Institutional arrangements for evaluation

Summary Evaluations should be independent in terms of being able to arrive at impartial conclusions. They must be seen as being credible if they are to fulfil this function. Their impartiality is derived from using appropriate scientific methodology and by being protected from political interference. Within the government, evaluation offices should be lodged in independent agencies located close to decision makers, but not in the same office as the programme being evaluated. Scientific methods that protect against various forms of bias should be derived with assistance from the professional evaluation community. Original language: English Ernest R. House (United States of America) Professor at the School of Education, University of Colorado, Boulder. His interests are in evaluation and policy. He has been a visiting scholar at UCLA, Harvard and New Mexico, as well as at universities in Australia, Austria, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Recent publications include;Professional evaluation (1993), Schools for sale (1998) andValues in evaluation and social research (with K. Howe). He has been a recipient of the Lasswell Prize (1989) for the article contributing most to the theory and practice of the policy sciences and of the Lazarsfeld Award (1990) for Evaluation and Theory, presented by the American Evaluation Association.     

跟妈妈学做菜

我的妈妈是一个世界级的厨师,至少在我们眼中她是这样。从中国的南方菜到北方菜,她都会做,还加入了一些西餐的风味。但是在我看来,她最拿手的是那些用老法子做的食物,也就是那些中国传统美食,比如饺子、春饼和韭菜盒子。作为女儿,我感到有义务利用住在家里的时间来学做几样家常菜。我是看着妈妈在厨房里忙碌长大的,而我则尽职地吃光了所有的剩菜剩饭。现在该我提起兴趣来学做菜,而不是只为了吃了。     

The instructional organization for integrating diverse expertise

Responsibility for instruction should pass from academic content experts to experts in the technology of instruction. This implies substantial changes in organizational structure, especially in higher education. The instructional process is very complex, requiring organizational arrangements permitting growth by the accretion of diverse expertise. Traditional education has assumed that the essence of instruction is in its content. Though important, content can no longer be regarded as the most critical dimension. Concern with accountability forces attention on the process; the technology becomes critical. Diverse expertise could be applied usefully to problems of instruction if arrangements can be changed to allow more such specialists to participate. They are needed for planning facilities, designing practical and experimental learning stations, providing arrangements for monitoring instructional operations, and introducing instructional content relevant to man/machine/environment interfaces.     

选秀奇葩:一夜成名的背后

除了那些提不起精神和毫无耐心的人,对我们所有人而言,苏珊·波伊尔和保罗·帕兹的故事都是令人无限神往的。似乎是经过电视选秀节目《英国达人》的发掘,人们猛然发现,这两位工人阶级出身、地位低微、长相平平的人竟能唱出美妙的歌曲,令人刮目相看。人们的反应就如同在一辆因抛锚而被丢弃在路上的现代牌汽车上发现了大批宝藏。