The purposes of this study were (1) to review the development of SB 408, and (2) to analyze the impact of this action upon a selected group of public schools. The study involved a survey of the influence that provisions of SB 408 have had on the school program in terms of the following: (a) policy, (b) economy, (c) instructional program, and (d) management.

All too often faculty are asked to implement technology into their teaching without the knowledge necessary to use the technology effectively. Due to the evolution of technology in everyday settings, students have come to expect to be engaged through technological means. This often creates undue stress on faculty members. The purpose of this study is to investigate technology integration by exploring the relationships between a faculty member’s technology preferences and educational beliefs. Through a mixed method, this study attempts to address the question of why faculty use the types of technology they do. More importantly, this study investigates if a faculty member’s educational beliefs have any influence on the technology they choose to use. Thirty-two medical, clinical, and healthcare faculty members participated in the study. They responded to a Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) survey and a Technology Preferences survey with open-ended questions. Data analysis revealed multiple statistically significant findings between different beliefs and different types of technology. The results indicated that personal epistemic beliefs influence the types of technology faculty use. The technology choices faculty make are largely related to tools they are comfortable with and ones they believe effectively fit their teaching materials. The study also found statistically significant differences between age, gender, and reported technology use. It is suggested faculty development programs should consider faculty members’ educational beliefs and personal preferences when supporting faculty with their uses of technologies.

M.Ed. (Media Studies) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Learning through examples is a central and widely used instructional device for teaching mathematically-based subjects such as statistical probability. However, the applications of the superficial variability of examples remain controversial. This dissertation investigates how the superficial variability of multiple examples influences students' learning and transfer of probability problem-solving. Moreover, the author discovers whether content difficulty affects the influence of examples' superficial variability. Three conditions were developed and compared: consistent-surface condition (CS), varied-surface-within-rule condition (VSWR), and varied-surface-between-rule condition (VSBR). For the purpose of exploration and methodology improvement for the dissertation study, two pilot studies were conducted. However, conflicting results were shown in those two studies. In the first pilot study, students in CS condition performed the worst. In the second pilot study, students in VSBR condition performed the worst. These conflicting results encouraged the author, even more, to conduct the dissertation study with a larger sample size and improved methodology. In this dissertation study, the author found that students' performance on the posttests in VSBR was significantly worse than in the other two conditions, which was consistent with the second pilot study, and that their performance in CS and VSWR condition was not different. Contrary to expectation, the strength of the pattern of the effect of the superficial variability of examples did not vary between the easy and difficult types of problems. Moreover, the pattern was the same when the difficulty variable was not included. These results suggested that examples' superficial consistency between different problem types promotes more effective learning than superficial variation between different problem types. The consistency can be one single cover story used multiple times for each type of problem or the same battery of varied cover stories used repeatedly for different types of problem. Moreover, the pattern of the influence of superficial variability of examples is robust among types of the problem at varying difficulty levels.

Thesis (MPA.) --University of Limpopo, 2015 / This study seeks to investigate the availability and effects of Information Communications Technology (ICT) on teachers’ ability to perform their duties in terms of teaching and of managing other curriculum-related activities in Groot Letaba Secondary Schools of the Mopani District, Limpopo Province. A quantitative research approach was applied to conduct this research and a structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data from participants in twelve Groot Letaba Circuit secondary schools. Secondary data was collected from a variety of electronic and printed media and official documents from the Department of Basic Education’s records. The findings reveal that, with the exception of a TV, photocopier and laptop/desktop computer, there is a scarcity of ICT resources at schools for ICT integration, and that the teaching and curriculum administration functions of most teachers have been impacted negatively by a lack of ICT equipment and/or insufficient use of these ICT resources for those schools who have them. In addition, while some teachers had received some form of ICT training, it was evident that such training has had minimal impact on the abilities of teachers to use ICT in their teaching or their curriculum administration work. The findings also reveal that there is a host of factors that negatively influence teachers’ readiness for, andconfidence in, using ICT. These need to be dealt with by the various stakeholders including,and especially, the Department of Education and the school management and private partners.

The purpose of this study was to apply instructional system theory to the process of developing authentic English as a foreign language (ESL) materials for Indonesian pre-departure scholars. The researcher established a theoretical framework for the process through an intensive review of instructional system literature and selected an applied process model for adaptation to developing authentic ESL materials. The Stiehl-Schmall ISD model was adapted and later validated using a modified Delphi process. Seventeen panelists, randomly selected from the area of instructional systems design, ESL, and Indonesian EFL practitioners, were involved in the validation process. Feedback from panelists was analyzed and it was determined that the model was applicable for Indonesian intensive English programs. It was also found that the model, as adapted, was considered practical and useful by EFL practitioners, though many of them were not knowledgeable in instructional systems design. Indonesian EFL practitioners expected the development of the model to substantially improve the quality, effectiveness, efficiency, and relevancy of authentic English used in Indonesian intensive English programs. / Graduation date: 1993

The purpose of this study was to determine if commercially produced art and aesthetic education packages are quality products and if art and aesthetic education packages meet selected goals for art education. This study was limited to packages developed for preschool, kindergarten, and elementary children.To initiate the study, various avenues were explored in order to discover sources of commercially produced art and aesthetic education packages. A list of 72 publishers and suppliers of art and aesthetic education packages was compiled. From this list, a sample of 14 packages was selected.The first portion of the study pertained to the individual analysis of each package. To assess the packages comprising the sample, "An Instrument for the Assessment of Instructional Materials," developed by Maurice Eash (1972) was selected as the evaluation instrument. This instrument is divided into five sections: (a) objectives, (b) organization of material, (c) methodology, (d) evaluation, and (e) overall assessment.The second portion of the study pertained to the relationship of the package to the goals for art education. Various art educators have listed goals for art education; moreover, the goals listed by the National Art Education Commission on Art Education (1977) were selected as the goals to be used in this study.A group of trained evaluators assessed the individual packages. The findings revealed that only two packages received mean and median scores of 5.0 or higher on a rating scale of 1 through 7. This included the assessment of all five areas included in the evaluation instrument. The other 12 packages received mean and median scores of 2.5 or less on a rating scale of 1 through 7.In comparing the.packages to the goals for art education, two packages met all of the goals for art education. These two packages were the same ones which received the highest ratings on the evaluation instrument. Two other packages met two of the goals for art education. All of the other packages met only one of the goals for art education. The majority of the packages met one of two goals, either "art education as a means of developing creative and flexible forms of thinking" or "art education as a means of helping students understand and appreciate art."

Thesis (MTech. degree in Business Information Systems.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2012. / This mini-dissertation describes opportunities to use mobile phones as interactive learning tools. Anecdotal evidence shows that almost all undergraduate students at the Tshwane University of Technology have mobile phones, while on the contrary, only a small percentage have access to a personal computer, let alone access to resources. Interaction between the lecturer and the students is low, communication after lecturing hours is difficult and access to additional or just-in-time learning material is limited to hand-outs given during a formal class period. The challenge is that interaction between lecturers and students is limited to formal learning spaces and times, e.g., lecture rooms and laboratories. Nevertheless, learning is not confined to formal spaces and times. In this mini-dissertation the focus is, on how a mobile phone can be used to provide access to learning material, provide last minute or just-in-time information and improve the communication between lecturer and student, outside of the formal class time and space.

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This thesis offers a detailed socio-historical exploration of the practice of molecular modelling in chemistry and allied disciplines. This exploration leads to observations and conclusions that are of relevance to the sociology of science in general and to the issue of representation in scientific practice, in particular. After a general introduction in chapter one, chapter two offers a review of the science studies' literature relevant to the topic, namely the literature on representation and on experimental practices in the sciences. The lack of sources dealing with the issue of physical modelling is highlighted. Chapter three, through specific cases studies, presents the argument that the circulation of structural concepts and accounts in chemistry has been historically associated with the circulation not only of graphical representations, but also of physical models. Implications of this argument for a semiotically-centred view of scientific practice are discussed. Chapter 4 discusses the role of models as a research tool. Through various historical cases, it shows how physical models have been central in the process of defining, exploring and intervening on the domain of molecular-structures as accessed through laboratory manipulations. The work of molecular modelling is presented in particular as the experimental articulation of structural constraints within clearly defined research settings. Chapters five and six analyse the development of three specific modelling systems from the late 1930s to the mid-1960s. These chapters show these developments as contingent processes based on the involvement of elite researchers and both private and public institutions. It shows in particular how these modelling systems were made relevant across individual research sites by providing not only a technical solution to the problem of assembling model structures, but also by incorporating specific structural constraints. Finally, it is argued that these systems are one of