The Most Suitable Way of Teaching

Within the context of educational science it is necessary to deal with ways of making the transmission of knowledge to individuals more effective. In trying to find out which is the best way of teaching K-12 curriculum (that is how publicly supported education from kindergarten to High school is called in most countries), we asked our samples, which consists of eighteen (18) nursery (or pre-education) teachers, twenty five (25) primary teachers, fourteen (14) IT (or Computing) teachers and nine (9) secondary teachers, one simple question “Which is the most suitable way of teaching according to your opinion?”. The research background consists of educators’ efforts to comprehend ways of effective and functional teaching through the years. The method of our research is qualitative and the tools we use adopt elements from semi-structured e-mail interviews and discourse analysis. Expressing themselves in various ways, teachers ended up stating that the most suitable way of teaching is Group collaborative teaching/learning. We could claim that all teachers participating in our research try to match their teaching method to pupils’ needs and that is an essential and strong element. What makes the topic significant is the fact that how to teach is an issue that concerns educators (and not only) worldwide and since aspects are numerous and not always conclusive, it is interesting to highlight them and constantly study educational reality. Keywords: Way of Teaching; Didactics; Teachers; Qualitative Research DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-29-02 Publication date:October 31st 202

HOW ICT TEACHERS FEEL ABOUT TEACHING: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN GREECE AND INDONESIA

The issue of Computer Science entering schools first appeared during the ’60s. The first academic Computer Science Department was founded during this decade at Purdue University and was followed by a second one at Stanford University. As far as the other levels of educational systems are concerned the wide introduction of computers into schools started during the ’80s. This paper refers to a comparative small scale qualitative research that took place between two countries: Greece and Indonesia. It compares Greek and Indonesian Computer Science teachers’ views on whether the Computer Science (or ICT or Computing or Informatics) course improves students’ lives and could in general assist in teaching. Both Greece and Indonesia have included the course of Information and Communication(s) Technologies (ICT) in the curricula of their primary and secondary education levels. Data were collected through interviews (semi-structured and e-mail ones). We interviewed eleven (11) Greek and twenty (20) Indonesian Computer Science (or ICT or Computing or Informatics) teachers. For each country we carefully studied participants’ answers, we categorized and analyzed them in order to obtain reliable results. Then we compared the two countries’ results so as to find similarities and differences between them. After this comparison we drew the conclusion that the points of view of teachers coming from the two aforementioned countries are almost the same. Participants declared that they see teaching as a positive procedure and that they also consider ICT (or Computer Science or Computing or Informatics) course as important for their pupils’/students’ lives. Article visualizations

Computational Thinking in Preschool Age: A Case Study in Greece

This study aims to investigate Computational Thinking (CT) in preschool age children. We tried to assess the ability of developing CT skills in kindergarten, as well as to illustrate parents’ and preschool teachers’ directly involved aspects on CT. More specifically, we investigated the readiness of preschool children to engage in activities that develop CT by using Scratch Jr. Moreover, via individual interviews, the research sheds some light on preschool children’s parents’ perceptions on personal computers use, digital media, CT and programming. Finally, we investigated the views and perceptions of preschool teachers through an electronic questionnaire about CT and its entry in kindergarten. The kindergarteners’ interactive stories were evaluated with the use of a rubric which indicates the extremely high percentage of readiness to deal with CT and programming activities in kindergarten. The analysis of the parents’ interviews shows their distrust on readiness regarding children’s engagement in CT. Finally, the majority of preschool teachers uses personal computers in kindergarten to a different degree depending on their age, experience and training to develop a variety of learning areas. Regarding CT, kindergarten teachers’ aspects appear to be swayed from positive to neutral considering its introduction in the kindergarten classroom