Development of Instructional Material for Practical Research 1

The study aimed to develop a framework for teaching Practical Research and to find out the most appropriate instructional design to use in the development of instructional material for Practical Research 1. It utilized a qualitative research design. The research instrument includes two (2) curriculum guides and forty-five (45) literature searches on the best practices in teaching Practical Research 1. Data analysis used document analysis and thematic analysis. The findings revealed the components of the framework. Among these components are the learning competencies, enhancement/ measurement of prior knowledge, use of instructional material, feedback, and research writing. The most appropriate instructional design for developing the module in Practical Research 1 is the use of 5Es. The 5Es instructional design is used in science instruction and anchored on the principles of constructivism which follows procedural application of knowledge suitable to teaching Practical Research 1 which is deemed science-related. The following recommendations were made: the module in Practical Research 1 should be implemented and evaluated by Grade 11 Practical Research 1 instructors and students; materials containing contents specific to the learner's strand be developed; it is ideal to develop and produce audiovisual materials to add convenience in teaching Practical Research 1, and Practical Research 1 should be taught by teachers who have at least postgraduate units.

Aqu@teach—The First Aquaponics Curriculum to Be Developed Specifically for University Students

Aquaponic food production requires a broad spectrum of knowledge in order to understand and manage the processes involved, and for commercial aquaponics to develop its full potential, it will require an appropriately trained workforce. Devised in collaboration as an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership for Higher Education, Aqu@teach covers the basics of aquaponics with a focus on transferable and entrepreneurial skills. The aquaponics curriculum can either be taught using blended learning—combining digital media and the internet with classroom formats that require the physical co-presence of the teacher and students—or as an e-learning course. The supplementary entrepreneurial skills module was devised on the basis of two surveys: of aquaponics companies around the world, in order to get a broad overview of the skills that are important in the early years of a business; and of European higher education institutions that teach subjects where aquaponics could be incorporated as an optional module. The entrepreneurial skills curriculum introduces the main processes involved in developing a business idea into a start-up company. All of the Aqu@teach resources—the e-learning modules, textbooks, module guides for students, curriculum guides for teachers, best practice guide for teaching aquaponics, and toolbox of innovative didactic practices—are open access.

Moral education in Hong Kong kindergartens: An analysis of the preschool curriculum guides

Adolescent problems in Hong Kong have brought questions about their moral development and mental health to light. Moral education for preschool children will be strategically important to address these issues because applying early educational interventions to preschool children will effectively enhance their personal development. This article highlights the inadequacy of the Hong Kong preschool curriculum guides in the promotion of moral development in children. The lack of a consensus about the values and character that preschool children should develop is a fundamental problem of implementing preschool moral education in Hong Kong. If moral education is regarded as a school curriculum, either formal or informal, the objectives, content and assessment should be closely adhered to one another. In addition, the learning and teaching activities should also be in line with student’s developmental characteristics and experiences. The O-C-A model is then proposed for moral education in the preschool settings of Hong Kong. Advice has also been made for the promotion of moral education in Hong Kong’s early childhood settings.

Educational Leadership at Municipality Level

The purpose of this study is to explore the roles and responsibilities that national education legislation in Iceland imposes on municipalities in terms of leadership. A qualitative content analysis was applied to explore the relevant national legislation—that is, education acts, regulations, and curriculum guides—and identify themes by looking for specific words that are characteristic in leadership practices. The findings reveal that policy ends concerning educational leadership of municipalities are somewhat tacit in current national legislation. Yet, the roles and responsibilities that the state delegates to municipalities comprise leadership functions that are distributed in nature and, to a large extent, harmonize with desired leadership practices as emphasized in the literature. Legislation emphasizes comprehensive education, but also in-cludes signs of technocratic homogenization. In the discussion of our findings, we argue that the educational system is quite dependent on the political emphasis at each given time, making it difficult for both munic-ipalities and the state to facilitate a cohesive leadership emphasis. We suggest that closer attention to the local level, and a recognition of it as an important unit and agency for educational development, is of sig-nificant importance. These observations will be followed by a further investigation into the actual practice of leadership at the local level.

An Analysis of the Jamaican Grades 1-6 Curriculum for the Development of a Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue Cross-Curriculum

The main objective of any curriculum is the relevancy of the content in meeting the curricular and co- curricular short and long term needs of the students so they can function well at their level in the society. The researcher used the content analysis methodology to analyse the content of the Grades 1-6 Ministry of Education Youth and Information (Jamaica) Curricular with the aim of developing a school library cross-curricular. Based on the analyses there was evidence that more information literacy topics were implicitly embedded in the school curriculum guides than media literacy and intercultural dialogue. The AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner competencies was either sufficiently evident, limited or absent from these school curricular. The cooperative learning teaching strategy, the multiple intelligences theory and the Big6 information problem solving skills were also absent from these curricular. The researcher used the subject areas in addition to the MILID components to develop a cross curricular school library MILID curriculum which will facilitate the collaboration of teacher librarians and teachers in the planning and delivery of the lessons.

The Development of Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies Curriculum in Hong Kong: Perspectives and Problems

The introduction of liberal studies is a new curriculum reform initiative in Hong Kong starting in 2009. It is a kind of formal interdisciplinary curriculum built on decades of experiences garnered from the implementation of various integrated subjects with similar nature. Through the method of documentary analysis that brings all official policy papers, curriculum guides/documents, stakeholders’ feedback, and prior research into critical scrutiny, this article aims to analyze the phylogeny of formal interdisciplinary curriculum in Hong Kong from historical, sociological, ideological, and curricular perspectives, with a view to delineating the changes and continuities in the development of interdisciplinary curriculum and identifying the problems and possibilities for its implementation.