Performance in primary schools

Data for this paper was collected from the OFSTED database on Hampshire primary schools. The schools in Southampton and Porstmouth were used in order to assess the factors that influence their productive efficiency. The data set included 19 variables on 176 schools and was analysed by means of Data Envelopment Analysis. Contextual variables, not included in the efficiency analysis, were used to explain the sources of inefficiency. It was found that religious orientation, parental influence and level of exclusions all impacted on the ability of a school to deliver the best possible results in standard assessment tests. This study is set within local and national priorities in education.     

The changes of assessment at middle school level in Korea

Mathematics education in Korea is currently in a period of transition. The new national curriculum standard was released in 2009 and will be implemented by middle schools in 2013. Korean education has evolved from merely assessing students’ knowledge to figuring out their mathematical process using various assessment methods. The purpose of the national level assessment has been expanded to measure individual achievement. The assessment framework also has changed not only to focus on the content domain but to include the behavior domain as well. However, there were some difficulties in assessing the students’ solving process, including trying to implement various assessment methods in the classrooms. This paper aims to examine the development of assessment and to provide direction for the future application of assessment to the new Korean curriculum by analyzing middle school students’ assessment result at the national level and the class level in the changing era.     

贯通中学和大学数学教与学 集成造就学生数学素养和创新实践能力

针对如何破解我国从应试教育向素质教育转变步履维艰的难题,本文详细介绍了如何贯通中学和大学数学教与学,集成培养学生数学素养和创新实践能力的具体做法和成效.     

基于数据的Goodgrant基金最优投资策略

对Goodgrant基金的投资策略进行研究。首先,根据投资要求,对候选学校进行初步筛选,基于筛选后的学校,选取与教育绩效有关且数据信息完整的变量对学校进行聚类,并利用聚类结果对缺失数据进行补全;然后,提出了评价学生教育表现的绩效指标、绩效指示变量及绩效贡献变量的定义与关系,通过对绩效指示变量进行主成分分析,确定出每个学校当前的绩效值,并以此对所有学校进行初步排名;最后,以获得奖学金的学生占当年入学学生总数的比例作为绩效贡献变量,给出每个学校投资回报率的计算公式,并以该公式为依据,从绩效排名前100的学校中选出待投资的10所学校及捐赠数额。     

Exploring Problem‐based Learning in the Context of High School Science: Design and Implementation Issues

This paper reports on the experiences of a small collaborative inquiry group consisting of a high school science teacher, Deidre, and two university researchers, the authors of this paper, as they explored an active, inquiry‐based approach to teaching and learning referred to as Problem‐Based Learning or PBL ( Barrows, 1994 ; Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980 ). Although PBL is not new and has an established tradition in medical education and other professional schools, the use and scholarship of PBL at the secondary level is only starting to emerge. This small‐scale collaboration allowed the co‐inquirers to delve into the complexities of PBL and to examine its feasibility as a curriculum and instructional approach in the context of high school science teaching and learning. The three collaborators adopted an action‐based inquiry method referred to as Collaborative Inquiry (CI), a “process consisting of repeated episodes of reflection and action through which a group of peers strives to answer a question of importance to them” ( Bray, Lee, Smith, & Yorks, 2000 , p. 6). Data collection methods and sources included student‐generated work, classroom observation, student interviews, and audio‐taped planning meetings. The outcomes of the study focus on the issues that arose during PBL design and implementation, such as selecting a PBL topic, determining the level of structure to be incorporated into the PBL experience, selecting appropriate assessment approaches, facilitating groups, and providing optimal student feed‐back. In addition, outcomes related to student perceptions of PBL indicated that the majority liked learning through PBL because it promoted active learning, made science relevant, provided variety in learning, and supported group work. The authors discuss implications for the adoption of PBL in K‐12 settings.     

The Brazilian mathematics textbook assessments

This paper briefly reviews Brazilian textbook policies during the twentieth century, and pays careful attention to its latest development, PNLD—Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (National Textbook Program) and its textbook assessments, which selects textbooks that are freely distributed by the Ministry of Education (MEC) to students of public elementary, middle and high schools. We focus on the mathematics textbook assessments, describing their evolution and commenting on some of their accomplishments and problems. The first assessment was carried out for the 1997 school year and retained basically its initial formulation, with changes and improvements, til the assessment for the 2018 school year. As of now, the program is undergoing substantial changes which are briefly discussed and which worry many educators. This assessment was responsible for a definite improvement of mathematics textbooks for elementary, middle and high schools in Brazil. It constitutes a good example of a successful program, coordinated by competent persons from mathematics education, schools of education and mathematics departments of good universities, at first without political interference, and strongly backed by powerful officials in MEC. In the last few years, pressures from publishers and conservative groups have undermined the assessments, with possibly serious consequences.     

Performance assessment of secondary schools: the snapshot of a country taken by DEA

This paper describes a performance assessment of Portuguese secondary schools using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The assessment adopts a perspective where schools are viewed as promoting students achievement given their characteristics in terms of academic abilities and socio-economic background. Our sample comprised all secondary schools in Portugal with both basic and secondary education levels. Two types of DEA analysis are performed: one using an output-oriented model that restricts output (exam scores) weights to be linked to the number of students that have done that exam in the school, and the other using a model that restricts factor weights to be equal for all schools. In this model the weight restrictions are linked to the total number of exams done nationally. The first model is well suited for identifying worst performing schools and to assess schools that may specialize in certain subjects, whereas the latter is best suited for improving discrimination between best performing schools when pursuing the identification of benchmarks, as well as to construct performance rankings.     

Developing teachers' models for assessing students' competence in mathematical modelling through lesson study

Applications and modelling have gained a prominent role in mathematics education reform documents and curricula. Thus, there is a growing need for studies focusing on the effective use of mathematical modelling in classrooms. Assessment is an integral part of using modelling activities in classrooms, since it allows teachers to identify and manage problems that arise in various stages of the modelling process. However, teachers’ difficulties in assessing student modelling work are a challenge to be considered when implementing modelling in the classroom. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate how teachers’ knowledge on generating assessment criteria for assessing student competence in mathematical modelling evolved through a professional development programme, which is based on a lesson study approach and modelling perspective. The data was collected with four teachers from two public high schools over a five-month period. The professional development programme included a cyclical process, with each cycle consisting of an introductory meeting, the implementation of a model-eliciting activity with students, and a follow-up meeting. The results showed that the professional development programme contributed to teachers’ knowledge for generating assessment criteria on the products, and the observable actions that affect the modelling cycle.     

Humans-with-media and continuing education for mathematics teachers in online environments

This paper begins by situating online mathematics education in Brazil within the context of research on digital technology over the past 25?years. I argue that Brazilian research on technology in mathematics education can be divided into four phases, and then present an example that ??blends?? aspects of the second and third phases. Phase two can be characterized by research with software designed to address traditional mathematics topics, such as functions, while the third phase is characterized by online courses. The data presented show creative solutions for a problem designed for collectives of humans-with-function-software. The paper is analyzed from a perspective that emphasizes the role of different technologies as teachers and professors collaborate to produce knowledge about the use of mathematical software in regular face-to-face classrooms. A model of online education is presented. Finally, the paper discusses how technology may change collaboration and teaching approaches in continuing education, as it allows for greater integration of online learning with teachers?? classroom activities in schools. In this case, the online platform plays an active role in the learning collective composed of humans-with-media.     

Empowering children in the use of statistics

Statistics pervade our society, yet the understanding of statistics has remained the domain of a select few. Although the majority of the literature has focused on the adult learner, there is a movement toward teaching statistics to children. This article addresses the ways in which the study of statistics has been examined in the elementary and secondary schools in terms of content, readiness of children to learn, pedagogy, and assessment. A proposal is presented of how a cognitive apprenticeship model can be developed from the empirical research findings in order to build more effective instructional and assessment methods for statistics education.     

A Case Study of the Effectiveness of Teacher Experience in the Use of Explanation‐Based Assessment in High School Physics

This article reports on the results of a study involving an innovative assessment program initiated to investigate student predictions and revised explanations regarding a variety of optical phenomena. The assessments were administered via videotape to two classes of high school physics students from different high schools. Two high school teachers with similar educational and teaching backgrounds administered the tapes to the two groups of students. The school environments and the ability levels of the two student groups were similar. The students of the teacher with greater experience with this new form of assessment provided considerably more substantive explanations to the phenomena presented on the videos. The results of the case study suggest that the introduction of new forms of assessment in science education, although desirable, will require significant reordering of the goals and strategies of science teaching.     

An MCDA approach for the selection of bike projects based on structuring and appraising activities

This paper presents an MCDA approach for the structuring and appraising activities of a large and complex decision problem. More specifically, the paper makes use of the three-step structuring process for decision analysis proposed by von Winterfeldt and Edwards: (1) identifying the problem; (2) selecting an appropriate analytic approach; and (3) developing a detailed analytic structure. For illustration of the approach a case study dealing with the assessment task of prioritising and selecting initiatives and projects from a public pool with limited funds is examined throughout the paper. The process is embedded in a Decision Support System (DSS) making use of the REMBRANDT technique for pair wise comparisons to determine project rankings. A procedure for limiting the number of pair wise comparisons to be made in the process is in this connection presented. Finally, strengths and weaknesses in the approach are discussed and conclusions are made.     

Schools in Southampton: A Quantitative Approach to School Location,Closure and Staffing

Between 1965 and 1976 the number of children born in the UK decreased by about one third. The fall in the number of births was followed by a fall in the number of children on roll in compulsory education, which resulted in many schools being closed. This paper examines the dynamics of falling rolls in the city of Southampton. Multidimensional scaling techniques are used to explore the social characteristics of the schools proposed for closure. The paper examines also the consequences of the exercise of parental choice of school. It is shown that social dynamics and staffing rules based on constant pupil/teacher ratios remove resources from the schools that are most in need of them.     

Measuring and managing educational performance

Performance measures have come to play a central role in the management of the education sector. This paper identifies a number of desirable properties for educational performance measures, whose breach is likely to result in sub-optimal patterns of educational outcomes and resource management. Recent trends in the study of mathematics in schools give particular cause for concern. The paper examines several outstanding issues that require further attention if performance evaluation techniques are to provide reliable measures of school effectiveness.     

Improving envelopment in Data Envelopment Analysis under variable returns to scale

In a Data Envelopment Analysis model, some of the weights used to compute the efficiency of a unit can have zero or negligible value despite of the importance of the corresponding input or output. This paper offers an approach to preventing inputs and outputs from being ignored in the DEA assessment under the multiple input and output VRS environment, building on an approach introduced in Allen and Thanassoulis (2004) for single input multiple output CRS cases. The proposed method is based on the idea of introducing unobserved DMUs created by adjusting input and output levels of certain observed relatively efficient DMUs, in a manner which reflects a combination of technical information and the decision maker’s value judgements. In contrast to many alternative techniques used to constrain weights and/or improve envelopment in DEA, this approach allows one to impose local information on production trade-offs, which are in line with the general VRS technology. The suggested procedure is illustrated using real data.     

课程思政理念指导下的高等数学过程考核实施方案

在融入课程思政前,利用调查问卷的结果做了 一些准备工作,目的是了解学生意愿及需求,找好切入点.接着开始实际操作,进行"高数那些事儿"环节教学改革设计,并平稳有序的开展一学期试行.然后为了更好了解学生对教改的反馈及学生学习态度,对两个平行教学班进行了相关内容的问卷调查,所得结果相近,以其中一班为例说明多项令人满意的重要内...