Web-based Collaborative Inquiry to Bridge Gaps in Secondary Science Education

As secondary students’ interest in science is decreasing, schools are faced with the challenging task of providing adequate instruction to engage students—and more particularly the disadvantaged students—to learn science and improve their science inquiry skills. In this respect, the integration of Web-based collaborative inquiry can be seen as a possible answer. However, the differential effects of Web-based inquiry on disadvantaged students have barely been studied. To bridge this gap, this study deals with the implementation of a Web-based inquiry project in 19 secondary classes and focuses specifically on gender, achievement level, and academic track. Multilevel analysis was applied to uncover the effects on knowledge acquisition, inquiry skills, and interest in science. The study provides quantitative evidence not only that a Web-based collaborative inquiry project is an effective approach for science learning, but that this approach can also offer advantages for students who are not typically successful in science or who are not enrolled in a science track. This approach can contribute to narrowing the gap between boys and girls in science and can give low-achieving students and general-track students an opportunity to develop confidence and skills for learning science, bringing them to a performance level that is closer to that of high-achieving students.     

动画剧本的故事性特征

在国内动画影片制作过程中,要做好剧本创作的故事性。首先,提出动画影片制作入要重视动画剧本创作的故事性,其次,强调动画剧本故事性必须植根于现实生活、反映现实生活才能使艺术效果深入观众之心;最后,以动画剧本故事情节的设置为重点,要求展现中国动画剧本故事性的个性特征。以此来倡导我国动画剧本创作要有“打磨”和“创新”精神,要有脚踏实地,循序渐进的创作理念。     

Adaptation and evaluation of a learning analytics dashboard to improve academic support at three Latin American universities

Despite the success of academic advising dashboards in several higher educational institutions (HEI), these dashboards are still under-explored in Latin American HEI's. To close this gap, three different Latin American universities adapted an existing advising dashboard, originally deployed at the KU Leuven to their own context. In all three cases, the context was the main ruling factor to these adaptations. In this paper, we describe these adaptions using a framework that focuses on four different elements of the context: Objectives, Stakeholders, Key moment and Interactions. Evaluation of the adapted dashboards in the three different Latin American universities is conducted through pilots. This evaluation shows the value of the dashboard approach in different contexts in terms of satisfaction, usefulness and impact in academic decision-making and advising tasks. The main contribution of this paper is the systematic reporting of the adaptations to an academic advising dashboard and showing the value of an academic advising dashboard on academic decision-making and advising tasks.     

Great Expectations? Childhood,Family, and Middle-Class Social Mobility in Nineteenth-Century England

ABSTRACT

Existing histories of social mobility have focused on adults and on measuring the achievement of individual upward mobility. However, children and families were central to mobility strategies. Using the papers of the Heywoods of Bolton, this article examines how the families of the industrial middle class endowed their offspring with the goods and character needed to secure their social standing, highlighting the emotional intricacy of these processes. It demonstrates that such families conceived of social mobility as a familial project and that rather than pursuing upward mobility, their chief objective was to guard against social decline.     

Latin American Universities,Academic Freedom and Autonomy: A long-term myth?

This article explores the issues of academic freedom and autonomy in different systems of higher education in Latin America, with an emphasis on the Brazilian case [1]. It starts with a broad historical view that permits the location of the tensions between the academic community and the State in relation to academic freedom and autonomy. These issues are then analysed in three different moments of higher education in Latin America: the early framing (the 1920s to the 1950s), the middle framing (the 1960s and the 1970s), and the contemporary framing (the 1980s and the 1990s). In the conclusion, an interpretation is offered of the current debate on higher education and the consequences for academic freedom and autonomy in the new millennium.