A Comparison of the Results of Turkey in the 2003-2006-2009 Pisa Exams According to Geographical Regions and Type of Schools

AbstractNowadays, because of the globalization and the recent developments with in the educational systems, in Middle, South and North American, East Asian and North African and the European Union member countries, tests, such as PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS, are administered to assess the achievement of the students at international level. This research is limited to only PISA, and the research question can be stated as “what is the general situation in Turkey according to PISA, 2003-2006-2009 exams results?” The results and recommendations are provided in the full text

A Study on the Opinions of Class Teachers Regarding Their Proficiencies in Using Thinking Skills

Thinking is a highly complex process. Thinking skills include important skills such as problem solving, decision making, critical thinking and creative thinking. The necessity for individuals to be equipped with these skills in order to cope with problems in life and to arrange their lives according to their needs has become the subject of studies in the field of education in recent years. Educational systems seek to find ways to equip individuals with these skills. However, in the Turkish Education System, students are mostly engaged in a teaching activity to transfer the information taught without thinking on it, from primary school to university. Observations suggest that students make learning in this way become a habit and avoid situations that require them to think on their own. In this sense, the problem continues to grow and establish roots until university. In university, it is important that teacher candidates demonstrate the expected performance in their thinking activities, because a teacher who has the responsibility to develop thinking skills must have already developed his / her own thinking skills. ​The main question here is: How do teacher candidates assess their proficiency levels in thinking skills?​ Do teacher candidates' thinking skill proficiencies differ according to different variables?​ The purpose of this research, which is planned to find the answers to these questions, is to examine the opinions of class teachers regarding their proficiencies in thinking skills according to different variables. In this study, screening model was used and "Personal Information Form" along with "Questionnaire for Class Teacher Candidates' Opinions Regarding Their Proficiencies In Using Thinking Skills" were used as data collection tools.  The sample of the study was composed of 280 teacher candidates, chosen with convenience sampling in a Basic Education Department of a state university in Istanbul. Results obtained from the data analyzed by performing the necessary statistical procedures were as follows: Thinking skill proficiencies of teacher candidates were slightly above the average. While these proficiencies do not differ according to gender and parental education status, they do differ according to the variables of age, class and book reading frequency. Keywords: Thinking, thinking skills, class teacher candidat

Preservice elementary teachers’ perceptions of their self-efficacy in teaching thinking skills

AbstractPreservice teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching the thinking skills included in the curriculum is important to the achievement of objectives. What are the self-efficacy levels of preservice teachers in teaching thinking skills? The present study aims to determine the self-efficacy of preservice teachers in this area. The study is of a descriptive nature and uses the survey model. The study sample consists of a total of 263 third and fourth-year students from Marmara University, Atatürk Education Faculty, Elementary Teacher Education Department. The scale used in the study had been developed for Tebbs’ PhD dissertation entitled “Assessing Teachers’ Self-Efficacy towards Teaching Thinking Skills” and was adapted into Turkish by Kaya (2008). The data were analyzed by using arithmetic means, standard deviation, independent samples t- test, analysis of variance, and Pearson product-moment correlation analysis

Evaluation of the primary school level students’ attitudes towards mobile phones

AbstractThe main issue of this study on the usage of mobile phones at the primary school level can be expressed as: “How do the primary school students evaluate mobile phone usage?” The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a differentiation in the primary students’ approach towards mobile phone usage according to their personal characteristics. The sample group of this stusy in which the surveying method was utilized, is 365 5th grade students studying in six different primary schools. Data gathering tools are the “Personal Information Form” and the “Mobile Phone Usage Awareness Scale.” The KMO value of the scale has been determined to be .748 and p<0.001 The gathered data has been analysed with the frequency, percentage, t-test, unilateral variance analysis and post-hoc scheffe tests

An Example of Decentralized Management in Education: Provincial Directory Model

In Turkey, two types of administrative structures existed in the fields of National Education: “the central” and “provincial” institutions. However, between 1926-1931, the Locality model was implemented. Locality can be considered as a local administration formed in the provincial organization of the Ministry of Education by the law number 1834 between the years 1926–1931. Within this arrangement, the provincial structure of Turkey was divided into 13 provincial regions. In every provincial region, there was one administrator called “emin[1]” equipped with extensive responsibilities. Then, there was one director of education under the supervision of the emin and other sub-units enabling the implementation of provincial directory. In the “Provincial Directory Model”, “The Decentralized Administration” problems could be solved more efficiently, time and resources could be saved by the “Local Directory” within the authorization of emin without consulting the center. Following 1931, this model was rejected without any logical reasons and “the centralized model”, which is still being implemented, has emerged. In this model, the expenses of labor, resources and time have been increasing as the problems arising in the province are attempted to be solved in the center. [1]Emin means director

Global Optimization by Basin-Hopping and the Lowest Energy Structures of Lennard-Jones Clusters Containing up to 110 Atoms

We describe a global optimization technique using `basin-hopping' in which the potential energy surface is transformed into a collection of interpenetrating staircases. This method has been designed to exploit the features which recent work suggests must be present in an energy landscape for efficient relaxation to the global minimum. The transformation associates any point in configuration space with the local minimum obtained by a geometry optimization started from that point, effectively removing transition state regions from the problem. However, unlike other methods based upon hypersurface deformation, this transformation does not change the global minimum. The lowest known structures are located for all Lennard-Jones clusters up to 110 atoms, including a number that have never been found before in unbiased searches.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, revte

Identifying Molecular Markers Suitable For Frl Selection in Tomato Breeding

Modern plant breeding heavily relies on the use of molecular markers. In recent years, next generation sequencing (NGS) emerged as a powerful technology to discover DNA sequence polymorphisms and generate molecular markers very rapidly and cost effectively, accelerating the plant breeding programmes. A single dominant locus, Frl, in tomato provides resistance to the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. radicis-lycopersici (FORL), causative agent of Fusarium crown and root rot. In this study, we describe the generation of molecular markers associated with the Frl locus. An F2 mapping population between an FORL resistant and a susceptible cultivar was generated. NGS technology was then used to sequence the genomes of a susceptible and a resistant parent as well the genomes of bulked resistant and susceptible F2 lines. We zoomed into the Frl locus and mapped the locus to a 900 kb interval on chromosome 9. Polymorphic single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the interval were identified and markers co-segregating with the resistant phenotype were generated. Some of these markers were tested successfully with commercial tomato varieties indicating that they can be used for marker-assisted selection in large-scale breeding programmes

A MAC Mode for Lightweight Block Ciphers

status: accepte

Reduced Expression of Fumarate Hydratase in Clear Cell Renal Cancer Mediates HIF-2α Accumulation and Promotes Migration and Invasion

Germline mutations of FH, the gene that encodes for the tricarboxylic acid TCA (TCA) cycle enzyme fumarate hydratase, are associated with an inherited form of cancer referred to as Hereditary Leiomyomatosis and Renal Cell Cancer (HLRCC). Individuals with HLRCC are predisposed to the development of highly malignant and lethal renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The mechanisms of tumorigenesis proposed have largely focused on the biochemical consequences of loss of FH enzymatic activity. While loss of the tumor suppressor gene von Hippel Lindau (VHL) is thought to be an initiating event for the majority of RCCs, a role for FH in sporadic renal cancer has not been explored. Here we report that FH mRNA and protein expression are reduced in clear cell renal cancer, the most common histologic variant of kidney cancer. Moreover, we demonstrate that reduced FH leads to the accumulation of hypoxia inducible factor- 2α (HIF-2α), a transcription factor known to promote renal carcinogenesis. Finally, we demonstrate that overexpression of FH in renal cancer cells inhibits cellular migration and invasion. These data provide novel insights into the tumor suppressor functions of FH in sporadic kidney cancer