对李约瑟<中国科学技术史》若干问题的消解

已故英国名科学史家李约瑟博士对中国科学技术史进行了深入探讨，其所的《中国科学技术史》对中国古代科学技术作出了实事求是的总结与概括，并提出了一些极有启发性的独创见解，对世界了解中国，消除误解与偏见作了极好的宣传。他对中国科学技术史的研究不存在“拔高”或“说好话”的倾向。他的《中国科学与明》被译成《中国科学技术史》并无不妥。否定“李约瑟难题”缺乏理论根据。     

学生突发事件应急处理探讨

构建学生突发事件应急处理预案是有效预防、及时控制和消除学生突发事件的危害，保障在校学生身心健康和生命安全，维护正常的校园秩序，营造良好育人环境的有效方法，也是新时期学生工作的重点。本文从对学生突发事件应急处理预案的认识，对学生突发事件的管理原则、预警机制、处理办法做了探索，力求为预防和高效处理学生突发应急事件提供参考。     

“工学一体化”模式下《应用软件CAD》课程改革初探

《应用软件CAD》课程是一门具有较高操作能力的实践性课程,如何提高学生对软件的操作能力,加强CAD软件与其他软件的对接学习,同时在艺术类高校课程中尝试CAD软件与实用机械设备的对接是本次课程改革的重点和突破。"工学一体化"教学改革强调实际运用,为校企合作无缝衔接打开了瓶颈,开拓了平台,将"工学一体化"模式应用到课程教学改革的过程中,有利于提高学生的动手能力,同时激发学生学习的兴趣,也能为后期利用CAD软件进行更为深入的专业课程设计打下良好的基础。     

Books and articles of academic interest

Books and articles of academic interest     

Mathematics in Physics Education: Scanning Historical Evolution of the Differential to Find a More Appropriate Model for Teaching Differential Calculus in Physics

Despite its frequent use, there is little understanding of the concept of differential among upper high school and undergraduate students of physics. As a first step to identify the origin of this situation and to revert it, we have done a historic and epistemological study aimed at clarifying the role and the meaning of the differential in physics and at improving curricular and teaching models in the sense of Gilbert et al. (Gilbert J.K., Boulter C., & Rutherford, M.: 1998a, International Journal of Science Education 20(1), 83–97, Gilbert J.K., Boulter C., & Rutherford, M.: 1998b, International Journal of Science Education 20(2), 187–203). We describe the contributions of Leibniz and Cauchy and stress their shortcomings, which are overcome by the alternative definition proposed by the French mathematician Fréchet, dating from early 20th century. As a result of this study, we answer to some fundamental questions related to a proper understanding of the differential in physics education (for 17–19 years old students).     

Cultural variation in children's social organization

This article examines how 31 triads of 6- to 10-year-old children from 3 cultural backgrounds organized their interactions while folding Origami figures. Triads of children whose families had immigrated to the United States from indigenous heritage regions of México (and whose mothers averaged only 7 grades of schooling) coordinated more often as an ensemble, whereas triads of European heritage U.S. children whose mothers had extensive schooling more often engaged dyadically or individually. When the European heritage children did engage as an ensemble, this often involved chatting rather than nonverbal conversation regarding folding, which was more common among the Mexican heritage children. Mexican heritage U.S. triads whose mothers had extensive schooling showed an intermediate pattern or resembled the European heritage children.     

Locus and nature of perceptual phonological deficit in Spanish children with reading disabilities

The aims of this study were (a) to determine whether Spanish children with reading disabilities (RD) show a speech perception deficit and (b) to explore the locus and nature of this perceptive deficit. A group of 29 children with RD, 41 chronological age-matched controls, and 27 reading ability-matched younger controls were tested on tasks of speech perception. The effect of linguistic unit (word vs. syllable) and type of phonetic contrast (voicing, place and manner of articulation) were analyzed in terms of the number of errors and the response time. The results revealed a speech perception deficit in Spanish children with RD that was independent of the type of phonetic contrast and of linguistic unit.     

Editorial H-score as a metric of inner authenticity for national scientific journals—Pilot study for the field of pedagogy

There is evidence that national scientific journals are important for local communities despite their limited audience due to national languages and topics, like in pedagogy. However, it is not easy to assess the level of scientific rigour of local journals, as most do not have available scientometric data and are often published in minority languages. We hypothesize that a possible manifestation of a latent trait of inner authenticity of the scientific journal (meaning the journal is accepted by a community interested in developing the field which conducts internationally accepted research) could be H-index of the editorial board members. To test this approach, we evaluated H-index and gender of editorial board members (n = 490) from 17 Czech and Slovak national science-oriented scientific pedagogical journals which were not indexed or indexed in Erih+ or Scopus, and compared this with the five lowest-rated journals from the same field indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The H-index of editorial board members was somewhat higher in indexed journals with those from WoS showing higher scores, and the number of board members with no discernable H-index was far greater in non-indexed journals. Editorial boards of journals indexed in WoS were mostly male, compared to a dominance of women on boards of non-indexed journals. Acknowledging the limited sample, it appears that the H-index of editorial board members may be a way to value national scientific journals.