SMIT Ed
The group met last Friday. They have decided to look at both the
elementary and the high school textbooks. They zeroed in on the three
major publishers and people have been assigned to get copies of the
book. …., Diwa, Phoenix.
Are there numbers? Not centralized; publishers go directly to the
principals, so Dept. Ed doesn’t have numbers.
Preparation for research grant proposal.
No research questions yet. Basing it on concepts map used by group in
US downscaled to adapt it to the Philippines. US group already
prepared a concept map (ex: biology) and used it to evaluate the
textbooks. Really just biology, not chemistry or physics. Elementary
math, middle grade science, biology and algebra were reviewed by the
US group. Comparison between concept map and textbook. Middle science
methodology was different. AAAS Project 2061.
Framework is important. Task is large. Need to be explicit about the
approach.
Some concern about authors and reviewers. We can choose the areas. We
can begin with the grade school science. Suggestion: 3-7 grade school
so that it’s more focused.
What do the question marks on the timeline mean?
(Explanation: uncertain personnel)
Evaluation of information technology
I wonder what I can do to help computer education at the grade school level.
I need to know how many schools teach computing and what they teach.
I suspect that most schools do not teach computing; the few that do
teach software skills like Microsoft Office use. However, programming
may help kids in their other subjects. Problem-solving
How would I go about learning more about computer education at the
grade school level?
Note about grade school and high school. More grade school students.
Conceptual capabilities. Abstract concepts.
Need for peer review and editing.
Difference between local textbooks and American texts. Local textbooks
tend to be thin series. Are American texts thicker? Not that much -
lab activities are incorporated into the texts and the paper is
probably thicker. Local texts have a different manual.
Not including teacher’s manual and lab manual. Focusing on text book
because it requires too much work and public schools don’t really use
them. We’re also not doing the workbooks.
Problem with conflict of interest.
Problem with identification in review. Coded.
Suggestion: Framework and then evaluators.
Suggestion: Use the framework of TIMSS. Content specifications,
performance expectations – make a table. But TIMSS is not complete?
Test at the end rank. TIMSS was not written for textbook. The AAS
framework was specifically written for textbooks, and it will be
easier to adapt.
Research for chemistry demonstration development. Originality?
Evaluation of demonstration. If it’s not original, it might be hard to
publish. Scholarly grants want original.
Methodology for evaluating chemistry demonstrations.
Cha – thesis on misconceptions. Language, culture, preconceived
notions. They use local language. They get confused with mass and
weight, the definitions… She discovered – she was supposed to
develop experiments to correct the misconceptions – for some things it
is so difficult to find experiments to differentiate. Maybe these are
the areas that you can look into. Value in the cognitive area there.
Beam balance versus spring balance – there’s no cancellation of
forces. What they will see is that these are two different things.
Mental models postponed for personal reasons.
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