A research‐based teaching sequence for teaching the concept of modelling to seventh‐grade students

The purpose of this study was to construct and study the impact of a research‐based sequence for teaching the concept of modelling to seventh‐grade science students. We identified students' notions of models and the aspects of school science to be addressed regarding the model concept, which were then taken into account when we planned the learning sequence. The idea of modelling in science was taught while the students were learning about the change of states of matter in seventh‐grade physics. A pre‐interview revealed that the students' notions of models were very limited, while a post‐interview showed that this improved in the course of the series of lessons. There was also a statistically significant difference in the students' understanding of modelling between our target group and a control group consisting of ninth‐grade students who had received only the normal teaching. However, a delayed post‐questionnaire completed a few months after the teaching sequence showed that the stability of learning results were dependent on whether models and modelling were used in the normal teaching conducted after the teaching sequence. Implications for teaching, teacher education and research are also addressed in this paper.     

Research on teaching practicum – a systematic review

The aim of the present study is to conduct a systematic review research which focuses on research studies into the school practicum. In order to identify the main issues and also to provide a contemporary picture of practicum, 114 studies published on the topic are reviewed and analysed in terms of: (i) aims, (ii) main participants, (iii) methodology used and (iv) the main outcomes emerging. Many of the reviewed studies take pre-service teachers as their main participants. The review also shows that many practicum studies are relatively small-scale studies since they are mainly qualitative focused and findings derived from a relatively small sample. This suggests that more large-scale studies are needed in the field in order to provide greater insight into teaching practicum. Finally, this systematic review provides some food for thought in the area of practicum research and promotes further studies in this complex field.     

Web‐based versus paper‐based data collection for the evaluation of teaching activity: empirical evidence from a case study

The collection of teaching evaluation questionnaires in the traditional paper‐and‐pencil format is a costly and time‐consuming process and yet it is a common assessment practice in many university systems. web‐based data collection would reduce costs and significantly increase the efficiency of the overall evaluation process in numerous ways. Results for both types of surveys are reported from two years of progressive introduction of the web‐based survey by the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. In the first year, two faculties representing scientific and humanistic fields were selected for a web‐based survey. In the second year, eight out of 12 faculties took part in the web survey. This data collection strategy allowed for responses from non‐attending students and facilitated a comparison of attitudes between attending and non‐attending students.     

Case‐based Long‐term Professional Development of Science Teachers

Reform efforts are often unsuccessful because they failed to understand that teachers play a key role in making educational reforms successful. This paper describes a long‐term teacher professional development (PD) program aimed at educating and training teachers to teach interdisciplinary topics using case‐based method in science. The research objective was to identify, follow and document the processes that science teachers went through as they assimilated the interdisciplinary, case‐based science teaching approach. The research accompanied the PD program throughout its 3‐year period. About 50 teachers, who took part in the PD program, were exposed to an interdisciplinary case‐based teaching method. The research instruments included teacher portfolios, which contained projects and reflection questionnaires, classroom observations, teacher interviews, and student feedback questionnaires. The portfolios contained the projects that the teachers had carried out during the PD program, which included case studies and accompanying student activities. We found that the teachers gradually moved from exposure to new teaching methods and subject matter, through active learning and preparing case‐based team projects, to interdisciplinary, active classroom teaching using the case studies they developed.     

Effects of Cognitive Flexibility Theory‐based instruction on Korean high school history teaching

Understanding complex conceptual relationships is crucial for Korean high school history learning. The motivating hypothesis for this study is that a Cognitive Flexibility Theory‐based Hypertext instructional module will promote acquisition of advanced knowledge associated with complex conceptual relationships. This study focussed on improving Korean history teaching and learning in terms of these learner characteristics based on Cognitive Flexibility Theory, an influential constructivist approach in the field of educational technology. A referential hypertext program based on Spiro and his colleagues’ (1988, 1990) Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT) was developed for this study. Three learning programs were presented: (1) Cognitive Flexibility Theory‐Based Hypertext (CFTH), (2) hierarchical hypertext, similar to CFTH except for its hierarchical node connections, and (3) a textbook representing the typical Korean high school history instruction process. The effects of these three treatments on history achievement were examined in terms of post‐test item characteristics. Independent variables were students’ IQ, and prior knowledge and motivation toward each learning program that was measured after the treatment. Students’ achievement was the highest among three groups, especially in complex items: comparison, analysis and synthesis. In the CFTH group high IQ and low PK students’ achievement was most improved, and motivation was the chief influential factor in explaining the achievement.     

‘Teach as you preach’: the effects of student‐centred versus lecture‐based teaching on student teachers’ approaches to teaching

This study investigates the effects of teaching and learning environments on student teachers’ approaches to teaching and compares a lecture‐based setting to a student‐activating teaching environment, in which self‐discovery learning by means of authentic tasks is central. Data collection (N = 852) was obtained by a pre‐test/post‐test design including the Approaches to Teaching Inventory. Though student teachers’ approaches changed significantly, the direction is only consistent with the assumption that the student‐activating experiences push students towards conceptual change/student‐focused approaches; however, not away from information transmission/teacher‐focused teaching. In fact, students’ approaches to teaching at the start of the experiment are important predictors of their scores after they followed the course on child development under both conditions. Moreover, student teachers’ changes in approaches to teaching tend to be affected by variables such as performance, academic self‐esteem, perceived workload and students’ changes in approaches to learning: variables that operate in distinct ways for diverse categories of approaches and work differently in both settings. In addition, the willingness of students to teach in the way they have been taught is not as straightforward as might be expected. Although several students became convinced of the use of the teaching methods in the experiment for their own practice, the majority of students demonstrate reflective practices, make critical judgements, formulate terms or suggest amendments to the teaching methods before simply adopting them for their own future pupils.     

Research of testing method based on UML statecharts

Unified modeling language(UML)is a powerful graphical modeling language with intuitional meaning.It provides various diagrams to depict system charac-teristics and complex environment fromdifferent view-points and different application layers.UML-basedsoftware development and modeling environments havebeen widely accepted in industry,including areas inwhich safetyis ani mportant issue such as spaceflight,defense,automobile,etc.To ensure and i mprovesoftware quality becomes a main concern in …     

Web‐based student feedback: comparing teaching‐award and research‐award recipients

We examined web‐based ratings and open‐ended comments of teaching‐award winners (n = 120) and research‐award winners (n = 119) to determine if teaching‐award winners received more favourable ratings and comments on RateMyProfessors.com. As predicted, students rated teaching‐award winners higher than research‐award winners on measures of teaching quality (i.e. helpfulness and clarity). A higher percentage of teaching‐award recipients relative to research‐award recipients received positive open‐ended comments about competence, use of humour, clarity, appearance and personality as well as both positive and negative open‐ended comments about level of course difficulty. We discuss implications of these findings for lending credibility to the RateMyProfessors.com indices and for promoting published faculty evaluations at post‐secondary institutions more generally.     

Advancing knowledge of the teaching profession through web‐based assignments

Abstract

An Introduction to Teaching course was strategically developed to allow university students of many backgrounds to access, synthesize, and evaluate the teaching profession as a possible career. The authors planned a multi‐layered course that included Web‐based assignments, required and suggested readings, targeted writing assignments, and field experiences. In this study, student perceptions of the usefulness and effectiveness of the Web‐based assignments were investigated.

A survey was administered to 92 students across three course sections. Most students (85%) were positive about Web‐based research, despite some difficulty with completing the assignments. Reasons for their difficulty included lack of knowledge, incompatible software, and outdated address information. Students reported that the Web‐based assignments were one effective way to learn about the teaching profession but that more contextual projects, such as field work and writing ethnographies, were more powerful learning took. The authors examined the construction of the course for possible reasons for this perception and suggested ways to enliven the Web assignments to make them more interactive.     

Design‐based science and real‐world problem‐solving

Design‐based science (DBS) is a science pedagogy in which new scientific knowledge and problem‐solving skills are constructed in the context of designing artifacts. This paper examines whether the enactment of a DBS unit supported students’ efforts to construct and transfer new science knowledge and ‘designerly’ problem‐solving skills to the solution of a new real‐world design problem in a real‐world setting. One hundred and forty‐nine students participated in the enactment of a DBS unit. Their understanding of the curricular content was assessed by identical pre‐instructional and post‐instructional written tests. They were then given a new design problem as a transfer task. There was a statistically significant increase on scores from pre‐test to post‐test with an effect size of 1.8. There was a stronger correlation between the scores of the transfer task and those of the post‐test than with those of the pre‐test; we use this finding to suggest that the knowledge that was constructed during the unit enactment supported the solution of the transfer task. This has implications for the development of science curricula that aim to lead to the construction of knowledge and skills that may be useful in extra‐classroom settings. Whether participation in consecutive enactments of different DBS units increases transfer remains to be investigated in more depth.     

A computer‐based learning environment in the field of Newtonian mechanics

This paper describes a Computer‐based Learning Environment (CBLE) whose objective is to stimulate and support learning in the field of Newtonian mechanics through exploratory activities in various microworlds. The structure of the microworld TABLE is described in detail. A pilot study is presented: it concerns the modelling process of the learner knowledge in the topic involved and the evaluation of the impact of the exploratory activity on student learning. Some suggestions drawn from the results are discussed.     

Design of intelligent detecting system based on wireless transmission

An intelligent detecting system based on wireless transmission is designed. Its hardware includes the card reading module, the wireless digital transmission module, the LCD module, the random password keyboard module and a 16×16 lattice word database based on e-Flash MM36SB020. Its software is a communication protocol between the central control computer and the entrance management base station. To resolve the conflicting problems occurred during the data transmission, a method of delaying time at random is proposed.     

Case‐based Learning: Educating Future Human Service Managers

Using teaching cases in professional education programs has gained increased attention in the past several decades. While the use of teaching cases has been an important part of social work education, the majority of current casebooks focus on micro or direct practice issues and settings. Over the past forty years only four major casebooks have focused exclusively on the macro practice of social work. This analysis of case‐based learning is divided into the following components: 1) the search for practice wisdom emerging from analyzing cases within the context of management knowledge and skills, 2) case discussion in the classroom, including student and instructor preparation, case selection and integration into the course, case debriefing, student‐designed cases, and conceptual frameworks for teaching management, 3) a conclusion that identifies the benefits and limitations of case‐based learning.     

Case‐Based Teaching: Four Experiences in Educational Software Design

Abstract

Good teaching is good story telling. Case‐based teaching exploits the basic capacity for students to learn from stories and the basic desire of teachers to tell stories that are indicative of their experiences. The premise of software that used case‐based teaching would be to place a student in a situation that the student found interesting and where the telling of a story would be appreciated. First, case‐based teachers teach the student what he or she needs to know at precisely the point of becoming interested in knowing the information. This information should be presented in the form of stories. Law schools and business schools have been teaching this way for years. They teach cases rather than rules because, by and large, they don't have rules to teach. The second critical part of learning in a case‐based environment is teaching a student to abstract from what the student has been told, and adapting it to situations for which the student was not specifically trained.

At the Institute, we have, to date, built four examples of case‐based teaching software. The programs are:

VICTOR — a voice and image courtesy tutor — built for Ameritech

DUSTIN — a language experience — built for Andersen Consulting

CREANIMATE — a biology experience‐built for schools and supported by IBM

TAXOPS — a tax opportunity advisor and cross seller — built for the Tax division of Arthur Andersen     

Outcomes of a curriculum‐based anti‐bullying intervention program on students' attitudes and behavior

The aim of this paper was to examine the short‐term and long‐term effects of a curriculum‐based anti‐bullying intervention program on students' attitudes towards bullying, intentions to intervene in bully–victim problems, perceived efficacy of intervening and actual intervening behavior. The intervention program was applied in primary schools and was implemented by trained teachers within the classroom context. The sample consisted of 454 pupils drawn from fourth to sixth grade classrooms of 10 primary schools in central Greece. A quasi‐experimental pre‐test/post‐test design was used. The findings indicate positive short‐term program outcomes concerning students' attitudes towards bullies and victims, perceived efficacy of intervening in bully–victim incidents and actual rates of intervening behavior. However, the magnitude of the program effects was quite small, since the positive short‐term outcomes were not sustained in the long‐term (post‐test two measures). The results of the study also indicated clear time effects for attitudes towards bullies and victims, self‐efficacy of intervening and intention, as well as actual intervening behavior. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for anti‐bullying interventions.     

Teacher reflections on ‘bumpy moments’ in teaching: a self‐study

This study recounts a practicing teacher's attempt to describe reflections during the course of teaching at the primary level. A self‐study was conducted to address teacher thinking during ‘bumpy moments’ in teaching, offering an insight into how we might capture the details of teachers' unseen reflections. Through an analysis of the many ‘bumpy moments’ in teaching, several important findings emerged about the nature of reflection and how reflection actually occurs in the classroom context. Results of this study have implications for future research, teacher education and improvement of the teaching practice.