How many people are there in your family?

Fred is from New York.His parents are with his grandfather and grandmother.Fred is six years old and now he is in a school.His father takes him to school by car every day.So he is never late     

How many universities are there in the United Kingdom? How many should there be?

While the first of the questions posed in the title of this article may seem to involve a simple matter of enumeration, it is more complex than that, as the number of institutions in the United Kingdom that perform at least some of the functions of a university has grown significantly in recent years. The answer given (for the end of the year 2010) is 108, 138 or 162, depending upon the definitions adopted. The second question involves more judgement, and is explored comparatively—both within the United Kingdom and internationally—geographically, economically and historically.     

Changing minds or rhetoric? How students use their many natures of science to talk about evolution

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Recommendations for teaching the nature of science (NOS) are grounded in a deficit view of students and/or the public—wherein people accept...     

How different are students of school psychology and clinical psychology?

Based on many years of training students in both school and clinical psychology, the authors have formulated some impressions of differences and similarities found in these trainees. While generalizations remain tentative and call for research, the students in each of these disciplines seem to present different patterns in cognitive styles, perceptions of clients, conceptions of professional role, and personality characteristics. In personality, the students in these fields often display differences in need for structure, need for external support, social maturity, and desire for autonomous professional functioning. Differences seem to be related to variations in previous work and educational experiences, and to differences in age, sex and marital status. Implications for quality of service offered and training needs are outlined.     

A joint venture model for teaching required courses in ‘ethics and engineering’ to engineering students

We present our experience, spanning more than 10 years of teaching a course on ‘ethics and engineering’ for a group of MSc programmes in applied sciences at Delft University of Technology. The course is taught by a team of teachers from the faculty of Applied Sciences and from the department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, on a basis of complementarity and equality. We call it the Joint Venture teaching model. We conclude that the Joint Venture teaching model, in combination with the contents and teaching methods of the course, are successful. The course is a positively perceived element in the curricula. But we also point to a threat to the Joint Venture teaching model. As it may not be very attractive for staff from a technical faculty to participate in this kind of teaching, the availability of motivated and qualified staff from a technical faculty may be a problem. Mitigation of this threat requires sustained commitment from a technical faculty, and hence this is a necessary condition for a successful and sustained application of our teaching model.     

How many words are enough? Investigating the effect of different configurations of a software scaffold for formulating scientific hypotheses in inquiry-oriented contexts

Instructional Science - We extended research on scaffolds for formulating scientific hypotheses, namely the Hypothesis Scratchpad (HS), in the domain of relative density. The sample comprised of...     

《剑桥少儿英语》How many ducks are there?

教学实录:Step1.W arm upT:H ello,boys and girls.Ss:H ello,M iss M ei.T:Look at our classroom.W hat are there in theclassroom?There isaTV set.There are m any students.Y ou go on,O K?S1:There is a teacher in the classroom.S2:There are four fans in the classroom.…T:W elldone。Let’s sing a song“In the Class-room”.Ss:O K.(教师联系生活实际,引导学生观察身处的教室,以自由问答的形式开门见山地导入句型There is\are…,使英语的生活化教学得到了充分的体现。师生共同演唱“In the C lassroom”,不仅…     

How are parental expectations related to students’ beliefs and their perceived achievement?

Educational Studies in Mathematics - We are developing an approach to teaching important proportionality-based concepts to first grade students in a way that supports students’...     

Self‐advocacy: Encouraging students to become partners in differentiation

The intent of this study was to discover what relationship, if any, exists between creative personality characteristics and psychic overexcitabilities (OEs), as defined by Dabrowski's Theory of Emotional Development. Twenty‐one gifted seventh and eighth grade students were given the Something About Myself (SAM) portion of the Khatena‐Torrance Creative Perception Inventory and the Overexcitabilities Questionnaire. The seven subjects with the highest SAM scores were designated as the High Creative, the seven lowest as the Low Creative group. At test was performed on the group means of the two groups on the five dimensions of overexcitability. Differences between the High Creative and Low Creative groups were significant (p < .025] for imaginational and intellectual OE and (p < .05) for emotional OE. Differences Between the groups on psychomotor and sensual OE were nonsignificant. These findings have implications for parents, teachers, and counselors of creatively gifted students.     

Language of instruction in Tanzania: Why are research findings not heeded?

The issue of language of instruction (LOI) and its effects on education in Tanzanian secondary education has been widely researched since the early 1980s. In 2009, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training proposed a new education and training policy that allows English to be used as LOI from nursery school to tertiary education. The proposed policy goes against what researchers in this area have recommended over the years. In the light of the proposed policy, the author of this article felt the need to review studies done on LOI in Tanzania from 1974 to date, aiming to eliminate or greatly reduce the negative effects of the policy on education in Tanzania. Quoting examples, the paper demonstrates students’ levels of proficiency in English; suggests reasons why governmental policy has over time ignored research findings; and recommends as well as proposes the way forward.     

How are universities responding to demands for an improved learning environment?

Globally, universities are currently facing increased external demands to strengthen and develop their learning environments. The article examines how a sample of Norwegian universities responds to governmental demands concerning establishing good learning environments. Based on document analysis and interviews, the article demonstrates that the concept of the learning environment seems to be interpreted and implemented in a standardised way and that institutional work in this area might suffer from a decoupling between ‘administrative’ and ‘academic’ responsibilities. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the universities studied to a great extent seem to rely on copying and imitating understandings of the concept instead of using it to develop more specific and uniquely local practices. In conclusion, the article calls for more attention to the consequences of specific organisational solutions, and it is argued that more attention should be given to identifying factors that enable or constrain how universities handle external pressure for change.     

How prepared are transition-age deaf and hard of hearing students for adult living? Results of the transition competence battery

One result of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act and related legislation is that most deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students attend local public schools. Although such placements may provide greater access to general education classrooms and curriculum, DHH students' specialized needs are less likely to be addressed. Using the Transition Competence Battery (TCB; Reiman, Bullis, & Davis, 1993), the researchers examined the transition strengths and needs of 53 middle and high school DHH students attending public schools. It was found that the students had substantial transition competence deficits and that none reached the recommended competence levels on more than 4 of the 6 subtests. The TCB is an important transition tool that fulfills requirements under the 2004 Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act Amendments to use age-appropriate and results-oriented transition assessments that document program and intervention outcomes.     

A longitudinal study of engineering students’ approaches to their studies

This longitudinal study draws on data from a larger project and examines how students’ perceptions of their opportunities to influence their study environment may be enacted in approaches aimed at influencing their studies, and whether this changes during the course of their studies. Ten students from a 4.5‐year Master’s programme in Engineering were studied throughout their education by means of semi‐structured in‐depth interviews, which were analysed thematically. The results indicate that students’ perceptions of their study environment were enacted in three approaches aimed at influencing their study environment: (i) to adapt to the environment and to study alone; (ii) to try to change the programme, to create an individual curriculum and to interact with teachers; and (iii) to cooperate with their peers. The thematic analysis suggests that students’ perceptions of their study environment were enacted in the different approaches and that these changed along with external demands in the programme.     

How reliable are students’ evaluations of teaching quality? A variance components approach

The inter-rater reliability of university students’ evaluations of teaching quality was examined with cross-classified multilevel models. Students (N = 480) evaluated lectures and seminars over three years with a standardised evaluation questionnaire, yielding 4224 data points. The total variance of these student evaluations was separated into the variance components of courses, teachers, students and the student/teacher interaction. The substantial variance components of teachers and courses suggest reliability. However, a similar proportion of variance was due to students, and the interaction of students and teachers was the strongest source of variance. Students’ individual perceptions of teaching and the fit of these perceptions with the particular teacher greatly influence their evaluations. This casts some doubt on the validity of student evaluations as indicators of teaching quality and suggests that aggregated evaluation scores should be used with caution.