Search results

The purpose of this paper is to capitalize on the advantages of an evidence-based lesson analysis while proposing a method of research on teaching that offers opportunities for deeper reflections. The objective is to examine how well a transnational learning project such as this one can determine the cultural script of a mathematics lesson in Malaysia through the perspective of Japanese educators well trained in the lesson study approach. Emphasis here is on a cross-cultural analysis to view in depth the cultural script of teaching mathematics in Malaysia with particular focus on how teachers respond to students’ mistakes in a mathematics lesson.

This paper draws on data collected by the authors in a lesson study in Malaysia that aimed to provide a cross-cultural analysis of a Malaysian mathematics lesson (grade 10) through the eyes of Japanese educators. Data retrieved should determine the cultural script of a mathematics class in Malaysia with an emphasis on Malaysian teachers’ responses to students’ mistakes in class. The cross-cultural analysis of a lesson is a comparative method that reveals the hidden factors at play by increasing awareness of characteristics in classroom situations that are self-evident to all involved members.

The findings are intended to the cultural script of Malaysia in the context of “classroom culture regarding mistakes” and “mistake management behavior.” The impact on the quality of teaching and learning also discussed in relation to how it can be improved in practice from the following perspectives: the teacher’s attitudes toward student mistakes; how mistakes are treated and dealt with in class; and how learning from mistakes is managed. The data in Table II provide a meta-analysis of evidences of “classroom culture regarding mistakes” and “mistake management behavior” of the teacher from the Malaysian researchers and practitioners’ perspective as well as from the lens of the Japanese educators.

This study realizes that both sets of research studies value the importance of mistakes. It is important to identify the source of students’ mistakes and further learn from them. In order to reveal the overall structure of the cultural script of lessons, we need to realize that various cultural scripts are at work in the production of any given lesson. In the future, the authors hope to develop the potential of this view of culture script of teaching through cross-cultural analysis for lesson study and curriculum research and development.

This study aims to capitalize on the advantages of evidence-based lesson analysis through the lesson study process while proposing a method of research on teaching that offers opportunities for deeper reflections. The objective is to examine how well a transnational learning project such as this one can determine the cultural script of a mathematics lesson in Malaysia through the perspective of Japanese educators well trained in the lesson study methodology.

The authors need to obtain reflective feedback based on concrete facts, and for this reason “lesson study,” a pedagogical approach with its origins in Japan, is attracting global attention from around the world. This study focuses on the discrete nature, the progression, significance, and the context of lessons. That is, by avoiding excessive abstraction and generalization, reflection based on concrete facts and dialogue retrieved from class observations can be beneficial in the process. The mutual and transnational learning between teachers that occurs during the lesson study process can foster the building and sharing of knowledge in teaching practice.

There is currently little empirical research addressing “classroom culture regarding mistakes” which mostly represents how teachers and students learn from mistakes in the classroom. This study focuses on a cross-cultural analysis to view in depth the cultural script of teaching mathematics in Malaysia with particular focus on how teachers respond to students’ mistakes in a mathematics lesson. The following perspectives are examined: the teacher’s attitudes toward student mistakes; how mistakes are treated and dealt with in class; and how learning from mistakes is managed.

This study aims to identify the antecedents of learning from mistakes within the student group work setting. Specifically, this study provides empirical evidence of how team–member exchange (TMX) positively leads to learning from mistakes via person-focused interpersonal citizenship behaviours (ICBs) and of the boundary condition of intellect of this indirect relationship.

Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 189 new business undergraduate students at a Hong Kong higher education institute. PROCESS Macro (Hayes, 2013) and bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples were conducted to analyse the moderated mediation model.

The authors found that high levels of TMX within a group positively related to person-focused ICBs and learning from mistakes. Moreover, the bootstrapping results showed that there was an indirect effect of TMX and learning from mistakes via person-focused ICBs. The presence of students with high intellect strengthened this indirect relationship.

Whereas many studies have examined the development of students’ employability skills, most have ignored the importance of learning from mistakes, which is considered to be a soft employability skill and an important attribute in the workplace. Moreover, the factors that facilitate students’ learning from mistakes are unclear. This study is the first to identify the antecedents of learning from mistakes by adopting social exchange, reciprocity and social information processing (SIP) theories.

The purpose of this paper is to examine students' perceptions of managerial mistakes and why (and why not) managers admit mistakes.

This paper provides a reflective account of how students' perceive management mistakes and deal with admitting “mea culpa” – “I am to blame”.

The findings show a range of attitudes: they highlight the intermingling pressures associated with the cultural environment and mistakes; they identify media characteristics and its influences on mistakes and mea culpa; they highlight ceremonial processes and tasks that shape and influence the declaration of mea culpa; and they identify how the psychology and sociology of mistakes confronts and affects students. Taken together, the study highlights the varying degrees of wariness that is carried forward by the students from vicariously learning about management mistakes.

This paper links up with recent discussions on retail failure and retail pedagogy. It is hoped that this paper will encourage more academics to address, and engage with, management mistakes creatively in their teaching.

This chapter shows how the community college plays a unique role in producing American citizens with “global competence,” one of the main aims of institutions of higher education under the banner of its internationalization. While much discussion on how to achieve that aim has centered on study-abroad programs and curriculum changes targeting American-born students, this chapter focuses on the community college's contribution to producing “globally competent” American citizens through extensive classes in English as a Second Language (ESL) for immigrants. Based on ethnographic fieldwork from 2001 to 2002 in ESL classes at a community college in the northeastern United States, this chapter examines three ways a community college's ESL classes foster such “global competence” in immigrants of various backgrounds: (1) by grooming them to be “American educated subjects” by disciplining them and teaching them “common sense” knowledge of American life, (2) by providing them with a space to develop a supportive community that goes beyond their ethnic networks, and (3) by nurturing students’ self-esteem in their new home. This chapter highlights the worldwide importance of the type of higher education, such as a community college, that serves the needs of local communities, including internationalized and underserved local communities – that of immigrants. It also points out the imbalance in the discussion of “global competence,” which focuses mainly on study abroad, and opens up a field of enquiry about “global competence” from another angle.

The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions of teachers’ and undergraduate students concerning the provision of written corrective feedback (WCF) in Saudi EFL writing classrooms in the form of a case study.

The sample consisted of three teachers and five students, whose views on WCF were recorded via individual semi-structured interviews to gather qualitative data.

The results revealed some divergent viewpoints between students and teachers and among peers in both groups.

By offering the best WCF practice and considering students' interests, this research is important for improving the pedagogical approaches used by EFL instructors for teaching writing to university learners. It will, therefore, have more of an impact on EFL writing instruction.

This paper is about extraordinary performance in organizations. Our specific focus is unusual. We examine a context with which many readers are deeply familiar, the public school classroom. We consider the work of highly effective teachers and generate a framework of hypotheses about how they get extraordinary results. These hypotheses may contrast with the reader’s assumptions of what a public school teacher does. The framework may therefore provoke insights about how to create and lead high performing organizations in other contexts.

This paper aims to propose a learning evaluation model for Green Belts and Black Belts at the training level. A question bank has been developed on the basis of Bloom’s learning classification and applied to a group of employees who were being trained in Six Sigma (SS). Their results were then used to decide on the students’ approval and to guide the instructor’s plan of teaching for the next classes.

An action research has been conducted to develop a question bank of 310 questions based on the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, to implement the evaluation model, and to apply it during the SS training.

The evaluation model has been designed so that the students do not proceed unless they have acquired the conceptual knowledge at each step of the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) roadmap. At the end of the evaluation process, the students’ results have been analyzed. The number of mistakes in all stages of DMAIC was equal, implying that the training was uniform the entire roadmap. However, the opposite happened in each of the Bloom’s Taxonomy levels, showing that some skills need to be better stimulated by the instructor than others.

The learning evaluation model proposed in this paper has been applied to a group of 70 employees who were being trained in SS at a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer. The data have been analyzed using Microsoft Excel^® and Minitab^® 17 Statistical Software.

Despite the abundance of courses offering the SS Green Belt and Black Belt certifications, there is no standard evaluation to ensure the training quality. Thus, this paper proposes an innovative learning evaluation model.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of blogs on teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) to primary students. The study also explores educators’ perceptions of social media tools and digital literacy in school environments.

A three-step approach was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. First, the blogs of 23 fifth-grade students in an EFL class in Kuwait was analysed for one semester along with student perceptions and teacher observations. Second, a survey was distributed to the students at the end of the semester, and finally, four focus groups were conducted regarding educators’ perceptions on the use of social media, their skills and needs and problems encountered.

The findings showed that by the end of the semester, students were writing lengthy sentences, had fewer spelling and grammatical mistakes, were more motivated and independent and displayed a more positive attitude towards learning EFL. In addition, educators are enthusiastic about using Web technologies in their teaching practices but have several concerns such as digital literacy competencies, technology-use behaviour and lack of accessibility to digital content.

The number of questions on the student survey could be reduced. Also, it would be preferable in future studies to require all students to blog at least twice a week which could provide a broader representation of their writing abilities.

Little research has been reported in the literature on the use of blogs in teaching EFL to primary school students. Most literature focuses on teaching EFL to university students. By using a mixed-methodology approach, this study also highlights the needs of educators and students in technology learning environments and makes a good contribution towards offering pragmatic solutions.

It is suggested that mentor teachers engage in reflective conversations with preservice teachers to develop formative assessment as a teaching skill. However, there is minimal evidence documenting this process. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process and impact of reflective conversation on preservice teachers’ learning about implementing formative assessment in the classroom.

This study draws on two dyads of mentor and preservice teachers to examine the role of conversation in helping preservice teachers learn to use formative assessment in elementary classrooms in the USA. A comparative case study method is used to analyze and synthesize the similarities, differences and patterns across both cases.

Qualitative data indicate that reflective conversations enable preservice teachers to reflect on their teaching practices and learn how to conduct formative assessment. However, a lack of critical reflection in the conversations results in generic solutions that do not focus on specific aspects of student learning.

This study suggests that mentor teachers using reflective conversation to guide preservice teacher’s critical analysis of their prior assumptions and teaching practices while referencing actual student learning is an essential element in learning to use formative assessment in the classroom.

This study contributes to the line of research that explores conversation between mentor and preservice teachers and provides an empirical analysis of conversations focused on learning to use formative assessment in elementary classrooms.

The purpose of this paper is to report on how web-based training and testing platforms provide opportunities for students to leverage the capabilities of various information and communication technologies to engage in self-directed learning.

The impact of an interactive learning environment on improving students’ essential skills was measured using a previously validated structured questionnaire, consisting of five subscales: content, accuracy, format, ease of use, and timeliness. Having analyzed the instrument, the authors decided to modify it to incorporate two more measures of overall reliability and satisfaction to capture students’ overall satisfaction level with the tool. Overall, 24 items are used to measure students’ perceptions of the tool content, accuracy, format, ease of use, timeliness, reliability and satisfaction. A five-point Likert-type scale was used in the questionnaire where 1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree.

This study suggests that while students’ major, instructor, and course grade are important factors impacting student perception of the learning tool, year (freshman vs sophomore) and gender do not have any impact on the student perception. Course grade shows an interesting trend. Students who received an A and an F as their final grades are the most satisfied groups compared to other grade groups. This finding suggests a further study is needed to explore the impact of the course grade on the students’ satisfaction with the tool. While students liked simulations, grading feature with immediate feedback, electronic textbook and the system overall, they suggested improvements in the grading module, simulations, projects, system compatibility, system reliability, and cost.

Most studies use a survey to measure student’s satisfaction with a web-based learning platform. This study, however, made an attempt to understand students’ satisfaction with a web-based blended learning platform by analyzing their comments and feedback on the course using a text analytics tool.