This thesis deals with the occurrence of scientifically gifted students at Czech schools. The talent affects a person's life fundamentally but also it influences the lives of others people. These gifted and talented people usually become leading scientists and researchers. They can affect important social events significantly during their professional careers. After the family teachers and school are the most important part in development of the child. Therefore teachers should know what specific educational requirements gifted students have. It's necessary to determine the status of teachers. In the theoretical part of the thesis the main aim of the literary review was a theoretical background of the talent, the incidence of gifted pupils at Czech and foreign schools, the work with gifted pupils at foreign schools and educational institutions and associations working with gifted children. In the practical part of the thesis a questionnaire was created and then distributed to teachers of science subjects. The questionnaire has found foreknowledge Czech teachers of the concept of genius and talent. Whether teachers are able to identify gifted pupils in the classroom what forms of work with talented students are used and the questionnaire was evaluated. Proposals and suggestions were created for working with...

Participation of minority parents in the Special Education IEP process continues to be a concern for public school administrators. With the disproportionality of African American males placed in special education and the mandatory involvement requirement in the IEP process, administrators and schools would benefit by understanding the obstacles that prevent the meaningful participation of parents/guardians of African American high school males in the special education IEP process. The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyze the obstacles faced by parents/guardians of African American males, grades 9-12, in the special education Individual Education Plan (IEP) process. This study involved interviewing ten parents/guardians of African American males receiving special education services, attending high schools in Contra Costa and Alameda counties in California. The results found the following themes that prevented the parents/guardians from meaningful participation in the IEP process: (1) Communication between home and school, (2) Knowledge of special education, (3) Parental rights and involvement in the IEP process, and (4) Attitudes of teachers. The strategies there were recommended to increase parental involvement were: (1) Engagement in active listening to parents and guardians at IEP meetings, (2) Changing of IEP meetings to work with parents' work schedules. (3) Improve overall communication with parents and guardians, and (4) Provide special education training for parents and guardians to teach them special education terminology and jargon. Lastly, the study provided various recommendations for further study.

Many educators are experiencing challenges in educating autistic learners, with the media reporting incidents of autistic learners being denied access to their local schools. This case study investigated how effective the TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication Handicapped Children) model is, in helping autistic learners to learn in an inclusive environment. The data collection instrumentsused included a literature review, questionnaires, interviews and artefacts. The collected data were analysed statistically, and descriptively. It seems as if there is perception that autism is increasing. Teachers need to be taught about full support mechanisms to deal with the challenges of teaching autistic learners. The research revealed that teachers were struggling to implement the TEACCH program owing to a lack of support programs for teachers, as well as a lack of continued use by other teachers. It was revealed that the teachers felt that for intervention programs to be successful, autistic learners should learn separately. / Inclusive Education / M. Ed. (Inclusive Education)

Maria Montessori's work was initiated in 1898 as a result of her becoming acutely aware of deficient children's learning patterns, while working at the Psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome. The principles which dominate the system, however, did not ·'"spring in full panoply from Montessori. Indeed, her inspiration came largely from early and mid-nineteenth century writings of two French physicians, Itard and Seguin, who were Also involved in the teaching of deficient children. Extending on the ideas of these two educator-physicians, as well as the ideas of Froebe!, Montessori innovatively brought the child's senses into contact with carefully selected didactic apparatus in a carefully structured and ordered environment. According to Montessori, the liberty of the child is a prerequisite for self-education and forms the first major pillar of her didactic theory, and thus becomes the focus of the first chapter dealing with her didactic approach (chapter three) • Montessori believed that the function of education was to assist growth and if the individual child was given the liberty of movement within a prepared environment, a sense of competence would be achieved and the learning of the child would come about almost spontaneously. The principles of individuality and the training of the senses comprise the other two pillars, and form the basis for chapter four and five respectively. The principle of individuality is rooted in the belief that each child has a uniqueness which cannot be ignored without irretrievable damage to his personality. The current educational situation in South Africa, reveals a diversity of educational problems as a result of different ethnic and cultural groups all being thrust into a common educational system. The insidious pressures of conformity to a single standard of education must of necessity lead to a compromise of '"standards. The exposure of educational deficiencies inherent in such a move is characterised by learning impediments and deficiencies in the educational scenario. Research has therefore been undertaken in an attempt to extract those aspects that could provide meaningful pedagogic assistance to meet a present educational need. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (History of Education)

This Master's thesis deals with homeschooling in primary school students in the Czech Republic. The theoretical part provides information of homeschooling as an alternative to fulfilling compulsory school attendance. This thesis is answering questions about the history of homeschooling in the Czech Republic, its development in our country, the way home education works, what are the reasons for choosing home education, what are its positives, negatives and risk factors. And in the end the thesis is also concentrating on homeschooling in secondary school or information how home education works in the world. The research section deals with two areas. The first area is devoted to quantitative research - a survey among students of teaching. The second area is high-quality research - this area deals with case studies. The aim of the research part of the diploma thesis is to find out the opinion, experience and awareness of the given topic from the study among the students of the who are training to be teachers. Using interviews and observations to analyze how the relevance, opportunities and risks of home education are changing from a time perspective. Based on questionnaires, interviews, and professional literature, identify the reasons why the Czech population chooses homeschooling as a form of...

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur gymnasielärare i ämnet idrott och hälsa uppfattar och resonerar om elever som har åtgärdsprogram eller som riskerar att inte uppnå kunskapskraven. Vidare syftar studien till att belysa vilka diskurser och maktrelationer lärarna är en del av och hur dessa förhåller sig till varandra vid bedömning och betygsättning av dessa elever. För att nå syftet används fyra kvalitativa intervjuer tillsammans med fyra befintliga åtgärdsprogram i ämnet idrott och hälsa. Empirin analyseras sedan med hjälp av diskursanalys samt begreppen makt och kategorisering. Studien visar att lärarna delar in elever som riskerar att inte uppnå kunskapskraven i ett antal olika kategorier: lata och bekväma, rädda, ointresserade, språkliga förbistringar och fysiologiska och eller psykologiska orsaker. Beroende på vilken kategori eleverna anses tillhöra resonerar lärarna olika om hur undervisningen bör bedrivas gällande dessa elever. Genomgående är närvaron av stor betydelse för hur eleverna kategoriseras och därefter behandlas i undervisningen av lärarna. Studien visar även att lärarna inte har all makt när det gäller bedömning och betygsättning av dessa elever. Utan de måste i själva verket förhålla sig till andra diskurser såsom ledningsinflytande, elevinflytande och i viss mån även föräldrainflytande. Dessa tre diskurser befinner sig i kamp med diskursen om lärarinflytande om makten över bedömningen och betygsättningen. / The aim of this study is to investigate how upper secondary teachers in physical education describe and discuss about students with an individual education plan (IEP) or at risk of not achieving the national knowledge requirements. Furthermore, this study aims to illustrate the discourses and power relations teachers are a part of and how these relate to each other in the assessment and grading of these students. The investigation is based on four qualitative interviews plus four existing IEPs which are analyzed with help of discourse analysis and the concepts power and categorization. The investigation shows that the teachers divide the students at risk of not achieving the national knowledge requirements in a variety of categories: lazy and comfortable, afraid, uninterested, language difficulties and physiological and or psychological reasons. The investigation shows that the teacher reasons differently about the education depending on which category the student belongs to. Throughout the investigation the student’s attendance levels are important in relation to how the teachers categorize and thereafter treat the students. The investigation also highlights that the teacher does not have all the power when it comes to the assessment and grading of these students. The teachers have to relate to other discourses like the discourse of management influence, the discourse of student influence and to some extent the discourse of parental influence. These three discourses find themselves in a struggle with the discourse of teacher influence about the power over the assessment and grading.

Since 2006 Swedish compulsory school teachers are required to use individual developmentplans (IDPs) as part of their assessment practices. The IDP has developed through two major reforms and is currently about to undergo a third in which requirements for documentation are to be reduced. The original purpose of IDP was formative: a document containing targets and strategies for the student's future learning was to be drawn up at the parent-pupil-teacher meetingeach semester. The 2008 reform added requirements for written summative assessments/grade-like symbols to be used in the plan. This thesis aims to generate knowledge of the IDP as a tool in terms of what characterizes IDP documents as well as teachers' descriptions of continuous IDP work. It contains four articles. The first two are based on 379 collected IDP documents from all stages of compulsoryschool, and the last two build on interviews with 15 teachers. Throughout, qualitative content analysis has been used for processing data. The analytical framework comprises Latour's conceptual pair inscription – translation, Wartofsky's notions of primary/secondary/tertiary artifacts, and Wertsch's distinction between mastery and appropriation, which together provide an overall framework for understanding how the IDP becomes a contextually shaped tool that mediates teachers' actions in practice. Moreover, the activity theoretical concept of contradictionis used to understand and discuss dilemmas teachers experience in relation to IDP. In article 1, targets and strategies for future learning given to students are investigated and discussed in relation to definitions of formative assessment. Concepts were derived from the data and used for creating a typology of target and strategy types related either to being aspects (students' behavior/attitudes/personalities) or to subject matter learning. In article 2, the distribution of being and learning targets to boys and girls, respectively, is investigated. The results point to a significant gendered difference in the distribution of being targets. Possible reasons for the gendered distribution are discussed from a doing-gender perspective, and the proportion of being targets in IDPs is discussed from an assessment validity point of view. In article 3, teachers' continuous work with IDPs is explored, and it is suggested that IDP work develops in relation to perceived purposes and the contextual conditions framing teachers' work. Three qualitatively different ways of perceiving and working with IDP are described in a typology. Article 4 elaborates on dilemmas that teachers experience in relation to IDP, concerning time, communication, and assessment. A tentative categorization of dilemma management strategies is also presented. Results are synthesized in the final part of the thesis, where the ways in which documents are written and IDP work is carried out are discussed as being shaped in the intersection between rules and guidelines at national, municipal and local school level, and companies creating solutions for IDP documentation. Various purposes are to be achieved with the help of the IDP, which makes it a potential field of tension that is not always easy for teachers to navigate. Several IDP-related difficulties, but also opportunities and affordances, are visualized in the studies of this thesis. / <p>Svensk sammanfattning: s. 111-126.</p>

Many educators are experiencing challenges in educating autistic learners, with the media reporting incidents of autistic learners being denied access to their local schools. This case study investigated how effective the TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication Handicapped Children) model is, in helping autistic learners to learn in an inclusive environment. The data collection instrumentsused included a literature review, questionnaires, interviews and artefacts. The collected data were analysed statistically, and descriptively. It seems as if there is perception that autism is increasing. Teachers need to be taught about full support mechanisms to deal with the challenges of teaching autistic learners. The research revealed that teachers were struggling to implement the TEACCH program owing to a lack of support programs for teachers, as well as a lack of continued use by other teachers. It was revealed that the teachers felt that for intervention programs to be successful, autistic learners should learn separately. / Inclusive Education / M. Ed. (Inclusive Education)

Maria Montessori's work was initiated in 1898 as a result of her becoming acutely aware of deficient children's learning patterns, while working at the Psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome. The principles which dominate the system, however, did not ·'"spring in full panoply from Montessori. Indeed, her inspiration came largely from early and mid-nineteenth century writings of two French physicians, Itard and Seguin, who were Also involved in the teaching of deficient children. Extending on the ideas of these two educator-physicians, as well as the ideas of Froebe!, Montessori innovatively brought the child's senses into contact with carefully selected didactic apparatus in a carefully structured and ordered environment. According to Montessori, the liberty of the child is a prerequisite for self-education and forms the first major pillar of her didactic theory, and thus becomes the focus of the first chapter dealing with her didactic approach (chapter three) • Montessori believed that the function of education was to assist growth and if the individual child was given the liberty of movement within a prepared environment, a sense of competence would be achieved and the learning of the child would come about almost spontaneously. The principles of individuality and the training of the senses comprise the other two pillars, and form the basis for chapter four and five respectively. The principle of individuality is rooted in the belief that each child has a uniqueness which cannot be ignored without irretrievable damage to his personality. The current educational situation in South Africa, reveals a diversity of educational problems as a result of different ethnic and cultural groups all being thrust into a common educational system. The insidious pressures of conformity to a single standard of education must of necessity lead to a compromise of '"standards. The exposure of educational deficiencies inherent in such a move is characterised by learning impediments and deficiencies in the educational scenario. Research has therefore been undertaken in an attempt to extract those aspects that could provide meaningful pedagogic assistance to meet a present educational need. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (History of Education)

The diploma thesis is devoted to the inclusive education of pupils in the conditions of the Czech Republic and a comparison of approach to inclusive education with neighboring countries at primary and secondary education. The theoretical part defines the concepts and describes the system of inclusive education, including the diagnosis of pupils with special educational needs in our country and also in selected Western countries. The empirical part is based on a questionnaire survey. The respondents are teachers and assistants of special schools, teachers and assistants of mainstream schools and parents of pupils. The aim of the research presented in the empirical part is to find out what expectations from inclusion have its individual actors, for which pupils with special educational needs is the inclusion suitable, and what are the crucial criteria of success in inclusion according to selected groups of respondents.