Burns, David. "Will I do as well on the final exam as I expect? An examination of students' expectations". Journal of the scholarship of teaching and learning. 8.3 (2008). Burns states that students' expectations play an important role when they anticipate results before a test. Throughout the article, we can find detailed information that indicates that many factors are related to test results. Thus, we find important aspects, such as that this behavior could probably have an impact on the amount of effort or that the absences during the semester. These students, when they begin a course, tend to bring previous expectations on how good they are going to do. But if they get bad grades, at the end, they will have low expectations on the final exams, due to the fact that they think it reflects on what they did from the beginning. On the other hand, we find that there are some Hindrances which are: self-handicapping, test anxiety, time spent studying and absences. These hindrances are not detected by students realize but they are going to be reflected on the preparation and results on final exams. As a consequence, the results and the information of this article, can be useful for the research objective because it helps us to be aware of that there are other factors - self-handicapping, test anxiety, time spent studying and absences- that directly affect the improvement of test scores, therefore it is a suitable article to be considered in our research. Finally, the author came up with privileged information that might help to think about the implication of the results, which showed that expectations and factors such as anxiety or self-steem can be an influence which is evident in results they get.
Good Online Sources For Research In Education
academic or professional journals
1. QUESTIA: this journal has information about where researchers studied or where they teach, which is an evidence that gives reliability. There is a free trial for a couple of weeks, then you have to pay for it.
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=JycK1tvNbq1hqbGRGrbHqDG0mT8FGQpSDTg0zGK2xHQV89B1vMnd!569501316!-957050587?docId=5000422134
2. ELT OXFORD JOURNALS: as part of a well-known university, this journal has the support of an important school. It has advice for teaching English as a foreign or second language. Downloadable for free!
http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/
3. TEACHING JOURNAL: Mr. Belzs, a literature teacher, publishes every week articles about poetry, it's a complete course on-line. Free!
http://www.belz.net/teaching/journal.html
4. THE HIGHER EDUCATION ACADEMY PSICHOLOGY NETWORK: an online psichology network with articles about psichology and teaching. There is a link for resource searching. Free!
http://www.psychology.heacademy.ac.uk/html/teaching_practice.asp
5. IDEAS.REPEC: this website has authors, institutions, chapters and bibliography. Free!
http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/econom/v3y1975i2p123-150.html
database
1. WIKIPEDIA: This database has articles wich include links to let you know every meaning of what you don't know. Free!
http://www.wikipedia.com
2. RIPE: it has settings to accurate the research that even include organisations or persons. Free!
http://www.ripe.net/db/whois-free.html
Religion in the classroom
As it is known, lot of people have the sense of life alter life, therefore, they might believe in superior life or lives that rule/s the World and their lives. It helps to make life easier, due to that to be part of certain religions or believes, people have to live under directions .On the other hand we have education, which is a way of learning and getting use to life in society. Thus, these two important aspects in some people’s lives are defined by their relationship and how they live together in education. As Sacerdote and Glaeser state in their study "Education and Religion," "The positive effect of education on sociability explains the positive education-religion relationship"(8).
When teachers have to teach, they certainly express personal experiences to help students understand some concepts. It is almost impossible not to show personal ideas or ways of seeing life in general while teaching. Therefore, if a teacher believes in god, or belongs to a religion or believe, he will probably share what he thinks. But in this case, there should be done carefully, because in public education we find dissimilar religions that have different concepts about simple topics such as life or family.
However, in Education we have another discussion, which is about how good the Education is, and how much students learn. Cline, an atheist blogger, argues that "Teaching about religion has some value, but not nearly as much as a more comprehensive education that includes philosophy as well"(145). Some people can say that other subjects such as Philosophy or Language might be more important than religion. Others can say that Math is important. But the important point is that students learn, no matter what they or teachers believe in.
Subjects are free to believe or do what they want to do, but respecting others. In this aspect, teachers have to be neutral in what they truly believe, because, as important adults for students, they can make a deep impact on students’ thoughts unwillingly. Education will always be important in life, generating discussion on sensitive matters, and religion plays a relevant role when teachers, parents and students talk about how a good education has to be.
Sources:
Sacerdote, Bruce; Glaeser, Edward L. Education and Religion. NBER. January 2001.
< http://www.nber.org/papers/
Cline, Austin. Education and Religion. September 17th, 2006.
< http://atheism.about.com/b/
A place I visited! (corrected)
Original!
Some years ago, when I went to La Serena with a group of friends, on our way to this city, we saw a route sign that said “Fray Jorge Park, 10kms”. Most of us did not know anything about that national park, for being honest, nobody knew it.Thus, we decided to turn right and go to the park. After driving one hour away from the main route we got “Fray Jorge”, but it wasn’t an attractive natural feature, why? It was a deserted place, full of cactus, there was no living beings more than 2 hens feeding on dry plants. But the forest ranger, who welcomed us, said: “this is the beginning of our park; you have to climb up that hill to see something you cannot find in this part of our country.We took our car to the top of the hill, and suddenly the hill filled up of fog, we couldn’t see more than 4 meters. Finally, we found a beautiful place, a forest in a deserted area. Why is it possible? It has to do with the fog, thousands of years ago, La Serena and places around were a forest, but a humid forest called “Valdiviana” like the Chilean city in the south of Chile, and not a desert as we see nowadays. The climate change wiped out the forest, but at the top of the hill, fog provided enough humidity to keep these plants and trees alive.As a consequent, we loved that place. We never thought we could find that kind of place in a northern area of our country.
Corrected
Some years ago, when I went to La Serena with a group of friends, on our way to this city, we saw a route sign that said “Fray Jorge Park, 10kms”. Most of us did not know anything about that national park, to be honest, nobody knew it.Thus, we decided to turn right and go to the park. After driving one hour away from the main route we got “Fray Jorge”, but it wasn’t an attractive natural feature, why? It was a deserted place, full of cactus, there were no living beings more than 2 hens feeding on dry plants. But the forest ranger, who welcomed us, said: “this is the beginning of our park; you have to climb up that hill to see something you cannot find in this part of our country.We took our car to the top of the hill, and suddenly the hill filled up of fog, we couldn’t see more than 4 meters away. Finally, we found a beautiful place, a forest in a deserted area. Is it possible? Why? It has to do with the fog, thousands of years ago, La Serena and places around were a forest, but a humid forest called “Valdiviana” like the Chilean city in the south of Chile, and not a desert as we see nowadays. The climate change wiped out the forest, but at the top of the hill, fog provided enough humidity to keep these plants and trees alive. As a consequent, we loved that place. We never thought we could find that kind of place in a northern area of our country.
Gaining weight!
When I went through internet, I realised that there are some people who want to gain weight instead of loosing, can you believe it? Yes, it is true. But they have arguments, because of a sport, medical reasons, or even fashion.
Here you have some links to visit and get informed of these new wave:
http://kidshealth.org/teen/nutrition/weight/gain_weight.html
http://www.gainingweight.info/
http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/hc/healthtips/03/200311gainingweight.cfm
Blogs in the Classroom
It’s for that that teachers have to take advantage of internet; internet is not an enemy, it’s an allied. There are several activities we can prepare for our students to be handed in and handed back through internet.
One of these helpful tools is to have a blog. However, do we know what blog means? What is it a blog? A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. (Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog )
After knowing what it means, we can say that blogs mean direct interaction, because teachers can upload some information, tasks, thoughts or the class they had in the morning. If it is a task, we can ask students to comment what they think on a determined topic, and as teachers, we can give them feedback.
By using blogs, students develop their reading and writing skill, they do not realise that they are learning through having fun. Teachers can go to internet to check what their students are commenting and check if they are working from their houses.
Nevertheless, working with blogs has some disadvantage. When students have blogs, they do not have to work in group, it is a single work, because nobody else can write on blogs, people can only write posts; therefore, teachers have to ask students to post their classmates to have interaction. Therefore, when you become a teacher: Would you work with blogs?
“La Recoleta” is a fashion place in Buenos Aires, but this guy said to me: Why don’t we go to see the giant Flower? And I said to him: How big is it? He replied: Look at it!
It was across the street, so I saw it immediately. A huge flower!! It opens its petals when the sun rises, then it closes them when the sun sets. I think its size called my attention, besides that, it is beautiful, I felt impressed and I was moved. If you have any chance to go to “La Recoleta”, visit “The Giant Flower”, a monument dedicated to means of communication.
