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Eric.ed.gov – The Realities of K-12 Virtual Education

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In a decade, virtual education in its contemporary form of asynchronous, computer-mediated interaction between a teacher and students over the Internet has grown from a novelty to an established mode of education that may provide all or part of formal schooling for nearly one in every 50 students in the US. In a non-random 2007 survey of school districts, as many as three out of every four public K-12 school districts responding reported offering full or partial online courses. There can be little question that virtual courses in certain areas (e.g., math, English, social studies) produce tested achievement results on a par with those of their conventionally taught counterparts. Nor is it debatable that more complex areas of the curriculum (e.g., the arts) are beyond the reach… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – A Baker’s Dozen 13 Palm Applications For Mathematics (And Math Related!) Instruction

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: If you are considering using handhelds in your classroom, you have a number of things to consider: (1) equipment management; (2) student contracts for out of class use;(3) tutorials;(4) curriculum integration, (4)success stories; and (5) current research on handheld effectiveness. To help teachers learn more about classroom use of handhelds, the Organization for Educational Technology and Curriculum (OETC, formerly known as Oregon Educational Technology Consortium) has worked in conjunction with the South Lane and Eugene 4J School Districts, both of which are recipients of U.S. Department of Education, Enhancing Education Through Technology (Ed Tech) grants to develop the Northwest Handheld Project http://www.nwhandheld.org). Palm handheld computers are being used in classrooms across America in creative ways to engage students in learning. The applications reviewed in this article represent… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Look down from the Sky: Is It a Bird? Is It Superman? No, It’s a Plane

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The plane problem is a real-world problem, presented without any suggestion as to how it might be solved. It arose unexpectedly as the author was messing around on the internet, not thinking about maths at all. She did not encounter the problem in a maths lesson, nor as homework in the middle of a unit on a particular topic, and so she had no clues about what method was going to be useful, or even if she would be able to solve it. All she had–initially at least–was the image of the plane and a mystery: at what altitude is it flying? There is something satisfying about seeing how mathematics can solve a mystery that may appear, at first sight, to be intractable. Students need the opportunity… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Creating Connections: The Internet and Teacher Isolation.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Four 3-year projects within the Rural Telecomputing Initiative enabled rural teachers in Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, and Tennessee to connect with math and science reform communities and use resources available through the Internet. This study of the projects’ first 2 years examined: (1) whether the projects made a difference in teachers’ isolation and attempts to improve math and science education; and (2) whether resources the projects developed were valuable to rural teachers in reforming math and science education. The study included two written surveys, 9 months apart, of teachers and principals. Evaluation teams visited two participating schools within each local project annually, observing science and mathematics classes; interviewing principals, teachers, and students; and moderating focus groups. Results found that teachers became substantially more comfortable with the Internet. Telecomputing… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The Power of Probability: Poster/Teaching Guide for Grades 6-8. Expect the Unexpected with Math[R]

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: “The Power of Probability” is a new math program aligned with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and Common Core State Standards, which gives students opportunities to practice their skills and knowledge of the mathematics of probability. Developed by The Actuarial Foundation, the program’s lessons and worksheets motivate students through activities that use mathematics for real purposes. [A poster that accompanies this teaching guide can be viewed and/or retrieved at: http://www.actuarialfoundation.org/pdf/poster-conversions-rock.pdf.] Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Creating Effective Video to Promote Student-Centered Teaching

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Training and investing teachers at all career levels in student-centered practices is widely recognized as a significant challenge. Various studies document the failure of student-centered teaching practices to take hold in K-12 mathematics classrooms in significant ways, including collaborative work; problems that are cognitively demanding or that encourage connections, inquiry-based approaches; teacher questioning to enhance student understanding; classroom-based performance assessments; and student choice. While pre-service math-teacher education is not solely to blame for this failure, it is also the case that pre-service training has been relatively unsuccessful at promoting nontraditional teaching practices in new mathematics teachers, in spite of the efforts and intentions of university-based teacher educators. Overcoming resistance to student-centered methods has been the author’s major challenge in teaching the secondary-level mathematics-methods course in her institution’s… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Improving Student Evaluation of Teaching: Determining Multiple Perspectives within a Course for Future Math Educators

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Instructors in higher education are very familiar with the Likert scale Students’ Evaluation of Teaching (SET) used to evaluate teaching. Researchers have raised concerns about biases affecting the results of SET surveys, as well as their validity and reliability and use in high-stakes decision making. Here, we demonstrate that Q methodology, identified as an 80-year-old mixed method, is better suited to determine the differing student views about a college math education course. We will discuss how Q used for SET can produce results that are more helpful in assisting faculty in improving their teaching effectiveness and in redesigning courses while also providing more informative SET results for faculty evaluations. Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Affordable Online Maths Tuition: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: “Affordable Online Maths Tuition” is a one-to-one tutoring programme where pupils receive maths tuition over the internet from trained maths graduates in India and Sri Lanka. It is delivered by the organisation Third Space Learning (TSL). Tutors and pupils communicate using video calling and a secure virtual classroom. Before each session, the pupils’ normal classroom teachers are able to select lessons from TSL’s maths curriculum to target individual learning issues. The intervention was targeted at Year 6 pupils who were working at Key Stage (KS) 2 level 3 or an insecure KS2 level 4, and was delivered over 27 weeks from September 2014 to May 2015 by (TSL) in an initial testing phase, with support from Nesta and Nominet Trust. The impact of the intervention was evaluated… Continue Reading