谈和谐课堂的构建

研究表明,学生80％的学习困难与过重的压力有关,而解放这些压力,往往有助于学习效率的提高和创造潜能的开发。     

From ‘brain drain’ to ‘brain bridging’: transnational higher education development and graduate employment in China

ABSTRACT

In the past few decades, the internationalisation of higher education has become an increasingly popular trend across different parts of the globe. The fierce global competition and the aggravating unemployment rate, coupled with low teaching and research quality revealed by universities in mainland China, have inevitably compelled a growing number of Chinese students, in particular the financially-able ones, to pursue higher education overseas or to enrol in transnational higher education offered in mainland China. Realising the severe problem of ‘brain drain’ and having a strong conviction to transform its higher education system to become more international for enhancing the global competitiveness of its higher education system, the Chinese government has made different attempts to enhance higher education quality by learning and incorporating new ideas and practices from overseas institutions, particularly encouraging the development of transnational higher education to change the higher education landscape. With particular reference to examining the way these students evaluate their future prospects in choosing different alternatives for further studies in higher education, this study sets out against the context briefly outlined above to critically analyse the motivation of students who choose to study abroad or enrol in Sino-foreign cooperation universities. This study also discusses the extent to which the internationalisation of higher education would affect the situations of ‘brain drain’ and graduate employment in China.     

General University Requirements at Hong Kong Polytechnic University: evaluation findings based on student focus groups

Under the new four-year undergraduate programme, a general education framework titled ‘General University Requirements’ (GUR) has been developed and implemented since 2012/2013 at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). To evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the GUR in its first year, focus group interviews with students were carried out. In 13 focus groups, 62 first-year students from eight faculties/schools who took GUR subjects in 2012/2013 academic year were interviewed by trained researchers. Results showed that students generally had good perceptions of the GUR in terms of the subject content, teaching methods and the overall effectiveness of the subjects. The interactive teaching and learning initiatives adopted in GUR subjects were particularly appreciated, although students expressed minor concerns on the administration of GUR subjects. The results suggest that the first-year implementation of the GUR at PolyU was generally smooth and successful from the perspectives of the students.     

Developing a student-led school mental health strategy

Although there is increasing interest in promoting mental health and wellbeing within education, to date, the voices of young people appear to have been almost completely overlooked in the development of school-based mental health practices. This is despite increasing focus on young people’s participation; and the fact that young people may be best positioned to understand the pressures of contemporary society. This paper, co-authored by educational psychologists (EPs), school students and the school vice-principal, documents the development of a student-led mental health initiative within a high-achieving girls’ grammar school, led by students aged 12–18. Following EP input, the students devised a whole-school, student-friendly mental health strategy with the support of the EPs and senior school staff. As the project progressed, it became evident that applying even carefully selected adult mental health models to school contexts might not be appropriate; instead the students advocated for young person-friendly, innovative, contemporary and creative ways of communicating information about mental health, which avoided stigma. The students involved were well-placed to identify environmental stressors and to disseminate their strategy. The authors conclude that mental health planning in schools should encourage greater student participation, show caution over applying adult mental health models and promote greater use of technology or visual resources.     

The role of orthographic flexibility in Chinese word reading among kindergarten children

Abstract

The present study aimed to examine the potential importance of orthographic flexibility for Chinese reading acquisition. Orthographic flexibility is a novel concept that represents the ability to manage and switch attention among multiple aspects of orthographic information. A total of 92 Chinese kindergarten children at age 6 were assessed on measures of orthographic flexibility, orthographic knowledge, executive functions (EF) skills (i.e. cognitive flexibility and working memory) and Chinese word reading. Results of hierarchical regressions showed that orthographic flexibility uniquely and significantly contributed to word reading beyond the effects of established predictors, namely orthographic knowledge and EF skills. Path analysis further indicated that orthographic flexibility significantly mediated the contribution of EF skills to word reading. These findings provided theoretical insights into the linkage between domain-general EF skills and domain-specific reading ability. The present study also provided practical implication that training on orthographic flexibility in addition to orthographic knowledge could be beneficial to early acquisition of Chinese word reading.     

Exploring the reading–writing relationship in young Chinese language learners’ sentence writing

This study explored the concurrent and longitudinal relationships between reading and writing in young Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) learners’ sentence writing, using structural equation modeling. The participants comprised 126 Hong Kong senior primary ethnic minority students, whose literacy skills were assessed at two time points over the course of a year. In grade 5 (Time-1), they were assessed with Chinese character reading and reading comprehension measures to evaluate their reading ability. In grade 6 (Time-2), their sentence reading, sentence writing, and literacy component skills of Chinese character writing fluency and written syntactic skills were assessed. The results demonstrated that students’ reading and writing performances were substantially related both concurrently and longitudinally. Furthermore, (1) at Time-2, the component skills accounted for substantial portions of variance in sentence reading and writing skills, along with the relationship between them, while (2) Time-1 reading ability predicted Time-2 component skills and, through the mediation thereof, indirectly predicted sentence writing. Thus, in light of the linguistic characteristics of the Chinese language, literacy component skills are crucial component processes that connect reading and writing in CSL learners’ sentence writing.     

Bringing the State Back In: restoring the role of the State in Chinese higher education

In the last few decades, in the wake of three major crises in political faith and the overall instability that followed the end of the Cultural Revolution, the post-Mao Chinese government has sought to improve the lives of its citizens and to restore political legitimacy through rapid economic growth that has focused almost exclusively on GDP. This strong focus has brought about rapid, widespread economic growth to China, and has, by classical market standards, been a success. At the same time, issues of social development and human well-being have received less attention. Before the Hu-Wen leadership's formal accession to power, the Jiang-Zhu administration sought to adopt neo-liberal ideas and practices to reform the delivery of social services and the implementation and funding of social policy. In this context, major fields of social policy such as health, education, and housing have been going through the processes of marketisation and privatisation, which have placed much of the financial burden of meeting these social welfare needs on China's citizens. After several decades of privatisation and marketisation in the educational system, the Chinese government has been the subject of repeated criticism for failing to tackle what is popularly known as the ‘new three mountains phenomenon’, namely, the rising cost of health, education, and housing in recent years. Against the wider policy context described above, this article examines the social and political consequences of the privatisation and marketisation of education. It also discusses the major policies and strategies recently adopted by the Chinese government to restore the role of the State in the education system in order to address the negative consequences of the privatisation of education. Finally, it critically examines the main implications of major reforms undertaken in higher education in Mainland China.     

Teaching without a blackboard and chalk: conflicting attitudes towards using ICTs in higher education teaching and learning

This article, derived from a three-year ethnography of distributed medical education provision in a Canadian university, explores the ways in which information and communication technologies are used by teachers and students in their everyday work within technologically rich teaching environments. The environments being researched are two university campuses: a campus at the main university site and a satellite campus in a neighbouring province. The article seeks to contrast dominant, institutional discourses of technology use in higher education teaching with the everyday practices of staff and students. The article concludes that there is a gap between policy and practice in distributed education and that the teaching and learning experience and context of staff and students in different sites need to be analysed in depth, in terms of: whether the experience of learning across sites can be positioned as being comparable; the extent to which technology ameliorates learning and teaching; and understanding the work done by staff.     

Why some teachers easily learn to use a new virtual learning environment: a technology acceptance perspective

After a decade of virtual learning environments (VLEs) in higher education, many teachers still use only a minimum of its affordances. This study looked at how academic staff interacted with a new and unknown VLE in order to understand how technology acceptance and support materials influence (perceived and actual) task performance. In an experimental design, 36 participants were split into a control (online help) and experimental (instructor video) condition and completed five common teaching tasks in a new VLE. In contrast to most technology acceptance model research, this study found that perceived usefulness of the VLE was not related to (perceived) task performance. Perceived ease of use was related to intentions and actual behaviour in the VLE. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between the two conditions, although the experimental condition led to a (marginal) increase in time to complete the tasks.