Straddling The Gap: A MIddle School Teacher's Journey Towards Good Geography

Research points to a gap between academic or disciplinary based geography and what is taught in secondary classes across the nation. This study documents a teacher’s journey and efforts to bring a more disciplinary approach to two suburban heterogeneous sixth grade geography classrooms. The researcher traces student perspectives on geography and facility with geographic reasoning as well as his own perspectives and pedagogy with respect to student data. The study attempts to map the space where school geography meets and interacts with disciplinary oriented geography based upon the Geography for Life National Geography Standards. Participants completed two sets of baseline assessments and two sets of end of year assessments as well as an initial intake survey. The seven primary participants were interviewed five times each throughout the academic school year and data were openly coded. The data suggest that students can learn geography and geographic reasoning from a disciplinary perspective. Students sharpened their geographic skills through deeper subject matter knowledge and developing spatial and ecological perspectives. The data also indicate that the teacher researcher faced considerable challenges in implementing a disciplinary approach to teaching geography. The coverage demands of a crowded history-centric curriculum together with ill-fitting resources required a labor-intensive effort to put together and execute this study. Study findings indicate that the path to good geography pedagogy can be impeded by a host of external and internal challenges. However, to forward thinking practitioners, the effort to straddle the gap between school geography and disciplinary-based geography may be well worth it.

Educação fisica e cultura corporal : uma experiencia de intervenção pedagogica no ensino medio

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Professor pesquisador: o caso Rosa

Este trabalho aborda o caso de uma professora de Biologia do Ensino Médio que teve, como foco de investigação, sua própria prática docente, e analisa as condições que permitiram o acoplamento da pesquisa com a docência. A prática da professora foi registrada com gravações audiovisuais e com a elaboração de um diário de bordo pessoal. As leituras dos registros, referenciadas nos princípios do contrato didático e nos pressupostos do diagnóstico pedagógico, revelam-nos algumas das ações e reações da professora e dos alunos em momentos de sua prática pedagógica. Os desenvolvimentos da pesquisa e da docência puderam avançar de maneira colaborativa graças ao esforço e à vontade persistente da pesquisadora em utilizar uma metodologia de pesquisa capaz de incorporar tanto aspectos objetivos quanto subjetivos referentes à prática docente.

Rich task implementation: modernism meets postmodernism

School renewal', 'productive pedagogies', 'rich tasks', 'New Basics', 'key learning areas'--these are some of the discourses of change in selected Queensland schools. This paper will report on teaching as an insider/outsider in a school's Health and Physical Education department during a time of intense pressure for structural, curriculum and pedagogical shifts. As a teacher/researcher, I spent ten weeks in a government secondary school attempting to implement rich tasks as well as collect data using formal and informal interviews, field note, and document analyses, with a focus upon teachers', students' and administrators' sense of change processes and outcomes. It is suggested that the processes of, and barriers to, curriculum change in this context are best explained in terms of tensions between modernist and postmodernist phenomena.

Lendo e explorando histórias: a emergência do pensamento algébrico em crianças de 4 anos

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de mestre em Educação Matemática na Educação Pré-escolar e nos 1º e 2º Ciclos do Ensino Básico

Generalizing repeating patterns: a study with children aged four

This paper presents part of a study that aimed to understand how the emergence of algebraic thinking takes place in a group of four-year-old children, as well as its relationship to the exploration of children‘s literature. To further deepen and guide this study the following research questions were formulated: (1) How can children's literature help preschoolers identify patterns?; (2) What strategies and thinking processes do children use to create, analyze and generalize repeating and growing patterns?; (3) What strategies do children use to identify the unit of repeat of a pattern? and (4) What factors influence the identification of patterns? The paper focuses only on the strategies and thinking processes that children use to create, analyze and generalize repeating patterns. The present study was developed with a group of 14 preschoolers in a private school in Lisbon, and it was carried out with all children. In order to develop the research, a qualitative research methodology under the interpretive paradigm was chosen, emphasizing meanings and processes. The researcher took the dual role of teacher-researcher, conducting the study with her own group and in her own natural environment. Participant observation and document analysis (audio and video recordings, photos and children productions) were used as data collection methods. Data collection took place from October 2013 to April 2014. The results of the study indicate that children master the concept of repeating patterns, and they are able to identify the unit of repeat, create and analyze various repeating patterns, evolving from simpler to more complex forms.

A pesquisa como perspectiva de formação continuada do professor de química

The education of a chemistry teacher is not being seen as a specific preparation for the exercise of a professional activity, which differs from the professional activity of a chemist or a chemistry researcher. This happens because in the academic field, mainly in the exact and natural sciences, the idea that knowing a determined subject is enough to be able to teach it, is tacitly accepted. This is, actually, the first condition to be able to be a university professor. There is another necessary condition for competent teaching: to have specific professional knowledege of teaching. I defend that this knowledge can be constitued in the interaction with other professionals in the form of research. Thus, as a chemist constitutes himself through the research in the interaction with other chemists, the teacher develops himself in this professional field in the interaction with other teachers and the permanent attitude of researching.

The cultural dimension in focus : promoting awareness of diversity and respect for difference in a Finland-Swedish EFL classroom

This study addresses the role of EFL education, its potential and shortcomings, and the challenges the future of EFL education will bring. It is argued that new societal demands and the limited time we have at our disposal in the classroom make it necessary to rethink goals and content and move away from the transmissionof limited sets of facts and information to helping students develop awareness and competences that can be applied in many different situations, also in a perspective of lifelong learning. The overall aim of the current study is to problematize and increase understanding of the implementation of cultural aspects in the language classroom by addressing the interrelated what, why and how of the cultural dimension within EFL education. This has been conducted by means of theoretical explorations into the area, alongside an attempt at promoting intercultural competence (IC) in a more systematic and insightful manner within my own educational praxis. The focus of the intercultural work in the classroom was on the promotion of awareness of difference and diversity, as well as respect for such difference through the ability to decenter from cultural norms and behavior that previously have been taken for granted. These are two elements that have been suggested as fundamental for other work with IC in the classroom and for the realization of important aspects of the underlying values of basic education. In the context of this study, IC comprises several interconnected components supportingeach other in a variety of ways, with the further aim being interaction with and respect for difference in general, not only concerning e.g. representatives ofcertain English-speaking communities. The methodology was informed by action research, with myself in the role of the teacher-researcher or the reflective practitioner. For the purpose of the project I was authorized to take on the EFL education for the three years of upper comprehensive school of one random class of students originally assigned to one of the language teachers of the selected Finland-Swedish school. Thus, the class of 17 students was not specifically chosen for the project, and the aims and contents chosen for the development project were placed within the framework of the ordinary curriculum. By exploring the students¿ insights concerning different English-speaking cultural groups, mainly through a set of questionnaires, it was possible to outline the work with the cultural dimension in the classroom for the following three years. Work progress was evaluated at specific stages, and the final project evaluations were conducted through individual student interviews in grade 9. The interviews were focused on possible development of students¿ insights concerning different aspects of the cultural dimension. In particular this concerned awareness of difference and diversity, including modification of stereotypes, as well as the ability to decenterin order to be better able to respect such difference. I also explored students¿ awareness and views of the activities and approaches used in class, as well asaffordances both inside and outside the EFL classroom in relation to these intended insights. A further focus area was the perceived relevance to students of different aspects of the cultural dimension. The frameworks and approaches adopted for the work in the classroom all have in common that they are based on a constructivist framework, where knowledge is constructed and reconstructed through interaction with one¿s social and cultural environment, including interaction with others. Reflective processes precede or are simultaneous with the learning of basic factual knowledge. This entails a view of learning as a progression from simple to more complex models rather than as a progression from facts to understanding and analysis. Here, the development of intercultural competence is seen asa cyclical process, or along a spiral curriculum, from simple to more complex levels through a combination of cognitive, affective and behavioral elements within a framework of experiential learning. This project has shown one possible wayforward concerning the development of intercultural competence within EFL education through a more systematic and comprehensive approach regarding linguistic and cultural aspects. The evaluation of the educational process explored in the study suggests the possibilities for work with the promotion of awareness of difference and diversity concerning some specific context that, based on students¿ prior knowledge and preconceptions, would benefit from further work. In this case, the specific context primarily concerned different aspects of both cultural and linguistic conditions in the UK. It is also suggested that many students developed the ability to decenter, described in the study as integral to being able to respect otherness. What still remains to be explored are more individualized approaches considering students¿ different levels of departure. Further work alsoneeds to be put into how to apply insights gained in these specific situations to more general contexts. It is also necessary to explore the use of the suggested approaches in a wider range of different contexts.

Exploring the personal and professional lives of teachers in the search for authenticity /

"We teach who we are" (Palmer, 1998, p. 2). This simple, yet profound, statement was the catalyst that began my thesis journey. Using a combination of self-study and participant narratives, Palmer's idea was explored as search for authenticity. The self-study component of this narrative was enhanced by the stories of two other teachers, both women. I chose to use narrative methodology to uncover and discover the relationship between the personal and professional lives of being a teacher. Do teachers express themselves daily in their classrooms? Do any lessons from the classroom translate into teachers' personal lives? The themes of reflection, authenticity, truth, and professional development thread themselves throughout this narrative study. In order to be true to myself as a teacher/researcher, arts-based interpretations accompany my own and each participant's profile. Our conversations about our pasts, our growth as teachers and journeys as individuals were captured in poetry and photographic mosaics. Through rich and detailed stories we explored who we are as teachers and how we became this way. The symbiotic relationship between our personal and professional lives was illustrated by tales of bravery, self-discovery, and reflection. The revelations uncovered illustrate the powerful role our past plays in shaping the present and potentially the friture. It may seem indulgent to spend time exploring who we are as teachers in a time that is increasingly focused on improving student test scores. Yet, the truth remains that, "Knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject" (Palmer, 1998, p. 2).

Writing and science connections : integrated instruction and assessment

Learning to write is a daunting task for many young children. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a combined approach to writing instruction and assessment on the writing performance of students in two grade 3 classes. Five forms and traits of writing were purposefully connected during writing lessons while exhibiting links to the four strands of the grade 3 Ontario science curriculum. Students then had opportunities to engage in the writing process and to self-assess their compositions using either student-developed (experimental group/teacher-researcher's class) or teachercreated (control group/teacher-participant's class) rubrics. Paired samples t-tests revealed that both the experimental and control groups exhibited statistically significant growth from pretest to posttest on all five integrated writing units. Independent samples t-tests showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the persuasive + sentence fluency and procedure + word choice writing tasks. Pearson product-moment correlation r tests revealed significant correlations between the experimental group and the teacher-researcher on the recount + ideas and report + organization tasks, while students in the control group showed significant correlations with the teacher-researcher on the narrative + voice and procedure + word choice tasks. Significant correlations between the control group and the teacher-participant were evident on the persuasive + sentence fluency and procedure + word choice tasks. Qualitative analyses revealed five themes that highlighted how students' self-assessments and reflections can be used to guide teachers in their instructional decision making. These findings suggest that educators should adopt an integrated writing program in their classrooms, while working with students to create and utilize purposeful writing assessment tools.

Disquietude: A Sonata-Form Inquiry Into Multiliteracies Practices in an EAL Classroom

This narrative case study describes an English as an Additional Language teacher’s struggle to understand her young adult learners’ apparent resistance toward multiliteracies pedagogical practices in a college setting. Multiliteracies Pedagogy (New London Group, 1996) advocates the use of digital media, and home languages and culture, to engage diverse youth in designing personally meaningful multimodal texts that can significantly impact learner identity, voice, and agency. This arts-based study uses an innovative sonata-style format to document the making of a class documentary, accompanied by teacher reflections on the video project in the form of poetry, journal excerpts, and classroom dialogue. The sonata form provides a unique methodology for teacher inquiry, allowing the teacher-researcher to explore the ways in which curriculum, pedagogy, and sociocultural influences intersect in the classroom. The study does not end with a clear resolution of the problem; instead, the process of inquiry leads to deeper understandings of what it means to teach in the complex worlds of diverse learners.

Écrire à la manière d'un auteur au premier cycle du primaire : pratiques et impacts

Plusieurs auteurs (Nadon, 2007; Tauveron, 2005; Routman, 2010) ont mis de l’avant des propositions didactiques pour enseigner l’écriture de façon optimale à partir de la littérature de jeunesse, notamment en amenant les élèves à s’inspirer du style d’un auteur. Puisque la littérature de jeunesse est encore peu employée pour induire des situations d’écriture au primaire (Montésinos-Gelet et Morin, 2007), cette recherche présente un dispositif novateur, soit l’écriture à la manière d’un auteur qui consiste à placer l’élève dans une situation d’appropriation-observation d’une oeuvre littéraire dans le but d’en ressortir ses caractéristiques et de l’imiter (Geist, 2005 et Tauveron, 2002). Selon Olness (2007), l’exposition à une littérature de jeunesse de qualité est essentielle pour permettre aux élèves d’apprendre une variété de styles et d’éléments littéraires. Cette recherche a pour but de décrire dix séquences d’écriture à la manière d’un auteur conçues par l’enseignante-chercheuse et d’identifier les impacts de celles-ci, auprès des élèves, sur leurs habiletés en production écrite, de compréhension en lecture et sur leur motivation à l’écriture. Cette recherche a été réalisée pendant une période de 5 mois auprès de 18 élèves d’une classe de 2e année du primaire. Il ressort de cette recherche que les élèves ont grandement développé leur capacité à analyser et imiter les caractéristiques d’un texte source et qu’ils ont transféré ces apprentissages au-delà du contexte de notre recherche. Par la pratique fréquente et le modelage, ils ont assimilés les six traits de l’écriture et ont manifesté un intérêt grandissant envers la littérature de jeunesse.

Desarrollo de un grupo de investigación-acción colaboradora en proyectos curriculares innovadores.

En los últimos veinte años se han realizado muchos estudios de investigación-acción con el fin de mejorar las prácticas educativas, como la comprensión de dichas prácticas y los contextos en que se realizan. El proyecto de investigación nació cuando una profesora de instituto, licenciada en Biología y en Pedagogía, decide hacer su tesis doctoral en un campo relacionado con su actividad profesional como docente. Diseño y puesta en práctica de un proyecto curricular de aula para Ciencias de Primero de Bachillerato Unificado Polivalente ofreció a todo su departamento colaborar en este proyecto. En el proceso de investigación-acción cuatro fases: reflexión inicial, acción y reflexión. Antes de pasar a la acción el grupo investigador debe identificar y clarificar la situación de problemática que desea resolver y establecer un plan para ello, flexible. Así, la acción no debe ponerse en práctica hasta que se consiga una comprensión más profunda de la situación a modificar. El proyecto traspasó los límites del centro ee que se llevó a cabo. Es lógico que un plan previsto acabe siendo modificado o ampliado en el curso en proceso.

O ensino : aprendizagem da produção textual : um estudo a partir de textos produzidos por alunos do ensino fundamental

RESUMO : Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo analisar o processo de ensino-aprendizagem da produção textual em relação a competência comunicativa escrita do aluno, identificando as características e verificando se as propostas teóricas sobre produção textual foram implementadas em sala de aula, de forma a possibilitar o aprendizado da escrita de maneira motivadora, preparando-o para realizar tarefas sobre distintos componentes da competência comunicativa em nível de palavra, frase e texto. Foi realizado um estudo quantitativo-qualitativo e para a coleta de dados, aplicamos um questionário, e logo em seguida damos início as atividades de produção textual com temas indicados tanto pela professora-investigadora como pelos próprios alunos os quais serviram de base para a análise temática. Esta análise foi feita levando em consideração as condições de produção propostas por Geraldi, a perspectiva interacionista da linguagem Bakhtiniana e a teoria sociointeracionista de Vigotsky. Seguimos também os caminhos da Análise do Discurso de Orlandi. A sequência de textos foi de gêneros diferenciados, porém aplicada a todas as turmas. ABSTRACT: This study aimed to analyze the process of teaching and learning of text production in relation to communicative competence student writing, identifying the characteristics and verifying the theoretical proposals on textual production have been implemented in the classroom, to enable the learning of written in a way motivating, and thus prepare them to perform tasks on different components of communicative competence of a word, phrase or text. We conducted a quantitative and qualitative study and exploratory. To collect data, a questionnaire was administered, and then the activities of writing (narration, description and essay) with themes identified by both the teacher-researcher as the students themselves, which served as the basis for thematic analysis.The analysis was made taking into consideration the production conditions proposed by Geraldi. We adopt the interactionist perspective of language Bakhtiniana and the theory of Vygotsky sociointeractionist. The following texts were of different genres, but applied to all classes.