We!Design: A student-centred participatory methodology for the design of educational applications

The development of educational applications has always been a challenging and complex issue, mainly because of the complications imposed by the cognitive and psychological aspects of student–computer interactions. This article presents a methodology, named We!Design, that tries to encounter the complexity of educational applications development from within the participatory design framework. The methodology enables computer literate students and designers to cooperate in the design of applications that (1) enhance typical educational processes for which students have extensive experience in, such as note taking or assessment, and (2) are well‐suited to the technological, social and cultural particularities of each educational environment. The methodology can be easily applied in real educational contexts and consists of two phases. During the first phase, students participate in short‐duration design sessions where they formulate needs, tasks and interface prototypes for the educational application under examination. In the second phase, the designers systematically analyse and then integrate student suggestions. In order to evaluate the methodology, it was applied in the design of two educational applications: an electronic assessment environment and a course website. A total of 86 undergraduate informatics students participated in 22 4‐hour design sessions. The methodology was evaluated by collecting students' responses through questionnaires and by introspection on the video recordings of the design sessions. The design sessions proved to be a very intriguing experience for the students while the methodology's products managed to respond to their personal needs and expectations in an efficient and effective way.     

A quasi-experimental research on the educational value of performance assessment

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that performance assessment increases educational value in teachinglearning activities using a quasi-experimental research design. In this research, the three measurement criteria of educational value are suggested as ‘improvement & advancement,’ ‘sincerity & enthusiasm,’ and ‘individuality & wholeness.’ A pre-test was administered to 4 classes (156 students) in 7th grade. Classes were divided into an experimental group (2 classes, 79 students) and a control group (2 classes, 77 students), according to the pre-test results. Only the experimental group was involved in the performance assessment for 9 weeks. The results of this study show that performance assessment has a positive effect on the educational value of teaching-learning activities in schools.     

Combining Economic and Conjoint Analysis to Determine Optimal Academic Services

In today's era of global competition, organizations must manage their functions and activities in a manner such that they are responsive to customers' needs and can provide excellence in service to the customer while also being efficient and cost conscious. These issues are extremely common in corporate organizations, but such concerns are equally relevant in service industries, including institutions of higher education. This study is conducted at a private, undergraduate institution of higher education. We utilize focus group evaluation and conjoint analysis combined with economic analysis in the form of a newly designed preferred utility economic cost diagram to pick the ideal services that should be provided to enrolled students at the institution. The package of ideal services accounts for preferred utility expressed by students and a new methodology (preferred utility function) to balance these against financial considerations to optimize services and financial gains for a college adult education program. This combination of focus groups and mathematical techniques can be easily employed by educational institutes.     

康德的实践教育学:在“理想”与“科学”之间

康德是伟大的教育学家,他的教育学对后世产生了深远的影响。在康德那里,就教育学的性质而言,教育学是基于实践哲学的实践教育学,没有实践哲学作为根基,也就没有教育学的存在。这一实践教育学又在"理想"与"科学"之间。教育学是"理想",主要体现在康德基于人的所有向善禀赋的完全实现上,而这一实现又只能通过"类的教育"而不能通过"个别的教育",由此康德的教育学具有了一种世界主义的理想色彩。教育学是"科学",主要体现在康德对教育实验、教育方法论的强调,以及对机械的教育学说的批判当中。不过,康德的整全的"人性观"又使得他的"科学"不是严格的"实验科学"。     

Development of e-career guidance programme for secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State

This study developed and field tested an electronic career guidance package for secondary schools, the e-Career Guidance System. The study was an educational research and development study and thus utilised the instrumentation research design. The formative evaluation of the developed programme was carried out using the pretest–posttest control-group quasi-experimental methodology. The researchers used the Students Career Awareness Questionnaire in collecting data for the experiment. The questionnaire was standardised, with a reliability index of .87. Sixty senior secondary two (SS 2) students were selected for the quasi-experiment using the purposive sampling technique. Thirty students were randomly assigned to the control group and the other thirty to the intervention group. The pretest and posttest data collected were analysed and used in testing the four null hypotheses in the study using analysis of covariance statistics. The results obtained showed that the e-Career Guidance System developed in this study produced a significant difference in the vocational self-awareness and career awareness of the sample in the experimental group in contrast to the sample in the control group. It was further observed from the analysis that gender did not interfere with the gains from the e-Career Guidance System. Based on these outcomes, the researchers concluded that the developed e-Career Guidance System has validity and could be used in the career guidance of male and female secondary school students in Akwa Ibom State and beyond.     

大学生创新实验活动的实践与思考——以西南交通大学峨眉校区为例

西南交通大学峨眉校区开展了＂大学生创新实验活动＂,通过活动搭建实验平台,引领更多学生和教师进入实验室,并突出学生个性化培养,为毕业设计和竞赛质量的提高奠定了基础,以实验活动为依托,推进CD IO工程教育模式的实施。但实验活动只是学生个性化培养的一种新的尝试,由于学校财力、物力的局限性,从中受益的学生也只有极少数;实验活...     

跨文化数学教育研究综述

从我国民族地区数学课程教材改革、双语教学、学生数学学习心理研究、跨文化数学教育理论研究与方法等方面综述了我国近20年来跨文化数学教育研究取得的成就。目前,对我国少数民族学生数学学习心理研究已达到较高水准,数学课堂的跨文化教育实验研究——中小学＂数学情境与提出问题＂教学实验颇具中国特色并在实践层面产生重要影响。进一步还需研究构建符合少数民族学生思维特点的数学课程体系,编写民族文字数学教材,加强少数民族双语数学教学研究与高素质双语教师队伍建设。     

Students with special educational needs within PISA

Abstract

Since 2003, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has included students with special educational needs (SEN), identified as those with functional disabilities, those with cognitive/behavioural/emotional disabilities and those with limited test language proficiency. While the number of countries and included students has increased with each test administration, the percentage of students with SEN remains extremely low. The inclusion of these students is not an intentional PISA design parameter but rather a response to the interaction between the need to maintain strict sampling criteria and country-level educational mandates to include SEN students in standardised testing. Based on the analysis of student participation and performance across four cycles of PISA (2003–2012), this paper examines the challenges that exist in current PISA procedures related to: student sampling, eligibility and identification; assessment methodology; and reporting results. PISA practices, their limitations for scientific inferences and recommendations for design improvements are given.     

现象学：教育技术研究的第三种范式

在系统分析教育技术常用的两种研究范式的基础上,结合哲学史的梳理,从方法论、研究方式和具体研究方法三个层面对现象学进行了分析,指出现象学是教育技术研究的第三种范式。在方法论层面,现象学范式的创新性突破在于穿透了“一般”和“个别”的割裂;在研究方式层面,现象学范式遵循质性研究的模式,擅长对微观体验的揭示;在具体研究方法层面,现象学范式综合运用访谈、体验报告等手段,使研究结论具有建构性。在此基础上,根据对教育技术研究特征的分析,明确了现象学之于教育技术研究的方法论价值在于贯通融合,即有利于教育技术研究的定位融合、视域融合和研究取向融合。     

教育国际化背景下高职ESP教学创新与实践研究——以酒店英语课程为例

高职ESP(专门用途英语)教学创新与实践主要体现在教材建设、教学设计、评价体系三个方面。以酒店英语课程为例,在教材建设上,应新编实践性、趣味性较强的教材;在教学设计上,应将内容教学法与项目教学法相结合,利用各种教育资源,鼓励学生交互学习和自主学习;在评价体系方面,应构建一个由教师与学生共同参与、结果评价与过程评价相结合的多元评价体系。     

重在创新——构建艺术设计专业实验教学体系

艺术设计专业的实验教学有别于综合性大学或工科院校的实验教学。构建艺术设计专业创新人才培养的实验教学体系的关键,是从"实验"概念、培养目标上对实验教学要有新的认识,并依据艺术设计教育的客观规律,着重培养学生的创新思维和创新能力,从而引发他们自觉尝试并完成对课程方案的"无形"构建与"有形"塑造。     

Dilemmas of Participatory Enquiry: a case study of method‐in‐action

The purpose of this paper is to problematize the notion of participatory enquiry as a legitimate form of educational evaluation. Using a case study of a new teacher education program the authors describe how they negotiated and enacted an alternative evaluation methodology within a traditional context. The evaluation process was intended to actively engage faculty members and students, as well as representatives of the educational system and the broader community, in self‐reflection and self‐evaluation of their own program. The authors then attempt to turn the methodology back on itself by critically analyzing their own participatory process in terms of a number of dilemmas that arose during the three‐year course of the evaluation. These dilemmas were addressed directly as political issues of method as a means of eliciting discussion and debate about the appropriateness of various forms of enquiry in the assessment and evaluation of higher education.     

Value added based on educational positions in Dutch secondary education

Estimating added value as an indicator of school effectiveness in the context of educational accountability often occurs using test or examination scores of students. This study investigates the possibilities for using scores of educational positions as an alternative indicator. A number of advantages of a value added indicator based on educational positions of students can be formulated, such as: (a) the societal significance of educational position as output measure; (b) the fact that a single indicator can be estimated for an entire school in a differentiated educational system, where not all schools provide education in all tracks; and (c) the expectation that value added based on educational positions leads to other incentives for schools than value added based on test scores. Empirical analysis of Dutch cohort data (VOCL'99) for secondary education showed considerable differences in effectiveness between schools in the positions of students. Furthermore, differential school effects were found for both socio‐economic status and prior achievement. The phenomena of differential school effects for socio‐economic status and prior achievement are linked to differences between schools in the kind of tracks in which the schools provide schooling.     

COLLABORATING WITH PEOPLE TO STUDY "THE POPULAR": IMPLEMENTING PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH STRATEGIES IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

This article seeks to describe the theoretical foundation upon which the author has pursued research into questions of how religious educators could and should interact with popular culture. The methodology employed is most often labelled "participatory action research," and is used in an attempt to bring together the various disciplines of theology, psychology, media studies, and religious education into one conversation that sheds light on the dilemmas facing religious educators in a mass-mediated context. In many ways the choice of which methodology to use to pursue these questions has its roots in the situatedness of the author's own educational journey. Locating herself in a particular context leads into a discussion of the distinctions between "method," "methodology," and "epistemology"; and from there into a very brief consideration of "standpoint" epistemology and its utility in the convergence of feminist practice and religious educational practice. From there her understanding of participatory action research, and how that methodology has worked to structure a collaboration with other religious educators around the use of media literacy within religious education is explicitly described.     

The effects of computer programming on high school students’ reasoning skills and mathematical self-efficacy and problem solving

In this paper we investigate whether computer programming has an impact on high school student’s reasoning skills, problem solving and self-efficacy in Mathematics. The quasi-experimental design was adopted to implement the study. The sample of the research comprised 66 high school students separated into two groups, the experimental and the control group according to their educational orientation. The research findings indicate that there is a significant difference in the reasoning skills of students that participated in the “programming course” compared to students that did not. Moreover, the self-efficacy indicator of students that participated in the experimental group showed a significant difference from students in the control group. The results however, failed to support the hypothesis that computer programming significantly enhances student’s problem solving skills.     

Using Workflow for Projects in Higher Education

The WWW is increasingly used as a medium to support education and training. A course at the University of Twente in which groups of students collaborate in the design and production of multimedia instructional materials has now been supported by a website since 1995. Workflow was integrated with other components in the website to investigate whether workflow can help instructors and students to have a better overview of group progress. Our evaluation shows that the introduction of workflow does provide added value. Another outcome of the experiment is that the transfer of a business application (workflow) into the educational domain has highlighted some differences and similarities between educational and business processes. This article explores some of these issues as highlighted by the application of workflow in education.     

Investigating the Effectiveness of an Educational Card Game for Learning How Human Immunology Is Regulated

This study was conducted in an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of an educational card game we developed for learning human immunology. Two semesters of evaluation were included to examine the impact of the game on students’ understanding and perceptions of the game-based instruction. Ninety-nine senior high school students (11th graders) were recruited for the first evaluation, and the second-semester group consisted of 72 students (also 11th graders). The results obtained indicate that students did learn from the educational card game. Moreover, students who learned from playing the game significantly outperformed their counterparts in terms of their understanding of the processes and connections among different lines of immunological defense (first semester: t = 2.92, p < 0.01; second semester: t = 3.45, p < 0.01) according to the qualitative analysis of an open-ended question. They generally had positive perceptions toward the game-based instruction and its learning efficiency, and they felt the game-based instruction was much more interesting than traditional didactic lectures (first semester: t = 2.79, p < 0.01; second semester: t = 2.41, p < 0.05). This finding is evidence that the educational card game has potential to facilitate students’ learning of how the immune system works. The implications and suggestions for future work are further discussed.

Play is necessary for the development of higher intelligence; for if we were provided with perfected instincts, as insects are, life would be automatic and there would be no such thing as education and no increase of ability or intelligence, either in the individual or the species.— Mitchell and Mason, 1935 , 56–57

     

借鉴英国BTEC对基因工程课程教学改革的新启示

文章借鉴BTEC的教学模式和方法,在生物技术专业课程基因工程教学中从课程设置、教学实施举措、实验设计和考核评价等方面进行改革实践,探索适应社会需要的复合型生物技术专业人才培养的教学新模式。     

Enhancing students’ choreography and reflection in university dance courses: A mobile technology-assisted peer assessment approach

Choreography is an important and challenging educational objective in dance courses. However, most previous technology-enhanced learning studies for dance education mainly focused on students’ dance skills, while the issue concerning the approaches to promoting students’ choreographic performance has generally been ignored. To address this issue, the present study developed a mobile technology-assisted peer assessment approach based on social constructivism for use in a university general education dance routine choreography class. A total of 266 university students were divided into an experimental group and a control group. The experiment lasted for 15 weeks and involved two rounds of peer assessment. The results showed that mobile peer assessment could significantly enhance the innovative competence of dance routines and dance skills. In addition, according to the students’ feedback, the dance routine choreography class was conducive to improving social skills, innovative competence, and intrinsic motivation, while mobile peer assessment could assist students in understanding accurate evaluation criteria, reflecting on their own in a more objective way, and broadening the aspects of appreciating the work.