Browsing by Author "Mesfin, Rediet"

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    Children Engaged In Child Labor and Classroom Instructional Practices: The Case of Four Children in Addis Zemen First Cycle Primary School, Addis Ababa
    (Addis Ababa University, 2010-06) Mesfin, Rediet; T/Mari am, Alemayehu (PhD)
    Children in most de ve lopin g co untrie s including Ethiopia are victims of exploitive and abusive forms of child labor. Most children engage d in child labor in Ethiopia work in the inform al sec tors. Children in vo lvement in labor activities nega ti vely affec ts their sch oo l enrollment and performance. It leads their lea rnin g and holi stic development to be at ri sk, as a resu lt they are in nee d of special educational provi sion ; ho wever, little is known so far concerning the educational situations of these children in mo st primary schools of Ethiopia, hence, the major intent of thi s study was to investigate th e classroom learning behaviors of children engaged in child labor and the nature of clas sroom instructional practices wi th particular refe rence to it s potential to enhance their learning based on the Theory of Mediated Learning Ex perience(MLE) .The stud y employed qualitati ve case study d es ign, four children engage d in child labor and th e ir homeroom teac he rs we re purpo sely se lected us in g critical case samp lin g methods. Data was gat hered using systematic observation of the instructional practices, se mi- st ructured in te rvie w and document analysis. The data were analyze d and interpreted using case-by-case and crosscase analysis strategie s. The findin gs revealed that children engaged in child labor commonly exhibited learning behaviors such as: inattentiveness, sleepine ss , tiredne ss , lack of motivation to learn, feeling of incompetence and inferi ority, lack of time to stud y and do assignments which would be related both to the work load and unre s ponsive in structional practice s. As a re sult, though they fulfilled th e minimal pass marks, their academic competence was reported as belo w average. Moreover, the instructional practice s were fo und to be inadequate and in effec ti ve in promoting better learning of children engaged in child labor; the y employed varieties of active teaching methods but the actual implementation was limited in it s potential to enhance shld ent s active invol ve ment, they dominantly focu sed on promoting the students ' abilities to recall facts. Commonly, applause, modeling of hi gh achievers and verbal reinforcement were used to reinforce students' succ essful completion of tasks but provi si on of feedback for students attempt and indi vidual pro gress were le ss . Based on the major findin gs conclusions are drawn and implic ations in other similar conditions were indicated.
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    Learning Conditions and Characteristics of Mentally Retarded Children in Inclusive Classrooms in Addis Ababa
    (Addis Ababa University, 2005-07) Mesfin, Rediet; Zewdie, Teka (PhD)
    This research paper focused on the learning conditions and characterstics of mentally retarded children in inclusive classrooms in Addis Ababa .The investigation examined 9 cases of mentally retarded children in Kokebe Tsibah School. With the objective to determine the attributes of learning in the settings, a review of practice from the experience in advanced country, namely the Federal Republic of Germany was undertaken. With this aim in view various insruments were employed to get data from relevant sources. The areas assessed by the study comprehend specific learning abilities, receptive and expressive language development, application to subject matter, cognitive, and socio emotional skills by the mentally retarded children. Supplementing the data, assessment of teaching strategies in the classrooms is endeavored. Obseravtion of cases and the interview of the partcipants were applied. In addition, assesment of attitude of non-handicapped peers is atttempted. This embodied attitude of the peers toward MR children, peers knowledge about mental retardation, and the interaction among the MR children and peers in and outside of ./ classroom settings. The findings have shown that challenges outweighed the opportunities of learning by MR children in the classrooms.Hence , the children were found to recieve little or no concrete services, but meaningful and involving learning experiences in the classrooms.