Several studies have found active learning to enhance students’ motivation and attitudes. Yet, faculty indicate that students resist active learning and censure them on evaluations after incorporating active learning into their instruction, resulting in an apparent paradox. We argue that the disparity in findings across previous studies is the result of variation in the active learning instruction that was implemented. The purpose of this study was to illuminate sources of motivation from and resistance to active learning that resulted from a novel, exemplary active-learning approach rooted in essential science practices and supported by science education literature. This approach was enacted over the course of 4 weeks in eight sections of an introductory undergraduate biology laboratory course. A plant concept inventory, administered to students as a pre-, post-, and delayed-posttest indicated significant proximal and distal learning gains. Qualitative analysis of open-response questionnaires and interviews elucidated sources of motivation and resistance that resulted from this active-learning approach. Several participants indicated this approach enhanced interest, creativity, and motivation to prepare, and resulted in a challenging learning environment that facilitated the sharing of diverse perspectives and the development of a community of learners. Sources of resistance to active learning included participants’ unfamiliarity with essential science practices, having to struggle with uncertainty in the absence of authoritative information, and the extra effort required to actively construct knowledge as compared to learning via traditional, teacher-centered instruction. Implications for implementation, including tips for reducing student resistance to active learning, are discussed.
This paper situates the topic of student assessment and the moderation of assessment within a broader context of policy debates about the quality of teaching and learning in universities. The focus and discussion grew out of a research project that aimed to investigate factors related to academic success and failure in a Faculty of Arts. The study, initially, identified a range of student demographic and biographical factors significantly related to academic success and failure. However, there was also evidence of pronounced differences in grading practices between different components (courses, programs, schools) within the institution. The paper explores the implications of such inconsistencies for the institutional mechanisms and processes that have typically been advocated as sufficient safeguards of quality. It concludes that the tendency of governments and other stakeholders to now champion performance indicators, along with the shifting focus towards quality ‘outcomes’, are likely to increasingly throw the strengths and weaknesses of institutional assessment practices into stark relief. 相似文献
Students at America’s most renowned private universities face different acceptance rates, college wealth, class sizes, and potential graduate earnings even in comparison with students at the nation’s highest-ranking public institutions. The analyses that led to these findings frequently focused on national or state-wide comparisons of public versus private universities. This paper contrasts these studies by analysing a fixed group of colleges, those regularly listed in the global top 50 of research and reputation rankings. It argues that even within this small subset of colleges, the highest-ranking public universities have more in common with their similarly positioned private counterparts than with lower ranking public institutions; a finding reflected in assessments of private colleges. Subsequently, the paper finds that student experiences are more likely defined by a college’s reputational rank than by an institution’s public or private status, endowment, or acceptance rates, however, the same was found not to be true of potential graduate earnings. 相似文献
Editor's note. In the 1970s Professor Nicholas Hobbs directed a comprehensive study on child classification while Provost at Vanderbilt University in the USA. Though neglected in recent years his 1975 edited text, 'Issues in the Classification of Children', remains a relevant and important source of thinking about categorisation. Given the current policy interest in categories of special educational need it seems appropriate to reconsider some of these ideas. The following article originally appeared as Chapter 4 from Volume One of the Hobbs text. It is reprinted here with the kind permission of the Hobbs family. The American spellings and style in this article have been altered for consistency with house style, as has the format of the references list. 相似文献
Antibiotic resistance (ABR) is a significant contemporary socio-scientific issue. To engage in informed reasoning about ABR, students need to understand natural selection. A secondary science unit was designed and implemented, combining an issues-based approach and model-based reasoning, to teach students about natural selection and ABR. This sequential explanatory mixed methods study explored students’ explanations of natural selection. Students created model-based explanations (MBEs) about ABR and verbally explained generalised natural selection during semi-structured interviews. Students’ MBEs significantly increased in natural selection content, and misconceptions about natural selection and ABR significantly decreased after the unit. However, students’ explanations of generalised natural selection differed from ABR explanations. Students struggled to include mutation as the cause of initial variation when explaining generalised natural selection, whereas students included mutation when explaining ABR but often did so after selection pressure. Qualitative analysis indicated students correctly explained ABR or correctly explained generalised natural selection, but none correctly explained both. Students who did understand ABR struggled to apply their understanding to a context other than ABR. This study demonstrates contextual differences in students’ natural selection ideas and provides implications for natural selection instruction. While ABR is a compelling issue to contextualise natural selection instruction, it may be problematic. 相似文献
Science & Education - Currently there is little guidance given to teachers in selecting focal issues for socio-scientific issues (SSI)-based teaching and learning. As a majority of teachers... 相似文献