The impact of structured teaching methods on the quality of education in Brazil

This paper estimates the impact of the use of structured methods on the quality of education for students in primary public school in Brazil. Structured methods encompass a range of pedagogical and managerial instruments applied in the educational system. In recent years, several municipalities in the state of Sao Paulo have contracted out private educational providers to implement these structured methods in their schooling systems. Their pedagogical proposal involves structuring of curriculum content, development of teacher and student textbooks, and the training and supervision of teachers anti instructors. Using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, we find that the 4th- and 8th-grade students in the municipalities with structured methods performed better in Portuguese and mathematics than did students in municipalities not exposed to these methods. We find no differences in passing rates. A robustness test supports the assumption that there is no unobserved municipal characteristics associated with proficiency changes over time that may affect the results. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

How Do We Teach Economics?

The teaching of economics in Hungary has changed fundamentally since the 1980s for two main reasons. Firstly, the transformation towards a market economy has changed the needs of students, and secondly, there has been a move to harmonise Hungarian methods of teaching with Western ones. The number of institutions involved in economics education has increased substantially to meet new demand and these institutions offer a wide range of programs, though the topics covered tend to be more practically based than previously. A survey of students set out to evaluate economics as a profession by investigating social esteem, financial compensation, career prospects, and mobility within the profession. Amongst full-time students there was a strong correlation between the parents' background and the students' career prospects. Full-time students were more optimistic than part-time students, although the latter had a higher opinion of the academic level of their educational establishments. A second survey, this time of economics teachers, revealed the disturbing fact that teachers rated themselves in the last but one position according to social esteem and felt that society had a poor opinion of them. Fifty percent expressed a desire to leave the profession and 70% supplemented their income with work outside their school, rarely within the domain of economics. The final part of the research analysed the situation in private educational institutions, nothing that unemployment retraining grants offered by the Ministry of Labour have created an incentive for private entrepreneurs to organise courses and that the quality of these courses varies considerably.

A bibliography in homemaking education for secondary schools.

"A revision of ... Some tools to build with in homemaking education."

Education for homemaking in the secondary schools of the United States /

Bibliography: pages 31-32.

Kérdőjelek a közgazdaságtanban és oktatásában = Challenges in economic research and education

Ez az esszé a teljesség igénye nélkül kísérli meg áttekinteni azt, hogy mire vezetett a közgazdaságtan világméretekben megindult és a 2008-2009. évi válság lezáratlansága miatt vélhetően évtizedes szinten zajló önvizsgálata. A tudományszak egészét egyszerre jellemzi egyfajta tartalmi kiüresedés és a társtudományokkal való erőteljesebb kapcsolatkeresés, a módszertanok és az iskolák egymás mellett élése - ami egyáltalán nem békés -, valamint a gyakorlat által felvetett kérdések elméleti általánosításának igénye. A magyar közgazdaságtan hagyományos követő szerepe megmaradt, viszont a képzésben szerzett negyedszázados tapasztalatok és az új globális kihívások lényegi átalakításokat indokolnának a mai, túlságosan egységesített képzésben. _____ This essay joins the soul-searching that has developed globally among economists since the financial crisis of 2008-2009, whose still open-ended outcomes make it likely that such self-critical reassessments will continue in the years to come. Economics is marked by the parallel existence of substantive hollowing and in-creased reliance on interfaces with neighbouring disciplines. So the plurality and none-too-peaceful coexistence of schools and methodologies is likely to persist. Similarly abundant are the attempts to theorize and generalize new phenomena in policy and business practices. Hungarian economics continues to be a follower - a trend-taker rather than trend-setter - as it was in the inter-war period. Experience has been accumulating for over 25 years in introducing Western-style higher education in economics. The increase of student numbers and steep decrease in public funding thereof call for major restructuring in curricula, institutions and teaching methods and styles alike.

A felsőoktatási képzések munkaerő-piaci szempontból (Higher education programs from point of view of labor market)

A munkaerő-piaci követelményeknek megfelelően kialakított képzések versenyképesebbek a társaiknál. A napjainkban is zajló magyar felsőoktatási reform központi elemét alkotja a képzések ennek megfelelően történő átalakítása. Mindez létjogosultságot ad egy olyan rendszernek, amely a Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem gazdaságinformatikus BSc-képzésének kompetenciaelemeit kívánja vizsgálni az állásajánlatokban megnyilvánuló munkaerő-piaci igények tükrében. Az ontológiaalapú módszertan egy egységes fogalmi kört biztosít a munkaerőpiac eltérő szemléletű oldalán kifejlesztett modellek egységesítésére és összehasonlítására. ____ Tendencies can be observed on international and domestic levels that call for restructuring of higher education according to the needs of labor market. This paper presents an information system that can investigate the compliance of education programs and current labor market needs. Competences serve as a basis for this compliance checking, which is built on ontologybased approach. Having examined the distribution of roles (developer, operator etc.) appeared in IT job offers in time and space, a prototype of this system will be showed, related to Business Informatics degree program at Corvinus University of Budapest.

Genetic and environmental contributions to educational attainment in Australia

The genetic and environmental contributions to educational attainment in Australia are examined using a multiple regression model drawn from the medical research literature. Data from a large sample of Australian twins are analysed. The findings indicate that at least as much as 50 percent and perhaps as much as 65 percent of the variance in educational attainments can be attributed to genetic endowments. It is suggested that only around 25 percent of the variance in educational attainments may be due to environmental factors, though this contribution is shown to be around 40 percent when adjustments for measurement error and assortative mating are made. The high fraction of the observed variation in educational attainments due to genetic differences is consistent with results reported by Heath et al. (Heath, A.C., Berg, K., Eaves, L.J., Solaas, M.H., Corey, L.A., Sundet, J., Magnus, P., Nance, W.E., 1985. Education policy and the heritability of educational attainment. Nature 314(6013), 734-736.), Tambs et al. (Tambs, K., Sundet, J.M., Magnus, P., Berg, K., 1989. Genetic and environmental contributions to the covariance between occupational status, educational attainment and IQ: a study of twins. Behavior Genetics 19(2), 209-222.), Vogler and Fulker (Vogler, G.P., Fulker, D.W., 1983. Familial resemblance for educational attainment. Behavior Generics 13(4), 341-354.) and Behrman and Taubman (Behrman, J., Taubman, P., 1989. Is schooling mostly in the genes? Nature-nurture decomposition using data on relatives. Journal of Political Economy 97(6), 1425-1446.), suggesting that the finding is robust. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Using problem-based learning for introducing producer theory and market structure in intermediate microeconomics

This paper shows how instructors can use the problem‐based learning method to introduce producer theory and market structure in intermediate microeconomics courses. The paper proposes a framework where different decision problems are presented to students, who are asked to imagine that they are the managers of a firm who need to solve a problem in a particular business setting. In this setting, the instructors’ role is to provide both guidance to facilitate student learning and content knowledge on a just‐in‐time basis

Entwicklung des Emirates Qatar : Strategien - Probleme - Erfolge

Qatar boomt. Da es hierzu keine ganzheitlichen Forschungsarbeiten gibt, werden in dieser Arbeit die neuesten Entwicklungen und Planungen mit hoher Aktualität und Praxisrelevanz erstmals erfasst und analysiert. Der Autor führt Informationssplitter von internationalen Organisationen und eigene Recherchen in ein ganzheitliches Bild zusammen. Qatar ist sich bewusst, dass Wachstum endlich sein kann. Welche Möglichkeiten hat das kleine Qatar von der Globalisierung zu profitieren und für sich Vorteile für die Zukunft nach dem Öl zu generieren? Der Fokus der Arbeit liegt auf den ökonomische und ökologischen Stellschrauben der Transformation unter wirtschaftsgeographischen, soziodemographischen und strategischen Gesichtspunkten mit lokalen, regionalen und internationalen Betrachtungsweisen in den Themenfeldern (Welt-) Wirtschaft, Bildung, Infrastruktur und Umwelt. Ausgewählte Faktorungleichgewichte werden in Bezug auf Aussenwirtschaft und Binnenwirtschaft erläutert sowie die Nutzung von korankonformen Finanzierungsinstrumenten und Direktinvestitionen von und in Qatar.rnrnKeywords: Qatar / Katar / Peak-Oil / Emirat / FDI / Qatarisches Modell / Masterplan / Wohlfahrtsmehrung / Disparität / Nachhaltigkeit / Islamic Banking / Agglomeration / Akkumulation / Globalisierung / Arabische Halbinsel / Persischer Golf / Faktor- Gleichgewichte / Doha / Aluminium / LNG / Gas / best practicern

Applying concept mapping strategies to improve students’ lifelong learning in physical chemistry

Este artículo ofrece una reflexión sobre el papel de los mapas conceptuales en el actual escenario de la educación In the present paper, we carry out the application of concept mapping strategies to learning Physical Chemistry, in particular, of all aspect of Corrosion. This strategy is an alternative method to supplement examinations: it can show the teacher how much the students knew and how much they didn´t know; and the students can evaluate their own learning. Before giving tile matter on Corrosion, the teachers evaluated the previous knowledge of the students in the field and explained to the students how create the conceptual maps with Cmap tools. When the subject is finished, teachers are assessed the conceptual maps developed by students and therefore also the level of the students learning. Teachers verified that the concept mapping is quite suitable for complicated theorics as Corrosion and it is an appropriate tool for the consolidation of educational experiences and for improvement affective lifelong learning. By using this method we demonstrated that the set of concepts accumulated in the cognitive structure of every student in unique and every student has therefore arranged the concepts from top to bottom in the mapping field in different ways with different linking" phrases, although these are involved in the same learning task.