Drawing on the variation theory to enhance students’ learning of Chinese characters

The variation theory of Ference Marton and his collaborators has widely been used as a framework for explaining what can possibly be learned in a particular classroom and what cannot. This paper reports on an experiment that put this theory to test in the context of students’ learning of the orthographic structures of Chinese characters. The experiment was carried out in the classrooms of two primary schools in Hong Kong. In each of the schools, two classes of students were taught differently, as informed by the theory, about the significance of the location of a component in the orthographic structure of a character in relation to whether the component provided a clue to the meaning of the character (called the part–part relations). The results of the experiment are consistent with the prediction of the theory that those students who were given the possibility to experience variation in the locations of components in the orthographic structures significantly outperformed those who were not. The results of the experiment demonstrate the power of the theory in guiding the design of teaching that affords students’ learning to happen.     

Mining knowledge from natural language texts using fuzzy associated concept mapping

Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques have been successfully used to automatically extract information from unstructured text through a detailed analysis of their content, often to satisfy particular information needs. In this paper, an automatic concept map construction technique, Fuzzy Association Concept Mapping (FACM), is proposed for the conversion of abstracted short texts into concept maps. The approach consists of a linguistic module and a recommendation module. The linguistic module is a text mining method that does not require the use to have any prior knowledge about using NLP techniques. It incorporates rule-based reasoning (RBR) and case based reasoning (CBR) for anaphoric resolution. It aims at extracting the propositions in text so as to construct a concept map automatically. The recommendation module is arrived at by adopting fuzzy set theories. It is an interactive process which provides suggestions of propositions for further human refinement of the automatically generated concept maps. The suggested propositions are relationships among the concepts which are not explicitly found in the paragraphs. This technique helps to stimulate individual reflection and generate new knowledge. Evaluation was carried out by using the Science Citation Index (SCI) abstract database and CNET News as test data, which are well known databases and the quality of the text is assured. Experimental results show that the automatically generated concept maps conform to the outputs generated manually by domain experts, since the degree of difference between them is proportionally small. The method provides users with the ability to convert scientific and short texts into a structured format which can be easily processed by computer. Moreover, it provides knowledge workers with extra time to re-think their written text and to view their knowledge from another angle.     

Educating Teachers for the Information Era

Abstract

This paper seeks to summarize efforts made by the Faculty of Education of the University of Macau to inculcate computer literacy in teachers in Macau in preparation for the information era. Based on one programme of study proposed by the National Research Center for Computers in Education in Primary and Secondary Schools, the paper summarizes the course objectives, as well as the concepts and skills required to ensure sustainable development of information technology in China. To educate teachers throughinformation technology, it is envisaged that two kinds of activities are required: (1) construction of web‐based learning environments, (2) multimedia courseware authoring.     

A Comparison of Responsive Interventions on Kindergarteners’ Early Reading Achievement

This study compared the effects of Tier 2 reading interventions that operated in response‐to‐intervention contexts. Kindergarten children (N = 90) who were identified as at risk for reading difficulties were stratified by school and randomly assigned to receive (a) Early Reading Intervention (ERI; Pearson/Scott Foresman, 2004) modified in response to student performance or (b) their schools’ typical supplemental reading intervention (regrouping and curriculum pacing adjustments). In both conditions, intervention was provided 30 minutes per day in small groups for approximately 100 sessions. Results indicated no statistically significant group differences on any outcome measures. Between‐group effect sizes revealed substantively important differences (Valentine & Cooper, 2003) favoring the ERI responsive condition on multiple measures with effect sizes ranging from .35 to .59. Overall, findings indicated that the majority of students in both Tier 2 intervention conditions performed above the 30th percentile on posttest measures of word reading measures.     

Does price matter? Overseas students in UK higher education

This paper explores the determinants of the choice of UK universities by overseas undergraduate applicants. We use data on overseas applicants in Business Studies and Engineering from 2002 to 2007, to 97 UK universities. Estimating using a Hausman–Taylor model to control for the possible correlation between our explanatory variables and unobservable university-level effects, we find that the fees charged may influence the application decision of some students, but that any relationship between levels of fees and applications is non-linear. The quality of education provided is positively and significantly related to the number of applications. Proximity to London and the existing popularity of a university among home applicants, are also significant predictors of university applications.     

可譯與不可譯悼劉殿爵教授

踏莎行 送殿兒赴英倫 絕崤分携,危樓獨佇.萋萋草綠王孫去. 老來别易見應難,臨歧忍作傷心語.病掩孤檠,夢回疏杵.千山萬水愁風雨.東西南北總天涯,離魂隨汝知何處! 這是香港詞人番禺劉景堂(1887-1963)一九六○年所作,時年七十四歲.     

Technology use and learning characteristics of students in higher education: Do generational differences exist?

As digital technologies form an inextricable part of young people's everyday lives, some commentators claim that the current generation of learners think and learn differently from their predecessors. This study investigated the validity of this claim by surveying 799 undergraduate and 81 postgraduate students at a large research‐intensive university in New Zealand to document their use of digital technologies on university and social activities and comparing three age groups of students (under 20, 20–30 and over 30) to see whether there were any differences in their learning characteristics. The findings of the study showed that while students spent a large amount of time on digital technologies, the range of digital technologies they used was rather limited. There were also no practical generational differences in the technology use pattern and learning characteristics found in this study. The results of this study suggest that generation is not a determining factor in students' use of digital technologies for learning nor has generation had a radical impact on learning characteristics of higher education students.     

Migration and vascular lumen formation of endothelial cells in cancer cell spheroids of various sizes

We developed a microfluidic device to culture cellular spheroids of controlled sizes and suitable for live cell imaging by selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM). We cocultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) within the spheroids formed by hepatocellular carcinoma cells, and studied the distributions of the HUVECs over time. We observed that the migration of HUVECs depended on the size of spheroids. In the spheroids of ∼200 μm diameters, HUVECs migrated outwards to the edges within 48 h; while in the spheroids of ∼250 μm diameters, there was no outward migration of the HUVECs up to 72 h. In addition, we studied the effects of pro-angiogenic factors, namely, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and fibroblast growth factor (β-FGF), on the migration of HUVECs in the carcinoma cell spheroid. The outward migration of HUVECs in 200 μm spheroids was hindered by the treatment with VEGF and β-FGF. Moreover, some of the HUVECs formed hollow lumen within 72 h under VEGF and β-FGF treatment. The combination of SPIM and microfluidic devices gives high resolution in both spatial and temporal domains. The observation of HUVECs in spheroids provides us insight on tumor vascularization, an ideal disease model for drug screening and fundamental studies.     

香港高职高专教育内容及课程体系改革

踏入21世纪香港制造及服务行业的产品及服务现况有如下特点：顾客主导；高度多元化；产品周期短；设计上须创新、具弹性及快速；存货量低。香港高职高专教学内容的改革将循以下方向发展：与工商企业更密切的联系；发展核心技能及重要的资历；确保职业教育的地位同样重要；推广持续及终生学习。