A Sample Science Education Activity in Multicultural Environment

In this study, a sample activity developed in the workshops called ＂Science education in multicultural environment＂ of the program ＂Integrative teaching in multicultural environment＂ was presented. Workshops about varied subjects were carried out by participants representing four countries and participants developed teaching materials by getting benefit from elements special to their cultures in the ones related to science teaching. Two students from Belgium, one student from Denmark, one student from Latvia and five students from Turkey participated in the study and three Turkish academicians conducted the workshops. The outcomes of the study were evaluated by presenting them to all participants. The workshops were designed to help students learn instructional strategies and draw upon their prior learning experiences in order to apply effective multicultural education teaching activities. Emphasis is also placed on understanding the varied backgrounds and needs of students.     

Strong Students

I am an English teacher at a high school in Mexico. I give classes to several groups from different grades. I have always had a very nice relationship with all my students. Usually this would be considered a good thing,and in most cases it is. Unfortunately in some other cases this can cause students to see me just as another one of their kind.     

An evaluation of factors influencing reading literacy across Italian 4th grade students

Questionnaire data from the PIRLS 2006 study in Italy provided a number of indices in order to summarize factors of educational context influencing reading achievement. The aim of the present paper is to study the relationships between school factors, teacher factors, family factors, student factors and reading achievement by means of multilevel regression analysis. Results show that pupils＇ attainment in reading is significantly related to： （1） home educational resources （home/student level effect）; （2） parents＇ attitudes toward reading （home/student level effect）; （3） students＇ attitudes toward reading; （4） students＇ reading self-concept; and （5） teacher career satisfaction （school/teacher level）.     

The Importance of Culture in Language Teaching and its Implications for the Role of Teachers

Understanding and alleviating the influence of culture in a language-learning environment is not simply which a case of ensuring effective communication, it is also imperative to ensure that the students are actually able to learn the language according to their own culturally specific learning methods. Effective communication between student and teacher may not produce the desired results if the learner is unable to incorporate this new knowledge into their existing understanding of the world. This paper is mainly about the element of culture in the process of language teaching. In the meanwhile, the author will present the ideas and examples on its implications for the roles of English teachers.     

The exploration of student-centred approaches for the improvement of learning programming in higher education

The author has undergone a major shift in the way of teaching his undergraduate computer programming courses. In the classroom, the teacher＇s computer is connected to a splitter and a video projector that display the computer＇s screen to the entire class. Using this technology, the programming language itself is used live in class to help the students learn how to program. The students are learning in a context by far livelier than those of previous methods. Teaching computer programming is not achieved by lecturing and writing the program instructions on board or by displaying program instructions to the class on transparencies or slides of electronic presentations. With the implementation of student-centered approaches, the students migrated from the state of passive receivers to constructors of computer programming concepts. Students are coached to develop a sense of exploration, individuality and autonomous thinking. The enthusiasm for technology has been facilitating and supporting the learner-centered approach. Everyone in this approach is a learner, including the teacher.     

Setting Questions in Class Based on the ＂Wisdom Class＂ Theory

In the process of classroom education, setting questions in class is an important teaching method, which is used in the whole teaching activity and acts as the link between the thoughts of teachers and students. Hence, creating a wisdom class and using according questions to aid the class are of great significance to both students and teachers. In this paper, 40 elementary students from the 9th grade and 10 of their teachers were studied and the result showed that learning requirements facing to the whole class and students＇ learning beliefs are essential principles, and questions should be set by having an exhaustive understanding of the textbook, giving previous homework, creating a thinking atmosphere, and setting a proper difficulty for the students. The proper time to set questions is when the old knowledge and new knowledge of the student conflict in the awareness of the student, when the teacher wants to spread thought, and when the teacher wants to make a conclusion.     

Vagueness in Teachers' Spoken Language

Politeness symbolizes human civilization,and is one of conduct codes of human beings.As a social activity,language use is subject to this code as well.Pragmatic vagueness is a common phenomenon in spoken discourse.Furthermore,it is an important strategy widely used in teachers’ spoken language.Based on the politeness principle,this thesis explores the pragmatic vagueness by analyzing teachers’ spoken discourse.Employing pragmatic vagueness in teacher’s spoken language can smooth the relationship between teachers and students,and help teachers gain foremost effect on the education to their students.     

Planting Trees

Today is March 12th.It is Planting Tree Day1.There were no classes this morning.The all2teachers and students went to plant trees along the road in front of our school.We went there by bike.As soon as we got there,we began working.First,Mr.Wang,our head teacher asked us to dig holes.The holes must be enough large3for the trees.After a short time,a truck came.There were many young trees on it.Some students put the young trees in the holes.Other students watered the young trees.What4hard we worked!     

Student Choice in English Study

There are three student-centered approaches introduced in this essay. The first one focuses on the design of syllabuses that relate specifically to an analysis of students’needs. The second one is about the provision of classroom activities that encourage more student participation. Last one is concerned with allowing students a greater role in the management of their learning, by providing opportunities for student choice in the method and scope of study . These can contribute a lot to Chinese English class in the situation where many so-called students-centered approaches which mislead many teacher.     

Johnny Come Lately-Again!

Some students are late for school for reasons that are beyond their control. Some students arrive at school after the bell has rung because of choices they've made. Their lateness might be a symptom of anxiety about school- caused by either academic or social concerns. And some students wander in to class a few minutes late because they like the attention their grand entrance receives - especially if it results in a few minutes of one-on-one time with the teacher.If you have a student who consistently arrives late for school, try to identify the pattern that student is exhibiting. You will want to talk with the student and his parents, of course;     

The Technology Policy Unit of the University of Aston in Birmingham

The purpose of this research project was to study how students in the first years of elementary school (children from 7 to 10 years of age) are initiated into the construction of explanations of physical phenomena in the teaching of science. With this purpose in mind, we organized classes based on the proposition of investigative problems, where children, working in groups, could solve problems by raising and testing their own hypotheses. They would then attempt, by means of general discussion organized by the teacher, to discuss how each problem was solved and why it worked. We videotaped a series of classes in which the students solved 15 different investigative problems. We also analysed the teacher/student interactions that took place (in this paper, we present data on two of these classes). Based on our data we found that students construct their own causal explanations by following a sequence of stages that includes the appearance of novelties. We also discuss how our data relate to the teacher's role in the classroom and to the organization of science teaching at this level.     

浅谈Intel未来教育新视点--教学再设计

“Intel未来教育”是旨在帮助学科教师有效应用信息技术于教学中。提高学生学习能力和质量的一项教师培训项目。其很多设计在我国都具有先进性，但教学不会是一个终止的过程，教学再设计就体现了这样一种理念。本文阐述了教学再设计的背景、定义、特点等，并详细分析了在Intel未来教育问题设计模块中的应用实践。     

Teacher Receptivity to Collaboration: Levels of Interest,Types of Concern,and School Characteristics as Variables Contributing to Successful Implementation

Mandates at the federal, state, and local level are calling for collaboration of classroom teachers and specialists to deliver services to students at risk and with special needs in mainstream settings. To facilitate implementation of collaboration successfully, it is necessary to identify and address variables associated with teacher receptivity toward collaboration, such as level of interest and concerns. Other variables, such as school and teacher characteristics, may also impact the implementation process. The purposes of this study were threefold. We wished to determine (a) whether regular educators and specialists are interested in collaborating with one another to achieve the inclusion of students who are low achieving or have cognitive disabilities into regular classes, instead of their placement in separate pull-out classes; (b) what kinds of concerns, needs, beliefs, and attitudes about participating in a collaborative project may be characteristic of teachers at various levels of interest; and (c) if level of interest and attitudes/concerns are related to teacher and school characteristics.     

Selective teacher attention in lower-income countries: A phenomenon linked to dropout and illiteracy?

In lower-income countries students face an important challenge that has not been well documented: selective teacher attention. In classes with many low-income students, teachers may concentrate on those few who can perform and neglect those who require more help. The latter may fail to learn, attend school less often, and eventually drop out. However, social promotion policies may keep them enrolled during periods of sporadic attendance. This phenomenon has been observed informally in various countries, but only one study, conducted in Albania, has reported actual data. It found that many teachers overestimated the number of students who could follow the topics presented; they did predict that one third would be unable to answer questions but made no efforts to remedy knowledge gaps. Teachers of upper primary classes tended to give little guidance or attention to failing students but gave them passing grades until they dropped out. The article reveals the urgent need to study in detail how this phenomenon arises and to develop strategies to reduce it in the countries or areas where it is prevalent.     

Developmentally Appropriate Technology Use and Early Childhood Teacher Education

Early childhood teacher education methods classes often emphasize the application of developmentally appropriate practices (DAP). In today's digital age, it is important for teacher educators and their students to think about how to extend DAP to technology use. In this article, two contrasting classroom scenarios are provided to illustrate developmentally appropriate technology use (DATU), a new educational term coined by the authors. Briefly, DATU is defined as use that both respects the unique challenges presented by children's levels of development and capitalizes on children's natural desire to actively, collaboratively construct knowledge and solve problems. A five-element framework for guiding teachers toward DATU is explained.     

Impacts of flipped classrooms with peer assessment on students’ effectiveness of playing musical instruments – taking amateur erhu learners as an example

ABSTRACT

Amateur musical instrument learners are usually taught in a one-to-many learning mode owing to the cost consideration; therefore, it is difficult for the teacher to address individual students’ problems. This results in a lack of knowledge internalization. The flipped classroom enables the teacher to have more in-class time to interact with individual students. However, when the teacher guides a learner in the flipped class, the other learners usually practice on their own rather than engaging in critical thinking or reflective thinking activities. Therefore, this study uses the peer assessment strategy to increase the effectiveness of musical instrument flipped teaching. However, conventional peer assessment flipped teaching (CPA) has some disadvantages. So, we present another method in which the peer assessment is performed by online video sharing (VSPA). The VSPA method can further extend the learning time until after class. It lets teachers have more time to solve the problems of individual students. Besides, it can reduce the students’ nervousness. The experimental results showed that both of the two teaching modes can help progression, but there is no significant difference in the learning effectiveness. As for learning preference, we found that the learners preferred CPA to VSPA.     

Belief in a just world,teacher justice,and student achievement: A multilevel study

The meaning of belief in a just world and students' subjective experience of the justice of their teachers' behavior toward them personally for academic achievement was examined. Sample 1 involved 947 secondary school students from 67 classes (grade levels 9 to 11), and Sample 2 718 students from 48 classes (grade level 9). Multilevel analyses revealed that the more the students believed in a personal just world, the more they felt their teachers' behavior toward them personally to be just and the better grades they received; the association between BJW and student achievement was fully mediated by teacher justice experience. It was concluded that personally experienced teacher justice is a key feature of a school environment that is conducive to student achievement.     

略论用电教手段调整学生学习心理

为了帮助学生在课堂学习中保持良好的学习心理状态,教师在运用电教手段时,充分发挥电教媒体的优势。主要有以下几点：一、帮助学生树立信心,克服自卑畏难心理;二、创造条件,满足学生表明自己能够胜任的欲望;三、从平静状态向活跃状态转化;四、从抑制状态向兴奋状态转化;五、有意注意与无意注意的相互转化。只要教师注意并较好地解决了课堂电化教学的运用时机问题,就能充分发挥电教媒体的优势,起到较好的教育教学效果。     

Personal belief in a just world, experience of teacher justice, and school distress in different class contexts

The study examined the meaning of personal belief in a just world and students’ experience of their teachers’ behavior toward them personally for school distress in different class contexts. The study involved 827 secondary school students from 61 classes (grades 9 to 11). Analyses revealed that the more the students believed in a personal just world, the more they felt their teachers’ behavior toward them personally to be just, and the less school distress they experienced; the association between belief in a just world (BJW) and school distress was partly mediated by students’ personal experience of teacher justice. These associations were stable across school tracks, schools, and classes. According to these results and the just world theory, a strong BJW seems to function as a rather context-independent personal resource for students, explaining their individual experience of teacher justice and school distress. Moreover, teacher justice seems to be a key feature of schools explaining students’ well-being at school.