Food Article: Most Expensive Foods

World’s Top Ten Most Expensive Foods

If you’re looking to expand your horizons into the world of excess culinary expense, then you could do worse than starting with a few items on the list below. We’ve collected some of the most outlandish, outrageous and, above all, the most expensive foods in the world.

Matsutake Mushrooms – $1000/pound

The matsutake, or mattake, mushroom is expensive because of its rarity. While its historical prevalence meant it was nearly synonymous with autumn in Japan, the introduction of an insect that kills the trees under which the mushroom grows has caused a dramatic decrease in the number of matsutake mushrooms. A method for farming the matsutake has yet to be developed, which means the lack of trees from which to harvest these mushrooms naturally is a serious problem for the species.

The World’s Most Expensive Bagel – $1000

This bagel, created by Executive Chef Frank Tujague for New York’s Westin Hotel, is topped with white truffle cream cheese and goji berry infused Riesling jelly with golden leaves. The bagel’s price is justified when you consider that white truffles happen to be the second most expensive food by weight, eclipsed only by caviar. The underground fungus grows only under specific oak trees in Alba, Italy. Their pheromone-like odor is considered to be an aphrodisiac and is the reason dogs and female pigs are used to hunt the precious truffle.

The Zillion Dollar Frittata – $1000

This absurdly expensive breakfast item consists of a mixture of eggs, lobster and 10 ounces of sevruga caviar (which costs the restaurant $65 per ounce). On the menu next to the expensive omelet there is a challenge that reads, “Norma dares you to expense this.”

Wagyu Steak – $2800

While Wagyu cattle are raised both in and outside Japan, the Kobe varietal which is raised specifically in the Hyogo prefecture is the most elite. Employing the most traditional production methods, Kobe beef comes from cows that are allegedly fed only beer and massaged by hand to ensure a tenderness and marbling beyond compare. These dishes can be out of range for the average restaurateur, carrying an unhealthy load of fat and a price tag to match. For your next after-work social, you might try taking your associates to New York City’s Craftsteak, where a full Wagyu rib eye was served up to a private party for $2800.

Samundari Khazana, the World’s Most Expensive Curry – $3200

To celebrate the DVD release of Slumdog Millionaire, Bombay Brassiere packed this curry platter full of the most expensive ingredients they could find. Devon crab and white truffle and a half tomato filled with Beluga caviar and dressed with gold leaf are just the start of this lavish dish. A Scottish lobster, also coated with gold, four abalone and four shelled and hollowed quails’ eggs filled with even more caviar round out the dish.

Domenico Crolla’s “Pizza Royale 007″ – $4200

The 12 inch pizza pie is densely packed with an assortment of some of the world’s most expensive food ingredients, such as lobster marinated in cognac, caviar soaked in champagne, sunblush tomato sauce, Scottish smoked salmon, venison medallions, prosciutto, and vintage balsamic vinegar. In addition to all these fine ingredients, it’s topped with a significant amount of edible 24-carat gold flakes.

(via Los Angeles Times)

Dansuke Watermelon – $6,100

In a country where watermelons are rare game, they can be a costly commodity. That’s how a 17-pound Japanese watermelon became the most expensive watermelon in the world. Densuke watermelons, a type of black watermelon grown only on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, are usually given as gifts due to their extraordinary rarity. There were only sixty-five of the fruits among the first harvest this season. They are harder and crisper than the watermelons we Americans are used to and, according to Tohma Agricultural Cooperative’s spokesman, they “have a different level of sweetness.”

Yubari Melons – $22,872

Another type of expensive melon, the world’s most expensive cantaloupes are a pair of Yubari melons and were the first auction of the 2008 season. They had previously been judged the best pair and were purchased by the owner of a nearby seafood lunchbox and souvenir business. It had some competition—100 melons grown by farmers from Yubari were also judged.

Almas Caviar – $25,000

Almas caviar comes from Iran making it extremely rare and extremely expensive. The only known outlet is the Caviar House & Prunier in London England’s Picadilly that sells a kilo of the expensive Almas caviar in a 24-karat gold tin for £16,000, or about $25,000. Coincidentally, it is also where you can find the most expensive meal in Britain. The Caviar House also sells a £800 tin for those on a smaller budget.

Italian White Alba Truffle – $160,406

Expensive truffles are notoriously pricey because they are difficult to cultivate. This makes them a true delicacy which some have called the king of all fungi. The Associate Press reported that a real estate investor and his wife from Hong Kong have paid €125,000 ($160,406 USD) for a gigantic Italian White Alba truffle which is reportedly the world’s most expensive ever. The most expensive truffle weighs in 1.51 kilograms (3.3 lbs).

Students Teams Achievement Division (STAD) Strategy in Teaching EFL

Students Teams Achievement Division (STAD) Strategy in Teaching EFL 

Suryanullah91@yahoo.com

English Department, Faculty of Languages and Literature, State University of Makassar

 

ABSTRACT

One of cooperative learning is Student Teams-Achievement Division (STAD). STAD is one of the systems of cooperative learning in which students learn to be formed into groups of four or five members representing the students with the skills and different genders. The teacher gives a lesson and then students work in each group to ensure that all group members have mastered the lessons given. Then, students carry out tests on the materials provided and they have to work on their own without the help of other students. Inside STAD students organized in small groups. In brief, the stages in implementing STAD learning model is as follows: 1) Presentation of the class, 2) Learning group, 3) test or quiz, 4) Score increase in the individual, and 5) Award group. In applying, the STAD in EFL teaching has advantages such as students work together in achieving its objectives by upholding the norms of the group. Besides, it also has disadvantages such as require a longer time for the students, so it is difficult to achieve the target curriculum..

KEYWORDS: STAD, Cooperative learning

 

INTRODUCTION

In the world of education today, improving the quality of learning in both the mastery of the material and teaching methods are always taught. One of the teachers’ efforts in improving the quality of learning that is in the preparation of a wide range of scenarios in the classroom learning activities.

Learning is a blend of activities that teachers do the teaching and learning activities conducted by students. In the learning activities, interactions between students with students, interaction between teachers and students, as well as interaction between students with learning resources. It is expected that these interactions, students can actively construct knowledge, learning takes place in an interactive, inspiring, fun, challenging, and can motivate learners to achieve the expected competencies.

The situations in the classroom needs to be planned and constructed in such a way that students get the opportunity to interact with each other. In this interaction, will form a community that allows them to understand the process of learning and understanding each other. Hopefully, teachers can create learning situations so that students can work in teams and to develop insights about cooperative learning. Through cooperative learning, teachers are expected to be able to more effectively manage the classroom. Cooperative learning is very diverse types, one of which is the Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD).

DISCUSSION

1. A.    Definition of Student  Teams Achievement Division (STAD)

STAD is a cooperative teaching method which was developed by Slavin (1978) as part of a student learning approach program  along with other cooperative methods such as Teams-Games-Tournaments, Jigsaw II (Slavin 1980), and Team Assisted Individualization (Slavin et al. 1981). In STAD, students are assigned to four- or five-member learning teams. The teams are composed of high, average, and low performing students, and of boys and girls of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. Thus, each team is a microcosm of the entire class. There are five main steps a teacher should follow when STAD is implemented. The teacher first introduces new materials to be learned. The team members then study worksheets on the material until they master the material. Individual quizzes are taken on the material studied. The teacher then combines the scores to create team scores. Members of the winning team are given certificates and a weekly one-page class newsletter recognizes the teams with the highest scores.

.Students’ quiz scores are compared to their own past averages, and points are awarded on the basis of the degree to which students meet or exceed their own earlier performance. These points are then summed to form team scores, and teams that meet certain criteria may earn certificates or other rewards. In a related method called Teams-Games-Tournaments (TGT), students play games with members of other teams to add points to their team scores.

STAD have been used in a wide variety of subjects, from mathematics to language arts to social studies, and have been used from second grade through college. The STAD method is most appropriate for teaching well-defined objectives with single right answers, such as mathematical computations and applications, language usage and mechanics, geography and map skills, and science facts and concepts. However, it can easily be adapted for use with less well-defined objectives by incorporating more open-ended assessments, such as essays or performances.

STAD (Students team achievement division) according to Rai (2007) is one of the many strategies in cooperative learning, which helps promote collaboration and self-regulating learning skills. The reason for the selection of STAD is good interaction among students, improve positive attitude towards subject, better self-esteem, increased interpersonal skills. STAD also add an extra source of learning within the groups because some high achievers act as a role of tutor, which result in high achievements. Finally, it enables the students according to the requirements of the modern society by teaching them to work with their colleagues competently and successfully as explained by Balfakih (2003). The findings of Balfakih (2003) have indicated that in teaching 10th grade chemistry, students team achievements division (STAD) is a more effective teaching method than the traditional-teaching method.

Kinney (1989) conducted a similar study, by studying the effects of cooperative learning on the achievement of ninth-grade students in a diverse cultural general biology class. The experimental group having the combination of both black and white students had a significant increase on the academic achievement scores. Face to face, interaction in the classroom has an intense effect on the societal, cognitive, and scholarly development of students. According to Kagan, (1994) the learning process in which the interaction of students occur led to aquision of skills development of language and social skills. As Iqbal (2010) mentioned that, the cooperative learning is more successful as a teaching learning practice as compared to customary teaching method.

The structural approach to cooperative learning is based on the construction, investigation, and orderly use of structures, or content free ways of organizing social interaction in classroom as revealed by Kagan (1994) Being the option for teachers in the teaching learning process cooperative learning as an instructional methodology is presently the least regularly used, (Johnson & Johnson 1991). Lecture method or competition contribute to more than 85% of the instruction in schools in which students are isolated from one another and forbidden to interact, (Johnson, Johnson , Holubec , & Roy,1984). In addition, Goodlad, (1984) reported that teacher engaged most of the time in the classrooms, while only small fraction of time (about one percent) in the classroom is spared for students activities like reasoning and expressing their opinions.

1. B.     Steps and Concepts of Student Team Achievement Division (STAD)

In STAD, detailed steps are as follows:

1. 1.   Class Presentations. The teacher presents the material in front of the class in the classical style that focuses on the concepts of matter to be discussed only. Furthermore, students are asked to learn in small groups to work on tasks assigned by the teacher.
2. 2.   The formation of study groups (Teams). Students are organized into groups whose members are heterogeneous (both academic ability and gender). The trick with rank students based on grades or the last value obtained before the student STAD cooperative learning models. The function of this grouping is to encourage cooperation in the group study the material and complete the tasks assigned by the teacher.
3. Provision of test or quiz (Quizzes). After studying the group completed the test, quiz was held with the objective of identifying, or the ability to measure student learning of the material has been studied. In this case, the student was not allowed to work with his friend. The purpose of this test is to motivate students to try and individually responsible. Students are required to do my best as a result of group learning. In addition to individual responsibility, the students also have to realize that businesses and their success will be very valuable to contribute to the success of the group. This test is performed after one to two servings of classes and learning in groups.
4. 4.   Improved scoring individual (Individual Improvement Scores). This is done to give the students a goal that can be achieved if they work hard and showed good results compared with previous results. Manager scores the results of the cooperation of students performed in the following order: score early, score tests, and score of the group increased.
5. 5.   Awards group (Team Recognition) award is given to the group to give a gift in appreciation of the efforts that have been made during the study. (Slavin, 1995 in Prilatama, 2008)

Three central concepts that characterize learning as expressed Slavin (1995) in Isjoni (2009: 33), namely:

1. Group awards, group awards are obtained if the group achieved scores above the specified criteria.

2. Individual responsibility, accountability focuses on the activities of each group member Formatting in learning.

3. Equal opportunity to succeed, each student either low or high achievers alike the opportunity to succeed and do the best for the group.

1. C.    Principles and Characteristics ofSTAD

The basic principles of cooperative learning (Muslims et al, 2000) as follows:

1. Each member of the group (students) are responsible for everything that is done in a group.
2. Each member of the group (students) should know that all of the group members have similar goals.
3. Each member of the group (students) has to split the duties and responsibilities equally among group members.
4. Each member of the group (students) will be evaluated.
5. Each member of the group (students) to share leadership skills and need to learn together during the learning process.
6. Each member of the group (students) will be required to be individually accountable for the material is handled in a cooperative group.

Characteristics of cooperative learning as follows.

1. Students in groups learn cooperatively resolve the matter according to the basic competencies to be achieved.
2. The group was formed of students who have different skills, good level of high, medium, and low. If possible, group members are from different ethnic or religious serta memperhatikan gender equality.
3. Award more emphasis on group rather than individual.

1. D.    Advantages and Disadvantages of STAD

E.Alpha

A learning strategy has advantages and disadvantages. STAD cooperative learning has several advantages (Slavin, 1995:17) in Karmawati Yusuf (2010) as follows:

1.  Students work together in achieving its objectives by upholding the norms of the group.
2. Actively assist and motivate students to succeed shared passion.
3. Active role as a peer tutor to further enhance the success of the group.
4. Interaction among students with increasing their ability to argue.

In addition, STAD also has disadvantages, according to the DESS (1991:411) in Karmawati Yusuf (2010) concluded as follows:

1.  Require a longer time for the students, so it is difficult to achieve the target curriculum.
2. Require a longer time for teachers so that teachers generally do not want to use cooperative learning.
3. Require special skills of teachers so that not all teachers can do cooperative learning.
4. Specific nature of students’ demands, such as the nature of love to work together.

CONCLUSION

From the discussion above, it can be concluded that the Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD) is one method or approach in a simple and cooperative learning for teachers who are just beginning to use cooperative approach in the classroom, STAD also an effective method of cooperative learning. The main idea behind the model STAD is to motivate the students to encourage and help each other to master the skills presented by the teacher. As with other learning methods, learning method STAD also has advantages and disadvantages.

REFERENCES

 

Mahmood, Tariq et al. 2010. Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD) as an Active Learning Strategy: Empirical Evidence From Mathematics Classroom. © Journal of Education and Sociology, ISSN: 2078-032X, December, 2010

Sukarto. Strategi Pembelajaran STAD (Student Teams Achievement Devision). 2010

Sumarno, Alim. Model Pembelajaran Kooperatif. 2011

Yusuf, Karmawati. Keunggulan dan Kekurangan Pembelajaran Kooperatif tipe STAD. 2010.

Ali, M. Iqbal. STAD (Student Teams-Achievement Divisions). 2010.