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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 – Talking with U.S. Secretary of Education: Margaret Spellings

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This summer, “Instructor’s” Editor in Chief, Bernadette Grey, traveled to Washington, D.C., for an exclusive one-on-one meeting with the U.S. Department of Education’s high-profile leader, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. Appointed by President Bush, Spellings is responsible for the overall direction, supervision, and coordination of activities and functions as the Chief Operating Officer for the entire Department. Spellings, who replaced the controversial Rod Paige earlier this year, has been focused thus far on implementing No Child Left Behind and on sharing the stories of improved test scores in many American school districts. Charming and tenacious, she also made it clear that she feels a special bond with teachers and wants and needs them on her side. This article presents the conversation between Grey and Spellings wherein they… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Where Teacher Education Students Agree: Beliefs Widely Shared before Teacher Education.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: A survey of prospective teachers’ beliefs about teaching mathematics and writing to diverse learners was conducted for the purpose of improving teacher education programs. Respondents were 319 elementary education students, 71 prospective secondary math teachers, 52 prospective teachers of secondary English, 23 noneducation math majors, and 19 noneducation English majors. Although there is much diversity between and among the subjects, there were some areas of consensus. In answering questions about student diversity, the respondents did not endorse stereotypes about gender differences or differences in content appropriate for students from different family backgrounds. In responding to questions about what would be helpful in learning to teach, they gave the expected endorsement of experience, as well as high ratings for classes of questions about generic and subject-specific teaching methods.… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Building Better Narratives in Black Education

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: “Building Better Narratives in Black Education” fundamentally changes the narrative and face of education reform to meaningfully include Black voices, leaders and initiatives that truly have equity and Black student success at the core. This is imperative as there is an education crisis for Black students in the United States. Recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results indicate that only seven percent of Black students performed at or above proficient on the 12th grade math exam in 2015, compared with 32 percent of White students. African American students are less likely to meet ACT college readiness benchmarks than any other racial group and often lag behind on various indicators on the primary and secondary levels. However, far too often the narrative has stopped there. While it… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Assessment of Training Programs for Elementary Mathematics Teachers on Developed Curricula and Attitudes towards Teaching in Najran-Saudi Arabia

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study aimed at assessing the training programs for Mathematics teachers at elementary stage on developed Curricula and attitudes toward teaching at Najran educational administration in Saudi Arabia. To achieve this objective, two instruments were developed, one of them measures the opinions of Mathematics teachers about the training programs and the other one measures their attitudes toward teaching the developed Curricula, which were distributed to (72) male and female Mathematics teachers at elementary stage. The results showed that training programs for Mathematics teachers are highly efficient in covering the theoretical background of the project of Mathematics development, content, methods of teaching, activities and educational aids, evaluation, and quality of training. The results also showed Math teachers have positive attitudes towards teaching the developed Curricula, and further concluded… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Change of the Ideas of Science Teachers after Participation in a Training Program on the Use of Non-Formal Educational Places

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The objective of this study is to understand how the perception of teachers might change after they participate in a training program on the use of non-formal educational places (NFEP). The design of the study is ethnographic and its methodology is qualitative. The study comprehends the analysis of three multiple cases according to the disciplinary area, including teachers of primary education, biology, and physics. The analysis was focused on the discourse of the participants, establishing eight categories which were previously validated through triangulation by time and by instruments. The study concludes that the participants were able to restructure their ideas about the use of NFEP for teaching, showing mainly ontological and epistemological changes, which are discussed in the paper. Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Math Is in the Eye of the Beholder.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: A researcher surveyed 161 students in adult education math classes at four community colleges in Illinois and 13 adult education math teachers. Both groups were asked to complete the survey from the viewpoint of a student. The respondents were asked what should math classes teach; what kind of problems they most enjoy working on in class; whether they prefer working on their own in a good workbook with teacher help, working with a partner or small group, or working as a whole class; whether they think it is more productive to do workbook word problems, seek solutions to math problems in students’ lives, or practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; would they rather listen to the teacher’s explanation, practice by solving games and puzzles, watch an example… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Forma Mentis Networks Reconstruct How Italian High Schoolers and International STEM Experts Perceive Teachers, Students, Scientists, and School

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study investigates how students and researchers shape their knowledge and perception of educational topics. The mindset or forma mentis of 159 Italian high school students and of 59 international researchers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) are reconstructed through forma mentis networks, i.e., cognitive networks of concepts connected by free associations and enriched with sentiment labels. The layout of conceptual associations between positively/negatively/neutrally perceived concepts is informative on how people build their own mental constructs or beliefs about specific topics. Researchers displayed mixed positive/neutral mental representations of “teacher”, “student” and, “scientist”. Students’ conceptual associations of “scientist” were highly positive and largely non-stereotypical, although links about the “mad scientist” stereotype persisted. Students perceived “teacher” as a complex figure, associated with positive aspects like mentoring/knowledge transmission but… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Math Is Like a Lion Hunting a Sleeping Gazelle: Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Metaphors of Mathematics

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Preservice elementary teachers hold a variety of beliefs about mathematics and mathematics learning, which influence their teaching. Previous research has shown that preservice elementary teachers believe that mathematics is doing arithmetic. However, it is unclear if preservice elementary teachers truly believe that mathematics is only arithmetic, or if they simply have a difficult time describing their views on mathematics. In this study, preservice elementary teachers were asked to provide metaphors for mathematics and mathematics learning in order to illuminate the preservice teachers’ beliefs about mathematics. The metaphors were analyzed to reveal twelve different categories of belief. Approximately one-fourth of the metaphors suggested negative views about mathematics and mathematics learning. Approximately 44% of the metaphors described mathematics and mathematics learning as something that one must engage in as… Continue Reading