Happiness online : supporting the emotions of emergent teachers in a virtual community

Extending Lash and Urry's (1994) notion of new "imagined communities" through information and communication structures, I ask the question: Are emergent teachers happy when they interact in online learning environments? This question is timely in the context of the ubiquity of online media and its pervasiveness in teachers' everyday work and lives. The research is important nationally and internationally, because the current research is contradictory. On the one hand, feelings of isolation and frustration have been cited as common emotions experienced in many online environments (Su, Bonk, Magjuka, Liu, & Lee, 2005). Yet others report that online communities encourage a sense of belonging and support (Mills, 2011). Emotions are inherently social, are central to learning and online interaction (Shen, Wang, & Shen, 2009). The presentations reports the use of e-motion blogs to explore emotional states of emergent primary teachers in an online learning context as they transition into their first field experience in schools. The original research was conducted with a graduate class of 64 secondary science pre-service teachers in Science Education Curriculum Studies in a large Australian university, including males and females from a variety of cultural backgrounds, aged 17-55 years. Online activities involved the participants watching a series of streamed live lectures within a course of 8 weeks duration, providing a varied set of learning experiences, such as viewing live teaching demonstrations. Each week, participants provided feedback on learning by writing and posting an e-motion diary or web log about their emotional response. The blogs answered the question: What emotions you experience during this learning experience? The descriptive data set included 284 online posts, with students contributing multiple entries. The Language of Appraisal framework, following Martin and White (2005), was used to cluster the discrete emotions within six affect groups. The findings demonstrated that the pre-service teachers' emotional responses tended towards happiness and satisfaction within the typology of affect groups - un/happiness, in/security, and dis/satisfaction. Fewer participants reported that online learning mode triggered negative feelings of frustration, and when this occurred, it often pertained expectations of themselves in the forthcoming field experience in schools or as future teachers. The findings primarily contribute new understanding about emotional states in online communities, and recommendations are provided for supporting the happiness and satisfaction of emergent teachers as they interact in online communities. It demonstrates that online environments can play an important role in fulfilling teachers' need for social interaction and inclusion.

Um estudo sobre o ensino-aprendizagem das demonstrações matemáticas

Demonstrations are fundamental instruments for Mathematics and, as such, are frequently used by mathematicians, math teachers and students. In fact, demonstrations are part of every Mathematics teaching environment, because Mathematics considers something true when it can be demonstrated. This is in contrast to other fields of knowledge that employ observation and experimentation to validate truth. This dissertation presents a study of the teaching and learning of demonstrations in Mathematics, describing a Teaching Module applied in a course on the Theory of Numbers offered by the Mathematics Department of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte for mathematics majors. The objective of the dissertation was to propose and test a Teaching Module that can serve as a model for teaching demonstrations. The Teaching Module consisted of the following five steps: the application of a survey to determine the students‟ profiles and their previous knowledge of mathematical language and techniques of demonstration; the analysis of a series of dialogues containing arguments in everyday language; the investigation and analysis of the structure of some important techniques of demonstration; a written assessment; and, finally, an interview to further verify the principal results of the Teaching Module. The analysis of the data obtained though the classroom activities, written assessments and interviews led to the conclusion that there was a significant amount of assimilation of the issue at the level of relational understanding, (SKEMP, 1980). These instruments verified that the students attained considerable improvement in their use of mathematical language and of the techniques of demonstration presented. Thus, the evidence supports the conclusion that the proposed Teaching Module is an effective means for the teaching/learning of mathematical demonstration and, as such, provides a methodological guide which may lay the foundations for a new approach to this important subject

Probabilidade no ensino médio

This thesis aims to show teachers and students in teaching and learning in a study of Probability High School, a subject that sharpens the perception and understanding of the phenomea of the random nature that surrounds us. The same aims do with people who are involved in this process understand basic ideas of probability and, when necessary, apply them in the real world. We seek to draw a matched between intuition and rigor and hope therebyto contribute to the work of the teacher in the classroom and the learning process of students, consolidating, deepening and expaning what they have learned in previous contents

Getting the most from a site visit : a guide to assist schools visiting a Leadership and Learning Site for Reading Best Practices /

Includes a list of the Reading Best Practice Sites in Illinois and a list of the possible teaching strategies that are appropriate with each of the fourteen Best Practices.

A Low Cost Controller Board for Teaching Robotics

This paper presents the Smarty Board; a new micro-controller board designed specifically for the robotics teaching needs of Australian schools. The primary motivation for this work was the lack of commercially available and cheap controller boards that would have all their components including interfaces on a single board. Having a single board simplifies the construction of programmable robots that can be used as platforms for teaching and learning robotics. Reducing the cost of the board as much as possible was one of the main design objectives. The target user groups for this device are the secondary and tertiary students, and hobbyists. Previous studies have shown that equipment cost is one of the major obstacles for teaching robotics in Australia. The new controller board was demonstrated at high-school seminars. In these demonstrations the new controller board was used for controlling two robots that we built. These robots are available as kits. Given the strong demand from high-school teachers, new kits will be developed for the next robotic Olympiad to be held in Australia in 2006.

The complementary potential of multimedia and science demonstrations

Science is often considered as one of the cornerstones of human advancement. Despite its importance in our society, science as a subject in schools appears to be losing ground. Lack of relevance, the nature of the curriculum and the pedagogical approach to teaching are some of the reasons which researchers believe are causing a “swing” away from science. This paper will argue for the effectiveness of simple science demonstrations as a feasible pedagogical option with a high task value and which has the potential to reengage and reinvigorate student interest in the subject. This paper describes a case study (N = 25) in which the Integrative problem based learning model for science was implemented in a year nine science class. The study was conducted at a secondary school in Australia. Teacher demonstrations were situated in classroom activities in a “Why is it so?” problem/question format. Qualitative data gathered from students demonstrated a number of benefits of this approach. This paper then explores ways in which Web 2.0 technologies could be incorporated to enhance the value of science demonstrations

Purpose built teaching equipment for a laboratory based course in three phase machines and drives

The hazards associated with high voltage three phase inverters and the rotating shafts of large electrical machines have resulted in most of the engineering courses covering these topics to be predominantly theoretical. This paper describes a set of purpose built, low voltage and low cost teaching equipment which allows the "hands on" instruction of three phase inverters and rotating machines. By using low voltages, the student can experiment freely with the motors and inverter and can access all of the current and voltage waveforms, which until now could only be studied in text books or observed as part of laboratory demonstrations. Both the motor and the inverter designs are optimized for teaching purposes cost around $25 and can be made with minimal effort.

Purpose built teaching equipment for a laboratory based course in three phase machines and drives

The hazards associated with high voltage three phase inverters ond the rotating sha@s of large electrical machines have resulted in most of the engineering courses covering these topics to be predominantly theoretical. This paper describes a set of purpose built, low voltage and low cost teaching equipment which allows the “hands on I’ instruction of three phase inverters and rotating machines. By using low voltages, the student can experiment freely with the motors and inverter and can access all of the current and voltage waveforms, which until now could only be studied in text books or observed as part of laboratory demonstrations. Both the motor and the inverter designs are optimized for teaching purposes, cost around $25 and can be made with minimal effort.

Comparison of the effects of inquiry-based cooperative learning and demonstrations in science education

The reported research project involved studying how teaching science using demonstrations, inquiry-based cooperative learning groups, or a combination of the two methods affected sixth grade students’ understanding of air pressure and density. Three different groups of students were each taught the two units using different teaching methods. Group one learned about the topics through both demonstrations and inquirybased cooperative learning, whereas group two only viewed demonstrations, and group three only participated in inquiry-based learning in cooperative learning groups. The study was designed to answer the following two questions: 1. Which teaching strategy works best for supporting student understanding of air pressure and density: demonstrations, inquirybased labs in cooperative learning groups, or a combination of the two? 2. And what effect does the time spent engaging in a particular learning experience (demonstrations or labs) have on student learning? Overall, the data did not provide sufficient evidence that one method of learning was more effective than the others. The results also suggested that spending more time on a unit does not necessarily equate to a better understanding of the concepts by the students. Implications for science instruction are discussed.

An alternative to BlackboardTM? Student use of web-based textbook teaching and learning material

This paper investigates the use of web-based textbook supplementary teaching and learning materials which include multiple choice test banks, animated demonstrations, simulations, quizzes and electronic versions of the text. To gauge their experience of the web-based material students were asked to score the main elements of the material in terms of usefulness. In general it was found that while the electronic text provides a flexible platform for presentation of material there is a need for continued monitoring of student use of this material as the literature suggests that digital viewing habits may mean there is little time spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority. From a lecturer perspective these materials may provide an effective and efficient way of presenting teaching and learning materials to the students in a variety of multimedia formats, but at this stage do not overcome the need for a VLE such as Blackboard™.