1,721,005 research outputs found
Mathematics Learning Community Flourishes in the Cellular Phone Environment
No full textResearchers point at the importance of nourishing learning communities, which do not merely represent congeniality but rather dig deeply into learning. These learning communities are needed in mobile learning environments. In this article, the author examines the building of a community of middle school students who learned mathematics outside the classroom by carrying out real life activities using their cellular phones. The building of the learning community was led by three 3rd year pre-service teachers majoring in mathematics and computers at Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education. The pre-service teachers worked for 12 weeks with 30 8th grade students who then learned mathematics with their cellular phones and were part of a learning community. The research shows that the use of the cellular phone for learning contributed to their learning, their identity, and their sense of community.</p
Saturation in Qualitative Educational Technology Research
No full textSaturation is a key construct used by qualitative research theorists as a way to verify the rigor and validity of a study. This study intends to examine how saturation is used within qualitative educational technology studies that addressed saturation. We selected journals which (a) follow a peer review process; (b) are considered influential in their fields and of high quality, as reflected in being in Q1 (first quartile) or Q2 (second quartile) in Scopus; and (c) publish qualitative research. The number of journals selected for this study was 20, and we selected 3 articles from each. The methodology in the chosen articles was interview-based, and the articles were published in the journal in the 5 recent years 2018–2022 (i.e., a 5-year review period). The research results indicated that 20 out of 60 of the participating studies paid attention to the definition of saturation, 25 out of 60 participating studies paid attention to ‘why saturation was sought’, and 26 out of 60 participating studies paid attention to ‘when saturation was sought’. All the participating studies paid attention to ‘how was saturation assessed’. The most-mentioned expression to indicate the achievement of saturation was the emergence of new information, themes, categories, and codes, where most of the participating studies used expressions related to this aspect
Working In a Wiki Environment
No full textThe preservice teachers confronted four types of difficulties throughout their whole work in the geometry wiki environment, but they could overcome these difficulties using different means, especially discourse. Overall, the preservice teachers found that the wiki environment benefited them and appreciated the various functions which the wiki enabled.</jats:p
Schools’ Challenges in Distance Learning during Emergency Education: Focus Group Methodology
No full textThe present research uses the focus group discussion methodology to report the challenges met by the educational system in distance education during emergency education. It shows the different potentialities of this use. In doing this, it studies the practices used by schools during emergency education. Furthermore, the research verifies the suggestions given by a group of educationists to cope with challenges in emergency education. A focus group of nine participants met in the frame of a Ph.D. course to discuss the issues in which the present research is interested, and the number of discussion sessions was four. The research results indicated that the reasons varied for agreement and disagreement in the FGDs, where these reasons were mostly experience-based, perception-based, affiliation-based, inconsideration-based, compromise-based, and suggestion-based. Moreover, the types of agreement and disagreement were mostly complementary, vis-à-vis agreement-with-objection and agreement-with-advancement. The facilitator performed the following different functions: (1) initiator, (2) caring about the different voices in the FGD, and thus encouraging equity in the FGD, (3) making the discussion smooth, (4) advancing the discussion, (5) and orchestrating the discussion. In addition, the discussion of the participants addressed challenges related to the teachers, to the Ministry of Education, and to the resources. The schools’ and the Ministry of Education’s practices included different actions in an attempt to overcome the challenges of distance education: holding workshops related to distance education, suggesting the schools as places for the teachers to teach their online lessons, and making declarations for the public and families. The suggestions given by the participants to maintain and improve online learning included communicating with the students and holding workshops for the professional development of teachers at regular times. Close relationships between the Ministry of Education, the schools, and the parents were recommended in order to maintain an acceptable level of distance education
Student teachers’ perceptions of democracy in the mathematics classroom: Freedom, equality and dialogue
Get PDFThis article studies student teachers’ perceptions of the pedagogic and didactic aspects of teaching and learning mathematics in a democratic classroom. It is concerned primarily with issues of democracy in the mathematics classroom, specifically freedom, equality and dialogue. The research was conducted in two mathematics teacher education classes, where students were in their third year of study to major in mathematics. To find these students’ perceptions of democracy in the mathematics classroom the first two stages of the constant comparison method were followed to arrive at categories of democratic and undemocratic acts. The participants in the research emphasised that instructors should refrain from giving some students more time or opportunities to express themselves or act in the mathematics classroom than other students, because this would make them feel unequal and possibly make them unwilling to participate further in the mathematics classroom. The participants also emphasised that instructors should not exert their power to stop the flow of students’ actions in the mathematics classroom, because this would trouble them and make them lose control of their actions. Further, the participants mentioned that instructors would do better to connect to students’ ways of doing mathematics, especially of defining mathematical terms, so that students appreciate the correct ways of doing mathematics and defining its terms
Wiki Interaction Tracks in Geometry Learning
No full textThe constant comparative method (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was used to analyze preservice teachers’ discussions and interactions in wiki discussion sections regarding geometric lessons that were written by other preservice teachers in the year before. The data was compared for the following interaction aspects of knowledge building: dialogical actions, participants’ roles, and discussion tracks. Research shows that building their content and pedagogic content knowledge, the preservice teachers together with the lecturer used mainly proposing, asking, requesting, arguing, presenting, and moving the discussion forward as dialogical actions. Proposing and asking were used for various goals such as proposing various ideas and actions, and asking about different issues concerned with geometric content and pedagogic content knowledge. The lecturer asked questions more than the preservice teachers, while the preservice teachers proposed more than the lecturer. The knowledge building was collaborative in nature, and one important aspect which enabled the collaboration is the topology of the wiki discussion section. This topology enables presenting the content of the messages; not just the titles, where the contents are presented as having the same level and thus the same importance.</jats:p
Wiki Interaction Tracks in Geometry Learning
No full textThe constant comparative method (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was used to analyze preservice teachers’ discussions and interactions in wiki discussion sections regarding geometric lessons that were written by other preservice teachers in the year before. The data was compared for the following interaction aspects of knowledge building: dialogical actions, participants’ roles, and discussion tracks. Research shows that building their content and pedagogic content knowledge, the preservice teachers together with the lecturer used mainly proposing, asking, requesting, arguing, presenting, and moving the discussion forward as dialogical actions. Proposing and asking were used for various goals such as proposing various ideas and actions, and asking about different issues concerned with geometric content and pedagogic content knowledge. The lecturer asked questions more than the preservice teachers, while the preservice teachers proposed more than the lecturer. The knowledge building was collaborative in nature, and one important aspect which enabled the collaboration is the topology of the wiki discussion section. This topology enables presenting the content of the messages; not just the titles, where the contents are presented as having the same level and thus the same importance.</p
- …
