Problems of Education in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Contents, Vol. 60, PEC, 2014

10-22

Authors: Tanja Äärelä, Satu Uusiautti, Kaarina Määttä

The purpose of this study is to analyze the essence of good teacherhood through young prisoners’ school experiences and memories in order to find means to prevent antisocial and exclusion-oriented development in youths. The assumption is that young prisoners’ teacher descriptions include also positive memories. How do they describe teachers who have supported them or could support children’s school going? How do the research participants perceive themselves in relation to teachers and teachers’ actions? The data consisted of young prisoners’ narratives regarding their school time. Twenty-nine young prisoners, aged 17-21, from two prisons in northern Finland participated in the study. This study employed the narrative research approach. The data were obtained through free-form interviews that resembled the narrative interview method. The qualitative content analysis and the narrative analyzing models were employed when analyzing the narrative data. According to the young prisoners’ perceptions, good teachers shared certain features and skills that could be categorized into three: interaction skills, pedagogical and didactic skills, and subject knowledge. The study contributed unique information about the positive actions and features of teacherhood that can support the school work also among the children in danger of exclusion.

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Authors: Valentin Cosmin Blândul

By its nature, education has 3 forms that are in a strong interdependence: formal, non-formal and informal. Non-formal education can be defined as a form of education implemented by schools in partnership with different educational institutions, using extracurricular activities, to help students deepen knowledge acquired in schools. A good example of this definition is the program “To know more, to be better!” implemented by the Romanian Ministry of Education since 2012. The main aim of this research was to analyze the impact of the above mentioned program upon students and teachers from Bihor County, Romania. The instrument used was a questionnaire with 18 questions. The sample consisted of 125 teachers from pre-primary, primary, secondary and high schools from Bihor County, Romania. The study was conducted in April 2014. The results of the research show that the majority of respondents have been pleased with this program, which has been popular among students as well. The latter ones were helped to better understand the theoretical knowledge they acquired during classes. The most frequent extracurricular activities of the program included visits, trips, workshops etc.

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Authors: Romilda Teodora Ens, Gisele Rietow Bertotti, Rudimar Gomes Bertotti

This research presents an innovative practice of continuing formation, which shows a connection between the public school and higher education, the Program of Educational Development of Parana/ Brazil (PDE-PR) and its relation to the results of IDEB (Index of Basic Education Development) in public state schools of Curitiba. This research aims to analyse the relation between the teacher’s formation and the index of development/knowledge presented by their students in the large scale exam applied in Brazil, based on a qualitative approach through a comparison among some factor based on the number of schools which had participants in PDE-PR, established goals and results obtained in the IDEB of 2007 and 2009 by students of the 9th grade. The results showed that 18 of 61 schools which had participants did not reach the established goal, but 23 presented an increase in their grade, in spite of not achieving the objective. The analyses indicate the per passed routes are opposed to the effectiveness of democratic spaces in the schools. Thus, at the same they emphasize the appreciation of the teacher in the legal documents, establish the formative process as the only way to access the last level of the teaching career, emphasizing mainly work time, in the entrance exam to the program, and seeking to achieve the established goals to improve the public schools which substantiate in the IDEB‘s grade.

101-113

Authors: Sabine Klinger, Ines Findenig

Higher education is supposed to create open-minded graduates within social topics. General assumptions about educational science transfer a quiet sensitive picture across in particular gender issues and the awareness of gender inequalities. In contrast to other disciplines, scientific debates about gender issues do have a long tradition, even if not always thematised as such. The curriculum of educational science offers a wide range of so called gender-seminars, where students can spend time on gender related topics and the awareness of gender equality. Women are overrepresented among educational students and regarding to a “new deal for young women” (McRobbie 2009), which may influence the way young woman and men think about the importance of gender-related topics, the question about the relevance of gender and gender issues for the discipline of educational studies often remains vague. According to this following research questions arose: how do students of educational science discuss gender issues, how does a de-articulation form gender issues, and how is rhetoric equality produced among university students of educational science. The data are based on a qualitative empirical survey composed of four group discussions carried out with 14 university students of educational studies from German speaking universities. The aim was to reconstruct and analyse both - an individual and collective - understanding or interpretations regarding gender issues. The findings of this study have revealed that the reflection of gender issues and talking about gender is somehow caught between gender equality, difference and usurpation. This takes into account the mechanisms and masking effects of neoliberal activation. Deliberations about how educational studies can handle these challenges should imply a gender-reflected understanding of learning and educational processes.

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Authors: Anete Mežote, Vija Dišlere

To successfully develop certain competences in students, it is necessary to define the competences, as well as to set assessment criteria to be used in the process of developing, assessing and further developing of the competences. Due to the developing nature of international cooperation among organizations, the criteria for assessing international cooperation competences must comprise and assess all components of the particular competences that are necessary in typical job situations in the present time in the field where the prospective specialists (the current students) are planning to work, as well as all components of competences that individuals should possess in accordance with the constructivist learning theory, thus fostering a learning environment where students motivate themselves and construct their knowledge accordingly. The article defines international cooperation competences of external relations specialists, as well as sets, describes and justifies their assessment criteria, taking into account the prospective job environments of these specialists along with progressive learning theories. The set assessment criteria can also be used to assess international cooperation competences of students of other study fields where foreign language or communication courses are acquired. Apart from defining international cooperation competences and their assessment criteria, the study results present the comparison of the assessment of competences by means of using the set criteria and grades in simulations and in the standard written final examination, thus justifying the need for the set criteria to assess the most important components of the mentioned competences properly on the basis of practical competence demonstration and testing.

156-166

Authors: Sotiria Tzivinikou

Universal Design supported by literature as an appropriate and effective procedure can help all students including the learning disabled ones to improve their accessibility to written materials (Evans et al., 2010; Rose & Meyer, 2002). The present study reports a UDL application in higher education. More specifically, it aimed to investigate if the revision of the study guide of a Pedagogical Department according to the UDL principles helped the students to improve their access to crucial information regarding their studies. A quantitative method based on pre and post evaluation of the UDL revision of the study guide was employed. The results showed that this revision was regarded by the students as helpful and efficient as they could be well-informed about their studies and ready for making decisions related to their future careers. These findings could have an important impact on higher education course design, instruction and the produced academic written stuff, and finally, the university could become more accessible for all students.

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Authors: Editorial Board

End page, Vol. 60, PEC, 2014