Travelling on parallel tracks: Chinese parents and English teachers

The present study is concerned with the problems in communication which arise between British teachers and Chinese parents in discussions of children's performance in British schools. A discussion of the importance of an understanding of cultural differences for the educational outcomes of ethnic minority children will form the backdrop for an analysis of four parent–teacher meetings and interview data gathered before and after the meetings. It is argued that Chinese parents pay attention to micro aspects of the learning situation, emphasizing accuracy and perfect scores. British teachers, in contrast, consider error as a normal part of the learning process and are more concerned with macro-aspects of learning such as problem-solving. Chinese parents have very high expectations of their children and are prepared to spend a great deal of time and effort in identifying areas where they need support. However, parental efforts to support their children are often perceived as unnecessarily harsh and undermining of children's confidence by British teachers who tend to stress the positive aspects of children's achievements. Considerable importance is attached to the need for dialogue which will increase the awareness of both parents and teachers to differences between Chinese and British expectations of education.     

A narrative inquiry of cross-cultural lives: Lives in China

In a series of three papers, I examine the identity development of three Chinese women teachers as they moved back and forth between Eastern and Western cultures and languages amid the rapidly changing events of the last four decades. I use a river metaphor to explore three phases in the cross-cultural lives of these women: in the first paper, their lives in China amid multiple cultural movements; in the second, their lives in Canada; and in the third their lives in the North American academy. This lifebased narrative inquiry, situated between non-fiction, fiction and academic discourses, opens up possibilities for establishing a link between cross-cultural lives and identities, cross-cultural teacher education and curriculum studies in multicultural contexts. In this first paper, I explore the three teachers' lives in China before, during and after the Cultural Revolution. I tell stories of changes for each participant as cultural upheavals were experienced in their homes and schooling. I pay special attention to the relationship between living such disruptive lives, telling such lives, and developing an inquiry-oriented way of thinking about and writing about such lives related to identity development and its impact upon cross-cultural curriculum making and multicultural education.     

Unlocking the gates: how and why elite universities are opening up access to their courses,by Taylor Walsh, 2011, Princeton,New Jersey,Princeton University Press, 296 pp., $29.95 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-69-114874-8

This paper presents a case study of the nature of an online community that exists amongst students in a full‐time teacher education program delivered at a distance. Students differentiate between two principal areas of their community—learning and support—and appear to act differently in relation to those areas. The nature of those differences is explored through the students' words as a way of enriching understanding of the complex nature of online learning communities.     

Self-generated drawings for supporting comprehension of a complex animation

The perceptual and cognitive processing demands involved in comprehending complex animations can pose considerable challenges to learners. There is a tendency for learners to extract information that is highly perceptually salient but neglect less conspicuous information of crucial relevance to the building of a quality mental model. This study investigated the effectiveness of self-generated drawing for learning from an animation illustrating a scientific phenomenon, the so-called “Newton’s Cradle.” Participants were 199 students in grade seven, randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: self-generated drawing, traced/copied drawing, and no drawing. All participants were asked to produce an explanation of the animation for both immediate and delayed posttests. The results revealed the superiority of self-generated drawing in supporting animation comprehension at both testing times compared to the other two conditions, which did not differ from each other. In addition, comprehension of the animation was related to the quality of self-generated drawings. Specifically, the depiction of information characterized by low perceptual salience but high conceptual relevance to the phenomenon predicted comprehension and retention over time.     

The relative benefits of learning by teaching and teaching expectancy

The purpose of this study was to explore the hypothesis that learning is enhanced through the act of teaching others. Specifically, two experiments aimed to disentangle the relative effects of teaching expectancy (i.e., preparing to teach) and actually teaching (i.e., explaining to others for instructional purposes) on learning. Some participants studied a lesson on the Doppler Effect without the expectation of later teaching the material and then took a comprehension test on the material (control group). Other students studied the same lesson with instructions that they would later teach the material; of those expecting to teach, some participants actually taught the material by presenting a brief video-recorded lecture before being tested (teaching group), whereas others only prepared to teach before being tested (preparation group). Results of Experiment 1 indicated that both the preparation group and teaching group significantly outperformed the control group on an immediate comprehension test (Teaching vs. Control: d = 0.82; Preparation vs. Control: d = 0.59). However, when the same test was given following a one-week delay (Experiment 2), only the teaching group significantly outperformed the control group (Teaching vs. Control: d = 0.79; Preparation vs. Control: d = 0.24). Overall, these findings suggest that when students actually teach the content of a lesson, they develop a deeper and more persistent understanding of the material than from solely preparing to teach.     

A rising tide of primary school standards—The role of data systems in improving equitable access for all to quality education in Vietnam

The approach taken over the past decade to introduce minimum primary school standards in Vietnam is reviewed, with annual school audits that measured both input (quality) and output indicators.     

人工智能在交互式学习环境中的应用

本文介绍了交互式学习环境(ILE)教学系统及其现状,着重讨论了人工智能技术与方法在其中的应用,并阐述了人工智能的四个分支:智能代理、专家系统、知识表示、自然语言处理在ILE的应用。     

浅谈高等数学学习困难的解决途径

解决高等数学的学习困难必须通过以下途径:改进高等数学的现有教学模式,教师必须发挥对学生的导向作用,改革现有的高等数学考核形式。     

人文社科领域科研项目立项评价的指标体系研究

人文社科领域科研项目的立项评价是项目选择和确定的重要依据,是项目进行的基础和前提,在项目评价过程中起关键作用.根据指标设计的基本原则构建了立项评价的指标体系,并设置了指标权重.为克服以往定性分析的不足,应用综合评分法将定性和定量相结合,描述了具体的计算过程,为科研项目的立项评价提供了一种简易可行的方法,对科研项目的实际操作具有重要的指导意义.     

Behavioural additionality of R&D subsidies: A learning perspective

The use of R&D grants as a policy instrument has been motivated by economic arguments of market failure. Neo-classical econometric studies have analysed the additionality of one Euro of subsidies on both the investments of companies in the R&D process and the output of that R&D process. More recently, behavioural additionality has been launched as a third form of additionality. In contrast to input and output additionality, behavioural additionality is related to changes in the processes that take place within the firm. In this paper, we analyse the determinants of the behavioural additionality of R&D grants. To explain the mechanism through which behavioural additionality is obtained, we use organizational learning theory as a guide to formulate our hypotheses. Hypotheses are tested using a telephone survey of 192 recipients of R&D grants provided by the IWT in Flanders in 2001–2004, matched to a sample of 84 firms that undertake innovation activities but which had never had a grant bid accepted. We find that congenital learning and interorganizational learning lead to increased behavioural additionality. However, these learning effects decrease with the number of subsidized projects that are undertaken by the company.