Prospective Elementary Teachers' Science Teaching Orientations and Experiences that Impacted their Development

A large body of literature illustrates that many elementary teachers are reluctant to teach science and confess a lack of confidence to teach it. Nevertheless, a review of the literature indicates a few cases of elementary teachers who do well in science and offers rare examples of enthusiast elementary teachers. The question then becomes how those cases came to be? The purpose of this study is to document two such cases of prospective elementary teachers, illustrate their unique characteristics and shed light on how those came to be. The study was designed upon a narrative inquiry approach focusing on the collection of personal stories. Multiple sources of data were used in order to examine the participants’ science teaching orientations and the kinds of experiences that influenced their development: drawings, interviews, reflective assignments, and others. The analysis of the data was grounded within the Three-Dimensional Space Narrative Structure. The findings of the analysis illustrated that the participants perceived certain experiences they had during their university coursework as critical to shaping their orientations to science and science teaching: inquiry-based investigations, contemporary theoretical discussions, outdoors field study, friendly classroom environment and the characteristics of their instructors. These findings have implications for the design of teacher education courses that aim to engage prospective elementary teachers, especially females, in meaningful learning experiences and support them in developing science teaching orientations that are in line with reform recommendations.     

河北沿海地区湿地农业发展现状及目标取向

河北沿海地区湿地农业在推行立体生态种养技术,协调与湿地保护之间的关系,提高综合效益水平等方面取得较大进步。但与国内外先进地区比较,仍存在生物资源利用不够充分、水资源及环境条件恶化、水利基础设施建设滞后、自然灾害难以有效控制以及产品与市场链接不够紧密等问题。推进河北沿海地区湿地农业的快速发展,必须坚持产业化、生态化、标准化、企业化、集约化和现代化的目标取向。     

基于“科学·人文·公民”价值取向的教学设计模式构建——以大学英语课程为例

教学设计是将教学理念与教学实践连接起来的中介。从价值哲学的视角出发,以大学英语的知识属性、教育属性及其哲学使命为理据探讨"科学·人文·公民"价值取向在大学英语教学设计中的合理性,并尝试性构建基于"科学·人文·公民"价值取向的大学英语课程教学设计模式。     

论大学理念的科技取向

理念是一个动态性的概念,大学理念的科技取向是在大学理念演进过程中产生和发展的。大学内部教育环境和社会的科技环境促使了大学理念科技取向的形成和发展。科教一体化、科技社会化和研究型大学建设等体现了当代大学理念科技取向的基本特征。     

大学英语教材负面价值取向的批判及矫治

文章通过对大学英语教材的调查与分析,发现教材存在严重的负面价值取向,导致大学生对西方社会的盲崇,对本族传统文化的淡忘,从而歪曲了大学生的人生观和价值观.针对这一现象提出在大学英语教材中导入正面的价值取向,使课文有可读性与趣味性、思想性与教育性、经典性与可模仿性,从而改变学生的价值观和人生观,并使中华民族的优秀传统得以承传.     

Orientations to happiness and subjective well‐being among Chinese prospective and in‐service teachers in Hong Kong

This study investigated three orientations to happiness and their relationships with subjective well‐being in a sample of 228 Chinese prospective and in‐service teachers in Hong Kong. Confirmatory item factor analyses supported a three‐dimensional model that included constructs represented by a life of meaning, a life of pleasure, and a life of engagement. These three orientations, especially the meaningful life and the engaged life were found to predict life satisfaction and positive emotions as two components of subjective well‐being. Implications of the findings on the relationships between orientations and subjective well‐being for helping teachers to promote a more satisfying life to combat against teacher burnout are discussed.     

Six teaching orientations of Holocaust educators as reflections of teaching perspectives and meaning making processes

This study explored processes of curricular reinterpretation made by teachers who teach about the Holocaust. We conducted holistic narrative analyses of in-depth interviews with 31 American Holocaust educators. Six teaching orientations were identified: passionate historical, mythologizing-transforming, social-contemporizing, empathic-personalizing, riveting-shocking, and pragmatic-socializing. We offer vignettes for each orientation and compare them to other teaching perspective typologies, highlighting the novelty and utility of the presented typology. The findings demonstrate how narrative identity, meaning-making processes and teaching perspectives interconnect and lead teachers to reinterpret the Holocaust in their teaching. These findings have implications for teaching complex and value-laden topics.     

Intelligence beliefs,goal orientations and children’s academic achievement: does the children’s gender matter?

This study evaluated how gender is related to children’s intelligence beliefs, goal orientations and academic achievement and whether there are gender differences in how intelligence beliefs and goal orientations are related to academic achievement. The participants, 362 seventh grade students (55.8% girls; Mage = 13.20, SD = .57 years), completed measures regarding their intelligence beliefs and goal orientations at the beginning of the second semester and the grades were collected at the end of the semester. Girls reported higher scores on incremental belief, mastery goal and higher achievement but lower levels of performance avoidance compared to boys. The relations between intelligence beliefs and academic achievement were fully mediated by both performance goals. Further, there were no gender differences in the associations among intelligence beliefs, goal orientations and achievement. The findings reveal that goal orientations are a mechanism that might explain why intelligence beliefs are linked with academic achievement in early adolescence.     

Achievement after failure: The role of achievement goals and negative self-related thoughts

Theory on achievement goals favours a trichotomous model encompassing learning goals, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals. Performance-avoidance goals are associated with lower achievement compared to performance-approach and learning goals. The present study investigated the predictions of this model as regards achievement after failure. Low achievement of participants with performance-avoidance goals was expected to be mediated by a high degree of negative self-related thoughts. Before manipulating achievement goals, achievement on verbal analogies was assessed. After manipulating achievement goals for an anagram task, all participants (N = 87) were exposed to failure. Subsequently, achievement on a parallel version of the verbal analogies task was assessed. Participants in the performance-avoidance goals condition showed low achievement after failure, mediated by a high degree of negative self-related thoughts.     

Critical incidents as formative influences on the work of educational researchers: understanding an insider perspective through narrative enquiry

Drawing on insights from phenomenological sociology and various strands of socio-cultural theory, this paper reports the findings of a qualitative investigation into critical incidents as formative influences in the research orientation and research cultivation of 22 academics working in research-intensive university education departments. The study first outlines the context in which educational research has taken place, focusing on evidence of tension and conflict associated with differences in epistemological and professional orientation. The research findings indicate two ideal-type categories of educational research professional: the ‘intellectual-academic’, motivated primarily by the intellectual virtue of research excellence and accountability to the academic community; and the ‘humanistic-professional’, motivated by service to the wider community. It is concluded that a synergy of both orientations is necessary in producing quality research that is both rigorous and meaningful to a constituency of stakeholders extending beyond the immediate interests of academe.