Heterogeneous Group Of Learners Research Articles

Montessori Approach in Chemistry Teaching at the Lower Level of an Eight-Year High School: Possibilities of Implementing Selected Elements in a Classical School

The article presents the concept of teaching chemistry at the Montessori grammar school, including the possible integration of chemistry into the natural sciences class. The goal of the paper is to introduce to teachers elements of Montessori pedagogy that can be implemented in chemistry teaching at classical schools. The described principles are supplemented with examples of specific materials (e.g. StudyGuide, self-assessment, group work assignments), including a summary of the advantages and disadvantages in the implementation of innovations. The next focus is on describing the phases of learning for developing pupils' knowledge and key competencies, individual and group work and providing feedback, working with a heterogeneous group of learners or justifying the sufficient space for practice and learning.

A Processual Perspective on Whole-Class- Scaffolding in Business Education

Context: Scaffolding is a form of process-adaptive learning support that is relevant in numerous contexts, including informal learning, workplace learning as well as school teaching. While scaffolding can be well conceptualised for individual learning situations (especially for tutoring situations), there is a difficulty in measuring process adaptivity in heterogeneous learning groups, such as school classes. Approach: In this paper, we develop a measurement method that targets the deep structure of teaching and learning in whole class settings. Processes of shared knowledge constructions are taken into account, since whole-class-scaffolding (WCS) means to shape and develop common or joint knowledge spaces rather than to scaffold a multitude of individual construction processes at the same time. To achieve a coding procedure for WCS interactions, we integrate scaffolding principles and principles of dialogic teaching and explicated a set of rules that can be correlated to the quality of WCS-episodes rated on distinct Likert scales. Results: The measurement method developed in the paper provides a solution to the problem of how to measure process-adaptive learning support that is not only related to individual learners, but is directed at a heterogeneous group of learners in which different support needs may be present simultaneously. The coding procedure systematically links scaffolding principles and principles of dialogic teaching and enables us to capture the dynamics of teaching and learning processes in larger group settings. In this respect, concepts such as joint- and common space, representing entities to which WCS refers, are operationalised. Conclusions: When methods for measuring the dynamics of teaching and learning processes are available, research on instructional support is no longer limited to global ratings of whole learning units. Furthermore, the codings allow for a more fine-grained analysis of trajectories of scaffolding interactions. Such an analysis reveals information about local specifics of WCS that can explain further learning differences between students and that can be used to derive implications for effective instructional techniques.

Differentiated instruction not only for Mathematics teachers

The aim of differentiated development in a heterogeneous group of learners (DDHG) is to reduce school leaving without education, using an adaptive and innovative teaching-learning environment and using the most effective strategies, methods and techniques. Furthermore, this strategy helps in developing skills for learners and building cooperation between learners in heterogeneous classes through the use of the special, status-management educational procedure, and finally its strength is to sort the status ranking among learners, and to change the social structure of the class. Our goal is to figure out how to share best practices with teachers. One of the effective ways to renew teaching practice is through further training for teachers. As a trainer of the Logic-based subprogram of the Complex Basic Program (CBP) the author of the paper has experienced how well logic-based and decision-making strategies work in other subjects as well as in mathematics.
 Subject Classification: 97D40

Сопровождение студентов-инофонов в инклюзивной среде вуза

The present educational situation requires new approaches when working with heterogeneous groups of learners at different levels of schooling—from preschool to higher-education institutions. There are different types of students in Russian higher-education institutions: students with handicaps, with HIA (Health Impact Assessment), without parents, gifted students, foreigners, migrants and others. The Kostroma State University, which is currently a university funded by the Kostroma region, offers the possibility of obtaining the most diverse educational qualifications. These heterogenous groups have a considerable amount of international students. To this day, the personnel of this university already has gained interesting experiences through working with this type of students, which are presented in this article.

A Tool for Solving Geometric Problems Using Mediated Mathematical Discourse (for Teachers and Pupils)

The research deals with teaching strategies in geometry. A strategic mediating tool to resolve geometric problems was developed.Underpinning theories are: Piaget's theory (1960), Van Hiele (1959), Vygotsky's socio-cultural communication approach and Feuerstein's theory of mediated learning (1998).The research is based a combination of teaching strategies focused on significant mediation between the material and heterogeneous groups of learners. The innovation is in providing a holistic response to the needs of pupils and geometry teachers.Mixed methods research will examine the influence of this tool on high school pupils and their attitudes to mathematics in general and geometry in particular

Twelve tips for teaching in a provincially distributed medical education program

Background: As distributed undergraduate and postgraduate medical education becomes more common, the challenges with the teaching and learning process also increase.Aim: To collaboratively engage front line teachers in improving teaching in a distributed medical program.Method: We recently conducted a contest on teaching tips in a provincially distributed medical education program and received entries from faculty and resident teachers.Results: Tips that are helpful for teaching around clinical cases at distributed teaching sites include: ask “what if ” questions to maximize clinical teaching opportunities, try the 5-min short snapper, multitask to allow direct observation, create dedicated time for feedback, there are really no stupid questions, and work with heterogeneous group of learners. Tips that are helpful for multi-site classroom teaching include: promote teacher–learner connectivity, optimize the long distance working relationship, use the reality television show model to maximize retention and captivate learners, include less teaching content if possible, tell learners what you are teaching and make it relevant and turn on the technology tap to fill the knowledge gap.Conclusion: Overall, the above-mentioned tips offered by front line teachers can be helpful in distributed medical education.

Peripheral normativity: Literacy and the production of locality in a South African township school

This paper reports on an ethnographic study of classroom practices in a township school in the Wesbank settlement near Cape Town, South Africa. Focusing on the ways in which a multilingual and highly diverse student population confronts English literacy, we argue for a view in which norms are seen as emergent and contingent on occasion, place, social and sociolinguistic environment. The school, Wesbank High, is by all standards a ‘peripheral’ school in a marginalised community struggling with very serious socio-economic marginalisation corroborated with a dearth of high-quality public provisions in the settlement. The school is one of these provisions, and teachers and learners share ideals of upward social mobility, often crystallised in discourses on English as an instrument of spatial and social mobility. Learners’ writing in English, however, displays many features of ‘grassroots literacy’—sub-elite literacy characterised by orthographic, syntactic, lexical and pragmatic peculiarities. These peculiarities – ‘errors’ when seen from a punitive and homogeneist viewpoint – appear to be shared by learners and teachers alike, both groups being inserted in a particular, peripheral economy of English. ‘Errors’, thus, are systemic, normal and hence normative, they do not preclude effective and differentiating assessments of learners’ performance but are a productive, positive mechanism that allows teachers to reach a degree of effectiveness with their marginalized and heterogeneous groups of learners. We witness the production of locality through peripheral normativity, as well as the creation of a problem of ‘mobility’ when such locally valid forms are deployed elsewhere. These findings have implications for globalisation theory and views of systemic power in Third-World classroom environments.

The eclectic examination: A model for simultaneous formative evaluation of teacher-training programs and consequent student performance

Most educational programs consist of a fixed curriculum, a hierarchical framework of learning tasks, and an heterogeneous group of learners. Evaluation conjured up mainly testing students' learning, which meant examinations of the cognitive domain (i.e., knowledge gain). The well-established and widelyaccepted objective and non-objective type tests, as well as closely-related conventional evaluation means, have been used primarily for making decisions (usually irreversible) concerning the future of each student within the educational system. In the final analysis, these decisions determined the student's place in the overall social system (Bloom et al., 1971).