Applying Mass Customization Concepts to Core Courses: Increasing Student‐Centered Customization and Enabling Cross‐Functional Integration

This conceptual paper suggests a methodology for increasing student satisfaction in core courses by applying the principle of mass customization to increase student satisfaction. It proposes that customization can be increased by increasing course flexibility along three dimensions: content flexibility, schedule flexibility, and course length flexibility. The increased flexibility provides opportunities for both student‐centered customization and the cross‐functional integration of the core course with other disciplines. Core courses were targeted because of their high volume of students specializing in something other than the core course being taught and the associated general disinterest of these types of students. There are two main sections. The first section provides an overview to the proposed course structure while the second provides suggestions about computer‐based technology that can be used to support the structure presented in the first section. Examples are presented that pertain to a core course in statistics, but the technology and course structure presented are easily adaptable to core courses in any discipline.     

Higher Education as a Platform for Cross‐Cultural Transition: the Case of the First Educated Bedouin Women in Israel

This article examines two groups of Bedouin women who studied in different cultural spaces. The first group, due to a lack of high schools in the Negev (during the 1970s), were obliged to leave the village to study and reside in boarding schools in the central and northern regions of Israel. These women returned to their society of origin after the completion of their academic studies. The second group went to Jewish universities in a town near their homes (Beersheba), attending daily and returning home each night to patriarchal control. The article examines the experience of these pioneers in higher education as a form of cultural transition and internal immigration, with an emphasis on the unique characteristics of each of the two groups. Going out to gain higher education is seen in Bedouin society as a form of immigration, and the first educated women therefore became a type of immigrant.     

Cross‐cultural epistemological orientations to socioscientific issues

The purpose of this investigation was to examine, from a cross‐cultural perspective, students' epistemological patterns of reasoning about socioscientific issues (SSI), and to identify potential interactions of cultural and scientific identity. Mediating factors associated with students' argumentation and discourse about SSI, as well as the public's understanding of science, has been identified as an important area of investigation in the field of science education. This mixed‐methods design included over 300 students from Jamaica, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States. Students responded to instruments designed to assess their epistemological conceptualizations and justifications related to distributive justice, allocation of scarce medical resources, and epistemological beliefs over five dimensions related to scientific knowledge. Four iterations of a coding scheme produced over 97% inter‐rater agreement for four independent coders. Results indicate there is a consistent trend toward epistemological congruity across cultures within inductively derived themes of: (1) Fairness; (2) Pragmatism; (3) Emotive Reasoning; (4) Utility; and (5) Theological Issues. Moreover, there were no discernable differences in terms of how students from these countries presented their beliefs on the sub‐categories of each of the five major categories. It appears that students displayed a high degree of congruence with respect to how they frame their reasoning on this SSI as well as their justifications for their epistemological beliefs. There were statistically significant differences regarding the ability to raise scientifically relevant questions among countries. Commonalities as well as distinguishing characteristics in epistemological orientations are compared and contrasted and connections to a model of socioscientific reasoning with implications for research and pedagogy are discussed. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50:251–283, 2013     

Modeling Response Styles in Cross‐Country Self‐Reports: An Application of a Multilevel Multidimensional Nominal Response Model

We examined the feasibility and results of a multilevel multidimensional nominal response model (ML‐MNRM) for measuring both substantive constructs and extreme response style (ERS) across countries. The ML‐MNRM considers within‐country clustering while allowing overall item slopes to vary across items and examination of whether certain items were more prone to ERS. We applied this model to survey items from TALIS 2013. Results indicated that self‐efficacy items were more likely to trigger ERS compared to need for professional development, and the between‐country relationships among constructs can change due to ERS. Simulations assessed the estimation approach and found adequate recovery of model parameters and factor scores. We stress the importance of additional validity studies to improve the cross‐cultural comparability of substantive constructs.     

小学教育专业理科实验平台建设探索

小学教育专业具有特殊性,学生所学知识涉及到自然科学的众多学科,如何在教学中把自然科学教学与实验动手能力的培养有机结合起来,培养具有动手能力,能引领学生开展各种科技活动的教师,是小学教育专业理科教学面临的新课题。本文从小学教学的实际需要和小学教育专业本科生培养方案及指导性计划为出发点,并着眼于激发学生的创造欲望,探索建设小学教育专业理科实验室。     

An Energy Model for Viewing Embodied Human Capital Theory

Human capital development is one of the emerging areas of study with regard to social science theory, practice, and research. Arelatively new concept, human capital is described in terms of individual knowledge skills and experience. It is currently expressed as a function of education as well as a measure of economic activity. Little theory exists to establish models of individual or group human capital. By drawing upon existing physical science constructs such as embodied energy, this article applies a framework for articulating an approach to human capital development and interaction. Our proposition is that human capital consists of active and passive capacity, which parallels the theoretic dimensions of potential and kinetic energy. Aconceptual binary phase diagram of a human capital system is presented along with examples for applying the model to practice. Utilizing an economic model of resource flows; a model of embodied human capital is developed as a vehicle for sustainable human capital theory.     

大学生创新技能培养的NAO机器人交互平台

人机交互以研究系统与用户的交互关系为核心,在人们生产、生活中应用日趋广泛。基于麦克风、摄像头、红外线收发装置、压力传感器等环境感知设备,人与人形机器人之间可以有语言、视觉和动作多种形式进行交互,涉及了语音信号处理、图像算法处理、机器人平衡控制等多种技术。本文主要探讨如何利用被国际上诸多研发机构与国际机器人比赛所广泛采用的NAO人形机器人平台,开发互动技术,主要包括人机对话、肢体互动以及人脸识别等人机交互形式。基于此,探讨这个交互平台如何提高工科大学生的创新意识与创新技能.探讨主要包括如何将课程学习融入到直观的实践中,并通过与生活密切联系的人机互动技术,激发课程学习兴趣,启发创新思路,旨在锻炼学生的实验动手能力,培养创作热情。     

Science Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Meta‐Analysis

Although science has received much attention as a political and educational initiative, students with learning disabilities (LD) perform significantly lower than their nondisabled peers. This meta‐analysis evaluates the effectiveness of instructional strategies in science for students with LD. Twelve studies were examined, summarized, and grouped according to the type of strategy implemented. Effect sizes (ES) were calculated for each study. Across all studies, a mean ES of .78 was obtained, indicating a moderate positive effect on students with LD science achievement. Findings also align with past reviews of inquiry‐based instruction for students with special needs, indicating that students with LD need structure within an inquiry science approach in order to be successful. Additionally, results suggest that mnemonic instruction is highly effective at increasing learning disabled students' acquisition and retention of science facts.     

Cross‐Cultural Management Learning Through Innovative Pedagogy: An Exploratory Study of Globally Distributed Student Teams

This article presents an innovative pedagogy based on student participation in globally distributed project teams. The study questions the link between student learning of intercultural competence and the global teaming experience. Data was collected from 115 students participating in 22 virtual intercultural teams. Results revealed that students learned from the teaming experience, especially those with more prior international experience. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on innovative and collaborative pedagogy on global student teams, provides an analysis of the impact of the teaming experience on student learning, and provides insights on international and collaborative course design.     

Field Independence Associates with Mathematics and Science Performance in 5‐ to 10‐Year‐Olds after Accounting for Domain‐General Factors

Field independence describes the extent to which individuals are influenced by context when trying to identify embedded targets. It associates with cognitive functioning and is a predictor of academic achievement. However, little is known about the neural and cognitive underpinnings of field independence that lead to these associations. Here, we investigated behavioral associations between two measures of field independence (Children's Embedded Figures Test [CEFT] and Design Organization Test [DOT]) and performance on tests of mathematics (reasoning and written arithmetic) and science (reasoning and scientific inquiry) in 135 children aged 5–10 years. There were strong associations between field independence and mathematics and science, which were largely explained by individual differences in age, intelligence, and verbal working memory. However, regression analyses indicated that after controlling for these variables, the CEFT explained additional variance on the mathematical reasoning and science tests, whereas the DOT predicted unique variance on the written arithmetic test.     

Commentary on Cross‐Cultural Perspectives on Positive Youth Development With Implications for Intervention Research

There is a growing focus on youth positive development issues among researchers and practitioners around the world. In this special issue of Child Development, each of the international authors provides new perspectives and understanding about youth developmental assets in different cultural settings. The present commentary (a) examines some of the cross‐cultural themes that emerge from the four articles by international authors in this issue with implications for positive youth development (PYD) and (b) how intervention science can benefit by incorporating a PYD approach. As evident, youth involved in contexts that provide positive resources from significant others not only were less likely to exhibit negative outcomes, but also were more likely to show evidence of positive development.     

Cross‐border Higher Education Collaboration in Europe: lessons for the ‘two Irelands’?

This article examines three examples of cross-border higher education collaboration in Europe in order to throw light on one European region where such collaboration is only in its early stages of development. The main region examined is the Öresund region covering the Skåne area of Southern Sweden centred on Malmo and the Zealand region of Denmark which incorporates the Copenhagen region. Additionally, and more briefly, the Upper Rhine collaboration of the EUCOR universities and the ALMA collaboration (Netherlands, Germany and Belgium) are considered. Lessons from these examples are then used to assist in the assessment of existing collaboration between higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and the possibilities for further collaboration.     

云平台的远程教学互动设计与研究

教育信息化与教育教学的深度融合是我国教育发展的核心问题,而推动义务教育走向均衡发展是当前教育必须迫切解决的问题。文章分析了教育均衡的现状,阐述了"远程教学教研互动"云平台的创新点、关键技术和架构设计。"远程教学教研互动"云平台包含课件生成云、课程资源云、教育资源云等三个子部分,有效解决了"课件共享、课件制作"难题和优质教育资源共享的问题,为解决教育均衡的实现提供有力的理论支撑。     

An informal justification for selected degree‐of‐freedom formulae

This article offers some less‐than‐rigorous explanations for the notion of degrees of freedom, and for the particular formulae to be used when computing those values.     

Cross‐informant agreement of children's social‐emotional skills: An investigation of ratings by teachers,parents, and students from a nationally representative sample

This study examines the agreement across informant pairs of teachers, parents, and students regarding the students’ social‐emotional learning (SEL) competencies. Two student subsamples representative of the social skills improvement system (SSIS) SEL edition rating forms national standardization sample were examined: first, 168 students (3rd to 12th grades) with ratings by three informants (a teacher, a parent, and the student him/herself) and a second group of 164 students who had ratings by two raters in a similar role—two parents or two teachers. To assess interrater agreements, two methods were employed: calculation of q correlations among pairs of raters and effect size indices to capture the extant rater pairs differed in their assessments of social‐emotional skills. The empirical results indicated that pairs of different types of informants exhibited greater than chance levels of agreement as indexed by significant interrater correlations; teacher–parent informants showed higher correlations than teacher–student or parent–student pairs across all SEL competency domains assessed, and pairs of similar informants exhibited significantly higher correlations than pairs of dissimilar informants. Study limitations are identified and future research needs outlined.     

园艺与食品协同育人平台建设

提出了将创新创业教育融入专业人才培养全过程,多元素协同改革,构建专业核心竞争力的教育理念;构建适合于地方经济与社会发展,满足应用型人才培养需要,并具有珠江三角洲现代园艺与食品产业特色的协同育人模式。通过构建校内外"双师型"应用型师资队伍,建设了一支优秀的教学团队;通过整合全院实践教学资源,理顺管理体制,建设省级实验教学示范中心——食品与园艺实验教学中心,打造优质实验教学平台。平台注重政产学研相结合,协同创新,建设省级、校级大学生校外实践基地;通过实施校内技能培训与校外综合实习、实训相结合的全天候实践教学模式,培养出"有知识、懂技术、会经营、善管理"的现代复合型园艺、园林和食品人才。     

环境工程实践教学网络平台的建设与思考

为了满足学生实践教学自主化、个性化学习的需要,笔者进行了以建设工程性和研究性为专业特色的网络教学平台的探索。基于开发和建设实验立体化教材、实验教学视频系统、校外实践教学资源站、实践教学试题库和师生在线互动社区等功能板块,学生可以通过数字化教学系统全面掌握实验。网络教学平台把教师的主导作用与学生的主体作用有效地体现在教学过程中,实现了教学方式的深刻变革和教学效益的提升。尤其是影音实践教学系统的开发,将前沿科研试验引入到教学中,使学生能触及专业前沿,提高了学生学习兴趣,增强了创新意识和能力。     

The Flipped Classroom of Operations Management: A Not‐For‐Cost‐Reduction Platform

By delivering lectures online using screen capture technology, students can learn course material at the time and location of their choice, when they are in control to pause, rewind, and fast forward the professor. Class time is no longer spent teaching basic concepts, but rather focused on more value‐added activities such as problem solving, systems thinking and active learning, as well as potential collaborative exercises such as case studies, web‐based simulation games, and real‐world applications. A flipped classroom is an online course because its online components must compete with the best of the online courses. It is also a traditional course since not even a single class session is cancelled while all the lectures are delivered online. This core concept is reinforced by a network of resources and learning processes to ensure a smooth, lean, and synchronized course delivery system. Our pilot statistical analysis indicates that a flipped classroom, when implemented in a quantitative and analytical course, can outperform its alternatives.     

Evidence‐Based Practices: Applications of Concrete Representational Abstract Framework across Math Concepts for Students with Mathematics Disabilities

Students with mathematics disabilities (MD) experience difficulties with both conceptual and procedural knowledge of different math concepts across grade levels. Research shows that concrete representational abstract framework of instruction helps to bridge this gap for students with MD. In this article, we provide an overview of this strategy embedded within the explicit instruction framework. We highlight effective practices for each component of the framework across different mathematical strands. Implications for practice are also discussed and a detailed case study is provided.