Rethinking governance from the bottom up: the case of Muslim students in Dutch universities

This paper discusses the results of a study of faculty and university staff at two major universities in the Netherlands: the University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Amsterdam. I sought to understand how faculty viewed the role of the university in relationship to national and European goals promoting social cohesion and the integration of Islamic minorities in Dutch society. To a person, my informants were convinced that European universities did not, and should not, play a major role in promoting social cohesion. Some faculty members were merely indifferent to the problem and the university’s role; others were actively hostile to the idea that the university should address what was clearly, in their minds, a state political problem. The paper discusses the governance implications of promoting social cohesion within these challenging institutional contexts, by building social networks among students and reinterpreting traditional policies of pillarization.

Understanding how local actors implement teacher rotation policy in a Chinese context: a sensemaking perspective

ABSTRACT

The Teacher Rotation Policy (TRP) is a recent teacher policy developed in the context of China. TRP seeks to close China’s teacher quality disparities through rotating ‘high-quality’ urban schoolteachers to teach in hard-to-staff rural schools for a period of time. This qualitative case study examined how five policy actors carried out TRP in one rural county from 2012 to 2015. Guided by a sensemaking perspective, the study generated interview and observational data over three months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2016. The analysis of the data revealed high administrative expenses as well as unintended consequences of rotating teachers across schools. Three sensemaking strategies, namely using argumentation techniques, tailoring policy incentives, and leveraging cultural logics have emerged from the participants’ efforts at enacting this policy. These research findings suggest implications for the efficacy and effects of teacher rotation for equalising teacher workforce in China and internationally.     

Understanding attributional processes in cross-cultural counselling

Attribution is especially important from a cultural perspective in understanding how change occurs in cross-cultural counselling. In this paper a framework adapted from Brickman et al. (1982) is proposed in which attributions are classified along two dimensions: the extent to which the individual believes in personal responsibility for the cause of a problem and the extent to which he or she believes in personal responsibility for its solution. This framework provides a convenient means for understanding the differences in attributions about these behaviours across cultures. Four types of client problems in cross-cultural counselling are reviewed in light of client attributions and corresponding helping strategies.Cross-cultural counselling is a complex endeavour. A number of factors have been identified which address some of the difficulties experienced by both clients and counsellors (Ahia, 1984; Dillard, 1983; Pedersen, Draguns, Lonner & Trimble, 1981). Included among these are the inherently Western nature of counselling, different communication patterns among individuals of different cultures, and the needs and values of the client and counsellor who are from different cultures. In addition, differences in perception and cognitive style across cultures have been demonstrated to affect cross-cultural counselling (Oddou & Mendenhall, 1984). An important cognitive variable is the attribution or explanation that the counsellor and client use regarding the problem, its causes, solution, and treatment.The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between attribution processes and cross-cultural counselling. After a brief overview of attribution theory, Brickman's model of attributions of responsibility (Brickman, Rabinowitz, Karuza, Coates, Cohn, & Kidder, 1982) is adapted for use cross-cultural counselling. This model is then applied to four types of cross-cultural problems. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications and advantages of focusing on attribution as a major theme in cross-cultural counselling.     

An investigation of undergraduates' transformational problem solving strategies: cognitive/metacognitive processes as predictors of holistic/analytic strategies

Recent years have seen increasing interest in the role of metacognition in mathematical problem solving. The study described in this paper explored problem solving strategies used by undergraduates. Furthermore, cognitive/metacognitive processes are predicted each of holistic and analytic strategies. Educational sciences students (n=178) were asked to talk/think aloud while solving two constructed response transformational problems. The protocols were transcribed and analysed, revealing that the cohort used nine strategies. The results showed that a holistic strategy was predicted by five cognitive/metacognitive processes, two of which were suppressors; whilst an analytic strategy was predicted by four cognitive/metacognitive processes, three of which were suppressors.     

Understanding the reading processes: An optometric viewpoint

This article was originally prepared for the benefit of the parents of children with learning delays attending my practice. Most have invariably been around the world trying to find an explanation for their child's problem. It has been deliberately written in a simpler and less technical form. It represents the essence of my understanding of the reading problems faced by these children and integrates my years of experience working with these kids with the numerous lectures and articles encountered over that time     

Designing capacity building of educators in open educational resources integration leads to transformational change

Abstract

While there is growing recognition and acceptance of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP) in teaching and learning, designing for their integration remains very challenging for educators. Adopting OER and OEP in their profession requires significant changes in practitioners’ pedagogical thinking and practices, which can be supported by the design of appropriate professional development experiences. At the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL), significant successes in addressing this challenge have been achieved with the design and development of a rigorous approach and a robust model to support adoption of OER and OEP by practitioners using Scenario-based Learning (SBL). In this paper we explore the efficacy of a scenario-based approach to learning in the integration of OER by practitioners, reflecting on how the SBL approach was tested and refined over three continuing professional development (CPD) interventions conducted at the OUSL over 2013–2017. Based on the findings, we discuss what design strategies of the three CPD interventions best supported the adoption of OER and OEP by practitioners, how effective have been the theoretical constructs and the strategies adopted in the design of CPD interventions, the impacts of the CPD interventions and implications of these experiences for the future.     

Understanding and communicating climate change in metaphors

An analysis of students’ conceptions on climate change shows a great confusion on key aspects of global warming. Even after instruction students often hold conceptions that differ from scientists’ conceptions. Student’s conceptions on global warming were collected in a reanalysis of 24 studies on everyday concepts of global warming as well as in an own interview study with 35 18-year-old students from German grammar schools. Climate-scientists conceptions were analysed from textbooks and research reports in a literature study. All data were analysed by systematic metaphor analysis and qualitative content analysis. Experientialism as a theory of metaphor provided insight in the process of understanding. The analysis of conceptions by experientialism shows that students and scientists have different metaphorical conceptions of global warming – but both refer to the same schemata. These schemata in mind we categorised the conceptions of global warming. Hereby we identified different thinking patterns in students’ and scientists’ conceptions. Following the model of educational reconstruction we took the metaphorical conceptions as a starting point for the development of learning environments. By uncovering the – mostly unconsciously – employed schemata, we gave students access to their metaphorical conceptions and let them reflect on their mental models.     

Understanding collaborative learning processes in new learning environments

Trying to understand the complexity of computer-mediated problem-based learning environments is not easy. Sociocultural theory provides a theoretical framework for understanding such environments because it emphasizes the socially situated nature of learning and the critical role of tools in mediating learning. To examine how different aspects of discourse relate to each other, as well as to the tools being used in the collaborative learning process, it is important to understand how collaborative knowledge building unfolds and how these processes are mediated. This requires going beyond coding individual speech acts. The use of Chronologically-Ordered Representations of Discourse and Tool-Related Activity (CORDTRA) diagrams is one way of achieving this understanding. We use this to study contrasting cases of more and less successful groups using the STELLAR learning environment. STELLAR is an integrated online PBL environment for preservice teachers, containing a learning sciences hypermedia, a library of videocases, and online personal and collaborative spaces. Our analyses suggest that an important locus of differences is how students use resources and engage in different kinds of metacognitive talk and knowledge transforming activities, sometimes to the group’s detriment. Frequency analyses provided an easily interpreted snapshot of each group’s activity. The CORDTRA analyses provide a more dynamic view that helps researchers and teachers better understand how collaborative learning unfolds. Such analyses have implications for understanding new learning environments as well as helping identify where interventions might be needed.     

Scaling up strategies for change: change in formative assessment practices

This article discusses some of the results of the CATCH (Classroom Assessment as a basis for Teacher Change) project. CATCH was meant to develop, apply and scale up a professional development programme designed to change teachers’ instruction by helping them change their formative assessment practices. The authors focus on the analysis of three consecutive rounds of structured interviews with CATCH teachers in two US school districts. Regarding teacher changes through participation in this programme, changes in attitude toward assessment as well as in their classroom practices were found for all participants from both research sites. Some striking attitude changes were related to the so‐called assessment pyramid, a crucial element of the CATCH professional development programme. The interviews also revealed which sources of support teachers thought were important to help sustain these changes in their classrooms, schools and school districts. Evidence of scaling up and dissemination of presented ideas, ideas ‘travelling’ to other curriculum areas, larger groups of teachers and other grade levels was also found. Appropriate organizational structures have enabled ‘travel’ on a district level.     

合并会计报表抵销分录的编制与理解

在合并会计报表的编制中,编制抵销分录是关键,也是实际工作的难点.本文就合并会计报表抵销分录的编制谈一点自己的理解.     

解读《韦护》中的女性意识转变

通过介绍作者丁玲所处的时代背景和作者的自身经历,来分析时代背景等因素对作者作品中女性意识生成所产生的影响,进而分析了丁玲作品《韦护》中的时代新女性特点以及女性意识的产生和在革命与爱情间的选择问题。     

论大学英语阅读理解能力与阅读速度的培养

英语阅读理解能力是一种技能,它不仅是对大量知识和信息的积累,更重要的是对这些知识和信息的获取和广泛运用.英语阅读速度直接影响到人们获取信息的进程.在大学英语教学中加强培养学生阅读理解能力和阅读速度是非常重要的.文章就加强培养大学生阅读能力和提高阅读速度进行了论述.     

Understanding change in higher education as bricolage: how academics engage in curriculum change

The engagement of academics in organizational change in higher education institutions is generally understood as involving a wide range of behaviors, and previous studies have situated academics’ actions at various points along a continuum between passivity and pro-activity. This article complements this approach by asking how—rather than in which contexts—academics act as central agents for change in higher education. Rather than trying to assess their global level of proactivity in a given change situation, we aim at identifying the actions which show them behaving more or less strategically. We argue that the notion of ‘bricolage’—widely used in organization theory—can be useful in this respect. Based on a qualitative study of the creation of 20 post-graduate nanotechnology programs on French university campuses, the article shows that academics participating in curriculum change engage in three distinct forms of bricolage. We suggest that the bricolage lens can identify two types of actions via which academics implement more or less pro-active strategies—identifying a repertoire of resources, and assembling those resources—and so allows us to reflect more deeply on how these actions may demonstrate several forms of agency, as well as several different relationships with norms, in each organizational change situation.     

Understanding teachers' attitudes to change in a Logomathematics environment

We describe the views and attitudes of a group of Portuguese primary teachers as they unfolded during a course aimed at introducing a Logo-mathematical culture. We identify what was at stake for them in interacting with such a culture by focusing on sketches of two participants. The study had threefold aims: to describe and analyse attitudes towards mathematics and mathematics teaching; to examine the interactions between participants' attitudes and their activities on the course; and to investigate what kinds of influences the course had on their attitudes.     

Understanding change in higher education: an archetypal approach

During the past three decades, higher education institutions have been changing, moving away from the traditional bureaucratic archetype towards a more managerialist one. Empirical research already demonstrated that organisations tend to be in a hybrid area of archetypal change. Considering the specific case of a government-imposed reform in Portugal, and using a case study approach of six public universities, this study aims to explore archetypal hybridism through the lens of two main dimensions: systems and structures and interpretive scheme. The theoretical background lies on academic literature on organisational change in higher education and specifically on archetype theory. The findings drawn from document analysis and interviews outline the main characteristics of the hybrid archetype that we chose to name efficient-collegiality.     

神话"女娲补天"之谜破解

神话(神奇故事)的起源往往与远古的宗教事件或者神圣事件有关,在"女娲补天"故事里,无论是娲,还是五色石,还是淫水,均贯穿着一个共同的主题,即人类的生育,而生育又与人类的婚姻密切相连。"女娲补天"其实就是"女娲治水",而"女娲治水"就是治理当时人类的婚姻状态——由只知其母不知其父的群婚制转为一夫一妻制。这个神话曲折地记载了发生在远古时代的这一神圣事件。