JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS
Year:2011 | Volume:9 | Issue:37|Papers Count:14

The aim of this descriptive research was evaluation of school national network of Iran (Roshd) based on the criteria for designing the educational websites and it's comparison with other educational networks. The research population consisted of all the educational websites, and the sample contained the mostly visited educational websites which were selected using purposeful sampling method. The research tool was a researcher-made checklist which was designed through summarizing the defined and standard criteria such as 10C model of Cars & Kearsley, and the criteria of Duzer (2002) and Asmawi & Razak (2006). Using the above-mentioned checklist, the educational websites have been compared in terms of interaction, media application, testing, communication tools, face validity, content, help and user friendliness and other utilities. The validity of the research tool was confirmed by some professors and experts. The required data was gathered through library documents, research reports, searching in the internet and viewing and examining the related websites. The results showed that the Roshd Network lacks tools such as text conversation, debate groups, spatial shared domains, video conference, possibility of publishing books, possibility of members' and weblog contribution. These drawbacks have been observed in other examined websites, too. Also, findings showed that Roshd network has adequately applied sound tools, animated images, games and entertainment. With regard to testing section, this network just used multiple questions Like other websites. Regarding the informing section, Roshd network has used daily messages, news, information and photo gallery. Also, Roshd network has used two tools out of four ones that has been considered for educationalwebsites. This nestwork has extra facilities such as e-shopping and membership for its clients which are of high importance for other sites. Finally, Roshd network has had a proper function in terms of helping the clients.

Nowadays due to the economic and technological demands of modern human being, the responsibility of formal and general educational system is multiplied. So, curriculum developers are faced with special considertion for organization, content, plan, and methodolodies. As a result, educational and cultural organizations in the developed countries have special consideration for economy curriculum and economic education as the main curriculum responsible for instructing cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral objectives, along with basic and necessary skills such as reading, writing, math, literature, history, …. They believe that such curriculum are necessary for life management and realization of favorable behavior in individual life and social interaction.Looking at necessity and nature of economy curriculum at the heart of the formal and general education (primary school and guidance school), we tried to show a picture of present status of this curriculum in the world. Also, we introduced the developmental strand of rich literature on"realization of cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral objectives" in the field of economy that is generally named "economic eduction". Finally, we presented an operational plan in oredr to go beyond the present situation and introduced the neglected economy curriculum within national curriculum to Iranian policy makers and curriculum developers.

Lots of findings showed that the use of history of science is very influential in providing a proper understanding towards science among students. So, in this research, the effect of a teaching method based on the use of history of Physics on the students' knowledge and attitude was compared with the traditional teaching method. Also, the relationship between students' knowledge and attitude was examined. It was a quasi-experimental research. The traditional teaching method was used for control group and for the experimental group, a teaching method based on the use of history of Physics was used. For assessing the students' knowledge and attitude in the pretest and posttest, the conceptual map and attitude questionnaire was used. And to examine the relationship between knowledge and attitude of students, Pearson Correlation test and for the other hypotheses, the independent-sample t-test were used. The results showed that a teaching method based on the use of history of Physics has a positive impact on the students' knowledge and attitude and there is a significant relationship between the students' knowledge and attitude.

The present study was an attempt to investigate the probable role of the hidden curriculum on academic achievement of female junior high school students and to provide a plausible model to decrease the negative side effects of the mentioned curriculum. It was a mixed method research. The research population comprised of all female junior high school students studying at public schools, namely, forty-one schools in educational district 1 at north part of Tehran. Simple random sampling was used to select the sample (overall, nine schools), which was carefully investigated for 8 months.The required data was collected using three different instruments: 1. researcher-made observation checklist together with relevant likert scales and anecdotal records, 2. researcher-made interview with standardized open questions and informal conversations and 3. Students' academic achievement mean. Several statistical procedures including t-test, one-way repeated measure ANOVA, Scheffe's test, Pearson product moment coefficient of correlation, and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data. The coefficient of correlation between hidden curriculum and student achievement variables was 0.50 which was not meaningful at 0.05 level of significance. With reference to R2, the data showed that 24.77% of students' academic achievement have been influenced by hidden curriculum. The results showed that in most observed schools and classes, students were influenced by unintended and negative effects of the hidden curriculum. These effects had direct and indirect negative and long-lasting influence on their deep learning. While paying attention to psychological learning approaches and the hidden curriculum, to decrease the negative consequences of this curriculum, a model was designed and suggested consisting of eight components: 1.theoretical foundation, 2. philosophy, 3. fundamental variables, 4. dimensions, 5. objectives, 6. principles, 7. procedure, and 8. feedback and evaluation system.

The aim of this research was to compare the effectiveness of a teaching strategy based on multiple intelligences and a traditional teaching method on students' academic achievement and attitude towards science learning. Totally 535th grade students in two different classes (Experimental N=28 and Control N=25) participated in the study. They were selected by multi-stage clustered sampling method. The experimental group was instructed by a teaching strategy based on multiple intelligences, whereas the control group was instructed by traditional teaching method. This experimental study took a period of eight weeks. To determine the effectiveness of the teaching strategy based on multiple intelligences over traditional teaching method, an achievement test on science which consisted of 30 items were administered. Also, an attitude scale toward science, developed by Akpinar et.al (2009) was used. The data was analysed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Multiple Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA). The results showed that students who were instructed by a teaching strategy based on multiple intelligences had higher academic achievement than the ones who were instructed by the traditional teaching method. Also, findings showed that students in the experimental group developed more positive attitude towards science learning after the treatment.

Talking is defined as the application of oral language for direct interaction with others and speaking is the academic form of it. There are two types of speaking: informal and formal one. Informal speaking does not require lots of direct instruction, however, the formal type requires intensive direct instruction.The first aim of this research was developing the indicators of speaking instruction at national language curriculum at elementary level. The second aim was clarifying the strong and weak points of "the guide to Farsi curriculum of Iran at elementary level" according to the objectives of speaking instruction. To achieve these aims, the content of the language arts curriculum at elementary level of America (the state of New Jersi, 2004), England (2007), Singapore (2006) and Iran's (2009) was qualitatively analysed. Findings showed that within the framework of "the guide to Farsi curriculum of Iran" at elementary level, speaking is something that is taken for granted, as there is no obvious definition for it and also its sub-skills is not introduced. The lack of conceptual framework for this language art leads to ambiguous and inconsistent educational objectives for different grades at this educational level.Careful analysis of this curriculum showed that, here speaking instruction is not planned in accordance with context (situation). Also, it is not planned to be instructed critically, and if formally considered, there is no operational definition and no practical strategy for its instruction. Also, speaking instruction is not planned through the use of information and communication technology.

The purpose of this study was to investigate Carl Bereiter's conceptualization of education. In fact, the main aim was to critique his view of education and study its applicability in action. The method of research was empirical applicability in which essential components of a notion is criticized, formulated and examined in view of applicability. Findings showed that though, Bereiter's educational notion has a relative consistent framework, it could be criticized.The difficulties of his notion lies in its problem in distinguishing between world II and III in relation to the concept of knowledge, lack of explanation on how to overcome the different situations, popularizing knowledge building, focusing on the integration of thinking skills with curriculum, and not specifying the interdisciplinary approach. The results indicated that Bereiter's main idea for basing education on findings of cognitive science is verified by other researchers. Despite the fact that Bereiter has appropriately identified the issues and problems of education, arising from the dominance of folk theory on educational systems, and has provided opportunities for revising educational patterns and similarly reforming educational systems, however, some of his ideas like focusing on knowledge creation rather than learning seem to be less practical.