Prediction/discussion-based learning cycle versus conceptual change text: comparative effects on students’ understanding of genetics

Background and purpose:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the comparative effects of a prediction/discussion-based learning cycle (HPD-LC), conceptual change text (CCT) and traditional instruction on 10th grade students’ understanding of genetics concepts.

Sample:

Participants were 112 10th basic grade male students in three classes of the same school located in an urban area. The three classes taught by the same biology teacher were randomly assigned as a prediction/discussion-based learning cycle class (n?=?39), conceptual change text class (n?=?37) and traditional class (n?=?36).

Design and method:

A quasi-experimental research design of pre-test–post-test non-equivalent control group was adopted. Participants completed the Genetics Concept Test as pre-test–post-test, to examine the effects of instructional strategies on their genetics understanding. Pre-test scores and Test of Logical Thinking scores were used as covariates.

Results:

The analysis of covariance showed a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the favor of experimental groups after treatment. However, no statistically significant difference between the experimental groups (HPD-LC versus CCT instruction) was found.

Conclusions:

Overall, the findings of this study support the use of the prediction/discussion-based learning cycle and conceptual change text in both research and teaching. The findings may be useful for improving classroom practices in teaching science concepts and for the development of suitable materials promoting students’ understanding of science.     

I~2C总线与24LC16B及其应用

通过对Ｉ~２Ｃ总线的特性的描述,给出５１系列单片机的编程实现;以及通过２４ＬＣ１６Ｂ的引入,展现了一个用Ｉ~２Ｃ总线设计的实用产品的蓝图。     

Identifying top relevant dates for implicit time sensitive queries

Despite a clear improvement of search and retrieval temporal applications, current search engines are still mostly unaware of the temporal dimension. Indeed, in most cases, systems are limited to offering the user the chance to restrict the search to a particular time period or to simply rely on an explicitly specified time span. If the user is not explicit in his/her search intents (e.g., “philip seymour hoffman”) search engines may likely fail to present an overall historic perspective of the topic. In most such cases, they are limited to retrieving the most recent results. One possible solution to this shortcoming is to understand the different time periods of the query. In this context, most state-of-the-art methodologies consider any occurrence of temporal expressions in web documents and other web data as equally relevant to an implicit time sensitive query. To approach this problem in a more adequate manner, we propose in this paper the detection of relevant temporal expressions to the query. Unlike previous metadata and query log-based approaches, we show how to achieve this goal based on information extracted from document content. However, instead of simply focusing on the detection of the most obvious date we are also interested in retrieving the set of dates that are relevant to the query. Towards this goal, we define a general similarity measure that makes use of co-occurrences of words and years based on corpus statistics and a classification methodology that is able to identify the set of top relevant dates for a given implicit time sensitive query, while filtering out the non-relevant ones. Through extensive experimental evaluation, we mean to demonstrate that our approach offers promising results in the field of temporal information retrieval (T-IR), as demonstrated by the experiments conducted over several baselines on web corpora collections.     

The contribution of primary school teachers to curriculum planning and development in Iraq

ABSTRACT

This article describes the role of primary school teachers in Iraq in connection with curriculum change and development. It identifies the ways in which professional teachers have been faced with increased central control and concludes by responding directly to the Ministry of Education. A survey involving interviews and question‐ naires was conducted with primary school teachers of different school location, age, gender, experience, qualifications and subjects taught, and in various school locations. Headteachers and education officials were also interviewed to establish the degree of involvement of primary teachers in their curriculum planning process.     

Filling a curriculum gap in chemistry

In most science courses at secondary level, the teaching methods used are not tailored to present different approaches to meet the individual differences in pupils’ learning styles or motivation. Much in the detailed objectives, and blow‐by‐blow worksheet approach, will appeal to the conscientious pupil but may turn off the more creative and curious pupil.

Mini‐projects (problem solving at the bench) were used as a vehicle to motivate the curious pupils. Correlations of factors such as convergence/divergence, field‐dependence/field‐independence and motivational traits with ‘success’ in mini‐projects are set out in this paper. The evidence indicates that those who do best in practical problem solving of the mini‐project type are the curious, field‐independent and divergent pupils. However, all categories of pupils were stimulated to varying degrees by the projects.