Adapting to large-scale changes in Advanced Placement Biology,Chemistry, and Physics: the impact of online teacher communities

Over the past decade, the field of teacher professional learning has coalesced around core characteristics of high quality professional development experiences (e.g. Borko, Jacobs, & Koellner, 2010. Contemporary approaches to teacher professional development. In P. L. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGaw (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (Vol. 7, pp. 548–556). Oxford: Elsevier.; Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017. Effective teacher professional development. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute). Many countries have found these advances of great interest because of a desire to build teacher capacity in science education and across the full curriculum. This paper continues this progress by examining the role and impact of an online professional development community within the top-down, large-scale curriculum and assessment revision of Advanced Placement (AP) Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. This paper is part of a five-year, longitudinal, U.S. National Science Foundation–funded project to study the relative effectiveness of various types of professional development in enabling teachers to adapt to the revised AP course goals and exams. Of the many forms of professional development our research has examined, preliminary analyses indicated that participation in the College Board's online AP Teacher Community (APTC) – where teachers can discuss teaching strategies, share resources, and connect with each other – had positive, direct, and statistically significant association with teacher self-reported shifts in practice and with gains in student AP scores (Fishman et al., 2014). This study explored how usage of the online APTC might be useful to teachers and examined a more robust estimate of these effects. Findings from the experience of AP teachers may be valuable in supporting other large-scale curriculum changes, such as the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards or Common Core Standards, as well as parallel curricular shifts in other countries.     

Different administrative directions and student ratings of instruction: Cognitive versus affective effects

A manipulation of the instructions students received prior to completing the 7-item Endeavor Instructional Rating card differentially affected their ratings on two types of items. Specifically, when students were led to believe their ratings would have a strong impact on the instructor's career, they tended to be more lenient on items measuring rapport (i.e., the affective domain); this same effect was not observed for items measuring pedagogical skill (i.e., the cognitive domain). The different items on our instructional rating instrument appear to be measuring different things. One implication of this observation is that the inconsistent findings reported in past research on student ratings of instruction may be due to the differential mix of items from one instrument to another. When instructors are compared on ratings given them by students, unbiased interpretation requires that the multidimensional nature of teaching (and of the rating instrument) be considered.     

Why Do Universities Compete in the Ratings Game? An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of the U.S. News and World Report College Rankings

Previous research has concluded that an institution's ranking in the annual U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges issue impacts admission outcomes and pricing decisions at schools in the Consortium for Financing Higher Education. This article expands on the previous work by analyzing the effects of the U.S. News and World Report rankings across a broader range of universities and variables. The results show that many schools' admission outcomes are responsive to movements in the rankings; however changes in rank are more significant at certain locations in the rankings and affect public and private schools differently. The results also show that the socioeconomic and racial demographics of highly ranked universities may also be affected by changes in rank.     

基于市场竞争优势差异的不对称双头垄断投资决策模型——对中小微企业发展路径的一种理论解释

在考虑融资成本不对称的情况下,将期权博弈理论的不确定性、不可逆性、竞争性和信息不对称性等因素同时纳入研究框架,构建一个基于不对等市场竞争优势的投资决策模型。通过仿真实验,发现领先者有竞争优势能激励其更早进入,反之追随者有竞争优势则可避免其他企业抢先进入的威胁;此外,企业跟随者临界值较企业领先者的临界值对融资成本的变化更敏感,企业降低融资成本可获得相对较高的收益。最后,结合企业的经营成本、建设时间、政府补贴对企业竞争的影响,给出模型对中小微企业构筑竞争优势、缓解融资成本压力,实现跨越式发展的理论解释。     

"三班三自主"教学管理模式的实践研究

以“学校教育要树立健康第一的指导思想”为导向,运用文献资料、问卷调查、数理统计和教学实验等方法,对我校公共体育课教学进行了一系列的改革和实践研究,从学生的兴趣、爱好和运动水平等实际情况出发,构建了一个“三班三自主”的教学管理模式,旨在为高校体育的课程设置、教学管理、教学模式、教学方法及课程评价体系等方面的改革提供参考。     

Using Argumentation to Investigate Science Teachers' Teaching Practices: The Perspective of Instructional Decisions and Justifications

Adopting the concept that “decisions can be seen as argument-driven actions,” the purpose of this study was to apply the argumentation structure raised by Stephen Toulmin (1958) to capture two science teachers' instructional decision-making mechanisms in their teaching practices. The two case teachers were chosen because of their close estimations of their students' achievement outcomes and both were in their transition stages from competent teachers to proficient ones. A science teaching observation coding schedule (STOCS) was designed to be used in classroom observations, and all these quantitative data were collected to be converted into four issues for the two teachers to justify their ways of teaching. A semi-structure interview was conducted to analyze why and how these two case teachers made their instructional decisions. The results indicate that although they knew that their students could not fully understand what they taught in the class, their teaching strategies were still teacher-dominated modes. What really influenced their instructional decisions included external context factors (e.g., examination pressure, subject contents, limited time and classroom management) and internal experiential factors (e.g., personal educated experiences, beliefs and understandings of constructivism and inquiry). Finally, the authors suggest that science teachers' instructional decision making mechanisms can be appropriately represented by case teachers' argumentations structure.     

走出危机决策管理的困境——谈如何构建高校图书馆危机决策管理

论述危机给学校和图书馆带来种种可见及不可见的损害,往往将其处境推向一个难以控制的局面,图书馆是高校重要的有机组成部分,作为人员高度密集、人才大量聚集的场所,图书馆往往成为危机易发地区。并针对我国高校图书馆危机决策主要问题进行分析,提出如何构建高校图书馆危机决策管理。     

My cooperating teacher and I: how pre-service teachers story mentorship during School Placement

ABSTRACT

Set against a particular policy context in the Republic of Ireland, this study explores the stories of seven pre-service teachers’ experiences of being mentored during their final School Placement practicum. Their stories were prompted by videos of their School Placement practice and collected using narrative interview methods. Findings suggest the pre-service teachers view their mentors as models for future selves, based on a simplistic dichotomisation of good and bad practices. The results highlight how mentor teachers act predominantly as gate keepers of school culture rather than as a source of support for pre-service teacher learning. Findings are discussed from the perspective of local and international implications for teacher preparation.     

通过教育实习提高体育教育专业毕业生教师招聘应试能力的思考

从提高体育教育专业毕业生教师招聘应试能力出发,结合当前体育教育专业教育实习的现状,在保证完成原有实习目标和任务的前提下,提出相关改进建议与措施。帮助即将毕业的实习生提高教师招聘应试能力,从而提高学校毕业生就业率和确保就业的本专业对口方向。