The assessment landscape in Maldivian schools is currently undergoing change. The new draft Maldivian National Curriculum (Education Development Centre, 2012a) and associated documents, aim to realign assessment, instruction and curriculum in schools to better optimise learning conditions. In terms of assessment a key future focus involves promoting the use of formative assessment in classroom practice. For Maldivian teachers who have traditionally placed emphasis on summative assessment, the transition towards developing a more balanced assessment approach is expected to be challenging. The issues this paper addresses are twofold. The first is to discover how Maldivian primary teachers are currently interpreting formative assessment and putting it into classroom practice. The second is to determine how these practices might act as indicators for identifying future teacher professional development needs. The intent is to provide insight into the complexity of implementing formative ass.....

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An ex-post facto study was conducted to determine which teacher practices can promote critical thinking among secondary school students. A total of 1200 students in 12 schools in a district in Selangor participated in the study. The study employed an extreme group causal comparative design where students who tested high in critical thinking as measured using the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (CCTT-X) were compared with students who obtained low scores in the CCTT-X. Twelve experiences with regard to teacher practices in the classroom differed significantly between the high and the low scorers when analysed with the Mann-Whitney U Test. Implications of the study, particularly on ways to teach better to promote critical thinking are discussed. Key words: Critical thinking, Teacher practices, Malaysia..

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The internet has been an integral part for most EFL teachers nowadays. Those teachers make use of the internet to help them at least search for appropriate materials for their classroom teaching. Some others use the internet to discuss particular courses outside the classroom time. However, the fact that the internet has been of central use, the research on it in relation to literacy (read, write, research and publish) for EFL teacher personal and professional development in developing countries is under explored (Warschauer, Shetzer and Meloni, 2002, cited in Cahyani & Cahyono, 2012). In that regard, this article is to address that critical issue. As an EFL teacher from the developing country myself, my personal and professional experiences and my encounters with colleagues on the internet use inform my subjectivities in writing this article. As the current globalized world requires teachers to have multi-literacy skills, I deliberately frame the internet use within New Literacy Studi.....

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Over hundreds of years of modern education system has been developing and implemented in the schools at European countries and slowly around the world. Not only the education system has changed, but also more and more tools and gadgets had been invented and developed for the sake of better education. In most developing countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Brunei, Interactive whiteboard (IWB) becomes a strange tool for most new and even experienced teachers. The purpose of this study is to review back the related literature reviews of the effectiveness of the use of IWB for teaching and learning which currently have mixed findings on its contributions as a tool in the classrooms. Thereafter, it believes will lead to the understanding of the use of IWB for teaching Chinese characters. Key words: Interactive whiteboard, Educational technologies, Teaching tools..

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Kewujudan masalah disiplin dalam kalangan remaja terutamanya pelajar sekolah menengah yang sentiasa meningkat kini telah menjadi trend bagi budaya persekolahan. Persoalan mula timbul iaitu dari siapakah remaja mempelajari nilai moral dan kehidupan? Remaja tahu apa yang betul dan apa yang bermoral akan tetapi mereka tidak bertindak sewajarnya kerana ia lebih sukar untuk memenuhi keperluan mereka dengan cara tersebut. Oleh itu, remaja terutamanya pelajar yang bermasalah disiplin menghadapi kesukaran untuk memikirkan yang terbaik untuk diri mereka berdasarkan kemoralan. Berdasarkan kepada faktafakta ini, objektif utama kajian yang berbentuk kuantitatif telah ditetapkan iaitu untuk mengkaji darjah pertimbangan moral dalam kalangan pelajar bermasalah disiplin. Kajian ini menggunakan sampel bertujuan berjumlah 100 orang responden. Borang soal selidik yang telah dibangunkan oleh Daniel Brugman, Gibbs dan Fuller (2007) iaitu _Sociomoral Reflection Measure _ Short Form Objective_ (SRM-SFO) digu.....

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The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of different relatedness supportive settings on the motivation, engagement and effort of a-motivated students in secondary physical education. 147 a-motivated students from 5 schools were taught in a setting that was either high or low in support for their need of relatedness. Data were collected using a pretest and posttest design to examine a-motivated student_s level of motivation, engagement and effort. Repeated measures ANOVA_s with follow-up comparisons were utilized to analyze the data. Results indicated that students engaged in the high supportive setting significantly increased their levels of motivation, engagement and effort compared with students in the low support group. Findings from this study provide the first empirical evidence that supporting relatedness can positively influence the affective aspects of students with low motivation. Keywords Low motivation, self-determination theory, relatedness..

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This study investigated the effects of game-based practice on year three pupils_ vocabulary acquisitions in the Chinese language classroom. Two different teaching practices were adopted, i.e. a game-based practice for the experimental group and a conventional based practice for the control group. The teaching program was the same for both groups. Each group had 30 pupils which were randomly assigned. Data was collected through a vocabulary acquisition test. Statistical results revealed that there were no significant differences between the two groups on vocabulary acquisition test. However, the middle vocabulary level pupils in the experimental group made significant improvement and performed as well as the high vocabulary level pupils. When tested separately, the pupils of high, middle and low vocabulary levels in the experimental group significantly performed better than those in the control group. These positive results offer a notable incentive to language teachers to include game-.....

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The education system in Malaysia plays an important role in strengthening the relationship among multi-ethnic students. This article uses data drawn from interview session, observation and document analysis, which aim to identify strategies to strengthen relationship among multi-ethnic students in a secondary school. Through purposive sampling, two school administrators, seven teachers and twenty form four students from various ethnicities were selected. This study revealed that, there were four strategies such as nurturing national integration, encouraging interactions among multi-ethnic students, stimulating acceptance and tolerance between students and creating school environment that reflects diversity of ethnics. The present findings provide new evidence illustrating how a secondary school implemented various strategies to strengthen student relationship and a few recommendations were made. Key words Diversity, multi-ethnic students, strategies, relationship, national unity, mult.....

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Teacher competence is recognised as an important requisite to improve students_ academic performance and their experiences of schooling. Although proponents of standard-based competency have welcomed its introduction, this article argues that standard-based competency poses significant challenges for teacher educators as they set out to train new teachers to begin teaching in ways that are congruent to the standards. The Malaysian government hopes that by initiating standards by which teachers are to be appraised upon, will in turn effect changes in how they are prepared. However, less understood are the challenges it presents for the teaching institutions. This article presents various challenges (and possibilities) for teacher educators. Although the article lacks empirical base for examining these issues, it offers instead a logical analysis based on the authors_ own (and others_) experiences to illuminate the issues. Keywords Competency, teaching standards, teacher education...

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The study is aimed to identify the extent to which play activities to play while learning improve students' level of thinking and recovery recognition. This study was conducted on six special remedial (Year 2) students aged 8 years old in a primary school. Datas were collected through observation and interviews. Datas were analyzed in narrative form. The results showed that there is a positive relationship between playing and learning activities and recovery cognition. Keywords Play, rehabilitation students, learning activities, cognition enhancement..

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