2008年5月31日 星期六

尊重動物生命教育

虐待動物者年齡降議員籲加強尊重生命教育
臺灣新浪網 - Taiwan
... 虐待動物案件層出不窮,施虐者年齡層逐漸下降,最近甚 至出現有小學生對動物施暴,市府教育局應予重視。 此外,侯冠群表示,行政院農委會要求各縣市動檢所舉辦 教師研習與教導,不過,參加的老師只有兩個班級的數十 人,教育局應將動物保護及教師參與動保研納入學校評鑑





奧運與金魚

《每日快報》的標題以:"這麼殘忍"來形容中國山東青島市一些售賣鑰匙扣的商人。

報道說:"中國人把活生生的金魚放在細小的奧運小飾物內"。

該報並配以一幅圖片,圖片上一個密封小塑料袋鑰匙扣內有一些水,水裡面有一條小金魚,塑料袋上印有奧運吉祥物福娃圖案。

《每日快報》說,這個塑料袋是密封的,裡面的氧氣最多只能維持幾個小時,然後小金魚就會窒息而死。

該報說,在這短短幾個小時裡,小金魚在小袋內也沒有轉身的餘地。

報道說,這些以小孩為目標顧客的鑰匙扣在青島的市場銷售迅速。青島是北京奧運帆船賽事的舉辦場地。

該報援引英國愛護動物協會發言人說,他們感到震驚。這只是花招,並且完全不尊重動物。

2008年5月29日 星期四

國立大學合併案--台灣教育管理單位多年的夢想

這是台灣教育管理單位多年的夢想:天曉得

【陳揚盛、陳怡靜╱台北報導】教育部政務次長呂木琳昨宣布,推動五年多的國立大學合併案,其中東華大學與花蓮教育大學合併案昨通過,兩校八月一日起將正式 合併為東華大學,此外,清華大學與新竹教育大學也將預定在年底前完成合併,台灣大學和台北教育大學則將於二○一○年合併。
東華大學和花教大昨同步舉行校務會議通過合併案,呂木琳強調,教育部積極促成國立大學合併,並以中小型教育大學優先,以提高辦學績效;之前已完成嘉義技術學院合併嘉義師範大學及國立體院合併台灣體院兩個合併案。

初期暫不精簡人事
呂木琳表示,東華大學和花教大合併初期將暫不精簡人事,但台灣師範大學特殊教育系名譽教授吳武典認為,大學合併必須從長計議,考量研究領域是否互補,合併後也應精簡人事減少支出,教育部現在的做法只是為了要消滅教育大學。
東 華大學校長黃文樞昨表示,兩校合併初期花教大師生仍將留在原校區,東華須新建教學大樓,預計在三年內整合成一個校區;花教大代理校長林清達說,對合併案樂 觀其成。但東華大學教育系王姓學生說,合併花師大沒有好處;花教大幼教系陳姓學生說對合併沒感覺,看不到對學生有什麼好。

2008年5月21日 星期三

What TFA can teach the NCLB era

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-110), often abbreviated in print as NCLB and shortened in pronunciation to "nickelbee", is a controversial United States federal law (Act of Congress) that reauthorized a number of federal programs aiming to improve the performance of U.S. primary and secondary schools by increasing the standards of accountability for states, school districts, and schools, as well as providing parents more flexibility in choosing which schools their children will attend. Additionally, it promoted an increased focus on reading and re-authorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The Act was passed in the House of Representatives on May 23, 2001[1], United States Senate on June 14, 2001[2] and signed into law on January 8, 2002.




books: Reading between the lines.
Teach for America Grows Up
What TFA can teach the NCLB era.
By Sara MoslePosted Monday, May 19, 2008, at 7:23 AM E
In the field of social entrepreneurship, there is hardly a more legendary success story: In 1989, Wendy Kopp, then a senior at Princeton University, submitted an undergraduate thesis in which she proposed a national teacher corps whose members would commit to spend two years in the nation's most hard-pressed schools. Within a year, her fledgling enterprise, Teach for America, was up and running, attracting 500 recruits (me among them) who gathered in June of 1990 for six weeks of boot-camp training prior to taking jobs at inner-city and rural schools across the country.
However, after its initial success and publicity, as Donna Foote reports in Relentless Pursuit, TFA fell on hard times. Seed money (which is easier to raise than ongoing capital) dried up. Although the program received high marks from principals and school districts, it came under harsh criticism from an education-school establishment concerned about high turnover and lack of training among recruits. Corporate underwriters got spooked. For several years, it was unclear whether the organization would survive.

Needless to say, TFA has more than survived. This spring an extraordinary 24,700 of the nation's most sought-after college graduates applied for a record 3,700 TFA spots—800 more positions than last year. In other ways, big and small, the program has grown and matured and is far more sophisticated and rigorous than the one I joined nearly two decades ago. During the intervening years, the larger educational landscape has also changed, with the passage of the imposing federal legislation known as No Child Left Behind—which has, like TFA, placed a premium on results, rather than mere good intentions.
placeAd2(commercialNode,'midarticleflex',false,'')

With reauthorization of NCLB looming, Foote's account couldn't be better-timed. Her inside view of TFA's self-reinvention—as well as anatomizing the organization's growing pains, she follows the struggles of several TFA recruits at Locke High school, one of the worst performing and most violent in Los Angeles—demonstrates what relentless reflection on, and revision of, a mission and its methods can accomplish. The lessons on display are especially important for an era in which a ruthless focus on student outcomes risks overlooking a key ingredient of that enterprise: inputs for teachers, who need all the help they can get as they face an educational culture of new pressures and expectations, along with age-old challenges.

In particular, Foote outlines how, starting in the mid-1990s, TFA bore down on a single, overarching goal: significantly boosting achievement (defined as a one-and-a-half- to two-year jump in grade level or 80 percent mastery of a subject) in corps members' classes. The organization began to gather data on recruits' experiences and to run this information through sales-force software and other programs of its devising; the aim was to identify the personal characteristics and classroom practices that seemed to contribute most to raising literacy and numeracy. In the process, Foote writes, TFA "took on many of the characteristics of a successful, results-driven corporation," even as it retained "the soul of a nonprofit."


For example, by analyzing corps members' personality traits, TFA discovered that those with an "internal versus external locus-of-control orientation" are less likely to drop out of teaching early and are generally more successful in the classroom. To translate into plain English, such a teacher typically takes "full personal responsibility for student achievement, refusing to blame outside factors, such as truancy or lack of parental support, for underperformance." It's worth noting that it doesn't really matter whether such teachers are, in fact, solely responsible for their students' progress. Teachers with such a mindset still get better results, TFA has found, presumably because they try harder to work around external problems and don't give in as easily to complacency or despair.

When one TFAer at Locke quits his first fall, defying expectations—he'd actually scored high in his recruitment interview for "perseverance"—Foote describes the cascade of second-guessing that ensues as TFA strives to understand what went wrong. It's a kind of follow-through that is absent from NCLB and often nonexistent on ed-school campuses, where responsibility for a graduate's fortunes ends with the bestowal of a diploma. This willingness to take corps members' professional satisfaction seriously reflects an awareness that teacher performance, unsurprisingly, hinges on it. And this scrutiny is what distinguishes TFA from so many other efforts at school reform: The program is constantly tracking, examining, and, when necessary, modifying its procedures and approaches.

Thus, while TFA partakes of NCLB's standards-driven ethos, it has done so with distinctive attention to the people responsible for actually implementing reforms: teachers. For TFA, as for NCLB, accountability is a mantra, yet it functions not as a threat hanging over the head of its recruits—which is how benchmarks loom in too many schools—but as a tool to help teachers achieve shared goals. Indeed, TFA is apparently the only supervisory presence—from the principal of Locke to the Los Angeles Unified School District—actually providing any consistent oversight or direction at Locke, even as the school faces the threat of a state takeover. Midyear, not a single administrator at Locke has visited one TFAer's classroom after his first weeks of school. When state officials observe another first-year corps member's class, they focus on the cleanliness of her room without ever mentioning the content of her lesson or methods.

Yes, NCLB accurately pinpoints failing schools, but it doesn't assure that anyone will actually take responsibility for fixing them. As one TFAer ruefully observed in 2005, Locke had enjoyed three new administrations in almost as many years, each charged with turning the school around, but the only thing to have changed was the personnel. Two years later, at the book's end, a fourth administration is in place to little apparent effect: Earlier this month, Locke attracted national attention when a 600-student riot erupted at the school.

In the face of official neglect, TFA encourages its members to concentrate on what they can control: raising achievement in their individual classrooms. And in Foote's account, corps members at Locke mostly do succeed, against all odds. Aiding them in this effort is TFA's considerable support network. A staff member from the program's L.A. office is assigned to each recruit and regularly visits classrooms to provide concrete feedback and strategies for improvement. TFA also requires one day of training per month for L.A.'s recruits. Such "teacher development" is not all touchy-feely supportiveness; on the contrary, as Foote recounts, corps members can chafe at the constant oversight. (All this is a big change from my day. After the summer training program in 1990, I basically never heard from TFA again.) What little cohesion exists at Locke is largely among TFAers and their like-minded colleagues.

Also, in part encouraged by NCLB mandates, all TFAers at Locke must be enrolled in a credentialing program as a condition of their full-time employment. (Most receive a master's degree before their two-year commitment is up.) By 2010, TFA expects it will be spending $20,000 per corps member to recruit, train, and support its teachers. In other words, TFA isn't achieving its successes on the cheap. It takes a significant investment in teachers—even those from Ivy League schools—to boost achievement in woefully underperforming schools.

The biggest complaint about TFA has been that its members only sign up for two years, doing little to solve teacher turnover in bad schools. Yet here Foote's fine-grained account of Locke supplies the larger context and a corrective. TFA represents only a small fraction of the school's faculty, three-quarters of which have been there less than five years. The choice at Locke and similar inner-city schools isn't between a TFA recruit and a certified teacher. It's between a TFA recruit, who has frequently aced California's particularly tough content-specific exams (in hard-to-staff courses such as math or science) and is thus "highly qualified" under NCLB rules, and an uncertified teacher who has no such knowledge or background. Indeed, even with TFA's presence at Locke, the school can't fill all of its positions. As a result, the principal must rely heavily on "permanent substitutes," who need "only to have graduated from college with a 2.7 GPA and to have passed the CBEST," a general-knowledge test "considered easier than the high school exit exam." Many of those who stay at Locke, year after year, do so because no other school wants them.


The second biggest criticism of TFAers is that their motives are callow: They're burnishing résumés before proceeding with grander, more remunerative careers in law or business. Yet few 21-year-olds have an accurate sense of where they'll be in five or 15 years. Most will move and change jobs, even careers, multiple times—whether they join TFA or not. Nationally, 14 percent of all teachers (not just TFAers) leave the classroom after their first year, nearly half by the fifth. Given these statistics, a credentialing system, still promoted by many ed schools and based on the assumption that people will teach for 20 or 30 years, is a relic of a bygone era when company loyalty was the norm, and women and minorities had few career options. To be sure, teachers need better training and ongoing support, particularly once they're in the classroom. That is precisely the reality that TFA has responded to. But if education hopes to attract the best teachers, it must find new ways, as TFA has, to compete for talent in an ever-changing, more mobile workforce.

In fact, TFA's greatest (and often overlooked) achievement is that its recruit force has turned out to be anything but fickle. Many corps members, including most at Locke, remain in teaching past the two-year mark—quickly rising to leadership positions. Hundreds are now principals of their own schools or are overseeing thousands from district-level positions. A substantial number have risen to national prominence. The founders of KIPP, the widely praised chain of inner-city charter schools, are TFA alums, as are a significant number who work for KIPP. The new reform-minded head of the Washington, D.C., schools is a former TFAer—the first (but surely not the last) to become superintendent of an entire urban system. Many more remain in education more broadly—working for educational nonprofits, school boards, or legislators—or have gone into banking or law, where they now hold the purse strings of corporate philanthropy.
This has always been the most radical and far-reaching part of Kopp's vision: not just to place teachers in schools for a few years but to incubate a national corps of educational leaders in all walks and levels of society who, by virtue of their shared experiences, might then be in a position to create genuine, systematic reform. Leftists always talk about "the power structure" when discussing the poor, but it took a blond-headed, pro-business Princeton grad from Dallas to put in place a movement that stands a chance of actually changing that structure.

2008年5月14日 星期三

融滲教學?

上周五59日與王老師聚會,談到所謂「融滲(式)教學」。今天查一下:

融滲式教學的概念,在美國大多以「XYZ Across Curriculum」【HC案:可能應該是XYZ Across the Curriculum 才對】的語詞呈現,例如,Communication Across Curriculum,就是在一些相關的課程,加入書面寫作的作業和口頭報告的機會。讓學生有機會磨練加強溝通表達的能力。又如Ethics Across Curriculum,就是在相關課程中討論社會責任與專業倫理課題,在無形中加深職業道德意識,提升道德辨識與抉擇能力。

這些都是融滲式教學的最佳例證。近年來,美國工程技術教育評議會(Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology,簡稱ABET),對各大學工學院評鑑,對工程倫理教育的考察,固然要看有沒有相關的課程,他們更重視各校用甚麼方式把工程倫理融滲到專業課程之中,ABET的作法,不只表示融滲式教學是可行的,也表示融滲式教學式教學過程中極為重要的一環。

from learning in disparate disciplines to integrative learning experiences across the curriculum

一節課八分鐘

bbc學校一節課只上八分鐘,專家說超短的迷你課對學生幫助最大。

英格蘭東北地方的泰恩賽德(Tyneside)的一所中學將從今年秋天開始針對所有GCSE(中等教育普通證書Wikipedia article "General Certificate of Secondary Education". )的學生實行這種八分鐘“短小精悍”的迷你課。

神經科學專家的研究顯示,不斷重複短時間的併發式”學習,對大腦的記憶力發展最為有效,因為孩子很難長時間集中注意力。

泰恩賽德的蒙克西頓中學(Monkseaton High School)此前試行這種八分鐘超短課程,中間搭配10分鐘的體育活動或文字遊戲,結果發現學生的平均成績提高了半個級(half a grade)。

試行

該校校長保羅·凱利(Paul Kelley)表示,試行上課八分鐘的計畫取得成功,今年秋天開始將推廣到所有GCSE課程的學生。

“上課八分鐘,下課10分鐘打籃球,然後再重新開始,這聽起來似乎很荒謬,但卻有效。”

“在實際試行之後發現,不論什麼科目,什麼老師,原來的成績如何,學生們都有顯著的進步。”

改革

有研究顯示,長時間運用大腦對大腦細胞不好,只有在固定休息的情況下,大腦細胞才能有效發展。

與此同時,許多教育專家呼籲放棄傳統的教學時刻表,採用新的教學方法,例如短時間的練習心算和拼字,或者是維持一周的主題式教課。

11歲至14歲的學生將從今年秋天開始接受新的GCSE課程,一些學校可能趁機推出教學改革。

2008年5月5日 星期一

台灣的大學教授待遇太低?

總是搞不清楚的價量關係
重點不在這....


"總統當選人馬英九昨天拜會Google大中華區總裁李開復。李開復說,台灣的大學教授待遇太低,無法吸引一流人才進入學術圈,馬英九回應,明年將增加二百四十億元教育經費,解決大學師資酬勞過低問題。

最近Google搬到位於台北一○一大樓七十三樓的新辦公室,昨天上午馬英九前往參觀,和李開復暢談教育、兩岸人才交流等議題。

李開復關心台灣高等教育發展。他說,台灣大學教授升遷管道僵化,薪資酬勞和鄰近亞太國家相對偏低,國內大學教授年薪只跟Google新進工程師差不多,比大陸「紅牌」教授低了二到三倍,不僅無法吸引優質人才投入學界,績優教師更被香港、新加坡、大陸挖角。

李開復說,台灣大專院校太多,不少院校、科系無法招滿學生,研究型大學同樣過多。台灣高等教育應朝「金字塔型」發展,研究型大學少而精,主力在學術研究;教學型大學則專注於培育人才。

馬英九說,大陸大學錄取率百分之廿,台灣的大學錄取率百分之九十六,最近不少私立大學強烈建議開放大陸學生來台就學。他認為,開放大陸高中畢業生來台就讀 大學,可望像港、澳一樣吸收優秀人才,讓兩岸青年學子及早交流,刺激台灣學生向上,並解決部分大學招生不足問題。但他強調這些都需做好相關配套措施。

李開復補充,台灣大學生普遍不用功,相較之下,大陸學生就很拚,但就師資方面來論,台灣教授素質還是比較好,未來兩岸學生、教師相互交流,可促進彼此進步。"