Developing,expressing and contesting opinions of science: encouraging the student voice

In a typical science degree, little emphasis is placed on the need for scientists to make judgements about evidence and little value is placed on the development of students' opinions about science, with the focus largely on assessment of declarative knowledge. Yet it is the ability to evaluate evidence that is crucial to the development of the student as a scientist. This study assesses the impact on students' conceptions of science of a course that aims to engage students in discussion and reflection on what scientists do and on their own learning about science. Analysis of written reflective assignments from the three years the course has been run shows that participants become more confident in their expression of opinions about science and also develop a more mature view of science and its inherent uncertainty. It appears that a critical factor enabling this development is the way the course activities are designed to explicitly value students' opinions and to provide a supportive environment in which they can be expressed and contested.     

Assessing school effectiveness: Evidence from the Irish context

Abstract

This paper considers the theories of language educaation and infant pedagogy of Professor Timothy Corcoran, Professor of Education in University College, Dublin. He played a pivotal role in the debates on education at the 1920s. These opinions were to become decisive in the formation of the New Free State's education programmes and policies. He held that infant classes ought to be the prime agents in the revival of the Irish Language. As a result the National Programme of Primary Instruction (1922) required that all the work in the infant classes should be conducted through Irish. He castigated the enlightened principles of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel and Montessori arguing that Irish education should not give up its sane traditions for doctrines derived from ‘poisoned sources’. His antagonism towards the thinking of the progressive educational theorists meant that the infants of Ireland had to wait until 1948 for a revised programme that would be more in line with the thinking of the day.     

Enhancing critical thinking using team-based learning

This study examines students’ perceptions of the development of academic and critical thinking skills in college, with a specific focus on team-based learning (TBL), an active learning strategy designed to increase student interaction and engagement. Six hundred and fifty students in five different courses were surveyed at the beginning of the semester about the extent to which they felt the typical college course enhances various academic and critical thinking skills. These responses were compared to their responses after a semester of TBL regarding the extent to which the TBL environment enhanced these same skills. Students expressed significantly greater improvement in critical thinking skills in a TBL environment in comparison to typical courses for most of the skills assessed and greater improvement in all of these skills in comparison to lecture-based courses. These results held for every demographic subgroup examined, including males, females, freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors, as well as all levels of academic achievement as measured by grade point average.     

高职高专护生评判性思维能力现状调查及《内科护理学》教学改革应对分析

为了了解在校大专护生评判性思维倾向性的现状,为高等护理教学改革提供依据,本文对在校236名全日刺护理大专生运用评判性思维倾向测量表（CTDI-CV）进行问卷调查。结果表明,高职高专护生评判性思维能力强的学生比例很小,在系统化能力、评判性思维的自信心、寻找真相方面的评判性思维特质尤需加强,应进一步加大教学改革力度,进行有针对性的课程设置,以促进学生评判性思维能力的培养。     

Re-conceptualizing college and university teaching through the lens of adult education: regarding undergraduates as adults

In this paper, I advocate for enhancing critical thinking skill development in undergraduate education by taking advantage of the increased experiential maturity of today's students. I argue that many undergraduates are in fact ‘adults’, by virtue of their age or experiential maturity, and they should be educated as such. Undergraduates who have not yet transitioned into ‘adulthood’ would also benefit greatly from exposure to the adult education teaching techniques that emphasize critical thinking development. The demographics of higher education today demand a reexamination of outdated pedagogical practices. Considering college and university students to be the adults that most of them are, or soon will be, would more effectively educate all of today's undergraduate students.     

Online professional development for environmental educators: strategies to foster critical thinking and social interactions

Abstract

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) offer opportunities for professional development of environmental educators globally, yet we lack understanding of participants? cognitive and social learning processes and of how instructors can enhance these processes. Based on the Community of Inquiry framework, we used a survey and coded participant discussion board and Facebook posts to examine the cognitive, social, and teaching presence in the Environmental Education: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Addressing Wicked Problems MOOC, offered by Cornell University. Rather than train educators in a specific curriculum, the goal of the MOOC is to expand educators? critical and transdisciplinary thinking about the field of environmental education and to enhance social interactions to support learning, educators, and knowledge co-creation. Results indicate that cognitive presence is higher on the discussion board whereas social presence is higher on Facebook. Over half of cognitive posts focused on exploration, a lower level of learning, whereas just less than a fifth reflected higher level integration, suggesting room for enhancing cognitive learning. Our results suggest strategies to encourage higher levels of thinking and more meaningful social interactions to foster learning, educator support, and co-creation of knowledge, thereby improving online professional development.     

Models of transformative learning for social justice: comparative case studies of non-formal development education in Britain and Spain

This paper presents comparative case studies of non-formal development education by non-profit organisations in two European countries. The study aimed to explore the extent to which such activities provide opportunities for transformative learning. The research was qualitative and began with interviews with educators across 14 organisations in Britain and Spain. Case studies were then identified, purposefully selecting interesting non-formal activities. This paper presents four activities and analyses their potential for transformative learning, drawing together ideas from the literature and the cross-case analysis of the perspectives of development education practitioners. By using the framework of transformative learning pedagogies, this research can inform non-formal education with aims regarding social justice in a range of contexts. It is argued that while there are scarce opportunities for sustained non-formal development education, these cases contribute to knowledge by providing examples of how participative methodologies can generate critical thinking and thus offer learning opportunities that are transformational.     

Student Engagement and Student Learning: Testing the Linkages*

This study examines (1) the extent to which student engagement is associated with experimental and traditional measures of academic performance, (2) whether the relationships between engagement and academic performance are conditional, and (3) whether institutions differ in terms of their ability to convert student engagement into academic performance. The sample consisted of 1058 students at 14 four-year colleges and universities that completed several instruments during 2002. Many measures of student engagement were linked positively with such desirable learning outcomes as critical thinking and grades, although most of the relationships were weak in strength. The results suggest that the lowest-ability students benefit more from engagement than classmates, first-year students and seniors convert different forms of engagement into academic achievement, and certain institutions more effectively convert student engagement into higher performance on critical thinking tests. *A version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, April 2004.     

Preservice Interns Implement Service-Learning: Helping Young Children Reach Out to Their Community

Service Learning (S-L) is an integral component of the Early Childhood preservice curriculum at the University of South Carolina. In spite of the fact that our college students had experienced the benefits of S-L first hand during their professional education, they had not become adept at implementing this experiential pedagogy into their own preschool and primary classrooms. This article describes the strategies the authors used to motivate their college students to integrate S-L into the classrooms where they were completing their capstone internship. It recounts these teacher education students' successes in planning and implementing effective S-L projects and identifies the benefits that came to the preservice teachers, their young students, and the schools and communities where they taught.     

做高职课堂教学高明的指挥家

如何上好每堂课是高职教师都应该认真思考的问题,高职的课堂应该是一个学习型环境,教师带领学生去体验、感觉、成长和经历,从而达到一种有效的学习状态,激发学生的学习主动性、积极性和创造性。做好课堂教学管理,教学相长是高职教师应掌握的一门管理技巧。     

An Ethical Exercise for the Social Studies Classroom: The Trolley Dilemma

The Trolley Problem as defined in this paper is a series, or continuation, of increasingly difficult ethical riddles successfully implemented in a classroom environment to spur complex, critical thinking and dialogue. The activity is designed upon the scenario of a runaway train with different and challenging choices, segueing neatly into group discussions of ethics while limiting potential disruptions or controversies. It fits nicely with multiple standards, goals and/or outcomes and can be accommodated to multiple grade levels and courses. It is a powerful, yet easily implemented classroom exercise for educators to develop higher order thinking and dialogue for their students.     

批判性思维量表在医学教育中的应用与展望

批判性思维是医学生医学素养发展的重要构成部分,培养批判性思维能力是世界高等教育的共同目标。量表是衡量学生批判性思维状况,检验培养效果的重要工具。运用文献调研法与内容分析法,追踪国内外批判性思维量表的发展,对条目式量表、情景选择式量表、开放式量表、混合式量表的开发现状及在医学教育中的应用进行分析,比较常用量表的特点及差异。研究发现批判性思维量表在我国医学教育的应用中存在中国文化元素缺失、特异性学科量表有待开发以及量表不能覆盖教育的全周期全过程等三个方面的不足。未来我国批判性思维测评需要以中国文化和国情为基础,开发针对医学生的批判性思维特异性量表,加强批判性思维的全过程评价。     

The Teacher in the Two Year College

Interest in the use of technology in the classroom continues to grow. The current study included 100 students who registered for a 200 level child development class at a private university in Northern Virginia. Students were from 4 different sections taught by the same professor in different semesters. Two of the sections used a textbook. The other two used an online virtual simulation program. Results revealed that students using the simulation program had exam scores that were significantly higher than those for the sections that used a textbook. Students using the program reported that it helped them relate to class material, was more engaging and interactive than a textbook, and helped them connect class material to the real world.     

大学生职业发展教育课程体验式教学实践探索——以上海海关学院为例

阐明了大学生职业发展教育课程体验式教学的内涵,同时结合上海海关学院《大学生职业发展与就业指导》课程教学实践方面的探索,具体剖析了体验式教学的实施方略,并对教学实践进行了自我反思。     

Harnessing the Power of Social Media in the Classroom: Challenging Students to Create Content to Share on Social Media Sites to Improve Learning Outcomes

Many young adults consume news, political, and historical information through social media sites, and yet students do not always connect this information to the academic knowledge they learn in their classes. In addition, while students learn academic writing and presentation skills, they may not feel equipped to present the knowledge that they have learned to a non-academic audience. I detail a class assignment in which students produce a social media project that imparts academic knowledge to a general audience. These have taken the form of short videos, websites, a documentary and even poems and songs. Drawing on a survey of the students, as well as a content analysis of the projects, I find that the project is successful in achieving several teaching goals, including knowledge retainment, critical thinking skills, making real world connections with class material, student empowerment, and improving communication skills.     

论英语专业写作课堂中学习共同体的构建

我国高校英语专业学生的思辨能力薄弱是一个不容忽视的问题,这个问题尤其体现在其英语写作上。构建基于学习共同体的英语写作课堂有助于激励学生的学习参与、加强学生的思辨能力及提升学生的综合语言能力。英语写作课堂学习共同体的构建需通过三个步骤：重构教师对写作课堂的认识;培养学生课堂学习共同体意识;引入研究性写作模式。     

Simulations in the Classroom

To assess the effect of debate format on learning, four formats were separately employed in an environmental issues course. Learning was greatest when students wrote about a debate they witnessed, the teacher provided debate questions, and students received a reward for winning. Students valued debates for developing their arguing skills, used the Internet as a primary source, and placed trust in sources based on the author more than on their critical reading of the source.     

The diversity project: an ethnography of social justice experiential education programming

Whilst adventure-based experiential education traditions have long-standing claims of progressive, democratic learning potential, little research has examined practice from within democratic theories of participation and learning. Focusing on a complex network making up a disturbing interaction in an outdoor education programme, I posit forms of structural management privileging institutional design blockaded democratic forms of interaction when bids arose, while simultaneously identifying the peripheral ‘un-structured’ symbolic spaces beyond the care-gaze of educators as necessary sites of creative emergence. Drawing on the work of Lather [Lather, Patti. 1996. “Troubling Clarity: The Politics of Accessible Language.”Harvard Educational Review 66 (3): 525–546], I explore the peripheral boundaries of traditional ethnographic writing, decentering norms of finality and conclusivity, and invite the reader into a critical interaction with ‘a shifting text’ [Babich, Babette. 1994. Nietzsche's Philosophy of Science: Reflecting Science on the Ground of Art and Life. Albany: State University of New York Press, p. 27] and a chaotic moment in the programme.     

思辨与协作——英语精读课堂上的合作语言学习

探讨采用精读课堂合作语言学习策略,来提高英语专业学生思辨能力和协作能力,适应21世纪知识经济对英语人才的需求。     

Classroom Debates: Using Speed Rounds To Encourage Greater Participation

The primary obstacle that can derail the effectiveness of a debate is one in which few students are involved and all of the energy and learning is limited to a few students. This leaves the majority of students passively absorbing information and does not encourage participation among those students that typically do not talk in class. This quick fix proposes a technique to increase the involvement of all students in the debate.