Assessing School Readiness: Validity and Bias in Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers' Ratings

As a part of efforts to evaluate and monitor the increasing public investment in early childhood education, teachers are being asked to assess children's school readiness. In this study, preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers rated children's skills in three areas (kindergarten readiness, academic skills, and communication skills), and these ratings were compared with direct assessments of the children's skills. Ratings by both groups of teachers tended to be more highly related to basic skills, such as counting and number naming, than to abilities such as solving applied problems and using expressive and receptive vocabulary. Preschool teachers' ratings had a lower association with children's observed skills and abilities than kindergarten teachers' ratings. Ratings of children attending Head Start were systematically inflated, but this relationship was mediated to a significant extent by the teachers' levels of education. More educated teachers rated children in a manner consistent with the children's directly assessed skills. Implications of these findings for informing future efforts to assess school readiness by using teacher ratings are discussed.     

再论竞技状态

现代竞技运动由平时运动训练、赛前直接准备和运动竞赛三个相对独立而又相互联系的过程组成.竞技状态是生物能量转换范畴内联系竞技运动三个组成部分的纽带.它的实质是运动员在训练中积累的生物能量到竞赛释放的过程中所表现出的暂时性状态。     

The Impact of Workplace Bullying on Primary School Teachers and Principals

While previous research has consistently cited education as a high risk profession for negative workplace relationships, there has been little consideration of the impact of workplace bullying for those involved. This paper seeks to address this lacuna through the analysis of 24, in-depth interviews with self-identified victims of workplace bullying who work, or have worked, in primary schools. The study reveals the profound physical, psychological, social, and economic effects of these toxic behaviors upon the interviewees, along with the resistance strategies they employed to help them cope with their experiences. Through a lens of Foucauldian conceptualisation of power, this study explores the broader implications for school organizational culture, as well as for individual teachers and the pupils they teach.     

The Issue of Range Restriction in Bookmark Standard Setting

This article uses data from a large‐scale assessment program to illustrate the potential issue of range restriction with the Bookmark method in the context of trying to set cut scores to closely align with a set of college and career readiness benchmarks. Analyses indicated that range restriction issues existed across different response probability (RP) values and item response theory (IRT) models if one were to apply the Bookmark procedure using intact test forms. Results also suggested that range restriction may still be present if one had access to additional data from an item bank. This demonstration critically highlights challenges that may exist in some practical applications of the Bookmark method due items not being designed to cover the full range of examinee abilities.     

高校就业指导课堂教学方法的实践与探讨

加强对大学生的就业指导是《教育法》赋予高校的责任和义务,加强对就业指导课堂教学指导原则和教学方法的研究、实践,将促进就业指导水平提高。高校大学生就业指导课程要突出指导性、体现教育性、强调针对性、注重实践性等原则,多思考、勤尝试、重研究多种行之有效的教学方法,把就业指导课建成大学生普遍欢迎的一门精品课。     

Learning for Vocation Apprentice Participation in Work Practice

The high drop-out rate in upper secondary education is a major challenge to European and US educational programmes. Upper secondary education in Norway faces a similar challenge, because in recent decades, around one-third of the students drop out of the educational programmes. The majority of the drop-outs are students in vocational programmes, and a substantial number are apprentices at the workplace. With these high drop-out rates and the ensuing personal, social and economic consequences, it is vital to address how upper secondary education systems can keep students connected throughout the programmes. By thoroughly analyzing learning environments and the experiences, interactions and processes which youth deal with during vocational education, insights into how characteristics of the learning environments relate to dropping-out and connectedness may be brought into educational discussions. The case study presented in this article explores how workplaces constitute learning environments and how apprentices participate in the learning environments of work according to their dispositions, aims and life plans. The findings show that the apprentices had different agencies and that they were involved in two distinct participation patterns at the workplace： a collaborative pattern and an executive pattern. Our findings also suggest that strong agency for the vocation may keep apprentices connected throughout the educational programme, although they are aftbrded an executive participation pattern. Based on our findings, it is appropriate to raise questions as to whether an unclear agency for the vocation, together with affordance of executive participation patterns, may suggest one possible answer for the high drop-out rate among apprentices.     

基于“2+1+P”教学模式的独立学院职场英语教学实证研究——以重庆工商大学融智学院为例

职场英语教学是独立学院最为重要的英语选修课程之一,对培养学生的综合英语能力,提高学生职场竞争力起着重要作用。文章结合课题“基于雨课堂的独立学院职场英语课程2+1+P教学模式的构建与实践”中提出的“2+1+P”教学模式,选取两个实用职场英语课程班级进行对照研究。     

论高职学生的英语学习兴趣的培养

本文通过对高职学生英语学习现状及其成因进行分析,探讨培养高职学生英语学习兴趣的方法和途径。在清楚认识我国高职院校学生的学习状况之后,号召大胆改革现有的高职英语教学内容和教学理念,制定适合高职学生的职业英语学习内容,鼓励教师运用灵活多样的教学组织和多样的教学手段,开展丰富多彩的课堂内外活动,并结合情景体验教学和小组式学习,提高对英美国家的文化知识的学习比例和内容,全面提高高职学生英语学习的兴趣。     

美国生涯和技术教育新理念探析

2010 年,美国全国生涯与技术教育组织与21 世纪技能合作组织的战略性合作全面展开,将生涯与技术教育理念提升到一个新的高度.新理念将生涯与技术教育与21 世纪技能相结合并渗透进整个教育系统,让所有学生在掌握21世纪技能的基础上为升学和就业作双重准备.新理念表现出前瞻性与战略性相结合、系统性与整合性相结合、全面性与核心性相结合以及全纳性与个性化相结合的特点,其实施的可行性主要体现为理论基础符合国际职业教育发展趋势,并在实践上拥有强大的基层支持和范例证明.     

日语敬语在职场中的使用

日语敬语是日语中用于表达敬意的词语,用来表示说话者、听话者、话中人物之间的社会阶级、亲疏等关系.使用敬语是日语的重要特点之一,尤其是在一些社交场合必须使用敬语,以表达适当的身份关系和礼貌.但由于敬语的语法、内容比较复杂,要想完全掌握也是比较困难的事.着重讨论职场中敬语的使用.