A primer of research on cognitive strategy instruction: The important issues and how to address them

Five types of strategy research are reviewed. (1) We argue it makes sense first to determine whether there is a need for strategy instruction. If there is, (2) development of a treatment with preliminary evaluations can follow, as can (3) formal evaluation of the resultant intervention in true experiments. As instructional need research, strategy development, and experimental evaluation proceed, two other types of research should be conducted. (4) It is important to study the acceptability of strategy interventions to educators and students. (5) Research on material modifications can provide information about how strategy benefits can be made available to students when strategy instruction is not effective or unlikely to occur. Very little strategy instruction has been evaluated in all five types of research covered here, making obvious the need for more systematic research on strategies. Observational, ethnographic, and experimental methods are required in order to address the many issues comprising comprehensive empirical analysis of any type of strategy instruction, with many recommendations made here about how to conduct informative studies.     

创新与合作：来自开放大学的观点

该认为英国开放大学的新型学习模式主要体现在对开放学习提供的支持服务及先进的办学理念上。规模化教学传送、新技术的应用和对学生的支持服务是英国开放大学的三个优势领域，同时在课程和教学方面也面临新的挑战。作最后提出了国际远程教育合作的具体建议。     

How education policy is made meaningful – a narrative exploration of how teachers show autonomy in the development of teaching and learning

This study addresses how the autonomy of teachers in higher education, in relation to education policy and reform, can be understood. By taking a narrative-in-action approach, we studied health profession teachers’ activities and reasoning within their ongoing practice during one year. The findings show how the teachers created their own policies and in what way these policies became meaningful. As teachers in this study continuously made changes, the joint creation of policies contributed to their sense of togetherness and the re-building of a community of practice. In parallel, they increased the evidence-based standards related to their discipline and experienced a shift in perspective concerning teaching and learning. The importance of their jointly made policies can be explained by how they learned a student-learning view together, and built on their own ideas of what educational matters needed to be developed. At the same time, their activities and reasoning mirror ‘a debated but yet prevailing view’ on the discourse of quality and a number of ideals thereof such as transparency and standardisation, effective teaching and increased academisation.     

Sex differences in achievement goals: do school subjects matter?

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Many studies have already found differences between male and female students in various motivational variables. With regard to the stereotypes...     

Developmental Expectations,Personality Stereotypes,and Attitudes Towards Inclusive Education: Community and teacher views of Down syndrome

Knowledge about Down syndrome and attitudes towards the educational inclusion of children with Down syndrome were examined in a sample of 2,053 people from the community and a group of 538 experienced teachers. Although both groups displayed reasonably accurate knowledge about Down syndrome and its developmental consequences, they significantly underestimated the average life expectancy for a person with the syndrome. In both groups, a positive stereotype of children with Down syndrome as particularly affectionate and happy was evident. Despite recognising the educational, social, and emotional benefits of inclusive schooling, only around 20% of each group believed that the regular classroom was the best setting for children with Down syndrome. The findings suggest that accurate knowledge and positive, but realistic, expectations are important for enhancing the acceptance of individuals with disabilities within their schools and communities.     

The role of the mirror-image reversal effect in reducing the peak shift and area shift along the angularity dimension

Pigeons trained monocularly and tested with the trained eye along the angularity dimension were found to show enhanced area shifts when compared to pigeons trained and tested binocularly. Pigeons trained monocularly and tested with the untrained eye showed reversed peak shifts in the direction of S?. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the mirror image of S? in angularity gradients functions to reduce the likelihood of the peak shift and area shift along the angularity dimension in pigeons, and question the use of the angularity dimension for intradimensional discrimination training and generalization testing.