Learning Is Moving in New Ways: The Ecological Dynamics of Mathematics Education

Whereas emerging technologies, such as touchscreen tablets, are bringing sensorimotor interaction back into mathematics learning activities, existing educational theory is not geared to inform or analyze passages from action to concept. We present case studies of tutor–student behaviors in an embodied-interaction learning environment, the Mathematical Imagery Trainer. Drawing on ecological dynamics—a blend of dynamical-systems theory and ecological psychology—we explain and demonstrate that: (a) students develop sensorimotor schemes as solutions to interaction problems; (b) each scheme is oriented on an attentional anchor—a real or imagined object, area, or other aspect or behavior of the perceptual manifold that emerges to facilitate motor-action coordination; and (c) when symbolic artifacts are introduced into the arena, they may both mediate new affordances for students’ motor-action control and shift their discourse into explicit mathematical re-visualization of the environment. Symbolic artifacts are ontological hybrids evolving from things with which you act to things with which you think. Students engaged in embodied-interaction learning activities are first attracted to symbolic artifacts as prehensible environmental features optimizing their grip on the world, yet in the course of enacting the improved control routines, the artifacts become frames of reference for establishing and articulating quantitative systems known as mathematical reasoning.     

解决高校扩招后教学质量问题的若干思考

要解决高校扩招后的教学质量问题，应该采取调整高等教育的层次结构，按照学校定位办校提高认识、统一认识；加强师资队伍建设；增加投入、改善办学硬件条件；深化教学改革、强化教学质量管理完善高等教育法规等对策。     

Metaphors we’re colonised by? The case of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article discusses issues concerning the spread of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. Here, as elsewhere, educational technology continues to be promoted optimistically as the bearer of a panacea for historically-rooted social problems. Whilst some of these technologies have indeed contributed to important widening-participation programmes in the last two decades, widespread advocacy of technological ‘solutionism’, reflected in gradually stronger policy demands for efficiencies to be improved through ‘innovation’, has supported a relentless marketisation of the country’s educational systems. As transnational corporations position themselves to take control of key areas of these systems, threatening to restructure the whole sector, data-driven educational technologies provide the latest example in a series of ‘new’ ideas offered in an ever-expanding market. Based on the notion of ‘conceptual metaphors’, which encapsulate specific ways of perceiving, thinking and relating with the world, this article examines key metaphors underpinning discourses surrounding data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. In particular, the article analyses ways in which these specific metaphors may be promoting perspectives that ignore difference and obscure broader questions concerning education, thus contributing to the reproduction of previously existing problems and supporting new forms of colonisation.     

Validation of a self-perceived media competence instrument for pre-service teachers / Validación de un instrumento de autopercepción de competencia mediática para docentes en formación

Abstract

Key to guaranteeing the fundamental human rights of freedom of expression and information is the development of media competence, particularly in schools. Training teachers in the area of media competence is particularly important for developing these skills in the broader citizenry. In order to provide educators and educational policymakers with a useful diagnostic tool, we have designed a self-perception questionnaire. The questionnaire was applied to a sample of Peruvian education students (N = 501). On the one hand, the results confirm the construct’s coherence, validity and instrumental reliability. On the other hand, they allow us to propose a theoretically based update to the way in which this construct is interpreted and applied, confirming the multidimensionality of media competence. Finally, we use this empirical evidence to discuss the integral, transversal and ecological status of media competence.     

Research of technical knowledge and creativity development of children in pre-primary education through interactive whiteboard

The introduced study represents methodology and results of research focused on utilization of interactive whiteboard as didactic technology mediating information through multimedia worksheets applied in education process in pre-primary education. Its aim was to determine whether it can significantly increase the level of children’s acquired knowledge in the field of technical skills education and whether it can positively influence the development of children’s creative skills as a sign of their motivation. We observe that this issue in the way it is theoretically and practically established in this study can contribute by proposing education standards and set of multimedia worksheets in the technical field in Slovak pre-primary education.     

A sociocultural perspective on mediated activity in third grade science

This ethnographic study of a third grade classroom examined elementary school science learning as a sociocultural accomplishment. The research focused on how a teacher helped his students acquire psychological tools for learning to think and engage in scientific practices as locally defined. Analyses of classroom discourse examined both how the teacher used mediational strategies to frame disciplinary knowledge in science as well as how students internalized and appropriated ways of knowing in science. The study documented and analyzed how students came to appropriate scientific knowledge as their own in an ongoing manner tied to their identities as student scientists. Implications for sociocultural theory in science education research are discussed. John Reveles is an assistant professor in the Elementary Education Department at California State University, Northridge. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2005. Before pursuing his Ph.D., he worked as a bilingual elementary school teacher for 3 years. His research focuses on the development of scientific literacy in elementary school settings; sociocultural influences on students' academic identity; equity of access issues in science education; qualitative and quantitative research methods. Within the Michael D. Eisner College of Education, he teaches elementary science curriculum methods courses, graduate science education seminars, and graduate research courses. Gregory Kelly is a professor of science education at Penn State University. He is a former Peace Corps Volunteer and physics teacher. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1994. His research focuses on classroom discourse, epistemology, and science learning. This work has been supported by grants from Spencer Foundation, National Science Foundation, and the National Academy of Education. He teaches courses concerning the uses of history, philosophy, sociology of science in science teaching and teaching and learning science in secondary schools. He is editor of the journal Science Education. Richard Durán is a Professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara. His research and publications have been in the areas of literacy and assessment of English Language Learners and Latino students. He has also conducted research on after school computer clubs, technology and learning as part of the international UC Links Network. With support from the Kellogg Foundation, he is implementing and investigating community and family-centered intervention programs serving the educational progress of Latino students in the middle and high school grades.     

Pedro Gutiérrez Bueno’s Textbooks: Audiences, Teaching Practices and Chemical Revolution

Pedro Gutiérrez Bueno wrote two editions of a chemistry textbook between 1788 and 1802. The paper offers a comparative view of both editions taking into account Gutiérrez Bueno’s biography, his intended audience and the changes related to the so-called chemical revolution. Some conclusions are at odds with common images about scientific revolutions and the role of textbooks in science. The analysis aims to shed some light on the multiple historical forces shaping textbooks and the way in which scientific change is assimilated by their writers. This research was partially supported by the program BHA2002-04611-CO3-02     

Books and articles of academic interest

Books and articles of academic interest     

以酸洗废液生产聚合硫酸铁的工艺研究

钢铁酸洗废液是一种常见的污染物,利用其生产聚合硫酸铁,可以实现废物的综合利用。论述了聚合硫酸铁的合成原理,探讨了用钢铁酸洗废液生产聚合硫酸铁的工艺流程,通过实验研究确定了生产工艺中适宜的温度、压力、反应时间、反应物组成和原料浓缩时蒸发器温度等条件。采用该工艺所得产品质量好、净水效率高。     

Visions of educational development in the post-socialist era

The paper attempts to characterize and explain the social, political and economic climate underlying educational dilemmas and visions in Czechoslovakia and other Central European countries after the collapse of communist regimes. The new democracies are becoming huge laboratories of social and educational reform — issues of great importance to comparative education. The most urgent dilemma is whether to restore the pre-war educational system, or to follow the mainstream of educational development. Educational policy is also seeking to find a specific solution to a second dilemma: statism versus liberalism in organization, funding, structure and curriculum. The hindering factor is underestimation of the significance of educational policy in the global reform process. Finally, the author quotes Havel's vision of a new politics of education based on consciousness and self-recognition of mankind.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel versucht, das soziale, politische und wirtschaftliche Klima zu charakterisieren und zu erklären, das den Schwierigkeiten und Vorstellungen im Bildungswesen der Tschechoslowakei und anderer zentraleuropäischer Länder nach dem Zusammenbruch der kommunistischen Regierungsformen zu Grunde liegt. Die neuen Demokratien entwickeln sich zu riesigen Laboratorien sozialer und erzieherischer Reform — Themen von großer Bedeutung für die vergleichende Erziehung. Das dringendste Problem ist die Frage, ob man das vor dem Krieg bestehende Bildungssystem wieder einführen oder der Hauptrichtung der bildungspolitischen Entwicklung folgen soll. Die Bildungspolitik sucht außerdem nach einer spezifischen Lösung für ein zweites Problem: Planwirtschaft kontra Liberalismus in Organisation, Finanzierung, Struktur und Curriculum. Störfaktor ist die Unterschätzung der Bedeutung einer Bildungspolitik im globalen Reformprozeß. Abschließend zitiert der Autor Havels Vision einer neuen Bildungspolitik, die auf Bewußtsein und Selbsterkennung der Menschheit basiert.

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Résumé Cet article tente de caractériser et d'expliquer le climat social, politique et économique sous-jacent aux problèmes et aux visons de l'éducation en Tchécoslovaquie et dans d'autres pays d'Europe centrale après la chute des régimes communistes. Les nouvelles démocraties se transforment en d'énormes laboratoires de réforme sociale et éducative, questions qui sont toutes d'une grande importance pour l'éducation comparée. Le problème le plus urgent est de savoir si l'on doit restaurer le système éducatif d'avant la guerre ou si l'on doit suivre le courant majeur du développement de l'éducation. La politique éducative cherche aussi à apporter une solution spécifique à un deuxième problème, à savoir étatisme ou libéralisme dans l'organisation, le financement, la structure et les programmes d'étude. Le facteur qui fait obstacle est la sous-estimation de l'importance de la politique éducative dans le processus de réforme globale. Enfin, l'auteur cite la vision de Havel d'une nouvelle politique d'éducation fondée sur la conscience et la reconnaissance naturelle de l'humanité.