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This was Evrim Hoca's advice for us in our last face-to-face course. Have fun! "The resulting 'theory-practice gap' means that-I would argue-educational theory has been largely ineffectual in improving educational practice. Major 'reform' movements are frequently grounded in ideology rather than in educational research, at least partly because research is not seen as influential on practice."

Clusty is a search engine which makes clusters of your search. It provide easiness to students while making research on the internet. Based on keywords, the similar websites are categorized so that a more organized amount of knowledge is provided to learners. please try it by writing a keyword like "fotosentez".

Students work in pairs to research and present findings. This video shows interviews with students engaged in the learning process. Notice the high level of involvement and enthusiasm.

The video displays an activity that students are reinforced to produce in terms of constructivist approach. I know the teacher and his ways of integration of the methods. He is mostly effective in such cases, and does not lose the control in any circumstance. In the video, there seems a compexity among students in terms of noise and crowd. However, it was one of the disadvantages of taking the whole class to video. They should present what they have done so far. One of the best thing in the video is peer evaluation that we frequently use.

I also saw the rankings. However, I am not sure if the results are reliable. I did not feel anything about our progress :),

Thomson Reuters Scale was being used to determine the results.

On another list run by METU itself, URAP, METU comes 489th in 2012 listing, not URAP but for THE having so much impact on worldwide scale I'm not sure how free it is from political influence.

Sharing this because we talked about the impact of Sputnik in the history of education research.

Here, there is a research article about Problem Based Learning.

Here is the course trailer I prepared for the new course that I will offer at METU in Spring. 

Why we need good teachers? Why "EDS-536 Research and Practice on Technology in Teacher Education" course is important? From the site: "Good teachers are essential and need respect: There is no substitute for good teachers. The impact of good teachers extends beyond positive educational outcomes and can be linked to positive societal factors, such as lower levels of teenage pregnancy and a greater tendency to save for retirement. Creating the best teachers is about more than paying a good salary. The best performing countries attract top talent, train teachers throughout their careers and allow them freedom too."

Dincer, thanks for making a connection to the course. A reform in teacher education is a must in our country. The research indicates the quality of preservice teacher education is one of the biggest predictors of the student success. This finding by itself seems to explain this urgent need for a reform!

I am not totally sure about annually students school leaving rates (from elementary school to secondary school) but thousands of students (esp. girls) left their schools, unfortunately.

Sinem, this is such an important number and a big problem in Turkey. Now, researchers are trying to identify the reasons for dropout and taking measures to prevent that happening in other countries. Yet, this is such an under-researched area in Turkey.

on a report published in 2011, I remember reading a statement that goes like 40 - 45 of 15 year-olds do not go to school regularly in Turkey! I hadn't expected such a percentage!

"a small library of nine valuable books that will help Ph.D. students do serious work-as well as helping supervisors do a solid job in supervising… These books can help to teach and develop good research habits, habits of mind and habits of behavior."

Dincer, I am glad you shared these resources here. They definitely help grad students to make this challenging journey an enjoyable one. I plan to give a workshop on "how to survive in graduate school" in the near future if I manage to find some time to do so.

I'll be the first one to join that workshop :)

Interesting results on attendance. Now you have the research to backup your claims on attendance. What do you think?

the website for the Humanistic school Sudbury Valley School located in USA, you can visit their website and explore what they do here :)

Thanks Canan. Looking forward to read some research on these schools.

I have found a book that is about the Sudbury school experience and its effects. the book is not available online unfortunately, only some pages of it: http://books.google.com.tr/books/about/Legacy_of_Trust.html?id=VYMoow2eSI4C&redir_esc=y