in order for teachers to provide equal opportunities in learning for all students. Naturally, the acceptance of ‘difference’ stimulates thinking and expands the parameters of free will. It will therefore be considered that while broad margins (or the marginal) persist, the possibility of difference will also continue to prevail and thus require sustained liberalism in education.     

Design for learning: Adapting the microscopic anatomy laboratory to adult learners

Medical school curricula are undergoing transformational change in response to calls for integrating content across courses and years to enable better retention and application and for individualizing learning to meet the diverse backgrounds and thus differing needs of students. To address the related teaching challenges, faculty can employ solid principles of adult learning and instructional design and use teaching strategies that stimulate different learning styles. We developed laboratory sessions that follow a learner‐centered instructional design model we refer to as “PLHET,” reflecting the steps of preparing, linking, hooking, engaging, and transferring learning, and also applied teaching strategies that reflect Kolb's four styles of learning (accommodative, divergent, assimilative, and convergent). We utilized a group learning format to promote active learning, teamwork, and self‐direction. Preliminary data based on student surveys of laboratory activity show positive responses. In the future, we will test the hypothesis that this design will improve medical students' performance. Anat Sci Educ © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

Educational Television: the gulf between researchers and producers

Now that television has become a respectable tool in education it is increasingly coming under the scrutiny of researchers. To many producers who have spent their lives with the medium, much of the research seems to be reinventing the wheel. This discussion steps off from Dr Tony Bates' article in the winter 1981 issue of the Journal to propose a more fruitful approach to research, based on the body of film theory which dates back to the early years of the century.     

Providing Effective Support: Investigating feedback to distance language learners

Interaction and feedback on performance are essential elements of the language learning process. On a distance-learning course, since opportunities for interaction may be limited, feedback plays a crucial role in opening and maintaining a dialogue between tutors and students. Using text analysis, questionnaire and interview data, this study explores both tutor and student perspectives on the feedback offered on a distance language course. It finds that there are considerable individual differences in the feedback offered by tutors and there is also variation in the type of feedback the students want and their reported uses of it. The article suggests that more training for both tutors and students is necessary to adequately exploit feedback's potential in a distance-learning context.