Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 550-570).

This study explores uses of educational technology as echoed in teachers' beliefs and classroom practices. The research is situated in Cyprus, where integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in schools remains in its infancy. The literature reveals that the 'impact' of ICT use on education has been limited; the overall scene is one of teachers unable to make advanced use of the range of possible applications and tools. This thesis is premised on the argument that these limited uses can be explained by the lack of incorporation of an effective pedagogy. On the basis that understanding teachers' pedagogical rationales and responses in depth is crucial for the successful implementation of an ICT initiative, especially when this is still at an early stage, as in Cyprus, I investigate teachers' philosophies and practices of ICT integration. In particular, my research is devoted to identifying the relationship between their beliefs and actual practices with technology in the classroom and the factors that influence this relationship. In view of the overabundance of survey studies measuring self-reported attitudes and practices, and taking into account that practice does not always reflect beliefs, direct evidence of practice beyond self-reports expecting to bridge research with school reality became an imperative. Moreover, the nature of my focus required in-depth understanding and exploration. Therefore a multi-case design was conducted, involving 11 primary school teachers serving in a unique, in terms of technological infrastructure, state school in Cyprus. A questionnaire, pre-lesson interviews, direct classroom observations, and post-lesson interviews cowprised the data collection methods. The Activity Theory model was employed as an analytical tool. Within- and cross-case thematic analyses indicated four main types of response which led to sample grouping; the responses and the groups which emerged were differentiated on the basis of teachers' beliefs about technology in education, their practice with ICT in the classroom, the level of (in)consistency between reported a; d observed practices, and the impact of the external factors on their practice. Following the analyses, an additional round of interviews with three Ministry officials, involved in the educational technology sector, was undertaken to shed more light on the main study findings. Moreover, most teachers encountered considerable difficulty in articulating and explaining the reasons behind their choices with ICT. This indicates that their reported acknowledgement of its benefits for teaching and learning might not have necessarily been informed by their personal experience but more by their inclination to respond 'properly'. The last point is also corroborated by the inconsistency identified in most of the cases between reported and observed practices, in terms of the frequency and sophistication of teacher and student interaction with technology. Several contextual factors, both school- and system-related, appear to have provoked this inconsistency; inadequate technical support and maintenance, lack of pedagogical support rn using ICT, time and curriculum constraints, and problematic communication between the involved agents, constitute the main ones. However, these external factors, which were the same for all participants, had varying impact on the four emerging groups, highlighting the influence of additional, teacher-related factors. These include teachers' limited ICT competence, lack of awareness of tools and support available to them, attachment to traditional teaching styles which enhanced existing (rather than resulting in a changed) pedagogy 'behind' ICT use, and perception of their role and professional responsibilities. The findings highlight the requirement for teachers to understand fully the affordances of a technology, which would encourage their engagement in pedagogical reason.ing with it, not necessarily aiming for higher, but, for more purposeful and 'integrational' technology uptake. The tensions, identified within the teachers' activity systems with the help of the Activity Theory model, have implications for change with ICT. These not only concern practitioners but also policy-makers who, having to inform and set the framework for classroom practice, need to justify a new national ICT initiative by clearly relating it to specific pedagogical aims and the curriculum. Implications also arise for the educational technology officials, who orchestrate the policy implementation, and who need to establish effective communication and cooperation between the agents involved. As for the ICT district coordinators, who are responsible for supporting teachers' classroom uses of technology, the findings suggest that they should tackle technical and maintenance issues promptly. Mo reover, 1�t 1� s i�m portant that they encourage teachers to make informed decisions by indicating the p~dagogical ~otential of the available tools to them. It would also be useful if, when possible, they situated the use of technology in specific lesson settings to encourage meaningful integration. Finally, the study offers recommendations to JCT t ram� m� g orgam�s ers and instructors to design and conduct training programmes in association with pedagogical approaches. Teachers need support not in advancing their isolated technology uses but in improving the quality of their teaching through integrating technology in their pedagogical practice.

This study sought to explore the management of teaching and learning resources in the context of free primary education in Lesotho primary schools. In addressing this purpose the qualitative methods of data production were used. The participants were the principals and teachers from three schools. Qualitative data was collected through individual semi structured interviews, observations and document analysis. This was analyzed using qualitative thematic approach. The findings showed that the schools studied had functional resource management committees. However the schools experienced a high shortage of resources. These resources largely come from the government but they are delivered late in most cases. Therefore teachers find themselves having to improvise and to use resources in turns. The study concludes that schools cannot rely on government alone in terms of teaching and learning resources. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2010.

There have been some fundamental changes to the education system within post apartheid South Africa. Firstly, in the primary school there are some teachers who were trained as specialist teachers before 1994, and some teachers were trained to teach in the new approach called Outcomes Based Education. A new school curriculum within an outcomes based approach was introduced systematically over a decade. This new curriculum required new ways of teaching and organization. One of the significant changes to the schooling structure was the introduction of a phase-based structure, divided into foundation phase, intermediate phase, senior phase and further education phase. Within this new structure of schooling, curriculum policies guided the teaching and learning in each of these phases of schooling. In the primary school, teaching across the subject curriculum was introduced, where teachers were now expected to teach up to as many as 9 subjects to learners in a class. Of concern is that these teachers had specialized in three subjects during their initial training as teachers, and were now expected to teach subjects that they may not have specialized in. When teaching across the curriculum, the mismatch between training and teaching is increased and results in more curriculum and teaching demands being placed on teachers. This mismatch makes it very difficult for experienced teachers to cope with subjects that they are not familiar with. There are no specific qualifications that develop teachers to teach across the curriculum. Qualifications, at most, develop competence in teaching across three school subjects, but the practice of teaching across the curriculum often requires teachers to teach more than three school subjects to a grade. Teachers have specialized in subjects that are different from what they are currently teaching. My study is a focus on narratives of teachers’ experiences teaching across the curriculum in the primary school. I used a qualitative research methodology within the interpretivist paradigm. I used purposeful sampling, where the participants were handpicked. Data was generated through intensive interviews and document analysis. Audio tapes were used to record the participants’ voices, and later retrieved. Data was reconstructed by me, and retained for analysis. The recorded data was analyzed, using codes, themes and categories. v Member checks were used to ensure rigour and trustworthiness. It is evident from this study that teaching across the curriculum requires professional training, ongoing professional development and correct placement in schools to alleviate all the stress and anxiety teachers face in the primary school Teacher training institutions must look at the curriculum and see how best they can assist trainee primary school teachers to fit into a generalist curriculum. This mean that teachers who teach across the curriculum were burdened with more administrative and accountability regimes than other specialist teachers because of the larger number of school subjects that they were responsible for. This administrative overburden is coupled with the greater teaching demands and, therefore, makes it very difficult for these teachers to cope with the workload. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2011.

The ability to understand what one reads is fundamental to much school learning and is part of the school curriculum. The processes used by expert readers to comprehend text can be analysed and used as a basis for comprehension instruction. Such expert readers use particular mental strategies such as rereading, paraphrasing, and predicting, and adapt these to assist them in understanding various texts. This study investigated whether the implementation of reading comprehension strategy instruction to classes of Year 4 students would result in significant gains in metacognitive abilities, standardised reading comprehension, and reading self-efficacy. The quasi-experiment involved a treatment group of 48 students in two classes who were taught by one teacher, a treatment control group of 61 students in three classes taught by three teachers, and a non-treatment control group of 41 students taught in three composite Year 3 and Year 4 classes taught by three teachers. In total, 150 Year 4 students from eight classrooms in three suburban primary schools were involved in the study. Results from 2 x 3 analyses of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures revealed differences between the treatment group and control groups in several aspects of reading comprehension ability. The treatment group performed significantly better than either control group on the Jacobs and Paris (1987) measure of metacognitive awareness of strategies (Index of Reading Awareness). Treatment group students were also more confident about their ability to perform tasks related to reading comprehension than one of the control groups. Though they also made greater gains in confidence than the other control group, these gains were not statistically significant. Gains in reading comprehension as measured by a standardised reading comprehension measure (Progressive Achievement Test of Reading Comprehension) were marginal in comparison to one of the control groups, and not significant in comparison to the other. Secondly, this study also investigated whether intensive teacher training would result in successful implementation of reading comprehension strategies. Teachers need to know how to model their own mental processes for students so that students can see the strategies being applied. They then need to demonstrate for students when and how to adapt the strategies to various texts. In addition, teachers need to know whether to target instruction to only the struggling readers in their classrooms, or to students of varying abilities. A two-year professional development programme was developed and implemented to assist primary school teachers with the implementation of reading comprehension strategy instruction in their classrooms. During the first year a group of 14 teachers participated, and during the second year one teacher remained to implement the programme. This teacher, who taught at the Year 4 level, was provided with additional professional development in the explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies to her entire class of mixed ability students. Results from analysis of qualitative data indicated that the teacher had made significant progress in becoming competent in the teaching techniques needed for teaching reading comprehension strategies. These results suggested that the teacher moved from modelling process into content to being creative and inventive. By the end of the intervention, interviews conducted with the teacher and the students, as well as lesson observations and field notes, suggested that she had a good knowledge of the components of strategy instruction and was incorporating these in her classroom practice. Her students became increasingly aware of the teacher's central lesson aims regarding what she was teaching, why she was teaching it, and how it could be applied to the students' learning. The findings of the present study indicate that students of varying ability may improve their reading comprehension through instruction in reading comprehension strategies, though the marginal gains in standardised reading comprehension do not support this conclusively. Findings also indicate that a teacher can successfully be trained to implement reading comprehension strategy instruction in an entire class of mixed-ability students. Such findings have important implications for teacher and student education.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 243-254).

The diploma paper presents whole study material relevant to field of the whole numbers for listeners of primary school teaching needs. Theoretic part deals with the whole numbers problems from several authors aspects. I find out level of the skills about the whole numbers of children in the 1st and the 5th grade of the primary school and the pedagogic faculty JČU students in this practical part. Further I am focus on primary school teachers approach to this problems. Part of my diploma paper is collection of the exercise for primary school students and teachers during practice.

This study examines the extent to which teachers in Senior Primary Schools who have obtained a professional qualification in Environmental Education, implement Environmental Education in their schools. It also explores factors which influence the implementation of Environmental Education at the Senior Primary School. Teachers who had qualified from Tlhabane and Hebron Colleges of Education were interviewed as were the principals of their schools and some of the lecturers who had taught them Environmental Education. The implementation of Environmental Education was addressed by means of comparing the teacher's responses with Primary Environmental Education Teacher Competencies as suggested by Glasgow and Robinson (1986) and Lahiry et al (1988). The information was deduced from the teachers responses from semi-structured interviews and were qualitatively analysed.

En France, de nombreux chercheurs s’intéressent à la question de l’expression du corps dans le processus d’apprentissage. En classe, le corps de l’enseignant comme celui de l’élève, est en mouvement continuel, ce qui peut entraîner des ruptures dans la communication maître-élève lors de l’apprentissage. Ces mêmes discontinuités peuvent également être des atouts pour renforcer la communication dans un apprentissage.Dans le cadre de l’école primaire contemporaine chinoise, la recherche que nous avons entreprise, s’efforce de comprendre le type de relations que le sujet apprenant établit avec son environnement à l’école, qu’il soit en situation de réussite ou en situation de difficulté. C’est un domaine assez nouveau en Chine où la recherche sur l’expression du corps dans l’enseignement a commencé seulement au début du XXIème siècle. En nous appuyant sur les théories occidentales sur la communication non verbale, nous avons entrepris en Chine une étude de terrain. Cette étude prend en compte des dimensions multiples empruntant à divers domaines tels que la psychologie, la philosophie, la sociologie, l’anthropologie, et ceux centrés sur la communication non-verbale.La recherche part de ces trois questions. Qu’apporte l’expression du corps dans les interactions en faveur de l’existence d’un lien entre langage corporel et relation pédagogique ? À partir du point de vue de Janine Lafon (1991) exposé dans Vers une gestion de la séduction dans la relation pédagogique, quelle est la place du corps dans les relations pédagogiques ? Dans quelle mesure et comment l’expression du corps dans l’interaction entre l’enseignant et les élèves conditionne-t-elle l’existence d’un lien entre langage corporel et relation pédagogique ?Les questions sont abordées à partir de l’organisation de l’enseignement dans l’école primaire de Chao Yang, section de la ville de Pékin en Chine. La recherche étudie le corps dans la classe, du point de vue de l’enseignant et du point de vue de l’élève : identifier, expliciter la place du corps et des gestes dans des situations d’enseignement en Chine. Pour mener à bien cette recherche dans cette école primaire de Pékin, nous avons construit deux questionnaires soumis à un échantillon de 204 élèves et 16 enseignantes et réalisé deux vidéos de quarante-cinq minutes chacune. Nous avons filmé un cours de mathématiques et un cours de langue chinoise. Dans la mesure où, dans le contexte de la culture chinoise, il n’est pas habituel de montrer ses émotions par des expressions gestuelles, nous avons mis en évidence que les gestes de l’enseignant 1 - jouent un rôle pour favoriser les interactions entre lui et les élèves (relation pédagogique),2 - incitent les élèves à suivre les cours avec plus d’attention,3 - sont indispensables pour accompagner l’expression verbale orale du maître dans sa pratique pédagogique. Autrement dit, les élèves chinois seraient influencés par la voix de la maitresse pendant les cours en classe, par les gestes et la posture physique de l’enseignant. Les élèves chinois seraient plus attentifs pendant le cours quand l'enseignant utilise les gestes non-verbales dans l'enseignement. Nous avons identifié une tendance à la cohérence entre les avis des élèves et ceux des enseignants vis-à-vis de l'influence de la voix de l'enseignant sur l'élève, de même qu’entre les avis des élèves et ceux des enseignants entre la communication non verbale et l’efficacité pédagogique. / Expression of the body language in learning processes in class between pupils and teachers in primary school in ChinaIn France, many researchers are interested in the issue of body expression in learning process. In class, teacher's body student’s body is in a continual motion, which may cause breaks in teacher-student communication in learning. These discontinuities can also be assets for strengthening communication in learning.In the context of contemporary Chinese primary school, the research we have undertaken efforts to understand the type of relationship that the learner subject establishes with its environment at school, when it is an experiencing success or a difficult situat²ion. This is a fairly new area in China where research on the expression of the body in the teacher started only at the beginning of the XXIst century. Building on the Western theories of nonverbal communication, we undertook experimental studies in China. This study takes into account the multiple dimensions borrowing from various fields such as psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and those focused on non-verbal communication.Research starts from these three questions. What does the expression of the body in the interactions in favor of the existence of a link between body language and pedagogical relationship? From the point of view of Janine Lafon (Vers une gestion de la séduction dans la relation pédagogique, 1991), what is the place of the body in the pedagogical relationship? To what extent and how does the expression of the body in the interaction between teacher and students determine that there is a link between body language and pedagogical relationship?The issues are addressed from the organization of teaching in the primary school Chao Yang section of the city of Beijing. The research examines the body in the classroom, the teacher's point of view and from the perspective of the student: identify, explain the place of the body and gestures in teaching situations in China.To carry out this research, tin the same primary schools in Beijing, we built two questionnaires to a sample of 204 students and 16 teachers and produced two videos forty-five minutes each, a mathematics course for one, a Chinese language course to the other.To the extent that in the context of Chinese culture it is not usual to show emotions with gestural expressions, we believe that the teacher's gestures:1 - Play a role in furthering the interaction between him and the students (pedagogical relationship),2 - Encourage students to take courses with more attention,3 - Are essential to accompany the oral verbal expression of the master in his teaching practice.In other words,Chinese students would be influenced by the voice of the mistress during class lessons.Chinese students would be influenced by the actions and the physical posture of the teacher.Chinese students are more attentive during class when the teacher uses nonverbal gestures in teaching.There would be a consistency between the opinions of students and those of teachers facing the influence of teacher’s voice on the student.There would be a consistency between the opinions of students and teachers between those nonverbal communication and teaching effectiveness.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:43:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Doris Marques de Santana.pdf: 1143396 bytes, checksum: 8f693da4aa2c0d9bd2dfc804948cc34c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-08-14 / This study on environmental education intends to reflect upon possible contributions to environmental education through educational activities in the building of a critical and responsible consciousness on the students. The research proposes that new activities are also able to cooperate in the teaching-learning process as well as to afford conditions for group activities in environmental education. It dealt with the interaction between teacher and primary school students, and of the latter among themselves and the natural world, through creativity and affection, as agents of transformation in the world they live in. The work had as main purpose to apply and evaluate educational activities that might help the teacher to stimulate the student to respect Nature, through participation and interaction in the construction of the citizenship. For such purpose it was divided into two distinct moments: first, the available literature was researched in order to define the educational activities and also environmental education. The work had its foundations on the four pillars of education: learn to know, learn to do, learn to live together and learn to be (Delors, 2003). The second part consisted on artistic and social activities with fourth-grade students of a public school in Sao Paulo. Ikebana and origami workshops, paper recycling, comic books and field trips do the park were the main activities performed. This investigation was run through a participative observation, application of questionnaires to the director, teachers and students, and also with the help of video and audio recordings, photographs, field diary and testimonies obtained from the students and their parents. The methodology used was the qualitative, more specifically, an exploratory study case with the permanent interaction of the art teacher and the ordinary teacher. The data has been analyzed through to the treatment and tabulation of categories technique, according to Bardin (2004). Regarding ikebana and origami activities, as well as paper recycling, a better capability of the teachers involved in the process was considered necessary. We could consider that new educational activities were able to cooperate with the teaching-learning process and to contribute to sensitize and motivate the students to learn values focused on respect of Nature and the environmental issues in their daily life. / Este trabalho pretende refletir sobre possíveis contribuições para a educação ambiental, através da utilização de práticas educativas na construção de uma consciência crítica atuante e responsável dos alunos. Teve como pressuposto que tais práticas pedagógicas na escola também são capazes de colaborar no processo de ensino-aprendizagem interdisciplinar e proporcionar condições para atividades coletivas de educação ambiental. No contexto do ensino fundamental, abordou o fortalecimento da interação de professores e alunos e destes consigo mesmos e com a Natureza, trabalhando a criatividade e a afetividade dos educandos como agentes de transformação do meio ambiente onde vivem. O estudo teve como objetivo geral aplicar e avaliar práticas educativas que possam auxiliar o professor a incentivar o aluno a ter respeito pela Natureza, por meio de um processo participativo e interativo de construção da cidadania. Para tanto, houve dois momentos distintos: primeiramente, realizou-se uma pesquisa bibliográfica para a fundamentação teórica das práticas educativas e, também, da educação ambiental. Contextualizou-se nos quatro pilares da educação (Delors, 2003): aprender a conhecer, aprender a fazer, aprender a viver juntos e aprender a ser. Num segundo momento, foram proporcionadas atividades artísticas e sociais aos alunos de 4ª série de uma Escola Estadual na cidade de São Paulo. Oficinas de ikebana e origami, reciclagem artesanal de papel, histórias em quadrinhos e um passeio pelo parque foram as atividades que se destacaram dentre as práticas aplicadas. Esta investigação lançou mão da pesquisa participante, de questionários dirigidos à diretora, professoras e alunos e de registros como: gravações, filmagens, fotos, diários de campo e de depoimentos dos alunos e seus pais. A metodologia utilizada foi a qualitativa, mais especificamente um estudo de caso do tipo exploratório, que contou com a participação da professora da sala e a de artes. Para análise dos dados foi aplicada a técnica de tratamento e tabulação por categorias, conforme recomenda Bardin (2004). Com relação às oficinas de ikebana e origami e à reciclagem artesanal de papel, verificou-se a necessidade de um melhor aprimoramento dos professores envolvidos no processo. Pôde-se considerar que as práticas educativas aplicadas são capazes de colaborar com o processo de ensino-aprendizagem e contribuir para as interações entre alunos, professoras e demais participantes. As experiências vivenciadas contribuíram para sensibilizar e motivar os alunos para a aquisição de conhecimentos e valores voltados ao respeito à natureza e às questões ambientais de seu cotidiano.