Comparing with caution: thoughts on aspects of higher education policy and practice     

William Taylor 《History of education》2013,42(5):401-411

This paper is an edited version of a keynote lecture given by Professor Sir William Taylor at the Annual Conference of the History of Education of Education Society held at the University of London Institute of Education on 24 November 2001.  相似文献   

Creating contexts conducive to flexibility     

Peter G. Taylor 《Studies in Continuing Education》2013,35(2):112-123

’We've got no option. Everyone else is doing it.’ In the context of the challenges facing continuing and professional education,flexible learning represents both a predicament and a panacea. In this paper I will explore some of the challenges facing educators generally, and how the move toward flexible learning has been experienced in different organisational settings. I will introduce and use the concepts of ‘tribalism’ and territory as ways of both representing and exploring multiple perspectives on those challenges. My purpose is to question some of the assumptions that underlie teachers’ responses to the move to flexible learning, and to suggest some ways of thinking and acting which focus on negotiation and agreement rather than on tradition, as a means for the development ofprofessional identities. My argument is forward looking; it points to interesting and pragmatic possibilities and to some strategically significant challenges which I hope will invite a pro‐active rather than reactive response.  相似文献   

Learners’ Mental Models of the Particle Nature of Matter: A study of 16‐year‐old Swedish science students     

Richard K. Coll  Neil Taylor 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(6):757-778

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Estimating Linear Size and Scale: Body rulers     

Gail Jones  Amy Taylor  Bethany Broadwell 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(11):1495-1509

The National Science Education Standards emphasise the use of concepts and skills that cut across the science domains. One of these cross‐cutting areas is measurement. Students should know measurement systems, units of measurement, tools and error in measurement as well as the importance of measurement to scientific endeavours. Even though measurement is an essential skill, little is known about how students estimate and use measurement in different contexts. This study examines the impact of teaching students to use their bodies as rough measurement tools (body rulers) on their ability to estimate linear measurements. Nineteen middle school students participated in metric intervention tasks and completed a pre‐instruction and a post‐instruction Linear Measurement Assessment. Results showed that teaching students to use rough body measures as tools (a body ruler) for estimation had a significant influence on their estimation accuracy. After instruction, students were better able to estimate the sizes of objects, use their body in making estimations of size, and estimate while touching an object or pacing a distance. Furthermore, proportional reasoning was significantly correlated with students’ post‐instruction scores on the Linear Measurement Assessment.  相似文献   

The politics are personal: The Australian vs the Australian curriculum in history     

Tony Taylor  Sue Collins 《Curriculum Journal》2013,24(4):531-552

This article reviews the relationship between the conservative newspaper The Australian and the development of a national history curriculum in Australia. The lead author surveyed the major Australian press in the five-year period between 2007 and 2012 and found clear patterns of difference between The Australian and other press outlets in relation to education in general and history curriculum in particular. Using Jonathan Haidt's five-point model of moral values, the article analyses the behaviour of the press in Australia in relation to history education as a feature of moral preferences. Extending from this analysis, it then highlights a number of cases of press campaigns in The Australian targeted against individuals including one academic involved in the development of a national curriculum. The article demonstrates that a culture of aggressive conservatism exercised in this Murdoch press outlet reaches beyond the field of conventional political debate to constitute a serious and concerning influence in the dynamics of curriculum policy development.  相似文献   

Diversity between and within: approaches to teaching about distant place in the secondary school curriculum     

Liz Taylor 《课程研究杂志》2013,45(2):276-299

This study outlines some challenges of teaching about distant place and demonstrates how different strategies can influence school students’ framings of diversity. The analysis is based on an interpretive case study of 13–14?year-old students learning about Japan in a UK school. Their changing representations of Japan were tracked in detail over a 10?week period of study. The findings show that students’ representations of Japan were multi-stranded, demonstrating different levels of sophistication depending on the aspect of the country under consideration. Learning activities that enabled contact with the lives of young people from the distant place or that involved multiple images were shown to challenge stereotypes and to encourage more nuanced understandings of diversity between and within.  相似文献   

Examination of objective and subjective financial factors in predicting financial and retirement satisfaction in retirees     

Janet Donnelly  Mary Anne Taylor 《Educational gerontology》2013,39(6):401-411

The present study examined predictors of retirement and financial satisfaction and contributed to existing literature by examining the incremental prediction offered by subjective estimates of financial resources and the impact of the Recession over more traditional objective measures. We hypothesized that objective financial resources, subjective financial resources, and the economic recession would predict retirement satisfaction and financial satisfaction, but that subjective estimates of financial well-being would be superior predictors of the dependent variables as compared to objective indices of financial resources.

A total of 245 retirees participated in the study, and results suggested that subjective and objective measures of finances were relatively independent. Further, consistent with hypotheses, most of the subjective financial measures provided significant incremental prediction of retirement and financial post-retirement satisfaction over that offered by objective financial indices. Subjective estimates of the impact of the Recession significantly predicted financial satisfaction post-retirement. Practical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.  相似文献   

An Application of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction and College and University Classroom Environment Inventory in a Multicultural Tertiary Context   总被引：3，自引：2，他引：1  

Richard K. Coll  Neil Taylor  Darrell L. Fisher 《Research in Science & Technological Education》2013,31(2):165-183

The research reported in this inquiry consisted of the application of two classroom learning environment questionnaires developed in a Western context to a culturally diverse context, namely, the Pacific Islands. The College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI) and Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) instruments were administered to intact classes of first- and second-year science students ( n= 257) at a regional university in the Pacific Islands, containing a total of 12 ethnicities. The data reveal that the QTI instrument holds good reliability for all scales, whereas the CUCEI holds reliability for only two scales. This may be due to the simple nature of the questions on the QTI whereas the questions on the CUCEI require more interpretation, the latter exacerbated by the fact that English is a second or third language for most participants. Surprisingly, there were few differences in perceptions of teacher student interaction based on ethnicity, but substantial differences based on gender. As reported in previous classroom environment research at the secondary school level, in this study, females perceived their environment more favourably than males. The data for the QTI reveal that the students perceive their classrooms to be highly teacher dominated, consistent with previous naturalistic studies of secondary schools and exploratory studies at the tertiary level in Fiji. Since almost all the graduates from this institution become science teachers, a cycle is completed.  相似文献   

Hierarchies and 'local' markets: the geography of the 'lived' market place in secondary education provision     

Chris Taylor 《教育政策杂志》2013,28(3):197-214

While not providing a social class analysis of market competition this paper aims to build upon such work by introducing other factors that appear to be present in the education market place. In this paper market competition is considered along two broad dimensions. The first examines educational markets as spatial phenomenon. In the second an empirical study of competition and markets in action is undertaken based on one year's transfer of pupils to secondary schools across six LEAs, each with different geographies. The study proposes three key ways in which competition between schools can be classified. It also suggests that the education market place is, generally, hierarchical, and that the position of schools within these hierarchies is largely associated with their relative examination performances. The paper concludes by suggesting that the concept and the subsequent identification of the ‘local’ markets is necessary before addressing issues such as the impact on school rolls and potential social segregation of intakes.  相似文献   

The construction and production of youth ‘at risk’     

Diane Wishart  Alison Taylor  Lynette Shultz 《教育政策杂志》2013,28(3):291-304

Following the Commonwealth Government funding cuts in 1986, a hiatus has developed in in‐service teacher education in Australia. Recent curriculum innovations and expanding stresses in the educational environment have generated in‐service education needs which are possibly greater than at any other time in the recent past. The trend in other industrialized countries has been to encourage or even require teachers in primary and secondary education to achieve postgraduate qualifications. Similar pressures are currently mounting in Australia. The combination of the stresses and new emphasis, calls for a rethinking of existing approaches and policies. The restructuring of the education system in a number of States, the difficulties which have become apparent in solution‐centred in‐service programmes and the continuing unsatisfactory ad hoc arrangements for the design and delivery of such programmes across Australia indicate that the need for different policies and provisions in teacher professional development is acute. After analysing the state of the art of in‐service training in Australia, this paper provides possible rationales for such policies and programmes and suggests the development of a multiprogramme policy package which could assist the teachers to ensure a better quality and cost‐effective educational service.  相似文献