The near-peer mathematical mentoring cycle: studying the impact of outreach on high school students’ attitudes toward mathematics

College students may be seen as near-peers to high school students and high school students are often able to see themselves in the college students who are but one step ahead. This nearness in maturity and educational level may place college students in a particularly powerful position when it comes to reaching out to high school students to promote higher education in math and science. In this study college students gave dynamic mathematics outreach presentations, MathShows, to minority and low-income high school students in a mid-sized public school district on the U.S. border with Mexico. The study investigated the impacts of this sort of outreach work on high school students’ attitudes towards mathematics using a mathematics attitudes survey. Results, obtained from N = 306 participants, showed statistically significant improvements in almost all components of mathematical attitudes, with less of an effect on the component of self-confidence in doing mathematics. Differences in impacts by specific student subgroups are all discussed.     

Enhancing engineering education in the elementary school

The Next Generation Science Standards emphasizes the inclusion of engineering practices throughout the K–12 science curriculum. Therefore, elementary educators need to be knowledgeable about engineering and engineering careers so that they can expose their students to engineering. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of engineering professional development on in‐service elementary teachers’: (a) knowledge and perceptions regarding engineering, and (b) self‐efficacy of teaching engineering. This quantitative study revealed that even one professional development opportunity can help to alleviate some misconceptions about the work of engineers and what constitutes technology, as well as increase teachers’ confidence to teach engineering concepts.     

How well aligned are common core textbooks to students’ development in area measurement?

Among dozens of factors that influence mathematics teaching in the elementary classroom, textbooks endure as a significant contributor to the conversation. While teachers have many considerations while lesson planning, the textbook often forms an important launch point in determining what to include in lessons and how to do so. It follows that discrepancies between textbooks and research‐recommended pathways for learning may lead to concerns or issues with pacing in the classroom. To explore this idea further, this study examined the alignment between three popular Common Core–aligned textbooks series and learning trajectories with respect to the topic of area measurement. Our findings indicated key differences in the ways textbooks presented area lessons and research‐recommended ways of learning area topics, including a lack of appropriate area topic coverage in early grades and a mismatch of timing of concepts in later grades. The results indicated that the standards‐based textbooks examined may lack attention to important topics in the pacing of area instruction, and suggest the need to inform both preservice and inservice teachers about the gap between textbook lessons and area learning trajectories so that development steps in area learning trajectory can be included in lesson plans.     

Education campaign and family understanding affect stability and qualitative behavior of an online game addiction model for children and youth in Thailand

Online game addiction has become a large problem worldwide, and it could give negative impacts on children in many ways such as physical health, learning, emotion, and behavior. Online game addiction is mostly found in children and youth at the age of 15 to 24 years. Therefore, in this paper, we have developed a mathematical model of online game addiction to explore the effects of education campaign and family understanding on online game addiction in Thailand. Analysis of this model reveals two main equilibria, addiction‐free (AFE) and addiction‐present (APE) ones. Results show that the AFE is locally asymptotically stable when the value of basic reproduction number (R₀) is less than the unity; otherwise, there is a unique endemic equilibrium point, and it is locally stable when satisfies the Routh‐Hurwitz criterion. Further, the conditions of AFE to be globally stable are demonstrated. Finally, the results of sensitivity analysis and numerical simulation show that the effectiveness of both education campaign and family understanding is an important factor in reducing the value of R₀ and holds great promise for lowering the number of children and youth who addict to online game in Thailand.     

以学为中心的高分子化学线上教学实践

In response to the COVID-19 epidemic prevention, the "polymer chemistry" course teaching team actively explored the "learning-centered" online teaching model. The students were guided to active learning by using the rich contents of Chaoxin online teaching platform and multiple online teaching activities. The basic knowledge points, difficulties and emphases of the teaching were highlighted and the real-time communication and Q&A were achieved in combination with the Tencent course live broadcast and QQ learning group. Following the concept of "students as the main body and teachers as the leading", the online teaching of "polymer chemistry" has effectively aroused the students' interest in learning, cultivated the initiative of autonomous learning, organically integrated the ideological and political education, and achieved a good learning outcome.     

移动App在化学教育中的应用:类型与展望*

结合化学学科特点及不同阶段学生的学情,在收集整理了110多个化学移动学习App基础上,按照其功能分为3类:益智娱乐类、教学辅助类和化学专业类,并列举典型例子进行介绍说明。最后探讨了移动App在化学教育中应用的前景与挑战。     

职前化学教师教育研究的内容分析*——基于SSCI期刊《化学教育研究与实践》的文献

国际职前化学教师教育研究的热点对我国职前化学教师教育发展具有借鉴意义。以47篇《化学教育研究与实践》上职前化学教师教育研究的论文作为研究对象,通过内容分析法和文献计量法分析,并与国内的研究现状进行对比,发现在发文量上,本领域文献产量都不高,国外相关研究成果也是近5年来才开始蓬勃,但在作者分布、研究主题、研究范式上存在较大差距。具体表现:国外学者注重跨专业、跨校、跨国合作研究职前化学教师教育;国外学者倾向于从学生的视角展开调查或测试,基于证据为学生的学习乃至教师教学改革提供策略;国外学者擅长实证研究,和国内经验总结的研究范式差别很大。     

国际社会性科学议题研究的热点及启示*

近年来社会性科学议题在科学教育研究领域越来越受到重视,运用CiteSpace V,VOSviewer对Web of Science核心合集数据库收录的社会性科学议题研究的167篇相关文献进行可视化分析。从核心作者、核心研究机构、共被引文献、关键词共现等角度,客观地分析进入21世纪以来国内外社会性科学议题研究的热点主题,发现社会性科学议题与科学论证、科学素养、科学风险及决策等相关主题的研究联系密切,社会性科学议题文献主要包括课程内容、教学和学校3个层面的研究思路。在文献的知识图谱分析基础上,从社会性科学议题课程目标聚焦、教学策略应用和教学评价缺位等3个方面获得一些启示。     

我国基础教育化学教科书研究的现状与建议*

选定基础化学教育领域权威期刊和教育类核心期刊,对其2008到2018年刊载的278篇有关基础教育化学教科书研究论文进行统计分析,从计量学角度出发,对论文的数量、作者地区分布、单位、合作情况、涉及的基础教育学段、国别地区、版本时间以及研究的内容等方面进行研究,探讨有关基础教育化学教科书研究的现状和发展趋势,存在的问题及思考。     

近代癸卯学制中的化学教育*

癸卯学制作为我国历史上第一个颁布并施行的学制,规定了格致(化学)科的课程、要义、教科书、教学方法、教员与学生,创立了我国近代化学教育课程体系,并首开教育分科制的先河,对我国的化学教育事业的发展起到了奠基的作用。