A Technical/Strategic Paradigm for Online Executive Education

This article discusses the development and delivery of online courses for the executive education audience. The goal is to introduce a new framework, the technical/strategic paradigm, that will help educators to identify the pedagogical needs of disparate executive groups and adjust their online course development plans accordingly. We describe how four key elements of online courses (course structure, content‐based learning materials, assignments, and learning assessment) should be fashioned in a way that honors the technical or strategic focus of the learning environment. How the technical/strategic paradigm molds well with many different types of executive educational audiences and settings is illustrated. Course developers seeking advice on how to put these ideas into practice will find lists of resources and implementable recommendations. Ultimately, we argue that some of the pitfalls that faculty experience when transitioning from a traditional business school environment to an online executive education environment can be attributed to a misunderstanding of the degree to which students expect technical versus strategic content.     

Preschool Teachers' Perceptions about Conflict Resolution, Autonomy, and the Group in Four Countries: United States, Colombia, El Salvador, and Taiwan

Preschool teachers (N = 160) in four countries (U.S., Colombia, El Salvador, and Taiwan) were surveyed about their views of conflict resolutions for moral and social-conventional conflicts, providing choice in the classroom (autonomy), maintaining a sense of the group, and general pedagogical aims of early childhood education. The findings revealed cultural similarities regarding conflict resolution intervention techniques and providing choice in the classroom. Cultural differences were found for maintaining the group and encouraging traditional group values. The items regarding the general pedagogical aims revealed a mixture of cultural differences and similarities. The results have implications for formulating generalizable goals for facilitating social and moral development in early childhood development and education.     

Comparisons of beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning among postsecondary students

The purpose of this study is to assess postsecondary students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning, or epistemological beliefs. Comparisons were made between junior college students and university students and between technological science majors and social science majors on their degree of belief in simple knowledge, certain knowledge, innate ability, and quick learning. Junior college students were more likely to believe in simple, certain knowledge, and quick learning. University students were more likely to believe in innate ability. Technological science majors were more likely to believe in quick learning. Background variables, such as age, gender, and parental education, also contributed to differences between groups. Two-year institutions, as well as four-year institutions, might want to consider students' epistemological beliefs as possible factors affecting academic performance, attrition rate, and transfer difficulties.     

知识建构共同体及其支撑环境

面对知识社会的挑战,我们需要将学校改造成为知识建构共同体。知识建构共同体是以思想的形成和持续改进为关注点的团体,其成员通过建构性的互动过程发展对于共同体有价值的思想。为了支持和促进知识建构共同体,本课题组研制了CSILE/知识论坛系统。本文对上述理论观点、技术系统以及有关的实验研究结果做了简要介绍。     

A Developmental Perspective on Peer Rejection: Mechanisms of Stability and Change

This study examines factors associated with the relative stability of peer rejection among elementary school-aged children. Forty-four initially rejected children (some of whom improved their social status while others remained rejected over a 2-year period) were recruited from a larger sociometric sample. Prospective analyses were conducted to determine whether peer nominated aggression and children's perceptions of their own status in fourth grade were predictive of status improvement by the end of fifth grade. In addition to prospective analyses, initially rejected children and their mothers were invited to participate in a retrospective interview about their social experiences over the past 2 school years. Results of prospective and retrospective analyses suggested that perceived social status, participation in extracurricular activities, locus of control, and parental monitoring were all positively related to status improvement among initially rejected children. Surprisingly, aggressive behavior also was positively related to status improvement among initially rejected boys.     

Multiple perceptions of children's aggression: Differences across neighborhood,age, gender,and perceiver

We investigated how overtly aggressive behavior was differentially perceived by two types of perceivers, teachers and peers, as a function of student neighborhood, gender, and grade level. Participants (N= 765) were predominantly African American students in grades 3‐5 recruited from two urban public schools in southern California. The neighborhoods surrounding the two schools differed in levels of identified violent crime and economic levels. Teachers in the community experiencing more violence perceived student behavior to be relatively less aggressive and more similar across genders than did teachers in the less violent community. Peers in the community experiencing more violent crime perceived both boys and girls to be somewhat aggressive, whereas in the less violent community, boys were perceived as aggressive more so than were girls. In general, agreement between teacher and peer perceptions was stronger for boys than for girls. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Self-regulated Science Learning with Highly Gifted Students: The role of cognitive,motivational, epistemological,and environmental variables

This research examines the issue of self-regulated learning among highly gifted elementary ( n = 93) and high school students ( n = 40) in science. Self-report measures assessed self-regulatory strategy use in science and a spectrum of environmental (perceived level of investigation) and individual prerequisites (motivational beliefs, goal orientation, epistemological beliefs and intentions). Firstly, high school students were experiencing less investigation in science, and test anxiety and work avoidance were more pronounced than with elementary students. Secondly, highly gifted girls' science-related motivational beliefs were less positive than those of boys. Thirdly, path analyses indicate that the level of investigation in the science learning environment strongly determines motivational and epistemological prerequisites of self-regulatory strategy use. The results indicate that exploration and discovery should be enabled and strengthened in science classrooms of highly gifted students.     

Design Principles for Distributed Knowledge Building Processes

In this paper we explore various interpretations of the term distributed cognition, then turn our attention to communities grounded in the practice of collaborative knowledge building. We discuss CSILE (Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments), a technology designed to support contributions to a communal database. Shared responsibility for this community resource extends to aspects of school practice typically handled exclusively by teachers, and engagement in improving and connecting the contents of the database makes the process of knowledge building self-sustaining. We discuss knowledge building communities involving students and teachers, and end with discussion of design principles for distributed knowledge building processes.