scholarly journals Teachers’ personal theories of teaching: managing cultural diversity in mainstream public primary schools in Greece

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vassiliki Papadopoulou ◽  
Kyriaki Theodosiadou ◽  
Nektaria Palaiologou

The phenomenon of migration has transformed the Greek school into a multiethnic environment, reshaping the issues raised about good practices and the role the teacher plays in the smooth integration of diverse cultures, not only in the school but also in the wider Greek society. This paper examines how cultural diversity is managed in Greek primary schools by focusing on the content of teachers’ personal theories, which guide their actions, although those actions to a large extent show lack of consciousness. The study investigated the personal theories of five female primary school teachers in the Regional Unit of Pella in Central Macedonia, Greece, using qualitative research methods, through a variety of tools, such as teaching observation, in-depth interviews, and text analysis. These teachers, although teaching in mainstream schools, have students from other ethnic backgrounds in their classes.  The findings show that teachers’ personal theories on which they base how they manage cultural diversity are largely still determined by an assimilative approach.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7308
Author(s):  
Soon Singh Bikar ◽  
Balan Rathakrishnan ◽  
Mohammad Rahim Kamaluddin ◽  
Norruzeyati Che Mohd Nasir ◽  
Mohd Azrin Mohd Nasir

The Ranau Earthquake that struck on 5 June 2015, February 2018, and April 2021, were a new disaster in Sabah and caused many Sabahan to panic. The unpredicted disaster also caused a serious impact on all aspects of life in Sabah. The earthquake has caused severe damage to eight primary schools in the vicinity of the epicenter, although no casualties were reported. However, the disaster has deep passing psychological effects among students. In this study, we examine how the primary school teachers enabled the student to be resilient during and after the disaster. Based on the interviews with 16 primary school students, it was revealed that most of the teachers used WhatsApp to support resilience during and after the earthquake. Interviews with 16 primary school teachers revealed there were two main reasons for them to communicate with students, namely, delivering emotional aid and monitoring their stress. Based on student interviews, five content categories of emotional support were identified: caring, reassuring, emotion sharing, belonging, and distracting. The main contribution of this study is that social media can be used as a spontaneous and proactive tool for supporting the student’s resilience during and after the earthquake trauma.


Author(s):  
Sławomir Wawrzyniak ◽  
Krystyna Krzyżanowska

The aim of the studies was to gather the primary school teachers’ opinion about the „School Scheme” and its effectiveness, as well as children’s food preferences and the reasons, why some of the schools didn’t take part in the program. The empiric studies were conducted in 2017 and 6,413 teachers from primary schools took part in them. The results show that students prefer to eat fruits than vegetables. If some of them chose vegetables, they ate tomatoes, radish, carrot rather than kohlrabi or sweet pepper. When it comes to dairy products, they took: milk and cottage cheese. Some of the Polish schools didn’t take part in the program, because they claim not to have enough suitable place to store fruits and vegetables at their entities and children’s parents weren’t interested in that matter.


Per Linguam ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Anna Johanna Hugo

The teaching of reading is not as easy as it may seem. It requires specific knowledge and the use of reading methods by teachers. Learners’ reading needs and learning styles also have to be considered. According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy (PIRLS) results for 2016, the reading abilities of South African learners are far below the international standard as set out by PIRLS. There is a lack of research about the strategies and methods that primary school teachers use to teach reading. In this article, the feedback regarding reading methods – gathered from 36 primary school teachers in three provinces – is discussed. The data revealed that most of the Grade 1 to 7 teachers who participated in the research knew and used some of the six reading methods under discussion. However, the results did not indicate how well the teachers applied these methods and how versatile they were in using the different reading methods. The data revealed that Foundation phase teachers used some of the methods statistically significantly more often than the comparison group of Intermediate phase teachers in a nonexperimental static-group observational design study. According to Spaull (McBride 2019:1), a well-known researcher in South Africa, one of the three main reasons why Foundation phase readers are struggling with reading is that their teachers do not know how to teach reading systematically. Teachers do not know how to change and adapt the methods that they use to teach reading and not enough research has been done to address the problems with the teaching of reading in the classroom specifically. Often the reading problems experienced in the Foundation phase are carried over to the Intermediate phase.


2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-107
Author(s):  
Dejan Stankovic ◽  
Ivana Djeric ◽  
Vladeta Milin

This paper presents one part of the findings of a research that deals with teachers? perceptions of educational reforms in Serbia. More specifically, the paper focuses on the segment of the research that was aimed at exploring teachers? views on the ways of improving the system and practice of in-service teacher training. Pursuing this topic is very important since the findings of recent studies have shown that this aspect of education system needs considerable improvement, while the authors who deal with educational change point to the importance of consulting the teachers in the development of the new system solutions. The questionnaire was used to collect the data from 326 teachers from 125 Serbian primary schools. The teachers provided answers to open-ended questions on what needs to be done in order to improve the quality of their in-service training. Content analysis was used to process the data - response categories were created inductively on the basis of teachers? answers, and then their frequency was established. The results indicate that, according to teachers, in-service teacher training has to be improved, primarily through increased funding, higher quality of programmes/seminars, diversification of types of training, as well as through creating a more encouraging system and school setting for in-service teacher training. These results are significant from the aspect of the in-service training system since they point to developmental priorities, as well as to the necessity of a more complex and comprehensive approach to the reform of this segment of education system.


Author(s):  
Basem Essa Abozeed ◽  
Zakia Toma Toama ◽  
Amina Ahmad Mohamed ◽  
Alyaa Farouk Abd El-Fattah Ibrahim

Background: Disasters are a global problem, concern every community and no community is immune from it, schools all over the world suffer from disasters, which affect children health and safety. Teachers play essential roles in child protection so, teachers’ training is very significant for effective school disaster management. The study aimed to evaluate. The effectiveness of implementing a training program on the performance of primary school teachers in Al Malikeyeh regarding disaster management. Methods: Design: Quasi-experimental design. Setting: the current study conducted in six primary schools at Al-Malikeyeh distracts. Sample: 78 school teachers. Tool of the study: Teacher's knowledge and practice about disaster management structured interview questionnaire which contained three parts: part (I): Socioeconomic data, part (II): knowledge of the teachers, part (III): practice of the teachers .Results: about 35.8% of teachers had good knowledge pre program; meanwhile post and follow up the program this percent was increased respectively 87.2 % and79.5%. Also the findings observed that 30.8% of teachers had satisfactory practice, whereas, respectively 84.6% and 76.9 of them gained satisfactory disaster management practice post and follow up the program,. Conclusion: Implementing the training program had statistically significant improvement on knowledge and skills of primary school teachers in Al-Malikyeh regarding disaster management. Recommended: Training programs and workshops about disaster issues should be organized for the school teachers and key teams on regular basis, in addition to, awareness campaigns should be implementing with employing mass and social media technologies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-53
Author(s):  
Harriet Isaboke ◽  
Maureen Mweru ◽  
Gladwell Wambiri

Globalization and demand for twenty first century skills has led countries to adapt Competency Based Curriculum (CBC). Kenya embarked on curriculum reforms from content based to CBC in 2018. Studies have reported minimal use of CBC teaching-learning approaches in pre-primary schools in Nairobi City County. Teachers are the key implementers of the Curriculum, yet their preparedness to implement the Curriculum in public pre-primary schools remains unknown. Therefore, this study purposed to establish the preparedness of pre-primary school teachers in implementing the CBC in public pre-primary schools in the County. The Concern-Based Adoption Model by Hall, Hord and Rutherford (2006) was used in this study.  The study targeted a population of 900 comprising of 450 pre-primary school teachers, 225 ECD Center Managers and 225 head teachers in all the 225 public pre-primary schools in Nairobi City County. Twenty percent of the target population was sampled to participate in the study; therefore the study had a sample size of 180, which comprised of 45 head teachers, 45 center managers and 90 pre-primary school teachers. A Questionnaire, interview schedules, observation checklist and a document analysis guide were used to collect data. Pilot study was conducted in two public pre-primary schools in the County, validity of the research instruments was determined through expert judgment whereas reliability of the questionnaires was determined through split-half method and a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.799 was obtained. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically whereas quantitative data was summarized using percentages and frequencies and Chi-square test was used to test the hypotheses. This was facilitated by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 21. Findings showed that majority (65.9%) of the teachers had not received any training on CBC, whereas 34.1% of the teachers were trained. The study established a significant relationship between the teachers’ extent of training in CBC and their ability to implement the curriculum with a significance value of p=0.000<0.05. The study concluded that the teachers were not adequately prepared to implement the Curriculum. Thus, recommended that the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Nairobi City County Government should adequately create a regular in-service training program to equip teachers with necessary knowledge and skills that will help them implement the curriculum effectively.


This study was carried out to identify the administrative role performances of headmasters of primary schools in Ebonyi state, southeast Nigeria. The study also identified the challenges faced the headmasters in performing their roles and strategies for handling these challenges. Three research questions were developed in line with the purpose of the study. Three null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted descriptive survey design. The population of the study is 1471 headmasters and 10,188 teachers, and the sample comprised 150 headmasters and 1000 primary school teachers from the area of study. This sample was drawn using multi-stage sampling technique. A–21 item instrument termed “Headmasters’ Administrative Role Performance Assessment Questionnaire” (HARPAQ) was used by the researcher for data collection. The instrument was first validated by experts and reliability was determined using Cronbach Alpha Statistics and the reliability got was 0.85. The administration and retrieval of instrument were through direct contact and use of research assistants with the respondents. Data collected were analysed using mean and standard deviation for the research question while z-test statistics were used for testing the null hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed that all the 21 items were accepted by the respondents. Findings on the hypotheses tested revealed that there was no significant difference in the mean responses of headmasters and primary school teachers from Ebonyi state on the items presented. Adequate funding, prudency and accountability in fund management, regular leadership training of headmasters, formation of formidable umbrella union for the headmasters to always interact with government on issues of school funding and management, involving the PTA and community in school management among others were recommended.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (32) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Mert Baştaş ◽  
Hüseyin Aktunç

The general purpose of this research is the examination of the role of the leader in the institutional communication process in TRNC primary schools. While conducting the research, principals and deputy principals, who are administrators in primary schools, were accepted as leaders in schools. At this point, it has been tried to determine how teachers perceive corporate communication in TRNC primary schools and whether their administrators show a leading role in terms of communication skills. Among the most important results of the research; Primary school teachers with a bachelor's degree had a more positive attitude towards the communication skills of their administrators than primary school teachers with a master's degree. Most of the teachers (69.4%) participating in our study stated that the most important feature that a leader should have is "effective communication skills".


2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zh.I. Sardarova ◽  

The article is devoted to the problem of digitalization, which currently occupies a central place at the global level, since in today's rapidly changing world, accelerated rates and changes in the field of technology can be taken into account not for years, but for months. Today, the main goal of digitalization of education in the republic is to improve the quality of education, the formation of digital competencies of students based on the creation of a unified educational information environment using digital learning technologies. In this regard, the modern education system of the country can be considered as a dynamically developing system aimed at harmonious integration into the world educational space. This, in turn, is accompanied by changes in the content structure of the teaching technology and significant changes in the pedagogical theory and practice of the educational process, which contribute to mastering the constantly dynamically developing didactic capabilities of ICT and the harmonious entry of the child from primary school into the developing information environment. Observation, research of the work of students and teachers and the responses received to the survey prove that the rational use of digital educational resources in everyday practice contributes to improving the efficiency, effectiveness and productivity of the learning process. In addition, digital technologies help to improve relationships, increase the responsibility of students and teachers for learning, achieving success. The authors, analyzing the course of the transition from the period of informatization to the current period of digitalization, by introducing the first computer technologies into the educational process of primary classes, tried to reveal its positive and negative aspects, to determine the readiness of primary school teachers to plan the content of education in the information educational environment. Along with providing the author's position on the basis of an analytical analysis of research works of domestic and foreign scientists on the topic of research, the objective and subjective factors influencing the transition from informatization to digitalization of modern primary schools are revealed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Besi ◽  
Maria Sakellariou

Internationally, a great number of researchers have pointed out the significance of school–family relationship in the process of children’s transition to primary schools. However, only recently has it been a subject of research in Greece. The purpose of this particular research, which has a sample of 1602 pre-primary and primary school teachers, is to investigate teachers’ viewpoints on the role of parents in the process of their children’s transition to primary school. Data has been collected through the use of questionnaires. Statistical analysis has shown that the overwhelming majority of teachers consider cooperation with parents as necessary. They indicate that the most important factors for successful transition are parents’ level of trust in teachers, their views on schools and learning, and their support for the new situation their child experiences. As far as the most appropriate practices are concerned, almost all teachers mention updating parents at the beginning of the school year, while many suggest that parents and children visit primary schools and that common meetings of both kindergarten and primary school teachers with parents take place before school begins. It therefore seems that teachers acknowledge the role of parents in the process of transition and suggest appropriate practices for their participation.


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