Programmed materials in seventh-grade open-ended laboratory experiences

A carefully designed exploration of programmed materials used in conjunction with open-ended laboratory exercises.     

A Review of: “Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter”

Scholarship matters. It allows faculty to fulfill the responsibilities of their three academic citizenships--in their institutions, in their disciplines, and in higher education in general. Current standards for community college faculty scholarship, however, have excluded faculty from exercising academic citizenship outside of their institutions. The sector claim to a unique teaching mission has been used to exempt or exclude community college faculty from the scholarly obligations and responsibilities understood elsewhere in higher education. The absence of generally accepted norms for scholarly production and validation at most community colleges continues to set them apart from other institutions, including those also serving non-traditional open admissions students. By discouraging externally validated scholarship, community colleges deny their faculty an appropriate voice in higher education and deny the rest of higher education the important voice of community college faculty. By encouraging scholarship that meets the tests of external scrutiny, community colleges can provide their faculty with legitimate higher education citizenship beyond the institution.     

An Examination of Black Science Teacher Educators’ Experiences with Multicultural Education, Equity, and Social Justice

Diversity, multicultural education, equity, and social justice are dominant themes in cultural studies (Hall in Cultural dialogues in cultural studies. Routledge, New York, pp 261–274, 1996; Wallace 1994). Zeichner (Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, pp 737–759, 2005) called for research studies of teacher educators because little research exists on teacher educators since the late 1980s. Thomson et al. (2001) identified essential elements needed in order for critical multiculturalism to be infused in teacher education programs. However, little is known about the commitment and experiences of science teacher educators infusing multicultural education, equity, and social justice into science teacher education programs. This paper examines twenty (20) Black science teacher educators’ teaching experiences as a result of their Blackness and the inclusion of multicultural education, equity, and social justice in their teaching. This qualitative case study of 20 Black science teacher educators found that some of them have attempted and stopped due to student evaluations and the need to gain promotion and tenure. Other participants were able to integrate diversity, multicultural education, equity and social justice in their courses because their colleagues were supportive. Still others continue to struggle with this infusion without the support of their colleagues, and others have stopped The investigators suggest that if science teacher educators are going to prepare science teachers for the twenty first century, then teacher candidates must be challenged to grapple with racial, ethnic, cultural, instructional, and curricular issues and what that must mean to teach science to US students in rural, urban, and suburban school contexts.     

Personal inquiry learning trajectories in geography: technological support across contexts

Student engagement in the design and implementation of inquiries is an effective way for them to learn about the inquiry process and the domain being studied. However, inquiry learning in geography can be challenging for teachers and students due to the complexity of scientific inquiry and the diversity of pupils' and teachers' knowledge and abilities. To address this, the Personal Inquiry project has designed a tool kit that includes nQuire, a Web-based tool to support students through the inquiry process. Here, we identify when, across five lessons comprising an inquiry into microclimates, nQuire was used by a teacher and a case study group of her 12 to 13-year-old students, and the ways in which they adopted nQuire as a tool to facilitate the creation of a coherent and cumulative inquiry learning experience over time. We found that students' use of nQuire supported them in capturing and representing their evolving understanding of inquiry, in defining and supporting their progression through the process of inquiry and in resourcing their cognitive engagement in data interpretation and representation. nQuire supported the students in accumulating and integrating new understandings across contexts and over time. In this way, nQuire successfully resourced and supported the students' learning journeys or trajectories. We conclude that nQuire can be an effective tool for supporting teachers' and students' understanding of the nature of inquiry and how to design and implement inquiries of their own.     

让MOOCs更有意义:在谎言、悖论和可能性的迷宫中沉思

大规模开放网络课程(MOOCs)是一种以开放访问和大规模参与为目的的在线课程。MOOCs作为一种新的教育技术,包括cMOOCs和xMOOCs两种,前者以联通主义理论为基础,强调知识创新与生成;后者以行为主义理论为基础,关注知识重复。两者在教学理念上差异很大,用同一术语表述很容易使人混淆。同以往各种形式的信息技术一样,MOOCs在本质上是一系列操作符号的工具,同时也是基于互联网的低成本教育材料分发和共享的工具,因此在对待MOOCs变革传统高等教育这一问题上应该理性。目前媒体、商业集团和高校机构对xMOOCs的关注处于一种狂热状态,缺乏系统而理性的学术研究,主要体现出四个谎言和悖论:一是学校品牌是教学质量的象征,而实际上它们的声誉是由其研究赢得的,并非教学质量,xMOOCs的低完成率为传统高校所不齿;二是多数xMOOCs机构对成功通过课程考试的学生只提供证书,不生成学分,对比传统学校教育,意味着对学生学业的认证取决于招生而不是课程学习;三是xMOOCs是一种新的教学法并支持个性化学习,而实际上他们采用的是一种过时的行为主义教学法;四是xMOOCs一方面期望和推崇"让知识成为人类共同财产"的理想,却又一方面在积极探索能够盈利的商业模式。MOOCs在炒作背后应该回归理性的发展轨迹,其对传统教育的真正变革应该是将xMOOCs置于全世界公众的视野中,迫使这些机构重视教学和教学法,并将教学作为其核心使命。     

野狐山上护鹭人

前些日子,我经友人介绍而去野狐山拍摄白鹭。山道旁有人在钉挂木牌。木牌略略陈旧,上面写着宣传语"爱鸟护鸟是人类的美德"。"橐橐"或"嗒嗒"的敲击声在林中似乎清越。我向他询问,果然他就是这野狐山上护鹭人—邵伟荣。简单客套寒暄几句,邵伟荣要继续巡山,让我随意而行,约好中午一起吃饭。白鹭多数为候鸟,少数为留鸟。每年春天,白鹭从热带越冬归来,在野狐山栖息生活。野狐山在浙江省兰溪市游埠镇境内,是浙西山区中的丘陵一冈,山上以樟树和杉树为林。     

关于武王伐纣之年的再研究

“慧星出而授殷入其柄”为武王伐封时重要天象，此慧星为布罗逊——梅特卡夫慧星，规模媲美哈慧。公元前1045年3月7日该星回归近日点，元前1045年1月5日牧野之战前后，黎明前出现于东方。“卜世三十，卜年七百”及“五星聚房”、“岁在鹑火”与姬昌称王、武王翦商的年代相符。王自称王始至周室东迁兼行二历制。