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Monday, August 26, 2013

The Spectre Of Cheating In Exams And Collusion With Other Assessment Items

The Spectre Of Cheating In Exams And Collusion With Other Assessment Items

The Spectre Of Cheating In Exams And Collusion With Other Assessment Items
By Richard D Boyce

We all know that cheating and/or collusion between students will always be a concern where exams and other assessments are done. Teachers need to develop a process on how it is to be handled, particularly if there is no school protocol.

Below are actions to consider when cheating is discovered during an examination:

  • When you discover cheating during an exam, note the time and place in 'red' ink on the actual exam paper. Separate the individuals involved if possible. Allow them to complete the exam. You must also remove any 'cheat' page used to cheat and include it with the final exam paper when it is collected so this will be used in judging the appropriate penalties.

  • Indicate on the front page of the exam what has happened and who else was involved.

  • Report the incident to your up-line supervisor and the student's teachers if it is not your student.

  • Follow your school's protocol on penalties in the marking of the assessment task. Here your up-line supervisor will be your guide.

When an assessment task is done outside school time, there is opportunity for collusion to take place between students or students can get others, e.g. tutors, to do the task for them. The best ways to detect if this is occurring include:

Mark one section of every student's work at a time. This will make finding the direct copying of others' work easier. Look for common and sometimes unusual errors, diagrams, spelling mistakes and setting out.

After looking at the suspect students' academic records, you may be able to conclude who copied or cheated. Both students need to be interviewed and penalised if both were involved, based on the school protocol. Sometimes a student copies the other's work without their knowledge.

  1. Another scenario occurs when a student does exceptional work beyond his/her normal results. This is a cause for concern and needs to be investigated. Your first course of action is to interview the student, asking questions to test the student's knowledge of the topic to see if it reflects the student's results. If it does not, further investigation is necessary to determine if the work is from the student's own efforts. (Sometimes in non-traditional assessment, students do perform at a higher level). If there is a real doubt as to the integrity of the assessment task, ask more direct questions on how it was done, who might have helped and so on. You may get a 'confession'.

  2. If you get a 'confession', follow school protocol in relation to marks, redoing the work and so on.

  3. If you do not get a 'confession' and you are sure something is amiss, pass the issue on to your supervisor to deal with.

  4. Document all your actions in regard to this issue. I would record it in your diary and with your student records (in pencil only so it can be removed if it proves an unwarranted assertion).

  5. Mark the assessment task as you would normally and record the results until the issue is resolved one way or the other.

In these days of 'political correctness', you need to be very careful about what you say to students about these issues. Therefore, document what you say and do with the students and their work and keep your supervisor informed of what has transpired. Finally, ensure you follow exactly the school protocol.

The website http://www.realteachingsolutions.com provides an eBook that looks at all aspects of examinations and other types of assessment. The eBook is "The Exam Book". Our author, during the last 16 years of his teaching career was the Head of a Mathematics Department where he was responsible for the assessment program. He offers practical advice that works on aspects as diverse as running a class exam up to how best to mark alternative assessment tasks.

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Sunday, August 25, 2013

Simple Heat Conduction

Simple Heat Conduction

Author: nitin.p070

Heat conduction or Thermal conduction is the transfer of energy between particles in a solid.Heat can also be transferred by Thermal radiation and/or convection and it is normal that more than one of these processes happen at the same time.

In the atomic theory solids, liquids and gases are made of tiny particles called atoms. The temperature of the material measures how fast the atoms are moving and the heat measures the total amount of energy due to the vibration of the atoms.

You might imagine conduction to take place when one part of a material is heated. The atoms in this part vibrate faster and are more likely to hit their neighbours.When collisions take place, the energy is passed on to the neighbouring atoms allowing the energy to travel through the solid. ( Rather like the way energy passes along a set of tumbling dominos.)

The atomic picture also helps explain why conduction is more important in solids: in solids the atoms are close together and unable to move around. In liquids and gases the particles can move past each other, so the collisions are less common
A thermos bottle is an excellent example demonstrating how all three methods are inhibited. A thermos bottle has a double wall that creates a vacuum, and a shiny surface inside of it. We've seen that the shiny part on the inside is an example of radiation, where heat is reflected back from the walls and back to the liquid. Heat conduction is inhibited by the use of insulators such as glass and plastic. Heat does escape, through the body and the lid, but very slowly. The vacuum inhibits convective currents and also conduction.

Grilling, broiling, and cooking over an open flame when you go camping are examples of cooking by radiation. However, when you grill and place your food on the grates, conduction also comes into play. When the air becomes hot, convection currents are created between the air and the food.

When you bake a cake or pot roast, all three methods are once again involved. There are convection currents as the air becomes hot from the oven. The pan the food is in becomes hot due to conduction. The walls of the oven become hot, and this is due to radiation.

We have previously seen that when you boil or steam food, the air and the water is heated by convection. Solid food, however, is heated by conduction, as the atoms inside of it begin colliding with each other.

Aside from cooking, there are simple heat transfer experiments you can do at home.

A Simple Heat Conduction Experiment

Obtain objects of different materials. Ideally, they would be of the same geometry, such as rods made from wood, glass, aluminum, and iron. However, materials such as plastic, wooden, and metal silverware will do. You will also need a heat source such as hot water, a stove burner, a hot plate, or a candle. To make the measurements, use a watch or some other time keeping device, and a simple thermometer. To record your results, use a spreadsheet or graph paper.

For a direct measurement, use masking or electrical tape to attach the thermometer to an object. Submerge it partially in hot water, and take time and temperature readings every few seconds. Graph the temperature versus time by placing the dependent variable, temperature, on the y axis and the independent variable, time, on the x axis. Do this for every object. Compare your results.

For indirect measurements, melt a substance such as candle wax or paraffin on the object. Slowly heat the object, and record the time it takes for the substance to melt. If you are careful, the substance can also be ice, butter, or something similar. In this case, the holder would have to be a spoon.

Remember to use caution whenever doing heat transfer experiments, as the objects and sources will be hot.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/science-articles/simple-heat-conduction-6613979.html

About the Author

Understand more on about the Isaac Newton Laws of Gravity, and its Illustrations. Between, if you have issue on these Equation for Projectile Motion keep verifying my content i will try to help you. Please discuss your feedback.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Joint Probability

Joint Probability

Author: nitin.p070

Probability in math is defined as the chance of happening something in future. The two random variables A and B are defined on the same probability space, the joint probability distribution for A and B defines the probability of events defined in terms of both A and B. In the case of having only two random variables, this is called a bi-variate distribution, but the thought simplify to any number of random variables, giving a multivariate distribution.

Joint probability:

A numerical measure where the chance of two events happening together and at the same time are calculated. For example if the probability of event B happening at the same time event A happens, then the Joint probability has been given as follows.
Joint probability notation takes the form:

P (A `nn` B) or P (A and B)

Indicates the joint probability of A and B.

Example: The joint probability can be calculated by rolling a 2 and a 5 with two dissimilar dice.

with and without replacemant-Joint probability:

Joint probability is used in multistage testing .Joint probability can be done with replacement or without replacement.

With replacement: It indicates that the thing that are chosen on one stage are returned to the sample space before the next choice is made .For example, tossing a head on the first toss does not affect the outcome of flipping the coin a second time.

The probability that independent events A and B occur at the same time can be found by using the multiplication rule, or the product of the entity probabilities.

Example 1:

If you pick two cards from the deck without replacement, find the probability that they will both be aces.

Solution:

Total number of aces in the deck of cards = 4.

Cards picked up = 2 aces.

total number of aces* (total number of aces-1)
Hence the probability = --------------------------------------------------
total number of cards*( total number of cards-1)

P (AA) = `(4/52)*(3/51)` = `1/221` .

Without replacement:

Uses the same idea, if the first choice is not replaced only we consider the change in the sample space. Still we use the multiplication rule, but for each of the stages the numerator and/or denominator decreases

Example 2:

Find the probability of tossing a fair coin twice in a row, getting heads both times.

Solution:

While tossing a fair coin once we get head or tail.

Given that while tossing a coin head occurs,So

We know that the probability =(Number of favourable outcomes/Total number of outcomes)

Therefore probability of getting head while tossing the coin once P(H)= `1/2.`

Similarly tossing a coin next time we have probability of getting head P(H) =`1/2.`

As the question is to find the probability of tossing a fair coin twice in a row, getting heads both times it indicates that we have to find the joint probability without replacement.

As the probability of tossing a head is ` 1/2 ` each time P (H,H) =` (1/2) *(1/2) = 1/4.`

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/science-articles/joint-probability-6618060.html

About the Author

Learn more on about Reduce a Fraction and its Examples. Between, if you have problem on these topics Fractions Multiplication, keep checking my articles i will try to help you. Please share your comments.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Self-Esteem and Multiple Intelligences of Students With Dyslexia

Self-Esteem and Multiple Intelligences of Students With Dyslexia

Self-Esteem and Multiple Intelligences of Students With Dyslexia
By Susan Tan Aparejo

This study was based on the theory that the academic performance of the students is dependent or influenced by various factors such as their self-esteem and multiple intelligences. This study was anchored on the theory of West in 1997 explaining the brain hemispheric dominance of each person, by Gardner i 1993 in his MI theory, by Armstrong in his MI theory too, by Levine in 2002, by Lazear in 1993, by Shaw in 1994 and by Pollock, Waller and Pollit in 1994.The multiple intelligences includes the linguistics, logical -mathematical, bodily kinesthetics, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial and naturist intelligences. The study hypothesized that there is a significant relationship among self-esteem, multiple intelligences and academic performance of first year students at risk with dyslexia at Gingoog City Comprehensive National High School Gingoog City for school year 2007-2008. The method used was descriptive survey.

This study was conducted at Gingoog City Comprehensive National High School, Gingoog City. The respondents were the twenty nine ( 29 ) students and twenty three ( 23 ) were males while the six ( 6 ) were females who were identified at risk with dyslexia. The three ( 3 ) sets of questionnaires were administered to gather the needed data like the test on Identifying Adult and Students with Dyslexia, Barksdale Self -Esteem Evaluation (SEI ) and Multiple Intelligence Development Series ( MIDAS ). The statistical tools used were the percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviation, and multiple regression analysis.

The findings reveals that there was a dominance among males with low self-esteem because more males were identified with dyslexia. Besides, females could handle their difficulties by being studious, diligent, obedient, patient and by trying hard in the midst of their difficulties.

The findings further reveal that majority of the respondents showed signs of mild dyslexia. Twenty ( 20 ) of 69% of the students were lack of self-esteem. Nine ( 9) or 31 % were males who suffered serious handicapped. However none among respondents had linguistic intelligence. This is understandable because of their difficulty in reading as what expert said that learning disability students affects language processing ( Wadlington, 2005 ).

It was found that the said respondents possessed different types of intelligences. Ten ( 10 ) or 34.5 percent of the students had intrapersonal skills, the ( 10 ) or 34.5 percent with interpersonal skills and musical skills too, four ( 4 ) or 13.8 percent had logical skill, and spatial skill and only one ( 10 or 3.4 percent had naturalist intelligence.

The mean of the academic performance level of the students was 75.93 percent. This shows poor result of their academic subjects. There is no significant relationship among self-esteem, multiple intelligences and academic performance.

Susan T. Aparejo, is a Ph.D. graduate at Capitol University, Cagayan de Oro City. She is a master teacher in English and adviser of SPED class for Learning Disability, Self-contained in this city.

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Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Algebra Lessons: 5 Steps For Success

Algebra Lessons: 5 Steps For Success

Algebra Lessons: 5 Steps For Success
By Rob A. Jackson

Your teenager's education foundation and learning begins with algebra. The subject is relevant for growing upon other math fields as well as several other fields which include sciences, architecture, and engineering. As moms and dads, it is imperative that your youngster understands algebra from the very start to ensure that an academic foundation is built for future math disciplines. The following are five helpful strategies to help your daughter or son conquer this important subject matter.

In any standardized examinations, such as the SAT or ACT, the most common topic tested is algebra. For that reason, it is imperative that your child have a solid understanding of algebra if you want your child to be accepted into a good university. Basic sub-topics like fractions and various other functions are regularly examined. Consequently, your child will not score very well if your child does not fully grasp these concepts.

Find an algebra instructor who can guide your son or daughter with preparation and studying for assessments. A tutor will help your child pay attention as well as help with comprehension outside of the classroom. Ensure that the algebra tutor you select for tutoring is experienced, trained, and provides a background of references for teaching in algebra. Ask the tough questions. Is the tutor a college or university graduate? Does he or she have proficiency in a math or a math-intensive field?

Without a doubt, algebra will occupy much time for your youngster out of school, despite the capability or intelligence of your daughter or son. For this reason, it is really important that you command your daughter or son to invest significant time in accomplishing his or her assignments. Seek the advice of your daughter or son's instructor and inquire how long your youngster ought to be investing on his or her algebra assignments. Design study time for your teenager based on this recommendation.

Some children learn better in a private setting, so discover what setting your son or daughter learns algebra best. For that reason, the classroom surroundings may not be the most advantageous to your son or daughter's learning. While the classroom is obviously necessary, as a parent, you must understand your teenager's learning patterns and employ the services of a tutor if that is necessary. Since algebra lessons are typically not expensive, you can get the help your teenager needs while remaining in budget.

Ensure that you are familiar with your son or daughter's algebra textbook. Indeed, you likely have not opened a textbook in quite a few years; nonetheless, it's necessary that you become versed in the subject matter all over again so when your kid requests help, you can provide it. At the same time, if you do not fully grasp the concepts your child is learning, get help from your child's teacher after class or do not hesitate to retain the services of a tutor.

Unquestionably, algebra is a tricky topic area for your son or daughter to comprehend. As a result, it's a necessary facet to his or her educational background that is going to serve as a cornerstone to his or her future success. Whether for the SAT or ACT or to receive an "A" in a class, ensure your kid is competent in algebra by acquiring an algebra tutor. You will be glad, both personally and academically, you did!

Rob is a teacher, tutor, and math enthusiast. Learn more about algebra tutoring at San Diego algebra lessons.

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