ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Can We Afford to Wait Any Longer? Pre-School Children Are Ready to Learn Mathematics
Author: Feza, Nosisi Nellie
Date: 2012-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Preschool Education,Preschool Children,Mathematics Instruction,Educational Quality,Poverty,Equal Education,Barriers,Play,Learning Activities,Intervention,Readiness,Educational Philosophy,Teacher Role

South African students' poor mathematics performance on national and international tests can be attributed to the gap the children begin schooling with from different socio economics homes. Wright et al assert that this gap continues to grow the longer students are in school. Early childhood research highlights the significant educational gains of exposing young children to quality, structured mathematical play or activity that goes beyond what is learned within the family and community. South Africa has high levels of poverty and inequality and also has tremendous difficulties in overcoming these inequalities. Most provision of quality pre-school education is private, self-funded and not targeted to poor children resulting to different levels of mathematics readiness prior entry to primary school. This paper argues for quality mathematics interventions, longitudinal studies on impact of such interventions and tracking studies on schooling effects of early quality mathematics preparation, higher education effects, and labour market effects.
Self-Esteem among Children in Grade R in an Urban South African School
Author: Keller, Anita C.
Date: 2012-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Self Esteem,Gender Differences,Native Language,Scores,Correlation,Foreign Countries,Teacher Attitudes,Student Evaluation,Leadership,Cultural Awareness,Urban Schools,Rating Scales,Student Behavior,Student Characteristics,Elementary School Students

This paper presents the first assessment of the Behavioural Rating Scale of Presented Self-Esteem (Haltiwanger, 1989) in South Africa. The analyses are based on teachers' evaluation of self-esteem of 57 young isiZulu and Sesotho-speaking children attending a South African government-funded urban primary school. Although we found Cronbach's Alpha to be very high (a = 0.96), an exploratory factor analysis revealed a possible two-factor solution. However, the second factor did not match the two-factor solution reported in previous research (Fuchs-Beauchamp, 1996) and explained only a small amount of total variance. No self-esteem differences were detected between boys and girls, or between isiZulu- and Sesotho-speakers. The association between subjective summary ratings of self-esteem by teachers and the PSE scores in Soweto matches the associations measured in the US by Haltiwanger (1989). Interestingly, teachers' subjective assessment of children's future leadership status correlated positively with evaluation of the children's self-esteem, while teachers' subjective assessment of being burdened by major problems in the children's future did not. Measurement issues relating to ecological validity, culture-sensitivity, and subsequent work on self-esteem of children and education in South Africa are discussed.
A Bird&apos;s Eye View on the Status of the Module &quot;Life Skills&quot; in the Foundation Phase at Higher Education Institutions in South Africa
Author: Steyn, Miemsie
Date: 2012-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Daily Living Skills,Higher Education,Units of Study,National Curriculum,Curriculum Evaluation,College Faculty,Teacher Education Programs,Integrated Curriculum,Credits,Social Sciences,Natural Sciences,Health Education,Art Education,Handicrafts,Music Education,Physical Education

This paper explores how the foundation phase subject area of &quot;life skills&quot; is being offered at (n= 9) higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa. The aim of the study, about which we report, was to identify similarities and differences in the curricula offered at these institutions and to establish the extent to which the different modules attend to the various aspects of life skills according to the most recent national curriculum. We conducted semi-structured interviews with participants who teach the subject at universities and we also analysed curriculum documents. We worked with a purposive sample of 9 respondents from the respective universities. The study found that although universities use the CAPS (national curriculum) document as guideline for structuring their curricula in teacher education programmes, some participants indicated that they follow an integrated approach, thereby implying that the different components of the school curriculum as outlined in the CAPS document are not specifically accommodated within their programmes. An additional finding was that there is a vast difference in the range of credits allocated to the various aspects of life skills that may restrict social mobility between various HEIs.
Learning as It Happens: A Decade of Analyzing and Shaping a Large-Scale Online Learning System
Author: Brinkhuis, Matthieu J. S.
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Data Analysis,Mathematics Instruction,Accuracy,Reaction Time,Scoring,Difficulty Level,Prediction,Item Analysis,Goodness of Fit,Achievement Gains,Mathematics Achievement,Elementary School Students,Foreign Countries,Computer Assisted Testing,Mathematics Tests,Computer Assisted Instruction,Arithmetic

With the advent of computers in education, and the ample availability of online learning and practice environments, enormous amounts of data on learning become available. The purpose of this paper is to present a decade of experience with analyzing and improving an online practice environment for math, which has thus far recorded over a billion responses. We present the methods we use to both steer and analyze this system in real-time, using scoring rules on accuracy and response times, a tailored rating system to provide both learners and items with current ability and difficulty ratings, and an adaptive engine that matches learners to items. Moreover, we explore the quality of fit by means of prediction accuracy and parallel item reliability. Limitations and pitfalls are discussed by diagnosing sources of misfit, like violations of unidimensionality and unforeseen dynamics. Finally, directions for development are discussed, including embedded learning analytics and a focus on online experimentation to evaluate both the system itself and the users' learning gains. Though many challenges remain open, we believe that large steps have been made in providing methods to efficiently manage and research educational big data from a massive online learning system.
Early Childhood Education, Child Development and School Readiness: Evidence from Zambia
Author: Zuilkowski, Stephanie Simmons
Date: 2012-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Early Childhood Education,Child Development,School Readiness,Urban Schools,Comparative Analysis,Program Effectiveness,Emergent Literacy,Receptive Language,Psychomotor Skills,Correlation,Elementary School Students,Preschool Children,Outcomes of Education,Cognitive Development,Physical Development,Intelligence Tests,Verbal Ability,Vocabulary

While early childhood education has received increasing attention in the developing world in recent years, relatively little evidence is available from sub-Saharan Africa on its effects on child development and subsequent school enrolment. We use a prospective case-control design to evaluate the developmental impact of a community-based early childhood center in an urban area in Zambia. Comparing 40 children attending the center to 40 children not attending the center from the same community, we find that center attendance was associated with significantly better performance in an assessment of task orientation, and was also weakly associated with increased letter familiarity. We also observed higher performance among center students on tests of receptive language and pencil-related fine motor skills. These associations were, however, smaller and not statistically significant. We conducted a follow-up one year after the initial assessment, when children were seven years old and should have been in first grade. At follow-up, 27% of non-attendees were not yet enrolled in primary school, compared to just 11% of center students, suggesting that participation in early education encourages a timely transition into first grade.
Exploring the Role of the Speech-Language Therapist in City Centre Preschools
Author: du Plessis, Sandra
Date: 2012-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Speech Language Pathology,Professional Personnel,Preschool Teachers,Preschool Children,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Language of Instruction,Surveys,Communication Strategies,Teaching Methods,Barriers,Cultural Differences,Urban Schools,Blacks,At Risk Students,Questionnaires

This study investigates the perception of the strengths and challenges that face city centre preschool teachers and preschool learners in the acquisition of English as medium of instruction and to use the results to explore the role of speech-language therapists in this context. A descriptive survey, incorporating a quantitative data collection method, was selected as the research design and a questionnaire was developed as a survey instrument. The findings identified the strengths as including the creative communication strategies employed by the pre-schoolers and the innovative techniques of the teachers. Perceived challenges include a cultural and linguistic mismatch between teachers and learners and communication barriers that cause emotional and behavioural problems in classrooms. The study suggests that speech-language therapists need to consider and employ service delivery models instead of traditional models with the preschool teachers.
Cracking the Vocabulary Code in Mathematics in the Foundation Phase
Author: Nel, Carisma
Date: 2012-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Mathematics Education,Vocabulary,Early Childhood Education,Preschool Children,Teaching Methods,Pedagogical Content Knowledge,Preschool Teachers,Teacher Education Programs,Foreign Countries,Preservice Teacher Education,Visual Aids

To children going to school for the first time, the symbols and the vocabulary of mathematics can resemble a foreign language with its seemingly cryptic symbols and unknown terminology. This is a challenge to foundation phase learners' ability to read, write, and communicate clearly. It might be that problems of vocabulary are considered to be fairly superficial within the whole issue of language and mathematics learning, but it is nevertheless critical that such problems are not ignored in the hope that they will go away. Teachers must be purposeful in constructing learning experiences that direct learners' attention to specific words and their meaning. The aim of this article is to highlight the importance of including mathematics vocabulary code cracking as part of the pedagogical content knowledge, specifically the subdomains of knowledge of content and students, and knowledge of content and teaching, which should be addressed within foundation phase teacher preparation programmes.
Crossing the &quot;Theory-Practice Divide&quot;: Learning to Be(come) a Teacher
Author: Gravett, Sarah
Date: 2012-12-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Theory Practice Relationship,Teaching (Occupation),Epistemology,Foreign Countries,Preservice Teacher Education,Teacher Educators,Program Implementation,Teacher Education Programs,Preservice Teachers,Schools of Education

A common view of theory and practice as domains is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to traverse the epistemological chasm between them. After all, theories are ways of organising our world abstractly in ideas and concepts. Practice is the world that we inhabit empirically. It is a tangible world that we can see, feel, act on, act in, and so on. So, how can one even begin to argue that these apparently disparate worlds can be unified or that they are in the first instance not separate at all? My stance on this is that we, the educators of teachers, are party to the separation. In fact, we teach students that they should 'apply' theory to practice. Working with our own struggle at the university where I am based, I will argue that there may be ways of opening the borders between what is, on the one hand a philosophical question, and on the other, a purely empirical question. How do we teach and how do we teach the doing of teaching? My argument explores one way we might begin to restore; to whatever extent this is possible, the unity of theory and practice in teacher education.
Development of Numerical Concepts
Author: Peucker, Sabine
Date: 2013-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Number Concepts,Numeracy,Child Development,Infants,Preschool Children,Schemata (Cognition),Cognitive Ability,Cognitive Development,Comprehension,Arithmetic,Mathematics Skills,Computation

The development of numerical concepts is described from infancy to preschool age. Infants a few days old exhibit an early sensitivity for numerosities. In the course of development, nonverbal mental models allow for the exact representation of small quantities as well as changes in these quantities. Subitising, as the accurate recognition of small numerosities (without counting), plays an important role. It can be assumed that numerical concepts and procedures start with insights about small numerosities. Protoquantitative schemata comprise fundamental knowledge about quantities. One-to-one-correspondence connects elements and numbers, and, for this reason, both quantitative and numerical knowledge. If children understand that they can determine the numerosity of a collection of elements by enumerating the elements, they have acquired the concept of cardinality. Protoquantitative knowledge becomes quantitative if it can be applied to numerosities and sequential numbers. The concepts of cardinality and part-part-whole are key to numerical development. Developmentally appropriate learning and teaching should focus on cardinality and part-part-whole concepts.
Development of Mathematical Concepts as Basis for an Elaborated Mathematical Understanding
Author: Fritz, Annemarie
Date: 2013-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Mathematical Concepts,Item Response Theory,Comparative Analysis,Mathematics Education,Preschool Children,Grade 1,Mathematics Tests,Numeracy,Arithmetic,Numbers,Problem Solving,Mathematical Models,Elementary School Students

A common theme of models of conceptual growth is to establish the hierarchical structures of abilities that can be interpreted along developmental lines. Integrating the literature on the development of mathematical concepts and skills in children, a comprehensive 6 level model for describing, explaining and predicting the development of key numerical concepts and arithmetic skills from age 4 to 8, is proposed. Two studies will be presented. In the first study, 1095 preschool children completed a mathematics test (MARKO-D0) based on a 5-level model. The test fitted with a one-dimensional Rasch model. The extension of the model to a sixth level was verified in a new study: 312 first-graders took part in a mathematics test based on the six levels (MARKO-D1). In order to check whether the data of both samples adhered to the principle of unidimensionality, the data of MARKO-0 and MARKO-1 were used in a common analysis for comparative purposes. The applicability of these findings for a qualitative diagnostics and an adaptive training will be discussed.
Teaching Natural Science in the Foundation Phase: Teachers&apos; Understanding of the Natural Science Curriculum
Author: Beni, Saritha
Date: 2012-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Science Instruction,Educational Practices,Science Curriculum,Pedagogical Content Knowledge,Curriculum Implementation,Teacher Attitudes,Teaching Methods,Foreign Countries,Elementary School Teachers

This study explores foundation phase teachers' understanding of the natural science curriculum within the life skills learning programme. The theoretical framework for this study is entrenched in the relationship between the intended and the implemented curriculum. The Zone of Feasible Innovation (ZFI) is the proposed theory of implementation and states that implementation of the intended curriculum is very difficult if teachers do not have the capacity to implement it. The study seeks to determine where teachers are operating within their ZFI. Data was collected through questionnaires, interviews as well as a rating scale for teachers. The findings show that teachers are confident to teach content that they have been teaching for a long time, but are reluctant to introduce new science topics or new methods of instruction. This reluctance impacts on their ability to implement new innovations in science teaching. However, there are signs that their ZFI has progressed to include certain new practices.
Natural Differentiation in the Teaching of Mathematics to Children Starting School
Author: Scherer, Petra
Date: 2013-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Mathematics Instruction,Mathematics Activities,Arithmetic,Low Achievement,Numbers,Concept Teaching,Mathematical Concepts,Computation,Educational Games,Mathematics Teachers,Elementary School Mathematics,Teaching Methods

This article presents a number of carefully selected activities for the mathematics classroom in the early grades. The motivation for their selection is the development of concepts rather than the learning of the procedural skills of arithmetic. As the teacher is faced with a great heterogeneity of children starting school, the concrete learning environment should fulfil several requirements. On the one hand, the environment has to represent core mathematical principles, and, on the other hand, they have to be suitable for all learners in an inclusive classroom. The concrete formats themselves serve a specific conceptual purpose, while, at the same time, addressing, in an integrated way, the needs of a variety of learners with different levels of competence.
Evaluation of Maths Training Programme for Children with Learning Difficulties
Author: Ehlert, Antje
Date: 2013-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Learning Disabilities,Numeracy,Grade 3,Grade 1,Elementary School Students,Program Effectiveness,Foreign Countries,Mathematical Concepts,Experimental Groups,Control Groups,Mathematics Instruction,Elementary School Mathematics

In the German school system, children are seen as educationally impaired when they are more than two grades behind in their performance in several areas of learning, and this has been the case for several years. A special problem is the fact that support measures are often effective only to a limited extent, or only for a short period. The study at hand focuses on the question of whether educationally impaired children with large deficits in mathematics can be supported successfully by means of a highly adaptive support measure (MARKO-T), and whether the effects of this support can be maintained over a certain period. For this, 32 educationally impaired third-graders with math deficits were supported individually with MARKO-T twice a week, over a period of ten weeks. As control group, 32 similarly impaired third-graders were paralleled according to the mathematical and cognitive achievements of the training group. Two further control groups, each with 32 unimpaired first-graders, were paralleled according to their mathematical and cognitive achievements, respectively. The results showed that the very poor mathematical performance of the educationally impaired children could be significantly improved with this support programme. Four months after the end of the training, significant support effects could still be established when compared to the educationally impaired control group. The comparison with the two control groups demonstrated that the developmental curve of the children with learning difficulties increased in a way that was comparable to that of the unimpaired first-graders.
Libraries and Information Provision for African Relief
Author: Wishart, Elsemieke
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Libraries,Library Role,Access to Information,Poverty,User Needs (Information),Library Services,Computer Use,Handheld Devices,Telecommunications,Foreign Countries,Financial Support

This research article explores the concept that libraries as communication centres in sub-Saharan Africa can play a vital role in bringing poverty relief by providing greater access to information through modern technology. It discusses the patrons who can benefit from community information centres and explores their particular needs. I have researched how modern tools like the Internet, computers, e-readers and cell phones can bring valuable information to impoverished citizens. My research was conducted through reading research papers using article databases, books and Internet websites. The future for libraries in sub-Saharan Africa is bright, as new technology opens up vast opportunities to share information in a way that is accessible, affordable and adaptable to the needs of the African people. I recommend that librarians and relief organisations in Southern Africa seriously consider using modern technology to provide information that will empower its citizens. [Paper presented at the Pan-African Conference on Reading for All (7th, Gaborone, Botswana, 2011.)]
Realising Pre-School Mathematical Education--A Development-Oriented Math Programme with Special Consideration of Phonological Language Processing Aspects
Author: Langhorst, Petra
Date: 2013-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Mathematics Education,Language Processing,Mathematical Concepts,Numeracy,Phonological Awareness,Control Groups,Experimental Groups,Preschool Education,Preschool Children,Pedagogical Content Knowledge,Mathematical Logic,Foreign Countries,Preschool Teachers,Kindergarten,Young Children,Short Term Memory,Phonology,Mathematics Skills

Mathematical development processes begin long before school starts and the importance of previous mathematical knowledge for later school achievements is beyond dispute. For a suitable pre-school education, the focus of interest must be to find out which early learning processes prepare children best. In this article, the acquisition of the key concepts of numeracy is presented in a developmental model, which served as framework for a supportive programme for 4-8 year-old children. The research into this intervention shows how development-oriented support of key arithmetic concepts can be constructed and taught systematically. The immediate and sustainable effect of the programme &quot;Mina and the Mole&quot; on the mathematical competencies of children has already been demonstrated in an evaluation study of 248 children aged 5-7. Considering the strong language-orientation of the programme, the present study focused on aspects of phonological awareness and of phonological working memory. It was evident that these phonological language processing aspects correlated with mathematic skills. Furthermore, it was found that the dominant linguistic focus of the training did not constitute a disadvantage -- even linguistically weak children significantly improved their mathematical skills. Moreover, children with poor or average phonological performance could profit from the supportive programme also regarding their phonological language processing.