Bringing Engineering Design into High School Science Classrooms: The Heating/Cooling Unit

Infusing engineering design projects in K-12 settings can promote interest and attract a wide range of students to engineering careers. However, the current climate of high-stakes testing and accountability to standards leaves little room to incorporate engineering design into K-12 classrooms. We argue that design-based learning, the combination of scientific inquiry and engineering design, is an approach that can be used to meet both K-12 educators’ and engineering advocates’ goals. This paper describes an 8-week high school curriculum unit, the Heating/Cooling System, in which engineering design is used to teach students central and difficult chemistry concepts such as atomic interactions, reactions, and energy changes in reactions. The goals of the paper are to (1) describe this successful design-based unit, (2) provide guidelines for incorporating design-based learning into other science topics, and (3) provide some evidence of its value for teaching difficult chemistry concepts and increasing interest in engineering careers.     

Teacher Actions to Maximize Mathematics Learning Opportunities in Heterogeneous Classrooms

The basic unit of school based mathematics teaching is the lesson. This article is a contribution to understanding teacher actions that facilitate successful lessons, defined as those that engage all students, especially those who may sometimes feel alienated from mathematics and schooling, in productive and successful mathematical thinking and learning. An underlying assumption is that lessons can seek to build a sense in the students that their experience has elements in common with the rest of the class and that this can be done through attention to particular aspects of the mathematical and socio-mathematical goals. We examine three teacher actions that address the mathematical goals: using open-ended tasks, preparing prompts to support students experiencing difficulty, and posing extension tasks to students who finish the set tasks quickly; as well as actions that address the socio-mathematical goals by making classroom processes explicit. To illustrate and elaborate these actions, we describe a particular lesson taught to a heterogeneous upper primary (age 11–12) class.     

Supporting Teachers to Attend to Generalisation in Science Classroom Argumentation

In scientific arguments, claims must have meaning that extends beyond the immediate circumstances of an investigation. That is, claims must be generalised in some way. Therefore, teachers facilitating classroom argumentation must be prepared to support students’ efforts to construct or criticise generalised claims. However, widely used argumentation support tools, for instance, the claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) framework, tend not to address generalisation. Accordingly, teachers using these kinds of tools may not be prepared to help their students negotiate issues of generalisation in arguments. We investigated this possibility in a study of professional development activities of 18 middle school teachers using CER. We compared the teachers’ approach to generalisation when using a published version of CER to their approach when using an alternate form of CER that increased support for generalisation. In several different sessions, the teachers: (1) responded to survey questions when using CER, (2) critiqued student arguments, (3) used both CER and alternate CER to construct arguments, and (4) discussed the experience of using CER and alternate CER. When using the standard CER, the teachers did not explicitly attend to generalisation in student arguments or in their own arguments. With alternate CER, the teachers generalised their own arguments, and they acknowledged the need for generalisation in student arguments. We concluded that teachers using frameworks for supporting scientific argumentation could benefit from more explicit support for generalisation than CER provides. More broadly, we concluded that generalisation deserves increased attention as a pedagogical challenge within classroom scientific argumentation.     

Reconceptualising inquiry in science education

Decades of discussion and debate about how science is most effectively taught and learned have resulted in a number of similar but competing inquiry models. These aim to develop students learning of science through approaches which reflect the authenticity of science as practiced by professional scientists while being practical and manageable within the school context. This paper offers a collection of our current reflections and suggestions concerning inquiry and its place in science education. We suggest that many of the current models of inquiry are too limited in their vision concerning themselves, almost exclusively, with producing a scaffold which reduces the complex process of inquiry into an algorithmic approach based around a sequence of relatively simple steps. We argue that this restricts students’ experience of authentic inquiry to make classroom management and assessment procedures easier. We then speculate that a more integrated approach is required through an alternative inquiry model that depends on three dimensions (conceptual, procedural and personal) and we propose that it will be more likely to promote effective learning and a willingness to engage in inquiry across all facets of a students’ school career and beyond.     

试论法律论证的充分性

法律论证的充分性问题时下已引起学术界和实务界的关注,人们对法律论证是否存在充分性,以及如何判断一个法律论证是充分的还存在较大争议。研究表明,法律论证的充分性是存在的,并且是可判定的。     

Inquiry and groups: student interactions in cooperative inquiry-based science

Science education research has recommended cooperative inquiry based science in the primary science context for more than two decades but after more than 20 years, student achievement in science has not substantially improved. This study, through direct observation and analysis, investigated content-related student interactions in an authentic inquiry based primary science class setting. Thirty-one upper primary students were videotaped working in cooperative inquiry based science activities. Cooperative talk and negotiation of the science content was analysed to identify any high-level group interactions. The data show that while all groups have incidences of high-level content-related group interactions, the frequency and duration of these interactions were limited. No specific pattern of preceding events was identified and no episodes of high-level content-related group interactions were immediately preceded by the teacher’s interactions with the groups. This in situ study demonstrated that even without any kind of scaffolding, specific skills in knowing how to implement cooperative inquiry based science, high-level content-related group interactions did occur very briefly. Support for teachers to develop their knowledge and skills in facilitating cooperative inquiry based science learning is warranted to ensure that high-level content-related group interactions and the associated conceptual learning are not left to chance in science classrooms.     

Creating Personal Meaning through Technology-Supported Science Inquiry Learning across Formal and Informal Settings

In this paper, a novel approach to engaging students in personal inquiry learning is described, whereby they carry out scientific investigations that are personally meaningful and relevant to their everyday lives. The learners are supported by software that guides the inquiry process, extending from the classroom into the school grounds, home, or outdoors. We report on a case study of personal inquiry learning with 28 high school students on the topic of healthy eating. An analysis of how the personal inquiry was enacted in the classroom and at home, based on issues identified from a study of interviews with the students and their teacher, is provided. The outcomes showed that students were alerted to challenges associated with fieldwork and how they responded to the uncertainty and challenge of an open investigation. The study, moreover, raised an unexpected difficulty for researchers of finding the ‘sweet spot’ between scientifically objective but unengaging inquiry topics, and ones that are personally meaningful but potentially embarrassing. Implications for further research are shaped around ways of overcoming this difficulty.     

Argumentation Practices in Classroom: Pre-service teachers' conceptual understanding of chemical equilibrium

This study examines the impact of argumentation practices on pre-service teachers' understanding of chemical equilibrium. The sample consisted of 100 pre-service teachers in two classes of a public university. One of these classes was assigned as experimental and the other as control group, randomly. In the experimental group, the subject of chemical equilibrium was taught by using argumentative practices and the participants were encouraged to participate in the lessons actively. However, the instructor taught the same subject by using the lecturing method without engaging argumentative activities in the control group. The Chemical Equilibrium Concept Test and Written Argumentation Survey were administered to all participants to assess their conceptual understanding and the quality of their arguments, respectively. The analysis of covariance results indicate that argumentation practices significantly improved conceptual understanding of the experimental group when compared to the control group. Furthermore, the results show that the pre-service teachers exposed to argumentative practices constructed more quality arguments than those in the control group after the instruction. Based on these results, it can be concluded that the instruction based on argumentative practices is effective in concept teaching in science education. Therefore, argumentation should be explicitly taught in teacher education besides elementary and secondary education.     

Argumentation in Science Teacher Education: The simulated jury as a resource for teaching and learning

In this article, we focus on the contributions that a simulated jury-based activity might have for pre-service teachers, especially for their active participation and learning in teacher education. We observed a teacher educator using a series of simulated juries as teaching resources to help pre-service teachers develop their pedagogical knowledge and their argumentation abilities in a physics teacher methods course. For the purposes of this article, we have selected one simulated jury-based activity, comprising two opposed groups of pre-service teachers that presented aspects that hinder the teachers' development of professional knowledge (against group) and aspects that allow this development (favor group). After the groups’ presentations, a group of judges was formed to evaluate the discussion. We applied a multi-level method for discourse analysis and the results showed that (1) the simulated jury afforded the pre-service teachers to position themselves as active knowledge producers; (2) the teacher acted as ‘animator' of the pre-service teachers' actions, showing responsiveness to the emergence of circumstantial teaching and learning opportunities and (3) the simulated jury culminated in the judges’ identification of the pattern ‘concrete/obstacles–ideological/possibilities' in the groups’ responses, which was elaborated by the teacher for the whole class. Implications from this study include using simulated juries for teaching and learning and for the development of the pre-service teachers’ argumentative abilities. The potential of simulated juries to improve teaching and learning needs to be further explored in order to inform the uses and reflections of this resource in science education.     

The Usefulness of Dictation in ELT Classrooms

Dictation plays an important role in teaching, learning and testing. But different people have different views about its functions. This paper mainly talks about its advantages—improving students’all-r...     

Exploring Learning Opportunities in Coordinated Network-Enhanced Classrooms: A Case of Kids as Global Scientists

With the careful examination of one Internet-infused learning environment, this article begins a dialogue on the new potentials for learning that exist when students use the best features of the Internet telecommunications network to conduct genuine questioning and investigation in middle school science classrooms. Learning features explored include communication and the value of quick access to a wide range of information and resources. To best utilize these features, new instructional models are developed including the design of a coordinated, distributed-learning approach to guide the development of cohesive and relevant understandings. Learning potentials are explored and continued challenges, primarily in facilitating the learning, are discussed. Potential changes discussed include role changes for project participants, including the addition of new participants and the shift in roles for continued participants; the potential for more personal, intermediate-level explanations of science phenomena; and new opportunities for increased motivation to learn.     

以学生为中心的大学课堂精准教学研究

目前,传统大学课堂教学模式面临着学生课堂参与度低、课堂缺乏趣味性及课堂气氛不活跃等问题,致使教学效果不理想。已有的研究文献表明,精准教学是有效提高教学质量的新型教学模式。文章指出,精准教学过程主要应包括:精准确定教学目标、精准掌握学生学情、精准组织教学资源和设计教学活动、精准实施课堂教学以及精准评测学生学习表现等步骤。为适应社会经济科技发展,运用先进的技术手段,落实以学生为中心的教学理念,实施精准教学已是大势所趋。     

英语议论文阅读策略和技巧

阅读理解是一个复杂的认知过程。它是以语篇为基础获取信息的交互交际活动。英语议论文作为一种常用的文体是英语阅读实践中重要的组成部份．它其有其内在鲜明的特性。本文结合议论文特性，就议论文阅读理解的相关策略、技巧及其运用“任务型”教学理念提出的三个阅读步骤做了探讨。     

What stands and develops between creative and critical thinking? Argumentation?

Creative and critical thinking have been traditionally considered as involving independent skills and dispositions. However the definition of critical thinking has been gradually reconsidered to include skills and dispositions through which one opens new links instead of scrutinizing existing links in a closed analysis. Experimental studies have rarely focused on bonds between creative and critical thinking. The present study concerns the antilogos ability, the ability to critically evaluate whether specific information may support different claims. This ability pertains to critical thinking. One hundred and eight male adolescents from Grades 8, 10 and 12 participated in antilogos evaluation and answered tests measuring creative thinking and dispositions to critical reasoning. The study shows rich bonds between creative thinking and antilogos evaluation and between their developments. Analytical skills involved in antilogos evaluation were shown to develop, so that older adolescents could uncover unexpected aspects for interpreting given information, or could challenge the credibility of the given information. In contrast, heuristic biases may hamper older adolescents to free themselves from holding one meaning to given information, the meaning to which their heuristics is directed. We found that in order to free themselves from holding one meaning, adolescents need a high level of a particular aspect of creative thinking which does not develop during adolescence. The study shows then that effective antilogos evaluation involves both critical and creative thinking. We conclude that antilogos evaluation is archetypical in the sense that tasks involving both critical and creative thinking must be of argumentative nature.     

The Use of Criteria in Argumentation and the Construction of Environmental Concepts: A university case study

We have analysed the processes of argumentation of three university student groups (A: six students, C: five students, and J: seven students) while making a decision about an environmental problem (selection of a heating system). The discussions took place in three 1½‐hour sessions that were audio‐taped and transcribed. For the analysis of the oral discussions, on the one hand, we have taken into account some of the dimensions characterising the quality of this decision‐making process, including the number and variety of criteria utilised, whether criteria, which did not favour the selected option, were considered and whether priorities were established among criteria, and, on the other hand, the use of environmental concepts such as renewable and sustainability as well as the meanings that were constructed for both concepts. We have determined that the students in this study proposed and utilised, both explicitly and implicitly, a high number and great variety of criteria to support their choices, although they were rarely able to consider contradictory evidence; that is, those that demonstrated disadvantages of the option selected. In terms of the construction of knowledge, we observed that in some groups the proposed task favoured the construction of a concept of sustainability that took the future into consideration and which was utilised as the most important justification in their selection. In terms of the concept of renewable, we found that they did not relate depletion of resources to economic consequences. We discuss the implications for the educational competence development.     

大学英语课堂学生沉默现象的实证研究

大学英语课堂沉默现象是一个普遍问题。本研究以问卷调查、访谈和课堂观察等方式,从传统文化影响、学生性别和个性差异以及教师的教学方式等方面入手,分析产生这种现象的原因,并提出打破课堂沉默的教学策略,以提高大学英语课堂教学质量。     

研究性学习策略在《体育与健康》课程中的应用研究

运用实验法把研究性学习策略运用于<体育与健康>课程中,对耐久跑项目的教学进行了实验性的研究.结果发现:通过研究性学习策略,使学生的体能、技能、智力及心理方面都有所提高,极大地激发了学生的学习兴趣.     

The purposes and processes of master's thesis supervision: a comparison of Chinese and Dutch supervisors

The number of international Chinese students enrolled in research programmes in Western universities is growing. To provide effective research supervision to these students, it is helpful to understand the similarities and differences in the supervision process between the host country and their home country. We explored which learning outcomes supervisors of master's theses aim for in two cultures, China and the Netherlands, and how they help their students to achieve these learning outcomes. Semi-structured interviews with 10 Chinese and 10 Dutch supervisors revealed, besides a strong resemblance, some clear differences between the two groups. For example, the Chinese supervisors aim to prepare their students for future jobs and use explicit assessment and regulation to monitor student progress, while the Dutch supervisors aim to enhance student well-being and use implicit regulation, emotional support and frequent posing of questions to facilitate student learning. Implications for cross-cultural and international education are provided.     

Bringing Inquiry to the First Two Years of College Mathematics

Abstract

In this editorial, we provide an introduction to the special issue on Inquiry-Based Learning in First and Second Year Courses. We also discuss the essential features of inquiry-based learning and provide a brief overview of the literature and evidence for its effectiveness.