This professional development program was designed to prepare science teachers to be more student-centered and to implement
newer goals for science instruction. These goals are to improve science teaching in ways that promote broader and longer-lasting
learning. Secondary school science teachers in Korea are expected to follow a rigid national curriculum with large classes
- often with more than 50 students. This study focuses on feedback and follow-up interaction with teacher participants who
were enrolled in a month-long workshop in the U.S. before returning to Korea to implement the new ideas. Assistance was offered
to help teachers develop teaching modules which were more constructivist while also assisting with assessment efforts that
provided further evidence of use of the new teaching practices and their effect on student learning. Student mastery of concepts
and improvement in student creativity were two aspects of the summer workshop experiences and these were evaluated to illustrate
workshop effects on teacher participants in their actual classrooms.
An erratum to this article is available at . 相似文献
The purpose of this study was to identify types and patterns of peer scaffolding that occur during inquiry-based learning (IBL) group activities. It employed a single instrumental case approach that integrated quantitative and qualitative analyses of data gathered from 21 students in a ninth grade biology course. A verbal analysis, a content analysis, and a social network analysis (SNA) were performed to identify patterns in group interactions and refine emergent themes. First, nine types of peer scaffolding were identified and found to serve the goals of direction maintenance, cognitive structuring, and simplification. Second, three different patterns related to the high, mixed, and low prior knowledge levels of each group were identified. The high prior knowledge group provided peer scaffolding that focused attention on considerations key to developing their arguments, and this scaffolding may have improved the group’s work. In the mixed prior knowledge group, the students with greater prior knowledge were likely to support those with less prior knowledge. Together, these findings indicate the way students are grouped may impact observable patterns in peer scaffolding. Identifying the difficulties that learners face and the assistance they seek could help instructional designers and teachers identify areas in which students need support during IBL group activities. This study informs educators and practitioners of effective strategies for designing and implementing peer scaffolding to assist inquiry activities in technology-enhanced classroom settings.
Although the research literature investigating the relationship between grade awarded to students and students’ evaluations of teaching performance is voluminous, very few studies have examined the grade‐rating relationship according to level of student. The present study examined correlations between mean instructor rating and mean class grade for all course evaluations (N = 625 classes) at Utah State University during an academic quarter. In lower‐division (courses 100–299) and upper‐division (courses 300–599) undergraduate classes, correlations between grades and ratings of faculty were of an expected direction and magnitude (0.29 and 0.28, respectively); however, the grade‐rating correlation for graduate classes (courses 600 +) was — 0.20. It is speculated that graduate students are both better students and more critical evaluators of instruction, but replication and extension with different samples are needed before this tentative explanation can be accepted with confidence. 相似文献
This paper presents an exploratory study that investigates the effects of online learning on distance education students in an open university context. Two hypotheses are posited: (1) a direct relationship exists between students’ involvement in online learning and distance learning outcomes, and (2) an indirect relationship exists between these two domains via the mediating variable of an institutional Transactional Presence (TP), that is, a student's sense of the availability of and connectedness with an educational institution. Student learning achievement, satisfaction and intent‐to‐persist are used as indicators of outcomes of distance learning. The analysis of data garnered from 285 distance students reveals multifaceted relationships between students’ engagement in online learning, their perceptions of institutional TP and the three learning outcome variables. Besides the findings, the paper will discuss factors affecting students’ engagement in online learning in relation to different requirements, that is, optional or compulsory online use as well as the level of the course (undergraduate or postgraduate). 相似文献
How does education prepare future designers for current and future requirements of the field? An attempt to respond to this question is presented through the Design Workbook: a curricular project that has been proposed and developed over the course of three phases. In Phase One, the objectives, structure and format were defined: an online interface containing activities organised under five chapters that aim at building students’ creative confidence and sensitivity to surrounding contexts, and prepare them to lead their career path. In Phase Two, the website was developed to its first usable version, and content applied into live classes. Phase Three was marked with content refinement for the activities, navigation and feature redesign in the interface, and new ways of conducting the course. The article summarises learning points from the first two phases, and provides new findings and analyses from the final phase. It also includes a sample of the activities content, student works and feedback as well as the interface development stages. The methodology utilised throughout consisted of active research, as well as learning outcomes assessment using direct and indirect measures. Assessment results and classroom observations confirmed that students benefit greatly from visualising ideas, hands on activities, design thinking workshops, as well as from collaborative experiences, to avoid facing designer's block and to practise empowerment of self and others. Finally, challenges, opportunities and future implications are discussed, alongside implementation possibilities: The Design Workbook can run as a sole course, spread across the curriculum, and expand into the community. 相似文献
Since A Nation at Risk was released in the 1980s, standards-based reform has been the most dominant trend in American educational policy, and the
No Child Left Behind Act pushed the trend further by requiring states to develop rigorous curriculum standards. Though much
has been said about these new standards, less has been said about whether or how well professional development helps teachers
link their instruction to these standards. This study examined the impact of a professional development program for K-12 science
teachers in helping teachers meet state curriculum standards. Seventy-five science teachers in Michigan participated in a
2-week summer workshop that used Problem-Based Learning for improving teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical content
knowledge. Researchers surveyed participating teachers about the change of teachers’ preparedness for standards-based teaching,
their expectations to meet state curriculum standards, and whether their expectations were met. In addition, the usefulness
of workshop activities was examined. Data analysis showed that to align teaching with state curriculum standards, participating
teachers expected to learn instructional strategies and enhance science content knowledge through professional development,
and by and large their expectations were well met. Collaboration with colleagues and facilitators helped teachers achieve
their goals in terms of teaching within state curriculum standards. These findings have important implications for designing
professional development to help teachers align instruction with curriculum standards. 相似文献
Disparate findings on whether students attending charter schools outperform peers in traditional public schools (TPS) may stem from mixing differing types of charters or inadequately accounting for pupil background. To gauge prior family selection and heterogeneous effects, we distinguish between conversion and start-up charter schools, along with a third site-run model operating in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). We find that TPS campuses converting to charter status (conversions) attracted more experienced and consistently credentialed teachers, and served relatively advantaged families, compared with newly created charter schools (start-ups), after tracking 66,000 students over 4 years, 2007–2011. Charters overall attracted pupils achieving at higher levels as they began a grade cycle (at baseline), relative to TPS peers, most pronounced among conversions that remained affiliated with the district. After matching students on their propensities to enter a charter school, we find that pupils attending charters outperformed TPS peers over the 4-year period. These benefits are most consistent and moderate in magnitude for middle school students. We observed significant though small effects in English language arts for pupils attending charter high schools. Latino students, mostly attending start-ups, enjoyed consistent benefits from attending a charter school. 相似文献
This study examines the relationships of positive thinking versus negative thinking with psychological well-being and psychological maladjustment. Three hundred and ninety-eight undergraduate students from Singapore participated in this study. First, positive thinking were positively correlated with indicators psychological well-being – life satisfaction and happiness, and negatively correlated with indicators of psychopathology – stress, anxiety, depression, and anger. In contrast, negative thinking were positively correlated with indicators of psychopathology – stress, anxiety, depression, and anger, and negatively correlated with indicators of psychological well-being – life satisfaction and happiness. Second, hierarchical multiple regression results showed that females were more likely than males to be stressed and anxious at the first step of entry. However, there were no significant differences between the sexes in terms of depression, anger, life satisfaction, and happiness. Age did not significantly predict any of the criterion variables. Third, hierarchical multiple regression results showed that negative thinking accounted for more of the significant incremental unique variance in depression, stress, anxiety, life satisfaction, anger, and happiness in order of effect size. This is also found that positive thinking do accounted for a sizable significant incremental unique variance in happiness and life satisfaction, while a very small percentage of 1% significant incremental unique variance for stress, depression, anxiety, and anger. Implications and limitations of these findings were discussed. 相似文献
Abstract In Summer 1996, an opinionnaire survey was used to evaluate the opinions of Korean professors, in earth science education and geology departments, about the science concepts related to environmental issues that might be important for secondary preservice earth science teachers in the Republic of Korea. The opinionnaire contained 63 items within the 14 major topics being considered. It used a 4-choice, Likert-type scale and was completed by 47 professors (response rate = 51%). There was a good coincidence in opinions on major topics to be included. Respondents favored an environmental earth science course that emphasized the “human impact on the environment” rather than “natural environmental hazards.” Also, they favored study of natural hazards that commonly occur in Korea within a context of worldwide natural hazards. 相似文献