Cultivating divergent thinking in mathematics through an open-ended approach

The purpose of this study was to develop a program to help cultivate divergent thinking in mathematics based on open-ended problems and to investigate its effect. The participants were 398 seventh grade students attending middle schools in Seoul. A method of pre- and post-testing was used to measure mainly divergent thinking skills through open-ended problems. The results indicated that the treatment group students performed better than the comparison students overall on each component of divergent thinking skills, which includes fluency, flexibility, and originality. The developed program can be a useful resource for teachers to use in enhancing their students’ creative thinking skills. An open-ended approach in teaching mathematics suggested in this paper may provide a possible arena for exploring the prospects and possibilities of improving mathematical creativity.     

Parent involvement: perceptions of recent immigrant parents in a suburban school district,Minnesota

The study aimed to examine the perceptions of immigrant parents regarding their school’s efforts to encourage three types of parent involvement: Parenting, Communicating, and Learning at Home. The sample includes 106 immigrant parents with children who were enrolled in English Language Learners programmes at 10 schools in a suburban school district in Minnesota, USA. The results showed that depending on their ethnicities, the children’s school levels and the father’s educational level, the perceptions of the parents were significantly different in terms of the “Parenting” and “Learning at Home” involvement types. Mother’s educational level was significantly correlated to the languages used at home and to their children’s academic achievement in English. Results indicated that schools should consider ethnic backgrounds and educational levels of parents, and languages used at home to instil as collaborations between immigrant parents and schools.     

The Net Effect

This study introduces the term "travelers" to describe programs that move from one broadcast network to another. Travelers represent a form of television recycling common to the television industry, which has used over three times as many travelers as spin-offs. This article examines and accounts for the history and use of travelers over a fifty-year period: their initial popularity with networks and sponsors in the 1950s their decline in the 1970s and 198Os, and their resurgence in the 1990s. Travelers have become an increasingly important television programming tool as broad- cast networks compete for market share.     

Effects of implementing an integrative drama-inquiry learning model in a science classroom

Abstract

This paper introduces ‘Integrative Drama-Inquiry Learning’ (IDI), merging drama-based learning with inquiry-based learning in order to exemplify teaching science through drama. The study also reports on the findings of a sequential mixed-methods procedure embedded in a quasi-experimental research design aimed to understand the effects of IDI on middle school students’ achievement in a biological unit. The initial quantitative phase revealed that IDI instruction had a significant effect on the experimental group’s achievement compared with traditional teaching. A follow-up qualitative phase showed that their achievement was affected by the enhancement of intrinsic motivation through IDI. Analysis suggested that students’ satisfaction of psychological needs of competency, relatedness, and autonomy positively affected learners’ motivation, as advocated by the self-determination theory.     

PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES OF CULTURALLY RELEVANT SCIENCE TEACHING IN AMERICAN INDIAN CLASSROOMS

This study explores the perceptions of culturally relevant science teaching of 35 teachers of American Indian students. These teachers participated in professional development designed to help them better understand climate change science content and teaching climate change using both Western science and traditional and cultural knowledge. Teacher perceptions of practices using culturally relevant instruction were evaluated. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results from the survey analysis show that the teachers’ existing practices of culturally relevant science teaching were limited in choosing topics relevant to American Indian culture. We found three common themes from the teachers’ perceptions of culturally relevant science teaching, meaning of culturally relevant science teaching, teaching strategies, and purpose of culturally relevant science teaching from the qualitative data. We also found that teachers with higher survey scores perceive culturally relevant science teaching differently than teachers with lower survey scores, specifically for the purposes and teaching strategies of culturally relevant science teaching. The results show that teachers with higher survey scores tended to perceive culturally relevant science teaching as a two-way learning process between teachers and students where the teachers can learn traditional science knowledge from the students. They also tend to perceive using concrete traditional science examples as effective teaching strategy for culturally relevant science teaching and building strong relationships with American Indian students as the most important purpose of culturally relevant science teaching. We also discuss common challenges faced by science teachers when trying to implement culturally relevant science teaching with American Indian students.     

Rethinking historical and cultural source of spontaneous mental models of water cycle: in the perspective of South Korea

This review explores Ben-Zvi Assaraf, Eshach, Orion, and Alamour’s paper titled “Cultural Differences and Students’ Spontaneous Models of the Water Cycle: A Case Study of Jewish and Bedouin Children in Israel” by examining how the authors use the concept of spontaneous mental models to explain cultural knowledge source of Bedouin children’s mental model of water compared to Jewish children’s mental model of water in nature. My response to Ben-Zvi Assaraf et al.’s work expands upon their explanations of the Bedouin children’s cultural knowledge source. Bedouin children’s mental model is based on their culture, religion, place of living and everyday life practices related to water. I suggest a different knowledge source for spontaneous mental model of water in nature based on unique history and traditions of South Korea where people think of water in nature in different ways. This forum also addresses how western science dominates South Korean science curriculum and ways of assessing students’ conceptual understanding of scientific concepts. Additionally I argue that western science curriculum models could diminish Korean students’ understanding of natural world which are based on Korean cultural ways of thinking about the natural world. Finally, I also suggest two different ways of considering this unique knowledge source for a more culturally relevant teaching Earth system education.     

Variables affecting physics achievement

Much research has focused on student views about physics concepts, with an emphasis on the identification of alternative conceptions, and how curricula and professional development may ameliorate the situation. However, there has been little work on determining the extent of, and in separating, the student and teacher/classroom level variables that may impact student physics achievement. This study examined the effect of different student and teacher/classroom level variables on student understanding of physics concepts using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), a regression based technique. The data were collected from 68 different teachers and 3,119 students who were using a reform curriculum, Active Physics. Teachers and students completed surveys asking about their beliefs, their classes and their personal characteristics. Students also completed a physics achievement test. The data show that students of teachers who used Active Physics for a greater portion of the year scored higher on the achievement test than did students of teachers who did not use the curriculum as much. Furthermore, the data show that the achievement gap was narrowed between boys and girls and between students with different attitudes toward physics. Additionally teachers who received inservice instruction on how to implement Active Physics narrowed the gap between students with different views of their classroom involvement. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 961–976, 2009     

The role of governance effectiveness in explaining IT outsourcing performance

Recent studies on IT outsourcing have examined the effect of contract specification and relationship strength on IT outsourcing performance in a separate manner. Previous studies, however, ignored the importance of the governance effectiveness that bonds contractual control and relationship strength together to deliver expected outcomes in IT outsourcing exchange. In this paper, we propose a model of IT outsourcing management where governance effectiveness mediates the effect of both contractual control and relationship strength on IT outsourcing performance. We collected data from 143 client companies of IT outsourcing and analyzed it using the PLS method. Our findings show that both contract specification and relationship strength significantly influence governance effectiveness, although contract specification carries the more effect on governance effectiveness than relationship strength does. The governance effectiveness in turn mediates the effect of contract specification and relationship strength on three sub-dimensions of outsourcing performance: cost efficiency, performance improvement, and overall satisfaction. The results and implications are further discussed.