JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS
Year:2008 | Volume:- | Issue:22|Papers Count:26

Lack of interest for following discipline in schools brings with it many different negative consequences for students in fields of education, society, and family. Such a lack of interest toward self-regulation sets the ground for staying away from law, lack of self-esteem, and more wrong-doings even in students who do not have serious and abnormal problems. Teachers who are in a state to possess more knowledge and ability in recognizing and creating positive relationships with students are considered to be one of the most important causes in structuring the developing personality of the students. The current research tries to explain the importance of this role in creating self-regulative behaviors in students.This research has put the following theories under examination: 1- There is significant positive correlation between the teachers' friendly relationship and students' care for discipline. 2- There is a positive significant relationship between teachers amount of respect for students and students' organization. 3- There is positive significant relationship between teachers' effort in fully explaining educational material to students and students' self-regulation. 4- There is significant relationship between the teachers' self-regulation model and students' acceptance of discipline. In order to test the research hypothesizes 200 grade 10 female students were selected randomly from high schools of district 15 in Tehran and were asked to answer the researcher-made questionnaire.The results of the research showed that friendly and sincere relationship between teachers and students, the superiority of teachers' self-regulative model for students, teachers' acceptable effort in order to clarify educational material, respect students, as well as students' family success cause the increase of the students' self-regulative behavior.

The process and project of "globalization", which appeared after the 2nd Word War in the most industrialized Western countries, have spread into the other industrialized countries and it is rapidly expanding across all over the world. This process and plan has shown itself as one of the most challenging issues of the past and present decade for all human cultures and is deeply influencing the value system and the identity of adolescents and youths in Iran and elsewhere.The value system, or the desired and internal qualities within ones psychological structure, is the main layers of a person's personality and identity which forms the basis of his/her attitude system and behavior. Modern studies on the individuals' value systems are mostly conducted by the social and educational psychologists of the west countries and based by and large on the Anglo-American understanding of human life. These studies on value system have considered neither eastern philosophy of life nor the Islamic or Iranian culture into account and, therefore, we may not necessarily recognize them as a legitimate global value system. It is necessary, consequently, to investigate the quality of value system of Iranians (specifically high-school students) and inquire the influence of their attitudes toward" globalization" on their value system.The theoretical basis of studying the value system of our adolescents and youths is to face the main values of Islamic-Iranian culture in opposition to their counter values to discover how much their value systems are in close proximity to their classical culture. On this basis, in the first part of our study entitled "Investigating the status of Iranian high-school & pre-university students' attitude toward globalization and its effect on their value system and their religious and national identity", we have applied psycho-educational assessment techniques and created an indigenous scale for assessing value system. The validation of our scale has been conducted by means of two procedures: investigating content validity of the scale by asking professionals to value the relevance of each and all 135 items; and conducting a pilot study on a sample of 568 high-school students of grades 9, 10, 11, and 12 and applying factor analysis to investigate the construct validity of the scale. Our validity justification studies showed that ten categories of individual values, family values, economic values, political values, social values, artistic values, scientific and theoretical values, religious identity values, national identity values, and worldviews (or globalization) values might be distinguished in our value system assessment scale.

This article provides a short historical background of curriculum development and textbook preparation for primary and secondary schools in Iran. It further describes the concept and components of Curriculum Theory and reviews the viewpoints of the contemporary western theorists who have discussed and categorized curriculum theories. It also points out that these curriculum theories have their origins in the western philosophical, psychological and sociological doctrines and they provide guidelines for curriculum planners of those societies.The article then highlights some educational problems in Iran that have emerged over the past years due to the lack of a home-grown curriculum theory. Therefore, the article emphasizes the necessity of formulating an indigenous curriculum theory to serve as a guide for curriculum planners and textbook compilers of the country.By presenting some evidence and examples the article argues that the indigenous Curriculum Theory and its components can be drawn up from the Islamic world view as well as from Moslem educational literature.

The purpose of doing the research which is the basis for writing this article, was the study and comparison of learning styles in bilingual students (Turkish and Kurdish) and those students who speak one language only (Farsi), and research into whether there exists a relationship between methods of learning and educational advancement elements and the gender among these students. Due to this fact, Felder-Solomon Learning-style questionnaire was put to work for 720 students in grade 6, 7, and 8 of public schools in 2001-2002 academic years. The students were consisted of 240 bilingual Kurdish female and male students, 240 bilingual Turkish female and male students, and 240 one-language speaking (Farsi) female and male students, respectively in cities of Sanandaj, Tabriz, and Tehran. The outcomes were analyzed with the help of multivariate analysis of variance and the co relational method. This research showed that: a) There is difference between the learning style of bilingual (Turk and Kurd speaking) students and students who speak only one language (Farsi), in the way that the one-language speaking students have an intuitional-visual learning style in comparison with the bilingual students. The bilingual students have a sensational-verbal learning style compared to the one language speaking students.b) There is no significant relationship between the learning style and the student's educational advancement.c) There is a difference between the learning methods of female and male students; in the way that boys' learning style is of the visual-holistic type, while the girls' learning style is of the verbal-consecutive type.

Iran, as a historically, culturally, and scientifically ancient country has had a prosperous status in the human life and world's education. To give an example, Iranian cosmopolitan scientists and educators such as Bozorgmehr, Ferdowsi, Birooni, Razi, Avicenna, Sadie, Khayyam, Nasir-oddin-Toosi, and many others are among the great educators and scientists who have played an important role in human life. When we compare this with other main ancient countries of China, India, Egypt, and Greek, it becomes clear that only Greek scientists and educators are comparable to Iranians in the amount of influence of their science and education on international and historical basis....

The family's behavioral style and parents' relationship method with children are important elements in children's mental condition and attitude toward life and social relationships (such as their attitude toward human relationships in school). This research, which was conducted on a sample of 1522 middle-school, high school, and pre-university level students in the province of Tehran, has tried to answer the question of how each of the families five parenting styles (in integrated, authoritative & responsive, indifferent, authoritarian, and chaotic families) impact the mental condition and attitude of adolescents and youths of middle schools and high school levels toward the school staffs type of behavior with students.In order to measure the mental health factor, the individuals' normal condition from the respect of lack of anxiety, depression, aggressiveness, anti-social attitudes, and wrong-doing mentality are set as the judging standards. As well, five variables meaning the students' age, gender, education level, economical status, and cultural condition were investigated as the background variables. The statistical methods used in this research, apart from descriptive stats have included" comparison of means" and "multivariate regression analysis" for the purpose of predicting the effective elements on the students' mental condition and their attitude toward human-relationships at schools.The research results showed that integrated, authoritative & responsive families have a positive impact and indifferent, authoritarian, and chaotic families have a negative impact on the students' mental health and their attitude toward the human relationships at schools.

Conflicts between students are a part of daily school life. If they are not supervised in a constructive way, conflicts can prevent the school from reaching its objectives and will affect negatively the school climate.Mediation is one of the approaches, which aims to reduce conflict between individuals and groups at home, school or workplace. Acquiring resolution skills may provide students with the necessary tools to solve their own conflict in a responsible and productive way. This kind of training can also enhance students' self-esteem and will improve their communication skills.This article reviews the history of mediation in western countries and describes essential elements of adult and peer mediation programs. At the end, the advantages and limits of mediation training and its possible applications for Iranian schools are discussed.

The purpose of this research is investigation into the difference of linguistic-cognitive skills in bi-lingual students, who have difference economical-social backgrounds. Two viewpoints have been in mind while conducting this research: First, Vigotsky's theory about general cognitive development, which is applicable in learning language. Second, Bernstein's theory of social class and the differences of speech quality. In this research suitable theoretical explanations being suggested so that the various effects of cognitive behaviors are clarified in learning the second language. Moreover, learning of the second language is being discussed in its social framework. The subjects of this research include 205 grade one students of public schools in the city of Orumieh. The age of these kids is between six and a half years to eight and a half years. These kids native language is either Turkish or Kurdish and are taught their lessons in Farsi language. They are selected from various social and economical levels.The test for ability in Farsi language (the test for ability in writing words) is used for the bi-lingual kids. The results of this research shows clear signs that social class is in relationship with the linguistic-cognitive development and states that the kids' primary experiences in family and social group channels can impact the structure of their cognitive and linguistic development. At the meantime, the research findings did not provide any clear sign with regards to the relationship between culture and linguistic-cognitive development, meaning that although there is cultural differences between Kurdish-speaking and Turkish-speaking kids in the region, the level of gaining Farsi knowledge of the two groups has had no significant statistical difference. The most important outcome of this research stresses the question that the amount of educational resource at hand can to what extent impact the education development in the second language for bi-lingual kids. Kids who have had the opportunity to pass pre-primary school classes have had far more ability in learning Farsi knowledge compared to the kids who have not had such an opportunity.

Since the 1970s, greater attention has been given to the integration of work and education and different models of activities, such as work experience, work shadowing, work simulation, work observation, and workplace visiting have been organized in the workplace to prepare students for work (Rombold, 1990; Willshire, 1994).There have been major changes in the concept of relationship between work and education. There can be seen four models of industry/school. Development of these four models follows the development of the concept of integration of work and training in Australia since the 1970s. Regarding the models, there are four stages in development of this concept. In the second half of the 1900s and in the early 21 century, development of information technology (IT) has been created a new model based on virtual instruments for exercising work in a virtual workplace.This article will classify and analyze the relationship between industry and school provided in practice. Consequently, four models of "teacher-focused", "student focused", "curriculum focused", and "market focused" have been recognized. Each of them has some advantages and disadvantages. However, all models (separated or together) can be used in providing opportunities for both industry and school to make a closer relationship between the two parties. Finally, there are some suggestions by author for application of the models in the case of Iranian vocational education and training system.

This article describes the process of national curriculum standards reform and the progress of applying the integrated curriculum from theory and research to practice.The curriculum council of Japanese government received an inquiry from Monbusho in August 1996 about "reform of the national curriculum". The council comprehensively discussed how to help children's well-balanced development and how to educate them to be sound members of the nation and the society living independently in the 21st century. In addition, the council agreed that it was necessary to constantly review the national curriculum standards for improvement focus on integrated curriculum. The purposes of national curriculum standards reform are as follows:1- To help a child cultivate rich humanity, sociality, and identity as a Japanese living in the international community, 2- To help children develop ability to learn and think independently, 3- To help children acquire basic abilities and skills and grew their own individuality with plenty of scope for educational activities,4- To encourage individual schools to show ingenuity in developing unique educational activities to make the school distinctive.The article shows that the new national curriculum standards emphasis on interdisciplinary and comprehensive learning clearly specified and more flexible.

The "modern vocational education" which has been formed gradually and in different levels and dimensions in recent years is in fact a try for defeating problems and deficiencies of "traditional vocational education" - problems and deficiencies which are caused by strict skill orienting process, the separation of thought from activity, as well as separation of theoretical teaching from vocational teaching. In modern vocational education what is regarded is the combination of theoretical and experimental training, higher amount of communication between school education aims and vocational aims of economical centers, as well as communication of high school education with higher education. Modern vocational education which was first formed in the United States gradually became an element of interest to other world countries and up to today steps have been taken in order to act up on it.The philosophical and historical basis of modern vocational education refers back to holistic pragmatist epistemology and unity of offered viewpoints by socialist originators. In fact the occurrence of the dominated holistic approach on this type of modern vocational education has caused attention to scientific and practical education and combined teaching programs. By pointing out to basis and levels of formation of modern vocational education in different countries, this article examines its epistemological foundations.

Creativity is a Devine gift and each individual has a certain amount of this gift. The realization and appearance of creativity requires a proper location. The expansion of this ability, which can be said is the survival of a society, is possible through educational programming, and accurate and proper teaching and education. Teachers, as one of the most important training and education elements, have a key role in nourishing creativity. The teachers' attitude toward creativity, their level of understanding of it, and also their type of attitude and teaching method have a direct relationship on enriching the class environment for students' growth of creativity. Therefore it is necessary to help the teachers gain the attitude and necessary skills for the growth of the students' creative ability. In order to assess how creativity is taught in elementary school period, 120 instructors were participating (60 instructors in a test group and 60 instructors in a control group). The test group became involved in "Teaching of creativity" program so that the impact of the program and training model on instructors' knowledge, attitude, and skill would be assessed. The results were examined through T test and showed that there is significant difference between the two groups - The "test group" and the "control group". The results stated the positive impact of the training period. A set of suggestions have been made for the growth of students' creativity based on the findings in this research.

Text book is considered one of the most important references and resources for students' learning in education systems. In the same way, text books play one of the most important roles in Iran. Because of this importance and also because of the role of the content of text books in encouraging and providing for the needs beside making the students' learning process easy, the content of text books in primary school have been put under assessment and analysis in this research with respect to the construct of advancement motivation and its indexes. This research is the foundation for the current article. At the beginning of the article the theoretical and experimental background of the subject has been provided.The research tool includes 5 indexes and 125 sub-indexes and its reliability has been concluded to be 0.93 based on the ratio of agreed-upon indexes to all other ones.With regards to the findings and based on the resulted data from "content analysis forms" in the current research and the researches that have previously taken place in this field, it can be derived that: Mathematics and Experimental science books have to high extent paid attention to advancement motivation construct; Farsi literature, Religion, and Quran text books have to some extent paid attention to this matter; and Social Studies text books have been weak in paying attention to this matter. In elementary schools, it can also be said that grade 5 and 4 books have paid a lot of attention to advancement motivation construct and grade one and two have paid less attention to this matter.On top of this, most attention to the mentioned construct in elementary school books have been seen in grade 5 experimental sciences, grade 3 experimental sciences, grade 4 social studies, grade 3 religious and Quran studies, and grade 5 mathematics. And finally, least attention to this construct has been seen in grade one Quran studies, grade 3 social studies, grade one experimental sciences, grade 5 religious and Quran studies, and grade 4 Farsi literatures.

In the past few centuries, globe has gone through many changes. The outstanding appearance of these developments is the industrial revolution of 17 h century. The modernity as an idea has progressed in the same period of time. The most important feature of modernity is "humanism". West is the origin of this modern civilization and the concept of "humanism" has gradually spread over the non-western lands. Islam as one of the non-western civilization with a religious identity should meet this modern civilization. Modernity has encountered Islamic civilization and Moslem thinkers have faced it in different ways. The first organized effort to react the modernity issues in the field of education started in 1977, when Moslems' Education Conference was held in Mecca to search for the main strategies needed for the islamification of human sciences. Although, several years have passed since that event, even those who claimed such an idea are not satisfied with this accomplishment. The reason why this idea and, consequently, its educational concerns were not fulfilled is the problematic aspect of the present study. Regarding this matter, three questions were formed: What are the most important approaches toward islamization of sciences? What are the effects of islamization of sciences on the aims and contents of education? What are the main obstacles of the desired fulfillment of islamization of sciences and education? In this article, the study of educational implication of islamization of sciences, and also respond to above questions, is set forth.

Some school students, in spite of their normal intelligence and healthy visual and hearing sensation, are not able to follow educational instructions of the classroom and have difficulties to understand special concepts while are thought by the regular methods in schools. These students are usually named as learning disabled children. Mathematical learning disability is one of L. D. problems which lead to difficulty in understanding mathematical concepts. In this research, the effectiveness of three methods of teaching mathematics, i.e. task instruction, process or ability instruction, and task-process instruction in teaching mathematics, have been investigated. Research findings indicate that 1) there are significant differences between pre-test post-test marks on mathematical achievement as a result of applying different instruction methods; 2) task instruction method and process or ability instruction method are significantly influencing the L. D. students' learning mathematics.

School Based Curriculum Development (SBCD) is emerged as a response to shortcomings and problems which stem from Centralized Curriculum Development and the most important reason for its formation is adopting curricula with existing needs and issues at school and community levels.In spite of increasing emphasis on dissemination of SBCD, the literature about curriculum has not properly addressed the status and role of needs assessment studies in SBCD and not only enough attention has not paid to this important issue, but also on independent study in this regard handily can be fined.The present article which is taken from a two years research in this area, tries to introduce a special model for curriculum needs assessment at school level and include various states of needs assessment. This model (SBCNA) is representative of a new research area in curriculum development. At the end of this article, after studying the existing situation in Iran, ways to pay more attention to needs assessment in school curricula has been considered.

Realistic curriculum planning for schools requires the contribution of all groups, especially teachers, who influence the process of decision making in education. Since teachers have valuable experiences about school activities and are aware of the students' needs and problems, they should be considered as the main important element of decision making on curriculum planning. This research has tried to show the extent, and the possibility, of teachers' contribution in curriculum planning in Iran and have investigated the results of such contribution as well. A researcher-made questionnaire has been used to collect data from a sample of high school teachers in Tehran and experts of curriculum planning of the Ministry of Education concerning the extent of teachers' contribution in curriculum planning, the factors which facilitate this contribution, and the positive and negative effects of it.

Globalization is regarded as a process or a project or a process/project which is most rapidly developing. Globalization, in case of occurrence, will put its impacts on all dimensions of human life including knowledge and practice. Particularly, its impact on epistemology and education would be remarkable. Given that the appearance and development of informational revolution is the most important background for globalization, the first challenge of globalization relates to the nature of knowledge. According to the information revolution, the most important characteristic of knowledge is to be sought in this equation: knowledge = information. This involves reducing different facets of knowledge to quantitative information which leads to knowledge legitimacy crisis. In addition, having a communicational dimension, knowledge will be qualified by means of the shape and characteristics of community in the era of globalization. The viewpoint of virtual community calls us from another side to rethink on knowledge as well as on the problem of identity because in the consequence of virtual community, virtual identity of pupils is being claimed which involves identity fragmentation. To deal with these challenges, education needs: a) to resist the reduction of knowledge to information and equate knowledge with wisdom rather than information; b) to extend imaginative and creative procedures; c) to develope interdisciplinary studies as an important way of extending imagination; and finally, d) to provide relationship between virtual and real communities of the pupils.

The rapid evolution of all aspects of the human life, especially in the field of communication and information, on one hand, and the common destiny of the world due to higher interaction between countries, on the other hand, have created a social motivation for innovation and renovation. This motivation comes generally along with some frustration among the people of most of the developing countries. This frustration pushes them to undertake reforms -if not revolution- in political, social or cultural domain including education issues.The people of these societies being anxious about the education of their young generation are fascinated by the new doctrines or technologies of education. Hence, they often forget or underestimate the sound traditions stemmed from their cultural inheritance. They neglect as well the present and future conditions or possibilities of innovation in their own countries.This article emphasizes that before starting any innovation in education system, it is worthwhile to answer to the following questions: 1- How we perceive the innovation to be realized in each of the domains of education?1- Retired Professor of Tehran University.2- What are the relevant conditions for such realization?3- How and from where we have to start these educational innovations?Answers to these questions are given in this article.

Curriculum planning and curriculum development is one of the most important issues in education. Therefore, it is vital to continue working on its qualitative enhancement.This article looks at improving processes as a tool for the total quality management. Such processes are among the practical steps that results a better curricula to the benefit of a higher education system for students.