PROBLEMATISING ‘STUDENT CHOICE’ IN CLASSROOMS

ABSTRACT

In recent decades children’s rights to exercise choice in educational settings have slowly gained currency. Children’s rights advocates highlight the role of choice in empowering children to become critical and productive citizens. However, in this paper, the role of choice in interactions between teachers and students is problematised. Using Foucault’s notion of governmentality, the paper explores 15 teachers’ use of choice in classrooms and considers how ‘student choice’ can, far from empowering children, be used as a way of reinforcing extant adult-child power relations. The paper argues that students are often responsibilised to exercise choice wisely in order that they find themselves in a position in which they can enjoy everyday classroom privileges disseminated by the educator. When used this in way, the strategy of affording students ‘choice’ can frame students’ transgressions as individual failings to conform. The paper concludes that practitioners who advocate children’s rights need to reflect on the relationship between notions of choice and institutional power relations in order to ensure choice is used in a way that leaves space for power relations to be challenged by the students being asked to ‘choose’.     

大学生课外体育锻炼中自我医务监督之研究

针对现今大学生课外体育锻炼不甚科学、且时有伤病发生的现状进行了分析,提出了大学生课外体育锻炼应进行自我医务监督及科学地制定课外体育锻炼计划的原则。     

《宠儿》中记忆复现对心理创伤的修复

分析了托尼·莫里森《宠儿》中描述的奴隶制对塞丝等人造成的深重心理创伤,以及奴隶制对已获自由之身的黑人长期的精神贻害,认为拒绝回忆无益于反思现在和重建未来,而依据心理学创伤治疗的理论,有意识的修补记忆碎片,重现记忆全貌同“过去”和解则意味着希望与未来,有利于帮助已获自由之身的黑人释放被压抑的记忆,重构完整的人格和全新的自我。     

浅析如何将民间游戏与幼儿园绘画教学相结合

目前,幼儿教学越来越受到家长和教师的重视,幼儿时期是孩子快速成长和发展的重要时期,在幼儿时期对孩子开展美术教学对培养孩子健康成长具有重要作用,本文提出将民间游戏与绘画教学相结合有利于培养孩子的美术学习兴趣和提升孩子的各项能力。具体的,教师可以选择将“比手影”“捉迷藏”和“过家家”民间游戏与绘画教学相结合,通过将游戏与绘画相融合开展幼儿绘画教学活动,有利于锻炼孩子的动手能力、观察能力和表达能力等,同时对于孩子身心健康发展具有重要作用。     

早期教育视野中的游戏

因为游戏具有促进幼儿发展的功能,所以游戏便被纳入教育的视野。但游戏一旦成为教育者手中的工具,试图运用它去实现某种教育功能时,立刻就被赋予了功利目的。当游戏必须符合教育的目的性时,游戏者的自由意志将被大大削弱。对游戏与教学关系的认识和实践,既受制于文化传统的影响,也受制于对游戏本质的理解。在中国文化背景下,幼儿园要以游戏为基本活动,既要寓教于乐,更要寓学于乐。     

Longitudinal Evaluation of a Scale-Up Model for Teaching Mathematics With Trajectories and Technologies

Abstract

We used a cluster randomized trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a research-based model for scaling up educational interventions, focusing on the persistence of effects with and without a follow-through intervention. The instantiation of the Technology-enhanced, Research-based, Instruction, Assessment, and professional Development (TRIAD) model emphasized teaching early mathematics for understanding via learning trajectories and technology. The TRIAD implementation began in 42 schools in two city districts serving low-resource communities, randomly assigned to three conditions. In pre-kindergarten, the 2 experimental interventions were identical, but 1 included follow-through in the kindergarten year, including knowledge of the pre-K intervention and ways to build upon that knowledge using learning trajectories. Intent-to-treat analyses showed that students in both the follow-through condition (g = .33) and non-follow-through condition (g = .22) scored statistically significantly higher than children in the control condition. Both groups outperformed the control condition in treatment-on-the-treated analyses (g = .38, follow-through; g = .30 non-follow-through). Moderators and mediators were also analyzed. We conclude that the instantiation of the TRIAD model was successful and that follow through may contribute to the persistence of the effects of preschool interventions.     

Identifying high-quality centre-based childcare using quantitative data-sets: what the numbers do and don't tell us

Quantitative approaches to defining and measuring quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) have provided a key platform for policy development. Yet their strengths and limitations as informants of high-quality ECEC have not been tested. In this study we examine two sources of quantitative data collected over a five-year period for 74 long day care centres: (1) the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised and Infant-Toddler Environment Rating Scale instruments which are well-established observational measures; and (2) Australia's nationally administered Quality Improvement and Accreditation System which involves a self-study and validation process. Correspondence over time and across measures was more consistent for the centres identified as providing lower quality ECEC. Variability in ratings of quality was more evident in lower quality centres, whereas high-quality centres showed less variability over time. High quality, however, was less consistently identified across measures. Discussion focuses on the strengths and limitations of these measures of quality, and the implications these have for policy development and future research.     

‘Baby teachers’: how pre‐service early childhood students transform their conceptions of teaching and learning through an infant practicum

This qualitative study explores how working with infants changed pre‐service early childhood students’ thinking about important aspects of early childhood education. Through a qualitative analysis of four pre‐service early childhood students’ weekly dialogue journals during a required, one‐semester infant practicum, the authors discovered how the course provided a context for challenging students’ previously held notions about early childhood teaching and learning. Their findings showed that infants’ ways of being were a powerful influence on pre‐service early childhood students’ sense of themselves as teachers and emphasized the value of hands‐on experiences with infants as an important component of early childhood professional preparation.     

幼儿智力武术游戏创编理论研究

以幼儿生理和心理特征及武术运动的基本规律为依据,研究幼儿武术游戏相关理论。遵循游戏创编原理,探究幼儿武术游戏创编的基本结构、创编要素、创编步骤。文章本着坚持游戏创编的科学性、易行性、趣味性、安全性、创新性的原则,从而探索促进幼儿身心健康发展的有效方法和途径,丰富幼儿园教育活动的内容,改善幼儿园教学课程,开发幼儿对武术的启蒙认识和培养幼儿对武术的兴趣。     

Parents supporting learning: a non-intensive intervention supporting literacy and numeracy in the home learning environment

In Australia, emphasis in early childhood education policy is placed on the importance of the role of the family as a child's first educator, and finding effective ways to raise the effectiveness of parents in supporting children's learning, development and well-being. International studies demonstrate that the home learning environment (HLE) provided by parents is closely associated with children's cognitive outcomes: literacy activities at home are likely to predict children's literacy abilities and numeracy activities at home are likely to predict children's numeracy abilities. However, studies focusing on building the capacity of primary caregivers to increase informal learning opportunities, such as enhancing children's literacy and numeracy learning in the HLE, have rarely been the focus of research. This study uses a sample of 113 four-year-old children to explore the association of specific aspects of the HLE with different child outcomes while controlling for child and family characteristics. In addition, a non-intensive, yet purposeful and systematic intervention to draw parents’ attention to the principles of dialogic reading and the principles of counting was introduced. Study findings suggest that parents responded positively to this approach, and that literacy and numeracy aspects of the HLE were specific predictors for children's numeracy and literacy competencies.