Lessons Learned from Exemplary Schools

This article presents lessons learned about successful professional development for promoting technology integration from eight exemplary schools. Through a qualitative investigation into school leaders’ and teachers’ intentional goals of improving student engagement and achievement, formal, informal, and individual opportunities are described from these schools. The data led to a deep understanding of the ways these schools implemented PD; in most schools purposeful reconfiguration of the entire curriculum was a corollary to the professional development. We found that the most effective models incorporated district wide, school based, formal and informal opportunities that accommodated preferences in both learning and delivery models.     

Cognitive Tutors: Lessons Learned

This article reviews the 10-year history of tutor development based on the advanced computer tutoring theory (J. R. Anderson, 1983, 1993). We developed production system models in ACT of how students solved problems in LISP, geometry, and algebra. Computer tutors were developed around these cognitive models. Construction of these tutors was guided by a set of eight principles loosely based on the ACT theory. Early evaluations of these tutors usually, but not always, showed significant achievement gains. Best case evaluations showed that students could achieve at least the same level of proficiency as conventional instruction in one third of the time. Empirical studies showed that students were learning skills in production-rule units and that the best tutorial interaction style was one in which the tutor provides immediate feedback, consisting of short and directed error messages. The tutors appear to work better if they present themselves to students as nonhuman tools to assist learning rather than as emulations of human tutors. Students working with these tutors display transfer to other environments to the degree that they can map the tutor environment into the test environment. These experiences have coalesced into a new system for developing and deploying tutors. This system involves selecting a problem-solving interface, constructing a curriculum under the guidance of a domain expert, designing a cognitive model for solving problems in that environment, building instruction around the productions in that model, and deploying the tutor in the classroom. New tutors are being built in this system to achieve the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards for high-school mathematics in an urban setting.     

Lessons Learned from Large-Scale Randomized Experiments

Large-scale randomized studies provide the best means of evaluating practical, replicable approaches to improving educational outcomes. This article discusses the advantages, problems, and pitfalls of these evaluations, focusing on alternative methods of randomization, recruitment, ensuring high-quality implementation, dealing with attrition, and data analysis. It also discusses means of increasing the chances that large randomized experiments will find positive effects, and interpreting effect sizes.     

Developing Faculty Research Skills: Lessons Learned

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this reflective commentary is to describe and analyze how efforts were made to engage polytechnic nursing faculty in a multi-institutional, interprofessional research project, and the effectiveness of methods used. We describe the professional development and project management activities provided along with our reflection as to their effectiveness. The faculty members worked at a polytechnic, a small vocational and technical institution in Western Canada with approximately 14,000 full-time students, where faculty were not required to participate in research. Assumptions were made about their interest, knowledge, and ability regarding the research process. These assumptions led the investigators to implement professional development activities that were not effective. Spontaneous informal, anecdotal feedback from some faculty members to the authors, and the authors’ own observations, informed the results. Assumptions about novice faculty research skills may not be accurate; therefore, an effort should be made to perform a pre-assessment of these skills, to create a lesson plan, to assess the effectiveness of teaching strategies, and to evaluate the effectiveness of supportive measures in order to address learning needs.     

Lessons Learned From a Consultation Process Overseas

In this commentary I discuss three international school consultation experiences, highlighting aspects that serve as lessons for professional development and the implementation of effective and helpful strategies that meet the needs of children and youth in school systems. Relationships developed and maintained between the consulting teams and the consultees were oriented toward three intervention goals: psychoeducational services, well-being in adolescents, and instructional procedures. In general, the projects described in the three articles were successful and support the utility of international systems-level consultation as a means of helping improve the quality of outcomes in the school contexts in which they worked. I end my commentary by providing some general observations and questions to be considered when engaging in international school consultation.     

新督导模式带来的启示

新督导模式是通过借鉴发达国家和地区教育督导的先进经验,特别是中英甘肃基础教育项目的成果,结合西南地区项目县的实际情况,融入新的督导理念和方法,探索和形成新的中小学学校督导模式。论述新督导模式与传统督导模式的区别与联系,指出新模式对督导工作的启示。     

Lessons Learned About Standards-Based Teacher Evaluation Systems

In this article, I draw several lessons learned about how to assess student, classroom, and teacher effects, with a specific focus on performance-based teacher evaluations. One lesson is that hierarchical linear modeling techniques are helpful in sorting out the magnitude of impacts at these three different levels of the education system. The other major lessons are reflected in the conclusion that research findings suggest that educators have learned how to design and operate performance-based teacher assessments that have sufficient reliability and validity to use for consequential decisions such as triggering pay increases.     

Bringing Research Into Educational Practice: Lessons Learned

Bringing research into educational practice is necessary but does not happen automatically. The Transfercenter for Neuroscience and Learning, at the University of Ulm in Germany, is set up to transfer (neuro)scientific knowledge into educational practice. In doing so we have learned why this does not happen automatically, and have tried to make sure it happens anyway. We have realized that transferring research into educational practice needs a special research approach, which we suggest could be labeled “translational research” as seen in medical research. We have also realized that transfer requires a special type of scientist. We try to hire generalists who work and think interdisciplinarily and who are committed to providing a service to practitioners. Finally, we feel that neuroscience provides a possible foundation for learning sciences.     

An Alternative Professional Development Program: Lessons Learned

Abstract. This article describes how a group of small liberal arts college faculty embraced the opportunity to create a faculty learning circle as an alternative professional development program. We provide a review of the program, discuss the lessons learned, and offer recommendations for future efforts in developing a similar faculty development program. Analysis of participant responses to the learning circle indicated that the experience met all their intended objectives. Faculty learning circles contribute to the participants' professional development and could be incorporated into any college campus.     

李吉林成长历程的启示

李吉林老师是一个不倦的学习。她刻苦学习马克思主义教育理论，学习语言学、美学、现代心理学和脑科学的最新成果。她善于从外语教学中运用情境、进行语言训练得到启示，借鉴我国古代论中的“意境说”，吸取传统教学中注重读写以及近代直观教学的有效资源。她从暗示导向原理、情感驱动原理、角色转换原理及心理场整合原理，找到情境教育的理论支撑。她不仅向书本学习，向专家、领导、同行学习．还向孩子学习。     

德国理工大学联盟战略管理的实践及启示

大学联盟已经成为世界工程教育改革与发展的新方向。TU9以保证德国科学、技术和工业的领先地位、提升德国国际竞争力为使命,以推动工程和自然科学领域的发展、培养卓越的工程技术人才为战略目标。TU9通过强化声誉效应、异质资源、合作基础的内部优势,利用国际流动壁垒消除、国家战略支持外部机遇实施国际化战略和质量保障战略。借鉴德国经验,明晰战略目标以打造理念共同体、立足战略环境以实现特色发展、提升战略管理能力以推进联盟治理现代化是我国一流工程教育联盟建设的关键。     

Intelligent Job Aids For Professionals: Lessons Learned From Medicine

With the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, computer science, and information management seen today, it is becoming increasingly feasible to improve the performance of professional white collar workers with intelligent job aids (i.e., expert systems). Already, performance technologists are advocating and predicting their wide spread adoption. Nevertheless, while such high tech performance interventions are relatively new to business, they have existed in medical research labs and clinics for nearly 20 years. Because of the almost ideal match between medical decision making and the emergent capabilities of knowledge engineering, artificial intelligence researchers made medicine one of their major testing grounds. In this article, I summarize the use of intelligent job aids in medicine as a source of insights for anticipating how they can and should be used by professionals in other areas. These insights include three generalizations which form the conclusion of the paper: (a) intelligent job aids must address a real need, (b) they must be compatible with professionals' larger “performance systems,” and (c) the adoption of intelligent job aids will depend as much on future trends as on the professionals' needs or performance systems.     

Using Performance Indicators to Evaluate Training Effectiveness: Lessons Learned

There is always a general interest in the evaluation of the effects of training on the overall goals of an organization. This paper describes an approach being taken in the nuclear power industry concerning the effectiveness of training on safety. Several approaches to the development of performance indicators as means for monitoring this effectiveness are described. We conclude that the structured use of the opinions of subject–matter experts is virtually the only way to permit success.     

My Journey With Annemarie Roeper: Lessons Learned Along the Way

For over 70 years Annemarie Roeper was able to breathe new life into many aspects of giftedness and gifted education. Capturing the magic of such a charismatic and visionary leader is a challenge. However, stories and storytelling provide a pathway into the narrative of Annemarie’s life as it evolved from young adulthood to elderhood. This article provides the lessons learned during a long-standing friendship and insights into her multidimensional personality.     

Lessons Learned from the First Year of an Urban Charter School

This prospective, longitudinal study showed that an intense educational program significantly improved academic performance in underserved students who were selected solely for their desire to participate in the program and their parents' willingness to support them. Mean performance in six representative components of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement–Revised improved at a rate that substantially exceeded one year for each year in the program. During three years of attendance, performance levels increased from below to more than two years above grade level.     

考试与评价的国际经验与启示

在国际考试与评价行业的发展历程中,数学建模推进了理论创新,人工智能等信息技术的发展促进了测评技术的进步,学术上的高标准和有限责任的运行机制规范了测评行业的健康发展,大数据的深度挖掘保障了测评的质量;但是,在大众化与个性化的兼顾、理论与实践的结合、测评标杆与测验等值的配合等方面也有过不少教训。国际考试与评价的经验和教训对我国的启示是:加强考试与评价的专业化建设,尽快建立行业标准,保障不同类型测评的质量,科研与科普要双管齐下,考试与评价应当相辅相成。