An Investigation of Safety Precautions in Primary School Environment in Bayelsa State, Nigeria

This research investigated the availability of safety precautions and the problems associated with safety in schools using some selected primary schools in Bayelsa State, Nigeria as case study. Consent letters and methodology of selection of participants were sent to schools to solicit willingness to be involved in the study. The population of the study comprises of 631 primary school teachers teaching in the 62 primary schools in a Local Education Authority in Bayelsa State. 210 out of the 631 teachers were randomly selected using the staff nominal roll and selecting every 5th name. The design of the study was a descriptive survey design. Four research questions were posited for the study ranging from security measures, conditions of school buildings, sources of water supply and its availability and the likely safety problems in the participating schools. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire developed by the researcher and validated by experts in measurement and evaluation. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient of 0.78 was realized using test retest method of testing reliability. The findings revealed that there are no security measures in place in the participating primary schools. Most of the school buildings are dilapidated and the classrooms furniture are death traps. The finding of this study shows a gross neglect of safety in the school. Also, there are no regular visitations by the ministry of education to schools to ascertain the nature of safety precautions in the schools. It was therefore recommended that safety measures should be put in place for staff and pupils safety. Such safety measures should be in the form of installation of surveillance cameras in strategic places, provision of firefighting equipments, engaging professional security personnel among others. Keywords: Safety, precaution, primary school, Nigeria, school environmen

EMPIRICAL EVALUATION OF CLINICAL SUPERVISION MODEL OF SUPERVISING PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS

There are few empirical evidences of the effectiveness of the various teaching practice supervision models. This study is aimed to add to the dearth of empirical evidences of effectiveness of teaching practice supervision model by evaluating the clinical supervision model. Clinical supervision is a method of supervision whereby the supervisor is involved with the pre-service-teacher in a close, ‘helping, relationship’. Essentially, clinical supervision in education involves a teacher trainee receiving information from a supervisor who has observed the teacher trainee’s performance and who serves as both a mirror and a sounding board to enable the teacher trainee critically examine and possibly alter his/her own professional practice. Within the context of such supervision, ideas are shared and help is given in order to improve the teacher trainee’s ability through the analysis of objective data that is collected during the observation.  Article visualizations

A Comparison of Adolescents Consumption of Micro and Macro Nutrient Rich Foods

The study involves a comparison of pupils' consumption of macro and micro nutrient rich food as well as healthy and less healthy snacks after being exposed to a teaching model on balanced diet developed by the researcher which takes into cognisance pupils' prior knowledge of healthy eating. Healthy snacks are snacks that are low in fat and sugar while less healthy snacks are snacks that are high in fat and sugar. The study was carried out in Britain, United Kingdom in summer term of 2007. Participants were year 7 pupils of Ceredigion Local Education Authority in rural Mid-Wales, they were requested to fill-in a Food Diary of food consumed at breakfast, lunch and dinner times including mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks for five days (Thursday to Monday). This is to include both food consumed at home at weekend as well as school meals consumed at school during weekdays. There was evidence of increase of consumption of healthy snack as well as the consumption of macro nutrients (carbohydrate, fat and protein) and micro nutrients (vitamin, mineral and fibre); all six classes of food that makes up a balanced diet [1] after the intervention compared to before the intervention, although the rate of increase in the consumption of micro nutrient was not statistically significant compared to the increased in the consumption of macro nutrient. This study revealed that though the teaching model was able to alter eating behaviour in the desired direction of healthy eating which is the consumption of micro nutrient. More has to be done to encourage adolescents to consume more vitamin, mineral and fibre rich food items

Determining Pre-Service Business Education Teachers’ SelfReliance Levels In Pedagogical Content Knowledge In Kogi State, Nigeria

With the new normal occasioned by advancement in technology and impact of COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigated business teachers’ self-reliance levels on technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). This study investigated preservice business education teachers’ ratings of self-reliance level in pedagogical content knowledge. Through online survey on convenience sampling technique, data was generated from 105 respondents in Kogi state which was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics to answer the two research questions and a hypothesis raised for the study. The results showed that business teachers had low self-reliance ratings on the seven domains of the TPACK irrespective of the educational levels. Thus, it becomes imperative to revamp the business education teacher training programs through emergency attention in funding and capacity building

Assessment big data in Nigeria: Identification, generation and processing in the opinion of the experts

As a result of increasing complexity of assessing all aspects of human behaviours, a lot of data are generated on individual learner and from teachers and the system. What qualifies as big data in assessment in Nigeria? This research identifies the sources of assessment big data in Nigeria, investigates how the big data are generated and processed, and identifies the problems of generating and processing assessment big data in Nigeria. Through purposive sampling technique forty-five experts in education assessment and research were selected. The instruments for data collection were interview and documents. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics to answer the five research questions that guided the research. The results of the investigation showed that the internal and external examinations and assessments from secondary schools, and course work results in universities were identified by more than 95.5% of the experts interviewed as the major sources of assessment data in Nigeria. The major problem in generating and processing assessment big data from the experts’ opinions is low awareness on the need/advantages of assessment big data with the highest mean rating (4.29±0.76). Many data are not analysed and a lot of information are lost. Recommendation was made amongst others on the need for the stakeholders to create awareness on the importance of big data in the modern education system to improve learner’s performance

Assessment on the Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) For Teaching And Learning In Arabic Secondary Schools (Case Study: Kano State, Nigeria)

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed the world entirely. These change span across all sectors, ranging from transportation, economic, health, military, banking, education, to mention a few. The rise of communication technologies has provoked great interest in the way in which they can be applied in education to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. This study aimed at determining the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for teaching and learning in Arabic Secondary Schools in Kano State, Nigeria. The study focused on six (6) Arabic Secondary Schools in Kano Municipal, among the schools are: School for Arabic Studies Kano (SAS), Government Arabic College Gwale (GAC Gwale), Abdullahi Bayero College of Qur’an, UmmuWarqa Government Girls Arabic School, Hasiya Bayero Government Girls Arabic School and Balarabe Haladu Government Arabic School Kano. A survey research design method was adopted to conduct the study. The population used for the study consisted of the teachers and students from the six Arabic schools. Two different questionnaires were designed and distributed among the teachers and their students. The first questionnaire is for the students which consist of four sections and the second questionnaire is for the teachers which are under six sections, two hundred samples are used in each case. The findings showed that 26% of the teachers are using ICT applications for teaching and learning, while 74% of the teachers are not using ICT tools for teaching and learning. On the other hand, 34% of the students are using ICT applications for teaching and learning, while 66% of the students are not using ICT tools for teaching and learning Keywords: Arabic, Qur’an, Secondary, School, Information Communication Technology

Ability to Solve Complex Social Problems of Prospective Teachers according to Gender and Computational Thinking

Entering the 21st century, computational thinking has become a basic skill that all students must have. This research aims to determine gender differences in learning outcomes to solve social problems, differences in students' levels of computational thinking by gender, and the influence of students' levels of computational thinking on learning outcomes in solving social problems. This research uses a descriptive verification method with a quantitative analysis approach. The number of research subjects was 256 students, who came from the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Sebelas Maret University. The quantitative data analysis used is based on the results of computational thinking ability tests using the Wilcoxon Test. Further analysis of this research uses K-Means for clustering, while analysis of the relationship between variables uses Spearman's rho. This research shows that there is an influence of gender on learning outcomes for solving social problems, there is no significant relationship between students' level of computational thinking and gender, and there is a significant influence of students' level of computational thinking on learning outcomes for solving social problems. The results of this research show that the two factors above play a large role in influencing student learning outcomes. This capability works in synergy with the computational level of thinking. With the right efforts, growing computational thinking skills can improve students' ability to solve various learning problems

Effectiveness of mobile apps in teaching field-based identification skills

It has been suggested that few students graduate with the skills required for many ecological careers, as field-based learning is said to be in decline in academic institutions. Here, we asked if mobile technology could improve field-based learning, using ability to identify birds as the study metric. We divided a class of ninety-one undergraduate students into two groups for field-based sessions where they were taught bird identification skills. The first group has access to a traditional identification book and the second group were provided with an identification app. We found no difference between the groups in the ability of students to identify birds after three field sessions. Furthermore, we found that students using the traditional book were significantly more likely to identify novel species. Therefore, we find no evidence that mobile technology improved students’ ability to retain what they experienced in the field; indeed, there is evidence that traditional field guides were more useful to students as they attempted to identify new species. Nevertheless, students felt positively about using their own smartphone devices for learning, highlighting that while apps did not lead to an improvement in bird identification ability, they gave greater accessibility to relevant information outside allocated teaching times

The impacts of instructional media on the concept mastery of Merapi ecosystem succession

This research is focused on the use of different instructional media in learning activities. The aims of this research were to determine the impacts of different instructional media on students’ learning achievements, to investigate the values of significant difference among the used instructional media, and to investigate the equity distribution of learning outcomes in each class, with experimental research class design. The data collected from class with photographs and with videos as the instructional media, each class consists of 30 students. Then, the data were compared with three classes that used real objects as the instructional media. These classes consist of 29, 39, and 46 students. The research instruments to measure students’ learning achievements were tested for their validity and reliability with Quest Program. Normality test was carried out using Shapiro-Wilk, and homogeneity test used ANOVA. Then the analysis data of learning outcomes was administered using Kruskal-Wallis. The results show that the three classes which used real objects lead to better learning outcomes and smaller standard deviation value which shows the evenness of students learning achievements. Therefore, real objects have positive effects on student learning achievements in the ecosystem succession learning materials. The implication of this research is biology learning outcomes will be better if you use biology objects directly