Education and the COVID-19 pandemic

PROSPECTS - The COVID-19 pandemic is a huge challenge to education systems. This Viewpoint offers guidance to teachers, institutional heads, and officials on addressing the crisis. What...     

Erstsprachförderung bei Migrantenkindern in Kindergärten

This contribution reports on an investigation into the importance of supporting first language for the command of first and second language skills using a quasi-experimental longitudinal study of migrant children in kindergarten. For two years the development of both first and second language skills was coordinated through the treatment of the same topics and stories during lessons. Furthermore, parents were asked to read their children a story or play an audio book in the first language three times a week. This extensive intervention neither had statistically significant effects on the development of language competency in the first nor the second language, German. The transfer effects between first and second language expected by the interdependency hypothesis of Cummins were only in evidence to a very limited extent.     

21世纪高等教育的扩展：开放学习的角色

在最近的将来,发展中国家高等教育的入学人数会继续飞速扩张,这将改变作为公立机构的高等教育的院校结构并导致牟取盈利的私立院校的数量激增,它们将更多地运用以技术为媒介的学习。远程学习是否真的会使学习更开放?如何能让开放大学保证更多地运用网络学习(eLearning)而不会造成参与的阻碍?开放教育资源(OERs：Open Educational Resources)运动能够在扩大学习材料共享的同时保证质量并降低成本吗?院校应如何革新自己的组织机构以适应这个新的世界?     

Teaching ‘Instant Experience’ with Graphical Model Validation Techniques

Graphical model validation techniques for linear normal models are often used to check the assumptions underlying a statistical model. We describe an approach to provide ‘instant experience’ in looking at a graphical model validation plot, so it becomes easier to validate if any of the underlying assumptions are violated.     

Effects of test format on listener response

A report of the evaluation of various test forms commonly employed in speech reception measurement with a view toward determination of non‐chance response set.     

Assessment In Practice: An inspiration from apprenticeship

The paper investigates the relationship between assessment and learning through an empirical study of apprenticeship training. The paper suggests that well‐established modes of learning, which facilitate meaningful assessment in apprenticeship training, present an “antidote” to a traditional emphasis on assessment as selection and control. In contrast to rejection of apprenticeship modes of assessment as being inappropriate and obsolete at the present time, the paper suggests that the concept of apprenticeship assessment can be seen as a highly attractive and effective alternative to current assessment practices in both schools and workplaces. Taking a situated and relational perspective on knowledge and learning, we argue that assessment practices should focus on contextually‐anchored reviews of the core competencies of the person. This contextual assessment contrasts with an emphasis on assessment as essentially controlling and selecting students for further education and, on the other hand, with assessment as a process of self‐monitoring and self‐reflection.