Abstract

Monroe was a well-known American world-wide educator in the first half of the 20th century. He came to China more than ten times to investigate Chinese education, deliver academic lectures, and conduct cultural exchanges from the 1920s to the 1940s. He made a great contribution to Sino-American cultural and educational exchanges in Modern China. However, for quite a long time, academic circles at home and abroad have paid little attention to this because of Dewey’s dazzling work in the field of education. Based on a systematical investigation of all Monroe’s previous visits to China, from the perspective of educational exchange between China and other countries, this article gives a relatively deep exploration into Monroe’s work to expose the subtleness and depth of its historical truth. It examines the relationship between Monroe and overseas Chinese students, Monroe and Educational System in 1922, Monroe and the reform in Chinese primary and middle schools during the 1920s to the 1940s, Monroe and the China Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Culture as well as the China Institute in America. It draws the conclusion that Monroe has exerted a profound influence on the educational development of China in modern times, and made a unique contribution to talent cultivation, educational reform, social transformation, and cultural and educational exchange.

Abstract

Liberal Studies (LS) has recently been confirmed to be offered as an independent core subject in the local senior secondary school curriculum in 2009. There had been some controversy concerning its status as an independent core subject to be publicly examined in the coming proposed public examination in Secondary 6. This article argues that the new subject, pedagogically and epistemologically considered, should be implemented in a whole-school approach. Both from a curriculum development perspective and a philosophical perspective, the whole-school curriculum development approach is seen as more desirable, if not more feasible, when compared with an independent subject approach and a collaborative team teaching approach. The curriculum development perspective is drawn from the findings and advice given by Nias, Southworth, and Campbell (1992) in their study on whole-school curriculum development model and its advantages. They found that the success of a whole-school curriculum development approach hinges on four sets of conditions, namely institutional values, school’s structures, resources, and leadership. The philosophical perspective is premised on Gadamer’s (1989) notion of “fusion of horizons” and Bakhtin’s (1981) “heteroglossia,” both of which lay emphasis on the desirability of developing a community of multi-vocality, multi-faceted interpretation, and projection of multiple possibilities. The ultimate argument of this article is to suggest that LS should adopt a whole-school approach of curriculum development that incorporates the two notions of “fusion of horizons” and “heteroglossia” to transform the school into a hermeneutical learning community. It is because only in a hermeneutical learning community context can we generate the maximal conditions for collating and harnessing the wide array of LS-related teacher consciousness and competences among the whole school’s staff for the good of the teaching and learning of the subject.

Abstract

An assessment of internal efficiency allows policymakers and education administrators to understand how cost-effective the desired educational outputs, such as promotion and retention rates of students, are being produced from a given input. In Macau, where private school enrollment accounts for more than 90% of the total K–12 student enrollment, this study attempted to explore if a private-sector-dominated school system can be equally efficient in basic education. The internal efficiency was estimated for each educational cycle from 1996 to 2003 based on the reconstructed cohort method. The results of this study revealed that, on a seven-year average, the highest coefficient of efficiency was attained in preprimary education (99%), followed by primary education (90%), and then by upper secondary education (85%). Lower secondary education was found least efficient among four cycles, averaging only 79%. The years-input per preprimary, primary, lower and upper secondary graduate were 3.03, 6.67, 3.79, and 3.53 respectively. The wastage of educational resources was found worse in secondary education as the input-output ratios revealed that an additional 26% and 18% of the ideal resources were required to produce a lower and upper secondary graduate respectively.

摘要

本研究使用結構性材料指導4.5–5.5歲兒童有系統地學習加減法，並與使用非結構性材料的同齡兒童進行對比，藉以探討兩種操作材料對於兒童數學邏輯發展潛能的影響。結果表明，結構性材料能夠幫助兒童理解加減法關係（數量的整體與部分關係）。理解這些關係，可以促進兒童在解答加減法時採用分解／組合策略，並減少加減法混淆的錯誤。

Abstract

This study investigated and compared the effects of two different types of physical materials (aids with structurally organized patterns vs. objects with randomly varying patterns) on children’s potential logical thinking development. Two groups of children at age of 4.5 to 5.5 years old were taught addition and subtraction systematically with either one of these types of teaching materials. Comparison of their performance showed that the aids with structurally organized patterns could facilitate children’s understanding of addition-subtraction relations (part-whole relations in numbers). Children’s understanding of such relations enhances their choice of decomposition/combination strategies, which subsequently reduced their confusion and errors in computation.

摘要

怎樣的批改才是好的批改？語文老師對作文批改素質的判斷能力如何？這方面的研究似乎比較欠缺。本研究旨在於找出目前中文老師在對作文批改素質的判斷能力方面存在的問題以及問題的實質。

研究選了40位中學中文老師，分析他們對四份作文批改樣本的批改素質的判斷能力。結果顯示：語文老師多從宏觀角度作出判斷；他們認為，整篇文章批改數量多的作文，其老師的批改素質較佳。至於對每個批改的素質的判斷，有些老師的水準未如理想。

Abstract

How does good marking of essay looks like? How about language teachers’ abilities of evaluating essay marking qualities? It seems that the research on this field is lacking. This article reports a study of which the main focus was to find out the problems of Chinese language teachers on evaluating essay marking qualities and the nature of the problems.

A total of 40 secondary Chinese language teachers were chosen for analysis. The result shows that the language teachers mostly evaluated from the macroscopic point of view. They believed that a teacher of better essay marking quality results in more markings in an essay. Meanwhile, some teachers’ abilities on evaluating every single marking were not desirable.