Real Classroom Situations Research Articles

Multi-Trilhas game: Learning objects developed in the light of the design

This paper presents, beyond one brief exposition of the theoretical horizon that bases the inquiry, the methodology and a description of developed learning objects with the objective to identify new acquisition resources, for deaf children, of the written Portuguese language and the Brazilian Language of Signals, LIBRAS. This study is being developed in the Laboratory of Design Pedagogy of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio, Brazil) and it is being supported by the FAPERJ and by the CNPq Brazilian research supporting institutions. In order to make the development of the referred research feasible, a partnership between National Institute of Education of Deaf People of Rio de Janeiro (INES, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and PUC-Rio was instituted, assuring that the study occurred having access to real classroom situations, making feasible experimentations and exchange of knowledge with professors, speech therapists and students. Besides the theoretical basis on which the research is founded, this paper presents a description of two objects that were designed: one concrete and a multi-media one. They explore different forms of visual language and allow the simultaneous use in learning the Portuguese written Language and LIBRAS, the Brazilian Language of Signs. Key words: design, alphabetization process, teach-learning, Brazilian Language of Signs, deafness.

Gender theory as a tool for analyzing science teaching

This study examines to what extent experienced teachers are aware of gender issues in the science classroom. It also explores how an introduction to gender theory might alter this awareness. Teachers wrote their reflections about a real classroom situation. They were then asked to analyse the same situation after having read texts that discussed gender theory concepts. The fourteen teachers' understanding about gender and society were challenged. Some teachers were able to analyse the case differently by applying gender theory, others discussed the case on a more general level, while one teacher showed signs of resistance regarding gender theory.

Using Dynamic Geometry to introduce Calculus concepts: CalGeo and the case of derivative

CalGeo is a three-year project supported by EU programme Comenius 2.1. Amongst the objectives of this project is the design of an in-service teacher education programme which employs dynamic geometry tools for teaching Calculus in upper secondary education. In this paper we present the project, its main objectives and the produced material; an example of a learning environment/activity designed for the introduction to the notion of derivative at Year 12; and, some results of the application of this activity in a real classroom situation. In this activity we use the tangent line and the property of local straightness to introduce the formal definition of derivative. Several cases of differentiable and non-differentiable functions are discussed through their geometrical and symbolic representations.

THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE ROLE IN PREPARING FUTURE TEACHERS: THE IMPACT OF A MENTORING PROGRAM FOR PRESERVICE TEACHERS

The imminent teacher shortage in the United States has caused educators, policy makers, parents and concerned citizens to focus on teacher preparation not only at the university level, but also at the community college level. As a result, many community colleges are developing teacher education programs and focusing on real life classroom situations for early field experiences. Mentoring, one of the most popular ways of benefiting from the positive influence of a more experienced person, is an approach to preparing teachers for educational occupations. The main objective of this study was to see if a preservice mentoring program can affect changes in the emotions, attitudes, and anxieties of students about the teaching profession. The participants were 60 education majors (30 in the experimental group and 30 in the control group) from a community college. The experimental group had first-hand experiences with 30 master teachers from a local school district. The 30 students in the control group were education majors from the community college who completed a pre- and posttest instrument. Data was collected from results of a pre- and posttest of a teaching attitudinal survey for preservice teachers. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed to test for significant differences between the means of the posttests for the control and experimental groups while controlling for the pretests. Results revealed that there were no statistically significant differences between the means of the two groups with respect to changes in emotions and anxiety. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups in attitudinal changes.

Online Measurement Of Appraisals Of Students Faced With Curricular Tasks

The On-Line Motivation Questionnaire assesses students’ judgments of a learning situation in real classroom situations. The present study focuses on the part of this instrument related to student appraisals at the onset of a task. A sample of 780 Dutch 7th-grade students completed the questionnaire for eight tasks (Dutch, French, history, mathematics) on two occasions. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that seven of the eight presupposed factors could be distinguished empirically. This internal structure appeared invariant over the academic tasks included in the study and seemed also stable over a half-year period. Internal consistencies of scores on the seven subscales appeared satisfactory for research purposes.

Teachers Learning Ladders to Literacy

Researchers in reading acquisition over the past several years have routinely recommended that teachers in the primary grades increase the amount of instruction in phonological awareness and the alphabetic principle; however, most research with this focus has occurred in clinical settings. This study discusses the involvement of kindergarten teachers in developing practical application of the knowledge base in real classroom situations that included children with a wide range of ability. The project investigated two intensity levels of professional development, and focused on the efficacy of the activities for promoting children's early reading progress. Children whose teachers learned to implement phonological and print awareness activities performed better than children in control classes on phonological and literacy measures, with those in classes of teachers with more intensive professional development achieving the highest literacy outcomes.

The decimal point situation: a close look at the use of mathematics-classroom-situations in teacher education

Mathematics classroom situations (MCS) are real or hypothetical classroom situations involving mathematics, in which the teacher has to respond to a student's hypothesis, question or idea. This study investigates the use of one such situation, the decimal point situation, in an in-service course for 20 elementary teachers. Data sources include: written questionnaire, individual interview, whole class discussion and student interview. The article examines the potential of MCS to evoke analyses and reflections about teaching and learning mathematics.

Evaluating desktop video conferencing for distance learning

Distance learning applications can now make use of networked computers to transmit and display video, audio, and graphics. However, desktop video conferencing systems (DVC) often display degraded images due to bandwidth restrictions and computer processing limitations. The literature on the influence of video parameters such as frame rate and resolution with respect to subjective opinions and human performance is sparse. A two-part study involving a controlled laboratory experiment and a field study evaluation was conducted on technical parameters affecting the suitability of DVC for distance learning. In the laboratory study, three frame rate conditions (1, 6, and 30 frames per second), two resolution conditions (160 × 120 and 320 × 240), and three communication channel conditions were manipulated. Dependent measures included performance on a quiz and subjective satisfaction with the image quality. Results suggest that quiz performance does not suffer under reduced video quality conditions, but subjective satisfaction significantly decreases. The field study employed similar dependent measures and indicates that students in real classroom situations may be less critical of poor video quality than in laboratory settings and confirms the results from the laboratory study in that performance does not suffer. However, the current state-of-the-art of video conferencing technology needs to be improved and configured most effectively to support college teaching at a distance. Guidelines for implementing and using DVC systems in distance learning applications are provided.

Developing an understanding of appraising music with practising primary teachers

paper deals with a central concept in music education, that of ‘appraising’ music. Through a series of incidents surrounding the development of the Music National Curriculum this concept, new to many, was left undefined. Using research which shows how people cope with change and successfully take on innovations, a need for deeper information on what appraising entails, and the underlying principles involved, was identified – that is, the ‘how-to’ and ‘principles’ knowledge of appraising. The paper reports research carried out with a group of teachers to define the activity of appraising music in a way which takes account of real classroom situations and can be used by the 90% of primary teachers who are not music specialists. Because the definition is developed by teachers it is more likely to be understood by other teachers. The paper ends with an example of a programme of work which uses the developed understanding. This includes nine areas of appraising, an explanatory definition and four stages in the process of appraising as well as an understanding of progression in this activity using seven words to indicate progression and identifying a ‘putting in’ and ‘drawing out’ stage within this.The children's appraising and progression is discussed and the paper argues that, in choosing this term, the Music Working Group has identified the way in which we come to know and understand the processes involved in music and musical thinking within the three activities of Composing, Performing and Listening.

Telecommunications in Teacher Education: reflections on the first Virtual Team Case Competition

ABSTRACT In the spring of 1994, the University of Virginia piloted the first Virtual Team Case Competition. This event combined telecommunications and case‐method teaching to promote the use of technology and problem solving among teams of pre‐service teachers from three countries. Participating teams subscribed to a general mailing list to receive instructions, a schedule of events, and a case based on a real classroom situation. Teams had approximately ten days to email their analyses of the case to judges and to administrators of the competition. Judges scored each team's responses to the teaching case and to follow‐up questions and sent their evaluations by private email to the administrators. Results of the competitition were then posted over the mailing list. This paper describes both how the competition worked and what we learned from our experiment with the first Virtual Team Case Competition.

Courseware Evaluation Activities in Europe

In the ECOSET-project data on evaluation activities of nineteen organizations in ten member states of the EG are gathered by questionnaire. Four of the organizations are interviewed for more and detailed information about these activities. Ten out of nineteen organizations do as well summative as formative evaluations and four organizations only perform summative evaluation activities. Five organizations are involved in formative evaluation activities only. The summative evaluation activities in the member states vary from a critical appraisal of a piece of courseware to extensive in-depth testing. Three groups of organizations are distinguished. The first group does not use formal instruments. The data indicate that this group are more or less on the line of product reviews of educational software. A second group (5 organizations) are using formal instruments, but the evaluation in real classroom situations is not a standard procedure. The third group of organizations use formal instruments and the educational software is tested in real classroom-situations. There are indications of differences between group 1 and 2 in the relation between development activities and the target group for the results. A remarkable aspect is the difference in dissemination of results between group 2 and group 3. Teachers in both groups are an important target group for the results, but in group 2 there is only one organization that use educational or other magazines for the dissemination of the results. In group 3 all the organizations make use of magazines. Fifteen organizations perform formative evaluation activities in the decision as well as in the design and development phase. Nine of them are also involved in evaluation activities in the dissemination phase. In the decision phase thirteen organizations do comparisons with other products and eleven of them are looking at the technical feasibility of products. Ten organizations do needs analysis studies. As evaluation activities in the design & development phase the evaluations of pre-releases of the software and release of the documentation are most often mentioned. Other activities are evaluations of prototypes and continuing consultancy during the design and technical implementation stages. Products most often mentioned as being used as input for activities in this phase are the descriptions of the ideas behind the product, global prototypes and product definitions. In the dissemination phase three organizations assess results as one of their evaluation activities. In the group of organizations performing formative evaluation activities two elements are remarkable. Organizations with few (<6) evaluation activities hardly train their evaluators. Almost all other organizations give training to in-house evaluators, subject matter specialists and/or teachers. If the number of evaluation activities gives an indication of the role of evaluation in the development process, you might say that those organizations also value training for evaluators as a necessity for good evaluations. The organizations with a lot of evaluation activities all use data of own or other observers. The aspect of training may also be connected with this fact. For observations the inter subjectivity is an important factor. Inter subjectivity you will get by training your observers.

Achievement motivation in high school: Contrasting theoretical models in the classroom

The main objective of this study is to contrast some of the most important theoretical models of achievement motivation in a real classroom situation: Weiner's model, Covington and Omelich's model and Dweck and Elliot's model. These models differ in the number of motivational factors they include and in the role they attribute to them as well as to causal attributions, affective reactions and expectancies as performance predictors. The role of all these variables is discussed. Then, following the method used by Covington and Omelich (1979), a sequential data collection with two different stages was performed. 155 high school students, who considered their exam performance unsuccessful served as subjects for the study. Correlations among all variables of the model were used as an input matrix for “path analysis”. Diverging from other works, path coefficients were estimated through specific statistical software packages for structural equation models. Results suggest that Dweck and Elliot's model, which includes three different motivational factors instead of the two originally proposed by Atkinson, offers a better explanation of the relationships between achievement motivation, attributions, emotional reactions, expectancies and performance than the two other models mentioned above.

Lesenlernen fremder sprachen: Laboratoriumsexperimente und empirischpädagogische folgeuntersuchungen

The question of how to teach foreign-language reading comprehension to adults having no command of the foreign language remains difficult to answer and so far research on reading cannot provide teachers with clear and satisfactory methods. This paper presents two studies: experiments on learning to read foreign languages, and observational studies in real classroom situations of a beginning French reading-course. The experiments are rather small-scale investigations not intended to answer the above question but to clear up some basic aspects of foreign-language reading and especially to study the role and influence of an audiolingual component. We developed special selfinstructional materials for the purposes of this experiment and reduced the foreign audiolingual component to zero in two of the three experimental groups — thus only one group had audiolingual material but the written program was equal for all groups. The foreign languages involved were Serbo-croatian in the two original versions of script (cyrillic and roman) and Japanese. There is strong empirical evidence in both studies that learning to read a foreign language does not firstly mean decoding to sound but the development of receptive analytical skills in order to get the right meaning of written language.

The teaching of English as a foreign language to children: aspects of teacher-training

One learns to walk by walking. One learns to swim by swimming. One learns to drive by driving. It seems obvious that one should learn to teach by plunging straight in - to a guided practice of teaching, or, at least, of watching others teach in real classroom situations.

Rationale, Description, and Feasibility of a Partially Programmed Foreign Language Methods Course

ABSTRACT Much thought has been given to the structure and content of the foreign language methods course. Literature from both the specific and general education areas concur on several considerations in preservice methods courses: the need for a balance of theory and practice, the need for increased student involvement in real classroom situations, and the importance of utilizing innovative instructional approaches in the preservice teacher preparation program. A major question in support of these considerations is: How does one gain ample time in order to allow for adequate emphasis on each of the aforementioned points in a methods course that might range from thirty to forty contact hours? In response to this question, the author designed and subsequently implemented an apparently viable solution to the problem. This article deals with the design and feasibility of implementing a partially programmed approach to a performance‐oriented foreign language methods course. Five teacher performance skills were identified. A series of multimodeled demonstrations of these skills were video taped for use in a programmed course segment. This article includes a description of the programmed segment and specific suggestions for applying this approach to other subject matter areas.