Teaching Literacy Midterm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Teaching Literacy Midterm - Essay Example 326.) The demands of making meanings, stresses the students to activate their prior knowledge and schemata abilities. Schema theory explains how our previous experiences, knowledge, emotions, and understandings affect what and how we learn. (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p.326) writes that, "Content area teaching has a detailed link with schema theory and prior knowledge."The notion of 'prior knowledge' comprises of few subordinate ideas, which are the 'characteristics of prior knowledge', 'historical back ground', the circumstances of learning and 'classroom acts' (Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p. 326). Lapp, Flood & Farnan (2004, p. 326) write that, "This collection of related, hierarchically arranged ideas is a schema." Few followers of this theory even believed that the single most influential factor is the existing and prior knowledge of the readers on which it depends that what he ends up learning from the material (Eric Digest). The accuracy, sufficiency and appropriateness of a schema, needs to be tackled by the instructor in a very delicate and planned manner. Students can make most out of their schemas if only the teachers know how to activate it. (Lapp, Flood & Farnan, 2004, p. ... The renewed awareness in reading was reinforced by the International Reading Association in 1999. The document focused on "advanced levels of literacy" and considered "their ability to read will be crucial". Many instructors turned to interactive manner of teaching reading. Boothe and Walter (1999) quote McCormick, T. (1988) who writes that, "It one of the most promising approaches to the theory of reading today." Boothe and Walter (1999) write that, "An interactive reading model is a reading model that recognizes the interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes simultaneously throughout the reading process." But the reader needs "to interacting with the text, is selective in using just as little of the cues from text as necessary to construct meaning (Goodman, K. 1981). Most of the reading models, share a common postulation, that many "variables impact student's learning from text" (Pearson, Kamil, Bar & Mosenthal, 2000, p.647). They concerned themselves with cognitive psychology, schema, instructional strategies and the text. Boothe and Walter (1999) while quoting Rumelhart, D. 1985 write, "write that, "These various sources of information appear to interact in many complex ways during the process of reading In this scenario the teacher has to play a role of an instructional designer and their tool is 'text'. Once students are able to develop an understanding of text and identify the text structures then the road begins for towards independent reading. According to Buehl (2009, p.72) the benefits of involving the students in this model means "to condition the students to read material at different rates for verifying purposes" is similar to the core principle of content area literacy. The learners

Fiji Electricity System Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Fiji Electricity System - Research Paper Example The value of imports from Fiji has been increasing and hit the $3 billion US mark in 2006. The main contributing factor to the increase is the mineral fuels importation. The mineral fuels have increased in value since 2004 to 2008. It represents a change from US$400 to about $1.2 billion. The overdependence of the industry’s on fuel importation reveals how the economy is vulnerable to the rising fuel prices. The vulnerability is of concern given that the increase in demand for electric power has overwhelmed Monasavu Hydropower Station limits over the last decade. It results in the supplementation of its energy requirements with diesel generation (F.E.A. n.d.). Fiji can be termed as better than its larger neighbors. It has about 80% of its people (about 92% in urban areas) accessing electricity. By 2008, its average electricity production mix was composed of 33.7% diesel, 62.1% hydro, 0.6% wind and 3.6% biomass. Energy consumption in Fiji has increased to 715.2 million kWh in 2009 from 202.8 million kWh in 1980. Because the hydropower component is variable as it depends on the weather patterns, the ever growing demand for electric power has to be fulfilled by importing diesel-based generation. FEA has an ambitious plan of producing 90% of its electricity by use of renewable energy resources by 2015 (Lal & Atul n.d) Fijis pricing tariff rates are the lowest in the Pacific Islands region. As of recent times, its rates have stagnated though there was a marked increase in its demand and diesel usage. The cause of its low tariff prices is its rejection by the independent power producers because FEA could not pay them suitable buying rates. As at present, FEA supplies about 54% of the electricity market from its hydropower stations as it gets the rest from thermal generation. This condition is expected to change upon the installation of a new 42-MW hydropower system. In regards to estimates made by FEA, generation of