The client company marginally utilises the knowledge of highly skilled temporary staff

This study is based on the presumption that there is often an underuse of temporary staff in client companies (CC) with highly skilled professionals. The study combines theories of the flexible organisation and a sociocultural perspective on learning within the framework of an inter-organisational context. The data are based partly on 17 transcribed, semi-structured interviews with individuals in various types of health care and social services. The data are also based on two semi-structured focus group interviews with managers responsible for hiring social workers, nurses and doctors in two different temporary work agencies (TWA) as well as semi-structured focus group interviews with eight managers from a large health care organisation. The results show that CCs only use a limited amount of the highly skilled personnel’s capacity and exclude preconditions for taking over and absorbing knowledge from temporary workers. This contradicts the idea that staffing allows temps to increase their skills and enhance their employability. In addition, both TWA and the CC pronounce an interest in and readiness for deepening the business relationships between them, but they claim the other is responsible for initiation. The results reflect information not only about temporary workers with higher education but also the new business relationship between TWA and CC in the form of combined skills and workplace validation.     

‘You want us to teach outdoor education where?’ Reflections on teaching outdoor education online

This article reports on the experiences of two lecturers working at the University of Tasmania required to teach outdoor and sustainability education (O&SE) courses online. Using an (auto)ethonographic case-study approach, the lecturers were interviewed with a view to exploring their perceptions, challenges, ethical dilemmas, tensions, opportunities and experiences in this space. A number of themes emerged, including commitment to quality teaching and learning, the role of experience, and experiential learning, in the online space, the challenge of fostering a connection to place, difficulties faced when trying to develop a learning community, and the role of professional learning and support in terms of pedagogy and technology in the online space. These themes, and their implications for teaching and learning in higher education both generally, and specifically in O&SE, are discussed in light of what is a mounting body of literature exploring the move to online delivery in higher education.     

Boundary Crossing and the Professional Learning of Teacher Educators in New International Contexts

In this collaborative self-study, two teacher educators examine their experiences of working in new international contexts and the impact of those experiences on their professional learning and identities. Mandi moved from a major research university in one country to another, while Judy co-led a group of pre-service teachers on an international practicum for three weeks each year for three years. Using the concept of boundary crossing as a theoretical and analytical framework, each teacher educator identified a boundary-related critical incident or experience that occurred during her work in new international contexts. Through individual and collaborative analysis of their critical incidents, they found that working as a teacher educator in new international contexts involves the crossing and re-crossing of multiple personal, professional, linguistic and cultural boundaries. Working in these boundary spaces involved learning how to negotiate new kinds of relationships with colleagues and students, manage changed roles and responsibilities and, ultimately, a search for a renewed sense of self, as each sought to understand herself differently within a new professional context.     

Early Mathematical Growth: How to Support Young Children’s Mathematical Development

The purpose of this critical analysis was to investigate the young children’s sense of numerical magnitudes and the important attributes of classrooms where children in kindergarten and first grade are exposed to mathematics. This study aimed to offer guidelines that will assist teachers as they teach mathematics to children between the ages of five and seven.     

The Role of Students’ Personality Characteristics, Self-Perceived Competence and Learning Conceptions in the Acquisition and Development of Social Communicative Competence: A Longitudinal Study

An important purpose of higher social work education is to guide students to acquire and develop social-communicative competencies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role students’ personality characteristics, self-perceived communicative competence and learning conceptions play in the acquisition and development of social-communicative competencies. We designed and tested a hypothetical model on the student-related variables – self-perceived communicative competence, learning conceptions and reported learning activities regarding communication – in relation to performance scores. We were interested in developmental trends in the above mentioned variables. We also wanted to gain insight into the relationships among the variables. The study was set up according to a longitudinal, within-subjects design in order to study intra-individual changes. One-hundred and twenty-three first-year social-work students participated in this study. Many changes were found in students characteristics, reported deployed learning activities and study results during their first academic year. Except for confidence in “showing sympathy”, which was already relatively high at the beginning of the study, all scores on aspects of students’ self-perceived social-communicative competence increased. Assessment scores on comparable communication tests also increased significantly. Extraversion and emotional stability were the only two personality characteristics, which seemed rather stable. Agreeableness decreased while autonomy increased continuously during the first academic year. It seemed to be possible to set up a model, which may serve as a starting point for further research into the development of social-communicative competence.     

The Application of an Adaptive Web-Based Learning Environment on Oxidation–Reduction Reactions

The World Wide Web is increasingly being used as a vehicle for flexible learning, where learning is seen to be free from time, geographical, and participation constraints. In addition to flexibility, the Web facilitates student-centered approaches, creating a motivating and active learning environment. The purpose of this study is to set up an adaptive learning environment on Internet and to experiment with the most suitable methods and applications. Our goal is to provide a better solution with regard to the related distance learning research. All the resources and background are from current relevant documents on the theory of asynchronous distance education. We set up an adaptive Internet learning system based on learning theory and related learning models. Our research targets are those students who took the ‘Life Chemistry’ course for the asynchronous distance education environment at Providence University at Taiwan. The students were divided randomly into two groups: the experimental group, which was in an adaptive learning environment and the controlled group, which was in a non-adaptive one. We used the American Chemistry Society Test Bank as our research tool and used SPSS to analyse the data we obtained. Results show that the experimental group in the adaptive learning environment out-performs the controlled group. In addition, those students who are field independent learning types, have higher pre-knowledge, are male, in science departments and have a longer study time span in an adaptive learning environment show much greater achievement levels than those in the opposite situations.     

基于多媒体的计算机数学远程教学一体化设计探析

远程开放教育最重要的一点就是为学生提供便于自主学习的一切学习资源和学习手段。透过对学习者的学习能力、学习习惯、学习条件、学习环境以及学习者自身的生理、心理特点等的分析,按照分层次把握、按过程设计、按对象实施、按效果落实的原则,构建多种媒体组合的、适合多个层面学习者远程学习的计算机数学课程一体化远程教学体系:教学资源建设(文字教材+网络课程)+教学模式建构+评价体系。     

解析环境影响评价教学中部分难点问题

本文结合教学及实践活动,将环境影响评价教学过程中出现的教学难点问题（工作程序图、环境标准与评价等级、预测模式的更新与应用、工程分析的方法、卫生防护距离的确定）进行深入分析,分析其难度,给出处理办法,为学生的有效学习提供帮助。     

高职非英语专业学生英语学习策略和学习动机关系的调查研究

本文通过对高职非英语专业学生英语学习策略、学习动机二者之间关系的研究发现:学生总体的策略使用水平处于中等,最常使用的策略是情感策略和补偿策略,最不常使用的是社会策略和元认知策略;学生总体的学习动机强度处于中等水平,英语学习动机多为融合型动机和工具型动机,具有内部动机的学生为数极少;融合型动机、工具型动机、内部型动机与策略总体使用均为显著相关;六类策略与动机总体均为显著相关;融合型动机与认知策略的相关性最高;学习动机影响学习策略的使用及学习成绩。     

体育教学应重视对学生进行体育教学方法的传授

体育教师应在有限的上课时间内,除了向学生传授体育运动的基本技术、知识、技能外,重要的是要向学生传授正确的学习方法,从培养学生的素质入手,使学生具备自我提出问题、分析问题、解决问题的能力,以此,作为他们毕业以后继续体育生涯的手段,为终生体育奠定牢固的基础.