Role-play and student engagement: reflections from the classroom

Role-play is viewed by scholars as an effective active learning strategy: it encourages participation among passive learners, adds dynamism to the classroom and promotes the retention of material. But what do students think of role-play? This study surveyed 144 students after a role-play activity in a history course and asked them to identify what they gained from the activity and if it encouraged them to learn more about the topic. The results found conflicting student views: though a large majority found the activity beneficial, a small minority gained little from the exercise. It is argued that role-play can be counterproductive for weak and/or unprepared students. Role-play may be a popular teaching method but teachers should consider how format and preparation can impact learning outcomes.     

ENTRE REPRODUCTION ET MOBILISATION: LES RAPPORTS DE GENRE EN FORMATION CONTINUE EN FRANCE ET AU CANADA

REPRODUCTION OR MOBILISATION? GENDER PROPORTIONS IN CONTINUING EDUCATION IN FRANCE AND CANADA – Initial education provisions for women have evolved greatly over the past 40 years. But what about their situation within adult education and training? This article, comparing Canada and France, shows that, while it is well known that more women than men participate in adult education, their greater presence in professional training courses is a new development. The analysis highlights certain particular findings, such as the growing demand for continuing education in Canada and the increased rate of participation by full-time employees in France. In both countries, a number of social factors continue to influence women’s participation.     

高校处罚学生行为的法律问题探讨

高校对学生的处罚行为。在法律上如何定性?司法救济途径又如何?一些学者提出：高校的管理行为是一种特别关系的管理行为。但对于如何特别。特别在哪里，法律定性如何?持暖昧态度。本文现仅就这些问题从法律角度做一些肤浅探讨。     

Body talk: students’ identity construction while discussing a socioscientific issue

Vision II school science is often stated to be a democratic and inclusive form of science education. But what characterizes the subject who fits into the Vision II school science? Who is the desirable student and who is constructed as ill-fitting? This article explores discourses that structure the Vision II science classroom, and how different students construct their identities inside these discourses. In the article we consider school science as an order of discourses which restricts and enables what is possible to think and say and what subject-positions those are available and non-available. The results show that students’ talk about a SSI about body and health is constituted by several discourses. We have analyzed how school science discourse, body discourse and general school discourse are structuring the discussions. But these discourses are used in different ways depending on how the students construct their identities in relation to available subject positions, which are dependent on how students at the same time are “doing” gender and social class. As an example, middle class girls show resistance against SSI-work since the practice is threatening their identity as “successful students”. This article uses a sociopolitical perspective in its discussions on inclusion and exclusion in the practice of Vision II. It raises critical issues about the inherited complexity of SSI with meetings and/or collisions between discourses. Even if the empirical results from this qualitative study are situated in specific cultural contexts, they contribute with new questions to ask concerning SSI and Vision II school science.     

湖南省独立学院学生教育消费满意度现状分析

独立学院在我国高等教育服务供不应求的背景下产生,并获得了长足发展,但独立学院所提供的高等教育服务质量如何呢?笔者以湖南省为例,选取湖南省3所独立学院,对其学生进行教育消费满意度调查,并与其母体公立高校的学生对比,结论是独立学院学生教育消费成本偏高,而满意度普遍偏低。文章探讨了导致这一问题的原因,并提出了提高学生教育消费满意度的措施。     

Toleration and Recognition: What should we teach?

Generally we think it good to tolerate and to accord recognition. Yet both are complex phenomena and our teaching must acknowledge and cope with that complexity. We tolerate only what we object to, so our message to students cannot be simply, 'promote the good and prevent the bad'. Much advocacy of toleration is not what it pretends to be. Nor is it entirely clear what sort of conduct should count as intolerant. Sometimes people are at fault for tolerating what they should not, or for tolerating what they should find unexceptionable. So virtue does not always lie with toleration. Tolerance can also seem condescending; should we therefore replace it with recognition? But recognition may not be able to coexist with the disapproval that makes toleration necessary. However, not everything about toleration and recognition is controversial; there are fixed points from which students can grapple with the issues presented by both.     

Genuine Participation in Design Practice: Towards a Possible Metric

What is genuine participation in the context of design practice? Genuine participation is often considered the missing element that differentiates a successful participation project from an unsuccessful participation project. But what, exactly, does genuine mean and, more importantly for research purposes, how can the ‘genuineness’ of participation be measured? The present study is a first step to explore a possible metric for genuine participation. To begin, a questionnaire developed from six key topics of focus within participatory design research was created and administered to university design students. The results, analysed by a principal component analysis, yielded statistically reliable, strong, and otherwise clear and coherent patterns. These patterns were then qualitatively interpreted. The results indicated that intrinsic motivation, participation self‐efficacy and positive group affect can serve as reliable metrics for measuring the quality of the participation experience. It is proposed that future research into genuine participation consider the impact of these three variables.     

温哥华和上海的大学生谁更了解互联网

温哥华和上海大学生对互联网了解多少?为研究这一问题,516位上海和566位温哥华的大学生分别完成了中英文版的《互联网知识小测验》.温哥华的大学生比上海的大学生得分平均高出20%,两地大学生使用互联网的目的也各不相同.     

‘Always allowing the voice’: expectations of student participation and the disciplining of teachers' practice

Student participation in higher education classrooms is considered important for learning and achievement, but what is meant by participation is rarely made clear. In the literature, it often refers to various forms of verbal participation, which are celebrated and also critiqued. In particular, Western pedagogical assumptions and expectations of classroom participation can marginalise students from non-Western cultures. This article discusses the findings from a study of university teaching staff in New Zealand who spoke about their experiences of teaching a diverse range of students. Analysis of narrative data investigates what participation means for these teachers and how they enact it in their classrooms. It reveals the norms and assumptions that underlie their narratives and considers how these norms discipline teachers' practice.     

Educational Expectations: How They Differ Around the World: Implications for Teaching ESL College Students

Expectations regarding teacher-student relationships, classroom interactions, testing and evaluation, and academic integrity vary widely around the world. Understanding these differences can be critical to enhancing the academic success of ESL(English as a Second Language) college students. Faculty working with ESL students often ask: “Why won't my students participate more in class?” “Why do my students only repeat back what I've said?” “Why won't they tell me what they think?” “Why don't they ever know what courses they want to take when they come to registration or advisement?” Students often ask: “Why does my professor keep asking me to talk about my personal experiences? We never had to do that in my country. Why is it such a big deal to do that here?” There are a lot of “why's” floating around the campus. This article addresses some of these questions.     

Students’ participation in peer-to-peer communication supported by social media

Social media (SM) support new approaches to learning that rely on voluntary, peer-to-peer communication using devices and software provided and managed by students rather than on institutional course management systems. We present one case of such an approach with first-year university students (n = 86) in Thailand using SM for asking and answering questions between peers in a face-to-face computer-programming course. Encouraging students to ask questions about course content can result in improved performance. In general, understanding how students participate and what drives them to participate can provide insights into how universities and instructors can be socially ready. Students used SM during 10 weeks of an 18-week course. Each of four sections selected one form of SM as follows: Facebook [n = 33], Instagram [n = 21], Twitter [n = 21], and Line [n = 11]. The mixed-methods case study involved quantitative measures of how students participated and quantitative and qualitative measures of students’ perceptions of what drives or discourages their participation. Results revealed patterns in participation as follows: participation and motivation; passive and active participation; participation and sample size; participation and type of SM and; participation and student demographics. Implications for practice relate to the value of instructors’ understanding of the social incentives for student participation such as social recognition, gratification of needs and convenience. Implications for research focus on the value of investigating new forms of participation available to read-only participants and ‘lurkers’ using features of SM such as ‘liking’ and sharing.     

政治参与：涵义、功能与价值

政治参与是政治学研究的重要内容，是政治发展的核心所在。21世纪必将是参与盛行的时代。然而，对于什么是政治参与以及它有何重要功能与价值等这些基础性的问题，至今尚无统一的定论。本文在界定政治参与涵义的基础上，认为政治参与至少具有四大功能效果和三大重要价值体现。政治与和人的解放具有内在历史逻辑性。     

Meaning in constant flow – university teachers’ understanding of examination tasks

Effective feedback presupposes that students understand the task on which feedback is given. But what about the teachers formulating and assessing the task? Do they always understand it as intended? And if so, feedback on what? The purpose of this study is to examine how university teachers individually understand tasks distributed to students. Does interpretation differ if the teachers themselves try to solve the task, discuss the solution with other teachers, as well as try to formulate better versions of the task? The theoretical framework rests upon a hermeneutic understanding of reality. There is thereby reason to doubt the possibility of information transfer and the understanding of feedback as a strict rational process. The empirical material was collected in connection with development work, and sections where the participants expressed uncertainty considering the interpretation of the task were transcribed. The empirical material shows that teachers interpret a task somewhat differently when examining it more carefully, on their own and together with other teachers. It also shows that the same teacher vacillates in their interpretation of a task when examined more thoroughly. Consequently feedback given to students also differs. The drift of meaning is probably quite minor, but still noteworthy.     

我国网上学习社区研究现状——基于中国期刊网的分析

近年来,人们对网上教学的理解逐渐从借助网络平台传递教学资源,到强调促进师生和生生之间互动与交流,促使学习社区的形成,而使网上学习社区的理论和实践研究日趋成为一个热门课题。然而研究现状如何,如何提高现有研究水平,未来研究的趋势和方向是什么,是我们不得不考虑的几个问题。本文以2000-2007年8月期间中国期刊网数据库中的网上学习社区相关论文为研究对象,采用内容分析法,从论文主题、研究方法和研究类型三个方面进行统计分析,旨在得出我国网上学习社区研究的现状和趋势,并对未来的研究提出了相关建议,以期对网上学习社区的研究者和实践者提供一定的参考。     

Us and them: Finding irony in our teaching methods

This paper reports a collaborative project to explore our work as teacher educators, an effort to reconstruct a stance for ourselves in relation to our students. Our analysis is aligned with feminist post-modern perspectives, involving a reflexive representation of our teaching identities. To collect these expressions, we kept a real-time dialogue journal, sitting together weekly over the course of a semester, writing to each other in conversation about our ongoing interactions with students. We reviewed these written records looking for contradictions in our talk about our students and our methods of instruction. This paper shares our discovery of the ironic in our desires for authoritative knowledge, effective methods, coherent organization, and harmonic relationships that mirrored our students' requests of us. We suggest the importance of planting seeds of irony alongside our teaching recommendations, so that our students might recognize and embrace the limitations of our authority. I wonder about the value in talking about what concerns us in our teaching. The labels we dredge up get us to the same old places where we win, students struggle, and colleagues don't get it. Well, I don't usually get it either. I mean, I think you can get used to an audience and figure out how to address it, and that might get you good course evaluations. But to what end? (Hinchman, 9 September 1995).     

Liberal studies programs for the adult college student-is there innovation?

Special liberal studies baccalaureate programming for adults is receiving increased attention. To adults, special programs offer what appear to be a better way to earn a degree than traditional majors because such programs may provide access through open admissions, have special seminar courses, recognize and grant credit for life experience, provide special counseling, schedule classes in the evening, and make available other desired options and services. But is the provision of special programming and services innovative, or is it simply an expansion of what already exists to include adults? And if it is innovative, what effects does it have on older students? This article addresses these questions.     

Adjusting claims as new evidence emerges: Do students incorporate new evidence into their scientific explanations?

Constructing explanations of complex phenomena is an important part of doing science and it is also an important component of learning science. Students need opportunities to make claims based on available evidence and then use science concepts to justify why evidence supports the claim. But what happens when new evidence emerges for the same phenomenon? The “claim” portion of the claim, evidence, and reasoning explanation framework is viewed as the most accessible to students. When new evidence suggests that students adjust their current thinking however, do students incorporate this new information and modify their claims? This research utilized a time series research design to explore how students modify their claim over four iterations of one explanation, termed an evolving explanation. As new data were collected and analyzed to provide additional evidence, students needed to evaluate their current claim to see if it took into account all available evidence. This research explores that process including the supports that the teacher provided and the challenges that students faced in developing one claim, over time. The findings indicate that many students face challenges adjusting their claims when new, conflicting evidence emerges, even with class discussion, teacher feedback, and written scaffolds. Several possible reasons exist to account for this challenge. Students may (1) ignore new evidence, (2) find “undoing” their initial idea too cognitively demanding, or (3) simply not have any similar experience from which to build. Providing students with experiences of writing evolving explanations reflects what scientists do, while simultaneously preparing students to become more scientifically proficient.     

高职专业“科研式教育”实践探析

高职院校的科研项目一般因其应用性强、周期性短和可参与性灵活等优势,可吸引学生参与。但学生在参与这些科研项目的过程中,存在一些问题,因此,有必要对这一过程进行适当的规范,对参与科研的学生进行一定的约束与管理。为此提出高职院校学生参与科研项目的"科研式教育"模式:准备阶段——组织与培训;实验阶段——调控与分析;总结阶段——激励与评价。     

On the relationship between society and higher education: what path should we take?

Abstract

The current network society, with its primacy of information and communication technologies, is challenging the higher education model. The needs and expectations of today’s students differ from those of students in the past, and educational practices should adapt to modern times. But what changes will we see in the relationship between societal transformation and the higher education system? In this research paper, we set out a quantum-based approach in order to analyze this relationship and to advance the understanding about the role that distance education will play in the future. Under this perspective, we provide an illustration that allows for the representation and evaluation of future scenarios.     

What happens when students do simulation-role-play in science?

This article outlines some of the findings based on a study by three teachers and a university academic of role play in the teachers' classes. The study focuses on the results of role plays undertaken with students in mixed ability classes from three high schools in New South Wales. Role plays, where students play parts in scientific phenomena such as the electrons in an electric circuit or molecules from food in digestion, are not new to science education. But, what happens when students participate in role plays in science? In this report it is suggested that simulation-role-play may allow students to demonstrate their understanding, explore their views and develop deeper understanding of phenomena. A strategy for using analogical analysis in simulation-role play is suggested but concerns are raised about the students' capacity to distinguish role play from the subject matter being studied.