Teaching, Teacher Knowledge and Constructivism

An effective education program delivers a satisfactory level of achievement for every student. For this to happen, we must examine carefully the implications of educational theories and research for teaching and learning. The way a teacher conducts his or her lessons must also be examined critically. This paper will deal with teaching, teacher knowledge and constructivism. For teaching, some reasons were suggested for the observation why it had not changed significantly since the last 40 years in Asian classrooms. In the area of teacher knowledge, the authors report a recent research finding on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) development. The paper concludes with a discussion on whether constructivism is indeed a better way to teach. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Early literacy practices and the Finnish national core curriculum

In 2004 the Finnish National Board of Education launched a new curriculum framework that includes principles, instructional aims, and a brief list of content by subject areas. The intent of this framework is that teachers should interpret the core curriculum at the local level and apply it in their own schools and classrooms. This approach encourages teachers to use their professional knowledge and take into account their students and the learning environment in applying and implementing the curriculum. This case study sought to understand how this core curriculum has been implemented by way of observations of language and literacy lessons in 8 grade 1 and grade 2 classrooms during a 2‐month period. The observations and the analysis were guided by earlier research conducted in classroom identified as ‘excellent’ in the US. The resulting data, in turn, were compared with the core curriculum. The findings show that, although some of the principles and the content of the core curriculum were reflected in practice, there were inconsistencies between the instructional methods used in the classrooms and the principles set in the core curriculum. Although some areas of the core curriculum were well represented in classroom language and literacy practices, others were covered only in part or not at all during the observation period.     

Cycling

The resistance against a cyclist while riding on rollers is due mainly to rolling resistance produced by the deformation of the tyre as it rolls against small diameter drums. Resistance is then combined with wheel speed to set power output. The effect of tyre pressure and cross‐section on power was investigated by systematically altering the pressure (552 kPa, 690 kPa, and 827 kPa) in a 20c, 23c, 25c, and 28c tyre of the same design while riding at a wheel speed of 45 kph. Average power over 1 minute was measured with a Power Tap Hub (Tune Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) on five occasions. Statistical significance was evaluated at p < 0.05. Power requirements increased significantly with each reduction in tyre pressure for all tyres and pressures except the 25c between 690 and 827 kPa. The 20c tyre required significantly more power from the cyclist at each tested tyre pressure when compared to the other tyres (which were not different from each other). The differences in resistance from tyre size were not observed when ridden on the road. Additionally, a slightly different tyre design from the same manufacturer responded similarly in the 20c, but was significantly different in the 23c size. It was also observed that power requirements increased significantly when both the wheels were ridden on the rollers as compared to just the rear wheel. These results indicate that the power requirements may be significantly altered by the cyclist by adjusting tyre pressure, tyre cross‐section size, tyre type, and with the number of wheels contacting the rollers. However, the magnitude of these power requirements may not be suitable for intense workouts of trained cyclists.     

Text learning strategies of good and poor learners: The quality of processing activity assessed by a secondary task method

European Journal of Psychology of Education -     

Parents’ perceptions of their child’s resilience and competencies

This study examined parental views of their child’s educability through the parents’ perceptions of their child’s resilience. The purposes of the study were: (1) to examine psychometric properties of the rating scale created to measure parental views of their child’s educational and psychological resilience, (2) to explore whether the parents’ views of the child’s resilience were related to their notions of the child’s competencies and (3) to examine how parents’ perceptions of their child’s resilience were related to the parent’s social position and the child’s gender. Data were collected by questionnaire from the parents of fifth-grade children (N=391). The parental rating scale consisted of three dimensions of resilience, all with satisfactory reliability. Parents’ views of their child’s resilience were related to their perceptions of child’s abilities and school success, suggesting that the parental rating scale had concurrent validity. The results also indicated that parents’ views of their child’s resilience were related to their gender and education and to the child’s gender. Furthermore, parents’ views of their child’s educational resilience, based on parents’ trust in their child’s internal capacities, were related to the parental definition of their child’s cognitive-verbal competencies, in particular.     

Communication patterns in computer mediated versus face-to-face group problem solving

Research has shown that when group problem solving is computer mediated, communications become more task oriented with clearer role expectations, while face-to-face communications are more cohesive and personal. None of this research has examined those patterns of interactions in terms of the problem solving activities engaged. In this study, we compared the perceptions of participants, the nature of the comments made, and the patterns of communication in face-to-face and computer-mediated groups in terms of problem-solving activities while solving well-structured and ill-structured problems. The quantity of messages in the computer conference was smaller but more task related than in the face-to-face conversations because participants reflected more on ideas and perspectives in reaching their decisions. A cluster analysis of communication patterns showed that computer-mediated group decisions more closely resembled the general problem-solving process of problem definition, orientation, and solution development as group interaction progressed, while the face-to-face group interactions tended to follow a linear sequence of interactions. Participants who solved problems through computer conferencing were more satisfied with the process and believed that there was a greater quality in the problem-solving process.     

“有用之用”——民族国家想象与现代中国文学的现实主义传统

作为现代中国文学的主潮,现实主义在上半叶二十世纪现代中国文学的发展和勃兴,与其所承载的"有用之用"这一现实的功利性息息相关.在动员全民族积极参与现代民族国家构建的过程中,"现实主义"一开始便充分发挥了文学的社会功能,成为文学参与民族国家构建的利器,起到了积极的作用.     

Do parents’ and teachers’ views of children’s educational resilience matter?

This study set out to examine parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of children’s educational resilience. As expected, the parents attributed greater levels of educational resilience to their children than did the teachers. However, both the parents and teachers assessed the sixth graders’ educational resilience as higher than that of the third graders. The results suggest that perceptions of educational resilience may represent a different dimension from views relating to children’s achievement in school.     

Home Economics Teachers' Intentions and Engagement in Teaching Sustainable Development

Home Economics (HE) teachers can have a central role in teaching sustainable development (SD) to young adolescents through everyday household management and the promotion of personally and globally sustainable well-being. How well the teachers cope with this task is not well known. The objective of this study was to survey Finnish HE teachers' perceptions of their current practice, coping, and future intentions in terms of teaching SD. Enablers and inhibitors to carrying out this task were further investigated. Findings from this survey suggest that HE teachers have adopted sustainability at a personal level, but often lack the resources and incentives to teach it. Ways to promote cross-curricular projects and wider integration of SD into HE are discussed.