Argument Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Argument Analysis - Essay Example Botstein however claims that it is not the length of school days that affects the performance of the children rather; it is how the time in school is spent. He presented some statistics to point out his argument. The thesis of the article is that the solution to the improvement of the academic performance of the school children in the US is not the lengthening of the time spent in school but rather, an analysis of how the time in school is spent. Botstein’s article is targeted to every American citizen, particularly to the politicians who are moving for the extension of the number of school days. He also aims to target the parents of the school children to explain to them that it is not the number of school days that really matters. He is addressing the parents to probably put some pressure on the politicians to extensively study their proposal before making it into a law. Botstein is trying to convince his readers to believe his argument through the use of the logical appeal to prove his point. He supports his argument by comparing the number of school days in the other countries that outperforms the US’ school children. Botstein indicated that some countries have longer school days, others have less school days while others have the same school days as in the US but it was not what really mattered. What are essential are the instruction hours that are dedicated in key areas such as mathematics, science, history and literature. He mentioned that American high school students spend only 41 per cent of their time in school studying these subject areas unlike the Japanese and the French (Botstein 1). Botstein used analogy to prove his point. Another issue which Botstein identified as the reason for the poorer performance of the US school children compared with other countries is the issue on who is doing the teaching. To prove his point he presented the results of the 1996 survey of the Education

PHD Proposal Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

PHD Proposal - Thesis Example As a result, there is an urgent need to reconsider the effectiveness and consequences of using video modeling with autistic children in Saudi Arabia. Autism is fairly regarded as the global disorder (Al-Salehi & Ghaziuddin, 2009; Al-Salehi, Al-Hifthy & Ghaziuddin, 2009). Unfortunately, little is known about its incidence and prevalence in the Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia. Given that most of the published information about autism and the teaching strategies for autistic children comes from the West, it is probable that this information may not be applicable in other countries. For example, 90% of autism cases in the industrialized world are believed to be caused by the genetic factors; whether genetic factors are responsible for autism in Saudi Arabia is yet to be discovered (Al-Salehi & Ghaziuddin, 2009). Nevertheless, some reports claim the estimated number of children with autism in Saudi Arabia to exceed 42,500 (Al-Salehi & Ghaziuddin, 2009). As a result, almost 43,000 of children in Saudi Arabia are currently in need for the development of effective teaching strategies, to help them learn the basic skills and to meet the predetermined learning and knowledge objectives. The proposed research will seek to evaluate the effectiveness of video modeling in teaching autistic children in Saudi Arabia. The basic research question to answer is whether video modeling is a relevant approach to teaching children with autism in Saudi Arabia. The specific research questions to answer include: That the current state of research provides a wealth of information about video modeling for teaching autistic children cannot be denied. How video modeling works in the learning environments with autistic children has long been the object of the peer scientific research. Rosenberg, Schwartz and Davis (2010) evaluated the effects of using a video modeling technique to teach three autistic preschoolers to wash their