渴望成长：学习是儿童的天性

学习是人的天然需要和天赋本能,人从一出生就具备了惊人的学习能力。这种学习能力本是贯穿生命始终的,但是,由于我们对生命的误解、对教育的误解,更多地采用强制而非鼓励自主的手段,使得教育离开了它的应有之义。素质教育的实现有赖于把教育回归到"学"本身,即教是为了能让学生更好地学。     

Electronic Graphic Organizers for Learning Science Vocabulary and Concepts: The Effects of Online Synchronous Discussion

This study investigated the content learning of fourth graders (N?=?92) randomly assigned to complete electronic Frayer Models on life science vocabulary by themselves or while engaging in synchronous online discussions with a partner. The use of the graphic organizers was interspersed with other science activities. After seven weeks, all students significantly improved their science content knowledge (d ≈ 0.60), but the two treatment groups did not demonstrate significantly different performance after controlling for pretest abilities. Path analysis revealed the rubric scores on students' organizers were more strongly predictive of the posttest science benchmark in the online discussion group than the independent group, suggesting that collaboratively completing Frayer Models may help bolster the relationship between reading and science.     

School experiences of Children in Need: Learning and support

Children in Need (CIN) have received little attention in education circles. These are children who are usually living at home but where there are concerns over their health or development due to abuse or neglect, or they are disabled. Like Children in Care (CIC, who mostly live away), educational attainments for CIN are lower than for the general pupil population, with higher levels of special educational needs. This article draws on additional analysis from a recently completed, mixed methods study into this educational attainment gap for CIN and CIC. The overall research involved quantitative analysis from official statistics of a whole-birth cohort of children (n = 471,688) born in 2000/2001 and tracked through to their General Certificate of Secondary Education exams in 2017. This was complemented by semi-structured interviews with 18 CIN and 23 CIC, parents and associated professionals. This article focuses on interviews with CIN, their parents and professionals. Two main themes emerged from this further analysis of the qualitative data. One concerned children’s problems with learning. Children said that they often struggled with their schoolwork and received insufficient classroom support to help. The second theme was that pupils and parents reported more positive experiences of learning and support in Pupil Referral Units compared with secondary schools. The overall conclusion is that attention should rightly address the social, emotional and mental health difficulties of CIN, but this should be coupled with adequate support for classroom learning.     

Hard to reach and hard to teach: supporting the self-regulation of learning in an alternative provision secondary school

Since 2010, new types of state-funded schools have opened in England with a focus on providing alternative education provision. Very little is known about these schools, partly due to their novelty, and how they are attempting to re-engage those students who for various, and often complex, reasons have become disconnected from education. We scrutinised the approach used at one such school to examine what instructional practices were used, how they were adapted to the needs of the students and what factors enabled and obstructed (re)engagement. Data were collected over a month-long fieldwork visit and included semi-structured interviews with staff and students, and semi-structured classroom observations. Instructional approaches were used that supported the learning of students who were not experienced in, or had difficulty with, regulating their learning. These included breaking down tasks, providing lots of on-task prompts, encouragement, using frequent feedback and scaffolding, and offering quick support to students. This approach allowed students to re-engage with their learning and make progress towards important qualifications required for entry to the labour market and post-compulsory education and training.     

Toward an Understanding of Authentic Learning: Student Perceptions of an Authentic Classroom

Advocates of educational reform often describe classroom instruction as inauthentic. That is, most classroom learning activities are structured around artificial contexts for learning, and students only engage in tasks and remember information at superficial levels. Some teachers are attempting to break traditional classroom practices by creating authentic contexts for learning. To date, most of the research on authentic classrooms has described the processes teachers have used to develop the classroom environment (learning activities, resources, etc.); however, few have examined authentic classrooms from the students' perspective: “What do students think about authentic classrooms?” The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine a unique learning environment at a large, Midwest high school to understand how students perceived that environment. Most of the students reported a positive experience and described the classroom as fun and exciting with real-world relevance. However, there were several students who did not share these views, and many students were not successful.

     

An Experimental Study to Measure the Contribution of Motion Pictures and Slide-Films to Learning Certain Units in the Course Introduction to Nursing Arts

This teaching study tested whether guiding invented spelling through a Vygotskian approach to feedback would facilitate kindergarten children's entry into literacy more so than phonological awareness instruction. Participants included 40 kindergarteners whose early literacy skills were typical of literacy-rich classrooms, and who were receiving a structured balanced literacy curriculum. The children were randomly assigned to one of two teaching conditions (phonological awareness; invented spelling) and participated in 16 teaching sessions over an 8-week period in kindergarten. Before these teaching sessions, the groups were equivalent in early literacy and language skills including alphabetic knowledge, phonological awareness and oral vocabulary. Children in both conditions saw growth in alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness (marked by large effect sizes), but the invented-spelling group showed more growth in invented spelling sophistication and learned to read more words on posttest. These advantages were reflected in medium to large effect sizes. Follow-up assessment in Grade 1 revealed potential lasting advantages for the invented spelling group. These findings support the view that with guidance and developmentally appropriate feedback, invented spelling promotes early literacy by providing a milieu for children to explore the relations between oral and written language.     

Learning through Feature Prediction: An Initial Investigation into Teaching Categories to Children with Autism through Predicting Missing Features

Individuals with autism have difficulty generalising information from one situation to another, a process that requires the learning of categories and concepts. Category information may be learned through: (1) classifying items into categories, or (2) predicting missing features of category items. Predicting missing features has to this point been little used in special education. Children with autism were taught novel category information through either classification or feature prediction tasks. Both methods resulted in successful category learning. Furthermore, feature prediction learning resulted in better performance when predicting missing features of items at test. These results suggest that while both tasks are valuable tools for teaching categories to children with autism, the feature prediction task provides more successful post-learning use of the information acquired.     

Universal Design for Learning: Preparing Secondary Education Teachers in Training to Increase Academic Accessibility of High School English Learners

Although the concept of universal design for learning (UDL) is well understood in the world of architecture and in the area of special education, its use to increase the academic performance of high school English learners (ELs) is not widely explored. To reduce this void, this article presents an overview of the UDL concept and its principles, applies UDL to classroom instruction and assessment of high school ELs, and offers suggestions on how UDL can be infused in preparation programs for secondary education teachers. This article also provides an example of how a school system has integrated UDL into its educational framework to increase academic accessibility for all.     

From gender-not-an-issue to gender is the issue: the educational and migrational pathways of middle-class women moving from urban Bangladesh to Britain

This paper explores the educational and migrational pathways which a number of middle-class women from Bangladesh took as they grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. It draws on qualitative research, conducted between July and November 2011, with highly educated Bangladeshi women who migrated to Britain in the early 2000s. French Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's critique of education, as a means of middle-class social reproduction [Bourdieu, P., and Jean-C. Passeron. ([1977] 1990). Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. 2nd ed. Translated from the French by Richard Nice. London: Sage], and his notion of ‘academic capital’ [Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated from the French by Richard Nice. London: Routledge; Bourdieu, P. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research For the Sociology of Education, edited by J. G. Richardson, 241–258. New York: Greenwood] are applied to this empirical data. While the participants’ experiences of early education confirms Bourdieu's arguments, in terms of the centrality of the family's educational and cultural capital in making a qualitative difference to their children's academic achievements, the analysis of the participants’ higher education complicates this picture. Here, the paper calls Bourdieu's umbrella term ‘academic capital’ into question. The author suggests that three categories of academic capital were needed to explain the different and unequal ‘value’ of the participants’ academic qualifications before and after migration. These are – elite, standard and general. Through this exploration of these women's educational and migrational pathways, and the classed and gendered nature which many of them took, this paper seeks to further the feminist project of making Bourdieu's theories ‘useful’ in understanding contemporary issues which affect women's lives (Adkins, L. 2004. “Introduction.” In Feminism After Bourdieu, edited by L. Adkins and B. Skeggs, 110–128. Oxford: Blackwell, 3).     

Understanding metacognition through the use of pupil views templates: Pupil views of Learning to Learn

As part of the Learning to Learn Phase 3 Evaluation [for full detail see Higgins, S., Wall, K., Baumfield, V., Hall, E., Leat, D., Moseley, D., et al. (2007). Learning to Learn in Schools Phase 3 Evaluation: Final Report. London: Campaign for Learning. Available at: www.campaignforlearning.org.uk; Higgins, S., Wall, K., Falzon, C., Hall, E., Leat, D., Baumfield, V., et al. (2005). Learning to Learn in Schools Phase 3 Evaluation Year One Final Report. London: Campaign for Learning. Available at: http://www.campaignforlearning.org.uk; Higgins, S., Wall, K., Baumfield, V., Hall, E., Leat, D., Woolner, P. et al. (2006). Learning to Learn in Schools Phase 3 Evaluation: Year Two Report. London: Campaign for Learning. Available at: http://www.campaignforlearning.org.uk] teachers across three Local Authorities in England were supported in using an approach fitting ideas of professional enquiry through action research [Baumfield, V., Hall, E., & Wall, K. (2008). Action research in the classroom. London: Sage]. In this complex project, teachers have explored different innovations that they believe to fit under the umbrella term of Learning to Learn, implementing and investigating approaches ranging from cooperative learning [Kagan, S. (2001). Cooperative learning. Kagan Publishing. www.Kaganonline.com] to Assessment for Learning [Black, P. J. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education, 5, 7–73] to Thinking Skills [Baumfield, V. & Higgins, S. (1997). ‘But no one has maths at a party: Pupils’ reasoning strategies in a thinking skills programme. Curriculum, 18(3), 140–148]. As part of these enquiries teachers have increasingly involved pupils and their perspective for providing critical insight to processes associated with Learning to Learn. This corresponds to debates around pupil voice [for example, Flutter, J. & Ruddock, J. (2004). Consulting pupils: What's in it for schools? London: Routledge Falmer], and also the fact that teachers in the project see pupils as having characteristics that can support the development of a Learning to Learn philosophy [Hall, E., Leat, D., Wall, K., Higgins, S., & Edwards, G. (2006) Learning to Learn: Teacher research in the zone of proximal development. Teacher Development, 10(2)] This paper will use the method of pupil views templates [Wall, K. & Higgins, S. (2006). Facilitating and supporting talk with pupils about metacognition: A research and learning tool. International Journal of Research and Methods in Education, 29(1), 39–53] used by teachers as a pragmatic tool [Baumfield, V., Hall, E., Higgins, S., & Wall, K. (2007). Tools for enquiry and the role of feedback in teachers’ learning. Paper presented at the European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction Conference] to research pupils’ perspectives of Learning to Learn and the processes they perceive to be involved. It will use an analysis frame to examine and explore data about pupils’ declarative knowledge of the process of learning and therefore aspects of their metacognitive knowledge and skilfulness [Veenman, M. V. J. & Spaans, M. A. (2005). Relation between intellectual and metacognitive skills: Age and task difference. Learning and Individual Differences, 15, 159–176].     

Understanding Cortisol Reactivity across the Day at Child Care: The Potential Buffering Role of Secure Attachments to Caregivers

Full-day center-based child care has been repeatedly associated with rising cortisol across the child care day. This study addressed the potential buffering role of attachment to mothers and lead teachers in 110 preschoolers while at child care. Using multi-level modeling and controlling for a number of child, family, and child care factors, children with more secure attachments to teachers were more likely to show falling cortisol across the child care day. Attachment to mothers interacted with child care quality, with buffering effects found for children with secure attachments attending higher quality child care. Implications for early childhood educators are discussed.     

回归实践回到理解——从芝加哥大学教育学院停办看美国教育研究范式的转换

由于杜威的缘故,芝加哥大学教育学院在美国教育研究领域具有重要而独特的象征意义.然而1996年,已有100多年历史的芝加哥大学教育学院却被迫停办了.本文通过回顾芝加哥大学教育学院的办学历史,分析了芝加哥大学教育学院在不同时期所采用的教育研究范式.透过芝加哥大学教育学院的兴衰,我们可以看出教育研究应该遵循什么学术标准、采用哪种研究范式.     

Development of Working Memory from Grade 3 to 5: Differences between Children With and Without Mathematical Learning Difficulties

Based on the finding that children with mathematical learning difficulties (MLD) have deficits in working memory (WM), the question arises as to whether these children differ from typical learners only in the level or also in the developmental trajectories of WM functioning. To this end, the WM of 80 children with MLD and 71 typical learners was assessed longitudinally from third to fifth grade. Typical learners outperformed children with MLD in the phonological, visuospatial and central executive WM functioning in third grade. Latent change analyses indicated that both phonological and central executive WM functioning developed in a parallel pattern in children with MLD and in typical learners. In contrast, visuospatial WM functioning revealed a different development in children with and without MLD since the gap between both groups decreased over time. Overall, despite starting at a lower level, the WM functioning in children with MLD did not develop more slowly.     

Understanding the Role of Measurements in Creating Physical Quantities: A Case Study of Learning to Quantify Temperature in Physics Teacher Education

Learning to understand the content and meaning of physics’ concepts is one of the main goals of physics education. In achieving this understanding, the creation of quantities through quantitative measurements, or rather through quantifying experiments, is a key process. The present article introduces a didactical reconstruction for understanding the construction of the meaning of physical quantities from a network point of view, where the quantities are part of networks and the quantifying experiments build up these networks. As a practical example, we discuss how the quantity temperature is constructed in an instructional unit designed for student teachers and what the learning outcomes are.     

学校在教育结果公平进程中的作用——基于学校对学生成绩影响的视角

学校作为教育教学活动的主要载体,其作用的发挥受多重因素影响,推进教育结果公平应从教育作为社会系统组成部分的角度明确各类机构和组织的职责和分工。学校的生源结构、资源、教育教学过程是构成学校的重要组成部分,在学校资源基本得到保障的前提下,生源结构和教育教学对学生成绩的影响显得更为重要。教育教学是学校可控因素,也是教育结果公平进程中学校的职责所在。对学校来说,生源结构和学校资源更多受外部控制,尤其是生源结构将学校与学生成绩的关系与社会流动机制和社会融合等问题联系了起来。提高社会流动的开放性,提高社会融合程度是实现教育结果公平的基础性工作,但责任在政府而不是学校。     

高中英语探究性学习存在的问题及策略研究——以四川省渠县二中为例

高中学生英语学习方式的转变是高中英语新课程改革的重要目标之一,提倡让学生采用自主学习、合作学习和探究学习等学习方式,培养学生学会学习,形成一种科学的思维习惯和能力,具备创新能力,为学生终身学习做好准备。学生学习方式的转变涉及到学生的学和教师的教,而且教师教学方式的转变是学生学习方式转变的关键。作为高中英语教师,在新课程教学中积极开展探究性英语教学研究既是新课程改革的需要,也是每一位高中英语教师应该认真面对的教育课题。通过本课题的研究,了解并分析当前学生在英语学习过程中实施探究性学习所存在的问题及原因,进而提出相应的改进对策。     

学会科学思维 培育科学精神——普通高中思想政治教科书《逻辑与思维》编写述要

在高中思想政治学科五项核心素养中,《逻辑与思维》教材的编写聚焦科学精神的培育。培育科学精神离不开科学思维。学会科学思维,就是要在掌握逻辑思维和辩证思维方法的基础上,学会在实践中应对复杂局面,创新性地解决复杂问题。教材在阐述科学思维条件的基础上揭示了学习科学思维的意义;在辨析常见逻辑错误的基础上解说了逻辑思维的要义;在批判形而上学思维的基础上阐述了辩证思维的精髓;在实践需要的基础上介绍了创新思维的主要方法。教材体现了课程标准思想性、科学性、时代性、系统性和针对性等要求,旨在引导中学生学会运用科学思维认识世界、探索世界,以科学精神投身新时代中国特色社会主义的伟大实践,努力将自己塑造成为有理想、有本领、有担当的时代新人。