Volume6 Issue2

April 2021

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What Can We Learn About Educational Project Management in Times of Covid-19?

Hassana MAHFOUD
Pages: 75-81

In the actual covid-19 crisis, Moroccan universities have been obliged to convert face-to-face education to online education context. This situation is much more challenging for students who are appealed to work collaboratively on their final project as well as for teachers who must monitor the project progress and students’ performance. This paper presents an experiment report of initial implementation of agile strategy in remote project management of undergraduate students. The study is approached from two point of view: communication and collaboration; data centralization and efficient monitoring. The discussion is based on student’s online activity analysis and structured survey of students’ perception on the applied method. The results reveal that the integration of the agile strategy has a significant positive impact on students’ performance in online project management and offers an interesting tool for teachers supervising project teamwork.

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An Examination of 5th Grade Mathematics Curriculum in Terms of 21st Century Skills

Ömer Faruk VURAL Selma VURAL
Pages: 82-92

In today's world, schools should emphasize on life skills rather than technical skills, so that individuals can adapt to changes. In this respect, various institutions tried to define the skills that individuals should have in the 21st century, called as 21st century skills. 21st century skills are one of the most important issues in education. The reason for this is that we need to determine nowadays what skills and knowledge the generations will have after 20 years. In this study, it is aimed to find out which skills the objectives of the fifth grade mathematics courses taught in Turkey are covered in terms of acquiring 21st century skills through the acquisitions and explanations determined by the Ministry of National Education. In this direction, qualitative research method was used in this study. At the end of the study, there was no data found regarding to “learning to learn”, “taking initiative and entrepreneurship”, “communication” and “productivity” skills in the objectives of the fifth grade mathematics curriculum. 5th grade mathematics lesson objectives remained missing to take initiative and develop entrepreneurship skills. The findings showed that “problem solving”, “critical thinking”, “creativity”, “ICT literacy”, “social and cultural skills and citizenship” and “cooperation” skills were found but inadequate in the objectives of the fifth grade mathematics curriculum. Adding daily life activities and giving examples from daily life are effective in terms of gaining 21st century skills. In general, the fifth grade mathematics curriculum focuses on “mathematics competence” skill in the objectives.

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Explore Jordanian Mathematics Teacher's Perception of Their Professional Needs Related to Mathematical Proficiency

Khaled Ahmed Aqeel Alzubi
Pages: 93-114

Mathematically proficiency as being described it by five strands: conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, strategic competency, adaptive reasoning(National Research Council, 2001), and. The purpose of this study is to Jordanian mathematics teacher's perception of their professional needs Related to the five Strands of Mathematical Proficiency and to search for the effect of teachers demographic factors on their perceived needs. Participants included (171) teachers with varying qualifications and years of experience teaching at multiple grade levels schools in Jordan. The study uses a 35-item questionnaire to evaluate teachers professional development needs within five Strands of Mathematical Proficiency. The results offer more insight into mathematics teachers’ most essential needs in terms of specific knowledge and experience within different categories. This information aids in planning professional development programs and workshops that will meet teachers’ needs.

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Application of The PjBL-STEM Model to Natural Science Learning Devices to Increase the Creativity

Alfiani Indah Pratiwi Widha Sunarno Sugiyarto Sugiyarto
Pages: 115-123

The study aims to determinate the project based learning (PjBL) model with the STEM approach in increasing the creativity of junior high school students. The research method used is a quasi-experimental. The design in this study is a one group pretest-posttest design. The population of this research is class VII in a state junior high school in Surakarta. The sample of this study was 44 students consisting of two classes, namely class VII G as the experimental class (22 students) and class VII H as the control class (22 students). The instrument used was a creativity test instrument consisting of 6 questions on the is the N-gain test. Based on the result of data analysis, it was obtained that the experimental class N-gain average was 0.59 with the medium category and 0.36 for the control class with the low category. The result of the t-test show that there is a difference in creativity between the experimental class using the PjBL model of science learning tools with the STEM approach and the class without using the device.

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Special Educational Need of the Gifted and Talented Students in Saudi Arabia: A Review Paper

Salem Obaid Alelyani
Pages: 124-133

Giftedness refers to proficient distinctive intelligent knowledgeable abilities, due to high IQ which possess talent, excellent performance abilities and skill in diverse field of learning. The gifted children’s style of learning is quite different as they need special academic, scientific support and input since they are characterized by actively metacognitive thinking skills and learning strategies. Due to the complexities of twice-exceptional gifted students, educators lack the experience in dealing with the unique needs of the gifted students. In Saudi Arabia, there is a need for the government to restructures the educational system in order to refine gifted student’s talent to their educational needs. This is a review paper aims at reviewing relevant literature on the special educational needs of the gifted and talented students in Saudi Arabia. From the available literature reviewed, the general need for gifted and talented students identified are cognitive needs, social and emotional needs, psychomotor needs, affective and intuitive needs, the needs of diverse gifted populations. The Study also identified the four major special educational needs of the gifted and talented students which comprises; the need for challenging education, need for true peers, the need for the responsive parenting, the need for adult empathy.

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Students’ Indiscipline in Tertiary Educational Institutions of Sokoto State

Sa’adu Isa BASHAR Mudassir Ibrahim GATAWA Muhammad M. JAGABA Bello MUSA Nafi’u ABDUL’AZIZ Adamu HASSAN
Pages: 134-142

The study investigated the effects of students’ indiscipline and factors responsible for its ineffective management in tertiary educational institutions of Sokoto state, Nigeria. The study employed a mixed method approach involving 3270 academic staff and 4344 final year students of all the higher educational institutions of Sokoto State. A Survey which was validated by experts and whose reliability coefficient was established at 0.9, was distributed to a sample of 692 respondents. While interview was conducted with 12 participants bearing the saturation rule. Descriptive statistics (Mean and Standard Deviation) and Coding were used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data of the study respectively. Findings revealed that the effects of indiscipline on students includes: promotion of academic corruption, sexual harassment, poor academic performance as well as examination malpractices. The schools’ strategies for managing the students’ indiscipline, include setting down strategic rules and regulations, communicating the rules to the school-wide communities, as well as apprehending and detaining the culprits. Moreover, it was found that the efforts of the institutions to manage the students’ indiscipline is being affected by factors such as lack of parental involvement, insignificant support of some staff, technology and media, and political interference. The study finally recommends among other things that the institutions should seek the support of the parents, community members, security operatives to ensure the apprehension, detention and suing of the erring students whenever they are found indulging in any of such indiscipline behaviours.

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The Future Perception of Gifted Individuals and Society about Gifted Individuals

Betül Büyük Eyüp ÇELİK
Pages: 143-154

This study examined the future perception of gifted individuals and society about gifted individuals. The study was carried out with a phenomenological approach, one of the qualitative research methods. The sample of this study was gathered from gifted students and adults in İstanbul and Kocaeli. The result of the research exhibits that gifted individuals were perceived as researcher-type people by both themselves and adults. Also, there is a need to improve gifted students’ educational process and reveal their potential skills. In addition, although people generally have a positive perspective on the future of gifted young people, it is frequently emphasized that the conditions they live in are worrisome.

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Investigation of Prospective Teachers’ Self-Regulated Learning Skills in terms of Different Variables

Şengül İLGAR Çiğdem KARAKURT Yasemin DERİNGÖL Nur ÜTKÜR GÜLLÜHAN
Pages: 155-168

This study aimed to describe the self-regulated learning skills of prospective teachers studying at a public university in Istanbul and reveal their differences in relation to the components of these skills. The screening model was used in the research. The sample consisted of students studying at a public university in Istanbul in the 2018-2019 academic year and applied to randomly selected 926 students. This study was carried out with 926 first-, second-, third- and fourth-grade students. The Self-Regulatory Learning Skills Scale (SRLSS) and a personal information form were used as the data collection tools. The findings of the research revealed that the prospective teachers had high scores in the subscales of SRLSS and the overall scale. It was concluded that the prospective science teachers had higher scores in planning and goal-setting than the students attending all other programs except for mathematics teaching. Furthermore, the scores of female prospective teachers in all subscales were higher than those of the male participants. Considering the type of high school, the participants that had completed basic high school scored higher in strategy use and evaluation compared to those that had finished other types of high school. When the prospective teachers’ self-regulated learning skills were analyzed according to their parents' education level, no significant difference was found.

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Students’ Roles in Learning English through Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL): A Teachers’ Beliefs View

Hafidz Wahyu Nur CHOLIS Endang FAUZIATI Slamet SUPRIYADI
Pages: 169-175

This study aims to explore teacher’s beliefs about students’ roles in learning English through MALL and the factors contributing to their beliefs. MALL which stands for Mobile Assisted Language Learning were the main instructional media where there was no such direct physical meeting in school. This media became popular nowadays, despite its emergence in the early 2000s, especially during Covid-19 pandemic which prevents both students and teachers to have direct physical meeting in the classroom. It was important to understand what role should be played by the students which in this research was viewed from teachers’ beliefs perspective. Therefore, the research questions formulated by the researcher were; (1) What are teacher’s beliefs regarding students’ roles in learning English through MALL? (2) What are the factors shaping their beliefs? In terms of methodology employed by the researcher, this research was qualitative with descriptive case study design. The subjects of this research were two teachers of Senior High School in Surakarta, Indonesia who were teaching English through MALL since 2017. The subjects were a Javanese male and Bataknese female who were 27 years old. Both of teachers had master degree from English Education Department. The instrument employed to acquire the data was interviews. The data then were categorized into the students’ roles based on the theories. The result indicated that four students’ roles became something that the teacher held as the truth. Those roles were participant, initiator, performer, and passive receptor. Meanwhile, the factors determining teacher’s beliefs were discovered five factors.

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The Effectiveness of a Micro-Learning Strategy in Developing the Skills of Using Augmented Reality Applications among Science Teachers in Jeddah

Ali bin Muhammad Al-Kalthmi Al-Shehri
Pages: 176-183

This study aimed at identifying the effectiveness of a micro-learning strategy-based instructional program in developing the skills of using augmented reality applications among science teachers in Jeddah. The study used the semi-experimental approach based on the experimental design of one group (pre-posttests), and the instruments were an achievement test and the observation card. The sample of the study consisted of (42) science teachers in the intermediate stage in Jeddah. After conducting the study, the results showed statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the study group in the pre and post-application of the achievement test and the observation card on the skills of using augmented reality applications. The differences were in favor of the posttest. The study recommended the importance of the micro-learning strategy in providing advanced practical solutions to training and education problems in line with modern technological development

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Investigating Language Learning Strategies Used by Good and Poor Learners In E-Learning Class

Dwi Prastiani Virgonita Endang Fauziati Endang Setyaningsih
Pages: 184-193

This study focused on English language learning strategies used by good and poor learners in e-learning class during The Covid-19 pandemic. It investigated the similarity and differences of their learning strategies. Moreover, it investigated deeply factors that affected the preference of their learning strategies. It revealed that good and poor learners used all six learning strategies proposed by Oxford. Almost half of the good and poor learners used social strategy. However, most good learners used metacognitive strategies. While most poor learners used effective strategies. The lowest influencing strategy of good learners was social strategy. While the lowest influencing strategy of poor learners was metacognitive strategy. The Learning strategy preferences of good learners were affected by some factors such as belief, degree of awareness, learning style, motivation, and purpose of the learning language. The learning strategy preferences of poor learners were also affected by those factors except the purpose of the learning language.

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