Education

Plot and characters

2011-04-25T02:38:00.000-07:00

The novel is written in a diary form as told by Enrico Bottini, a 10-year old primary school student in Italy with an upper class background who is surrounded by classmates of working class origin. The entire chronological setting corresponds to the third-grade season.

Enrico's parents and older sibling interact with him as written in his diary. As well as his teacher who assigns him with homework that deals with several different stories of children throughout the Italian states who should be seen as role models – these stories are then given in the book as Enrico comes upon reading them. Every story revolves around a different moral value, the most prominent of which are helping those in need, having great love and respect for family and friends, and patriotism.

Heart

2011-04-25T02:37:00.000-07:00

Heart (Italian: Cuore) is a children's novel by the Italian author Edmondo De Amicis who was a novelist, journalist, short story writer, and poet. The novel is known to be his best known work to this day, having been inspired by his own children Furio and Ugo who had been schoolboys at the time. It is set during the Italian unification, and includes several patriotic themes. It was issued by Treves on October 18, 1886, the first day of school in Italy, and rose to immediate success.

Through its investigation of social issues such as poverty, Heart shows the influence of left-wing ideologies on De Amicis' work (he was later to join the Italian Socialist Party). Because of this, the book remained influential (and the staple of many textbooks) in countries of the Eastern Bloc.

The novel was translated into Chinese in the early 20th century (with the title "愛的教育" – literally "The Education of Love") and became quite well known in East Asia. As well as being translated into Spanish with the title, "Corazón" meaning "Heart." The book was very popular in Latin countries, such as Mexico, among young boys and girls in the 60's and 70's.

On the other hand, the book's strong evocation of Italian nationalism and Patriotism also made it very welcome in Fascist Italy.

The novel was also extremely popular and influential in 1950's Israel, though at present it is considered rather old-fashioned and no longer well-known to the current generation of young Israelis.

In 1962, Umberto Eco publishes Elogio di Franti (In Praise of Franti) viewing Franti, the "bad boy" of the novel, as a figure of resistance against militarist and nationalist ideology.

One of the two teenage characters in the film I Prefer the Sound of the Sea (2000) reads Cuore and has a job in a bookshop named Franti.

Qualitative Research

2011-04-25T00:08:00.000-07:00

Qualitative research uses data which is descriptive in nature. Tools that educational researchers use in collecting qualitative data include: observations, conducting interviews, conducting document analysis, and analyzing participant products such as journals, diaries, images or blogs,.

Types of Qualitative Research

Case study
Ethnography
Phenomenological Research
Narrative Research
Historical Research

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research uses data that is numerical and is based on the assumption that the numbers will describe a single reality. Statistics are often applied to find relationships between variables.

Types of Quantitative Research

Descriptive Survey Research
Experimental Research
Single - Subject Research
Causal - Comparative Research
Correlational Research
Meta-analysis

A Third School of Thought: Combination Methods

There also exists a new school of thought that these derivatives of the scientific method are far too reductionistic in nature,.Since educational research includes other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, science, and philosophy and refers to work done in a wide variety of contexts it is proposed that researchers should use "multiple research approaches and theoretical constructs". This could mean using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods as well as common methodology from the fields mentioned above. In social research this phenomenon is referred to as triangulation (social science). This idea is well summarized by the work of Barrow in his text An introduction to philosophy of education:

"Since educational issues are of many different kinds and logical types, it is to be expected that quite different types of research should be brought into play on different occasions. The question therefore is not whether research into teaching should be conducted by means of quantitative measures (on some such grounds as that they are more ‘objective’) or qualitative measures (on some such grounds as that they are more ‘insightful’), but what kind of research can sensibly be utilized to look into this particular aspect of teaching as opposed to that."

Types of Research Using Both Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

Action Research
Program Evaluation

List of researchers

Joshua Angrist
Charles BidwellChriss argis
James Samuel Coleman
Gene V Glass
Eric Hanushek
James Heckman
Larry Hedges
Richard Murnane
Andrew C. Porter
Stephen Raudenbush
Diane Ravitch
Keith Stanovich

Methodology in Educational Research

2011-04-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

The basis for educational research is the scientific method. The scientific method uses directed questions and manipulation of variables to systematically find information about the teaching and learning process. In this scenario questions are answered by the analysis of data that is collected specifically for the purpose of answering these questions. Hypotheses are written and subsequently proved or disproved by data which leads to the creation of new hypotheses. The two main types of data that are used under this method are qualitative and quantitative.

Approaches in Educational Research

2011-04-25T00:03:00.000-07:00

There are two main approaches in educational research. The first is a basic approach. This approach is also referred to as an academic research approach. The second approach is applied research or a contract research approach. Both of these approaches have different purposes which influence the nature of the respective research.

The Basic Approach

Basic, or academic research focuses on the search for truth or the development of educational theory. Researchers with this background “design studies that can test, refine, modify, or develop theories”.Generally, these researchers are affiliated with an academic institution and are performing this research as part of their graduate or doctoral work.

The Applied Approach

The pursuit of information that can be directly applied to practice is aptly known as applied or contractual research. Researchers in this field are trying to find solutions to existing educational problems. The approach is much more utilitarian as it strives to find information that will directly influence practice Applied researchers are commissioned by a sponsor and are responsible for addressing the needs presented by this employer. The goal of this research is “to determine the applicability of educational theory and principles by testing hypotheses within specific settings”.

A Comparison of Basic and Applied Research

The following are several defining characteristics that were written by Gary Anderson to compare basic (academic) and applied (contract) research.

	Basic (Academic) Research	Applied (Contract) Research
1	Is sponsored by an agency committed to the general advancement of knowledge.	Is sponsored by an agency with a vested interest in the results.
2	Results are the property of society and the research community.	Results become the property of the sponsor.
3	Studies rely on the established reputations of the researchers and are totally under their control.	Studies follow explicit terms of reference developed by the sponsor to serve the sponsor’s needs.
4	Budget allocations are generally based on global proposals and accounting is left to the researchers.	Budget accountability is directly related to the sponsor and relates to agreed terms of reference, time frames and methodologies.
5	The conduct of research is based on ‘good faith’ between funder and researcher.	The work is contractual between sponsor and researcher.
6	The research produces findings and conclusions, but rarely recommendations except those related to further research needs.	The research includes applied recommendations for action.
7	Academic research tends to extend an identifiable scholarly discipline.	By its nature, contract research tends to be interdisciplinary.
8	Academic research is typically focused on a single set of testable hypotheses.	Contract research frequently analyzes the consequences of alternative policy options.
9	Decision-rules relate to theoretically-based tests of statistical significance.	Decision-rules relate to predetermined conventions and agreements between the sponsor and the researcher.
10	Research reports are targeted to other specialized researchers in the same field.	Research reports are intended to be read and understood by lay persons.

Characteristics of Educational Research

2011-04-24T23:58:00.000-07:00

In his book entitled Fundamentals of Educational Research, Gary Anderson has outlined ten characteristics that can be used to further understand what the field of educational research entails:

Educational research attempts to solve a problem.
Research involves gathering new data from primary or first-hand sources or using existing data for a new purpose.
Research is based upon observable experience or empirical evidence.
Research demands accurate observation and description.
Research generally employs carefully designed procedures and rigorous analysis.
Research emphasizes the development of generalizations, principles or theories that will help in understanding, prediction and/or control.
Research requires expertise—familiarity with the field; competence in methodology; technical skill in collecting and analyzing the data.
Research attempts to find an objective, unbiased solution to the problem and takes great pains to validate the procedures employed.
Research is a deliberate and unhurried activity which is directional but often refines the problem or questions as the research progresses.
Research is carefully recorded and reported to other persons interested in the problem.

Educational research

2011-04-24T23:57:00.000-07:00

Educational research refers to a variety of methods, in which individuals evaluate different aspects of education including but not limited to: “student learning, teaching methods, teacher training, and classroom dynamics”.

Educational researchers have come to the consensus that, educational research must be conducted in a rigorous and systematic way, although what this implies is often debated. There are a variety of disciplines which are each present to some degree in educational research. These include psychology, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. The overlap in disciplines creates a broad range from which methodology can be drawn. The findings of educational research also need to be interpreted within the context in which they were discovered as they may not be applicable in every time or place.

Internationalization

2011-04-24T23:55:00.000-07:00

Education is becoming increasingly international. Not only are the materials becoming more influenced by the rich international environment, but exchanges among students at all levels are also playing an increasingly important role. In Europe, for example, the Socrates-Erasmus Programme stimulates exchanges across European universities. Also, the Soros Foundation provides many opportunities for students from central Asia and eastern Europe. Programmes such as the International Baccalaureate have contributed to the internationalisation of education. Some scholars argue that, regardless of whether one system is considered better or worse than another, experiencing a different way of education can often be considered to be the most important, enriching element of an international learning experience.

Education in developing World

2011-04-24T23:54:00.000-07:00

Universal primary education is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals and great improvements have been achieved in the past decade, yet a great deal remains to be done. Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute indicate the main obstacles to greater funding from donors include: donor priorities, aid architecture, and the lack of evidence and advocacy. Additionally, Transparency International has identified corruption in the education sector as a major stumbling block to achieving Universal primary education in Africa.Furthermore, demand in the developing world for improved educational access is not as high as one would expect as governments avoid the recurrent costs involved and there is economic pressure on those parents who prefer their children making money in the short term over any long-term benefits of education. Recent studies on child labor and poverty have suggested that when poor families reach a certain economic threshold where families are able to provide for their basic needs, parents return their children to school. This has been found to be true, once the threshold has been breached, even if the potential economic value of the children's work has increased since their return to school.

But without capacity, there is no development. A study conducted by the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning indicates that stronger capacities in educational planning and management may have an important spill-over effect on the system as a whole. Sustainable capacity development requires complex interventions at the institutional, organizational and individual levels that could be based on some foundational principles:

national leadership and ownership should be the touchstone of any intervention;
strategies must be context relevant and context specific;
they should embrace an integrated set of complementary interventions, though implementation may need to proceed in steps;
partners should commit to a long-term investment in capacity development, while working towards some short-term achievements;
outside intervention should be conditional on an impact assessment of national capacities at various levels.
A lack of good universities, and a low acceptance rate for good universities, is evident in countries with a high population density. In some countries, there are uniform, over structured, inflexible centralized programs from a central agency that regulates all aspects of education.
- Due to globalization, increased pressure on students in curricular activities
- Removal of a certain percentage of students for improvisation of academics (usually practised in schools, after 10th grade)
India is now developing technologies that will skip land based phone and internet lines. Instead, India launched EDUSAT, an education satellite that can reach more of the country at a greatly reduced cost. There is also an initiative started by the OLPC foundation, a group out of MIT Media Lab and supported by several major corporations to develop a $100 laptop to deliver educational software. The laptops are widely available as of 2008. The laptops are sold at cost or given away based on donations. These will enable developing countries to give their children a digital education, and help close the digital divide across the world.
In Africa, NEPAD has launched an "e-school programme" to provide all 600,000 primary and high schools with computer equipment, learning materials and internet access within 10 years. Private groups, like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are working to give more individuals opportunities to receive education in developing countries through such programs as the Perpetual Education Fund. An International Development Agency project called nabuur.com, started with the support of former American President Bill Clinton, uses the Internet to allow co-operation by individuals on issues of social development.

Philosopy

2011-04-24T23:49:00.001-07:00

As an academic field, philosophy of education is a "the philosophical study of education and its problems...its central subject matter is education, and its methods are those of philosophy". "The philosophy of education may be either the philosophy of the process of education or the philosophy of the discipline of education. That is, it may be part of the discipline in the sense of being concerned with the aims, forms, methods, or results of the process of educating or being educated; or it may be metadisciplinary in the sense of being concerned with the concepts, aims, and methods of the discipline." As such, it is both part of the field of education and a field of applied philosophy, drawing from fields of metaphysics, epistemology, axiology and the philosophical approaches (speculative, prescriptive, and/or analytic) to address questions in and about pedagogy, education policy, and curriculum, as well as the process of learning, to name a few. For example, it might study what constitutes upbringing and education, the values and norms revealed through upbringing and educational practices, the limits and legitimization of education as an academic discipline, and the relation between educational theory and practice.

Technology

2011-04-24T23:45:00.001-07:00

Technology is an increasingly influential factor in education. Computers and mobile phones are used in developed countries both to complement established education practices and develop new ways of learning such as online education (a type of distance education). This gives students the opportunity to choose what they are interested in learning. The proliferation of computers also means the increase of programming and blogging. Technology offers powerful learning tools that demand new skills and understandings of students, including Multimedia, and provides new ways to engage students, such as Virtual learning environments. One such tool are virtual manipulatives, which are an "interactive, Web-based visual representation of a dynamic object that presents opportunities for constructing mathematical knowledge" (Moyer, Bolyard, & Spikell, 2002). In short, virtual manipulatives are dynamic visual/pictorial replicas of physical mathematical manipulatives, which have long been used to demonstrate and teach various mathematical concepts. Virtual manipulatives can be easily accessed on the Internet as stand-alone applets, allowing for easy access and use in a variety of educational settings. Emerging research into the effectiveness of virtual manipulatives as a teaching tool have yielded promising results, suggesting comparable, and in many cases superior overall concept-teaching effectiveness compared to standard teaching methods.^{[citation needed]} Technology is being used more not only in administrative duties in education but also in the instruction of students. The use of technologies such as PowerPoint and is capturing the attention of students in the classroom. Technology is also being used in the assessment of students. One example is the (ARS), which allows immediate feedback tests and classroom discussions.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a “diverse set of tools and resources used to communicate, create, disseminate, store, and manage information.” These technologies include computers, the Internet, broadcasting technologies (radio and television), and telephony. There is increasing interest in how computers and the Internet can improve education at all levels, in both formal and non-formal settings. Older ICT technologies, such as radio and television, have for over forty years been used for open and distance learning, although print remains the cheapest, most accessible and therefore most dominant delivery mechanism in both developed and developing countries. In addition to classroom application and growth of e-learning opportunities for knowledge attainment, educators involved in student affairs programming have recognized the increasing importance of computer usage with data generation for and about students. Motivation and retention counselors, along with faculty and administrators, can impact the potential academic success of students by provision of technology based experiences in the University setting.

The use of computers and the Internet is in its infancy in developing countries, if these are used at all, due to limited infrastructure and the attendant high costs of access. Usually, various technologies are used in combination rather than as the sole delivery mechanism. For example, the Kothmale Community Radio Internet uses both radio broadcasts and computer and Internet technologies to facilitate the sharing of information and provide educational opportunities in a rural community in Sri Lanka. The Open University of the United Kingdom (UKOU), established in 1969 as the first educational institution in the world wholly dedicated to open and distance learning, still relies heavily on print-based materials supplemented by radio, television and, in recent years, online programming. Similarly, the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India combines the use of print, recorded audio and video, broadcast radio and television, and audio conferencing technologies.

The term "computer-assisted learning" (CAL) has been increasingly used to describe the use of technology in teaching.

Teaching

2011-04-24T23:36:00.001-07:00

Teachers need to understand a subject enough to convey its essence to students. While traditionally this has involved lecturing on the part of the teacher, new instructional strategies put the teacher more into the role of course designer, discussion facilitator, and coach and the student more into the role of active learner, discovering the subject of the course. In any case, the goal is to establish a sound knowledge base and skill set on which students will be able to build as they are exposed to different life experiences. Good teachers can translate information, good judgment, experience and wisdom into relevant knowledge that a student can understand, retain and pass to others. Studies from the US suggest that the quality of teachers is the single most important factor affecting student performance, and that countries which score highly on international tests have multiple policies in place to ensure that the teachers they employ are as effective as possible. With the passing of NCLB in the United States (No Child Left Behind), teachers must be highly qualified.

Learning History

2011-04-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

In a summary of the history of the concept of learning communities, Wolff-Michael Roth and Lee Yew Jin suggest that until the early 1990s, and consistent with (until then) dominant Piagetian constructivist and information processing paradigms in education, the individual was seen as the "unit of instruction" and the focus of research. Roth and Lee claim this as watershed period when, influenced by the work of Jean Lave^[, and Lave and Etienne Wenger among others, researchers and practitioners switched to the idea that knowing and knowledgeability are better thought of as cultural practices that are exhibited by practitioners belonging to various communitieswhich, following Lave and Wenger's early work, are often termed Communities of practice.

Roth and Lee claim that this led to forms of praxis (learning and teaching designs implemented in the classroom, and influenced by these ideas) in which students were encouraged to share their ways of doing mathematics, history, science, etc. with each other. In other words, that students take part in the construction of consensual domains, and "participate in the negotiation and institutionalisation of ...meaning". In effect, they are participating in learning communities. Roth and Lee go on to analyse the contradictions inherent in this as a theoretically informed practice in education.

This analysis does not take account of the appearance of learning communities in the United States in the early 1980s. For example, The Evergreen State College, which is widely considered a pioneer in this area, established an intercollegiate learning community in 1984. In 1985, this same college established the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, which focuses on collaborative education approaches, including learning communities as one of its centerpieces.

Learning communities began to gain popularity at other U.S. colleges and universities during the late 80s and throughout the 90s. The Washington Center's National Learning Commons Directory has over 250 learning community initiatives in colleges and universities throughout the nation.