محمدرضا عزتی

Verse 58 of Anfal is one example of the history of Islamic culture and civilization and describes how the Prophet (PBUH) interacted with the Jewish breakers of treaty. Some have quoted the verse and historical reports to cast a Qur'anic doubt, "Permission to Breach the Treaty in Fear of Betrayal of Infidels". The present paper attempts to answer this doubt by a descriptive and analytical analysis of the documents. The results of the study shows that the aforementioned doubt is contrary to the text of the Qur'an, traditions and history and verse 58 of Anfal has no indication of a breach of the treaty on the basis of fear and suspicion and the criterion of breach of the treaty is "pre-emptive breach" based on the knowing of the Jewish infidel conspiracy. The purpose of pre-emptive breach in verse 58 of Anfal is to prevent the infidels from ruling the Islamic State; hence, in cases where there is no such criterion, the criterion for breach of the treaty in the Qur'an is "previous breach".

Teacher’s knowledge and attitudes about the curriculum shape their beliefs, and these beliefs affect their self-efficacy in teaching. This study seeks to examine the perceptions and attitudes of teachers toward Work and Technology Curriculum. These teachers already taught vocational courses. The present research is a case study and the participants include 13 head-group teachers from 11 provinces across the Iran. These teachers were connected through a telegram communication network group. The data collection instrument was individual interviews and group discussions, which were analyzed within qualitative method. In general, 17 themes in 4 categories were obtained that included: mission (cognition of vocation and technique, students’ interests, computer, work, boredom, competencies); learning experiences (technology as activity, technology for development, craftworks, creativity and entrepreneurship, challenge and problem solving); content source (workshop activity, systems analysis and both of sources); emotions and attitudes (expectations of support, teaching profession identity, resistance, self-efficacy). These findings indicate to a lack of vision among head-teachers toward new curriculum, facing unpredicted situations, and they are unwilling for changes which would cause uncertainty.

In the last three decades, Technology education has been part of the curriculum in public education, with the aim of fostering technology literacy. Technology education or technology literacy is an educational program that assists people to have an understanding and ability in designing and using technology products and systems and assessing the appropriateness of technological actions. This research was conducted to analyze textbook contents with regard to technology literacy elements. The method was content analysis. The population included all textbooks in grades 1 to 9, and the sampling was purposeful in which 24 textbooks were selected and their content were analyzed by two teachers using 20 elements of technology literacy through separate coding. The data were first described in frequency tables and analyzed later. The findings showed that technology literacy elements of understanding the nature and effects of technology are presented insufficiently. Process skills development elements are presented to an acceptable extent but these processes were far from technological processes such as Designing and Troubleshooting which are technological in nature. Also, regarding technological fields, information technology was the dominant content including 3/4 of the content, and little was left to other fields. Therefore, in general, it can be concluded that the new national curriculum is potentially weak and insufficient to develop technology literacy in all its dimensions.

Technology Education has been determined as a learning area in the general education in many countries. In the past, this area followed the technical paradigm. In late 20th century, this paradigm was affected by social, economic, and technological changes and led to new technology education. This research has been conducted to introduce a framework for work and technology curriculum. To this purpose, the relevant documents, literature, and resources of technology curriculum were examined at the universal level. The results of this study indicated that this curriculum focuses on technology literacy as a necessity for living in the 21st century and sets technological understanding, using and evaluation capacities as the major goals. In this framework content need to be consistent with universal concept of technology that includes to knowledge, process and context. In addition, teaching in technology is relevant with technologist and engineers methods. In this view, assessment is concordance with teaching methods.

Abstract: The sixth grade in elementary school has been established as a result of changing processes in the structure of educational system. The success failure, change and development in curriculum are affected by a variety of factors including teachers as one of the major factors. Therefore, the present study seeks to investigate the experience of sixth grade teachers in the first year of implementation. This study was conducted within a qualitative framework through phenomenology. The data was collected through semi organized interviews with 11 teachers. The sampling was purposeful and continued till saturation of data. In order to validate the findings and confirm the accuracy of the data, further reviews were performed and the data were compared. The data obtained were analyzed through the method suggested by Smith. Four main issue resulted include: 1. the teacher's theoretical and practical knowledge; 2. the teacher's concern; 3. the weakness of plan; 4. the attractiveness of changing in the new curriculum. The findings of this study indicated teacher's tendency for getting involved in the process of curriculum development and they pointed to the conflicts between the goals and methods provided by the program and those of teachers. They showed concerns about lack of time for the teaching the content and lack of consistency between student's previous and new experiences due to the absence of coherence. Inadequate training, accumulated content, imbalance between time and goals, quality and quantity of the resources, inadequate training equipments were some of the obstacles to implementing this program according to the teachers. In spite of these problems, the teachers believed that the changes in method and subjects have provided for students.

This research was allocated to the study of work & technology curriculum implementation, based on teachers’ experiences in sixth grade teaching and first year of project implementation. Although, this program has historical background, their goals and content match the technology era. The Research type was qualitative and was carried out using the phenomenological approach. The data were gathered via semi organized interviews with 10 sixth grade teachers in Songor region of Kermanshah Province. Sampling was purposive and continued until data saturation. Data were analyzed by using the Smith method of 1995 on phenomenological studies. The findings information was returned to participants for validation. The research findings include 15 themes which were categorized in 3 clusters. Six themes have were assigned to the cluster of limitations consisting of: English language, lack of computers, tools, technical resources, teachers guide and on the job training. The second cluster entitled Preferences included 5 themes: technology, content adjustment, student preferences attending, integration and achievement evaluation. The third cluster involved cluster teachers overcome the limitations of teaching: using PCs, taking assistance from secondary schools, promoting competition among students and seeking students help in teaching.

In this study, we compared Iran’s career and technical education curriculum with similar curricula in two developed countries (America & Canada) and two developing countries (Pakistan, Morocco), using Beredy’s method. Our aim was using the experiences of other countries for promoting Iran’s career and technical education curriculum. Results of the comparison indicated that the above mentioned countries have included topics of Iran’s career and technical education in more than one subject matter. Information technology education and giving the right of selection to students were common features of the curriculum of these countries. In the two mentioned developed countries, the subject matters related to career and technical education is instructed based on the need to lifelong learning skill and technology literacy. Curriculum goals are using and evaluating technologies. The pedagogy component of these curricula focus on technology process (Designing & problem solving), and not on content, so theory assessment is integrated with practical assessment. In the two mentioned developing countries, the related courses for middle level school (6-9) are planned according to national needs and curricula implementation capability. Getting knowledge and skill in information technology, home economy and business affairs are common objectives and content in these countries’ curricula. Also, they focus on active teaching methods and student’s assessment is both practical and theoretical. Findings suggested that we could determine a name and rational for career and technical education curriculum based on modern life and work needs. In order to instruct technology literacy and necessary skills of life, it is better the curriculum be divided into two optional parts as “technology education” and “life skill education”. Also, these curricula could focus on instruction of designing and problem solving.