Learning for and realising curriculum aspirations through schools as learning organisations

How can schools as learning organisations support the realisation of a new curriculum's aspirations? This article describes four common and interrelated challenges—depth, spread, reach, and pace—associated with enacting a new curriculum. It then argues that curriculum capital represented by schools and practitioners that address these challenges and meet associated learning demands—commitment, knowledge, understanding and capability—is essential to ensure that curriculum aspirations are realised. We propose that schools that are learning organisations create the kinds of conditions necessary for responding to the challenges and learning demands. In such schools the considerable individual, collaborative and collective learning needed at many levels is recognised. We highlight how each of the four challenges might be addressed by seven dimensions and four transversals of schools as learning organisations, while recognising that task will be more feasible in systems that are also learning and providing supportive conditions.     

Learning from schools

Many of the problems faced by those concernedto improve learning, teaching, assessment andcurriculum have also troubled the compulsoryeducation sector. This paper argues that thehigher education sector can learn from theextensive archive of international researchabout schooling. This is illustrated by briefcommentaries on five facets of school-centredresearch: subject departments; schooleffectiveness and school improvement; teachers'thinking and planning; assessment; andprofessional learning. It is claimed thatresearch into schooling can illuminate thinkingabout quality and curriculum in highereducation and that it can inspire better changepractices.     

变革时代呼唤学习型学校

“百名学者评论中国教育”专栏,以教育研究者的角度,就教育理论和实践中的热点、焦点、难点、冰点问题发表各种建设性见解。先期办成开放式的,一事一议,或提出问题,或分析评论,力求形成百家争鸣、百花齐放之势,激活中国之教育学术。待有重点问题时,再分专题讨论。特邀教育界有影响的专家学者参与,以教授和博士为主办成一个高层次论坛。各位同仁可就自己认为教育理论与实践中的重要问题写成评论,每篇2000-3000字为宜,诚请各位同仁在百忙中赐教赐稿。     

Open learning in schools

Open learning is fast catching on in schools, partly because teachers want to develop the curriculum and take advantage of new technology, partly because it is a way of keeping options open for 16 to 19 year olds as the numbers of pupils fall, and partly because it offers a better preparation for continuing and higher education. Brian Harris is a tutor‐counsellor for the Open University and a teacher at Hawthorn Comprehensive School in Pontypridd, Wales.     

职业院校在组织学习过程中的障碍及其消除

办学环境的复杂变化使得组织学习成为职业院校办学过程中的重要环节．但职业院校在组织学习中并不是一帆风顺的。存在着各种各样的学习障碍。本文分析了职业院校组织学习的过程、每个阶段的学习障碍及障碍消除的策略。     

Learning to See in Classrooms: What are student teachers learning about teaching and learning while learning to teach in schools?

Using sociocultural understandings of learning, the authors probe a rationale for training programmes which are extensively school based and involved school‐based teacher mentors as supporters of student teachers' learning. They ask what it is that student teachers are learning while in schools and how that learning is supported. Drawing on evidence from a study of 125 student teachers on two training programmes, the authors suggest that student teachers' learning is heavily situated and that students are not acquiring ways of interpreting learners that are easily transferable, but they are learning about curriculum delivery. It also seems that there is a participatory version of training which is not underpinned by an understanding of the implications of learning through participation and which, as a consequence, does not make the most of the strengths of mentors.     

Restructuring schools as a context for teacher learning

The two questions in this chapter are whether school restructuring promotes or constrains the professional development of teachers and which mechanisms for workplace learning appear to enhance the capacity of teachers to critically interpret educational reforms. To answer the first question, the implementation of structural changes and instructional innovations as part of the inclusion reform in Dutch elementary education was analyzed with special attention to the utilization of learning opportunities by the teachers. The second question is answered by analyzing the potential of two mechanisms, especially feedback and collaboration, to promote teacher workplace learning and systematic reflection. The study of communities of practice in schools will be put forward as a promising approach to extend our knowledge of teacher workplace learning and the interpretations of teachers of educational reforms.     

A framework for sustainable mobile learning in schools

While there are studies that have looked at the implementation of mobile learning in educational institutions, particularly the identification of issues encountered, few studies have explored holistically the elements that sustain mobile learning. This study dissects the findings of a longitudinal study of a secondary school adopting a personal digital assistant programme and proposes a person‐centred sustainable model for mobile learning.     

Technology functions for personalized learning in learner-centered schools

Personalized Learning (PL) has been widely promoted. Despite the increasing interest in PL, it is difficult to be implemented, because it can be complicated, costly, and even impossible without the help of powerful and advanced technology. This national survey study aimed at systematically investigating technology usage and needs of teachers in learner-centered schools in the U.S based on the conceptual framework of the Personalized Integrated Education System (PIES). PIES specifies four major functions: recordkeeping, planning, instruction, and assessment. A total of 308 learner-centered schools were identified that met at least three of the five criteria of PL: (1) personalized learning plans, (2) competency-based student progress, (3) criterion-referenced assessment, (4) problem- or project-based learning, and (5) multi-year mentoring. Survey responses of 245 teachers from 41 schools were analyzed. Results indicate that only 12% of teachers responded that they had a technology system that integrated the four major functions. Among the rest, 21% reported that they had no such systems. Technology was most widely used for planning and instruction but not for recordkeeping and assessment.     

Two basic mechanisms for organisational learning in schools

SUMMARY In recent literature on teachers' professional communities and organisational learning in schools the focus is on conditions fostering teacher professional developments. Less attention has been paid to clarifying these concepts and to analysing the processes and the full range of outcomes of organisational learning in schools. The question in this article is whether and how teachers' professional communities can play a role in organisational learning and professional development. Firstly, recent research literature on teachers' workplace conditions, teachers' professional communities, and organisational learning in schools is discussed. Next, two basic mechanisms for organisational learning in schools are presented. Some conclusions are that the opportunities for steering intentional organisational learning in the school context are only weak, and that a balance should be created in the school between diverging conditions for organisational learning     

Cooperative learning in German schools

Despite decades of appreciation of CL in scientific discussions of education and in curriculae, it is a rare event in the average German classroom. Rather than looking for external circumstances impeding the realization of a promising idea, this chapter focuses on internal conditions of dissemination strategies. The discussion offers the optimistic outlook that discrepant orientations toward CL may be resolved.     

Cooperative learning in elementary schools

Cooperative learning refers to instructional methods in which students work in small groups to help each other learn. Although cooperative learning methods are used for different age groups, they are particularly popular in elementary (primary) schools. This article discusses methods and theoretical perspectives on cooperative learning for the elementary grades. The article acknowledges the contributions from each of the major theoretical perspectives and places them in a model that depicts the likely role each plays in cooperative learning outcomes. This work explores conditions under which each perspective may operate, and suggests further research needed to advance cooperative learning scholarship.     

Leading learning and teaching primary schools

This article argues that to base educational policy largely on the results of comparative studies which measure differences in test scores could be dangerous and may lead to unintended consequences. It is especially important to take note of the socio-cultural, political and economic differences which often have deep historic roots. In particular, the paper challenges the assumption that education has been the central determinant in the economic growth of what have become known as the ‘tiger economies’ situated around the Pacific Rim.     

Learning about learning

The aim of this study has been to explore possible developmental differences in conceptions of learning amongst a group of people with very different learning experiences. The data consist of interviews with 90 people concerning their approach to learning. The sample was selected according to two criteria: age (which ranged from 15 years 7 months up to 73 years 3 months) and level of formal education (with a minimum of 6 years and a maximum of 16/17 years).Analysis of the interviews revealed that there are distinctive differences between people in terms of their subjective conceptions of learning, the nature of which has been described elsewhere. In the present article, the focus is on describing what seems to be an important developmental process: for some people the phenomenon of learning has become thematized — it has been made an object of reflection — while for others it represents an activity the nature of which is taken for granted.     

Learning for professional life: Student teachers' and graduated teachers' views of learning,responsibility and collaboration

The focus of this study is on how final-semester students and newly-graduated teachers experience the formal objectives of teacher education, with a particular view of the concepts of learning, responsibility and collaboration. The ways of experiencing these concepts varied from conceptions in which only one dimension is discerned from in the student teachers group to conceptions in which several dimensions of the phenomena are discerned in the graduate teachers group.     

中学数学探究性学习策略

提出中学数学教学中探究性学习的策略．论述自学能力的培养是探究性学习的首要条件;学生动手实验是探究性学习的有效办法;数学问题实际应用的探究是激发学生探究兴趣的有效手段．     

Learning preferences and readiness for online learning

Using a sample of 314 Australian university students the Readiness for Online Learning questionnaire was tested for its technical characteristics of reliability and factorability, with results indicating the instrument has promise both for research and for practice. The factor analysis identified a factor associated with self‐management of learning, and one of comfort with e‐learning. These factors are interpreted and discussed within a framework of the broader literature on learning preferences associated with flexible delivery and resource‐based learning.