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Eric.ed.gov – Oregon Trail Teacher’s Guide.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The road to the U.S. West, known as the Oregon Trail, had its first real traffic in 1843 when a group of about 1000 people left Independence, Missouri and traveled west. This teacher’s guide contains short descriptions of the main landmarks and stopping points that were significant along the northwest portion of the Oregon Trail. The guide is primarily devoted to the geographical areas and peoples found around and about these important locations. It is divided into the following sections: (1) “Historical Highlights”; (2) “Indians/The First People in Oregon”; (3) “The Missionaries”; (4) “The Pioneers”; (5) “Social Studies Activities”; (6) “Map Activities”; (7) “Language Arts”; (8) “Science Activities”; (9) “Math Activities”; (10) “Art Activity Suggestions”; (11) “Physical Education Activities”; and (12) “Appendix.” A Teacher’s Guide Evaluation Form… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Ethnic Differences in Early Math Learning: A Comparison of Chinese-American and Caucasian-American Families.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study compared Chinese-American and Caucasian-American children and families in order to better understand which cultural and family characteristics, parent beliefs, and parent practices operate at the early childhood level to produce the more uniform high level of math achievement among Asian-American children. Forty second-generation Chinese-American and 40 Caucasian-American preschoolers and kindergartners from well-educated, 2-parent families were given math, name writing, visual discrimination, spatial relation, and vocabulary measures. Parents completed questionnaires, interviews, and a social behaviors checklist. The study found that Chinese-American children outperformed Caucasian-American children on measures of mathematics, spatial relations, visual discrimination, numeral formation, and name writing. Caucasian-American children had higher scores on receptive English vocabulary. Chinese-American parents indicated a stronger belief in the role of hard work and early skill development in academic achievement,… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Cross Cultural Comparison of Rural Education Practice in China, Taiwan, and the United States

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The purpose of this research is to compare the rural education practices of China, Taiwan, Canada and the United States. International comparisons of mathematics achievement find that students in Asian countries outperform those from the USA. Excluded from these studies, however, are students from rural areas in China. This study compares the math abilities of 272 selectively chosen 5th grade students from rural, central China, 361 students from rural, northern Taiwan and 95 students from rural, central Pennsylvania. The test instrument was the same as used in previous China vs. USA comparisons and focused on four subtopics: computation, number concepts, geometry and problem solving. The results showed that rural Chinese and Taiwanese students outperformed similar American students in the area of mathematics achievement. The rural Chinese and… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – IDRA Newsletter. Volume 37, No. 2

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Each edition of the IDRA Newsletter strives to provide many different perspectives on the issues in education topics discussed and to define its significance in the state and national dialogue. This issue focuses on Teaching Quality and includes: (1) Ensuring Teaching Quality in a Civil Rights Context (Bradley Scott); (2) An Unspoken Culture Clash–The Deeper Culprit of Teacher Beliefs (Veronica Betancourt and Kristin Grayson); (3) Texas Accountability–A Fast Track for Some; A Dead End for Others (Josie Danini Cortez); and (4) How One Group of Families Explored Clues about their Children’s Math Education (Aurelio M. Montemayor). (Individual articles contain resources.) Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – A Balanced Formula for Math and Science Education in Diverse Settings.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Within the framework of social reconstructivism and multicultural education, this paper explores issues of teaching mathematics, and to a lesser degree, science, to provide the best equitable education for all students. Today’s classrooms are increasingly multicultural, and students bring to their classrooms rich personal, social, intellectual, and educational experiences that teachers must use. Optimizing learning for all students in mathematics classrooms can be achieved through creating multiple learning opportunities for all students as their differences are valued and celebrated. Orientations toward math learning should be both integrative and instrumental, being integrative in the sense that math is a crucial part of education and instrumental in that math is a useful tool for almost all aspects of life. In mathematics and science classrooms today, one can hardly see… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Motivating American Indian Students in Science and Math. ERIC Digest.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The digest summarizes major characteristics of American Indian student needs in the disciplines of science and math and offers constructive ways in which students may be motivated for greater achievement. Motivational, attitudinal, and behavioral factors contributing to avoidance of science and math by American Indian students are identified: conflicts between home and school regarding the purpose/importance of school; movement away from lessons in context and interdisciplinary approaches toward more structured and linear approaches in junior high; and a social organization of lesson presentation which is less group oriented and more authoritarian. Characteristics of American Indian students’ learning styles which may affect science and math motivation are outlined: seeing and listening, practicality, caution, and field sensitive orientation. Suggestions for teaching science and math as creative processes and cultural… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Basic Workplace Math for Non-Native English Speakers.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This document is the teacher’s edition of a learning module designed to help nonnative English speakers develop basic workplace mathematics skills. This module was developed by educators from the Emily Griffith Opportunity School. The math curriculum presented in how math might be taught to nonnative English speakers at a manufacturing worksite. Included in the manual are an introduction outlining the module’s objectives and scope, eight session outlines, an appendix explaining basic differences between the mathematical conventions used in the United States and in other countries, and an answer key. The following topics are covered in the session outlines: basic math problems, basic operations, story problems, estimation and averages, decimals, standard allowed minute, division of decimals, and piece rate formulas. Each session outline contains some or all of… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Mathematics Texts: Worksheets and Genre-Bending

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper reports an in-depth study that explores the nature and use of mathematics worksheets using a genre analysis approach. Nine secondary level teachers with collective experience from five different countries participated. Through individual online and focus group interviews teachers shared their own worksheets and their understandings and use of worksheets for teaching and learning math. Results indicate that mathematics worksheets have culturally recognizable features and characteristics, they are used to emphasize procedural over conceptual aspects of mathematics learning, and can structure the way mathematics is taught. This study highlights the potential of genre-bending as an approach to extend and re-imagine the structure and use of mathematical texts such as worksheets. [For the complete proceedings, see ED597799.] Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Learning Preferences of Saudi University Students with Native English Speaking Teachers

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Like many countries building up human and technological resources, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has embarked on the goal of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) to its citizens. One goal for the KSA Ministry of Education is increasing acceptance rates at teacher colleges for both genders specializing in English, in addition to Arabic, Math, Science and Computer Science (The Executive Summary of the Ministry of Education Ten-Year Plan, 2005). Virtually all government policies come with unexpected results. For example, Native English speaking teachers (NESTs) teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) often interact in ways that can be at odds with their host countries. Concerns involving pedagogy have been expressed in many countries with TEFL programs using NESTs (Degen & Absalom, 1998; Liu &… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Teacher Labor Markets in Developed Countries

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Helen Ladd takes a comparative look at policies that the world’s industrialized countries are using to assure a supply of high-quality teachers. Her survey puts U.S. educational policies and practices into international perspective. Ladd begins by examining teacher salaries–an obvious, but costly, policy tool. She finds, perhaps surprisingly, that students in countries with high teacher salaries do not in general perform better on international tests than those in countries with lower salaries. Ladd does find, however, that the share of underqualified teachers in a country is closely related to salary. In high-salary countries like Germany, Japan, and Korea, for example, only 4 percent of teachers are underqualified, as against more than 10 percent in the United States, where teacher salaries, Ladd notes, are low relative to those… Continue Reading