ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Teaching Environmental Management Competencies Online: Towards &quot;Authentic&quot; Collaboration?
Author: Bell, Simon
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Conservation (Environment),Higher Education,Online Courses,Learning Activities,Open Universities,Distance Education,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Administrator Role,Cooperative Learning,Group Activities,College Students,Teaching Methods,Learning Modules,Student Attitudes

Environmental Management (EM) is taught in many Higher Education Institutions in the UK. Most this provision is studied full-time on campuses by younger adults preparing themselves for subsequent employment, but not necessarily as environmental managers, and this experience can be very different from the complexities of real-life situations. This formal academic teaching or initial professional development in EM is supported and enhanced by training and continuing professional development from the major EM Institutes in the UK orientated to a set of technical and transferable skills or competencies expected of professional practitioners. In both cases there can be a tendency to focus on the more tractable, technical aspects of EM which are important, but may prove insufficient for EM in practice. What is also necessary, although often excluded, is an appreciation of, and capacity to deal with, the messiness and unpredictability of real world EM situations involving many different actors and stakeholders with multiple perspectives and operating to various agendas. Building on the work of Reeves, Herrington, and Oliver (2002), we argue that EM modules need to include the opportunity to work towards the practice of authentic activities with group collaboration as a key pursuit. This paper reports on a qualitative study of our experiences with a selected sample taken from two on-line undergraduate EM modules for second and third year students (referred to respectively as Modules A and B) at the Open University, UK where online collaboration was a key component. Our tentative findings indicate that on-line collaboration is difficult to ensure as a uniform experience and that lack of uniformity reduces its value as an authentic experience. Whilst it can provide useful additional skills for EM practitioners the experience is uneven in the student body and often requires more time and support to engage with than originally planned.
The Relationship between Quality of Student Contribution in Learning Activities and Their Overall Performances in an Online Course
Author: Banoor, Rajabalee Yousra
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Correlation,Academic Achievement,Online Courses,Student Attitudes,Learning Activities,Grades (Scholastic),Critical Thinking,Thinking Skills,Instructional Design,Technology Integration,Foreign Countries,College Students,Student Participation,Grouping (Instructional Purposes),Outcomes of Education

In this research we studied the correlation between the level of students' online participation and their overall performances. We examined in this study, the participation level in different learning activities assigned to two large cohorts of learners, and compared them with their final grades at the end of the year. We defined the quality of their participation in the online course as being classified into the level of learning activities in which they participated. Learning activities were grouped into four levels which were identified namely at the knowledge, understanding, critical thinking skills and practical competencies. The findings revealed that participation in higher-order online learning activities, that is the higher ability to show critical skills and practical competencies, resulted in better grades of the learners in the module. However, the results also highlighted that overall students had a tendency to score more marks in the knowledge category as the activities required lower order cognitive skills. It was further observed that low performers demonstrated a tendency to obtain lower marks in all the four grouping levels and vice-versa for high performers. Two key elements can be concluded from the findings. The first aspect is about instructional design of such online courses where there is a need for the inclusion of learning activities targeted at the development of different types of skills, and second is the distribution and weighting given to these categories. The recommendation is that for first year students, a greater weighting of marks toward knowledge level activities will generally encourage good performances, and this could be gradually reviewed when they move on to level 2 onwards in their studies.
Developing Student Support for Open and Distance Learning: The EMPOWER Project
Author: Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua, Angeles
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Distance Education,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Blended Learning,Academic Persistence,Academic Achievement,Higher Education,Student Personnel Services,College Students,Academic Support Services,Dropout Prevention,Student Needs,At Risk Students,Web Sites,Information Dissemination,Student Empowerment,Lifelong Learning,Student Satisfaction

European universities face great challenges dealing with twenty-first century world changes. Deep transformations are required to a wide range of life-long learning scenarios, which are replacing traditional modes of university study and giving access to students in more flexible ways. To address the transformation in learning, the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) launched the EMPOWER project in 2015 so that the EADTU could share expertise of distance education universities in the field. The EMPOWER project is organised in 12 areas. One is student support, as the central area for students' success. The project's goal is to empower students to become life-long, self-directed learners in open, online and blended-learning environments. The plan was to increase student retention and enhance academic performance, integration and satisfaction. This article summarises the work that has been done during the past two years to offer different tools and resources, such as webinars and reports. These can help institutions and academics in their understanding of what underlies student engagement and motivation versus student drop-out. We aim to share expertise about how effective, or not, technology has been for developing innovative, advanced and quality student support services to large and small groups of students. It is too early to judge the success of the student support group of the EMPOWER project. This paper looks at what has been achieved so far. In particular it outlines the reasons for focusing on the problem of student drop-out and how student support may help to ameliorate the problem.
Portrait of a Second-Grade Problem Poser
Author: Kopparla, Mahati
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Grade 2,Problem Solving,Mathematics Instruction,Mathematics Activities,Learner Engagement,Teaching Methods,Pretests Posttests,Mathematics Teachers,Elementary School Mathematics,Elementary School Students,Mathematical Concepts,Word Problems (Mathematics)

Although some students might struggle with problem posing, the positive effects on student learning and abilities may be far reaching for those who engage in this activity. Problem posing requires students to create their own problems rather than to solve problems posed by others. Problem posing is not regularly taught; however, reform proponent groups recognize problem posing as a strategy that should be integrated more routinely into mathematics classrooms. A single case study was conducted in conjunction with a larger quasi-experimental study in which mathematics education researchers worked with groups of 2nd-5th grade students twice a week over the course of a semester. For the single case study, two of the researchers randomly selected one second-grade student and examined the student's progress as she engaged in problem-posing activities during the semester. Based on the student's work, some possible elements of the lesson that impacted her engagement and performance were identified. Results from this case study indicate that problem posing for this student was an effective tool with which to evaluate misconceptions and to explore her informal mathematics understanding.
Effectiveness of Collaboration on Low and High Achieving School Students&apos; Comprehension of Electrochemistry in South Africa
Author: Amponsah, Kwaku Darko
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Low Achievement,High Achievement,Science Instruction,Chemistry,Grade 12,High School Students,Constructivism (Learning),Social Theories,Scientific Concepts,Foreign Countries,Public Schools,Science Tests,Intervention,Science Achievement,Sociocultural Patterns,Small Group Instruction,Teaching Methods,Cooperative Learning,Instructional Effectiveness

This paper is part of a larger study that investigated the 'Effectiveness of collaboration on low and high achieving school students' comprehension of electrochemistry in South Africa'. The study occurred in the Ximhungwe circuit of the Bohlabela district in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. The theoretical framework for this study was based on Vygotsky's social constructivism theory, which he defines as 'a sociological theory of knowledge that applies the general philosophy of constructivism into social settings'. A sample of 47 12th grade physical sciences students from two public schools (one of the schools is high achieving and the other is low achieving) in the circuit was purposively selected to participate in the study. Students were given electrochemistry concept test (ECT) as pre-test and post-test. Results from mean and standard deviation, and one-way between group analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed that high achieving school (HAS) students taught with the conceptual change teaching strategy (CCTS), specifically collaboration had significantly better acquisition of scientific conceptions related to electrochemistry than low achieving school (LAS) students, also taught with CCTS. Analysis from a scatterplot of post-test against pre-test grouped on type of school showed a linear correlation between pre-test and post-test scores for each intervention type, which indicated that there was no interaction effect. The study has shown that collaboration contributes to meaningful learning, which inadvertently improves students' comprehension and consequent achievement in electrochemistry concepts but more positive for students from high achieving schools.
A Primary Teacher Learning to Use Scaffolding Strategies to Support Pupils&apos; Scientific Language Development
Author: van Driel, Sharisse
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Elementary School Teachers,Teaching Methods,Scaffolding (Teaching Technique),Case Studies,Science Instruction,Elementary School Students,Teacher Attitudes,Foreign Countries,Language Usage,Classroom Communication,Language Acquisition

Although learning scientific language is crucial for learning science, many primary school teachers lack the knowledge and skills to support this. The present case study reports on a primary school teacher who learned to use a repertoire of scaffolding strategies for stimulating pupils' scientific language development in inquiry-based science lessons (14 pupils; grade 4). Teacher support included an instructional sequence, participation in interviews and writing reflective reports. The aim of this study is to identify how the teacher used the scaffolding strategies in a classroom with native speakers and which challenges she experienced during the process. Analysis of lesson transcripts showed that the teacher applied all scaffolding strategies suggested to her. Analysis of interview transcripts gave insight into five categories of challenges the teacher experienced while using scaffolding strategies, including her expectations regarding pupils' scientific language level and dealing with differentiation in the classroom. The findings show that a teacher can learn to apply multiple scaffolding strategies for stimulating scientific language development. Patterns in the use of scaffolding strategies arose related to the aim of the strategy, the situation (i.e., phase of the empirical cycle and teaching approach) and the required pedagogical content knowledge (and skill) of the teacher.
Differences between Regular and Distance Education in a Teacher&apos;s Training Program
Author: Zacharias, Giannakoudakis
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Science Teachers,Teacher Education Programs,Teaching Methods,Conventional Instruction,Distance Education,Teaching Experience,Student Attitudes,Personal Autonomy,Foreign Countries,Comparative Analysis,Teamwork,Peer Relationship,Interpersonal Communication

The aim of this research was to study the differences in social presence and autonomy concerning the two methods of education used in a training program for science teachers in the years 2015-2016. The first method was the traditional face-to-face and the other was the Distance Education method. In particular, the study focused on whether there are differences in the social presence and autonomy between the two teaching methods, and the teaching experience of the participants. A closed-type questionnaire of Likert type was used to collect the data, while &quot;t&quot;-test for independent samples was used for statistical analysis. The study indicated differences in the social presence and autonomy between the two methods of teaching.
Scalability of Learners&apos; Success Rates in E-Learning: A Survey Study of the Learners&apos; Perspectives
Author: Maritim, Ezra K.
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Electronic Learning,Online Courses,Educational Technology,College Students,Foreign Countries,Student Attitudes,Success,Program Effectiveness,Barriers,Distance Education

Globally, ODL institutions experience mismatch between scalability of numbers and scalability of success rates. This study explored the scalability of success rates in open, distance e-learning as perceived by the learners within the &quot;Chain of Response Model.&quot; The primary aim of the study was to look at online learners' success rate by focusing on two institutional factors drawn from the Model, namely: the learner's study modules related challenges and support services. The results of an online survey of 180 undergraduate and postgraduate online learners of Egerton University, Kenya, showed: (a) the response rate of 16%; (b) a mixture of hardware, software and personal factors were identified as pre-requisites for e-learning success: (c) a number of mathematically-based modules were identified as risks to success in online studies; and (d) while the learners saw the learner support services as important they were less satisfied with their provision. The present study points to two broad areas that require further studies. First, qualitative look into specific challenges that learners face with respect to learner support service provisions, modules interactivity, and those identified as difficult to follow and thus posing risks to the learners' success. Second, investigation into tutor-learner contacts with the view of identifying whether such contacts are reactive or proactive.
Incorporating Controversial Issues in Critical Thinking Lesson: A Case Study of EFL Classroom
Author: Sudha, Mannujan Mohini
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Controversial Issues (Course Content),English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Critical Thinking,Case Studies,Student Attitudes,Cultural Background,Lesson Plans,Teaching Methods,Grammar,Translation,Well Being,Interpersonal Competence,Foreign Countries

This case study investigated the issue of incorporating controversial topics in EFL classroom of pre-university students and their attitude toward such controversial topics namely, E-stalking in terms of their own cultural background. The objective of the study was to bring a new dimension in language teaching and learning in Bangladeshi educational system by introducing controversial issues in critical thinking lesson plan. Bangladeshi educational system is solely dependent on the grammar-translation method where including the controversial issue in a language classroom is a completely new experiment for both the teacher and learners. BRAC Institute of Language (BIL) of BRAC University is trying to come out from this traditional teacher oriented methods by implementing new modern approaches and techniques for language learning. This case study was a part of teaching critical thinking, aiming to improve their English language learning. The rationale that the study adopts for introducing controversial topics in EFL curricula is based on the assumption that it helps learners in developing their linguistic and cognitive skills, social awareness, emotional well-being and critical thinking that are compatible with the new approaches and methods of teaching EFL. The present study analyzed data that was collected from the students of pre-university (pre-intermediate level) program and found that majority of the students welcomed the topic E-stalking and showed their positive attitude throughout the lesson. This paper also revealed the importance and possible challenges of incorporating controversial topics in EFL classroom. This study ended with some recommendations made by the researcher's own observation while conducting the lesson.
Indisciplining the Curriculum from a Complex Perspective to Teach English
Author: Moreno, Martha
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Interdisciplinary Approach,Bilingualism,Educational Quality,Public Schools,Language of Instruction,Critical Thinking,Teaching Methods,Foreign Countries,Curriculum Development,Criticism,Educational Policy,Elementary Secondary Education

This article presents a constructive criticism and also a prospectus about the suggested curriculum and the process of indisciplining the curriculum. It considers that through a process of indisciplining the English curriculum it would be possible to achieve the goals stated by the National Ministry of Education in terms of bilingualism and education quality. The article starts with a presentation of the educational reality of the country, the advances and transformation obtained in terms of bilingualism during the last years. Afterwards, it presents synthesis of the positive aspects of the suggested curriculum presented by the National Ministry of Education for the teaching of English as a foreign language in all the public schools of Colombia. Finally, the concept of indisciplining the curriculum in the English subject is presented as a proposal that would achieve meaningful progress in terms of English teaching and the education of students with critical thinking, complex and transformer of his/her society.
Readability of Texts in Secondary School Mathematics Course Books
Author: Çetinkaya, Gökhan
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Readability,Readability Formulas,Textbooks,Difficulty Level,Foreign Countries,Text Structure,Reading Comprehension,Textbook Content,Mathematics Education,Scores,Grade 5,Grade 6,Grade 7,Grade 8,Secondary School Mathematics

This study aimed to investigate the readability of the fifth-, sixth, seventh and eighth-grade mathematics course books prepared in deference to the 2017 curriculum and distributed to schools by MEB. This study utilized the descriptive document analysis which is a qualitative research method. Readability of the mathematics course books were subjected to a quantitative analysis by Çetinkaya-Uzun Readability Formula. Addressing the readability levels of the texts in secondary mathematics course books, this study performed analyses of average word and average sentence lengths of the texts in secondary school course books. These analyses showed that there is no linear correlation between grade level and word and sentence length averages. Readability scores and levels of the text in the analyzed secondary school mathematics course books are not in parallel with the grade level. Accordingly, readability scores of information and solution texts in the fifth-grade course book were lower than the scores in other grades' course books whereas readability scores of question texts were lower than the scores in all grades' course books but the eighth-grade course book. Readability levels of the text in the analyzed secondary school mathematics course book were found to be on frustration level and educational level. Course books should also include independent texts with readability scores and levels.
Open Badges: A Systematic Review of Peer-Reviewed Published Literature (2011-2015)
Author: Liyanagunawardena, Tharindu R.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Recognition (Achievement),Information Storage,Evaluation Methods,Electronic Learning,Periodicals,Classification,Student Attitudes,Employer Attitudes,Program Implementation

Open badges are a digital representation of skills or accomplishments recorded in a visual symbol that is embedded with verifiable data and evidence. They are created following a defined open standard, so that they can be shared online. Open badges have gained popularity around the world in recent years and have become a standard feature of many learning management systems. This paper presents a systematic literature review of the published open badges literature from 2011 to 2015. Through database searches, searching the internet and chaining from known sources, 135 relevant peer-reviewed papers were identified from a corpus of 247 publications for this review. The authors believe this to be the first effort to systematically review literature relating to open badges. The review categorised publications while also providing quantitative analysis of publications according to publication type, year of publication and contributors. After assessing the literature suggestions for future research directions are presented, based on underrepresented areas.
Research on Social Anxiety Level and Communication Skills of Secondary School Students
Author: Koç, Mustafa
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Anxiety,Communication Skills,Secondary School Students,Foreign Countries,Gender Differences,Athletics,High Schools,Educational Attainment,Parent Background,Institutional Characteristics

The aim of his study is to examine the social anxiety level and communication skills of secondary school students in terms of some variables. A total of 382 students, 192 males and 190 females attending the secondary education institutions of the province Adiyaman in the academic year 2016-2017, participated in the study. The scale developed by Özbay and Palanci (2001) to measure the social anxiety level of the students and the scale developed by Korkut (1997) to measure communication skills were used. In the analysis of the data, the statistical package program was used. T-test and variance analysis (ANOVA) were used in independent groups, Post Hoc Tukey test was used for the differences between groups and Pearson correlation test was used for finding relationship; error level is obtained as 0,01 and 0,05. As a result of the research, there was no significant difference was found in social anxiety and communication skills in terms of the students' genders and the fact that whether they do sports or not. A statistically significant relationship was found between the communication skills of the individuals and their social anxiety scores in the strong negative direction. It was seen that the students with more communication skills had lower social anxiety scores. A statistically significant relationship was found in the strong positive direction between the students' social anxiety level and social anxiety sub-scale scores. A statistically significant relationship was found in the positive direction between the students' communication skills and communication skills sub-scale scores.