\"东\"写\"西\"说(二)

英语是我所在的跨国公司的共同工作语言。除了英国人和美国人外,公司的每位成员都用自己特有的风格书写英语。英国女王用简练树立了英语标准,而其他国家的人书写英语时却反映出其特有的民族背景:如法国人着重细节,德国人喜欢直爽,西班牙人爱好夸张,荷兰人表现倔强,日本人乐于重     

Teaching Teachers About Energy: Lessons from an Inquiry-Based Workshop for K-8 Teachers

We report results and impressions from a three-day inquiry-based workshop for K-8 teachers, aimed at improving their understanding of energy from a science and engineering perspective. Results suggest that the teachers made significant gains in understanding and appreciation of important energy concepts, but their comprehension of some key ideas remained incomplete. The dissipation of energy into thermal energy of the environment proved to be a particularly difficult idea, and one that represents a serious obstacle to understanding the principle of the conservation of energy.     

‘Just a Minute ...’—managing interruptions in the junior school classroom

This study uses a continuum to exemplify the range of interruptions experienced by teachers in junior schools. Further clarification is supplied by the matrix, showing sources and types of interruptions.

Reasons for the transformation of ‘interruptions’ into ‘disruptions’ are also discussed, substantiated where possible by selection from the available literature. Further illustrative material is taken from interviews with 12 head teachers and 13 class teachers. Non‐participant observations of 16 of these teachers, working in 11 schools, over a period of six months, provide the data about actual interruptions.

Analyses of these data provide information about the types and frequency of interruptions and evidence of how teachers manage them. Teachers’ ‘coping strategies’ are thus identified and ways of minimising interruptions are examined. The differences between ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’ class management are considered and the effects of both upon teachers’ effectiveness is debated.     

A constructivist attempt to change attitudes towards children with special needs

ABSTRACT

A research programme was initiated to promote positive attitudes towards children with special needs. Fifteen students each taught four lessons to children from second to sixth class in Primary Schools. Their approach was constructivist involving discussion and activities designed to provide opportunities for the children to reconsider their ideas. A post‐test was given to 465 experimental and 326 control children. Experimental children were different from controls in being more prosocial in a number of ways. Children who knew somebody with a mental handicap were affected by the programme differently in comparison with inexperienced children, largely by becoming more aware of the difficulties of children with special needs. There were a number of age and gender differences in the ways children think about mental handicap.