Improving Tes scores- What we can do

Burns, J. David. “Will I do as well on the final exam as I expect? An examination of students´ expectations”. Journal of the scholarship of Teaching and Learning 8.3 (2008): 1-19. Although the article contains a lot of important and useful information for teachers, Burns is not well qualified to argue and discuss the topic since he is in the marketing business and he could not prove that students expectations are connected to test scores.
This article is very useful for teachers that want to increase students’ performance but finally the author did not find any relation between previous expectations and final results. The results did not work because the author just prove it in only one class, maybe his thesis could come up if Burns makes a continuous research instead of having results after just one try. Even though, the author did not obtain concrete results and a certain prove that previous expectations can help students performance, the article opens a very important topic to discussion, that can be how about using previous expectations in teachers´ classes combined with interactive classes as a new methodology.

"Online sources"

1. Journals
a. “Association of American Colleges and Universities”
http://www.aacu.org/resources/generaleducation/index.cfm
The site offers a huge variety of different topics related with education. It is very easy to explore and you can find a lot of important information about education. The site also provides other links to very interesting education sources in order to give more information and have a complete research of your topic of interest.

b. “Educational Research and Reviews”
http://www.academicjournals.org/err/index.htm
The site provides the different volumes from the academic journal, “Educational research and reviews”. It is well organized in order that you can explore the site by selecting an especial volume or respecting the specific date.

c. “Education review a journal of book reviews”
http://edrev.asu.edu/
The Education review provides a great review of a big variety of book research and many essay reviews of famous authors in the education field. It is well organized and it contains a lot of different quotations that can help you to have a more complete investigation.


d. “we LEAD In Learning” An E-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership http://www.leadingtoday.org/weleadinlearning/
It provides a lot of articles of different authors and in each article it also provides some kind of information about the author’s life and other works.


e. “DOAJ”
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=findJournals&hybrid=&query=education
The site contains a lot of information, easy access and different topics related with education in different languages!!!

2. Data bases
a. “Education and Literacy”
http://www.uis.unesco.org/pagesen/ed.htm
It is very interesting you can investigate many different topics related with education all over the world.


b. “Wikipedia”
http://www.wikipedia.org/
At first I did not know that it was a data base, but after I understand the concept I realized that I have used it in several times. It provides a lot of information and in many different languages.

c. “Internacional Education research Database”
http://research.ibo.org/pls/apex/f?p=107:1:3215830032429809
It contributes to the investigation of education, respecting international education and its methods.

"Relgion in class"

Religion has always been a controversial topic among human beings. History has shown us that religion has not reached its own purpose but on the contrary it has distanced beings from one another.
Some schools have chosen not including religion as a subject, instead they prefer that each family can have the option to decide if they want to follow a religion or not. The article “Teaching Religion in schools” alludes an open discussion to express readers’ opinions about giving or not religions lessons at school; it is an interest material to identify that most of the people think that religion must not be taught in class.(1)But sometimes “Religion” as a topic can arise any time and as teachers, we must be prepared. It does not matter what you believe or what you think is best, you must give the tools to make them chose. Educators are models but they are also a guide to provide knowledge in order to help them to create their own critical thinking. We must be tolerant a not becoming an extremist, we must act as neutral because we can not disrespect others believes. For example, in the interview made to Bill Maher about its new satirical documentary, the political satirist wants to show the world, with his new satirical documentary, that religion is attempting against human beings life. (4)We can identify this kind of documentary as extremist and intolerant for people who really believe that religion is necessary and important in life. Also in a The New York Times article Maher also described religion as ambiguous and non real. (2)
Teachers have to be neutral in every controversial topic because we never know how student’s families think and how are they going to react if we give our own point of views. Most of the time, students think that what teachers say is the truth and nothing but the truth but they must know that educators are just a help to make them conscious of real life.


Bibliography:

-Maher, Bill. Personal interview. 30 Sept. 2008.
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95210724>

-Cameras Roll, and Faith Hasn’t a Prayer. The New York Times. 26 Sept.2008.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/movies/28lela.html?src=tp>


- Teaching Religion in Schools. American civil liberties union of Pennsylvania.
<http://www.aclupa.org/education/studentsrightsmanual/freedomofreligion/teachingreligioninschools.htm>

"Formality & Objectivity"

When we talk about academic writing, we refer to many characteristics that make it reliable. Two of these are: Formality and Objectivity

Formality: The main idea of this is to avoid colloquial language, such as “everyday speaking expressions”, swear words, contractions, abbreviations, phrasal verbs, “etc”.
For example:
-It is better to use the word “depart” rather “go”.
INFORMAL: She went at 4 pm.
FORMAL: She departed at 4:00 pm.

-We can use the word “opportunity” than “chance”.
IMFORMAL: You will just just one more chance to fulfill the objectives.
FORMAL: You will have one more opportunity to fulfill the objectives.

Objectivity: In academic writing, this concept aims for giving the reader only what is needed for him/her to be informed, it means, only the information, not what the author thinks or believe or what him/her has experienced in relation with the topic. The author should be more professional than personal for the ideas he/she gives.
For example:
“In my point of view this experience has been a great contribution…”

Exercise: Try to turn the following sentence, which is written in informal language, into formal language.
“Most people take drug overdoses because they find that it's difficult to sort out their problems clearly. That's why you should treat your patients in a clear way”.