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Mozambique is among the poorest countries in the world in such a way that many schools lack essential resources (electricity, chairs, internet, computers, water, and others). As a result, the traditional model is still the most used one in subjects related to programming in different courses where the teacher presents new content during face-to-face sessions and students take assignments and exercises to complete at home. This subject is still new for many students, so, they find it challenging to complete the tasks at home. Furthermore, programming is taught only at the university level, so, students find it difficult to understand it for the first time, resulting in a motivation decrease as well as the increase of drawbacks in programming subjects. In this way, methods like the cognitive apprenticeship model (Collins, Brown, Newman, 1989), extreme programming (Beck & Fowler, 2001), gamification (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011), and flipped classroom (Lage, Platt, & Treglia, 2000) could be used or combined to motivate students and overcome these challenges. Since programming consists of a set of sequential steps and procedures, Gamified Flipped Classroom (GFC) seemed to be an appropriate method as it could be easy to demonstrate the “how to” procedures to students, letting them work on them at home (video lectures, links, documents). The teacher would act as a guide and facilitator for both home and in-class sessions, supported by gamification elements. Nevertheless, the thesis aimed to design a GFC learning environment adapted to the Mozambican context, investigate the student’s perception regarding this combination and analyse motivation and learning outcomes regarding day and night shifts. The research was conducted through Design-Based Research (DBR) for the learning environment design as well as student perception analysis and through a quasi-experiment for motivation and learning outcomes processing. The results indicate that The GFC learning environment for the Mozambique context should rely on three core aspects: A low-cost approach, availability of institution facilities and a proper curriculum plan adaptation. Furthermore, student’s perceptions were mostly positive, despite the occurrence of some negative ones related to connectivity problems. Lastly, generic data indicates that GFC did not significantly impact students’ motivation, however, separate analysis indicates that students from the day shift tended to feel more motivated than the day shift ones. Results also indicated that both shifts tended to increase their sense of competence and interest/enjoyment during the GFC learning environment but their sense of pressure was almost the same. Regarding learning outcomes, students scored higher marks during the traditional learning environment than in GFC, nevertheless, day-shift tended to have higher scores than night ones. So, it can be concluded that students from the day-shift felt more motivated and had better outcomes than the night ones.
The present thesis served as a starting point for promoting a change of paradigm in teaching programming, especially in countries with limited access to technology like Mozambique by adapting methods like GFC to its context.
Technologies based on Geographic Information System (GIS) are widely used in society and are increasingly being integrated into school curricula and practice. Many claims have been made that the use of GIS in class has positive effects on a wide range of achievement and affective variables. However, empirical evidence for that, especially in the German situation, has been scarce.
Systemic thinking has been central to the guiding objective of German geography education for many years and constitutes an important contribution to prepare students for life in a complex world. Yet, so far, specific test instruments and studies elucidating factors that help students improve this competency have been far from extensive.
This dissertation aims at exploring the influence of a short ‘working with GIS’ vs. ‘working with maps’ unit on students’ achievement in geography, specifically, the systemic thinking competency. Based on literature a definition of geographic systemic thinking and an associated competency model were developed. In total, three one test time and two pre-/posttest with control group studies were conducted to develop test instruments and a treatment as well as to study the question at hand. The treatment used the topic ‘tourism in Kenya’. Partly Desktop-, partly Web-based GIS versions were used. In study 5, there were two different types of materials, which contained parallel contents/tasks. While one used an overview sheet of relevant GIS functionality (‘old’), the other integrated more step-by-step instruction directly into the text (‘new’). Variables included were systemic thinking, sex, age, stream/type of geography study/pre-score, grade/semester, language and migration background, pre-experience, affective variables, pre-basic spatial thinking skills, treatment and material type. Not all variables were used in every study.
The largest study (study 5) used the results of 932 seventh grade students for analyses. The sample contains both high and middle stream students from three German federal states. The study highlights issues such as e.g. test time constraints, open task coding, partly ceiling effects and item difficulties partly deviant from the model expectations. For the analyses, both raw average scores and WLE estimates obtained by a Rasch analysis are used. Additionally, based on the WLE scores, HLMs are calculated.
Overall, in study 5 GIS students do not improve pre- to posttest in systemic thinking. Consequently, GIS has no positive, and partly a significantly negative impact compared to maps, e.g. in a HLM with all other variables having significant effects included. Results for material type are mixed. For instance, on the one hand, t-tests show no significant difference in pre-posttest-change between students working with ‘old’ and ‘new’ WebGIS materials. On the other
hand, the overall HLMs with other variables included show a significant negative effect only for the ‘old’ but not for the ‘new’ WebGIS materials.
Only 23 students could be included in the ‘having already worked with an educational GIS’-sub-group (vs. 520). The improvement of these students pre- to posttest is not significant, but has an effect size above 0.2. A calculation with the ‘no pre-experience’ sub-group being reduced to students with similar characteristics (e.g. in terms of stream, GIS type) leads to 19 vs. 84 students and similar results. In both cases, students with pre-experience perform not significantly, but with an effect size above 0.2, better than students without pre-experience. Overall, the results could hint at students needing more pre-experience so as to not have so much mental capacity tied to getting used to the software and being able to concentrate more on the system interrelationships. However, due to the sample characteristics and study design, this cannot be proven by the present data and thus needs to be explored in further studies.
Other variables (age, sex, migration and language background, stream, pre-score, pre-spatial thinking score) show mixed results depending on the analysis method used. This underlines the impact of methodological choices and the need for large sample studies in order to be able to take a closer look at individual sub-groups. Furthermore, the HLM results point to not all influencing variables having been included. In general, the impact of variables such as pre-achievement/ stream and sex on pre-posttest change evident in some of the analyses points to the need for more research to develop differentiated learning materials.
The conducted studies also show, e.g. through deviations from the assumed model of systemic thinking, that there is still a great need for more studies in terms of test- and model development for systemic and spatial thinking in a geographic context.
This work covers the critical problem of high school dropouts and failure in the Ghanaian educational setting. In the first instance, a large proportion of studies have tended to concentrate on the higher classes and end-of –cycle testing. They can be seen as post-mortem analyses, which only indicate the irrevocable catastrophe but do not lead to prevention. Therefore this dissertation sought to identify the variance among the learning pre-requisites that Ghanaian class one children enter the school with against the background of an inflexible syllabus coupled with a predominant use of undifferentiated teaching methodology. From literature review, personal intensive observations and experience the following conclusions were drawn: ·School failure in Ghana is as a result of a complex inter-play of factors such as years of certain uninformed policies of successive governments, the situation of the teacher, curriculum and textbook usage, instructional language policy, length of school year use of instructional time and political instability among others. ·Classroom methodologies are predominantly teacher-dominated, undifferentiated and do not support adequately the learning of weaker pupils. ·Traditional practices and philosophies about the child have an influence on the teaching-learning encounter. ·There are identifiable weaknesses in the competence of delivery and mastery of both subject matter and other pedagogical skills. With a large class size, without the support of diagnostic tools to identify the abilities of children in order to tailor the teaching to cater for individual differences, teaching is unattractive, tedious and an unwieldy task. Learning in such an environment will be demotivational and attainment of institutional goals will be greatly undermined. As a first step in modifying the existing situation a pre-diagnostic instrument put together by the researcher was used to assess 120 and 158 class one pupils in a pilot and main study respectively to show how varied the abilities of the children are and which factors have influence on the variance. In this regard a broad variety of skill areas were assessed with a focus on functional items, drawing, English and number work in a very practical way. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were adopted in the selection of the sample from rural, urban, private and public schools. The results showed the following: ·A wide variance among the pre-requisite skills that the children enter school with. ·Ghanaian children who possess higher English language ability, having pre-school experience, attending an urban school and being in a private school have a higher chance of school success. ·Sex is not strong determinants of performance among the sample. Based on these assessment results intervention with teachers were carried out in three class one classrooms, but one was reported in detail. The feedback from the interventions was very positive and encouraging and showed among others that: ·Teachers are capable of initiating changes in their teaching methodologies. ·Head teachers can supervise school-based in-service education and training. The dissertation concludes with some suggestions for policy, teacher professionalism, educational planners and for future research in order to achieve target objectives.
The main research aim of this Ph-D thesis is to develop students�understanding of the nature of science on the background of Alexander von Humboldt's legacy for Grade 5 and Grade 6 classrooms in Baden-Württemberg schools. The Ph-D research questions are: 1.What conceptions do students of the age group 10-12 regarding the nature of science hold? 2.Does students� understanding of science change as a result of discovery-based science activities taken from Alexander von Humboldt� scientific observations during his expedition to Latin America between 1799-1804? If yes, in what way? This was done by: 1.Gathering background information about students� images of scientists and how they work. 2.Designing the most appropriate learning environment for improving their understanding of science. At the beginning of the intervention study, Humboldt�s life was used as a stimulus of student�s thoughts about science at. Students were put in the same situation of a scientist: posing a question about a theme of their interest, designing and realizing an experiment in order to satisfy their curiosity. By doing so, students� understandings of the construction of scientific knowledge would be improved. After a preliminary study between June and July 2002 at the Bammental Gymnasium, a case study took place from March till July 2003 at the Realschule Linkenheim for students of Grade 5. Students� epistemologies about science and scientists at the Realschule Linkenheim were collected by using the current trends in science education research: pre- and post-questionnaires, classroom observation, pre- and post- interviews, the Draw-A-Scientist-Task and portfolio work. This intervention study was realized in 26 school sessions and all the work sessions were also video taped. Students� views about their actual nature of science aspects were characterized and coded using a framework drawing on the following areas: characteristics of scientists, history of science and the epistemology about science and scientists. Finally, students were asked to write about their learning process by using portfolios. As to the recommendations: This study suggests that in order to develop some aspects of the nature of science, students need a free space at school to realize hands-on inquiry and a trained teacher who can translate to his students besides content knowledge, the nature of knowledge and the historical evolution of scientific knowledge.
Introduction This study aims to investigate the changes and developments in mathematics curricula, which approved by the Ministry of Education for teaching mathematics during the period (1964-1999). It also aims at highlighting the feature of every period of development and to review the reasons that lead to such development. The study has the aim to answer the following questions: 1.What are the developments that the learning objectives of mathematics curricula in Jordan have witnessed during the period (1964-1999) ? 2.What are the developments that the mathematical content of mathematics curricula in Jordan have witnessed during the period (1964-1999) ? 3.What are the developments that the instruction methods of mathematics curricula in Jordan have witnessed during the period (1964-1999)? 4.What are the developments that the evaluation methods of mathematics curricula in Jordan have witnessed during the period (1964 –1999)? The first chapter of the study describes some facts about Jordan, the educational system, and instructional plans for teaching mathematics, which was approved by MOE during the period (1964-1999), the need for developing mathematics curricula, and statement and significance of the study with the questions mentioned above, and includes the limitation of the study. The second Chapter includes on a review of literature through display the international development of mathematics curriculum and relative studies, the development of mathematics education in Germany, and the development of mathematics curriculum and relative studies in the Arab World, especially in Jordan. Chapter three describes the methodology and procedures which are used: the analysis method, (analysis procedures of content mathematics curricula, analysis tool), and the interview: (sample, interview procedures, tool, and procedures of interview analysis). Chapter four: contains the findings of the study represented with the analysis results of mathematics curriculum according to the study questions, the results of content analysis of Mathematics curricula according to the “Principles and Standards for School Mathematics” which issued by NCTM, the response and opinion of interview sample to the items of a study tool (questionnaire). Chapter five: Include discussion of the findings and the results of the study according to the study question, and investigate the characteristics and the reasons behind the development witnessed by the curricula of mathematics in Jordan during the period (1964-1999). The main analysis results of mathematics curriculum which approved by MOE in Jordan, and the opinions of the interview sample are concentrated on discussion and investigation the development characteristics of learning objectives of teaching mathematics, mathematical content, instructional and evaluation methods of teaching mathematics, according to the “Principles and Standards for School Mathematics”, and through division the whole period into three sub-periods. The curriculum documents (in English translation), the NCTM standards, and other data with additional information – among other things the results of the interviews – are arranged as appendix 1 to appendix 10. This study is significant as being one of the rare attempts in Jordan to explore the development of mathematics curricula. The study is also unique in the length of the period it has chosen, 1964-1999. As such, it can be referred to as a historical source for the evolution of mathematics curricula in Jordan, so that scholars benefit from its analysis and historical documentation of the period of the development of these curricula. It is also beneficial to the writers of school textbooks since it provides a list of universal standards used to analyze the mathematical content of curricula. These are attached in a short section as “recommendations”.