The Reflection-Informed Learning and Instruction to Improve Students’ Academic Success in Undergraduate Classrooms

Abstract

This study addressed the role of the reflection-informed learning and instruction (RILI) model on students’ academic success by using CourseMIRROR mobile system. We hypothesized that prompting students to reflect on confusing concepts stimulates their self-monitoring activities according to which students are expected to review their understanding, search for related knowledge, and try to identify the confusing concepts. With this student-reflection information, instructors can thus address students’ difficulties effectively, which can lead to enhanced academic success. We tested our hypothesis by conducting a semester-long quasi-experimental study in undergraduate industrial engineering classes (N?=?153). The analyses revealed that students in the RILI condition performed significantly better than students in the control condition (Cohen’s d = .82). In addition, reflection analysis showed that both quality and quantity of reflections were significantly associated with exam performance. Surveys indicated users highly valued the RIFI model; they rated CourseMIRROR favorably and said they would continue to use it in future classes.     

Metaphors we’re colonised by? The case of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article discusses issues concerning the spread of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. Here, as elsewhere, educational technology continues to be promoted optimistically as the bearer of a panacea for historically-rooted social problems. Whilst some of these technologies have indeed contributed to important widening-participation programmes in the last two decades, widespread advocacy of technological ‘solutionism’, reflected in gradually stronger policy demands for efficiencies to be improved through ‘innovation’, has supported a relentless marketisation of the country’s educational systems. As transnational corporations position themselves to take control of key areas of these systems, threatening to restructure the whole sector, data-driven educational technologies provide the latest example in a series of ‘new’ ideas offered in an ever-expanding market. Based on the notion of ‘conceptual metaphors’, which encapsulate specific ways of perceiving, thinking and relating with the world, this article examines key metaphors underpinning discourses surrounding data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. In particular, the article analyses ways in which these specific metaphors may be promoting perspectives that ignore difference and obscure broader questions concerning education, thus contributing to the reproduction of previously existing problems and supporting new forms of colonisation.     

陕西蚕蛹综合开发现状、前景与技术

本文就陕西蚕丝业的主要副产品——蚕蛹的综合利用开发的现状与意义,蚕蛹的化学成分和蚕蛹可开发的产品与作用,以及蚕蛹综合开发的主要生产技术、工艺流程进行了全面分析,展望了蚕蛹综合开发利用的产业化发展前景。     

On strategies of educational innovation: Between substitution and transformation

The innovation of education seems to beself-evident. Boosted by a wide range of newtechnologies, educational institutes all overthe world are innovating their educationalsystems, in order to extend their services, toimprove their performances or to reduce costs.The apparent self-evidence of educationalinnovation hardly prompts the educational staffto reflect on the very idea of innovation andits consequences. This paper treats the basicprinciples that support the phenomenon oftechnology-induced educational innovation. Itaims to contribute to a better insight andunderstanding of its implications to anyoneengaged in education. It also aims to effect agrowing awareness of the premises on technologyand to support the right attitude to realiseimprovements in practice. The paper goes intostrategies of change, while discussing bothsubstitutional and transformational strategies.It explains its supposed differences byreferring to the philosophical frameworks ofJaspers, Heidegger and Borgmann. Starting fromBorgmann's ``devices paradigm', four principlesfor educational innovations are formulated,referring to the transparency and interactivityof educational technologies, the socio-culturalsignificance of products, the importance ofvalues beyond efficiency and the political biasinvolved with technological innovation.     

计算机图形图像技术在医学中的应用

该文通过医学应用和研究领域几个有代表性的例子引入了计算机图形图像相关技术在医学中的应用,同时简单介绍了这些相关技术的概念、意义和发展。     

Co-evolution of physical and social technologies in clinical practice: The case of HIV treatments

In this paper, we investigate the interplay of clinical knowledge and technological capabilities in the recent development of HIV/AIDS treatments and offer qualitative and quantitative evidence from the empirical setting of Italian practice. The study contributes to the literature on the co-evolution of physical and social technologies in medical innovation by showing how professional guidelines, systematic evaluative research and local coordination mechanisms contribute actively to the resolution of the uncertainty that surrounds technological advances, while leaving room for largely discretional therapeutic choices. The resulting variety in implementation strategies improves health outcomes, but may reduce productive efficiency.