JOURNAL OF EDUCATION
Year:2020 | Volume:35 | Issue:4 (140) |Papers Count:8

Based on the transformative learning theory, it was sought to develop a procedure for helping teachers develop professionally. 13 elementary school teachers in one of the boys schools in Tehran’ s district one participated in a workshop consisting of ten sessions and then interviewed. The content of the sessions was drawn from the theoretical basis of the study. Further field observations led to a set of interventional suggestions in order to meet the challenges facing such a procedure. The participants manifested changes in three domains of epistemological, behavioral, and self, due to transformative learning. The behavioral changes were less frequent.

Children at the ages of 3-6 years are within a golden period of motor development, and as such having an appropriate program could help them benefit more from this period. One such a program is a domestically developed one called RooPaa which is play-based. To assess the effectiveness of this program an accidental sample of 210 boys and girls was randomly divided into two groups of experimental and control. The experimental group went through the RooPaa program, while the other group had the regular program. Denver Test II was used to assess the two groups’ motor skills before, after the program which lasted one academic year, and as a follow up three months after the program. Statistical analyses of the data revealed a significant and lasting improvement of the said skills among the experimental group. Thus it is suggested that such programs be used for this age group.

To improve the personal relations among students the use of community of inquiry method was hypothesized to be effective, especially if the content being learned in this way is Philosophy for Children (P4C). To find support for this hypothesis, a group of 50 female students whose interpersonal relations were below the average was selected and then divided into two subgroups of experimental and control. Using a questionnaire, both subgroups were asked about the quality of their interpersonal relations before and after the experimental group going through a eight-session course on Philosophy for Children. Covariance analyses of the data revealed a significant difference between the two groups indicating the effectiveness of the community of inquiry method in improving the interpersonal relationships.

One of the most vital areas of public policy is education. In today’ s societies quality and equality in education are among the basic human rights and its provision within the basic responsibilities of modern governments. Setting educational policies is the framework within which governments try to fulfill this duty. The success of such policies is a function of basic administrative arrangements, if we look at the experiences of developing East Asian countries during the recent decades. However, perusal of the recent post-revolutionary Iranian governments and their experiences in this area tells a story of weakness and inefficiency. The incomplete process of governance in contemporary Iran and its deepening problems in post revolution period has created serious barriers to the making and implementing of educational policies. Political elite’ s decisions and actions have played an effective role in the development of these shortcomings. Different administrations during the past 40 years have failed to transform and condense the country’ s natural resources into socio-cultural capital due to fundamental structural difficulties. Educational indices have fallen below the global averages and the Ministry of Education has performed poorly. In such circumstances, sustainable development requires the statesmen and politicians to reform the educational institutions and prioritize educational policies through three basic actions of institution making, coalition building, and decision making.

Having a clear set of basic Iranian students’ legal rights could serve as a practical guideline to commitments and responsibilities of teachers, administrators, and others dealing with education. To this end, all existing legal documents related to the topic were content analyzed. The result has been a set of fourteen principle areas which can be categorized into three subsets depending on the extent to which they are referred to and their source of extraction. One subset includes those that are clearly stated in the country’ s official law, such as free access to basic education, physical education, and higher education. The second subset contains those rights confirmed in these same set of laws and include social security, freedom of choice as for the type and method of education, the use of mother language, academic security, equal rights, and freedom of socio-cultural and political activities. The third subset includes those that are clearly stated in the ministerial rules and regulations, such as the rights to artistic development, adequate leisure time facilities, academic guidance, and facilities for children with special needs. It is suggested that the derived conceptual model be reexamined by law experts and be modified based on their feedback.

Education has always been one of the main concerns of human societies, but in different periods and different communities educational goals have varied. Nowadays, and especially here in Iran, the main goal of education is to prepare children for real life and its problem. More specifically, the goal in mathematics education is help students with solving real life problems using their acquired math knowledge. Such an ability is called math literacy in many countries and every three years is assessed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development within the PISA study. A comparison between the problems used in this study and those presented in the Iranian 9th grade mathematics textbook was undertaken in order to determine the extent of their correspondence. To do the comparison an instrument was developed in order to categorize the problems in the two sources. The validity of the instrument was confirmed by experienced math teachers and other experts. To limit the study, only the problems in geometry were categorized. Results show that although the textbook problems reflect real world problems, the fact that the solutions are given therein deprives students from practicing problem solving on her/his own. These findings can help textbook authors with the task of reviewing and editing.

To help with the prediction of school achievement through a mathematical model incorporating goal orientation, course perception, and academic self-regulation, a sample of 380 9th graders in Tabriz was selected using the cluster sampling method. Instruments used to measure these constructs were translated ones. Data analyses showed that goal orientation and course perception have a direct impact on achievement. Indirect impact of three of the goal orientation constituents is through cognitive and metacognitive strategies while the fourth one has no such impact. From among the constituents of course perception, interest has an indirect impact through the cognitive and metacognitive strategies while the other three have positive indirect impact through cognitive strategies only. Overall, the goal orientation factor proved to be a better predictor of school achievement.