Pond life that ‘know their place’: exploring teaching and learning support assistants’ experiences through positioning theory

Teaching and learning support assistants (TLSAs) are notoriously underpaid and undervalued as members of school workforces in England and elsewhere in the world, where the discourse of support has worked to legitimize their poor status. This article reports and explores empirical findings through the lens of positioning theory. This theoretical approach has revealed ways in which the positions occupied by TLSAs are consolidated in social acts and discursive practices that contribute to a narrative that is shared and understood by those positioned and those positioning. The multiplicity of, and sometimes competing, positions occupied by TLSAs are revealed through different readings of the collective storylines of pond life and knowing one’s place that determine a set of social and occupational practices. These serve to illustrate the discursive fights TLSAs were engaged in to assert their professionalism in schools and to challenge their low status.     

Power,pedagogies and lifelong learning: reading between the lines

The UK English subject benchmark statements express the discipline’s commitment to contribute to an ‘ideal of lifelong learning’. In this article, I consider what this commitment may mean for practice and explore why its attainment is complex and contentious. In doing so, I examine some of the ways in which lecturers’ professional identities are experienced and enacted in educational settings where students have their first introduction to higher education English Studies. I suggest that the pedagogic principles and practices which lecturers describe need to be seen as deeply embedded within networks of social and discipline-based discourses and social and institutional relations.     

联通主义学习教学交互研究新视角：行动者网络理论

联通主义学习是一种以复杂理论、自组织理论、混沌理论和网络理论为基础理论,以社会化网络环境为支撑,以复杂信息环境中的教学交互为核心,以螺旋式的知识创新和网络扩展与优化为目标的学习。联通主义学习中教学交互的复杂性和特殊性,在一定程度上决定了以知识接受、传递或建构为核心的传统学习理论在推进联通主义学习教学交互研究方面面临困境,社会学领域的行动者网络理论为破解这一难题提供了新的理论视角和方法论指导。行动者网络理论所强调的“对称性”“转译”“网络”“网络效应”等核心观点与联通主义学习理论有很多相似之处。它带给联通主义学习教学交互研究的启示主要包括6个方面：（1）对称性原则是指导联通主义教学交互研究的基本原则;（2）跟踪行动者所形成的网络,是研究联通主义学习教学交互的基本步骤;（3）找到网络形成中的必经之点是联通主义教学交互研究的要点;（4）网络的空间性和时间性是联通主义教学交互研究的重要视角;（5）关系思维和过程思维是联通主义教学交互研究的重要思维方式;（6）网络行动化研究是联通主义教学交互研究的新方法。     

成人英语学习风格特点及教学对策研究

成功地进行英语教学是每一个成人学习者以及教学工作者所追求和努力的目标。但实际情况是投入和收效不成正比,这成为困扰成人英语教学工作的一大难题。本文试图从研究学习风格的角度来探讨成人英语教学,从而提出相关的教学对策。     

在《综合英语》课程教学中促进学生学习的自主性

在《综合英语》课程教学中,以学生为中心,以教师为主导,以良好的环境为基础,以贴切的材料为保障,以高效的活动为途径,以多维度评价为工具,促进学生学习自主性.     

生命体验与艺术追求:法国导演尼古拉·瓦尼埃的电影视界

自1995年执导《雪的孩子》开始,法国导演尼古拉·瓦尼埃便将电影镜头对准大自然,聚焦人与自然和谐共处、地球家园生态平衡等问题,他通过温情写实的主题阐释、自然平淡的叙事方式、现实主义的创作手法,探讨人与自然、人与动物的关系。文章借助于“行动者网络理论”来分析瓦尼埃电影中人与非人要素的共构与转译。同时,依托中国传统儒家思想中“钓而不纲,弋不射宿”的动物伦理观与“和实生物,同则不继”的生命哲学观,来认识瓦尼埃电影中尊重生命的精神特质与价值取向,并思考瓦尼埃电影的人文主义精神与生态思想观念。     

基于PBL的网络学习共同体的构建

基于问题的学习(PBL)和网络学习共同体是当前网络教育领域的研究热点。本文从介绍网络学习共同体和PBL的概念入手,设计出基于PBL的网络学习共同体的模型,并对其要素进行研究,结合PBL的理论,论述其学习过程,提高网络教学的质量。     

面向学习者的学习技术设计

面向学习者的学习技术旨在以信息与沟通技术(ICT)设计为中介,创设一种能够引发深度学习、孕育学习者共同体、促进学习技术自主创新的复杂学习环境,以培育学习者的终身学习能力。本文主要介绍了与此相关的思想、观点和方法。     

多元智能理论视角下的数学课堂教学

文章依据加德纳的多元智能理论,着重探讨其对数学课堂教学的教学目的、教学内容、教学模式、课堂评价标准以及在数学教学中注重数学与其他学科的联系等方面的影响,来改革传统的数学课堂教学,以在数学教学中发展学生的多元智能,从而更好地适应新一轮数学教育改革,真正实现不同的人在数学上有不同的发展.     

Turning the tide: creating Professional Learning Communities (PLC) to improve teaching practice and learning in South African public schools

Abstract

Poor learner performance in South African schools raises concerns related to lack of commitment and accountability from school leaders and teachers with no common vision to promote a culture of high learner performance. This paper provides a literature overview of research available on the impact of professional learning communities (PLC) on effective teaching and practices to promote higher levels of learning amongst students; the nature of PLCs; their essential characteristics, developmental stages and challenges; and an assessment of the benefits of PLC in schools and the challenges of PLC from other researchers’ observations. PLCs are necessary to encourage collaborative teamwork on essential outcomes and intervention activities in learning. Finally, I conclude by exploring how South African schools can benefit from the practices of professional learning communities which endeavour to improve teaching practices and poor learner achievement.     

语言学习策略理论与大学英语教学改革

大学英语教学改革涉及包括新教材的选用、课程的设置、教学手段的更新、教学模式的变化以及四、六级考试题型的改革等诸多方面的内容,本文试图在研究学习策略理论的基础之上,探讨如何将该理论纳入大学英语教学改革的各环节之中。     

THE ZOMBIE STALKING ENGLISH SCHOOLS: SOCIAL CLASS AND EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY

ABSTRACT:  The aim of this article is to reclaim social class as a central concern within education, not in the traditional sense as a dimension of educational stratification, but as a powerful and vital aspect of both learner and wider social identities. Drawing on historical and present evidence, a case is made that social inequalities arising from social class have never been adequately addressed within schooling. Recent qualitative research is used to indicate some of the ways in which class is lived in classrooms. The article also raises concerns about the ability of the education system to positively address social class in the classroom when contemporary initial teacher training rarely engages with it as a relevant concern within schooling.     

成人高校学生外语自主学习能力的培养

自主学习就是学习者对自己的学习负责的能力。外语习得成功离不开自主学习,而成人高校学生自主学习意识十分淡薄,自主学习能力需要进一步培养。因此了解自主学习的含义,结合成人特点培养其自主学习能力,提高学习效率,对我国成人教学改革具有十分重要的意义。     

归因论及其教学应用的研究

归因论摈弃传统的学习理论从外部研究学习动机的方法,将研究重心从外部转移到内部,关注学习者的内心感受,把学习者自己对成功与失败的归因认识看做是动机的根本原因;提出影响学习行为的是学习者对学习的感知而不是学习结果;主张从内因人手来研究学习者自身的归因认识。在课堂上,教师要努力建立一个以学习过程和学习能力、而不是以学习成绩为目标的课堂结构,避免引导学习者把学习结果归因于天资或缺乏天资;让学习者相信,学习是通过努力、创造和他人合作来完成的。     

The discrepancy between teachers’ beliefs and practices: a study of kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong

This study examines the discrepancy between teachers’ beliefs and practices in Hong Kong kindergartens and the factors that influence this discrepancy. Three kindergartens, considered by the Hong Kong Education Bureau to be of varying quality, were chosen from different areas of Hong Kong. Questionnaires about teaching beliefs were administered to 35 teachers from these kindergartens. These quantitative data were supplemented with qualitative data gathered during individual interviews with five of the teachers and the three principals. In addition, a focus group of five early childhood education specialists commented on the videotaped observations of the classroom practices of the five interviewed teachers. The findings showed that all of the teachers endorsed the advocated teaching beliefs, but there was a discrepancy between their beliefs and practices. The most significant factors contributing to the discrepancy were teachers’ professional education and their attitudes towards personal teaching introspection. Teachers were also under pressure from parents’ curriculum requests, demands on the children’s academic abilities and expectations for a strong link to Primary One. Enhanced early childhood education training that helps teachers to be introspective about their own teaching practices and beliefs is recommended. Government support is also required to teach parents what constitutes a high-quality learning environment for young children.     

Education policy and the ‘ideal learner’: producing recognisable learner-subjects through early years assessment

This article examines how education policy, in the form of a statutory assessment system used in the first year of primary schools, defines the ‘ideal learner’. This ideal model is important because it prescribes the characteristics and skills a child needs to display in order to be recognisable as a learner. An analysis of the content of the assessment itself is used alongside ethnographic data from classrooms where the assessment is conducted, to demonstrate how the values inherent in the assessment and its associated practices reflect neoliberal discourses. Rational choice, self-promotion and individual responsibility for learning are all valued within this framework, and children’s transitions into recognisable student-subjects are dependent on their adoption of these values. It is argued in conclusion that this restrictive notion of what a ‘good learner’ looks like can work to systematically exclude some children from positions of success.     

探究性学习在组合数学教学中的尝试

探究性学习是以问题为核心展开教学过程的一种高智能学习方式,而探究性教学是基于探究性学习方式的教学。本文以组合数学中组合恒等式的教学为例谈谈探究性学习在教学中的实施。