This thesis explores ways in which T. S. Eliot, when he wrote his most autobiographical poetic work<em> Four Quartets</em>, might have been influenced by Thoreaus famously autobiographical prose work <em>Walden</em>, written nearly a century earlier<em>.</em> Much evidence suggests that Eliot knew of the earlier writer and his work. Not only did Eliot assign <em>Walden</em> as suggested reading in a course he taught, but as time went on Eliot also admitted that he was influenced by the New England literary tradition. Reading <em>Four Quartets</em> in light of <em>Walden</em> and its context not only helps a reader understand the connections between the two works, it also gives a reader a better understanding of <em>Four Quartets</em>' fundamental meanings. Although Eliot in <em>Four Quartets</em> adds another layer of his spiritual goals beyond those expressed in <em>Walden</em>, he expresses his religio-philosophical quest for Incarnational "still point[s] of the turning world" (<em>Burnt Norton</em> 62) using autobiographical aspects and poetic tropes that are in many ways strikingly similar to the expressions also present in <em>Walden</em>. </p> <p>The chapters of this thesis unfold these concepts. My Introduction highlights some of the key connections. Chapter One sets the stage for the discussion of the Incarnation by explaining how <em>Four Quartets</em>' spiritual round-trip journey from England to America is grounded in real world places and experiences. This chapter also explains how this guardedly autobiographical re-collection of an almost-real journey includes a response to Eliots personal history and to his literary ancestors, including Thoreau<em>.</em> In Chapter Two, I unpack the similarities and differences between many of the religio-philosophical questions asked in the two works, focusing in on Eliots and Thoreau's complex handlings of such themes as simplicity versus complexity, Incarnation, stillness versus activity, and the difficulty of achieving spiritual goals. Finally, these religio-philosophical questions are incarnated in very similar poetic devices and tropes within both works; in Chapter Three, I describe the most important of these. The "still point of the turning world" (Eliot, <em>Burnt Norton</em> 62) and the "mathematical point" (Thoreau, <em>Walden</em> 1.100) are rich metaphors that form the heart of this chapter.</p>

The death-and-dying debates, especially where they focus on euthanasia is now a global debated issue and this act (euthanasia) is now practiced in a lot of countries worldwide despite some countries have not legalized it. Some religious groups and individuals are in line with the arguments for euthanasia because it provides a way to relieve extreme pain, provides a way of relief when a person’s quality of life is low and it frees up medical funds to help other people while on the other hand, other religious groups and individual base their arguments against euthanasia because such act and practice devalues human life, and because there is a "slippery slope’ effect that has occurred where euthanasia has been first been legalized for only the terminally ill and later laws are changed to allow it for other people or to be done non-voluntarily. A current debated issue is whether effective palliative care laws are changed to allow it for other people or to b e done non-voluntarily. A current debated issue is whether effective palliative care can have an influence over people’s choices towards euthanasia.

Syftet med denna studie är att få kunskap om hur elever med läs- och skrivsvårigheter/dyslexi upplever skolans stöd i läsning och skrivning. Sex ungdomar mellan 12 och 20 år har intervjuats. Utsagorna har analyserats tematiskt med en fenomenologisk ansats. Resultatet visar att eleverna vill att lärarna ska lyssna och beakta deras åsikter gällande vilket stöd som de behöver, samt var, hur och när detta ska ges. Eleverna upplever skilda svårigheter i läsning och skrivning, vilket även kan resultera i problem gällande de teoretiska ämnena. Praktiska ämnen beskrivs däremot vara lätta och roliga. Att ha tillgång till läroböcker uppges vara viktig, eftersom dessa beskriver och konkretiserar ämnets innehåll. Vidare upplevs datorn kunna ge stöd för skrivandet. Att undervisningen anpassas inom den vanliga klassen föredras av eleverna, men samtidigt kan det även upplevas positivt att ha tillgång till stöd utanför klassrummet. Att ha kamrater, både bland de som befinner sig i liknande svårigheter och andra, beskrivs också vara viktigt. Sociala relationer och lärarnas kompetens bidrar till stor del gällande inställningen till skolan i allmänhet.  Om skolan anpassar organisationen och utvecklar undervisningen, ökar möjligheten till att kunna beakta varje elevs vilja. Det är också viktigt att olika etiska aspekter lyfts fram och diskuteras i skolan, exempelvis gällande lärarnas förhållningssätt gentemot eleverna. Elevernas röster kan ge oss viktig vägledning i arbetet mot en inkluderande skola, om vi bara tar oss tid att lyssna. / Delaktighet, socialt klimat och lärande (VR 2008-4733)

De tankar som finns bakom planering och genomförande av skrivundervisningen i grundskolan påverkas av de förhållningssätt som den beslutsfattande läraren har till sin undervisning. Att se på språk och skrivande utfrån olika perspektiv ger olika resultat. Denna studies syfte är att identifiera de skrivpedagogiska synsätt som avspeglas i styrdokumenten för grundskolan. Undersökningen ut­fördes genom en omfattande dokumentanalys där synsätten identifierades med inriktning på språk, skrivande, skrivinlärning, skriv­undervisning och bedömning av skrivande. Utgångspunkten för analysen är fem diskurser om skrivpedagogiska synsätt; färdighets­diskursen, kreativitetsdiskursen, processdiskursen, genrediskursen och social­praktik­diskursen. Resultatet visar att ett fåtal synsätt representeras övervägande i styr­dokumenten, men att samtliga synsätt i någon mån går att finna. Framförallt är ett processinriktat synsätt representativt för synen på skrivande medan en mer allmänt hållen inställning vid inlärning och undervisning visar ett kreativitets­inriktat synsätt, bedömningen sker till synes främst utifrån färdighetsinriktade synsätt. Resultatet av dokumentanalysen har med sekundärt syfte jämförts med en mindre enkätundersökning där resultatet visar att skillnader finns i hur framträdande de olika synsätten är i dokumenten och undersökningarna emellan. I diskussionen framkommer vilken relation resultatet har till annan forskning. Där görs även en jämförelse med valda punkter ur den vid tiden för studien kommande kursplanens utkast. / Thoughts behind planning and implementation of writing instruction in primary school is influenced by the attitudes the teacher has to his/hers teaching. To view language and writing from different perspectives yields different results. This study aims to identify the type pedagogical approach that is reflected in the governing documents for the primery school. The study carried out through an extensive document analysis in which the discourses of writing were identified, focusing on approach to education, language and writing. The starting point of the analysis was five discourses on writing pedagogical approach, a skill discourse, a creativity discourse, a process discourse, a genre discourse and a social practice discourse. The results show that a few of the approaches were represented more then other´s in the governing documents, but that all the approaches, to some extent, can be found. Above all is a process-oriented approach, representative of the view of writing while a more general attitude to learning and teaching displays a creativity approach, the assessment is made to appear mainly on the basis of a skill approach. The result of the document analysis whas, as a secondary aim, compared with a smaller questionnaire survey and the result show that differences existed between survey responses. There are also differences in how prominent the different approaches are in the documents. In the discussion of the results, the relationship between the outcome and previous research is raised. There is also a comparison of selected points from the forthcoming, course plan draft that at the time of the study is in alteration.

Den här uppsatsen behandlar undervisningen i Lag och rätt på högstadiet. Syftet med min uppsats är att undersöka några samhällskunskapslärares syn på sin undervisning i Lag och rätt. Ställda forskningsfrågor är i korthet vad de väljer att undervisa om, hur dem väljer att undervisa om det och deras förhållande till läroboken. I uppsatsen undersöks även om det är någon skillnad mellan mer respektive mindre erfarna lärares syn på lag och rätt undervisningen. Jag har gjort en kvalitativ studie med fyra stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer. Två intervjuer med två mindre erfarna samhällskunskapslärare och två intervjuer med två mer erfarna samhällskunskapslärare. Jag har även gjort en mindre jämförande analys mellan vad samhällskunskapslärarna undervisar om i förhållande till läroboken de använder sig av. Mitt resultat pekar på att de fyra samhällskunskapslärarna har en rätt så likartad bild över vad som är viktigt att undervisa om i Lag och rätt och sättet att undervisa på. Dock tycker jag mig kunna tyda att de två mer erfarna samhällskunskapslärarna har en vidare syn på området lag och rätt. Samtliga väljer att ha läroboken som en grund att stå på och gemensamt för dem är att de förhåller sig till läroboken avsnitten då läroboken behandlar processen från att ett brott begås till åtal väcks, hur en rättegång går till och olika sorters straff. / This paper deals with the teaching of Justice system in high school. The purpose of my essay is to explore some social studies teachers' views on their teaching of the law. My research questions are about what they choose to teach, how they choose to teach about it and their relationship to the textbook. The essay also examines whether there is any difference between more and less experienced teachers' views on the justice system. I have made a qualitative study of four semi-structured interviews: two interviews with two less experienced social studies teachers and two interviews with two more experienced social studies teachers. I have also made a small comparative analysis between what social studies teachers teach according to the textbook they use. My results indicate that the four social studies teachers I interviewed have a fairly similar picture of what is important to teach about the Law and Order and the way they teach. However, I seems like that the two more experienced social studies teachers have a broader view of the law area. The four teachers chose to have the textbook as a foundation and common to all is that they relate to the textbook in parts when the textbook deals with the process from when an offense have been committed to the prosecution, the trial, and different kinds of punishment.

Providing computer-aided support for human analysis of videos has been a battle of extremes. Powerful solutions exist, but they tend to be domain-specific and complex. The user-friendly, simple systems provide little analysis support beyond basic media player functionality. We propose a human-centered, domain-independent solution between these two points. Our proposed model and system, VAST, is based on our experience in two diverse video analysis domains: science and athletics. Multiple-perspective location metadata is used to group related video clips together. Users interact with these clip groups through a novel interaction paradigm ? views. Each view provides a different context by which users can judge and evaluate the events that are captured by the video. Easy conversion between views allows the user to quickly switch between contexts. The model is designed to support a variety of user goals and expertise with minimal producer overhead. To evaluate our model, we developed a system prototype and conducted several rounds of user testing requiring the analysis of volleyball practice videos. The user tasks included: foreground analysis, ambiguous identification, background analysis, and planning. Both domain novices and experts participated in the study. User feedback, participant performance, and system logs were used to evaluate the system. VAST successfully supported a variety of problem solving strategies employed by participants during the course of the study. Participants had no difficulty handling multiple views (and resulting multiple video clips) simultaneously opened in the workspace. The capability to view multiple related clips at one time was highly regarded. In all tasks, except the open-ended portion of the background analysis, participants performed well. However, performance was not significantly influenced by domain expertise. Participants had a favorable opinion of the system?s intuitiveness, ease of use, enjoyability, and aesthetics. The majority of participants stated a desire to use VAST outside of the study, given the opportunity.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of instruction based on 5E learning cycle model over traditionally instruction on students&amp / #8217 / understanding of acid-base concepts. Also, the effect of instruction on students&amp / #8217 / attitude toward chemistry as a school subject and the effect of gender difference on understanding of acid-base concepts and attitudes toward chemistry were investigated. During the second semester of 2007-2008, 130 eleventh grade students from six classes of two different high schools attended this study. The classes were randomly assigned as control and experiment groups. Students in the control groups were instructed by traditional instruction whereas students in the experimental groups were taught by 5E model. Attitude Scale Toward Chemistry as a School Subject and Acid-Base Concept Test were administered as a pre and post-tests. In addition, Science Process Skill Test and Views on Science-Technology-Society instrument was utilized. The hypotheses were tested by using two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that 5E Model caused a significantly better understanding of acids and bases than the traditional instruction. In addition, these models of instruction developed the similar attitude toward science as a school subject. Science process skill was a strong predictor in understanding the concepts. On the other hand, no significant effect of gender difference on understanding the acids and bases and on students&amp / #8217 / attitudes toward chemistry as a school subject was found. The results of Views on Science-Technology-Society gave a picture of the students&amp / #8217 / views on nature of science.

The aim of this study is to investigate the changes in early childhood teachers&rsquo / views about and practices of integration of visual art into science activities that occured after they attended the workshop. In order to explore the changes in five early childhood teachers&rsquo / views about science teaching, semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and activity plans were used in this study. The study was conducted in a private preschool located in the &Ccedil / ayyolu district of Ankara. The first phase of the analysis consisted of portraying all the data related to participant teachers&rsquo / views about science teaching and the integration of science and visual art on the basis of pre-interviews, observation, and post-interviews. The second phase of the analysis involved finding out whether there was any difference between pre- and post-interviews of participant teachers in terms of their views about science teaching and the integration of early childhood science and art. Meanwhile, observational fieldnotes and teachers&rsquo / activity plans were examined based on the themes emerged from the pre- and post-interviews. The findings of this study indicated that early childhood teachers believed in the importance of science activities in their practices. They provided child-centered activities for children to improve their science experiences. In addition, they used different learning experiences that were naturalistic, informal, and structured in early childhood classrooms. In terms of the place of visual art in early childhood curriculum, all participant teachers stated the importance of visual art in early childhood settings. They also mentioned that visual art could be considered as an effective tool for teaching science because children like attending art activities. They preferred to use art activities after they implemented their science activities. Teachers also mentioned that children could easily express themselves with the help of art activities so they stated that they generally used art activities in their classroom practices.

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the classroom teachers&rsquo / and science and technology teachers&rsquo / views on science and technology curriculum. In this nation-wide study, survey design was utilized. The participants of the study consisted of 960 teachers in 26 provinces across Turkey and 601 of the teachers were classroom teachers and 359 teachers were science and technology teachers. In order to investigate teachers&rsquo / views, Teachers&rsquo / Views on Science and Technology Curriculum Questionnaire was developed by the researcher. The questionnaire was composed of 3 parts: demographic information part, science and technology teachers&rsquo / views questionnaire and open ended questions. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics and inferencial statistics (MANOVA) were used. The responses to open-ended questions were subjected to qualitative analysis. Results of the descriptive analyses revealed that classroom teachers and science and technology teachers had positive views towards attainments-content, learning-teaching process and assessment component of science and technology curriculum. Results of MANOVA analysis demonstrated that graduation fields affect teachers&rsquo / views towards attainments-content and assessment component of the Science and Technology Curriculum / whereas graduation fields did not affect teachers&rsquo / views towards learning-teaching process. Similarly, teaching experiences affect teachers&rsquo / views towards attainments-content and assessment component of the curriculum. As for teaching field, the results showed that teaching field affects teachers&rsquo / views towards attainments-content and assessment component of the curriculum and classroom teachers had more positive views on these components. Gender did not illustrate statistically significant results on teachers&rsquo / views on science and technology curriculum components.

<p>De tankar som finns bakom planering och genomförande av skrivundervisningen i grundskolan påverkas av de förhållningssätt som den beslutsfattande läraren har till sin undervisning. Att se på språk och skrivande utfrån olika perspektiv ger olika resultat. Denna studies syfte är att identifiera de skrivpedagogiska synsätt som avspeglas i styrdokumenten för grundskolan. Undersökningen ut­fördes genom en omfattande dokumentanalys där synsätten identifierades med inriktning på språk, skrivande, skrivinlärning, skriv­undervisning och bedömning av skrivande. Utgångspunkten för analysen är fem diskurser om skrivpedagogiska synsätt; färdighets­diskursen, kreativitetsdiskursen, processdiskursen, genrediskursen och social­praktik­diskursen. Resultatet visar att ett fåtal synsätt representeras övervägande i styr­dokumenten, men att samtliga synsätt i någon mån går att finna. Framförallt är ett processinriktat synsätt representativt för synen på skrivande medan en mer allmänt hållen inställning vid inlärning och undervisning visar ett kreativitets­inriktat synsätt, bedömningen sker till synes främst utifrån färdighetsinriktade synsätt. Resultatet av dokumentanalysen har med sekundärt syfte jämförts med en mindre enkätundersökning där resultatet visar att skillnader finns i hur framträdande de olika synsätten är i dokumenten och undersökningarna emellan. I diskussionen framkommer vilken relation resultatet har till annan forskning. Där görs även en jämförelse med valda punkter ur den vid tiden för studien kommande kursplanens utkast.</p> / <p>Thoughts behind planning and implementation of writing instruction in primary school is influenced by the attitudes the teacher has to his/hers teaching. To view language and writing from different perspectives yields different results. This study aims to identify the type pedagogical approach that is reflected in the governing documents for the primery school. The study carried out through an extensive document analysis in which the discourses of writing were identified, focusing on approach to education, language and writing. The starting point of the analysis was five discourses on writing pedagogical approach, a skill discourse, a creativity discourse, a process discourse, a genre discourse and a social practice discourse. The results show that a few of the approaches were represented more then other´s in the governing documents, but that all the approaches, to some extent, can be found. Above all is a process-oriented approach, representative of the view of writing while a more general attitude to learning and teaching displays a creativity approach, the assessment is made to appear mainly on the basis of a skill approach. The result of the document analysis whas, as a secondary aim, compared with a smaller questionnaire survey and the result show that differences existed between survey responses. There are also differences in how prominent the different approaches are in the documents. In the discussion of the results, the relationship between the outcome and previous research is raised. There is also a comparison of selected points from the forthcoming, course plan draft that at the time of the study is in alteration.</p>