Pre-service education students’ application of visualisation strategies to solve mathematical word-problems

This classroom-based action research dissertation examined visualisation strategies used by pre-service Intermediate Phase PGCE education students to solve mathematical word-problems. The setting was an Eastern Cape university. Previous literature indicated a positive correlation between the use of visual scaffolds and success in solving word problems. However, a gap was found insofar as little research had been published on the application of visualisation to word-problems by student teachers in South Africa. This thesis advances our understanding of the role visualisation may play in assisting student teachers to solve word-problems. The theoretic framework was informed by Bruner’s theory of learning. The research was grounded in the hermeneutic tradition. An interpretivist research paradigm was expedited by using an inductive, naturalistic perspective and relativist ontology. Thirtyeight student-teachers participated in the study. Parallel and convergent qualitative and quantitative data gathering instruments were used, thereby facilitating triangulation and examination for microgenesis. It was found that vestiges of past teaching practices initially limited the participants’ knowledge to a deeply-flawed, banking model of routines and an instrumental perception of mathematics. Disruptive calls for social justice impeded progress. Albeit visualisation strategies liberated understanding, many foundational concepts and skills had to be reconstructed. The confluence of time and rehearsal culminated in some measure of expertise. Sustained effort enabled new knowledge to be compressed and consigned to long-term memory. Salient visual representations assisted participants to conceptualise relational mathematical metaconcepts and reduced the cognitive demands imposed by word-problems but that achievement was a hard-won prize

Educating adolescents towards spiritual intelligence

A critical evaluation of the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) was undertaken to uncover strategies for infusing values across the curricula – values that may facilitate the development of spiritual intelligence (SQ) in adolescents. A literature study was conducted to determine whether SQ may be harnessed to cultivate values within an educational context. In addition, moral and spiritual development in adolescence was explored and a case made for values-education. An empirical investigation was undertaken using both a qualitative research design and semi-structured interviews. A purposive sample was used comprising 14 education specialists, principals and Life Orientation teachers from six secondary schools in Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces. The most important finding was the fact that values-education in the NCS was problematic. The conclusion was thus drawn that teachers should be trained to incorporate values within curriculum activities − values that could engender SQ and, thus, address the moral dilemmas in our schools.Psychology of EducationM. Ed. (Psychology of Education

European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN). Conference Proceedings

Erasmus+ Programme of the European UnionThe powerful combination of the information age and the consequent disruption caused by these unstable environments provides the impetus to look afresh and identify new models and approaches for education (e.g. OERs, MOOCs, PLEs, Learning Analytics etc.). For learners this has taken a fantastic leap into aggregating, curating and co-curating and co-producing outside the boundaries of formal learning environments – the networked learner is sharing voluntarily and for free, spontaneously with billions of people.Supported by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Unioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A COMPARISON BETWEEN MOTIVATIONS AND PERSONALITY TRAITS IN RELIGIOUS TOURISTS AND CRUISE SHIP TOURISTS

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the motivations and the personality traits that characterize tourists who choose religious travels versus cruises. Participating in the research were 683 Italian tourists (345 males and 338 females, age range 18–63 years); 483 who went to a pilgrimage travel and 200 who chose a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea. Both groups of tourists completed the Travel Motivation Scale and the Big Five Questionnaire. Results show that different motivations and personality traits characterize the different types of tourists and, further, that motivations for traveling are predicted by specific —some similar, other divergent— personality trait

Music Learning with Massive Open Online Courses

Steels, Luc et al.-- Editors: Luc SteelsMassive Open Online Courses, known as MOOCs, have arisen as the logical consequence of marrying long-distance education with the web and social media. MOOCs were confidently predicted by advanced thinkers decades ago. They are undoubtedly here to stay, and provide a valuable resource for learners and teachers alike. This book focuses on music as a domain of knowledge, and has three objectives: to introduce the phenomenon of MOOCs; to present ongoing research into making MOOCs more effective and better adapted to the needs of teachers and learners; and finally to present the first steps towards 'social MOOCs’, which support the creation of learning communities in which interactions between learners go beyond correcting each other's assignments. Social MOOCs try to mimic settings for humanistic learning, such as workshops, small choirs, or groups participating in a Hackathon, in which students aided by somebody acting as a tutor learn by solving problems and helping each other. The papers in this book all discuss steps towards social MOOCs; their foundational pedagogy, platforms to create learning communities, methods for assessment and social feedback and concrete experiments. These papers are organized into five sections: background; the role of feedback; platforms for learning communities; experiences with social MOOCs; and looking backwards and looking forward. Technology is not a panacea for the enormous challenges facing today's educators and learners, but this book will be of interest to all those striving to find more effective and humane learning opportunities for a larger group of students.Funded by the European Commission's OpenAIRE2020 project.Peer reviewe

Proceedings of the Seventh Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education

International audienceThis volume contains the Proceedings of the Seventh Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (ERME), which took place 9-13 February 2011, at Rzeszñw in Poland

Research on Teaching and Learning In Biology, Chemistry and Physics In ESERA 2013 Conference

This paper provides an overview of the topics in educational research that were published in the ESERA 2013 conference proceedings. The aim of the research was to identify what aspects of the teacher-student-content interaction were investigated frequently and what have been studied rarely. We used the categorization system developed by Kinnunen, Lampiselkä, Malmi and Meisalo (2016) and altogether 184 articles were analyzed. The analysis focused on secondary and tertiary level biology, chemistry, physics, and science education. The results showed that most of the studies focus on either the teacher’s pedagogical actions or on the student - content relationship. All other aspects were studied considerably less. For example, the teachers’ thoughts about the students’ perceptions and attitudes towards the goals and the content, and the teachers’ conceptions of the students’ actions towards achieving the goals were studied only rarely. Discussion about the scope and the coverage of the research in science education in Europe is needed.Peer reviewe

Redefining interaction in open and distance learning with reference to teacher education programmes in the University of the West Indies

This study was undertaken to serve two purposes. At a theoretical level, it was undertaken to review the concept of interaction in open and distance learning (ODL).The decision to conduct this review grew out of a concern that the current dominant approach to the study of teaching and learning in ODL was focusing on social interaction. This was regarded as a restricted interpretation of the concept, hence the decision to review and revise.At a subsidiary level, the study was aimed at examining teaching and learning in the current teacher education programmes of the University of the West Indies This aspect of the study was undertaken in light of the university's proposed expansion of these offerings in the distance mode. The concept of interaction was seen as the appropriate context for undertaking this examination.Based on a review of the literature, a revised concept of interaction was developed,embodying three separate, yet interrelated types, namely social interaction, leamer media interaction and learner-knowledge interaction. In developing this concept,attention was also paid to the part played by power relations and knowledge from external sources in the functioning of the concept's component parts. It is this reformulated concept that provided the theoretical framework for the examination of the teacher education programmes mentioned above.A research programme comprising two sub-studies was designed and implemented.The first sub-study was an exploratory survey based on selected attributes of social interaction and designed to examine student teachers' perception of their experience as learners. The second was an observation study based on the principles of leamer knowledge interaction and aimed at investigating student-teachers' knowledge-building processes as these revealed themselves within the interpersonal interaction of teachers and learners in an audio-conferencing environment.A key feature of the observation study was the design and implementation of an interpretive framework to guide data analysis. The framework was developed out of the data themselves and comprised two sets of interrelated categories, the one classifying knowledge-building activities and the other, control management functions. Extended data analysis drew on selected aspects of discourse analysis and specifically on the work of Fairclough (1989, 1992) and Potter and Wetherell (1987).The findings derived from the two sub-studies underscored the essential thesis of this study that interaction in distance education is best viewed as a multifaceted phenomenon, and that there is a functional interrelationship among the constituent parts of the concept.The research programme also confirmed the constructivist thesis that people construct rather than acquire knowledge. At the same time, the findings seem to indicate that the imbalance in the power relations between teachers and learners can hinder learners' capability to derive meaning from their learning. The findings also suggest that student-teachers are ambivalent about their roles as learners and that this ambivalence seems, at times, to be reflected in the attempts they make to gain control of the teaching learning situation and to direct their knowledge-building activities.The study proposes specific areas of further research, including a follow-up study to test and refine the interpretive framework used in the observation study, and another to assess the validity of the three-part concept of interaction formulated in this work