Making the case for a material-dialogic approach to science education

ABSTRACT

Science is concerned with understanding the world. As such, engaging with the materiality of that world is integral to both empirical experimentation and theorising within science. However, it has been recognised for some time that the way scientists learn about the world and the way that young people learn about science cannot be simply equated. This difference has been pronounced in recent decades by the dominance of constructivist and social-constructivist theories of learning, which focus on the development of concepts in the minds of people. Whilst these theories have yielded insight into the complexity of learning, the role of the material remains undertheorised, not only within practical science inquiry, but also in relation to the broader materiality of classrooms. Through a detailed critical literature review, this paper demonstrates the need for a stronger theoretical frame through which to understand the role of the material in the learning and pedagogy of science. Building upon the gaps and possibilities that this review reveals, we outline a new material-dialogic theory via a synthesis of Barad’s Agential Realism and Bakhtinian dialogic theory. The significance of this paper lies in offering a theoretical basis for more effective practice.     

基于Moodle平台的C语言精品课程开发

C语言程序设计是一门重要的计算机基础课程.本文提出了采用以社会建构主义理论为指导,Moodle平台作为开发工具,建立C语言精品课程的新思想.这样可以帮助教育者建立有效的在线学习社区,并且支持C语言学习中的互动与协作,构建支持分数制与等级制的评价方式,从而有效提高学生学习C语言的效率和老师的教学效率.     

Distributed R&D, cross-regional knowledge integration and quality of innovative output

We explore the impact of geographic dispersion of a firm's R&D activities on the quality of its innovative output. Using data on over half a million patents from 1127 firms, we find that having geographically distributed R&D per se does not improve the quality of a firm's innovations. In fact, distributed R&D appears to be negatively associated with average value of innovations. This suggests that potential gains from access to diverse ideas and expertise from different locations are, on average, offset by difficulty in achieving integration of knowledge across multiple locations. To investigate whether the innovating teams that do manage cross-fertilization of ideas from different locations achieve more valuable innovations, we analyze innovations for which there is evidence of such knowledge cross-fertilization along any of the followings dimensions: knowledge sourcing from other locations within the firm, having at least one inventor with cross-regional ties, and having at least one inventor that has recently moved from another region. Analysis along all three dimensions consistently reveals a direct positive effect cross-regional knowledge integration has on innovation quality, as well as a positive interaction effect of cross-regional knowledge integration and distributed R&D for innovation quality. More generally, our findings provide new evidence regarding the importance of cross-unit integrative mechanisms for achieving superior performance in multi-unit firms.     

“A tie is a tie? Gender and network positioning in life science inventor collaboration”

Collaborative relationships are an important anchor of innovative activity, and rates of collaboration in science are on the rise. This research addresses differences in men’s and women’s collaborative positioning and collaborator characteristics in science, and whether network influences on scientists’ future productivity may be contingent on gender. Utilizing co-inventor network relations that span thirty years of global life science patenting across sectors, geographic locations, and technological background, I present trends of men’s and women’s involvement in patenting and their collaborative characteristics across time. Amidst some network similarities, women are less likely to connect otherwise unconnected inventors (brokerage) and have greater status-asymmetries between themselves and their co-inventors. In multivariate models that include past and future activity, I find that some network benefits are contingent on gender. Men receive greater returns from network positioning for brokerage ties, and when collaborating with men. Women benefit from collaborating with women, and are more likely to collaborate with women, but both men and women collaborate with mostly men. I discuss the implications of these results for innovative growth, as well as for policies that support men’s and women’s career development.     

Developing undergraduate research skills in a faculty of education: motivation through collaboration

This paper explores motivational factors underpinning undergraduates’ learning of research skills through individual research projects with collaborative tutorials. Research has long pointed to group support, positive affect and scaffolding as important for motivating and facilitating learning. Furthermore, UK government priorities have placed an increasing emphasis on the need to develop the key skills of inquiry and working with others. However, this is set in a context of assessment and practice in higher education that encourages individualist and instrumental perspectives on gaining competencies and knowledge. Traditionally undergraduate research skills have been taught through lectures and small‐scale projects chosen by the students with individual tutorial support in a faculty of education. Here our action research introduced collaborative tutorials as another element of teaching. We examine the process of collaboration to explore factors that support motivation to learn through two principal theoretical frameworks.     

An Education Worth Having: The Aspirations and the Development of the Whole Education Network in England

The Whole Education National Network is a dynamic national not-for-profit partnership of schools and organisations that believe that all children and young people are entitled to an education that supports the development of wider skills, qualities and characteristics to enable them to thrive in life, learning and work, as well as conventional academic achievement. The article outlines the background to the development of the growing network of some 150 schools plus partner organisations and its core aims. It then considers what the Network is achieving and what it is learning about its approach as it grows. It offers and is seeking to embed and sustain an approach to school development that is ‘values-led, evidence-informed and impact-focused’. It is also predicated on a commitment to and belief in peer-to-peer collaboration, inspired and encouraged by the work of leading academics, thinkers and practitioners. Whole Education is also a response to what many observers and commentators identify as a weakness of the English and many other systems: the gap between the outcomes achieved by the more disadvantaged and other students. Part of its moral purpose is to help to narrow that gap, underpinned by a belief that focusing on immediate outcomes and test scores is not enough on its own. The Network operates in the belief that it will only be through the commitment to an entitlement to a ‘whole education for all’ that any school or system will truly narrow the gap and make a real difference to the life-chances of all young people. School leaders and schools that have gravitated towards Whole Education seek like minds to share and, more importantly, develop both their thinking and strategies employed to help achieve their goals. At the heart of the change model underpinning Whole Education is the development of effective communities of practice that develop professional capital and unleash the creativity of teachers. Creating, embedding and sustaining a national self-funded school-led network committed to achieving longer-term aspirations rather than immediate needs is both inspiring and challenging. The pressure to respond to short-term targets in terms of student outcomes and accountability pressures has meant that the energy and resource tend to be focused on the immediate rather than the medium- or longer-term needs. Whole Education provides a powerful example of how schools that share common aspirations can seize the agenda, have real impact on students and demonstrate the potential of a self-improving school system.     

Teachers at the zone of proximal development – Collaboration promoting or hindering the development process

This study focuses on collaborative teacher learning during an in-service education course that supports teachers in creating knowledge and practices for teaching. The study investigates what types of activity support or hinder collaborative development within more-or-less successful teacher teams' group discussions. The findings indicate that collaboration that supports collaborative development consists of ideation, further development of ideas and raising questions. Excessive agreement appears to prevent successful collaborative development. The study suggests that in symmetrical peer-to-peer collaboration, equals are able to support creative collaboration by revising and questioning developed constructions and the developmental process itself, through the application of theoretical knowledge.     

The great neoliberal hijack of collaboration: a critical history of group-based learning in tertiary education

ABSTRACT

This article examines the teaching of collaboration within tertiary education, critiquing the hegemony of a neoliberal mandate. This review of academic literature first identifies the significance of social capital and an intrinsic motivation to collaborate, to theorize how an important and complex graduate attribute (termed here ‘collaborative dexterity’) might be approached by pedagogy. This leads into a historical analysis of research into higher education, revealing how the instrumentalization of collaboration to enhance the private advantage of learners continues to pervade academia’s understanding of collaboration. As higher education transitioned from learning ‘through’ collaboration to learning ‘to’ collaborate, extrinsic motivations for collaboration were promoted further through assessment procedures, maintaining a narrow economic-exchange approach to collaboration. These educational practices inhibit the development of collaborative dispositions, foster self-interest and ultimately limit graduates’ preparation for the needs of collaborative work environments. Moreover, while educational scholarship has extensively explored why collaboration is important and how it may be assessed, much less consideration has been given to how collaboration might actually be taught within diverse disciplinary areas in tertiary education. This suggests an urgent need for further research into how collaboration is taught within tertiary education, in ways that extend beyond a neoliberal conceptualization of collaboration.     

The use of a collaborative math tutoring model to improve content knowledge among special education teacher candidates

ABSTRACT

The mathematics achievement gap in special education is a chronic and significant challenge for the field. The need for improved teacher preparation in mathematics is crucial in addressing this gap. This study examines a capstone experience in higher level mathematics tutoring for preservice teachers. Results indicate that the experience was effective at improving preservice teachers’ higher level math content knowledge compared to teachers who did not receive experiential math learning in their teacher preparation. Implications for preservice teacher preparation programs are presented.     

Messy learning: Preservice teachers’ lesson-study conversations about mathematics and students

Research about lesson study and other forms of collaborative, practice-based professional development has tended to focus on identifying structures that support teacher learning. This study builds on this work by examining preservice elementary teachers’ efforts to conduct lesson studies in mathematics. Analysis showed that the structures of the lesson study project supported some groups in developing mathematical and equity lenses for looking at teaching; however, the use of these lenses simultaneously led to productive and problematic learning. This finding suggests that future research focus on challenges present in collaborative, practice-based work even when productive structures are in place.