درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of KWL educational strategy and conceptual mapping strategy on students' critical thinking. Methodology: This research was based on a quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test with two experimental groups and one control group. The statistical population consisted of all male students of the third grade high school of Miandoab in 2016-17. Three classes were selected through multistage cluster sampling. Two classes were randomly selected as experimental group and one class as control group. One of the experimental groups was taught in KWL and the other in a conceptual map. The control group was also trained in a conventional way. The pre-test and post-test data were used to collect data from the California Formation B Questionnaire. Findings: To analyze the data was used one-variable covariance analysis. The findings of the study showed that education through the Kwl strategy and conceptual mapping strategy is effective on critical thinking students (P <0.001). It was also determined that the effectiveness of KWL strategy on students' critical thinking was more than conceptual mapping strategy (p <0.001). Conclusion: Based on this study, both cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies reinforce students' thinking. However, due to the findings of this research and related studies, it is better to use metacognitive strategies along with cognitive strategies because using metacognitive strategies, students monitor their learning process and become more aware of complex issues and points and they get more aware. Based on these findings and previous research, it is recommended that modern educational methods such as KWL and concept maps be used in teaching

Purpose: This paper addressed this issue by presenting a model for promoting the professional competency of EFL teachers in Iran. Methodology: In order to accomplish the purpose of the study, the grounded theory was adopted to investigate EFL expert teachers’ (key informants) articulations, experiences, and concerns about the subject and to develop a theoretical model across the participants; therefore, semi-structured interviews were conducted to 21 EFL experts (EFL faculty members, teacher trainers, supervisors and EFL teachers) who were selected by snowball sampling. Interview data, were analyzed with a grounded theory approach using constant comparison method. Findings: Major findings of the study suggested a multi-dimensional model of professional competency highly relevant to EFL teachers: cognitive/language skills competence; attitudinal/behavioral competence; and management competence. The interviewees also suggested that these competencies are under the effect of such influential factors in Iran as curriculum, individual characteristics, management and organization support, community, information technology, and media Conclusion: Furthermore, as a consequence of professional competency, it was clarified that EFL teachers' competencies affect their values, enthusiasm, communications and practice and most importantly supports their professional life long development. Policy makers and teacher training programmers can hopefully benefit from the presented competency model while making adaptations in teacher training both at pre-service and in-service levels.