The purposes of the study were: (1) to examine the perceptions superintendents, principals, and teachers have relative to the utilization of scheduled preparation time; (2) to determine if teachers with more experience had a different perception of the utilization of scheduled teacher preparation time than less experienced teachers; (3) to determine if teachers had a preference when the preparation was scheduled; and (4) to determine if the use of preparation time for people interaction, preparation and planning tasks, administrative tasks, personal and co-educational tasks were perceived in the same way by superintendents, principals, and teachers.The preparation period is one of the standards used by the North Central Association for secondary school accreditation. The preparation period was recognized as a part of the teaching -load, was strongly recommended for each teacher, wan included in each teacher's schedule, and had to be included within the six-hour day.In order to compare perceptions of superintendents, principals, and teachers relative to utilization of preparation period, a questionnaire was developed for the study. In final form, the questionnaire was comprised of 34 items. Demographic data were also obtained from each group of respondents. A total of 1227 questionnaires was mailed. There were 975 usable questionnaires returned.The population comprised 50 Indiana secondary schools accredited by the North Central Association; the superintendents of each school corporation in which the 50 schools were located; the principals of each of the 50 schools; and 40 per cent of the teachers selected at random from each school. The 50 schools, located in 42 school corporations, were randomly selected from the official NCA roster of accredited secondary schools.The hypotheses for the study were stated in null form to facilitate testing and statistical treatment. For each population sample (superintendents, principals, and teachers) an absolute frequency was computed for questionnaire responses. Utilizing the absolute frequency, the median test and relative frequency was computed. The chisquare test was used to determine the level of significance. The hypotheses were rejected above the .05 level of significance. Each hypothesis had five sub-parts. The acceptance or nonacceptance of the hypotheses was determined by the statistical significance of three of the five subparts.The study indicated most secondary teachers have assigned preparation time. From the 892 teacher questionnaires, two teachers indicated they did not have a preparation period. It can be concluded that guidelines have been established for teacher scheduled preparation time within the school day.To meet the needs of students, scheduled teacher preparation time should be within the school day. A vast majority of teachers utilized preparation time for students to make up tests, for students enrolled in independent study, and for student conferences. This requires the student to be in attendance and if all preparation time was before or after school, student attendance would be more difficult to attain.The data revealed a considerable range in the perceptions of superintendents, principals, and teachers in the utilization of preparation time for instructional and non-instructional responsibilities, but it can be concluded tasks related to students and instructional procedures were utilized the most often.Hall monitoring, lunch room supervision, extra curricular activities, and publications do not utilize a significant portion of teacher preparation time. Superintendents and school boards have provided for teacher preparation time free from monitoring non-instructional activities.

This thesis reports on an Action Research case study into the teaching of comprehension strategies to Grade 8 learners in a rural high school in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The learners in this study, who were studying English as an additional language, experienced difficulties in comprehending English text. A series of six lessons were designed to teach comprehension strategies to improve the learners' performance in reading comprehension. The purpose of the intervention was to equip the learners with skills that would enable them to improve their reading comprehension and evaluate their effectiveness as readers. The intervention was also intended to assess my teaching, which was challenged by the need to deal with learners' poor levels of reading comprehension. The data was collected using the following research techniques: interviews, questionnaires, non-participant observation, learners' and researcher's journals, document analysis The data analysis revealed that a lack of resources to learn English; limited English language due to lack of exposure; and learners' lack of foundational knowledge from their primary schools were barriers to the successful teaching of comprehension strategies. Despite such barriers, however, this research provides evidence that teaching comprehension strategies can be effective if it is taught systematically, and applied continuously. Personally, I learnt that I had to modify my methods of teaching due to the response of learners to the lessons taught.

The results reported here are the product of the research titled: Using history in the teaching of mathematics. The subjects are students in two classes of algebra II course at Florida State University High School-- 36 students-- makes and females whose ages are mostly 18 and a few 17 and 16 years old. Algebra II is a course that is usually taken by high school seniors in 12th grade and a few 11th or 10th grade students which explains why the ages of the students are mostly 18 and a few 17 and 16 years old. In this investigation, both quantitative study and qualitative study were employed. The quantitative study was the main study-- a teaching experiment using quasi-experimental methodology that involves two groups-- group 1 and group 2. Group 1 is the control group, where various algebraic/mathematical concepts, or topics were taught or explained to students with the necessary formulas. Group 2 was the experimental group in which the accounts of the historical origin of algebraic/mathematical concepts and the mathematicians (Lewis Carroll, Archimedes, Pythagoras, and Sophie Germain) who brought forward or created the concepts were used to augment pedagogical lessons and exercises used for this study as the main feature of pedagogy. The qualitative study augmented the main quantitative study; it was a follow-up interview for students to probe further an in-depth rationale for the research theme, using history in the teaching of mathematics. The statistical analysis results indicated that there is a significant difference in the mean of score for the control group students and the mean of scores of the experimental group is greater than the mean on scores of student's performance in the control group; and the interview questions responses indeed corroborate the fact that the use of history in teaching mathematics does improve learning and understanding of algebraic/mathematical concepts. / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy." / Advisors: Elizabeth Jakubowski, Herbert Wills III, Professors Co-Directing Dissertation. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-205).

D.Litt. et Phil. (Applied Linguistics & Literary Theory) / In this thesis I wish to state the case for, and argue the merits of, the teaching of literature as an independent subject, in standards 6 to 10, in South African high schools. I shall therefore discuss the relevant sections of the Department of Education and Culture Core Syllabi for English Second Language and for English First Language Higher Grade for Standards 8, 9 and 10. These are the syllabi on which all present departments of education base their teaching and prescription of set works and the core syllabi also represent (being for the senior standards and the Higher Grade) the highest requirements set for English Second Language and for English 2First Language in South Africa. I shall also briefly discuss the Province of Cape of Good Hope Core Syllabus for English Literature, Standard Grade, Standards 8, 9, & 10 and the Province of Cape of Good Hope Kernsillabus vir Afrikaanse Letterkunde Standaardgraad, Standerds 8- 10. (While this thesis argues mainly from the point of view of English Second Language, the Kernsillabus vir Afrikaanse Letterkunde is included, because, at the moment, it is one of the only two literature syllabi available in South Africa.) From these syllabi I shall extract the present philosophy underlying the teaching of literature, and proceed to various purposes that can be served by literature as subject and I shall propose aims, learning content, prescribed material, methodology and testing methods for such teaching, because I believe that literature is enriching and: "Enrichment programs should be an organic part of the formal curriculum, not », optional extramural activities" (Mphahlele, 1990: 46).

Playing video games are meant to be a fun experience but something that has been proven to ruin the experience are cheaters, maybe even more so in events such as tournaments where money is involved. Even if anti-cheating software exists there also exists a research gap in the subject of cheat detection. And regarding cheat detection the question that matters the most is: how do you even detect a player that is using 3rd-party software to gain an unfair advantage in online video games? To find a solution for this problem a systematic literature review was made were data was extracted from articles relevant for the subject and summarised into results. From the results, a few elementary concepts regarding cheat detection are introduced and analysed with comparisons to the problem statement. Finally, five different types of cheat detection are shown that work by analysing objects such as behaviour, game state or memory.

The literature review shows that student alternative conceptions or misconceptions are important for teaching and learning. Causes of such student difficulties may include the counter-intuitive nature of some chemistry concepts or to instruction itself. However, over 30 years research into student conceptual difficulties has had little impact on teaching and learning chemistry. In this study, a critical analysis and synthesis of published research into student conceptions in acid-base chemistry was carried out in the naturalist nomothetic paradigm using a constructivist framework. Historical models which were included were an operational macroscopic model and the theoretical Arrhenius and Brønsted models. Firstly, a comprehensive search strategy with defined inclusion/exclusion criteria identified 42 suitable reports which were mostly peer-reviewed. The identified research was not limited to Anglophone countries although Africa and South America were underrepresented and research among secondary students predominated. Then a critique of the research showed it was of variable quality and often poorly reported. An outcome was a set of guidelines for research into student conceptions. The variable quality and reporting of research then also necessitated a four-level framework to reflect the stability of descriptions of student difficulties. A new method for synthesis of descriptions of student conceptual difficulties was developed which entailed mapping qualitative data on the difficulties, which had been extracted from research publications, to propositional knowledge statements derived in this study. This was an iterative process which simultaneously honed descriptions of difficulties and illuminated propositional knowledge implicated in them. The second major outcome was synthesized descriptions of 10 student difficulties with acid-base species, 26 difficulties with acid-base properties and 17 difficulties concerning terminology and symbolism particular to acid-base chemistry. Some conceptions were also found to have been mis-reported as ‘misconceptions’. The difficulties could be broadly due to student conceptions concerning acid-base models, or students not relating empirical observations to theoretical models or their poor understanding of underlying chemical principles. Some difficulties were found to have been over-researched, while further work was needed to clarify the nature some difficulties with conceptions of bases, acid-base reactions, and symbolism used in acid-base chemistry. The third major outcome from the synthesis was 218 propositional knowledge statements which were shown to be suitable for teaching high-school students, avoided hybrid historical models and were acceptable to expert chemists. These propositional statements were integrated as a set of 11 concept maps. The maps showed the hierarchy and interconnectedness of concepts as well as the propositional links which had been implicated in the difficulties. Furthermore the concept maps indicated critical concepts where teaching in each topic should focus as well as cross-linked concepts that can be used to integrate different aspects of the topic. Accordingly they contribute to PCK in the acidbase topic as they represent the fine-grained yet well integrated conceptual knowledge characteristic of a teacher with highly developed PCK. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

This study investigated the experiences of four participating student teachers in using multiple representative approaches in the teaching of Grade 6 proportion word problems. The multiple representative approaches include the Between Comparison Method, the Within Comparison Method, the Diagrammatic Method, the Table Method, the Graph Method, the Cross-product Method, and the Oral Informal Method. An intervention programme was organised, using workshops where student teachers were prepared to teach Grade 6 proportion word problems using multiple representative approaches. The teaching practice lessons of the four participating student teachers in two primary schools were video recorded, and the focus group interview was conducted at the University Campus. With the exception of the Graph Method and the Cross-product Method, it was revealed that the multiple representative approaches were generally effective in the teaching of Grade 6 proportion word problems. The study further revealed that multiplicative relationships can be explored through using the different individual representative approaches. The study argues that the cross-product method is not the only way to teach Grade 6 proportion word problems. There are multiple representative approaches that should be used in conjunction with each other to enhance the teaching of proportion word problems. Furthermore, this study revealed that a number of challenges were encountered when using multiple representative approaches. The challenges include difficulties with the English language, different and unique abilities of the learners, lack of plotting skills and the lack of proficiency in the learners’ multiplication and division skills. This study made recommendations on the integration of multiple representative approaches in the mathematics education curriculum and textbooks. It further recommended that in-service workshops for teachers and student teachers on the integration of multiple representative approaches in the teaching of Grade 6 proportion word problems should be initiated.

A research report submitted to the Wits School of Education and the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science by combination of coursework and research. Johannesburg, 5 June 2017 / This research report focussed on the teaching of the function concept directed at the errors the learners make as well as the misconceptions which could be associated with those errors. The study was conducted at a secondary school in Johannesburg, South Africa. This was a qualitative error analysis study which also had a form of interventional or remedial teaching. The research was driven by the following research questions: (1) What errors and misconceptions do grade 11 learners show on functions?, (2) What learning affordances and constraints can be created if teaching is directed at learners’ errors and misconceptions? and, (3) To what extent can the learners’ achievement on the topic functions be boosted if teaching is directed at learners’ errors and misconceptions? The study used a purposive sample of six grade 11 mathematics learners from a group of 34 learners. To answer these questions, I structured the study to encompass numerous phases of data collection using different instruments. Firstly, I constructed a test instrument and used it on this group of grade 11 learners. These learners had been taught functions earlier in the year, so the test was diagnostic to measure the cognitive levels of the learner on the concept and also to establish the errors made and misconceptions they carried onto the section from other sections or picked up from the function concept. The study was mainly based on the constructivism theory of learning and teaching, but also had other theories to link to it such at the socio-cultural theory, the APOS (actions, process, object and schema) theory, the concept image and concept definition as well as the variation theory. The errors I picked up from the pre-test I classified and analysed using the conceptual framework grounded on the abovementioned theories. It was this analysis which enabled me to structure the desired intervention program together with the teacher after which I conducted a post-test with the subjects. Other forms of data collection such as the interview and observation were employed during the study. I used the interview to get clarity from the learners’ pre-test questions responses, whilst the observation I used during the intervention lessons the teacher had with the learners. Indeed the findings were that, while there was a substantial improvement on learner performance on the post-test, it appeared clearly that cognitive levels of the learners on the function concept had been enhanced. This improvement of performance was a result of the teaching that was directed at the errors, which also interprets to having created a favourable environment which could be interpreted as learning affordances to boost the learners’ understanding of the function concept. / LG2017

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1964.

Much prior research has shown that if students have a poor command of the language in which they are taught and assessed, they experience a complex and deep learning disadvantage (Barton & Neville-Barton, 2003). Abedi (2006) mentions, in particular, that unnecessary linguistic complexity can threaten the validity of examination items and thus compromises the fairness of the assessment for English language learners. In Clarkson’s (1991, p. 31) research it was found that for the English language learners in the study “comprehension errors [made] up a high proportion of the errors made when…students attempt[ed] to solve mathematical word problems”. In an attempt to explore whether this was the case for a group of National Certificate (Vocational) [NC(V)] students at an FET college, the research conducted in this study focused on describing the cognitive and linguistic complexity of Level 4 Mathematical Literacy examination items as well as the types of responses from a sample of students. A mixed-methods case study design was selected. Student errors were classified as either due to mathematical literacy-related sources, or language-related sources and the question was asked as to how the cognitive and linguistic complexity of items might be related to the types of errors made. Statistically significant correlations were found between the linguistic complexity of items and language-related errors, and between the cognitive complexity of items and all types of errors. It was also possible to identify which language features, in particular, were statistically significantly correlated with linguistic complexity, namely: prepositional phrases; words of 7 letters or more and complex/compound sentences. As was expected, the majority of errors were categorised as mathematical literacy-related. However, as many as 19.22% of all errors made were identified as language-related. While the scope of the study prevents any generalisations from being made, the results indicate a need for a larger-scale study of this nature to determine if the complex and deep learning disadvantage mentioned by Barton and Neville-Barton (2003) does exist with regard to the assessment of Mathematical Literacy for NC(V) students who are English language learners (Barton & Neville-Barton, 2003).