JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS
Year:2013 | Volume:11 | Issue:46|Papers Count:7

Research findings showed that Azari-Turk children who benefit from preschool education show more Persian oral proficiency and academic achievement than their peer counterparts who do not benefit from such education. However, it is not clear if the better performance of the first group of children continues during later years of education.It was an ex-post-facto study that was done using causal-comparative method. The present study was set out to examine the lasting effect of one year preschool education and the lack of such education on Azari-Turk children’s Persian oral language proficiency and academic achievement at the end of primary school third grade. Upon their enrollment at grade one, two groups of Azari-Turk children (G1= 30, G2=30) were examined in terms of their Persian language skills (Rouhi & Behnam, 2011). One group had already attended one year of preschool education, while the other had not and the two groups had significant differences on Persian speaking, organizing, listening, semantics, syntax and phonology on their first days of primary school first grade. The distribution of TOLD - P3 test on the two mentioned groups of children after three years of primary school education showed that the group with one year preschool education outperformed the control group on different subtests of TOLD-P3 test, despite three years of primary school education. Furthermore, the experimental group had better performance on courses dependent on Persian language arts such as Persian language, spelling, composition, Koran, religious studies, social studies and science, compared to the control group. There was no such difference in the performance of the two groups of children on courses such as art and physical education that were independent of the Persian language arts. The scores obtained for the subtests of TOLD including picture vocabulary, relational vocabulary, oral vocabulary, grammatical understanding, sentence imitation, grammatical completion, word discrimination, phonemic analysis, and word naming as well as the spoken components including the spoken language, listening, organizing, speaking, semantics, and syntax were computed for the two groups of the participants. All scores obtained from the subtests and the spoken components were converted to standard and quotient scores, respectively. A comparison conducted between the 2 sets of scores for the 2 groups suggested that except for the relational vocabulary and word discrimination subtests, the group with one year of preschool education outscored the control group in all subtests and quotient scores, despite the fact that both groups had received the same primary school education for 3 years. In addition, in the courses dependent on the Persian language arts, the first group performed better than the latter one, while in the courses independent of the mentioned skills, the two groups of children’s performance was almost the same.

The aim of this study was designing, developing and validating a cooperative learning model for elementary school Farsi Curriculum of “let’s read and write (bekhanim & benevisim)”. Data was gathered using research synthesis (integrative inquiry) and field validation methods and also through information sheets and questionnaire. The sample included Farsi Curriculum from third to fifth grade, 6 language learning and curriculum development specialists and 24 elementary school teachers from 6th district of Tehran who were selected using purposeful sampling method. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (Kolmogorov-Smirnov). Based on the results, first the cooperative learning model for third to fifth grade elementary school Farsi curriculum of ‘let’s read and write’ (Bekhanim & Benevisim) was designed and developed. Then, this model was sent to language learning and curriculum development specialists and also elementary school teachers. Finally, the initial model based on experts’ opinion was modified and the final model was developed.

Legal requirements of the “Fifth Development Plan of Iran” have forced the executive organizations to change their budgeting based on “Activity Based Costing” till the end of the mentioned plan. The OERP (part of Ministry of Education) has considered “Performance Based Budgeting” using “Activity Based Costing” method in its fifth Development plan. This study was done with the goal of computing “Activity Based Costing “and measuring efficiency of Curriculum Development Center of OERP. It was a descriptive research. At first, using the technique of “Activity Based Costing” (ABC) the cost of activities and output of the mentioned Center was computed. Also, the norm of output activities has been computed using Linear Regression and forming focus groups and it has accounted for each output of the mentioned center. Then, the efficiency of the center has been accounted by efficiency formula, i.e., outputs divided by inputs. The research instruments included a questionnaire and interview.The results have shown that some departments of the center had sufficient efficiency and there was a direct correlation between the amount of efficiency of center and the number of books of the departments.

In the introductory section of the article, the author deals with the criteria for effectiveness of education and how an effective education can be differentiated from a non-effective one. The answer provided is that effective education, in any domain, is education that leaves an impact on learner’s identity and, thus, becomes part of his/her being.Desirability of education with such quality is an assumption that supports the remaining arguments presented in the article which has as its major focus, education in the sphere of values. By resorting to an integrative mode of inquiry, the author has attempted to survey the relevant literature in this area. The result has been identification of the five approaches to effective values education for childhood age range. They are called the cultural, the integrated, the artistic, the cognitive and the action/practice approach. The education systems are advised to benefit from the unique potential of these approaches in an eclectic fashion. That is, none of the mentioned approaches should be eliminated from the scene in pursuing the appropriate goals; rather an interdisciplinary and context-specific reference to the five approaches should become the order of practice in the education system.

this study investigated major elements affecting English language teaching at Iranian public schools. It was a descriptive study and the research sample included 270 junior and senior high school male and female English teachers who were selected through cluster sampling method. Meanwhile, teaching methods of 64 English teachers from private institutes and public schools were observed through a checklist. Cornbach alpha was 0.90 for the questionnaire and 0.85 for the checklist. The results of one sample t-test and Friedman test indicated that according to teachers, inefficient factors were curriculum content, the low or no use of technology, few opportunities for student-teacher interaction, low teacher interest, negative socio-cultural views, inadequate teacher training and students’ participation at low level in public schools, respectively. However, integrative teaching of the four language arts, assessment techniques, teaching methods, and extra-curricular activities were not related to low level learning of English at school. The analysis of classroom observation of public schools and private language institutes showed that there were significant differences among classroom context, teacher motivation, using relic, students’ factors and the methods of evaluation between these settings, although this study did not find a significant discrepancy between private language institutes and public schools as far as teachers’ proficiencies were concerned. The findings of this study are very insightful in helping policy makers and public school EFL teachers to make a constructive transition towards implementing English teaching criteria that are of most concern in private language institutes.

Examples play a significant role at construction and reconstruction of math concepts. Good educational examples like a clear monitor, act as means for connecting learners, teachers and concepts. This study examines math teachers’ perception of examples and how they could be used in the process of teaching a concept. The research method employed in this study was a qualitative survey method. The research population consisted of all high school math teachers of Markazi province in the academic year 89-90 and 75 randomly selected teachers participated as the sample. The results showed that teachers are aware of the necessity of the use of examples, but they do not have sufficient knowledge of educational examples and their example space is not sufficiently developed. Most of the teachers consider examples as useful and necessary tool and as a common understandable language for learners. But it seems that they do not consider theorems, problems, definitions, proofs and reasoning as examples. Teachers pointed out some characteristics for educational examples such as clarity and simplicity, math accuracy, being in accordance with students’ learning ability and being measurable, but a large number of them neglected important characteristics such as generalizability, the availability and richness and power of a math example. Findings also indicated that most of participating teachers used examples in parts of teaching process such as conceptualizing or teaching procedures.