Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of West Florida, 2006. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 130 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2007. / Description based on contents viewed June 24, 2007; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-125).

D.Cur. / Quality control in perinatal education is imperative, with the purpose to deliver a high quality and appropriate healthcare service to the family in the peri natal period. The purpose of this study was to develop valid standards for perinatal education in South Africa. To reach this goal, the study proceeded as follows: Development phase -concepts were developed for perinatal education, -the concepts were logically systematised and formulated in concept standards, -the standards were presented for peer group review with the purpose of refinement and further development. Quantification phase: - the statistical validity of the standards was determined/calculated. After completion of the study the researcher reached the conclusion that quality perinatal education must adhere to the following standards: A philosophy for perinatal education must exist; The perinatal facilitator must be a well trained professional person, and must possess certain personal traits; The perinatal education style/method must adapt according to the client's socio-economic status, age, marital status and needs; The perinatal facilitator must make use of acknowledged teaching methods and techniques in order to facilitate learning; The perinatal education must comply with certain minimum requirements in order to make it accessible and acceptable to the client; The perinatal facilitator must complete a preparatory phase before she is allowed to give education; A perinatal education programme must have a curriculum that can be adapted to the client's circumstances; Perinatal education must be presented purposefully; The end result of perinatal education must focus on a healthy baby and a healthy, empowered mother, family and community.

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The purpose of this study was to provide a basis for understanding among Tech Prep and School-to-Work change agents, and educational leaders, of the role that Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) can perform as a part of the core curriculum, within the framework of these reform movements. The literature indicated that the federally supported Tech Prep and School-to-Work reform movements were not acquainted with DBAE reform initiative which were supported by the Getty Education Institute for the Arts through the work of Regional Institutes. Therefore, they had no ideas about the possible worth of art as an education core component. Also, DBAE was not acquainted with Tech Prep and School-to-Work and therefore had established no common terminology to communicate the power of what they do in a manner which was relevant to that audience. The DBAE Regional Institutes provided individuals to assist in the development and validation of the study tools, and to participate in the pilot study. The Regional Institutes also identified the 10 Discipline-Based Art Education experts who composed the national Delphi panel for the study. The findings were reported according to research questions. They show the national Delphi panels' perceptions of which SCANS skills can be developed by Content Standards and Performance Standards from the National Standards for [Visual] Arts Education. The study concluded that: 1) there is a relationship between the Content and Performance Standards taken from the National Standards for [Visual] Arts Education and the SCANS skills; 2) SCANS Basic skills, Thinking skills, Resources skills, Information skills and Systems skills could be developed through the achievement of the Performance Standards of the National Standards for [Visual] Arts Education; and 3) the relationship between the SCANS Workplace Know-How skills and the National Standards for [Visual] Art Education was validated by a national Delphi panel. Recommendations were made for DBAE, Tech Prep and School-to-Work, and Future Studies.

A identificação de características que sejam importantes sobre um dado estudante durante o processo de ensino-aprendizagem tem sido alvo de muitos estudos nos últimos tempos. Docentes, coordenadores e pedagogos têm defendido que cada indivíduo possui características particulares e importantes dentro do processo de desenvolvimento do conhecimento. A necessidade de adaptar as estratégias de ensino de acordo com as preferências do aprendiz é uma realidade dentro das salas de aula, sejam estas presenciais ou virtuais. Porém, isto não significa que numa sala de aula deva haver criação de um método para cada aluno, mas sim que se aponte qual a melhor forma de interação para cada um deles construindo grupos de aprendizes com características comuns. Trabalhando desta forma se torna possível identificar perfis de aprendizes dentro de um conjunto de estudantes, possibilitando que se possa trabalhar com conteúdos e ambientes de aprendizagem mais adequados aos aprendizes.O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar a arquitetura de um sistema que possibilita a criação de cenários de aprendizagem baseados no perfil do aluno. O docente deve indicar as características que devem ser observadas durante as interações do aprendiz em um dado ambiente de aprendizagem eletrônica. Estas características serão modeladas como informações de contexto, permitindo que os pontos definidos como observáveis sejam organizados e modelados de forma a facilitar a monitoração das interações. A classificação do aluno em um determinando tipo de perfil de aprendizagem, previamente definido pelo docente, é realizado considerando-se as informações sobre o contexto da interação e os tipos de perfis de aprendizagem. Para que seja possível construir os cenários de aprendizagem considerando o perfil do aluno este trabalho propõe criar um relacionamento entre os tipos de perfis de aprendizagem e as estratégias de ensino através das categorias descritoras dos objetos de aprendizagem. / The identification of characteristics of a given student that are important during the teachinglearning process has been the focus of numerous studies in recent years. Teachers, coordinators and pedagogues have defended the notion that each individual presents particular and important characteristics in the developing knowledge process. The need to adapt teaching strategies to the student\'s preferences is a reality in classrooms, being physical or virtual classrooms. However, this does not mean that a method should be created for each student in a classroom, but that the best form of interaction for each of them be identified, building groups of learners with common characteristics. Working in this way makes it possible to identify learner profiles within a group of students, allowing one to work with learning contents and environments more suited to the learners. The objective of this work is to present the architecture of a system that allows for the creation of learning scenarios based on the studen profile. The teacher should point out the features which may be observed during the student interaction in a given e-elearning environment. These features are designed as context information, allowing defined observation points to be organized and modeled for facilitating the monitoring of interactions. The student classification in a given learning profile type, defined previously by the teacher, is realized considering information about the context of interaction and the learning profile types. For the learning environment to build the learning scenarios according to the student profile, this work proposes to create a relationship between the learning profile types and the teaching strategies through the description of learning objects categories.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree to which Indiana secondary school principals engaged in mathematics instructional leadership behaviors that supported the implementation of the NCTM Standards.A self-reporting survey was sent to 300 randomly chosen secondary school principals, from a population of 672 public school secondary principals in the State of Indiana during the 2000-2001 school year. A total of 151 usable surveys were returned for a response rate of 50.3 percent. The 151 secondary school principals who returned the questionnaires were 22.5 percent of the population.The survey instrument was an adaptation of questionnaires developed by Horizon Research Incorporated, 1992; Cauley, Van de Walle, and Hoyt, 1993; and Horizon Research Incorporated; 1994. The survey instrument was designed to ascertain demographic information on the principal's school, personal background information on the principal, as well as information concerning the mathematics instructional leadership behaviors of the principal.The major findings from this study were:1. Principals who had more positive attitudes towards the NCTM Standards were more likely to have engaged in a higher degree of support for teachers who implemented the NCTM Standards. Also, principals who had more positive attitudes towards the NCTM Standards were more likely to provide a greater degree of direction to staff members with respect to the implementation of the NCTM Standards.2. Female principals engaged in mathematics instructional leadership behaviors to a greater degree than did male principals.3. Principals from urban schools engaged in mathematics instructional leadership behaviors to a greater degree than did principals from rural schools. / Department of Educational Leadership

The study was conducted to investigate whether the use of a wider range of teaching methods can improve the quality of environmental learning in five Zambian primary schools. Nine teachers from five schools were involved in the preliminary stage of answering of questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions about the use of dominant teaching methods and new teaching methods; while only four were involved in the observations of four lessons. The study is a contribution to the on‐going debate on the investigation of whether teaching methods used by teachers can be one of the factors that can influence the quality of education. Definitions of quality and educational quality in particular, are not easy to establish and no agreed upon framework for educational quality exists at present. This study reviews the debates on educational quality, and identifies three major paradigms or discourses on educational quality; and considers the human rights, social justice and capabilities approaches and educational quality frameworks as being relevant to environmental learning and education for sustainable development in the Southern African Development Community context. This, together with a review of research on teaching methods in environmental education, provides the theoretical framework for this study. Using action research and an interpretative methodological framework, a series of research activities were undertaken to generate research data because the study was investigating the teachers’ practice with a view to probe change and to analyse the findings. Nine teachers participated in the preliminary stage of answering questionnaires and focus group interviews reflecting on existing teaching methods. In stage two of this study, teachers went through a planning workshop during which they planned lessons using new preferred teaching methods. The third stage was lesson observations of planned lessons. The final stage was the reflection workshop during which the teachers shared their experiences with the use of new teaching methods. The teaching practices of teachers using the new teaching methods were the subject of further analysis. In order to find out how the use of a wide range of teaching methods can improve quality of environmental learning in primary schools nine teachers were observed teaching lessons with new teaching methods. The Nikel and Lowe (2010) fabric of dimensions of educational quality was adapted and used to find out if teachers included dimensions of quality in the teaching process. Additional socio‐cultural and structural quality dimensions, identified through a review of southern African research, were used to find out if teachers included contextualized regional dimensions of educational quality. This was done to investigate whether the process of teaching and learning was relevant to the learners. Teachers involved in the research reflected that when they used a wider range of teaching methods the result was that the learning opportunities for learners were enhanced and that the methods added value to their teaching, improving the quality of their teaching. The use of a wider range of teaching methods showed the presence of several indicators of dimensions of educational quality, as reflected in the quality analysis tool. Teachers indicated that the use of a wider range of teaching methods led them to include the socio‐cultural dimensions such as the use of local languages and structural dimensions such as informal seating arrangements or group work that they would otherwise neglect if they used the traditional narrow range of teaching methods. A wider range of teaching methods provided learners with an enjoyable learning atmosphere during the lesson. The research also identified that this study can be taken further through broader observations, and that the educational quality dimensions tool is useful for different levels of the education system, and that it has potentially productive uses in teacher education, particularly for observations during teaching practice.

A identificação de características que sejam importantes sobre um dado estudante durante o processo de ensino-aprendizagem tem sido alvo de muitos estudos nos últimos tempos. Docentes, coordenadores e pedagogos têm defendido que cada indivíduo possui características particulares e importantes dentro do processo de desenvolvimento do conhecimento. A necessidade de adaptar as estratégias de ensino de acordo com as preferências do aprendiz é uma realidade dentro das salas de aula, sejam estas presenciais ou virtuais. Porém, isto não significa que numa sala de aula deva haver criação de um método para cada aluno, mas sim que se aponte qual a melhor forma de interação para cada um deles construindo grupos de aprendizes com características comuns. Trabalhando desta forma se torna possível identificar perfis de aprendizes dentro de um conjunto de estudantes, possibilitando que se possa trabalhar com conteúdos e ambientes de aprendizagem mais adequados aos aprendizes.O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar a arquitetura de um sistema que possibilita a criação de cenários de aprendizagem baseados no perfil do aluno. O docente deve indicar as características que devem ser observadas durante as interações do aprendiz em um dado ambiente de aprendizagem eletrônica. Estas características serão modeladas como informações de contexto, permitindo que os pontos definidos como observáveis sejam organizados e modelados de forma a facilitar a monitoração das interações. A classificação do aluno em um determinando tipo de perfil de aprendizagem, previamente definido pelo docente, é realizado considerando-se as informações sobre o contexto da interação e os tipos de perfis de aprendizagem. Para que seja possível construir os cenários de aprendizagem considerando o perfil do aluno este trabalho propõe criar um relacionamento entre os tipos de perfis de aprendizagem e as estratégias de ensino através das categorias descritoras dos objetos de aprendizagem. / The identification of characteristics of a given student that are important during the teachinglearning process has been the focus of numerous studies in recent years. Teachers, coordinators and pedagogues have defended the notion that each individual presents particular and important characteristics in the developing knowledge process. The need to adapt teaching strategies to the student\'s preferences is a reality in classrooms, being physical or virtual classrooms. However, this does not mean that a method should be created for each student in a classroom, but that the best form of interaction for each of them be identified, building groups of learners with common characteristics. Working in this way makes it possible to identify learner profiles within a group of students, allowing one to work with learning contents and environments more suited to the learners. The objective of this work is to present the architecture of a system that allows for the creation of learning scenarios based on the studen profile. The teacher should point out the features which may be observed during the student interaction in a given e-elearning environment. These features are designed as context information, allowing defined observation points to be organized and modeled for facilitating the monitoring of interactions. The student classification in a given learning profile type, defined previously by the teacher, is realized considering information about the context of interaction and the learning profile types. For the learning environment to build the learning scenarios according to the student profile, this work proposes to create a relationship between the learning profile types and the teaching strategies through the description of learning objects categories.