According to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standard of communication, ??Instructional programs from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to...communicate their mathematical thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others?? and students need to learn ??what is acceptable as evidence in mathematics?? (NCTM, 2000, p. 60). But do teachers have a clear understanding of what is acceptable or do they believe that the only acceptable explanations are the ones that they themselves gave to the students? Can teachers accept alternative forms of explanation and methods of solution as mathematically accurate or do they want students to simply restate the teachers?? understandings of mathematics and the problem? The focus of this dissertation is the authoritative discourse practices of classroom teachers as they relate to individual students and large and small groups of students. In this case study, I examine the interactions in one eighth-grade mathematics classroom and the possible sharing of mathematical authority and development of mathematical agency that take place via the teacher??s uses of authoritative discourse. A guiding objective of this research was to examine the ways a teacher??s discursive practices were aligned with her pedagogical intentions. The teacher for this study was an experienced eighth-grade mathematics teacher at a rural Central Texas middle school. The teacher was a participant in the Middle School Mathematics Project at Texas A&M University. Results of an analysis of the discourse of six selected classes were combined with interview and observation data and curriculum materials to inform the research questions. I found that through the teacher??s regular use of authoritative discursive devices, mathematical authority was infrequently shared. Also the teacher??s uses of authoritative discourse helped create an environment where mathematical agency was not encouraged or supported. The teacher??s use of various discursive devices helped establish and maintain a hierarchy of mathematical authority with students at the lowest level reliant on others for various mathematical decisions.

<p>This study was carried out in Ronneby municipality during May 2006. I chose to compare three senior schools with regards to the implementation of objective orientated directives based on the teachers understanding of the task, motivation, resources allocated and their significance for the disparity between boys’ and girls’ grades.</p><p>I carried out nine in-depth interviews: three at each senior school. From the interviews it emerged that teachers perceive objectives differently from parents and students. Teachers claim that they understand the directives but say that they lack the resources. According to those interviewed, the disparity in grades between boys and girls is due to biological factors, class affiliation and group dynamics. None of those interviewed feel that they contribute to the difference in grades.</p><p>This study should not be seen as a generalisation but rather as a preliminary study to further research within the topic area.</p>

The purpose of this study was to develop a case study to understand the processes and outcomes of reading intervention as conducted in the specific context of a large school district in north Texas. In particular, the study examined how students were identified as needing reading intervention and their subsequent success on measures of reading achievement over a period of three years in comparison with students who were not identified for reading intervention. This study employed a sequential mixed methods design in which the collection and analysis of quantitative data preceded qualitative data collection and analysis. Interview data were collected to illuminate the processes and challenges of conducting reading intervention in the classroom setting. The findings determined that the district is successful in its aims related to reading achievement on standardized measures of reading in grades three, four, and five despite a lack of evidence that success could be contributed solely to the provision of reading intervention. Three findings emerged: 1) students were served with a combination of services determined by each campus in the study, 2) teachers' provision of reading instruction did not align with district recommendations, and 3) students identified for reading intervention and served with either of the intervention programs were successful on measures of reading achievement but did not attain similar levels of achievement as non-identified peers. / text

Problems related to mental health among young Swedish women, age 15-20, has increased in the past years and is seen as a problem in both on the national and the local levels. Growing up and becoming an adult is a turbulent period for many young people and the school is one area in which this comes to appear. The aim of this study was to identify the causes to lack of mental health related to appearance and achievement among women age 16-19 in senior high school. This study is an interview study with self-made questions, which took place in a medium-sized town in northern Sweden. The result showed that almost every young woman that was interviewed had high expectations on themselves in school-related matters and that stress was a recurrent topic in the interviews. There were also findings that some of the young woman felt stress in their leisure activities. Most of the respondents expressed that they had to put on makeup and fix their hair before they left home, they also wanted to have decent clothes. In the discussion it is said that, to improve problems with the mental health among young women, both the young women and previous recommendations needs to be taken in account.

Sammanfattning Jag valde att göra den här undersökningen då jag ofta undrar över varför det verkar så svårt för eleverna att nå målen i naturorienterande ämnen och varför de kan tycka att något som är så intressant för mig kan vara så tråkigt och svårt för dem. Metoden jag använt mig av är att jag utformat ett test utifrån uppnåendemålen år 9. Detta har jag sedan genomfört med alla elever i årskullen i Karlskoga. Resultaten har jag sedan sammanställt och jämfört mot mål och betyg. Resultatet visar för mig att det finns ganska stora brister och ganska stor avvikelse från givna betyg. Det är betydligt större andel elever som inte når målen enligt min undersökning än vad betygen visar. Slutsatsen jag drar av detta är att det utifrån uppställda mål och med stöd av den forskning som finns måste satsas hårdare på naturorienterande ämnen i skolan om vi i Sverige ska kunna fortsätta att hålla en hög internationell nivå inom naturvetenskapen. / Abstract I chose to do this survey because I’ve often found myself wondering why it seems so difficult for the students to reach the criterions in scientific studies and howcome they find the subject so difficult and boring. The method I’ve chosen is that I’ve created a test based on the criterions for the ninth grade. This test has been given to answered by all the students in the ninth grade in Karlskoga and the results have been put together and compared with criterions and grades. The results shows considerable lack of knowledge and a pretty big divergence from what the grades state. The conclusion I make from this is that in reference to the criterions and the research available we have to put even more resources into the schools scientific studies if Sweden wants to keep our high international level of knowledge in science.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur elever klarar att lösa problem som inte kan lösas rutinmässigt och där de inte har tillgång till hjälpmedel. Dessutom vill jag undersöka hur elevens betyg och antal matematikkurser eleven har läst påverkar resultatet. För att få svar på detta lät jag eleverna i två klasser ifrån det naturvetenskapliga programmet, en ifrån årskurs ett och en ifrån årskurs tre, svara på ett frågeformulär bestående av uppgifter som inte går att lösa rutinmässigt. Resultatet visar på att eleverna i årskurs tre klarade testet poängmässigt klart bättre än vad eleverna i årskurs ett gjorde och i båda klasserna visade elever med höga betyg ett bättre resultat än elever med lägre betyg. Det mest överraskande var att båda klasserna trots höga matematikbetyg visade på vissa brister i taluppfattning. / The purpose of the paper is to examine how students are capable of solving problems that can not be solved routinely and where they do not have access to facilities. In addition, I want to examine how the student's grades and number of Mathematic courses pupils have read affect the result. In order to get the answers I let students in two classes from the natural sciences programme, one from grade one and one from grades three, respond to a questionnaire consisting of problems that can not be solved routinely. The result shows that students in grade three passed the exam clearly better than students in grade one did, and in both classes’ students with higher grades performed better than students with lower grades. The most surprising was that both classes despite high grades in Mathematic revealed some shortcomings in number sense.

This thesis presents a visual art curriculum designed to address specific developmental stages and desires of creative and cognitive growth of art students in grades six and seven over the duration of a nine-week session in a public middle school. It is intended as an instructional resource for middle school visual arts teaching practitioners to guide their sixth and seventh grade students to develop greater proficiency towards the mastery of drawing skills with activities that promote those skills at the time when many learners often express great interest in learning to draw more realistically. The study and practice of drawing allows invaluable opportunity for students to learn to analyze, sustain focus and concentration, compare and contrast, observe closely, expand upon ideas in a creative manor, and utilize the combined efforts of our two most powerful human tools; our minds and our hands.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore three questions regarding formative assessment (FA) and Student-Involved assessment strategies among five middle years teachers in Saskatoon Public Schools. The questions were one, what were the beliefs of the teachers regarding formative assessment and student involved assessment? as well as two, what were their perceptions about attitudes of students, parents, and the community about these innovative assessment practices? and thirdly, what did the teachers believe would support teachers in taking up formative assessment and student-involved assessment? The five participating teachers had varying lengths of service ranging from five to over twenty-five years. Teachers were interviewed in a semi-structured style during one forty-five minute interview, each. Teachers were provided with sample prompts in order to facilitate the conversation. Teachers reported using FA and student involved assessment strategies with mixed results. Teachers used strategies and modified them on occasion to suit the learning conditions, to allow for time constraints, or to accelerate the pace of instruction. Teachers also reported using FA and student-involved assessment strategies primarily in subject areas in which they felt most comfortable and relied on more traditional summative assessments in subject areas in which they were less comfortable. Teachers stated there were varying degrees of support from colleagues, school based administrators, and school division consultants. The support generally disappeared if the school based administrator whose emphasis was FA and student-involved assessment left the school for a different assignment. Some participants reported taking initiative to pursue FA of their own accord, but were left to roll out the initiative on their own. Teachers described mixed results with other stakeholders in these processes as well. Generally parents and students were less interested in FA and student-involved assessment and showed a preference for summative evaluations such as percentages and letter grades. Implications of these findings are that teachers are not appropriately trained in student assessment and support for formative assessment is inconsistent. Students are often omitted from the unpacking of curricula, are not accountable for collection of their own assessment data and are not held responsible to act upon any formative assessment feedback in order to improve their learning. This study led to the following definition of formative assessment: formative assessment is the demonstration by students they can act upon descriptive feedback to show they have achieved a learning outcome regardless of mode (oral, written, performance, etc.).

A study was conducted among a sample of Korean American students to investigate the potential moderation of the risks related to English proficiency by the protection of school belonging. Perceived scholastic competence, self-reported school grades, and academic expectancies were used for dependent variables. It was hypothesized that students with higher sense of belonging would be less affected by English proficiency than their peers with lower sense of belonging. The risk of English proficiency was confirmed. However, school belonging did not have as much of an effect as expected and students with higher English proficiency seemed to gain more benefit from increased school belonging. This finding reminds educators of the pressing importance of English proficiency, and future research is suggested to investigate the unique effects of belonging among students of Korean, and perhaps other Asian, backgrounds.

Este trabalho descreve a produção e a caracterização de redes de período longo (LPG) e redes de Bragg corroídas como elemento sensor. Tanto a produção quanto às caracterizações das redes de período longo foram realizadas no Laboratório de Laser da UTFPR e a produção e caracterização das redes de Bragg corroídas foram realizadas no Laboratório de Óptica Coerente da Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal. São abordados aspectos referentes aos princípios de produção e funcionamento do dispositivo. São apresentados os resultados obtidos na produção e na caracterização das redes, bem como os sistemas experimentais desenvolvidos para estes fins. O método empregado para a escrita das redes de período longo foi o da aplicação ponto-a-ponto de um arco elétrico, sendo produzidas redes com períodos de 598 e 600 μm operando na terceira janela de transmissão em torno de 1,55 μm. As redes de período longo e as redes de Bragg corroídas foram caracterizadas quanto as suas sensibilidades ao índice de refração, temperatura e deformações longitudinais (esta última caracterização foi realizada apenas para as redes de período longo), assim com a sensibilidade cruzada a estes parâmetros. A resposta das redes de período longo em função da variação do índice de refração do meio externo em duas diferentes situações, uma na presença de gasolina em ambiente hídrico e outra na presença de vapores de hidrocarbonetos ambiente atmosférico, indica a possibilidade da utilização deste dispositivo na detecção de vazamentos de hidrocarbonetos em refinarias ou postos de abastecimentos. Estas redes também foram caracterizadas para monitorar a concentração de cromo (III e VI) em soluções aquosas, os resultados indicam a possibilidades de monitorar em tempo real os processos de tratamento destes produtos, e assim otimizar este processo. As redes de Bragg foram utilizadas para a caracterização de propriedades ópticas de materiais, o resultado obtido para o etanol mostrou boa concordância com os valores apresentados na literatura, indicando que esta é uma técnica adequada para este fim. / This work describes the production and characterization of long period gratings (LPG) and etched fiber Bragg gratings as sensors. Both the production and characterization were carried out at the Laser Laboratory of UTFPR and the production and characterization of etched fiber Bragg gratings were carried out at Coherent Optics Laboratory of University of Aveiro, Portugal. Aspects concerning to the production and operation principles are shown. The results obtained from the grating production and characterization, as well as the experimental set-up developed to these goals are presented. The method used to write the gratings was the application of point-to-point electrical arch discharge, resulting in grating periods of 598 and 600 μm operating at the third window transmission around 1.55 μm. The long period gratings and the etched fiber Bragg gratings were characterized as a function of modification on the refractive index of the external surrounding environment, of temperature changes and strain (this last parameter was carried out only for long period gratings), the cross sensitivity also was characterized. The refractive index response of long period grating at two different conditions, one of them for presence of gasoline blend in water environment and another one for vapors of some hydrocarbon in closed container, points to the use of this device for hydrocarbon leakage detection at refineries and gas stations. Long period gratings e results obtained for ethanol agrees with the data find in literature, showing that this is a good technique for this goal.