色彩对运动能力的影响及其在体育运动中的应用

心理学研究表明:在人的感觉器官中,视觉的信息量最大,而色彩是引起产生直接反应的一种视觉刺激。在体育比赛或训练中,色彩直接影响人的心理、生理状态和情绪变化,继而影响运动员的运动效果和运动成绩。随着2008年北京奥运会的临近,我们应科学准确地利用色彩在体育运动中的积极作用,发挥运动员的运动潜能,提高运动成绩。     

RESEARCH SECTION: Examining the nature and perceived causes of indiscipline in Zimbabwean secondary schools

The problem of student indiscipline is an issue of concern for teachers and parents around the world. Teachers need to maintain student discipline and for them to do so it is important that they also understand the nature of discipline problems. This study, by Lawrence Kofi Ametepee, who is studying for a PhD in special education, Morgan Chitiyo, board certified behaviour analyst and Assistant Professor of Special Education, both at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA, and Susan Abu, who is currently a graduate student in the Department of Women's Studies at Texas Women's University, was designed to examine the nature and perceived causes of student indiscipline in Zimbabwean secondary schools. The authors anticipate that such an examination will promote teachers’, parents’ and policy makers’ understanding of student indiscipline, which will, in turn, enhance disciplinary policies and practices, making schools safer for all students and more effective in their role as educational and socialising agents.     

Investigation of Poor Academic Achievement in Children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a neurogenetic developmental disorder that presents with progressive muscular weakness. It is caused by a mutation in a gene that results in the absence of specific products that normally localize to muscle cells and the central nervous system (CNS). The majority of affected individuals have IQs within the normal range, generally with lower verbal than performance IQ scores. Prior work has demonstrated selective deficits on tests of verbal span and immediate memory. For the current study, 26 boys with DMD (and normal intellectual function) and their unaffected siblings were evaluated. Paired comparisons demonstrated that the children with DMD had significantly poorer academic achievement scores than their siblings, even though their vocabulary levels and home and educational environments were comparable. Children with DMD also had more behavioral concerns, physical disabilities, and poorer verbal memory spans. Linear regression indicated that behavioral concerns, executive function, and physical disability did not contribute substantially to academic performance, whereas performance on verbal span did. DMD presents with a selective developmental aberration in verbal span that has wide‐ranging consequences on learning skills.     

Assessing School Readiness: Validity and Bias in Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers' Ratings

As a part of efforts to evaluate and monitor the increasing public investment in early childhood education, teachers are being asked to assess children's school readiness. In this study, preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers rated children's skills in three areas (kindergarten readiness, academic skills, and communication skills), and these ratings were compared with direct assessments of the children's skills. Ratings by both groups of teachers tended to be more highly related to basic skills, such as counting and number naming, than to abilities such as solving applied problems and using expressive and receptive vocabulary. Preschool teachers' ratings had a lower association with children's observed skills and abilities than kindergarten teachers' ratings. Ratings of children attending Head Start were systematically inflated, but this relationship was mediated to a significant extent by the teachers' levels of education. More educated teachers rated children in a manner consistent with the children's directly assessed skills. Implications of these findings for informing future efforts to assess school readiness by using teacher ratings are discussed.     

More Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing

This article explores the basis of negative sentiments toward and current critiques of high-stakes student testing from within the education profession. To promote some balance for current policy debates, evidence for 10 unintended, unrecognized, or unarticulated positive consequences is provided. The article concludes with an examination of the relationship between high-stakes testing and accountability systems.     

素质型课堂教学的立足点

在基础教育阶段，学生在校时间的８０％是在课堂教学中渡过。课堂教学（其中最基本的是必修课的课堂教学）过去是，如今仍然是教育活动的基本构成部分。因此，深化教育改革，就必须深化课堂教学改革。如果说，学校是开展素质教育的主战场，那么，课堂教学是实施素质教育的主渠道。素质型的课堂教学应该有下面六个立足点。一、方向立足点———塑造人格课堂教学是要传授知识的，但传授知识只是最基本的目的，其更高目的是通过知识来启迪人的智慧、启迪人的思维，其最高目的是透过知识、智慧来唤醒人性，彻悟人生，使人成为真正的人。“学会做…