Problems of Education in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Problems of Education in the 21st Century, ISSN 1822-7864 Volume 36, 2011

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Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

Natural science competence of primary school teachers is one of the constituent parts of general professional competence. It is obvious that the students, would-be teachers (future teachers) of primary school, should receive considerably high education in the field of natural science education in the process of studies. A holistic concept (Holism is an attitude that requires to perceive a phenomenon as a particular single wholeness that is not equal to the total amount of its constituents; it is the evolution theory declaring that the unknowable wholeness of the world determines its creative evolution) of natural phenomena is supposed to be highly important to primary natural science competence of the teacher. Finally, it is important to stress that natural science teaching in primary school be powerful and purposeful. It is obligatory to avoid the marginalization of natural science education (teaching and learning) at the primary school level. Natural science education in primary schools, by contrast, must be consistent and efficient, because it is the basis for deeper study of the natural sciences in secondary and higher education.

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Authors: Elena Fabiola Ruiz Ledesma

In this paper are showed on the results of research whose aim was to document and analyze the manner in which students relate different representations when solving problems. A total of 20 students took part in the study, students attending their first year of university studies. In order to design the problem, the underlying information in each representation was deemed to be the starting point of different inferences and of different cognitive processes. The findings obtained make it possible to assert that the underlying information in each representation is not visible to all students and that a problem can foster handling of different representations, the making and verifying of various conjectures and the transfer of knowledge acquired in previous courses.

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Authors: Eeva-Liisa Peltokorpi, Kaarina Määttä, Satu Uusiautti

The aim of this research is to increase understanding about children’s emotional coping and to support teachers’ work on enhancing children’s readiness to handle challenging social situations at school. Emotional coping skills are important to human beings’ success and wellbeing and the basis for these skills is built already in early childhood. In this research, various interactive learning activities were planned and carried out in the classroom and the measures of emotional coping were created. Nine pupils aged between seven and eight who had problems with their emotional coping were selected as the research participants. Their forms of emotional coping, development and teaching were observed and the pupils’ self-evaluations were collected during the study year 2006-2007 in interactional classroom situations that involved mathematical problem-solving tasks. As a result, six various forms of emotional coping were found, which exemplified either constructivist, operational, or emotional coping. Results showed that pupils’ individual emotional coping can be illustrated through various mathematical reasoning and problem-solving tasks in stages. Familiarizing oneself with the various forms of emotional coping contributes to the teacher’s abilities to enhance students’ emotional coping to survive and direct their emotions when the goal is to develop toward emotional directedness.

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Authors: Tiia Rüütmann, Hants Kipper

In teaching engineering it is important to select the proper instructional strategy for a specific learning outcome. There are two broad types of learning outcomes: facts, rules and action sequences (on lower levels of complexity in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains), and concepts, patterns and abstractions (on higher level of complexity in the above named domains). Facts, rules and action sequences are taught using instructional strategies emphasizing knowledge acquisition (direct instruction). Concepts, patterns and abstractions are taught using strategies emphasizing inquiry or problem solving (indirect instruction). Knowledge acquisition and inquiry are different types of learning outcomes and they must be taught using specific strategies producing the desired outcome. Both types of learning may be combined, providing a menu of teaching strategies that help students solve problems, think critically and work cooperatively. This article presents teaching strategies suitable for direct and indirect instruction used in teaching engineering at Estonian Centre for Engineering Pedagogy at Tallinn University of Technology.

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Authors: Albana Shijaku

Gender equity has always been a broadly discussed issue. The number of studies and publications nowadays shows that this issue will prevail for a long period of time. There are controversies on gender equity in the Albanian society as well. The perception that males do better than females in many fields, persists even in our academic environments. Sometimes teachers unconsciously encourage male domination in the classroom by giving them more attention than females. This research explores teacher-student and student-student interaction, focusing on gender and teacher communication style regarding it. The analysis is based on data collected from the observation of the classroom interaction in two university classes, slightly dominated by males. They are monitored over a period of 15 weeks. The aim is to show how the language used in interactions contributes to gender inequity. It is also observed whether the teachers are aware of their interaction regarding gender bias. The results indicate conclusions fairly different from what theory suggests. Although teachers are educated to promote gender equity they rarely do it.

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Authors: Artur Sula, Irena Ndoci Lama, Mimoza Gjokutaj

Didactic concept on the questioning is a process which is closely linked to student learning, provides interactivity during the process of teaching, enables deeper levels of learning, creates infinite space for the development of critical thinking and many other mental and psychological processes. The dimensions of questioning lie on many levels: the level of the text, the level of student relations and student teachers relations during student group work and other educational activities. The object of this study is the questioning process that relates to the inclusion of respondents used as pedagogical devices within the content of each lesson topic. For the purpose of this study two groups of texts were taken inconsideration: texts of social sciences and natural sciences used in the Albanian school in order to see how questioning represents different levels of the taxonomy of learning and the types of questions designed according to different dimensions. In line with this observation the level of student learning was reviewed. This study gives some research findings based on the above analyses aiming at helping the authors of textbooks and teachers with writing and asking questions which enhance critical thinking and learning.

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Authors: Editorial Board

Problems of Education in the 21st Century, ISSN 1822-7864 Volume 36, 2011