Abstract: Through a questionnaire survey of 560 minority high-school students in western China and
interviews with 24 of them, this paper explores their English learning demotivators. Combined with
exploratory factor analysis, the results indicate that major demotivators are linguistic competence,
learning strategy, textbooks, social factor, teachers’ moral cultivation, language attitude, self-efficacy
and teachers’ professional knowledge and ability. Theoretically, this paper finds linguistic competence
factor and social factor, which enriches the findings of previous relevant researches. Practically, it
provides tentative suggestions for English teachers to reflect on their pedagogy and minimize students’
demotivation.

Abstract—A learning style is an issue related to learners. In one way or the other, learning styles could assist learners in their learning activities. If the learners ignore their learning styles, it may influence their effort in understanding teaching materials. To overcome these problems, a model for reliable automatic learning style detection is needed. Currently, there are two approaches in automatically detecting learning styles: data driven and literature based. Learners, especially those with changing learning styles, have difficulties in adopting these two approaches since they are not adaptive, dynamic and responsive (ADR). To solve the above problems, a model using agent learning approach is proposed. Agent learning performs four phased activities, i.e. initialization, learning, matching and recommendations to decide which learning styles are used by the students. Furthermore, the system will provide teaching materials which are appropriate for the detected learning style. The detection process is performed automatically by combining data-driven and literature-based approaches. The detected learning style used for this research is VARK (Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic). This learning style detection model is expected to optimize the learners in adhering with the online learning.

The increasing costs of higher education (HE), growing numbers of flexible anytime, anywhere learners, and the prevalence of technology as a means to up-skill in a competitive job market, have brought to light a rising concern faced by graduate students and potential graduate employers. Specifically, there is a mismatch of useful skills obtained by students through HE institutions which is evident upon graduation. Faced with this dilemma, "graduate students," or more specifically newly graduated students, with a with bachelor's degree, and a growing number of employers are turning to Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, as a complimentary mechanism through which this skills gap may be bridged.

It is found in the literature that MOOCs are often discussed within the capacity of their development, their retention rates, institutional policies regarding their implementation, and other such related areas. Examinations into their broader uses, benefits, and potential pitfalls have been limited to date. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse the literature highlighting the use of MOOCs as a means to reduce the mismatch in graduate skills. As such, this literature analysis reviews the following relevant areas: higher education and graduate skills gap, today's graduates and employability, and MOOCs and graduate skills. Through analysing the literature in these areas, this paper identifies gaps in the existing literature.

With the development of the Internet today, the advent of the era of big data, the gradual emergence of various Internet + models of innovation and entrepreneurship, these changes mean that the traditional modes of art education in colleges and universities have followed a significant change. New teaching technologies and teaching concepts such as open video lesson, visualization teaching and big data creation mode came into being, which have an impact on the traditional teaching mode. Local higher normal colleges and universities are to train local primary and secondary school teachers, timely and effectively adjusted according to the social development training programs to meet the needs of the reform of the middle school curriculum. Based on the big data environment, this article summarizes the Innovative practice of art education both at home and abroad, and puts forward the exploration of the teaching mode of combining "cross-border integration", "project-oriented" teaching and "maker education".

 This paper takes China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) as its literature data sources, and uses Bicomb and SPSS software to draw knowledge mapping for the hot spots of 290 papers about effective teaching in China from 1986 to 2016, so as to visually show the hot issues and development trend of effective teaching over the past three decades in China. The research shows that hot issues in effective teaching research over the past 30 years mainly fall into the following three categories: First, effective teaching studies on classroom teaching activities (from the perspective of teachers); Second, effective teaching studies under the background of new curriculum reform (perspective of curriculum reform); Third, effective teaching studies on students' self-learning (from the perspective of students). Effective teaching research inChina in the future should grasp the following trends: Firstly, expansion of concept from static definition to dynamic understanding. Secondly, change of research perspective from focusing on teachers' teaching behavior to students' learning process and learning situation. Thirdly, deepening of research content from macro expound based on new curriculum reform to medium and micro research that combines core competence development of the students, the discipline core quality formation, and the implementation of specific curriculum standards. Fourthly, concordance of research methods from theoretical speculation and qualitative analysis to comprehensive study blending multiple research methods.

After decades of development, vocational education in our country has gradually entered a new stage of development and is faced with new opportunities for development and strategic choices. Especially in the 21st century, the domestic demand for skilled professionals increases year by year. Under such circumstances, how to further optimize the teaching system of higher vocational colleges and strengthen the guidance and management has become an urgent need for education. English curriculum, as an international education course, are the key steps for students to learn foreign cultures, touch new things and go to the world stage. The quality of teaching is inextricably linked with English teaching evaluation system. The article, from the overall point of view and the part of the higher vocational colleges , fully elaborates English teaching evaluation system; and analyzes the problems in the evaluation process, as well as the actual situation in major vocational colleges and puts forward the establishment of appropriate English teaching evaluation system for the purpose of improving teaching quality and training more English professionals to meet the needs of society and the country.

The present study focuses on the investigation of prospective teachers’ beliefs and self-efficacy beliefs about the use of the inquiry-based teaching approach in mathematics education during their studies, before and after fieldwork. The aim of the two courses they attended during their studies in a pedagogical department emphasized the understanding of the human involvement on the development of the mathematical concepts through the history of mathematics and the role of investigation and exploration at the teaching of mathematics, as a part of the inquiry-based approach. At the final year of their studies, during the fieldwork they were expected to implement the acquired knowledge about innovative processes in real life classroom situations. The study which conducted with the participation of 73  prospective teachers is divided into three main phases: a) examining their beliefs and self-efficacy beliefs after attending a course about Basic Mathematical Concepts based on the History of Mathematics, b) examining their beliefs and their self-efficacy beliefs after attending a course about the Methodology of Teaching Mathematics in primary education and c) examining the difficulties they face during their first teaching experiences in real life school situations during the last year of their studies. Results indicated that participants seemed to believe in the value of inquiry-based approach and they had high self-efficacy beliefs about using explorations and investigations which were presented at the textbooks; however they had low self-efficacy beliefs about constructing mathematical investigations and explorations by themselves and overcoming teaching difficulties which were related with children’s misunderstandings and time allocation management, during the fieldwork experience.