This study involved an evaluation of laboratory manuals available to high schools for use with electricity training systems to ascertain which-were most adequate in meeting curriculum standards for general electricity as specified in Bulletin 615 of the Texas Education Agency.

Until recently, Taiwan elementary mathematics curriculum has been changing for several times. The aim of this study is to refer to various curriculum reforms, and focus on the way ¡§Number and Calculation Standards¡¨ changed in the history of reforms. The specific objectives of this study: to refer to one curriculum standards and its subsequent standards and do pair wise comparison. To achieve the above objectives, the investigator referred to 7 target versions of mathematics curriculum standards: 41, 51, 57, 64, 82, 89, 92 (R.O.C year). The comparison was done qualitatively, using historical research methodology. The main research findings are the differences in the above 6 pair wise comparisons. 1. The change from Year 41 to Year 51: In the Year 51, the part on Writing numbers in Chinese characters was de-emphasized. Emphasis was on Ordinal numbers, division thinking, mental arithmetic and written algorithm. The size of numbers reduced to 4-digits (due to a change in currency, 4 dollars to 1 New Taiwan dollar). 2. The change from Year 51 to 57: more focus on symbols, did not require the revision on what was learned in previous year. 3. The change from Year 57 to 64: de-emphasized on mental arithmetic and written calculation; emphasized on Inverses, multiplication/division on ¡§0¡¦ and ¡§1¡¨, ratio, approximation, negative numbers and use of electronic calculators. 4. The change from Year 64 to 82: no need to include negative numbers and abacus. Emphasized on two-step problems, number line, and reading multiplication tables. 5. The change from Year 82 to 89: de-emphasis on odd and even numbers; emphasis on realistic contexts, understanding vertical algorithm. 6. The change from Year 89 to 91: no need to use calculators to check working; emphasis on vertical algorithm, whole number calculations, and the connections of multiples/factors, rate/speed, and, fractions/decimals.

Thesis advisor: Diana Pullin / In recent years, critical race theory (CRT) has garnered much attention in education scholarship as a way to examine the racialized practices that persist in U.S. schooling. This study was a grassroots attempt at using CRT as the theoretical framework to engage a group of administrators and teacher leaders at one urban school in inquiry-based discourse that focused on raising the educators' race consciousness and co-constructing an antiracist pedagogy. A combined method of action research and critical case study was used as the research methodology. This dissertation reports on three notable findings that surfaced from the study. One, the participants largely perceived racism an individual pathology, not as a system of privilege. Because the participants regarded themselves as educators who were committed to social justice, they were often deceived by their activism to recognize their own complicity in the perpetuation of racist ideologies in their practice. Two, despite the overwhelming criticisms against NCLB in scholarly literature, the participants at this low-income, racially-diverse, urban school were passionately in favor of the goals behind the statute. With the recent push toward the development of common core content standards through the Race to the Top program, increased dialogue regarding what knowledge should be considered "common" and "core" needs to occur in order to breach the impasse between the divergent curricular viewpoints held by all stakeholders. Three, although culturally relevant pedagogy is widely espoused and utilized in educational research and practice, it is often not commonly understood as a conceptual framework that advocates the three-pronged elements of academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. Findings revealed wide misconceptions and misuse of the theory that stemmed from teachers' cultural bias, the nature of racism in school settings, and the lack of support to adequately implement theories into practice. ` All of these findings revealed issues of power, positionality, and privilege that were deeply entrenched in the policies and practices of the school, which suggested that greater collaboration between scholars and practitioners was necessary in order to engender ongoing critical self-reflection and reconceptualization of theories as viable pedagogical tools to begin the work of antiracism. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

Submitted by Celso Magalhaes (celsomagalhaes@ufrrj.br) on 2017-02-21T14:23:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Glaucia da Silva Batista de Oliveira.pdf: 3840888 bytes, checksum: a5b4cab29d70206c8c9b2b373cd5b026 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-21T14:23:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2016 - Glaucia da Silva Batista de Oliveira.pdf: 3840888 bytes, checksum: a5b4cab29d70206c8c9b2b373cd5b026 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-31 / This study was conducted in CAIC Paulo Dacorso Filho School, located in Serop?dica - RJ through semi structured interviews and semi-open questionnaires to analyze the Environmental Education Approachs in the pedagogical practices of the school, taking interdisciplinarity into consideration. We interviewed 11 students, six teachers and the school principals. The main topics discussed were: CAIC Paulo Dacorso Filho Historical context; Environmental Education: contributions and challenges; Historical context of Environmental Education in Brazil; Environmental Education into transversal projects; Environmental Education for a sustainable; world in the school context; the development of environmental education through the school curriculum; environmental education and teacher training . The subjects were selected by their relation to the object of study. The main objective was to investigate how the approach proposed by the Environmental Education legal documents, especially the NCS, occurs in the CAIC pedagogicals practices. It can be concluded that even in an unstructured way, environmental education is a school life theme, especially in occasional events focused on this theme. It is important to note that Environmental Education Approach is predicted in the school's PPP, implemented since 1993, and incorporating the principles set forth by Law No. 9795/99. / O presente estudo foi realizado no Centro de Aten??o Integral ? Crian?a e ao adolescente ? CAIC Paulo Dacorso Filho em Serop?dica?RJ por meio de entrevistas semi estruturadas e question?rios semi-abertos para analisar a abordagem da Educa??o Ambiental na pr?tica pedag?gica da Escola, levando em considera??o a interdisciplinaridade. Foram entrevistados 11 alunos, 6 professores e a dire??o da escola. Os principais temas abordados foram: o hist?rico do centro de aten??o integral ? crian?a e ao adolescente; educa??o ambiental: contribui??es e desafios; contexto hist?rico da educa??o ambiental no Brasil; educa??o ambiental nos projetos transversais; a educa??o para um mundo sustent?vel; educa??o ambiental no contexto escolar; o desenvolvimento da educa??o ambiental atrav?s do curr?culo escolar; educa??o ambiental e a forma??o docente. Os temas foram selecionados por sua rela??o com o objeto de estudo. O principal objetivo foi o de investigar como a abordagem da EA proposta pelos documentos legais, em especial os PCN, ocorrem na pr?tica Pedag?gica do CAIC. Pode-se concluir que, mesmo de forma pouco estruturada, a Educa??o Ambiental ? um tema presente no cotidiano escolar, especialmente em ocasi?es de eventos voltados para esse tema. ? importante destacar que a abordagem da Educa??o ambiental est? prevista em seu PPP desde a implanta??o da escola, em 1993, incorporando assim os princ?pios apresentados pela Lei n? 9795/99.

This study investigated the distribution and relation of types of equal signs in middle school. The focus is on interpretations of indices from algebra strand (by grade) in curriculum standards. The researcher used a content analysis method and followed the following procedure. She found all interpretations of indices of the equalities and inequalities signs in middle school. Then, she adopted the way of coding in types of equal signs by McNeil (2006). Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. There are four findings altogether. First, the higher the grade the more equalities and inequalities related interpretation indices in Algebra Strand. Second, there were most number of equalities and inequalities in four McNeil¡¦s types of equal signs in grade 7 than in the other two grades. Third, the amount of equalities and inequalities in different types of equal signs was not in proportion. Fourth, this distribution provided many opportunities for equal signs to be considered as relational symbols, but yielded various restrictions to students¡¦ development of algebraic concepts. The researcher also made recommendations for future researchers and practitioners: administrative officers, textbook editors, and school teachers.

As school accountability intensifies, school districts strive not only to prepare their students to meet the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates, but also to prepare students for college and careers after high school. Understanding the necessary reading rigor to ensure academic success is key for educators. Although Texas opted not to adopt the Common Core Curriculum Standards and the accompanying Stretch Lexile measures for reading that require higher reading levels at each grade, Texas educators must still prepare students for academic success. This study determined how the use of more rigorous Lexile standards found in other states and associated with the Common Core Curriculum Standards would affect passing scores on Texas reading assessments in grades 6-8. The population for this study included three middle schools during the 2010 school year within one large suburban school district. State reading assessment data collected from these three schools included students' scores from grades 6, 7, and 8. A Chi-square Test for Independence determined that there was statistical significance for some groups of students in the accountability system: all students, Hispanic students, and economically disadvantaged students. Each of these groups was found to pass at a significantly lower rate when using the Stretch Lexile standard. Results were also examined in terms of political, economical, educational, and social policy implications. The policy implications discussed in this study are far-reaching for Texas educators and students, especially economically disadvantaged and Hispanic students. The higher standards can potentially trigger the school improvement process for campuses and districts failing to make NCLB's required adequate yearly progress. Additional expenses related to supplemental educational services, school choice, and professional development drain district Title I budgets due to mandatory set-aside amounts, disallowing funds for other student-centered programs. Implications for practitioners include clearly establishing intervention systems, adhering to a multi-tiered intervention system, and providing a screening tool for teachers so that progress monitoring can be accomplished for students as they move toward more rigorous reading expectations that will result in college and career preparedness.

Within the last decade, the pressures of implementing state mandated early learning guidelines and meeting the requirements from federal, state and local agencies, have taken their toll on many preschool programs. In the present study, preschool programs were given a chance to voice their opinions about how curriculum standards and other external mandates were directly and indirectly influencing curriculum planning, teaching practices, and child activity. A brief survey was sent to 90 preschool directors in a region in Massachusetts, 28 directors completed this survey. A sample of nine directors, from the survey respondents, volunteered to be interviewed. In two separate interviews the researcher asked a series of questions to obtain data from the participants. These interview questions focused on how the participants made sense of the mandatory integration of early learning standards and other external mandates into their preschool program and their concerns based on their role as a preschool director. The results of the study revealed that external guidelines set forth by the state and federal government were a great concern to the preschool directors. These directors agreed that curriculum mandates were necessary yet the amount of work, time and expenditure needed to meet the demands of these mandates could be quite overwhelming. Concerns were particularly relevant in the areas of obtaining or maintaining NAEYC accreditation and the push for a standardized curriculum and/or a standardized assessment tool. To recieve specific types of funding, a program must be using a standardized assessment tool. Many funding sources also require that a program be accredited by NAEYC. The financial and physical expense of both of these requirements was prohibitive . The results were analyzed with respect to child development and early childhood education principles. The findings indicated that curriculum mandates focused primarily on young children’s cognitive development to the detriment of social and emotional competence. The findings also indicated that children were being pressured to spend more time on narrow academic skills and less time on play. Yet play has been found to provide children with opportunities to interact socially, express and control emotions, and develop symbolic thinking skills (Nicolopoulou, 2010).

The research study investigated the history of the curriculum standards movement in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the context of the national standards movement in order to explain how and why the Commonwealth of Virginia arrived at the decision not to adopt the Common Core State Standards based on descriptive evidence. The study utilized a qualitative methodology with a two-phase data collection process. First, documents from the Virginia Board of Education and the Virginia Department of Education were collected and analyzed using the constant comparative method (Maykut and Morehouse, 1994). Second, data were collected from major figures in the history of Virginia public education over the last 20 years, including former Superintendents of Public Instruction, through in-person interviews. Data from the interviews were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Maykut and Morehouse, 1994). An interview protocol was developed, tested for content validity, and piloted prior to conducting the interviews. Categories that emerged from the data analysis for both research questions were identified and descriptive evidence was presented related to both research questions. Three major conclusions from the study were identified and discussed that appeared to influence Virginia's decision not to participate in the Common Core State Standards: the Virginia Standards of Learning are an institutionalized system; the Virginia Standards of Learning had bipartisan political support; and confidence in the Standards of Learning outweighed confidence in the Common Core State Standards. / Ed. D.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-21T20:31:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Andrea Mulle Mariano.pdf: 1078642 bytes, checksum: 7a4c8e934bf5f15238a8ad5a7f945f64 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-24 / This study aims to analyze the conception of vocational education in the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Middle Level Technical Vocational Education in order to understand how is the relationship between capital and labor and its implications for the formulation of the mentioned document. In this sense, the theoretical framework that guides this research lies within the dialectical and historical materialism, constituting a bibliographic and documentary research, carried through the analysis of the (new) National Curriculum Guidelines for the Middle Level Technical Vocational Education (CNE/CEB No. 06/2012 and CNE/CEB No. 11/2012). The labor category is taken as central discussion, as well as its senses and configurations considering its relations with education, under the dictates of capital, drawing from Marx (2011), Marx and Engels (2007), Lukács (2012), Netto and Braz (2010), Saviani (1989, 2007). In addition, we sought to address, drawing from Mészáros (2008, 2011a, 2011b), the ‘Capital, Labor and State’ tripod as essential category for understanding the study object of this research. Thus, grounded among others in Frigotto (2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2012a, 2012b), Kuenzer (2002, 2008, 2011), Ramos (2010, 2011a, 2012), Ciavatta and Ramos (2012); this research sought to raise determining factors in the education of the worker resulting from the changes caused by the industrial restructuring and flexible accumulation, explaining the implications for the Vocational Education from the 1990s. In this investigative journey, the examination of the conceptual basis and categories highlighted in CNE/CEB No. 11/2012 and CNE/CEB No. 06/2012 took place from the analyzes of Moura (2013) and Saviani (1989 2003), among others, as well as the survey of how these documents are located in the context of relations between capital and labor and to what extent the documents gave legitimacy to polytechnic education and pointed conditions for its development. From these analyzes, we identified improvements, setbacks and also continuities in the new guidelines with respect to previous guidelines. Current guidelines harbor contradictions that, from the point of view of an education project, weaken the idea of integral human education and, in this sense, the possibility of education processes guided by polytechnic. From this perspective, and agreeing with the authors that supported this research, the main challenge ahead certainly lies in Integrating Secondary School and Vocational Education, in its implementation as a right and its effectiveness considering an education project aligned with the polytechnic perspective. Thus, this research carries the intention of adding contributions in this complex and contradictory field. / Este estudo tem como finalidade analisar a concepção de educação profissional presente nas Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Educação Profissional Técnica de Nível Médio de forma a compreender como se dá a relação entre capital e trabalho e suas implicações na formulação do referido documento. Nesse sentido, a concepção teórica que orienta esse trabalho sustenta-se no materialismo histórico e dialético, constituindo-se em uma pesquisa de cunho bibliográfico e documental, efetivada por meio da análise das Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Educação Profissional Técnica de Nível Médio (Resolução CNE/CEB nº 06/2012 e o Parecer CNE/CEB nº 11/2012). A categoria trabalho é tomada como discussão central, bem como seus sentidos e suas configurações, tendo em vista suas relações, sob os ditames do capital, com a educação, com base em Marx (2011), Marx e Engels (2007), Lukács (2012), Netto e Braz (2010), Saviani (1989, 2007). Além disso, buscou-se tratar, com base em Mészáros (2008, 2011a, 2011b), do tripé “Capital, Trabalho e Estado”, como categoria essencial para a compreensão do objeto de estudo da presente pesquisa. Logo, fundamentada, entre outros, em Frigotto (2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2012a, 2012b), Kuenzer (2002, 2008, 2011), Ramos (2010, 2011a, 2012), Ciavatta e Ramos (2012); esta pesquisa buscou levantar elementos condicionantes na formação do trabalhador, decorrentes das mudanças originadas pela reestruturação produtiva e acumulação flexível, explicitando as implicações para a Educação Profissional a partir da década de 1990. Nesse percurso investigativo, o exame das bases conceituais e categorias evidenciadas no Parecer CNE/CEB nº 11/2012 e na Resolução CNE/CEB nº 06/2012 deu-se, entre outros, a partir das análises de Moura (2013) e Saviani (1989, 2003), assim como o levantamento de que modo se situam esses documentos no contexto das relações entre capital e trabalho e em que medida os documentos conferiram legitimidade à educação politécnica e apontaram condições para seu desenvolvimento. A partir dessas análises, identificaram-se avanços, retrocessos e também continuidades nas novas diretrizes, com relação às diretrizes anteriores. As diretrizes atuais abrigam contradições que, do ponto de vista de um projeto de educação, enfraquecem a ideia de formação humana integral e, nesse sentido, a possibilidade de processos formativos pautados na politecnia. Nessa perspectiva, e concordando com os autores que fundamentaram esta pesquisa, o grande desafio que se vislumbra, reside, certamente, no Ensino Médio Integrado à Educação Profissional, na sua implementação como um direito e na sua efetivação, tendo em vista um projeto de educação alinhado à perspectiva da politecnia. Assim, esta pesquisa carrega a intenção de agregar contribuições nesse campo complexo e permeado de contradições.

Since the American Revolution free public education has been a discussion of political debate. The purpose that such an institution should play in society is a debate fervently argued when the founding fathers wanted to build a republic based on meritocracy. The problem this study addresses is the undefined relationship between the goals of schooling relevant to Georgia and the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) which is a critical piece to creating a complete systemic view of public schooling in Georgia. The purpose of this study is to investigate the alignment between the GPS and schooling goals. The guiding question and sub-questions are: How well are the GPS, or the intended curriculum of Georgia schools, and each of the various stated goals of schooling aligned? How relevant are the eighth-grade GPS to the latent themes of each of the stated goals of schooling? How balanced are the latent themes of each of the stated goals of schooling in the eighth-grade GPS? Through a historical investigation of the literature and current policy the author establishes the currently relevant goals of schooling which serve as the latent goals for which the method will seek to find evidence within the Georgia Performance Standards. The study employs a quantitative content analysis of a significant section of the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) looking for themes associated with various stated goals of schooling as indicated by the literature review. The manifest themes, developed from the latent goals of schooling, are incorporated as the dependent variables in the study, while the GPS serve as the independent variable. Neuendorf’s (2001) framework for content analysis is used to develop a new method for investigating the goal-curriculum alignment relationship through new measures of Curricular Balance, Curricular Relevance, and Manifest Theme Presence. This study presents a new visual model to compare a curriculum’s alignment to multiple goals of schooling called the Goal-Curriculum Alignment Measures (G-CAM) model. This study finds that the GPS are strongly aligned to the goals of Americanization, high student test scores, post-secondary enrollment, and national gain, while poorly aligned to democratic participation and social justice. Evidence for these conclusions are discussed and related to the current socio-political literature.