Annotated Bibliography

Improving Test scores. What teachers can do?

Burns, David J. “Will 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. The relation between students` expectations and final results is the leitmotiv of this analysis in which David J. Burns tries to support that there are internal and external factors that would impede success at the end of the road. The researcher assumes that students are more affected by mental factors and their abilities are connected to their actions which have nothing to do with final scores. Higher or lower results are more than a demonstration of the amount of knowledge that students manage. However, there are not clear evidences about the positive effects of high expectations in students’ minds. In fact, those constructions are part of the environment which promotes diffuse theories without any support and less evidence that affects the learning process and the possibility of teaching in a clean and proactive scenario.

Sources for Research in Education

Databases

1-EBSCO HOST


It is a well ordered and complete database that gives to the researcher a simple and guided orientation to have access in educational topics. It has full texts and a wide variety of topics.



http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/search?vid=1&hid=116&sid=414748fd-4eda-4025-8e66-28aba7187c5c%40sessionmgr103






2-International bureau of education




This database is connected with UNESCO, which is the most important organization that promotes equality and equity in the whole world. It has many links to journals in education which are totally free and useful for researchers.






http://www.ibe.unesco.org/en/services/links/databases-on-education-systems.html







3-Trinity College.



It is a complete database that contatins many journals related to education in Australia and Canada. Both are countries that have a different and valid point of view in education.



http://www.trinity.wa.edu.au/plduffyrc/subjects/english/media/edjournals.htm





Journals



1-Journal of Education for International Development (JEID)
A Professional Online Journal for Practitioners

This is a different journal that contains information about supportive education for fragile contexts. It contains different articles about how to teach in problematic areas and how to assume and overcome that situations in a positive way. Besides this journal has a wide variety of material to face this environments in a posstive way.

http://www.equip123.net/JEID/current.htm

2-Educational Sciences Journal Educational Sciences R&D Unit of the University of Lisbon

This is a portuguese journal that contains information that helps the researcher to find many topics and ideas about education and its fields.It is a clear and well structered journal that promotes different topics and alternatives to help teachers in the classroom.

http://sisifo.fpce.ul.pt/search.php

3-Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

This is an australian journal that has many topics and short news about education. It is more precise in terms of searching. Besides it is clean of advertisement and distractors in its pages. Moreover, it contains a variety of publications ordered by date.

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/news/edtimes/onlineeditions.htm

4-Journal of Techonology Education. Virginia Tech.

In this journal teh researcher can a find adifferent perspective about eduaction. It contains information about technology in eduacation which is very useful to acquire this area in the classroom. Technology has a important rol in our society and education has to assume its part to be updated in this challenging society.

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/

5-Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology

This source has many information related to education, but also it is very useful because of its articles which are available in PDF format. It has academic and practitioners research which is very useful because promotes a dual poitn of view for researchers.

http://investigacion-psicopedagogica.org/revista/new/english/index.php

Religion v/s Spirituality

The film Religulous is a representation of how people has used religion as way of thinking their lives from an extreme point of view. Religion has been a controversial and dynamic topic since humanity`s foundation. It is a good example of how human beings have evolutioned or involutioned throughout history. Religion has changed into different practices from catholicism to scientology, adapting or mutating its own origin to cover human`s needs. The idea of being part of a religious circle confers people more mechanisms to survive in this world. Uncertainty has been the main object to take part of a common group that is living without any hopes, "unless you take part of it".

Religion has been adapted to create a common social framework, represented by a variety of religions or interpretations of that social framework. The idea of God has been determined restrictively. The majority of churches believe they have the truth, as a unique object, which promotes differences and conflicts which will affect in political and social areas. For instance, the historical struggle between Israel and Palestina is for territory but at the same time, it is potentialized by religion. Bill Maher, one of the brains of Religulous, argues that religion has done way more harm than good in the world(1-2). In this case religion has a negative connotation which minimize the idea that religion is the best path to live a better life where peace and equality could be their goals more than wars and conflicts. A spiritual leader called Stephen Knapp states that we need a common spirituality to congregates us in a positive and non-defined kind of religion(1-7). Universality is the concept that contains a general view to generate a global movement to reduce intelectual and physical battles.

Religion provoques different reactions depending on how passion someone puts on his/her dogma. In classes, students are a complex representation of different religions, for that reason, teachers need to be informed and objective when this topic takes part of the class, because it would be a good way of integrating reflection or the other way around, a complete chaos if the topic is not well guided. Religion as politics, represent big challenges when teaching is in charge of explaining them in an open and respectful environment.

Bibliography:

Gross, Terry."Bill Maher and Larry Charles, Getting Religulous". Interview with Larry Charles and Bill Maher. Fresh Air. NPR. 30 September 2008. 2 October 2008.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story/.php?storyId=95210724&ft=1&f=1008

Knapp, Stephen. " Spitirituality Beyond Religion". Stephen Knapp And His Books on Spirituality, Vedic Culture and Eastern Philosophy. 10 February 2006. 28 March 2009.

http://www.stephen-knapp.com/spirituality_beyond_religion.htm