Lenses on Learning: Administrators' Views on Reform and the Professional Development of Teachers

If the intellectual norms and values embedded in the mathematics education reform movement are to move beyond individual classrooms and significantly influence entire schools and districts, school and district administrators will need to become centrally, rather than peripherally, involved. This paper discusses the ways administrators' ideas about the nature of mathematics, learning, teaching, and school culture affect their interpretations of the nature and intent of the elementary mathematics reform movement and their thoughts about of how they might support it. In particular, administrators' views of parents' concerns, professional development for teachers, and of how new ideas move around in a school are discussed. I argue that administrators have well-formed ideas about mathematics, learning, and teaching, which influence their views of reform and their ideas of how to provide support. These ideas need to be taken into account if administrators are to be central actors in reform. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Is Inquiry-Based Science Teaching Worth the Effort?

Inquiry-based science teaching has been advocated by many science educational standards and reports from around the world. Disagreements about and concerns with this teaching approach, however, are often ignored. Opposing ideas and conflicting results have been bouncing around in the field. It seems that the field carries on with a hope that someday they can reconcile. Unfortunately, over half a century, the opposing views have never been reconciled. Rather, they have become clearly divided, as shown in a recent debate. As such, this article intends to serve as a bridge between people holding different views and to identify key disagreements that have been sustaining the tension. The purpose is to improve science education. Suggestions for future research are also provided for a discussion.     

论胡先骕的教育观——胡先骕逝世35周年祭

胡先骕不仅是植物学家、学家，而且是教育家，他不仅有长期的教育实践，而且有自己的独树一帜的教育思想。他的教育现的基础和核心为新人主义，他在新人主义教育现指导下，对高等教育和基础教育择出了一系列的宝贵意见，经过近百年的实践检验，含量显示出这些意见的价值。     

What do Children Aged Four to Seven Know about the Digestive System and the Respiratory System of the Human Being and of Other Animals?

The object of this paper is to learn what little children know about the inside of their bodies before they have studied these particular aspects at school. The data for our project were collected by means of drawings made by 342 Spanish children aged four to seven. They were required to depict where the food, drink, and air which enter their bodies go. In addition to this, we intend to study how the ideas of children evolve during three consecutive years. For this purpose, a group of 32 subjects was monitored. Our findings show that the children recognise specific organs in their own bodies which they associate with the intake of food and air. Furthermore, they usually extrapolate those organs to other animals they are familiar with. Their ideas about the digestive system are more adequate than the ones about the respiratory system, though their ideas improve as they become older, above all those concerning the digestive system. Taking these findings as a basis, this paper suggests some points to be taken into consideration for teaching purposes.     

‘What We Think We Can Safely Say…’: Primary teachers’ views of the nature of science

Since science became part of the core curriculum in England and Wales for children aged five upwards, primary school teachers have moved from widespread diffidence to positions of some confidence and success in teaching it. In the process, their views of the nature of science and the purposes of teaching it can be expected to have developed. The importance of the teacher in relation to the quality of students' learning, and to the ideas about and orientations towards a subject that students develop, is well documented. There are good reasons to believe that teachers' views of the nature of science form part of a ‘hidden curriculum’ in their science teaching: thus, an understanding of them is necessary to an understanding of learners' experiences of science teaching. The research reported explored such views through both case study and survey methodologies. The case studies showed the depth and subtlety of some teachers' views of science. The survey data yielded six factors, explaining 82% of the variance in respondents' views of science, provisionally named scientism, naive empiricism, ‘new-age-ism’, constructivism, pragmatism and scepticism. The views of science expressed by teachers in interview, and those inferred from and made explicit in their practice, were in most cases consistent with their positions on these factors. These enable interesting insights into the representations of science communicated by primary teachers in their science teaching, which could inform curriculum development in relation to the nature of science, at both primary and secondary levels.     

Mother-Child Interaction on a Spatial Concept Task as Mediated by Maternal Notions about the Task and the Child

This study examined how task context and task difficulty may affect the nature of mother-child instructional interactions. It also assessed the role of maternal views about these two factors. Mothers interacted with their 3-year-olds on a matching task tapping spatial relation concepts. Sixty-four dyads received either an easy or difficult version of the matching task presented either as a school-readiness task or as a board game. Mothers' awareness of the task concepts, their notions about task difficulty, and their ideas about their child's task-related abilities had as strong an effect on their teaching, and thus on their child's successful task completion, as did the actual task difficulty or task context. Thus, how and what mothers teach may well be influenced in significant ways by their judgments of task difficulty and child competence as well as the actual task requirements. These results have implications for how educators structure programs designed for adult-child dyads. Mothers will teach in accordance with their views of a task; however, they may be mistaken in their views. Thus, educators need to explicate task requirements so that mothers' notions are congruent with their own.     

幼师学生良好专业素质的培养

幼儿教师肩负着儿童启蒙教育的重任,也直接关系着下一代人的成长,有专家认为新时代的幼儿教师应具备以下特征:丰富的教育理念和教育能力;与幼儿以及家长进行良好互动和沟通的能力;掌握孩子发展水平并尊重孩子的生长发育规律的能力以及对环境的设计和使用能力。但是,就幼师专业传统的教育教学方式来看,具有一定的缺点和闭塞性,笔者结合自己多年来的教育教学实践谈谈自己的看法。     

Children's Responses to Character Education

This is an investigation of Character Education in American public schools in the Chicago area. The research involved interviewing almost 700 children from a wide variety of schools and ages. The children were asked about their views on citizenship, Americanness and identity. They were also asked explicitly what they thought of Character Education. The results indicate that, despite a similar programme of education, teaching attitudes and teaching materials, the most marked difference between the children's responses correlated strongly with the type of school, magnet or non-magnet, they were attending. This indicates that the social and political background, which determines their school, does have an impact on the way that an educational programme is received and understood, at least in the terms of how children articulate their ideas, if not in terms of how these programmes affect their behaviour.     

主体观的变迁与差异教学思想的嬗变——论差异教学思想的历史源流与现代启示

以"主体观"的变迁为线索,对差异教学思想的历史源流进行系统梳理,是研究差异教学思想的一个重要视角。根据不同时期"主体观"的不同,可以将差异教学思想的发展划分为三个阶段:主体性缺失状态下的古代差异教学思想、自然主体观和理性主体观观照下的近代差异教学思想以及建立在对理性主体反思与批判基础之上的现代差异教学思想。在这个发展历程中,人们主要围绕若干理论范畴展开思考与研究,而这些范畴正是今天我们深入探讨差异教学问题应该高度关注的问题。     

论理工科专业课程教学中加强群众观思想教学

理工科专业课程教学中,在教学内容上,有强调个人贡献,却忽视发明创造是来自广大人民群众生产实践的经验总结,是个人与团体思想相互碰撞、相互融合的现象;在教学方式或教学组织上,有只顾少数不顾多数,只强调独立思考却无视交流合作的情况。这种缺乏群众观思想的专业教学,容易使学生或教师产生目无集体、不懂合作、纪律涣散、自我利益至上的个人主义思想,不利于创新型和谐社会的建设。在理工科专业教学中融入思政要素,研究加强群众观教学的理念和方法具有重要的时代意义。     

我国当代教学观的反思与重建

教学观是教学理论的一个重要问题。近年来,关于教学观的研究成果颇丰,主要从心理学、哲学、生态学、复杂性科学等视野或学科来研究,也有学者在批判传统教学观的基础上,提出了新的教学观。毋庸置疑,这些研究拓宽了教学观的视野,丰富了教学观的理论。为了促进教学观研究的纵深发展,文章针对已有的研究,提出一些思考和建议。     

高师心理实验教学的应然分析与操作设想

章针对当前高师心理学教学效果不够理想的现状，分析了在心理学教学中开展实验教学的必要性，提出了开展心理实验教学的几点操作设想，并就一些相关问题发表了自己的见解。     

Preservice elementary teachers' views of their students' prior knowledge of science

Pre‐service teachers face many challenges as they learn to teach in ways that are different from their own educational experiences. Pre‐service teachers often enter teacher education courses with pre‐conceptions about teaching and learning that may or may not be consistent with contemporary learning theory. To build on preservice teachers' prior knowledge, we need to identify the types of views they have when entering teacher education courses and the views they develop throughout these courses. The study reported here focuses specifically on preservice teachers' views of their own students' prior knowledge and the implications these views have on their understanding of the formative assessment process. Sixty‐one preservice teachers were studied from three sections of a science methods course. Results indicate that preservice teachers exhibited a limited number of views about students' prior knowledge. These views tended to privilege either academic or experience‐based concepts for different aspects of formative assessment, in contrast to contemporary perspectives on teaching for understanding. Rather than considering these views as misconceptions, it is argued that it is more useful to consider them as resources for further development of a more flexible concept of formative assessment. Four common views are discussed in detail and applied to science teacher education. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 497–523, 2008     

武当内家武术动静观与它的道家养生思想

动静是武术中重要的一对范畴,不仅对于正确演练及实战有着重要的指导作用,而且直接影响着武术动作的快慢、虚实;也制约着技击的胜负,同时也是内家武术技战术原则和基本要求.内家武术动静观主要受庄老道家养生思想的影响,凸现出朴素唯物主义辩证法思想的光彩,为内家武术养生提供了指导作用.     

The Impact of First‐year Education Practicum and Study on Preservice Teachers: a West Australian perspective

The pressure to improve preparation programs for teachers increasingly is evident in Australia, UK and the US. At Curtin University, the Faculty of Education is interested in the way in which preservice students perceive the teaching role and how these perceptions alter during their undergraduate experiences. First year undergraduates in the Faculty of Education were asked early in the year to give short written comments, in an informal situation, to the question “What is teaching?” At the end of their first year the same students were then asked “How have your ideas about teaching changed, and what influenced those changes?” An analysis of students’ responses showed considerable changes in their views of the profession with the single most important factor in the change being the first practicum. Also many of the student teachers’ views were expressed in strongly emotional terms. This paper reports the findings of the first year of a three year project planned to continue mapping students’ conceptions of teaching.     

Beginning student teachers' opinions about teaching primary science

Conclusions Beginning student teachers have already acquired very definite views about teaching science before they begin their teacher training course. These views are generally similar to the views espoused by science educators, but are contrary to the classroom practices of many teachers. Their views seem to have origins in what the students perceive to have been meaningful and enjoyable learning experiences for themselves in their own schooling; and to a lesser extent for children they have observed. Female students who have studied more science at high school tend to favour the use of worksheets in experimental work. Several interesting questions arise from these findings: When these students begin to teach as qualified teachers, will they still espouse the same opinions? If so, does that mean that there is a ‘new wave’ of teachers entering the service who are more committed to hands-on activity work than their older colleagues? If not, what aspects of the teacher training process have caused them to change their opinions? Will these present students be using hands-on strategies themselves after they have been teaching for some time? That is, do system and school constraints effectively prevent teachers from using such strategies? Can secondary science teachers do more to influence positively their students' opinions about teaching science, such as engendering more positive attitudes to science, incorporating more hands-on work, and relying less on printed worksheets in laboratory work? This exploratory work has highlighted the concern expressed by Morrissey (1981) in that there is a great need for long term longitudinal studies of student teachers' attitudes to teaching science, with a particular focus on their teaching behaviours after graduation.     

Teaching is … opening up spaces to explore academic work in fluid and volatile times

Universities are built upon the collaborative work of academic staff and students, yet the nature of this work has been undergoing profound and rapid change. Pressures within Australia’s higher education sector have led to a fracturing of traditional academic roles and growing feelings of disconnection. While there have been many narrative, ethnographic and autoethnographic explorations of academic work, few studies have employed visual arts-informed methodologies to interrogate the ways in which academics represent their teaching, research and community engagement work. In this article we outline findings about academics’ views of their teaching work. These findings surfaced from an arts-informed participatory research project, that sought to open up a space for (re)presentations of academic work. With a focus on teaching, three through lines emerged during the analysis: voicing absences and resistances; initiating layers of reflexive moments and expressing complexity through collage. We argue that the academics’ responses allow us to trace the emotional terrain of contemporary academic work. They also open up ways to unpack, express and make visible academics’ complex thoughts, feelings and ideas about teaching practices.     

Integration of sustainable development in sanitary engineering education in Sweden

In the Swedish Act for higher education, as well as in the policies of technical universities, it is stated that sustainable development (SD) should be integrated into engineering education. Researchers argue that SD needs to be integrated into the overall course content rather than added as a specific course. In this paper, six engineering lecturers have been interviewed to give their views on how SD can be integrated into teaching water and sanitation engineers. Engineering lecturers seem unsure how to interpret SD in relation to their own specific courses. Students are said to request technical knowledge rather than fuzzy ideas of SD and lecturers struggle to open up the teaching to more problem-based perspectives. Sanitary professionals in work practice relate to SD as a core in water treatment processes and regret that responsibility for SD issues fall between traditional departmental structures in society.     

试析2002年高考语文试题及其对教学的启示

2002年高考语试题进行了较为成功的改革。这份试题对教学的启示是：要强调让学生在尽可能多的语实践中提高能力、拓宽视野、不断积累，这是增强语能力的“绿色通道”。语教学呼唤全新的教育理念。