An interview with Professor Barbara Comber

As part of this special issue on ‘Literacy for social justice’, and at this moment of post-pandemic transitions in education, we invited Professor Barbara Comber to reflect on the needs for and trends in critical literacy education, both in her local context, in Australia, and internationally. In September 2022, we met with Barbara online to discuss her thoughts about what critical literacy educators need, how scholars and educators can work together to produce change, and where we can see hope in critical literacy and social justice education right now, as part of promising anti-racist, decolonizing, and intersectional literacy frameworks and practices.     

Assessing and developing critical-thinking skills in higher education

Generic skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and communication are essential for students' success in higher education and their careers. This article presents findings from an international study of students' (n ≈ 120,000) generic skills from six countries using a performance-based assessment. Results indicate that higher education students, on average, gain generic skills between entry and exit. However, learning gain is less marked than could be expected and varies significantly among country samples. Various background variables such as gender, ethnicity, parental level of education, and primary language are also explored. The authors conclude that it is feasible to reliably and validly measure generic skills in a cross-cultural context and that assessment of these skills is an essential component of best practices in higher education.     

Investigating science teacher educator identity through the politics of domestication and critical positional praxis

The focus on identity in the field of teaching and learning continues to grow, especially when it concerns equitable outcomes for students. While most attention is placed on students' identities and increasingly those of teachers, lesser addressed are the identities of the teacher educators and researchers broaching the issue of identity. Additionally, identity research is not often linked to relationships between self, others, and transformative action. We recognize these as gaps to be addressed and offer critical positional praxis (CPP) as a response. CPP is the public manifestation of the insights gained through our sense of identity and reflexivity. More specifically, CPP is the actions (or inactions) that express who we are in response to an event in any given social context—especially oppressive ones. In this article, we draw from our own critical autoethnographies, as a context for putting CPP into practice in identity research. Our collective analysis of these critical autoethnographies revealed how our identity development was inseparable from the ways in which we have each resisted the politics of domestication. Our autoethnographies further point to the role of dissent as central to our experiences of becoming critical science teacher educators committed to equity, diversity, and anti-racism in education. We draw from this analysis to offer recommendations for how identity and positionality can move beyond theoretical constructs toward transformative personal and collective change in science education.     

Introduction to the Special Forum on Critical Making as Research Program

This special issue spotlights the growing diversity of critical making practices in a range of disciplinary contexts both inside and outside of the academy, and begins to develop perspectives that will foster the emergence of critical making as a coherent field. On one hand, we see great value in incorporating material practices into existing information systems (IS) and science and technology studies (STS) research programs. In particular, forms of material engagement can help overcome the ineffectual linguistic bias of traditional critiques of technoscience. On the other hand, we believe that current material practices can benefit from the conceptualization of knowledge and social organization that are foundational to IS and STS research. In this introduction to the special issue we call attention to the mechanisms by which such practices may combine representational and material work to foster and support the development of new knowledge-making communities and institutions. We believe such work can serve as a framework for others engaged in critical making practices to better contextualize and expand the relevance of their work. We intend this special issue to serve as a “stake in the ground” for research on new forms of material-conceptual critique and their incorporation in the repertoire of critical technoscience scholarship.     

大学英语课堂教学中思辨能力的培养策略

本文分析了大学生思辨能力培养的重要性和思辨能力培养的内涵,论述了将思辨能力培养与大学英语课堂教学相结合,通过启发式教学、案例教学、任务教学和辩论式教学等多种形式提高学生思辨能力的培养策略。     

国外批判性思维研究概述

批判性思维是理性和创造性的核心能力,没有批判性思维教育就没有真正的素质教育。本文从心理学和教育领域对国外批判性思维的研究进行了总结,并对我国批判性思维的发展提出了建议。     

当前学前儿童双语教育简谈

为迎合当前全球化以及文化多元化发展的需要,社会对双语人才的需求越来越突出,反映在教育上表现为双语教育成为热潮。学前儿童语言学习的关键期决定了学前双语教育的可行性和必然性。但我国目前学前双语教育中仍存在许多问题,解决这些问题势在必行。     

理想第二类超导体的临界场

借助Ｇｉｎｚｂｕｒｇ－Ｌａｕｄａｕ理论，阐述了理想第二类超导体处于混合态的临界场，并得出下临界场Ｈｃ１与穿透深度λ、相干长度ξ有关，上临界场Ｈｃ２与参量α有关的结论。     

竞走运动员“阈值速度”的研究

为不断提高竞走运动员的训练水平,通过对运动员血液中乳酸含量的分析,求出其运动强度达乳酸阈时的速度(即“阈值速度”),对提高竞走运动员有氧代谢能力的训练有重要意义。研究发现运动员血乳酸浓度总体位置达3mmol/L 左右时,出现非线性临界点。达临界点时的“阈值速度”与运动成绩、比赛速度呈高度相关;临界点时的平均心率为162次/分。本文采用坐标作图方法求得乳酸阈值及“阈值速度”。     

An Australian Proposal for Doing Critical Literacy Assessment: The Case of Writing

In this article we present current thinking and practices in Queens land, Australia, about how to do critical literacy assessment in the English classroom. In taking this focus, we propose and discuss a framework that brings together interest in text analysis and social practices. Then, we apply the framework showing how it can be used to generate writing tasks and assessment criteria that are consistent with critical pedagogy. Finally, the challenges of moving to a socially critical, discourse‐oriented approach to assessment are considered.