1,721,194 research outputs found
Critical Realism, Policy, and Educational Research
No full textThis is a case for a critical realist approach to educational research and policy making. Such an approach enlists the full range of educational research tools to generate as broad an empirical picture of educational practices, patterns and institutional outcomes as possible. Its aim is to establish a comprehensive picture of an educational system at work, not just classical input/process/output descriptions, but also models of the life trajectories and capital of teachers and students to and through schools. The empirical work sets the table for theorising and modelling educational practice, for the interpretive and discursive work of policy formation. The translation of critical realist research into policy formation requires historical narratives and scenario planning, explanations about how things came to be, and about how alternative normative scenarios might be constructed. Here I want to provide a historical backdrop to the links between critical realism and a broader agenda of social justice and educational equity. Noting the parameters of current and recent research on pedagogy, achievement and social class, I emphasise the need for new sociological directions in pedagogy and in educational assessment and evaluation – but new directions built squarely on the foundations of social reproduction theory. In so doing, I want to suggest a way past the critical/empirical, qualitative/quantitative divide that has arisen in the context of Neoliberal educational politics in the US, UK and Canada. To address questions of generalisability, such an approach entails a shunting back and forth between levels of scale in a system. But moreover it requires a sociological imagination and critical hermeneutics for reading and interpreting evidence and research
Developing wisdom-in-practice through coteaching: A narrative account
No full textIn previous science teacher education research we demonstrated that student teachers could begin to access more experienced teachers’ wisdom through questioning strategies (Ritchie, Rigano, & Lowry, 2000). We further argued that there was a special type of wisdom that could be tapped only through being in the classroom and practicing as a teacher: wisdom-in-practice. So the broad question addressed in this chapter is: How is wisdom-in-practice developed through the application of a coteaching model
Students' Talk About Rotational Motion Within and Across Contexts, and Implications for Future Learning
No full textSuccess of English Foreign Language Education
No full textThis project studies how age of onset and the choice between Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) and Non-Native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) influence the success of early English education. English is commonly taught as a foreign language not only in China but in most Asian countries. The wide popularity and large population of English learners makes it important to discover what factors may affect the effectiveness of EFL education. Some findings have been gained. There are different advantages in EFL learning for students of different ages and different advantages that NESTs and NNESTs provide to language learners. Young learners have advantages in learning listening comprehension and pronunciation whereas older learners have advantages in learning grammar and vocabulary. NESTs and NNESTs have been compared in seven aspects and the comparison results show that NNESTs are not inferior to NESTs as English teachers.Graduat
"Look at what I am saying": multimodal science teaching.
No full textLanguage constitutes the dominant representational mode in science teaching, and lectures are still the most prevalent of the teaching methods in school science. In this dissertation, I investigate lectures from a multimodal and communicative perspective to better understand how teaching as a cultural-historical and social activity unfolds; that is, I am concerned with teaching as a communicative event, where a variety of signs (or semiotic resources), expressed in diverse modalities (or modes of communication) are produced and reproduced while the teacher articulates very specific conceptual meanings for the students. Within a trans-disciplinary approach that merges theoretical and methodical frameworks of social and cultural studies of human activity and interaction, communicative and gestures studies, linguistics, semiotics, pragmatics, and studies on teaching and learning science, I investigate teaching as a communicative, dynamic, multimodal, and social activity. My research questions include: What are the resources produced and reproduced in the classroom when the teacher is lecturing? How do these resources interact with each other? What meanings do they carry and how are these associated to achieve the coherence necessary to accomplish the communication of complex and abstract scientific concepts, not only within one lecture, but also within an entire unit of the curricula encompassing various lectures? My results show that, when lecturing, the communication of scientific concepts occur along trajectories driven by the dialectical relation among the various semiotic resources a lecturer makes available that together constitute a unit—the idea. Speech, gestures, and other nonverbal resources are but one-sided expressions of a higher order communicative meaning unit. The iterable nature of the signs produced and reproduced during science lectures permits, supports, and encourages the repetition, variation, and translation of ideas, themes, and languages and therefore permits, supports, and encourages conceptual development at the boundary between the mundane and discipline-specific cultures that students (have to) traverse in learning. It is only within this multimodal and dialectical communicative meaning unit that we can understand and investigate
science teaching and learning as these processes naturally occur
Students' engagement and parents' involvement in extracurricular activities
Full text linkIn recent times, students’ school experiences are not limited to traditional classes and hanging out with friends; an increasing number of students are encouraged to participate in various extracurricular activities by teachers and parents. These activities are believed to aid in the application of skills and character building, and thus to promote personal development. This project reviews students’ engagement rates in three main extracurricular activities: sports, the arts, and academic clubs. The findings reveal that students’ individual development and experiences vary in different activities. Moreover, parental involvement also plays an important role in influencing students’ participation and development. Parental support enables students to access more activities, however, their performance can be restricted by parental pressure as well. Therefore, it is of great importance for parents to understand their roles in their children’s extracurricular activities.Graduat
Understanding high school students’ science internship: at the intersection of secondary school science and university science
Full text linkIn this dissertation I explore the nature of an internship for high school students in a university science laboratory and the issues that arise from it. The investigation of science internships is relatively new to science education; therefore, this exploration is urgently needed. Twenty-one participants were involved in the internship experience, including 13 students, one teacher, two research scientists, and five technicians. Data sources include observations, field notes, and videotapes. Drawing on four coherent and complementary research tools—cultural-historical activity theory, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and phenomenography, I articulate a variety of phenomena from multiple perspectives. The phenomena identified in the dissertation include (a) the discursive resources deployed by a teacher for interesting and inviting students to participate in science; (b) the discursive resources high school students used for articulating their interests in science-related careers; (c) the natural pedagogical conversations for accomplishing the work of teaching and learning during the internship; (d) the theoretical concepts mobilized for describing the unfolding of science expertise in the internship; (e) participants’ ways of experiencing the science internship; and (f) students’ understandings of scientific practice after participating in the internship. The study identifies many useful resources for understanding the nature of the science internship and provides a foundation for future research. The findings reported here will also serve others as a springboard for establishing partnerships between high schools and science communities and improving teaching and learning in science education
A Review of Child Sexual Abuse in China and A CSA Prevention Program for Chinese Preschool-aged Children
Full text linkAlthough Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) has become a recognized global problem, studies about CSA in China are scarce. The purpose of this project is to survey and report evidence about the nature, prevalence of CSA in China, to discuss the possible cultural factors for the prevalence and characteristics of reported child sexual abuse and to design a new CSA prevention program for Chinese preschool-aged children. In the literature review part, 27 peer-reviewed research papers about CSA in China are reviewed to provide definitions of CSA, describe the prevalence of CSA in China, and compare the prevalence of CSA in China and western countries. Reasons for the great variations in prevalence of CSA reported in the available studies of CSA in China are proposed including research design and information gathering tools used, age cohorts and regions. The main findings about nature of CSA in China such as the types of CSA, offenders’ and victims’ characteristics provide a guidance in evaluating the design of a school-based CSA prevention program for Chinese preschool-aged Children.Graduat
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