A qualitative study of middle school students' perceptions of factors facilitating the learning of science: Grounded theory and existing theory     

Barbara S. Spector  Charles W. Gibson 《科学教学研究杂志》1991,28(6):467-484

The purpose of this study was to explore middle school students' perceptions of what factors facilitated their learning of science. Florida's Educational Reform Act of 1983 funded programs providing the state's precollege students with summer learning opportunities in science. mathematics, and computers. The programs were intended to encourage the development of creative approaches to the teaching of these disciplines. Under this program, between 50 and 60 high-achieving middle school students were in residence on the University of South Florida campus for 12 consecutive days of study in the World of Water (WOW) program. There were two sessions per summer involving a total of 572 participants. Eighi specially trained teachers were in residence with the students. Between 50 and 70 experts from the university, government. business, and industry interacted with the students each year in an innovative science/technology/society (STS) program. An assignment toward the close of the program asked students to reflect on their experiences in residence at the university and write an essay comparing learning in the WOW program to learning in their schools. Those essays were the base for this study. This was a qualitative study using a discursive approach to emergent design to generate grounded theory. Document review, participant observation, and open-ended interviews were used to gather and triangulate data in five phases. Some of the factors that middle school students perceived as helpful to learning science were (a) experiencing the situations about which they were learning; (b) having live presentations by professional experts; (c) doing hands-on activities: (d) being active learners; (e) using inductive reasoning to generate new knowledge; (f) exploring transdisciplinary approaches to problem solving; (g) having adult mentors; (h) interacting with peers and adults; (i) establishing networks; (j) having close personal friends who shared their interest in learning; (k) trusting the individuals in their learning environment, including adults and students; and (1) experiencing a sense of self-reliance. The preceding information was used to generate a series of hypotheses which were woven into a theoretical model. This model suggests that middle school science teacher education would be enhanced by helping prospective and in-service teachers develop and implement strategies that build trust, provide immersion in learning, and use inductive reasoning. This model is currently being used as the theoretical base to convert a traditional junior high school in the South to a middle school.  相似文献   

Louisville: Possibility City     

J. Michael Spector  Barbara Lockee  Miriam Larson 《TechTrends》2009,53(3):5-6

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President’s Column     

J. Michael Spector 《TechTrends》2010,54(1):3-4

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Excellence gaps: what they are,why they are bad,and how smart contexts can address them … or make them worse     

Jacob Hardesty  Jenna McWilliams 《High Ability Studies》2014,25(1):71-80

Every country – and even every community – has populations of students who severely underperform relative to other groups and to their own potential. These performance differences are generally called achievement gaps, and they tend to focus on gaps at basic levels of academic proficiency. But such gaps also exist among the highest levels of achievement, a problem labeled excellence gaps. Recent research provides evidence that these differential achievement effects are due – at least in part – to debilitating contextual factors, such as poverty, negative peer pressure, and discrimination. Given the increasingly recognizable “digital turn” in the classroom, access to and thoughtful use of emergent technologies could play a role in shrinking excellence gaps. Unfortunately, research shows such technologies disproportionately exist in relatively wealthy, predominantly white schools. We identify the potential relationship between lack of availability to technology and widening excellence gaps.  相似文献   

Do Corequisite Math Courses Improve Academic Outcomes in Technical Colleges?: Evidence from Chile     

Boatman  Angela  Claro  Susana  Fresard  Matias  Kramer  Jenna W. 《Research in higher education》2022,63(3):453-480

Research in Higher Education - For countries concerned about equity and access to higher education, providing support services for academically underprepared students is critical to increasing...  相似文献   

Training needs and online learning preferences of early childhood professionals     

Jenna K. Barnes  Autumn Guin  Kim Allen 《Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education》2018,39(2):114-130

Providing early childhood professionals with professional development opportunities to enhance their skills and knowledge can improve quality of care. For professional development to be valued by the early childhood workforce, it is essential to offer meaningful content that accommodates the needs of the learner. With an increasing demand for quality professional development, as well as the expansion of online learning opportunities, this qualitative study explores the opinions of 14 North Carolina early childhood professionals regarding their professional development training needs and online learning preferences. Training content needs, experiences with online learning, and recommendations for training development are discussed. This study has implications for professional development creators and trainers for advancing the education and growth of the early childhood workforce.  相似文献   

Stringtern: springboarding or stringing along young interns’ careers?     

Jenna Jacobson  Leslie Regan Shade 《Journal of Education & Work》2018,31(3):320-337

Young people are repeatedly promised that internships will pave the way to the career of their dreams by providing the ‘hands-on experience’ necessary to differentiate themselves in a fierce job market. However, in many industries, internships – and increasingly unpaid internships – have become the obligatory norm. Young people quickly learn that the internship is not an opportunity, but rather a ‘necessary evil’ that, for many, strings them along in the hope that it may lead to a less precarious paid opportunity. In this article, our findings are based on 12 in-depth interviews with young female interns in the creative industries based in Toronto and New York City. Our participants recognise that in the current economic climate, they need to ‘pay their dues’; however, they often enter into a system of sequential – or string – internships, and become, what we label, a stringtern. In an evolving internship market in North America, we develop a typology of internships including (1) paid/underpaid/unpaid, (2) academic credit/not-for-credit, (3) for-profit/non-profit, (4) full-time/part-time and (5) on-site/off-site to develop a common language to critically analyse the culture of internships. By valuing young people’s perspectives as gleaned from our interviews, the typology aims to provide a more nuanced way to approach the complexity of unpaid internships and the transition from education to the workforce. Furthermore, three interrelated implications of the culture of internships are identified: internship as a free trial, internship as conveyor-belt labour and internship as displacing paid employment.  相似文献   

A Report on the AECT Sponsored Symposium Entitled “the Human-Technology Frontier: Understanding the Learning of Now to Prepare for the Work of the Future” at the Texas Center for Educational Technology (TCET)     

Lin Lin  J. Michael Spector 《TechTrends》2018,62(5):438-440

We provide a summary report of a two-and-half-day symposium sponsored by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) and hosted by the Texas Center for Educational Technology at the University of North Texas on May 16–18, 2018. The theme of the symposium was “Human Intelligence 0.2 versus Artificial Intelligence 2.0 || The Human-Technology Frontier: Understanding the Learning of Now to Prepare for the Work of the Future.” Over 15 distinguished speakers and 80 participants engaged in discussions of a range of topics such as human and holistic learning as informed by new research in neuroscience, creativity, critical thinking, self-directed learning, artificial intelligence, learning analytics, and measurements. We discuss outcomes and plans for the next steps.  相似文献   

Book reviews     

W. D. Halls  Terence Lawson  T. Neville Postlethwaite  Börje Holmberg  Sherman D. Spector  Richard L. Cummings  George Z. F. Bereday 《International Review of Education/Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft/Revue internationale l'éducation》1970,16(4):502-511

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Money as Relational Struggle: Communicatively Negotiating Cultural Discourses in Romantic Relationships     

Lynsey K. Romo  Jenna S. Abetz 《Communication Studies》2016,67(1):94-110

Using the lens of Relational Dialectics Theory, this study sought to uncover how competing U.S. cultural financial discourses are negotiated in people’s everyday conversations with their romantic partner. The investigation uncovered that in multiple and varied ways, participants understood money to be a major source of tension in their romantic relationships. One overarching discursive struggle animated participants’ financial talk with their partners: “money is everything” versus “money isn’t everything.” Within this struggle, participants communicatively negotiated the cultural value of money in an attempt to marginalize its power and potential negative influences on relational and economic well-being. Although money is critical in helping people meet their basic needs, this study suggests that deemphasizing the importance of money as all-consuming and omnipotent has the potential to alter couples’ financial and relational well-being.  相似文献