Students’ conceptions of and approaches to knowledge building and its relationship to learning outcomes

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among students’ conceptions of knowledge building, approaches to knowledge building, knowledge-building behaviors and learning outcomes. A total of 48 primary school students (from grades 3 and 4) who had experienced knowledge-building activities participated in the present study. After analyzing the students’ interview responses using the phenomenographic method, qualitatively different and hierarchically related conceptions and approaches were revealed. The results indicated that the students with fragmented conceptions tended to use surface approaches to knowledge building while those with cohesive conceptions tended to adopt deep approaches. The findings also indicate that the students with cohesive conceptions or deep approaches were more likely to have better learning outcomes than those with fragmented conceptions or surface approaches.     

How to read fast and accurately

陈芳同学在高中时期，于2000年获得“中学生英语能力竞赛”一等奖和湖北省英语口语竞赛一等奖。02年参加高考，取得了618分的好成绩，英语成绩为142分，以优异成绩被武汉大学录取。     

Questions and Answers Related to Surgical Examination

1.你把身子转过来,让我看看你的背部,行吗? 行啊。2.请站正,背对着我,好吗? 当然行啦。3.你哪儿疼? 就在膝盖骨下方的里面,是烧灼样的疼痛。4.你能指一指什么部位痛吗?在这儿,膝关节周围,膝盖骨尤为厉害。5.怎么个痛法? 一种非常刺骨的烧灼样痛。6.你能描述一下你的疼痛吗?能,它就集聚在膝部,也会朝我那条倒霉的大腿周围幅射,但痛都是从膝部开始的。7.疼痛只停留在哪一处吗? 是的,它只停留在一个部位。     

Questions and Answers Related to Medical Department

1.你气短吗/急吗?并不常见,我在步跑后才会感到气短。2.你很容易呼吸困难吗?不,我从不觉得自己呼吸有困难。3.你气急吗?     

Who intends to learn and who intends to leave? The intention to leave education early among students from inclusive and regular classes in primary and secondary schools

ABSTRACT

Early school leaving is a serious problem for individual students, especially for students with special educational needs (SEN). This study tests predictors of early school leaving, using data collected among 1,047 students from 60 inclusive and regular classes in primary and secondary schools in Austria with 4th- and 7th-grade students aged 9–11 and 12–14 years. Multilevel regression analyses show that higher school wellbeing and a more positive student–teacher relationship reduce the intention of both 4th and 7th graders to leave school early. Additionally, for 7th graders, having a migrant background and more individualised instruction are predictors of a greater intention to leave school early. School grade, gender, socioeconomic background, SEN, social integration, class climate, school setting (regular class vs. inclusive class), and the heterogeneity of the class composition had no impact on the intention to leave school early.     

Recognising and responding to radicalisation at the ‘frontline’: Assessing the capability of school teachers to recognise and respond to radicalisation

Governments across the west have put teachers at the forefront of efforts to tackle radicalisation of young people based on their proximity to potentially vulnerable students. This has proven controversial, as critics claim that this securitises teachers’ work and that they cannot be expected to accurately identify and respond to extremism. Despite investment in P/CVE teacher training, research to assess teachers’ competence to identify signs of radicalisation and to respond in an appropriate manner is scarce. This article presents findings from a survey experiment with 2,173 teachers in Great Britain and Denmark. It shows that British and Danish teachers largely recognise radicalisation cues and respond to student radicalisation in similar ways. However, our data shows that British teachers are more likely than Danish teachers to react formally (e.g. report to authorities), and that British teachers feel more confident in reacting to signs of radicalisation. The results enhance our understanding of the effects of radicalisation prevention in schools. Furthermore, they challenge arguments within the extant literature by suggesting that what leads to concerns of radicalisation is not entirely subjective or completely context dependent.     

Unawareness to Production,Dropout to Innovator—Primary teachers' understanding and use of a science,technology and society approach to science teaching

This paper investigates the process of teacher change in a group of 8 primary school teachers during their exposure to a science, technology and society (STS) approach to teaching Science in Swaziland. The research aimed to establish the effect of support given to teachers in using the approach through a series of workshops, followed by a 5-week supported implementation of the unit ‘matter and energy’. An analysis of the way in which the STS approach impacted on the classroom practice of the teachers yielded 2 outcomes that were hierarchical. First, teacher understanding of the approach was observed to go through levels of unawareness, recognition of differences in approach, utilisation, personalisation and production. Second, the teachers' level of use of the STS approach was observed to have been affected by their levels of understanding, characterised by the following typologies: dropouts, strugglers, domesticators, succeeders and innovators. Some relationship between levels of understanding and typology of use was found, however, the level of understanding was not the exclusive determinant of typology of use. Only teachers reaching the utilisation level were able to use the innovation in a sustainable way, while those at the level of unawareness were able to become domesticators, adapting the innovation to their usual teaching approach.     

The intention to both memorise and understand: Another approach to learning?

In distinguishing deep and surface approaches, an important determinant is the intentions to understand and memorise respectively. A student adopting a surface approach does not seek understanding and, therefore, relies upon memorisation. Understanding and memorising are, then, seen as almost mutually exclusive as far as intent is concerned, although those seeking understanding may make some strategic use of memorisation for particular tasks. This paper reviews emerging evidence of an approach which combines memorising and understanding. The research has been conducted in the Asian region, and so provides part of the explanation for the paradox of the Asian student. There has been widespread anecdotal evidence of rote-learning and yet Asian students are often high achievers. Several plausible explanations for the occurrence of the approach are advanced. These include limited ability in the language of study leading to a narrow systematic pattern of study, cultural traditions respecting order and diligent study, and the need for children to learn the language characters.     

From Exploration to Instruction: Children Learn From Exploration and Tailor Their Demonstrations to Observers’ Goals and Competence

This study investigated whether children learn from exploration and act as effective informants by providing informative demonstrations tailored to observers’ goals and competence. Children (4.0–6.9 years, N = 98) explored a causally ambiguous toy to discover its causal structure and then demonstrated the toy to a naive observer. Children provided more costly and informative evidence when the observer wanted to learn about the toy than observe its effects (Experiment 1) and when the observer was ordinary than exceptionally intelligent (Experiment 2). Relative to the evidence they generated during exploration, children produced fewer, less costly actions when the observer wanted or needed less evidence. Children understand the difference between acting-to-learn and acting-to-inform; after learning from exploration, they consider others’ goals and competence to provide “uninstructed instruction”.     

Teachers’ beliefs about cues to deception and the ability to detect deceit

This study aimed to test beliefs about cues to deception and the ability to detect lies in a group of teachers with different teaching experience. Their results were compared with the results of non-teachers matched in age and with the results of educational studies and psychology students. Both the beliefs of deception indicators and overall truthfulness assessment did not differ between groups. Teaching experience had no effect on any of the skills tested. In accordance with expectations, the truth bias appeared in both the control group and in the group of teachers.     

Return of the ghost – to discipline or/and to teach?

This paper is a situated biographical reflection on the author's Hong Kong teaching experience written using a narrative inquiry approach, describing attempts to generate innovative pedagogical practices. The journey explores how autocratic, traditional Chinese cultural expectations in Hong Kong education have nurtured a commonsense belief in “discipline first and then teach”. This teacher/researcher adopted alternative approaches to authority through the use of developmental drama which made teacher image and teacher–student power relationships an object of talk and study. The aim of this paper is to bring together theories and pedagogical models based on the sociology of education, social psychology and drama pedagogy in an effort to change how we teach marginalized students in one distinctive Chinese cultural context.     

Teachers’ literacy-related knowledge and self-perceptions in relation to preparation and experience

After rating their own literacy-related knowledge in three areas (knowledge about reading/reading development, phonemic awareness/phonics, and morpheme awareness/structural analysis), graduate teacher-education students completed five tasks intended to measure their actual disciplinary knowledge in these areas. Teachers with high levels of prior background (i.e., course preparation and experience) rated themselves as significantly more knowledgeable than did low-background teachers in all areas; high-background participants also significantly outperformed low-background participants on all tasks. However, even high-background teachers scored well below ceiling on the tasks. Regression analyses indicated that teachers’ self-perceptions and knowledge were positively influenced by both level of preparation and teaching experience, although the influences on teachers’ knowledge differed by task. Teachers had some accurate perceptions of their own knowledge, especially in the area of phonics. Results suggest that differentiating levels of preparation may be useful in studying teacher knowledge, and also support the notion of a substantial gap between research on reading and teacher preparation in reading.     

Counselling and the Global Agenda to Eradicate Poverty: What Framework to Apply for Multicultural Understanding and Interpretation?

Counselling has a place in shaping responses to the international mandate for poverty eradication. Counselling can influence categories of actors directly, or indirectly through the counselling posture; help explicate the cultural context, perception and basis for eradication of poverty; and serve to motivate and inform normative responses to global poverty. Two major frameworks for poverty eradication can be viewed from a counselling perspective. Social development underscores the normative approach to poverty reduction, accounting for cultural specificity. The human rights perspective underscores universal aspects of poverty eradication goals. Social development leads to an uneven spread of social development objectives and human rights to their levelling across countries and cultures.     

Informal and formal approaches to communicative language teaching

The main purpose of this article is to give some clarity to the use of the term "communicative" in describing approaches to foreign or second language teaching. It is suggested that a distinction be drawn between "informal" communicative approaches which promote second language "acquisition", and "formal" communicative approaches which promote "learning". This distinction between "acquisition" and "learning", which is taken from the work of Stephen Krashen, is carefully explained and the conditions for achieving both in the classroom considered. In addition it is suggested that there is a need actively to teach pupils how to make use of conscious "learnt" knowledge in order to "monitor" their performance in a second language appropriately.     

Questions and Answers Related to Miscellaneous Health Concerns

1.Do you have any food intolerances? Not that I know of.I don't think I'm allergic to any food,but Icould be.2. Do you have any food that does not agree with you? Yes.Yoghurt upsets my stomach very much.3. Does any particular food upset your stomach?