Syftet med detta examensarbete har varit att utifrån ett lärarperspektiv, belysa möjligheter och problem i läsförståelseundervisningen och att bidra till en fördjupad kunskap om elever i behov av särskilt stöd i sin läsutveckling. Det empiriska materialet består av en enkät som har vesvarats av 64 lärare som undervisar i svenska i år 1-6. Studien är kvalitativ och inspirerad av enomenografin. Resultaten visar att lärarna i studien har erfarenhet av flera olika typer av lässvårigheter. Läsförståelsesvårigheter upptäcks på flera olika sätt: läsförståelse, avkodning, muntlig fömåga, svårigheter med andra uppgifter, arbetsminne, ordförråd, strategier för att inte läsa samt känslomässiga reaktioner. Flera av informanterna har mött elever i år 3-4 som kan avkoda bra men ändå inte förstår innehåller i en text. En del av lärarna menar att deras utbildning inte påverkat deras undervisning i läsförståelse. Andra menar att utbildningen har gjort det och att extra utbildning i läsförståelse innebär en skillnad. Det finns många olika orsaker till bristande läsförståelse och det finns en grupp elever som har specifika läsförståelsesvårigheter. Dessa elever kan vara svåra att upptäcka. För att de ska få adekvat hjälp krävs att lärare förstår vad som gör att svårigheterna uppstår och att de pedagogiska insatserna anpassas efter elevernas behov.

This study aims to investigate Turkish teachers&rsquo / opinions and beliefs on the place of target cultural information in English language teaching, as well as their related practices and applications in EFL classrooms in Turkish higher education context. Particularly, it tries to explore three research questions: (a) How do Turkish teachers of English define culture? (b) What are the EFL teachers&rsquo / attitudes towards incorporating cultural information into their teaching? and (c) What role do they allocate to the culture of the target language in their classrooms? Data was collected from 98 randomly selected EFL teachers in the Preparatory (Hazirlik) Programs of four universities (Hacettepe University, Middle East Technical University, Ankara University, and Baskent University) in Ankara. A written survey questionnaire, including structured items, a rating scale and a Likerttype attitude scale, together with a follow-up interview were used as the two data collection methods. The analyses were carried out by frequency counts of the predetermined choices in the items and the related responses that were given to questions of the interview. The study shows that teachers mostly define culture in the sociological sense, such as values and beliefs. Their definition of culture in the framework of ELT slightly shifts towards more visible culture, such as food and clothing. The study also reveals teachers&rsquo / positive attitudes towards incorporating cultural information in their instruction. Teachers incorporate cultural knowledge to increase the learners&rsquo / awareness of other cultures and people for intellectual development, and to improve learners&rsquo / communicative competence.

This thesis investigates the professional knowledge and views about gifted education held by teachers working in a suburban primary school in Melbourne, Australia. Examining discourses of giftedness and intelligence, it adopts a case study approach to explore teachers’ gendered understanding of these concepts four years after they undertook a program of professional development in gifted education during the late 1990s. The analysis of the case study is located in relation to historical as well as current policy and professional debates regarding the education of gifted children, and the context of broader contemporary educational reforms. During the 1990s, much educational reform in Australia, as elsewhere, was characterised by neo-liberal practices of devolution, and a greater emphasis on individual accountability that altered school management structures and directed curriculum practices towards a focus on outcomes-based education. The increasing scrutiny of teaching and learning became normalised as both teachers and students were regularly monitored and measured. Within the prevailing political and educational landscape, Victoria’s first gifted education policy was introduced in May 1995. / The study examined how teachers negotiated educational reforms and policy initiatives during a time of significant change and translated them into their own professional common sense and working knowledge. A qualitative methodology is adopted, and the research design encompasses close analysis of teachers’ narratives and content analysis of school policies and programs as well as informal and formal documentation and reports. Examination of the case study material is informed by a feminist approach and concern with practices of gender differentiation and inequality in education; the analysis is also influenced by key poststructuralist concepts of “discourses”, “regimes of truth” and “normalisation” drawn from the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault. / Three main lines of analysis are developed. First, I examine current meanings of, and discourses on, gifted education and their historical antecedents. I argue that gifted education practices emanate from modernist practices and that the constructs of intelligence and giftedness were enthusiastically adopted as technological tools to regulate and classify populations. I further argue that understanding these earlier views on intelligence and the “gifted child” remains important as these continue, often unwittingly, to infiltrate and shape teachers’ attitudes and knowledge, as well as the “regimes of truth” expressed in policy and professional discourses. Second, I propose that a deeply entrenched Australian egalitarian ethos has affected teachers’ views and practices, influencing how they navigate the field of gifted education, typically characterised as an elite form of educational provision. In some cases, this produces ambivalence about the value of gifted education, leading to educational practices that are at odds with gifted educational practices recommended by research. I argue that the program of gifted professional development did not alter deeply entrenched beliefs about gifted education, with teachers claiming personal experience and working knowledge as the crux to recognising and catering for difference. Third, I examine the socially gendered dimensions of these entrenched views and their impact on highly able girls. I argue that for teachers, the norm of the gifted child is gendered. Whilst girls can be bright or clever or smart, the idealised gifted child is more likely to be male. / This thesis offers an in-depth examination of the micro-practices of one school as it strives for excellence. It contributes insights into the impact of “topdown” policy and professional development on teachers’ working knowledge and professional practice. This study shows that while the imposed educational policies and gifted education programs provided information for teachers, they did not alter teachers’ fundamental belief systems, professional knowledge or gender differentiating teaching practices.

Esta pesquisa tem como tema o trabalho do professor coordenador pedagógico (PCP) e objetiva contribuir para a compreensão da atuação desse profissional na escola. Para isso, realizou-se um estudo de caso de tipo etnográfico em uma escola estadual paulista. Os procedimentos de pesquisa incluem observação participante, entrevistas, análise de documentos e pesquisa bibliográfica. A pesquisa revela que o PCP participa de uma tendência histórica que atribui aos profissionais de coordenação pedagógica a tarefa de representar um agente de inovações no cotidiano das práticas pedagógicas. Essas inovações provém dos órgãos de planejamento técnico do sistema educacional e encontram, nos procedimentos cristalizados do cotidiano escolar e em suas condições concretas de funcionamento, grandes obstáculos. A função de PCP e as inovações que por seu intermédio se buscam implementar são apropriadas pelos sujeitos que compõem o cotidiano, definindo-as, na prática, como resultantes de uma complexa rede de relações institucionais. Esta rede é marcada por um emaranhado de conflitos, dos quais o PCP participa ativamente e simultaneamente o sujeitam, ocasionando facilmente a indefinição de suas funções em relação à determinação regulamentar de suas atribuições. O desenrolar dos conflitos leva a exercícios instáveis de poder e a estabelecimentos provisórios de aliança, em que freqüentemente a função educacional da escola é relegada. Isso faz com que o professor coordenador pedagógico acabe tendo muito pouco de professor, de coordenador e muito menos de pedagógico. / This research has as theme the work of the pedagogycal coordinator teacher (PCT) and has as object contribute to the comprehension of the action of this professional at school. To do so, there was a study of the etnographic type case in one state school from São Paulo estate. The procedures of this research include participative observation, interviews, documents analyses and bibliographical research. The research shows that PCT participates from one historical tendency that leads to the pedagogycal coordinator professionals the task of representing an agent of day by day inovations at the pedagogycal area. These inovations come from the educational system and they find at the procedures of the day by day, and its concrete conditions of funcioning, great obstacles. The function of the PCT and the inovations that by itself search to find are proper, as well as the principal, the coordinators and the teachers, defining them at the practice as the results of a complex web of institucional relationships. This web is also marked by conflicts, in which the PCT participates actively producing easily the undefine relations among them, according to the regular determination of their atributions. The developing of the conflicts leads to unistable exercises of power and the provisory alliances that frequently occurs at school. This problem makes the PCT to be small as a teacher as well as a coordinator and much smaller as a pedagogycal.

Europe is becoming more technology-saturated with each passing day, and due to the 1:1-initiative, the school is no exception. The field of education is in a state of change, with a myriad of ICT (abbr. Information and communications technology) tools under development and trial. The evaluation of these tools are done mostly from the perspective of the students as users, and while the perspectives of the teachers are often utilized in their roles of educational experts, their reality as users of technology is not considered. In this thesis, through a literature review of both ICT in education and tangibility, the qualitative means of semi-structured interviews, and a framework for technology-enabled practice transformation, we find that the inclusion of ICT into education is largely extrinsic. We also find that the teachers have not been sufficiently educated on the changed practice of education in an ICT context, which brings about a number of negative emotional consequences. With this result in mind, we propose, among other things, the need for a modernized teacher education based around ICT didactics, and an explanation as for why tangible ICT is not utilized in education.

No description available.

The purpose of incorporating digital educational games in educational settings is to engage the students' desire to learn. The aim of the syllabus for upper secondary school, as expressed by Skolverket (2011) is to support the students for lifelong learning and in order to do so, motivation is needed. However, a problematic gap can be found between “games” and “formal education” which are two different concepts which cross paths in this study. One path shows the foundation of the Swedish steering documents, and the other displays the motivational aspects of implementing digital educational games in educational settings. This qualitative research uses questionnaire surveys with structured questions and semi-structured follow-up interviews via email in order to examine to what degree digital educational games can be implemented in the English 6 classroom. It investigates the effectiveness of digital educational games in regard to English teaching and teachers’ attitudes and beliefs. The results display different approaches teachers could take when incorporating digital educational games in their classroom but also show significant factors such as teachers' experiences in the digital classroom. The research concludes that digital educational games can be used to encourage student motivation and in the teaching practices of upper secondary school teachers in Malmö. This is therefore an important area that should be further researched to ensure that teachers receive sufficient guidance and experience for using digital educational games in the English classroom.

In primary school, the teacher is often seen as a role model by their students. For this reason, it is crucial that teachers use a rich supply of English in the classroom. There are two focuses in this study. Firstly, the amount of English spoken in the classroom through teacher talk and secondly, teachers’ attitude towards speaking English in the classroom. To obtain information on these matters, classroom observations were performed, and a survey was administered examining teachers’ attitudes as well as their situational use of English versus first language in the classroom. Findings of this study showed a significant variation in the amount of English used by the teachers. Furthermore, while attitude towards and situational use of English also varied between the teachers, there were certain similarities as well. Findings revealed to be in line with previous research and suggestions for future research are proposed.

In this qualitative study, the author explored the perceptions of 10 middle-class, teachers regarding the socioeconomic class of both impoverished and advantaged students with whom they worked. Teachers in two public elementary schools from one Intermountain West school district participated; one school generally served children living in poverty and the other generally served affluent children. Through analysis of surveys, interviews, teacher journals, and researcher journal, the complex and often times contradictory feelings these teachers have about the socioeconomic class of students were revealed. Literature in class, socioeconomic class, deficit thinking, race and whiteness, and identity and multiple identities, situated the study. The author, who grew up in poverty herself, weaved in her own complex and often time contradictory memories and feelings about poverty throughout the manuscript. The work revealed that teacher’s positionality led them to a belief of “normal.” All teachers expressed the belief that parents were instrumental in determining their child’s academic success. Teachers had also not recognized that their perceptions contributed to student learning. Perceptions were based on teacher’s upbringing, belief system, gender, race, and class. Students at high socioeconomic schools were perceived to be leaders, well-dressed, supported by families, and in constant need of enrichment. In contrast, students at low socioeconomic schools were perceived to need discipline and structure, opportunities to gather background knowledge, and support from parents. Teacher’s felt student behavior was connected to their backgrounds, role models, race, class, and gender. Rarely did teachers feel students could attribute success or failure to their own actions. The final overarching theme was referred to as “SES-blind” in which teachers stated they did not notice the socioeconomic status (SES) of the students, or they felt all of their students were the same. The author noted there was much overlap between the literature on White teacher perceptions of children of color and teacher perceptions of children living in poverty.

With the adoption of the common core state standards, pressure to raise the achievement of young learners was intense. Classroom teachers were scrutinized to teach lessons with high levels of thinking and rigor. Teachers were inclined to eliminate or ignore artsenriched lessons that would benefit students. The reason for this action was associated with the efficacy of the classroom teacher toward music integration in literacy curriculum. The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of the Music Literacy Integration Intervention (MLII) on the self-efficacy and proactiveness of teachers at a small elementary school in Florida toward integration of music in reading instruction. There were 3 data-collection instruments. The Teacher Efficacy scale (TES) was used to collect pretest and posttest data for Research Question 1, whereas the Proactiveness Attitude scale (PAS) was used to collect the same type of data for Research Question 2. The Teacher Interview Instrument was used to collect only postimplementation data for Research Question 3. The triangulated data from the 3 instruments were used to respond to Research Question 4. Teacher participants had 272 students in kindergarten-Grade 5. There was a convenience sample of 20 teachers for the survey part of the study. Only 18 teachers returned completed surveys. The sample size for the interviews was 6 teachers randomly selected from 18 teachers. Quantitative data analysis for the Research Questions 1 and 2 was descriptive statistics (i.e., pretest mean, posttest mean, standard deviation, and effect size indicator). The inferential statistical model for the 2 research questions was the t test for paired samples. Qualitative data analysis for Research Question 3 followed a modified version of the constant-comparative, data-analysis procedure. Triangulated survey and interview data were used to respond to Research Question 4. Findings for Research Question 1 indicated the MLII improved teachers’ perceptions on their self-efficacy toward music integration as measured by the TES from pretest to posttest. Results for Research Question 2 suggested the MLII improved teachers’ perceptions of their proactive attitudes toward music integration as measured by the PAS. The increases in scores in both research questions showed large effect sizes. Findings for Research Question 3 indicated teachers perceived that the MLII met its objectives of providing useful strategies that facilitated the integration of music literacy into the reading instruction. Results for Research Question 4 showed the qualitative data from Research Question 3 confirmed the quantitative data from Research Questions 1 and 2. An implication was music had a positive effect on students’ reading abilities and school leaders should reinvest in music integration into the reading curriculum.