我国在线高等教育发展的国际比较及推进策略

我国历来从战略上重视信息技术发展及其对教育的革命性影响。近20年来我国在线高等教育课程及其平台建设,与世界在线高等教育课程的发展节奏基本保持一致,且起点较高,但在学科类型、课程提供主体、课程语言、教学形式和课程共享性等方面,与其他国家相比存在差异。就国际影响力而言,我国在线高等教育课程还存在以下不足:在线课程开发缺乏全球化视野,课程内容及质量国际吸引力不足;在线教育平台建设机制不灵活,世界范围内传播效率不高;教师信息化素养不高,开展国际在线教学动力不足;在线教育缺乏质量标准和学分互认体系,国际认可度不高;高校内部支撑体系不完善,缺乏线上与线下的融合发展。对此,提出以下建议:加强顶层设计,整体布局规划;多方协同推进,打造中国品牌;引领标准建设,拓展国际空间;打磨专业团队,贡献中国智慧。     

Drawing on other disciplines to define quality in bioethics education

In light of the lack of scholarly studies on the determination of quality in bioethics education, this paper aims to elaborate the concept of quality, focus on its understanding in education and explore a definition of quality in bioethics education. The findings of the literature-based research indicate that quality is a multidimensional concept and its definition is largely dependent on the needs, expectations and perceptions of customers. Furthermore, in regard to quality in education, the plethora of stakeholders and different goals of each stakeholder preclude producing a unanimous definition of quality. After examining certain definitions and approaches of quality in other disciplines, quality in bioethics education is described as ‘conformance to the goals’. These goals refer to increasing ethical knowledge; improving ethical skills to strengthen ethical sensitivity, awareness and judgement; developing ethical behaviour; and promoting cultural competence.     

Teacher accounts of parent involvement in children's education in China

Discursive insights into early childhood teacher views of parenting in a Chinese context is the focus of this paper. A critical discourse analysis was conducted on teachers' professional accounts captured on an online discussion forum uncovering how parenting and the role of parents in children's education were represented. Emphasized in the analysis is the importance of situating teacher discourse within the context of ‘glocalization’, acknowledging the influence of Confucian ideology on their professional stance, and recognizing the position of Western approaches in early childhood education. The findings reveal a tenuous place for teacher-parent partnerships in teachers' dialogic space and practice.     

Problematic placement: pathways pre-service teachers’ perspectives on their infant/toddler placement

The inclusion of an infant/toddler placement in a ‘pathways’ early childhood teaching degree, where students already have qualifications and experience in working with young children, can be problematic. This pilot study investigated student teachers’ views on their infant/toddler (birth-to-two-years) placement. Sixty-six students completing their early childhood education degree at an Australian university responded to a survey seeking their perspectives on the effectiveness of the placement in developing teacher confidence, knowledge and skills, and the quality of the supervision they received. The participants had entered their degree with a two-year Diploma of Children’s Services. Responses indicated significant dissatisfaction with the quality of supervision, the absence of teacher-mentors, and the lack of opportunities to practise new approaches. Participants commented that they ‘already knew’ how to work with this age group, and that they aspired to work with older children. The results align with other findings on factors associated with positive placements, and raise questions about the effectiveness of the infant/toddler placement in its current form.     

Shifting to digital during COVID-19: are teachers empowered to give voice to students?

While online learning resources are proliferating in all education delivery modes, from traditional classes to distance learning, institutions may have not recognized their potential for addressing diverse student populations, providing them online with learning experiences according to their individual needs. If teachers embrace online learning and customize their approaches to make online resources accessible to students, the interactive and collaborative nature of online learning may help reduce the lack of interaction in large classes and isolation in distance education. Research reports the need to examine the accessibility of online learning through the lenses of the digital divide dependence on factors related to physical access, skills and motivational factors. The circumstances of the pandemic have revealed inequality in access to education caused by access to technology and online delivery in which teaching approaches may not necessarily address the student voice with appreciation of their culture. Discussion address Kuo and Belland (Educ Technol Res Dev 64:661–680, 2016) article which reports experiences of minority students (e. g., African-American) in continuing education indicating that there has been little study of minority students' use of online learning resources. Authentic learning is highlighted by critical pedagogy as a means of engaging students in real-life problems and giving meaning to their real-life contexts as sources of learning and among which digital spaces play a prominent role in students’ meaning-making.

     

Examining the potential impact of full tuition fees on mature part-time students in English higher education

This paper examines current part-time mature learners’ views on the potential impact upon future students as full fees are introduced from 2012. It investigates the problems which part-time mature learners may face with the advent of student loans and subsequent debt, given that they are usually combining complex lives with their studies, with less time to repay any loan in their working lifetime. Despite government rhetoric about the need to increase participants from these groups, most advice and guidance has focused on the traditional full-time market, with little being done to investigate the views of part-time mature learners or to provide appropriate support for them from 2012 onwards.

The views have been gathered through focus group discussions with students in a traditional English university and four of its further education partner colleges via online forums. Resultant data have been analysed to look at emerging themes, which can be summarised as: relief that the respondents had avoided the new fee regime; lack of understanding about current funding; fear that their families would suffer and taking a loan would somehow be a ‘selfish’ strategy; fear that graduate employment would still elude them; fear that their age would mean that they would never be able to repay the debt; a perception that the new regime would generate ‘extra’ money for universities which would be reflected in increased contact hours and wariness about the generous repayment terms currently offered because a change of government could signal new policies and processes.     

Finnish teachers’ views on co-teaching

Co-teaching has become a well-known way of working among Finnish teachers in recent years. Teachers’ collaboration is becoming increasingly important in light of the rising number of diverse students in regular classes. In an ideal co-teaching context, teachers collaborate as equals, recognise and respect each other’s skills and competencies, and strengthen and support each other. In this study, we examine teachers’ views on co-teaching and investigate which background factors explain teachers’ views concerning the benefits and the challenges of co-teaching. The data obtained from Finnish basic education teachers’ (N = 694) responses to an online questionnaire are analysed quantitatively. The results show some differences among the teachers’ views. Subject teachers perceive more challenges in co-teaching than class and special education teachers. Class teachers perceive the fewest challenges. Although teachers are generally interested in co-teaching and some of them co-teach regularly, they also report several barriers to its application. The explanatory factors concerning the differences in teachers’ views are gender, teachers’ co-teaching experiences, the amount of co-teaching per week and working as a class teacher.     

农村儿童网络行为及其影响因素研究

根据传播功能理论,从环境监视、社会联系与协调以及娱乐3个方面调查农村儿童网络行为及其影响因素,并假设农村儿童网络行为影响因素包括性别、年级、父母学历、学习成绩、网龄以及网络行为动机等。使用SPSS24.0软件分析农村儿童网络行为特点,并对研究假设进行验证。研究发现,农村儿童网络行为以娱乐为主,需加强媒介素养教育;农村儿童的性别、年级、网龄以及网络行为动机对网络行为均有显著影响,初中生压力释放动机较大,应加强心理疏导;农村儿童缺乏信息素养,且网络学习意识弱,需加强儿童的信息素养教育,促进其网络学习。     

Principles of Play: a proposed framework towards a holistic overview of games in primary physical education

The playing of games has been a long standing tradition in physical education. Yet despite its history, the teaching of games within primary physical education lessons remains something of a weakness. This is most evident through a continued focus upon skill acquisition and a lack of fostering of a real ‘tactical understanding’ of game play. Despite attempts to rectify this issue through the development of instructional models, a lack of conceptual clarity remains. This paper proposes a framework that goes some way to rectify this ambiguity by proposing to focus upon what are referred to as ‘Principles of Play’. It is recommended that this approach should become the focus when conceptualising what constitutes primary games lessons.     

Online Design Education: Meta‐Connective Pedagogy

Rapid technological advancement has changed the landscape of design education to be integrated with educational technology, and the worldwide COVID‐19 pandemic has further accelerated its transition to online education. Pedagogical engagement with online education is unavoidable to ensure that the transition is successful when the situation ends. Yet, many prior studies on online design education remain focused on technical and administrative uses of digital technologies. In this article, meta‐connective pedagogy is introduced to enable educators and researchers critically to engage with pedagogical concerns emerging from the connective nature of the digitally networked world. Meta‐connective pedagogy is to focus on we are always‐being‐connected and argue that authentic learning and teaching are determined by diverse forms of pre‐existing connectivity. This article consists of four parts. First, it is argued that studio‐based learning has developed a ‘resistant’ stance towards online education, which justifies the omission of understanding connective features from its discourses. Second, four up‐to‐date studies on online design education are critically reviewed in a comparative manner, as their views are split into technical and pedagogical aspects. Third, meta‐connective pedagogy is introduced to address why and how connectivity becomes an emerging pedagogical concern for online education. Fourth and last, a schematic form of meta‐connective design education is articulated, and new roles and responsibilities of educators are addressed. Overall, it is argued that the whole concept of design education is subverted towards connectivity that is inclusive of social components of traditional design studios in a more efficient way.     

Merit matters: Student perceptions of faculty quality and reward

This empirical research explores a role that the quality of teaching and students’ competence play in shaping students’ views about the upward mobility opportunities in their higher education institutions. It is often understood that the principal role of higher education is to promote merit-based mobility amongst students, as well as espouse the merit-based upward mobility amongst its faculty. How exactly students in higher education form their views about the presence of meritorious upward mobility is the question that remains largely unanswered, especially in developing societies. To help answer this question, the study relies on the binary logistic regression of data collected via 762 surveys from 6 public higher education institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and determines what factors help predict students’ views on whether faculty promotions are merited or not. Findings in this article are sub-selected from a broader empirical work, and they point to a novel link: the quality of teaching and students’ views on whether the most competent students are first to graduate in their faculties are the key predictors of whether students believe the faculty members within their higher education institutions are promoted based on merit. In the absence of meritocracy, students are, as this research finds, likely to categorize the educational system as corrupt. When the merit-based competition does not determine who moves up within higher education, one's belonging to the political, social, and economic elites tends to become the alternative basis for the upward mobility. Moving away from the merit-based mobility can have broad social consequences particularly in developing countries that are poorly equipped to react to such digressions, underlining the relevance of this work cross-nationally.     

“MY PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP TOWARDS MATHEMATICS HAS NECESSARILY NOT CHANGED BUT …” ANALYZING PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ MATHEMATICAL IDENTITY TALK

In this study, we consider 5 preservice teachers who had negative views of mathematics at the beginning of elementary teacher education. We focus on methodological challenges: how to analyze their mathematical identity talk which to some readers can sound incoherent. Teacher change studies have often ignored the methodological challenges on which we focus on in this article. We compare preservice teachers’ talk at the beginning and at the end of a mathematics education course. When analyzing the data, we combined discursive, rhetorical, and narrative approaches. We identified 6 central interpretative repertoires that were manifested in preservice teachers’ identity talk: Victim, Ego-defensive, Fatalist, Gaining an Insight, Self-development, and Responding to the Expectations of the Change. The Ego-defensive and Fatalist repertoires were activated especially when students talked about mathematical tests. The most central rhetorical devices were category entitlement, categorization, active voicing, use of disclaimer, and use of metaphors or extreme utterances. At the end of the course, the talk of the more confident preservice teachers was more coherent than the others’ talk. Our study shows that combining different approaches can bring useful views for understanding preservice teachers’ multiple identities.     

(S)exclusion in the sexuality education classroom: young people on gender and power relations

Comprehensive sexuality education which includes discussion about gender and power is increasingly seen as an effective way of promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights. Yet all too often the potential of good quality sexuality education is not realised. This study engages with young peoples’ evaluation of a sexuality education programme in Ethiopia. Using data from ethnographic field notes, focus group discussions and interviews with students, teachers and sexual and reproductive health workers in Oromia region, it reveals the existence of gendered practices in sexuality education. Three forms of exclusion were evident: first, exclusion through selection to participate in the programme; second, exclusion of the views of young people through gendered interpretations and practices; third, exclusion of the views of young people through the omission of discussion on topics that are relevant to them, such as love, relationships and sexual intercourse. As a result, the programme’s potential to contribute to questioning gender relations and improving the emotional and sexual health of young people is undermined. The programme reproduces a gender order in school and arguably broader society, which is a source of frustration and alienation for young people.     

Being altruistically motivated: the postgraduate and career motivational orientations of access students at an Irish University

The relative lack of research about postgraduate education, and especially from a widening participation (WP) perspective, is noteworthy in a context of an increasingly expanding and important postgraduate sector internationally. This paper draws on the findings of a study about the ‘impact’ of WP initiatives at an Irish university, exploring the undergraduate, postgraduate, and employment experiences of two groups of former access students. A mixed-methods research design (employing a self-completion questionnaire sent to all relevant individuals (N=195), and 26 in-depth semi-structured interviews) was employed. This paper examines these individuals’ postgraduate progression in relation to a number of factors, with a particular focus on their views about progression, the programmes pursued, and their related motivational orientations. Many of the research participants were altruistically motivated in their selection of postgraduate programmes and related careers, and this motivational orientation is explored in terms of its genesis and implications in a WP context.     

网络课程学习的生态失衡及其解决对策

网络课程是现代远程教育的重要载体,其建设质量与学习者的成长发展休戚相关。本文基于学习生态观理论,综合采用文献调研、深度访谈和抽样调查等方法,梳理出了网络课程学习中存在的主要生态失衡问题,并提出了相关的解决对策,希望能为网络课程建设提供有益的启示与参考。     

Quality improvement in early years settings in Hong Kong and England

With a growing awareness of the importance of early childhood education, the governments of Hong Kong and England have both increased investment through providing fee assistance to parents for buying services and providing funding to providers for offering ‘free’ places, respectively. Alongside the increased funding of early childhood education, a heightened interest in the quality of early years settings has arisen. This paper aims to develop a framework for comparative studies by addressing the similarities and differences in quality improvement of both systems. Three key issues are discussed: relevance of the quality criteria for assessment, interpretations of the quality improvement mechanism and its use in guiding practice, and the influence of contextual factors in terms of stakeholders' views of the quality process. It is argued that these key issues are fundamental to a framework for understanding different sociocultural contexts and dynamics in shaping the quality improvement of early childhood education.     

Traditional and Online Learning in Executive Education: How Both Will Survive and Thrive

An important component of corporate training is executive education. A sample of 90 open enrollment executive education programs in the areas of management development and leadership was reviewed to better understand the structure of the offerings. In today's marketplace, the majority of executive education offerings are of the traditional face‐to‐face classroom‐style format. More recently, the impact of rapid technological advancements is becoming more apparent in the executive education market as online learning becomes more prevalent. There is no lack of participants for either traditional or online executive education programs, which has expanded the market. While both types of program offerings are viable, the future of executive education may be a merger of the two whereby traditional programs incorporate online components to reduce students’ time away from the job and capitalize on technology to enhance their interpersonal interactions. There is no doubt that executive education will survive and thrive as its future will be the nexus of traditional and online delivery that combines the key advantages of both approaches using a hybrid model that is beginning to be more widely deployed.     

整合式教学模式在远程开放教育中的应用

远程开放教育为许多无法接受传统面授教育的学习者提供了一种灵活、开放的教育形式。然而,目前很多开展远程开放教育的机构只是把网上教学和面授教学简单混合,没有为学习者建立起有效的学习环境。为了改变现状,本文建构了整合式教学模式并采用定性分析方法进行了实证研究。在整体设计、有效资源、技术支持、交流互动四个条件的支持下,整合式教学模式通过整合导学辅导、课堂面授、网上教学、参观及实习的优势,缓解成人学习者工学矛盾,有效解决资源不足及交互不充分等问题。     

Measuring learning outcomes

The growing interest for measurement of learning outcomes relates to long lines of development in higher education, the request for accountability, intensified through international reforms and movements such as the development and implementation of qualifications frameworks. In this article, we discuss relevant literature on different approaches to measurement and how learning outcomes are measured, what kinds of learning outcomes are measured, and why learning outcomes are measured. Three dimensions are used to structure the literature: Whether the approaches emphasise generic or disciplinary skills and competence, self‐assessment or more objective test based measures (including grades), and how the issue of the contribution from the education program or institution (the value‐added) are discussed. It is pointed out that large scales initiatives that compare institutions and even nations seem to fall short because of the implicit and explicit differences in context, whilst small‐scale approaches suffer from a lack of relevance outside local contexts. In addition, competence (actual level of performance) is often confused with learning (gain and development) in many approaches, laying the ground for false assumptions about institutional process‐quality in higher education.