<p>The purpose of this study is to analyse the significance of the national assessment in highschool education, including what the teachers express about the new instructions currently coming from the Swedish National Agency of Education, concerning a more central control of grading the national assessments. This study also covers the teachers individual responsibility when it comes to grading the national assessments. The purpose of the national assessment is to secure that grading and the education level in the country is equal. This is a qualitative study useing the method of a group discussion intervju <em>(focusgroup intervju).</em> Five highschool teachers took part in the discussion with questions that had been decided beforehand. The aim with this method is to give space for open discussions and reflections within the group. The result of the study shows that the respondants had been influenced by the tention between the new instructions from the Swedish National Agency of Education and the teachers autonomy. The study also elucidates the tendencies that exists in the country of grading too positive. The respondants expressed that they are affected  by the new instructions and that their final grading is controlled by the results from the assessments.</p> / <p>Syftet är att synliggöra de nationella provens betydelse i gymnasieskolan innefattandevad några lärare uttrycker om förändringarna som pågår från Skolverket, angående enmer central styrning av bedömningen av de nationella proven. Undersökningen tar ävenupp lärarnas individuella ansvar i bedömningen av nationella proven. De nationellaproven ska säkerställa en rättvis bedömning nationellt och fungera som rikslikande.Detta är en kvalitativ studie där vi använt oss av en fokusgruppintervju somundersökningsmetod. Fem stycken gymnasielärare deltog i en intervju som utgick frånfasta frågeställningar. Metoden ger utrymme för diskussioner och reflektioner inomgruppen. Resultatet visar att respondenterna har påverkats av spänningsfältet mellanSkolverkets nya direktiv och lärarens autonomi. Undersökningen belyser äventendensen som finns i landet angående glädjebetyg. Respondenterna uttrycker att de ärpåverkade av de nya direktiven och att resultaten från proven styr den slutligabedömningen i en kurs.</p>

<p>The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a correlation between birth order, academic performance and need for achievement. 166 students from Alvesta Gymnasium/ High school and Växjö Fria Gymnasium/ High school participated in the study. The result showed a significant correlation between birth order and study result, but unlike previous studies this study showed that it was the youngest siblings that had the best academic performance. Furthermore, a significant correlation between academic performance and need for achievement was found, also that higher need for achievement results in higher academic performance. The study also showed that there is a significant correlation between birth order and need for achievement, and it is the youngest children that have the highest need for achievement. Finally the study shows, in resemblance with previous studies, that sibship size has a negative effect on study results. Most prominent in this current study was that the number of brothers has a significant negative correlation with study result.</p> / <p>Syftet med denna föreliggande studie är att undersöka huruvida det finns samband mellan syskonplacering, studieresultat och prestationsbehov. 166 elever från Alvesta Gymnasium och Växjö Fria Gymnasium deltog i studien. Resultatet visade ett signifikant samband mellan syskonplacering och studieresultat, men i motsats till tidigare studier visar resultatet av föreliggande studie att yngstabarnen har högst studieresultat. Dessutom påvisades ett signifikant samband mellan studieresultat och prestationsbehov, där högre prestationsbehov leder till högre studieresultat. Slutligen visar studien, i likhet med tidigare forskning, att en stor syskonskara påverkar studieresultaten negativt. Mest framträdande i föreliggande studie är att antal bröder visar sig ha ett signifikant negativt samband med studieresultat.</p>

Rural schools in South Africa often face numerous challenges that are largely aggravated by low numbers of learners, low numbers of teachers and a shortage of teaching and learning resources, to mention a few. Hence, the provision of one teacher per grade is perceived as a luxury in many rural schools. Consequently, such challenges have led to many rural schools being affected by multi-grade teaching. Multi-grade classes have more than one grade in one classroom, usually those grades that are close to each other. For instance, Grade R and Grade One learners will be taught in one class by the same teacher. This research study therefore focused on teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for teaching literacy in a multi-grade foundation phase class. The teaching of reading in isiZulu Home Language was singled out as the literacy component to be investigated. Teachers at the foundation phase need to have a distinctive body of knowledge as they have to be able to blend content in literacy and the appropriate methods of teaching each literacy component. They need to understand how to organize each component of the content and how to deliver it accurately to learners through appropriate methodologies. Moreover, it is imperative to understand that it is a complex process for teachers to intersect content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. The process becomes even more complex for teachers who teach in a multi-grade class. Reading as a literacy component was put under a particular lens as teaching and assessing this literacy component in a multi-grade context is highly challenging. This was an exploratory case study that was embedded in a qualitative research methodology. A primary school from Ndwedwe Circuit in the KwaZulu-Natal province was purposively sampled. Empirical data for this study were collected from this rural school because it was practising multi-grade teaching in all phases. To collect the data, teachers teaching multi-grade classes were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Observations were also done during the teaching process and relevant documents were analysed. The documents that were interrogated included daily, weekly and monthly work plans, class timetables, and the school’s calendar. The findings suggested that teachers relied on traditional methods of teaching as the context was complex and beyond their professional capabilities. This study was therefore aimed at contributing to the discourse of how teachers in rural contexts can be trained on multi-grade teaching in order to provide them with appropriate pedagogical knowledge and skills that will empower them to support teaching and learning across grades. / Thesis (M. Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

Social media are often touted to have the potential to transform education. These media enable students to connect with others from around the world, to work collaboratively, and to share their learning with an authentic audience. The literature offers support, yet raises questions about this promise. The intent of this research was to examine how and why some classroom teachers make use of social media for teaching and to determine if, and how, this changes their pedagogical practices. A qualitative, interpretivist multiple case study approach was used to tell the stories of nine teachers in a rural Canadian prairie school as they explored and implemented various social media in their teaching practices. A hermeneutic and phenomenological approach formed the theoretical framework guiding this study. The primary source of data was a multi-part interview consisting of conversations held over the six-month study. Participants reflected upon and shared their perspectives as they made use of social media in their teaching practice. Other data sources included a variety of relevant documents such as school plans and online interactions undertaken by the participants. The analysis followed a constant comparative thematic analysis method, providing a rich exploration of the phenomenon of social media pedagogy. The teachers in this study generally found their use of social media to be a positive experience; however, several challenges and areas of concern were identified. The teachers’ reasons for using social media included communication, engagement and motivation, exposure of student work to a broader audience, and collaborative activities. Supports for implementing social media were identified and included good access to working technology and professional learning. The teachers raised concerns such as privacy, safety, and time constraints. Ethical and appropriate use of social media was seen not only as a concern, but also as an opportunity to teach. Impacts on teaching practice ranged from the addition of strategies to teaching repertoires, to change that could be considered as transformative learning. One of the most significant results was the apparent effect on the school environment. Trust and responsibility were extended to students, and the response was increased communication and connection between students and teachers.

No description available.

Akademinių pasiekimų sąsajos su įvairiais kintamaisiais yra nagrinėjamos jau daugiau kaip šimtą metų. Pastaruoju metu vis didesnio dėmesio susilaukia „neintelektiniai“ faktoriai, kurių sąsajas su mokymosi rezultatais bei prognostinį validumą patvirtina vis daugiau empirinių tyrimų. Vieni iš tokių faktorių yra asmenybės savybės bei kognityvusis stilius. Asmenybės savybės atspindi asmens polinkį elgtis, jausti bei mąstyti tam tikru sąlyginai pastoviu būdu nepriklausomai nuo situacijos, konteksto ar laiko (Chamorro-Premuzic ir Furnham, 2006). Individualus asmens kognityvusis stilius parodo asmens polinkį apdoroti gaunamą informacija tam tikru sąlyginai pastoviu būdu nepriklausomai nuo informacijos turinio (&#1061;&#1086;&#1083;&#1086;&#1076;&#1085;&#1072;&#1103;, 2002). Šio darbo tikslas yra nagrinėti sąsajas tarp Penkių faktorių modelio rėmuose išskiriamų penkių asmenybės dimensijų bei juos sudarančių 30 žemesnio lygmens asmenybės bruožų, siauro/plataus ekvivalencijos diapazono kognityviojo stiliaus, kuris atspindi individo polinkį skaidyti informaciją į daug/mažai grupių, bei universitetinių ir mokyklinių akademinių pasiekimų. Tyrimo metu buvo ištirti 176 Vilniaus universitete įvairiose specialybėse studijuojantys pirmo ir antro kurso studentai. Tiriamieji užpildė NEO PI-R (Costa and McCrae, 1992) asmenybės klausimyno lietuvišką versiją (Žukauskienė ir Barkauskienė, 2006), akademinių pasiekimų anketą bei atliko žodžių grupavimo užduotį. Gauti tyrimo rezultatai parodė, kad: a)... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Relations between academic achievements and different variables have been investigated for more than 100 years. Recently, nonintellectual factors are becoming more and more popular among investigators. Also, these factors receive more empirical evidences supporting they predictive validity. One of these factors are personality traits and cognitive style. Personality traits could be decrypted as predispositions to think, feel, and behave in consistent ways relatively independent of the situation, context, and time (Chamorro-Premuzic ir Furnham, 2006). Cognitive style is an individual way to process information in some relatively stable way independently from content of information. The purpose of this research is to analyze links between five personality dimensions and 30 personality traits which were derived from Five Factor Model, broad/narrow equivalence range cognitive style, which reflects a tendency of a person to separate objects in to few/many groups, and academic achievements obtained in a school and university. 176 first and second year students from Vilnius University from different specialties took part in the research. They were given the Lithuanian version ((Žukauskienė ir Barkauskienė, 2006) of the NEO PI-R personality inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1992), the questionnaire for academic achievements to fulfil and words grouping task. Following results were obtained: a) academic achievements in a university statistically significantly correlate with... [to full text]

Syftet med studien är att undersöka musiklärares bedömning i ämnet musik i årskurs 6 i relation till kursplanens mål för musikämnet. Bakgrundskapitlet presenterar kursplanen i musik för årskurs 4-6 ur lgr11, begrepp som är vanligt förekommande i bedömningssammanhang, samt ger en presentation av tidigare litteratur och forskning som anknyter till studiens syfte. Vidare presenteras också varierade perspektiv på begreppet kunskap, vilket är de teoretiska utgångspunkter som ligger till grund för studien.     Den forskningsmetod som använts i undersökningen är den kvalitativa intervjun, och fyra i nuläget aktiva musiklärare i årskurs 6 intervjuades. Intervjuerna transkriberades, bearbetades och analyserades sedan av mig, och de svar som framkommit utgör studiens resultat.     I resultatet beskrivs de intervjuade lärarnas syn på kunskap i musik och på kursplanen samt deras syn på bedömning och betygssättning. Generellt råder en negativ syn på bedömning och betygssättning inom musikämnet i årskurs 6. Alla fyra lärarna lyfter områden som de anser mycket svåra att bedöma och samtliga tycker att kursplanens kunskapskrav för de olika betygsstegen är svårtolkade. De metoder och verktyg för bedömning som framkommer är framför allt klassrumsobservationer, anteckningar och skriftlig dokumentation samt prov och redovisningar.     I diskussionen förs ett resonemang kring musiklärarnas syn på musikämnet i relation till kursplanens syn på kunskap i musik. Här diskuteras det faktum att lärarnas uppfattningar om vad som är viktiga kvaliteter ofta skiljer sig mycket från det kursplanen uttrycker som kvaliteter. Exempelvis nämner flertalet av lärarna spelglädje och lust som viktiga kvaliteter, vilket inte lyfts alls av kursplanen. I diskussionskapitlet förs också ett resonemang kring om huruvida allting inom musikämnet är möjligt att bedöma. Också musiklärarnas berättelser om hur deras bedömningsarbete går till och om deras syn på bedömning och betygsättning ställs mot kursplan och tidigare forskning inom området. / The purpose of this study is to examine music teachers' views on assessment in the subject of music in year 6, in relation to the goals of the curriculum. The background chapter presents the syllabus in music for the years 4-6 from the curriculum of 2011 (lgr11). The background chapter also presents different concepts, commonly occurring in the context of assessment and gives a presentation of previous literature and research related to the study's purpose. Furthermore, it also presents different perspectives on the concept of knowledge, which is the theoretical premises underlying the study.     The research method used in the study is the qualitative interview and four currently active music teachers in year 6 were interviewed.     The result chapter describes the interviewed teachers' view of knowledge in music and on the syllabus, and their views of assessment and grading. Generally, there is a negative view of assessment and grading in the subject of music in grade 6. All teachers' raises areas that they consider very difficult to assess, and they all think that the knowledge requirements in the syllabus for the different grade levels are difficult to interpret. The methods and assessment tools that emerge are primarily classroom observations, notes and written documentation, tests and presentations.     The discussion is about the music teachers’ views on the music subject in relation to the curriculum’s view on knowledge in music. The fact that the music teachers' perceptions of what are important qualities often are very different from what the syllabus expresses as important qualities. For example the majority of the music teachers' mention joy and lust as important qualities, which are not mentioned at all in the syllabus. The discussion also calls attention to whether everything in the subject of music really is possible to assess. The music teachers' stories of how they do their assessment work and about their views on assessment and grading are compared to the syllabus and previous research in the field.

Submitted by Johnny Rodrigues (johnnyrodrigues@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-07-31T14:31:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 EANES TORRES PEREIRA - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGCC 2007..pdf: 4422108 bytes, checksum: 9b27a661074ca88e823ffb0472a68502 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-31T14:31:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 EANES TORRES PEREIRA - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGCC 2007..pdf: 4422108 bytes, checksum: 9b27a661074ca88e823ffb0472a68502 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-03 / A atenção visual é um mecanismo biologicamente inspirado, o qual corresponde à habilidade de selecionar e processar somente as regiões mais relevantes de uma cena visual. Para fins didáticos, a atenção visual pode ser dividida em duas categorias principais: bottom-up e top-down. A atenção visual bottom-up guia o foco de atenção a partir de características primitivas (como descontinuidades de intensidade em diferentes escalas e orientações) computadas diretamente na imagem,sem qualquer informação contextual. A atenção visual top-down, por outro lado, realiza uma busca por regiões de interesse a partir de características de alto nível, especificadas na forma de conhecimento prévio na forma ou modelos sobre o que se está buscando na cena. A principal questão de pesquisa que procuramos responder nessa dissertação é a seguinte: como seria possível agregar algum comportamento de alto nível a um mecanismo típico de atenção visual bottom-up (guiando dessa forma o foco de atenção para classes de regiões pré-estabelecidas)? O modelo mais conhecido de atenção visual bottom-up utiliza vários mapas de características primitivas para formar um mapa de saliência, o qual indica a importância do ponto de vista atencional das diferentes regiões de uma cena. Nesse trabalho, atribuímos pesos aos mapas de características e desenvolvemos um processo de otimização baseado em algoritmos genéticos simulados em uma grade computacional. Foram realizados experimentos com quatro classes de objetos (carros, faces de pessoas, objetos genéricos e pistolas). Os resultados utilizando atenção bottom-up com otimização foram comparados com os resultados de um mecanismo sem otimização de pesos e com um sistema existente que implementa o difundido modelo de atenção visual proposto por Itti et al. [Itti et al., 1998]. Os resultados mostraram ganhos de até 30% utilizando-se a abordagem proposta. Desta forma, este trabalho mostra que a atenção visual pode ser guiada para regiões pré-definidas, podendo ser utilizada como parte de sistemas de detecção de objetos. / Visual attention is a biologically inspired mechanism, which corresponds to the ability of selecting and processing only the most relevant regions of a visual scene. For didactic purposes, visual attention can be divided into two main categories: bottom-up and top down. Bottom-up visual attention guides the attention focus by using primitive visual features (such as discontinuities in intensity across different scales and orientations) computed directly from the input image,without the need of any context information. Top-down visual attention, on the other side, performs a search for interest regions from higher-level features, specified in the form of previous knowledge or models about what is being sought in the scene. Themain research question that we intended to answer in this dissertation was the following: how it would be possible to incorporate some higher-level be haviour into a typical bottom-up visual attention mechanism (thus guiding the attention focus to pre-established classes of objects)? The most known bottom-up visual attention model uses several primitive feature maps to form a saliency map, which indicates the importance of the different scene regions. In this work, we assigned weights to the feature maps and developed an optimization process based on genetic algorithms running on a computational grid. Experiments involving four object classes (cars, human faces, generic objects and pistols)have been performed. The results of the optimized bottom-up mechanism have been compared with the results of a mechanism not using optimized weights and with an existing system that implemented the well known visual attention mechanism proposed by Itti et al. [Itti et al., 1998]. The results have shown an improvement of up to 30% when using the optimized mechanism. Thus,this work shows that visual attention can indeed be guided towards pre-defined regions and can be used as part of object detection systems.

This exploratory, qualitative multiple-site case study examined principals’ expectations of teaching practices and children’s learning for early elementary grade levels (K, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd). Specifically, this study investigated principals’ understanding of developmentally appropriate practices regarding instructional methods, curriculum content, and assessment strategies. This study also examined how these constructs impact leadership decisions and offered contextual examples to exemplify their influence in real-life situations. Data collection included different school configurations (i.e., PreK-1st grade, PreK-3rd grade, K-5th grade, PreK-8th grade), and consisted of multiple data sources – school observations, teacher and principal interviews, questionnaires, teacher evaluations, a video clip, and artifacts. The twelve guidelines of Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) and the Professional Standards of Educational Leaders (PSEL) provided a framework for thematic analysis. Results indicate principals have minimal training in early childhood pedagogy which may impact teacher evaluations and hiring practices. Results also suggest principals’ explicit leadership decisions conflict with DAP (utilization of external rewards, elimination of art, elimination of play, insufficient reporting measures, etc.). These leadership decisions may inhibit student growth, learning, and development including opportunities for self-regulation. Principals’ implicit leadership decisions may also be promoting inappropriate instructional practices (i.e., prescribed curriculum, teacher-directed whole group instruction, lengthy computerized testing, etc.), but data suggests external influences could be a factor as well. Policy implications and practice recommendations are included.

abstract: The purpose of this study was to identify the algebraic reasoning abilities of young students prior to instruction. The goals of the study were to determine the influence of problem, problem type, question, grade level, and gender on: (a) young children’s abilities to predict the number of shapes in near and far positions in a “growing” pattern without assistance; (b) the nature and amount of assistance needed to solve the problems; and (c) reasoning methods employed by children. The 8-problem Growing Patterns and Functions Assessment (GPFA), with an accompanying interview protocol, were developed to respond to these goals. Each problem presents sequences of figures of geometric shapes that differ in complexity and can be represented by the function, y = mf +b: in Type 1 problems (1 - 4), m = 1, and in Type 2 problems (5 - 8), m = 2. The two questions in each problem require participants to first, name the number of shapes in the pattern in a near position, and then to identify the number of shapes in a far position. To clarify reasoning methods, participants were asked how they solved the problems. The GPFA was administered, one-on-one, to 60 students in Grades 1, 2, and 3 with an equal number of males and females from the same elementary school. Problem solution scores without and with assistance, along with reasoning method(s) employed, were tabulated. Results of data analyses showed that when no assistance was required, scores varied significantly by problem, problem type, and question, but not grade level or gender. With assistance, problem scores varied significantly by problem, problem type, question, and grade level, but not gender. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2016