Thesis (M.A. (Mathematics Education)) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / This study intended to improve Grade 9 learners’ mathematical processes of solving word problems. It was an action research study in my own classroom consisting of 64 Grade 9 learners. Learners were given learning activities on word problems to carry out as part of their normal classroom mathematics’ lessons. Data were collected in two stages: first, through passive observation, that is, without my intervention, and later through participant observation thus provoking their thinking as they attempt the given questions. The learners’ responses were analyzed through checking the mathematical processes they used without my intervention. Learners also submitted their post-intervention responses for analysis of progress after interventions. The scripts were reviewed based on four problem- solving stages adopted from George Polya (1945). Those stages are, namely understanding the problem, devising the plan, carrying out the plan and looking back. It became evident from the findings that learners attempt solving word problems with no understanding. Communication, reasoning and recording processes appear to be key factors in assisting learners to make sense of word problems and, finally, proceeding towards an adequate solution.

This study investigates the teaching and learning of mathematics in four rural schools in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The study is set against the backdrop of Curriculum 2005 (C2005) - an outcome based curriculum reform initiative that has been introduced to all South African schools. The objective of the study is to investigate the teaching and learning practices of four rural teachers of mathematics in this complex reform milieu. The following broad research question guides this study: "How do teachers interpret and implement the new mathematics curriculum in terms of a political perspective (how teachers and learners are connected to the curriculum); a socio cultural perspective (what adjustments the teacher makes to accommodate the learners' circumstances); and a practical perspective (how the teacher implements the goals of C2001?" The South African situation provides a unique and particularly challenging context for teaching and learning and curriculum reform. It is understood that schools differ - and therefore curriculum issues cannot be solved through general pronouncements but rather viewed from a multiplicity of perspectives. In this thesis, I examine the teaching and learning of mathematics in four rural classrooms in the Eastern Cape. By way of honouring the contextual complexity of the situation, 1 have adopted a multiple perspectives approach to analysing what goes on in these four classrooms. I use a political perspective to help understand how power operates in the curriculum process. / I employ a socio cultural perspective to examine how the curriculum process attends to the local circumstances of teachers and learners. A practical perspective is used to examine how the curriculum is implemented in a technical sense. This constructivist interpretive study employs the techniques of case study and narrative inquiry to study the curriculum practices of four teachers. Multiple methods - including interviews, participant observation and video recording - were used to gather data. Narrative accounts of the teaching and learning of mathematics were constructed and then analysed using the three perspectives. The study concludes that the curriculum can be interpreted at different levels formal, perceived, operational and experiential - and each level can be analysed in terms of the political, socio cultural and practical. Bringing these three perspectives together is a challenging, but necessary task in order to understand and act upon the complexities of educational reform in rural South African classrooms.

This study describes an interview survey of college instructors of foreign and programming languages as well as a content analysis of textbooks from these fields. Seven interviews were conducted with instructors in Romance Languages and Computer Science at five colleges in central North Carolina. The purpose of the interviews was to determine how instructors of foreign and programming languages view their teaching methodology and how this relates to the textbooks they choose. Based on the information gathered at the interviews and a subsequent content analysis of six textbooks, this study explored the possibilities that exchanging teaching ideas between foreign and programming language texts might afford if these were applied creatively across these two curricula.

This thesis aims to explore teachers’ and students’ experience and perception of outdoor teaching and learning. Further, it aims to explore influences of outdoor teaching on academic performance in biology and mathematics. The contexts for the thesis are a Swedish high school and Australian environmental education centres. The empirical material comprises student and teacher interviews, and questionnaires and tests answered by students. Theoretical frames of reference are theory of place and three dimensions of learning: content, social and emotional dimensions of learning. The results reveal that the extended physical space had the potential to improve social relations and increase participation, collaboration and on-task communication. However, teachers witnessed a period of up to three months before the students adjusted to outdoor teaching. During that time disciplinary issues were a concern. Teaches’ perceptions were that experience of specific places such as local natural environment was fundamental to forming a sense of belonging and environmental concern. However, teachers described children and students as unfamiliar with local natural environments. Teacher’s perceptions were that media provides knowledge about nature rather than direct experience and children and students were often uncomfortable or afraid in nature. Mathematics followed by language education were the subjects most regularly taught outdoors. Two studies compared classroom education with partly outdoor education in biology and mathematics. Results reveal that students’ performance was equally good, or more developed as a consequence of outdoor teaching. An overarching conclusion is that the possibility to appeal to cognitive, social and emotional dimensions of learning all at the same time has the potential to concretize and broaden the often theoretical approach of high school education, and to contribute to long term episodic memories and a desire to learn. / Denna avhandling syftar till att utforska lärares och elevers erfarenheter av, och uppfattningar om undervisning och lärande utomhus. Vidare syftar den till att undersöka vilken inverkan undervisning utomhus har på elevers resultat i biologi och matematik. Studierna är utförda i en svensk högstadieskola samt vid australiska miljöutbildningscentra. Det empiriska materialet består av elev- och lärarintervjuer samt enkäter och tester besvarade av elever. Det teoretiska ramverket utgår från platsteori samt ett lärandeperspektiv inkluderande tre dimensioner: innehållsliga, sociala och emotionella dimensioner av lärande. Resultaten visar att utemiljöns utvidgade fysiska rum har potential att förändra sociala relationer positivt och leda till ökat deltagande, samarbete, och kommunikation i ämnet  Lärares erfarenhet var dock att det tog upp till tre månader innan eleverna var helt införstådda med utomhusundervisningens innebörd. Under den tiden var oordning i klassen ett hinder. Erfarenhet av specifika platser såsom lokal natur sågs av lärarna som väsentligt för elevernas platstillhörighet och miljöengagemang. Lärare vittnade dock om många elevers främlingskap inför lokala naturmiljöer. Kunskaper om naturen härstammade snarare från media än från egna erfarenheter och eleverna var ofta obekväma eller rädda i naturen. Matematik följt av språk var de ämnen som med störst regelbundenhet undervisades utomhus. I två delstudier jämfördes klassrumsundervisning med undervisning delvis utomhus i biologi och matematik. Resultaten visar på likvärdiga, eller mer utvecklade kunskaper som en följd av utomhusundervisning. En övergripande slutsats är att utomhusundervisningens möjligheter att samtidigt appellera till kognitiva, sociala och emotionella dimensioner av lärande kan konkretisera och vidga högstadieundervisningens teoretiskt inriktade innehåll samt bidra till långlivade episodiska minnen och en lust till lärande.

Current curriculum trends promote inquiry-based student-centered strategies as a way to foster critical thinking and learning. Problem-based learning (PBL), a type of inquiry focusing on an issue or “problem,” is an instructional approach taught on the basis that science reform efforts increase scientific literacy. PBL is a constructivist approach to learning real life problems where understanding is a function of content, context, experiences, and learner goals; historical PBL situates the lesson in a historical context and provides opportunities for teaching NOS concepts. While much research exists on the benefits of historical PBL to student learning in general, more research is warranted on how teachers implement PBL in the secondary science curriculum. The purpose of this study was to examine the classroom-learning environment of four science teachers implementing a historical PBL instructional unit to identify the teachers’ understandings, successes and obstacles. By identifying teachers’ possible achievements and barriers with implementing a constructivist philosophy when executing historical PBL, educators and curriculum designers may improve alignment of the learning environment to constructivist principles. A qualitative interpretive case study guided this research study. The four participants of this study were purposefully and conveniently selected from biology teachers with at least three years of teaching experience, degrees in education, State Licensure, and completion of a PBL workshop. Data collection consisted of pre and post questionnaires, structured interviews, a card sort activity in which participants categorized instructional outcomes, and participant observations. Results indicated that the four teachers assimilated reform-based constructivist practices to fit within their preexisting routines and highlighted the importance of incorporating teachers’ current systems into reform-based teacher instruction. While participating teachers addressed a few NOS tenets, emphasizing the full range of possible NOS objectives included in historical PBL is warranted. This study also revealed the importance of creating a collaborative classroom culture and building positive student-teacher relationships when implementing PBL instruction. The four teachers agreed that the historical PBL instructional unit provided a context for learning state standards, and they positively viewed their experiences teaching the lesson. Thus findings from this study suggest that teaching science in a historical context using PBL can be effective.

As world percussion has grown in popularity in American colleges and universities, two main problems have emerged. The first problem is that no known source exists detailing how percussion instructors have incorporated world percussion into their collegiate teaching. A review of the literature has highlighted four main approaches to incorporating world percussion in collegiate percussion programs: applied study, group performance, travel experiences, and guest expert visits. The second problem is that systematic research on world percussion traditions has been carried out much more often by music education researchers, anthropologists, and ethnomusicologists than by percussionist-performers, so the relationship between theory and reality regarding the teaching of world percussion by collegiate percussion instructors is called into question. Via an exploratory mixed-methods design, this dissertation investigated the practical approaches most commonly utilized by percussion instructors to teach world percussion in their collegiate percussion programs, as well as the practical and philosophical reasons behind their decisions. Questionnaires were distributed to 1,032 collegiate percussion instructors in the United States with 518 respondents (N=518); descriptive statistics were utilized to determine the relative popularity of the four main approaches mentioned in the percussion literature. Interviews were conducted with collegiate world percussion instructors (N = 11), selected via stratified random sampling, regarding their practical and philosophical approaches to teaching world percussion. Content coding of interview data was utilized to search for emergent themes and meta-themes. Findings regarding the instructors' practical approaches toward the incorporation of world percussion in their programs included decisions about what world percussion instruments and styles to present, settings in which to present them, when to present world percussion and how much world percussion to include in relation to core areas, and breadth versus depth of world percussion. Findings regarding instructors' philosophical orientations included rationales for world percussion and issues of authenticity. Conclusions include that instructors' main rationales for incorporating world percussion into their programs were musical well-roundedness and employability as performers and educators, while understanding authentic musical processes in cultural context was also an important dimension. Implications were also discussed, and suggestions for further research were also included.

A quasi experimental study tested a contextual teaching and learning (CTL) model for integrating reading and mathematics competencies through 13 introductory Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses. Volunteer CTE Lead Teachers with assistance from academic teachers, developed integrated units. The purpose of this study was to determine whether students who participated in CTE courses that integrated core mathematics and reading standards performed better on a test of mathematics and reading skills compared to students who participated in traditional, non-integrated courses. The treatment group consisted of students in the 13 introductory courses taught by the CTE Lead Teachers and the control group consisted of students in all other sections of the 13 introductory courses not taught by CTE Lead Teachers. After a 26-week intervention, 9th and 10th grade student Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) reading and mathematics scores were analyzed to determine if the mean change in post-test scores was greater in the treatment group than the mean change in scores in the control group. An ANCOVA and multiple regression analysis of quantitative data revealed that the integrated CTE courses were statistically significant in improving reading treatment group scores, but not statistically significant in improving mathematics treatment group scores. The study is significant because it seeks to address a gap in the literature on academic and CTE integration and to provide evidence that a partnership between academics and CTE can contribute to student achievement as measured by state assessments.

The marketing academy arguably holds an influential position within society, yet culturally speaking, very little is known about it; its people, processes or knowledge. Regardless of its privileged situation, we remain reflexively impoverished in terms of disciplinary self-understanding. This study, in some small way, hopes to change that. Indeed espousing and pursuing import around its scholarly intervention, this research instigates questions of a reflective nature, around marketing academia. More specifically, taking an anti-foundational perspective, it seeks to explore processes of knowledge production within the discipline. Having reviewed current approaches to the evaluation of knowledge production from within marketing and beyond, this study comes to suggest a disciplinary lacking with regard to reflexive understandings, through marketing’s; (1) lack of consideration around knowledge as practice and (2) unsatisfactory consideration of the academic ‘subject’ therein. With this in mind, it located a more precise interest around ‘the marketing academic’ and specifically, subjectivity formation, within a doctoral process of a major UK University. It was believed that this focus would provide a potentially revelatory means for generating new and responsible understandings into the conditions and effects of our disciplinary (re)production. To this end, having theorised and analysed subjectivity formation through a Foucauldian lens (‘subjectification’, 1983) this study came to produce five main conclusions. These included suggestions that (1) ‘the self’ was constituted, not inherent (despite dominant evaluatory positions to the contrary), (2) subjective reproduction within the site included ‘independence’ and ‘knowledgability’ (3) the rhetoric of independence served to obscure power relations and everyday interactions within the doctoral process (4) problematic power relations, in part, defined the supervisory relationship, and that (5) effects of training were both positively and negatively experienced by informants.

Nachdem wir 2010 mit zwei Veröffentlichungen gestartet sind, haben wir 2011 und 2012 jeweils nur eine Ausgabe herausgegeben, da in dieser Zeit insbesondere die Etablierung des sachsenweiten Zertifikatsprogramms im Fokus unserer Arbeit stand. Mit Beginn des Verbundprojektes Lehrpraxis im Transfer (LiT) konnten wir wieder zum ursprünglichen Turnus zurückkehren. Seitdem ist die Herbstausgabe, die Sie gerade lesen, den Werkstattberichten der vom LiT-Verbund geförderten Lehr-Lern-Projekte gewidmet. Die Frühjahrsausgabe mit Veröffentlichungstermin im März gibt Ihnen wiederum einen Rückblick auf das jährlich stattfindende HDS.Forum.

An der Fakultät Architektur der TU Dresden wurde ein Lehrpilot für das Fach Baustofftechnologie zur Einführung der mediengestützten Lehre aufgebaut. Den Rahmen dazu bot das durch den Multi-Media- Fonds (MMF) der TU Dresden unterstützte Projekt „Blended-Learning- Pilot – Baustoffkunde für Architekt_innen – als Lehrbeispiel für das branchenspezifische E-Learning-Servicekonzept der TU Dresden“ mit der Laufzeit von Juni bis Dezember 2009. Mit diesem Pilotprojekt wurde eine völlig neu konzipierte Lehre zur Baustofftechnologie für die Studierenden der Architektur im Kontext der Exzellenzinitiative der TU Dresden angeboten.