(2015). Short Serious Games Creation under the Paradigm of Software Process and Competencies as Software Requirements. Case Study: Elementary Math Competencies, Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET. Development of digital resources is difficult due to their particular complexity relying on pedagogical aspects. Another aspect is the lack of well-defined development processes, experiences documented, and standard methodologies to guide and organize game development. Added to this, there is no documented technique to ensure correct implementation of a competency in a videogame. This research proposes a Short Serious Game Development Process founded in Software Engineering paradigms and complemented by previous efforts on large scale development of digital learning resources. This paper focuses in a technique called Competency-Based Decomposition that achieves implementing a formal competency into a short serious game, with which the formal learning process will be complemented to improve the way students learn. Through a case study will be demonstrated its utility by implementing the process and the technique in the whole of mathematics competencies for sixth grade of elementary school in Mexico. The result of applying the proposed process for study case is a collection of video games that satisfactorily implements the competencies and its contents, its expected learning and its knowledge areas specified for sixth grade of elementary school in Mexico by the Ministry of Public Education. [More] Descriptors: Computer Software, Case Studies, Educational Games, Mathematics Instruction
(2016). The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in Mexico as Preparation for Higher Education, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. In this study we analyse the relationship between Mexican students' enrolment in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) and their college preparedness using a case-study methodology. We found that from the Mexican schools that offer the IB DP, most IB students are fairly successful in their college applications, such that the majority enrols at among the most well-regarded post-secondary institutions in Mexico. The possibility that IB DP grades and/or examination records might help boost students' college admissions options does not seem to be a primary motivating factor for students' IB DP enrolment. Rather, we found that students enrol in the IB DP because they think it will help prepare them to successfully handle college-level work. Students and educators believe that various aspects of the IB DP prepare them for college-level work, including the Theory of Knowledge course, the Extended Essay and the Creativity, Action and Service programme. [More] Descriptors: Correlation, Advanced Placement Programs, Case Studies, College Preparation
(2016). The Teaching of English in Public Primary Schools in Mexico: More Heat than Light?, Education Policy Analysis Archives. The national English program in Mexico was formally launched in 2009. The new program supplanted various state programs, and aimed to create a coherent, uniform curriculum that extended English instruction to all public school students across the country. The article describes the development, evolution, and changes as the program was piloted and implemented. The authors synthesize various sources to identify the accomplishments of the program and the challenges that remain. They argue that a main concern, from a policy perspective, is that the program has not been conceptualized as part of a broader coherent language education policy, and that the program has been implemented not as an education policy, but as a series administrative and fiscal actions. Hence, while the program has succeeded in expanding access to English in public schools, it has not had continuity and has been characterized by inconsistency and change. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Second Language Instruction, English (Second Language), Program Development
(2014). Universal Evaluation: An Invitation to the Creation of Innovative Models for Teacher Training, Journal of Case Studies in Education. In 2007, Mexico's Federal Government, through the Public Education Secretariat, started a project with the participation of the states' education authorities in order to optimize teaching and the management of the quality of schools. This project was carried out as a mean to solve the decades of falling behind that the quality of education in Mexico has endured in terms of school performance and teacher training and evaluation. In 2011, the SEP and the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), signed the National Agreement for the Universal Evaluation of Teachers and Principals of Basic Education, with the purpose of generating assessments and focus continuous education on developing teaching competences and the improvement of the quality of education. In the final year of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa's presidential term (2012), the Program of Universal Evaluation of Teachers and Principals of Basic Education was launched. Its the objective was of assessing the teachers' performance, in order to shape the decision making in the construction of innovative programs for the selection, preparation, development, evaluation and recognition of teachers of elementary schools. Within this program it was possible to conduct, for the first time in Mexico's history, the Universal Evaluation for Teachers to 52% of the elementary schools' teachers. The results of the first phase of the Universal Evaluation laid out, among many other challenges, the creation of innovative models of education for teachers that could allow the construction of training and formative projects which could, in turn, encourage voluntary participation from a higher number of teachers in order to ensure the continuity and implementation of this initiative in its subsequent phases. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Teacher Evaluation, Elementary School Teachers, Educational Quality
(2018). Teacher Absenteeism under Different District Policies in New Mexico, ProQuest LLC. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to examine to what extent the type of leave policy (restrictive vs. lenient vs. very lenient) in three New Mexico school districts affected teachers' number of unused paid leave days and to what extent the change in teacher attendance policy (from not including teacher absenteeism in teacher evaluation to including it) put in place by the New Mexico Public Education Department in 2014-2015 affected teachers' number of unused paid leave days. This study was conducted on secondary data with a sample size of 1,924 teachers. Gronau's leisure-work theory and Hill and Trist's absence culture formed the theoretical framework for this study. The statistical analysis involved one-way ANOVA for the first research question and paired-sample "t"-test for the second question. The ANOVA results revealed statistically significant differences between in teachers' number of unused paid leave days in 2013-2014, attributable to different district policies of paid leave (F(2, 1921) = 244.33, p < 0.01). Teachers who worked in a district that offered only sick leave took 2.55 fewer days of annual paid leave than teachers who worked in a district that offered personal leave and 4.6 fewer days of leave than teachers who work in a district that offered paid leave. The paired-samples "t"-test results did not reveal a significant difference in teacher unused paid leave days attributable to the change in state policy for teacher evaluations from 2013-2014 (n = 899, M = 4.6, SD = 3.9) to 2014-2015, when absenteeism was added to teacher evaluation (n = 899, M = 4.4, SD = 4.1). These findings may assist school districts, state education departments, and the United States Department of Education in selecting policies that reduce teacher absences. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.%5D [More] Descriptors: Teacher Attendance, Board of Education Policy, Statistical Analysis, Teacher Evaluation
(2016). Diversity-Based Characteristics of Mexican Children's Drawings: A Qualitative Analysis of Drawings Collected in Mexico City, Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of the diversity of characteristics in the drawings of children in Mexico City. The authors conducted a thematic analysis of 174 drawings from children ages 6 to 11 that revealed two main discrete themes: nature and stress. A personalized, supportive relationship with nature emerged as a subtheme. The main stress and nature themes shared other common themes, including an extensive use of schemas for houses and trees, cultural markers of bright colors and symmetry, and collectivistic markers expressed as the pairing and duplication of images. Other discrete themes pertained to gender and holidays. The demarcation of nature and stress themes suggests that engagement with nature plays an ameliorative role for Mexican children and families. A historical review of the positive relationships of Mexican people with nature provides support for the authors' findings and recommended clinical applications. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Qualitative Research, Children, Freehand Drawing
(2010). Aztec Suns, Arts & Activities. The Aztec Sun Stone is a revered Mexican artifact. It is said to be perhaps the most famous symbol of Mexico, besides its flag. It primarily depicts the four great disasters that led to the migration of the Mexica people to modern-day Mexico City. The Aztec Sun Stone also contains pictographs depicting the way the Mexica measured time, and was primarily a religious artifact. In this article, the author describes how his sixth-grade students created their own imaginative suns using scratchboards. [More] Descriptors: Grade 6, Middle School Students, Art Activities, Studio Art
(2016). Struggling Authorial Identity of Second Language University Academic Writers in Mexico (La lucha de identidad de escritores académicos universitarios de segunda lengua en México), PROFILE: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development. This paper explores the different factors that appear to affect the on-going construction of second language authorial identity in a professional academic environment in Mexico. Through narrative research methodology from a qualitative paradigm, the everyday struggles of two university professors to maintain their professional status in second language writing are explored. The areas of study for these two are chemistry and penal law. With data the learning processes of entering into a community of second language writers are studied as well as the problems they faced and how they resolved them. Finally, the process of negotiating an authorial identity in a second language seems to be a constant underlying struggle composed of a variety of psychological factors. [More] Descriptors: Academic Discourse, Authors, Second Language Learning, Self Concept
(2014). A Research Experience Using Portfolios for Assessing College Teaching, Online Submission. In this article, we use the findings of a study conducted in a university in the southeast of Mexico to examine strengths and limitations of portfolios to assess formatively the quality of teaching. The research is part of the study: Model for the Development and Evaluation of Academic Competencies, involving researchers from six Mexican universities. Findings of the study indicate that the use of portfolio allowed faculty members to collect evidence of the quality of their work, analyze their classroom instruction and began to involve in a dialogue for improving teaching. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Portfolio Assessment, Evaluation Methods, Teacher Competencies
(2014). WICHE Annual Report 2014. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and its 16 member states and territories (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai'i, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, U.S. Pacific Territories & Freely Associated States, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming) work collaboratively to expand educational access and excellence for all citizens of the West. By promoting innovation, cooperation, resource sharing, and sound public policy, WICHE strengthens higher education's contributions to the region's social, economic, and civic life. This report recaps WICHE's work during fiscal year 2014 (July 1, 2013-June 30, 2014). [More] Descriptors: Higher Education, Access to Education, Educational Quality, Accountability
(2014). Making Mission Statements Operational: Perceptions of Principals from Tri-Association Schools, Journal of School Leadership. Researchers and theorists in the management and educational leadership fields have debated the importance of mission statements. This study investigated this issue within the context of American schools that are members of the Tri-Association (Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and the Caribbean). The results showed that about the same percentage of principals felt that mission statements differed and did not differ significantly from one school to the next. However, a considerable number of principals reported using their mission statements in many of the managerial and leadership tasks of their daily jobs. [More] Descriptors: Position Papers, Institutional Mission, Principals, Administrator Attitudes
(2014). Hybrid Identity in Academic Writing: "Are There Two of Me?" (Identidad híbrida: "¿hay dos yo?"), PROFILE: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development. This paper explores the construction of identity in an academic learning environment in Central Mexico, and shows how identity may be linked to non-language factors such as emotions or family. These issues are associated with elements of hybrid identity. To analyze this we draw on language choice as a tool used for the construction of identity and for showcasing and defending identity through exploratory interviews with the bilingual students and teachers. The results draw our attention towards the role of non-linguistic variables and their relationship to emotional and contextual issues that influence how academic writing occurs within the school confines, where hybrid identities may be constructed for academic purposes. [More] Descriptors: Self Concept, Academic Discourse, Writing (Composition), Foreign Countries
(2014). Recovery High Schools: Students and Responsive Academic and Therapeutic Services, Peabody Journal of Education. This article reviews findings from the authors' studies of recovery high schools (RHS), including a 1995 program evaluation of a school in New Mexico (Moberg & Thaler, 1995), a 2006-09 descriptive study of 17 recovery high schools (Moberg & Finch, 2008), and presents early findings from a current study of the effectiveness of recovery high schools. Descriptive and qualitative findings are presented. The focus is on characteristics of RHS students and, in light of those student characteristics, findings regarding academic and recovery support programming in recovery high schools. [More] Descriptors: High Schools, High School Students, School Effectiveness, Drug Rehabilitation
(2014). The Language and Educational Ideologies of Mixteco-Mexican Mothers, Journal of Latinos and Education. Mixtecos, members of an Indigenous group from Mexico, have settled in large numbers in New York. Their children are found in bilingual classrooms (Spanish-English), but little is known about parent-school interactions. This work describes the educational ideologies that 23 Mixteco mothers shared during 5 focus group interviews distributed across 9 months. The results are presented as structured anecdotes that underline (a) education as a cooperative endeavor between teachers and parents, (b) preference of Spanish over Mixteco as family language, and (c) mothers' commitment to overcoming their own illiteracy. The educational ideologies of these Mixteco mothers reflect deep commitment to supporting their children's education. [More] Descriptors: Language Attitudes, Mother Attitudes, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning
(2014). Human Identities and Nation Building: Comparative Analysis, Markets, and the Modern University, Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education. The purpose of this article is to discuss the dilemma of the multi-university in sustainable education, research, and outreach by addressing some of the ways in which universities, must generate actions that seek to address these challenges, develop strategic relationships, and maximize their potential in the areas of teaching, research and service to society. Significantly, we examine how sustainability is experienced by nations–in our case Mexico–by analyzing higher education and its mission in developing citizens and economic sovereignty. The author's goal is to establish a new paradigm by which practitioners and researchers can collaborate to produce the ideas that stimulate sustainable development. [More] Descriptors: Self Concept, Nationalism, Higher Education, Sustainable Development