Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This study looked at the implementation of a collaborative learning model at two schools in Sydney designed to realise the principles recommended by reform documents such as the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000) and policy documents including Numeracy, A Priority for All (DETYA, 2000). A total of 158 year seven and year eight students ranging in age from 12 to 15 years old from two schools participated in the study. In all, seven classroom teachers participated in the study each completing two topics using the collaborative learning model. Four research questions were the focus of the current study. Three research questions were drawn from eight principles identified in the literature regarding what constitutes effective mathematics learning. These questions related to the nature of collaboration evident in each classroom, the level of motivation and self-regulation displayed by students in the different types of classrooms and the relationship between learning mathematics within the collaborative learning model and real-world mathematics. A final research question examined the degree to which the concerns of teachers relating to preparing students for examinations are met within the collaborative learning model. Several different data collection strategies were adopted to develop a picture of the different forms of activity evident in each classroom and the changes that took place in each classroom during and after the implementation of the collaborative learning model. These included classroom observations, interviews with student and teacher participants, questionnaires and obtaining test results. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used to reduce the data collected. Factor scores and test results were compared using t-tests, ANOVAs and Mann Whitney nonparametric tests. Data collected from interviews and classroom observations were analysed using a grounded approach beginning with the open coding of phenomena. Leont’ev’s theoretical approach to activity systems (1972; 1978) was then used to describe the changing nature of classroom activity with the introduction of the collaborative learning model. Within the collaborative classrooms there were a greater number of mathematical voices participating in classroom discussions, a breaking down of traditional roles held by teachers and students, and dominant patterns of collaboration evident in each classroom reflecting pre-existing cultural ways of doing. Furthermore, there was some quantitative evidence suggesting that student levels of critical thinking, self-regulation and help seeking increased and students were also observed regulating their own learning as well as the learning of others. Classroom practice was also embedded in the cultural practice of preparing topic tests, enabling students to use mathematics within the context of a work group producing a shared outcome. Finally, there was quantitative evidence that students in some of the collaborative classes did not perform as well as students in traditional classrooms on topic tests. Comments from students and teachers, however, suggested that for some students the collaborative learning model enabled them to learn more effectively, although other students were frustrated by the greater freedom and lack of direction. Future research could investigate the effectiveness of strategies to overcome this frustration and the relationship between different types of collaboration and developing mathematical understanding.

Recent reports by the Swedish School Inspectorate have shown preschool teachers’ understanding of their teaching mission to be complex and the responsibility of teaching in preschool, multifaceted.  While the school law places responsibility for goal-directed teaching on preschool teachers, the current Swedish preschool curriculum makes no mention of the concept of teaching, defined in Swedish as undervisning. This study examines contradictions between the domains of Swedish preschool education research, policy, and practice as visible in pre-service and in-service preschool teachers’ conceptions of teaching, as it is delineated in the steering documents, and as it is evident in the classroom. The research questions are how do pre-service and in-service preschool teachers conceptualize teaching, as it is defined in government steering documents? What do pre-service and in-service preschool teachers see as evidence of teaching in their classrooms, and how do they determine their role in teaching? Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was used to formulate and analyze semi-structured individual interviews of pre-service and in-service preschool teachers to consider the teachers’ conceptions of teaching as a product of the historical and cultural mediated activity system of preschool. Analysis of interview transcripts highlighted how complex not only the practice of teaching is for preschool teachers, but also how there is no consensus around the definition of teaching in Swedish preschools. If preschool teachers are to abide by steering documents and undertake teaching in their practice, there needs to be a new inclusive definition that imparts some clarity to preschool teaching. The new working definition, theorized using Leontiev’s hierarchy of activity, action, and operation, may help researchers, policy makers, and preschool teachers negotiate some of the confusion surrounding how to adopt and adapt teaching into Swedish preschool.

This mixed methods study investigates a number of aspects related to tool-use in undergraduate mathematics as seen from an Activity Theory perspective. The aims of this study include: identifying the tools that undergraduates use; seeking for an empirically-based typology of these tools; examining how undergraduates themselves can be profiled according to their tool-use; and finally identifying the factors influencing students tool preferences. By combining results from survey, interview and diary data analyses, it was found that undergraduates in the sample preferred using mostly tools related to their institution s practice (notes, textbooks, VLE), other students and online videos. All the tools students reported using were classified into five categories: peers; teachers; external online tools; the official textbook; and notes. Students in the sample were also classified into five distinct groups: those preferring interacting with peers when studying mathematics (peer-learning group); those favouring using online tools (online-learning group); those using all the tools available to them (blended-learning group); those using only textbooks (predominantly textbooks-learning group); and students using some of the tools available to them (selective-learning group). The main factor shaping students tool choices was found to be their exam-driven goals when examined from an individual s perspective or their institution s assessment related rules when adopting a wider perspective. Results of this study suggest that students blend their learning of mathematics by using a variety of tools and underlines that although undergraduates were found to be driven by exam-related goals, this is a result of the rules regulating how Higher Education Institutions (HEI) function and should not be attributed entirely as stemming from individuals practices. Assigning undergraduates exam- driven goals to their university s sociocultural environment, was made possible by combining two versions of Activity Theory (Leontiev and Engestrøm s) and analysing data at two different levels (individual and collective respectively).

abstract: Prior research has looked at the effects of low self-control, unstructured socializing, and risky behaviors on victimization. In previous studies, however, the differences between routine activity and lifestyle theory have been overlooked. The aim of this study is to test the unique characteristics of both theories independently. Specifically, this study addresses: (1) the mediating effects of unstructured socializing on low self-control and victimization and (2) the mediating effects of risky behaviors on low self-control and victimization. Data were collected using a self-administered survey of undergraduate students enrolled in introductory criminal justice and criminology classes (N = 554). Negative binomial regression models show risky behaviors mediate much of the effect low self-control has on victimization. Unstructured socializing, in contrast, does not mediate the impact of low self-control on victimization. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Criminology and Criminal Justice 2014

Orientadores: Denise Bertoli Braga, Harry Daniels / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-06T07:25:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Almeida_PatriciaVasconcelos.pdf: 2751821 bytes, checksum: 0c3b5dd0bdbf6580eae8288fc5642cf5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: O presente trabalho se propõe a refletir sobre o impacto da inserção da Internet como fonte de material didático e como meio de ensino na criação e execução de tarefas pedagógicas elaboradas por alunos/professores em um Curso de Letras. Tem-se, portanto, como objetivo geral identificar as semelhanças e diferenças dessas tarefas e como também da práxis desses alunos/professores e como objetivo especifico detectar as contradições existentes no sistema de atividade em transformação estabelecido através da atividade ¿criar tarefas pedagógicas para serem executadas utilizando diferentes artefatos de ensino¿. Agregada a isso observamos também a intervenção, do professor responsável pela turma de Metodologia de Ensino de Língua Estrangeira nesse sistema de atividade quando ele estabeleceu um diálogo reflexivo sobre a prática de seus alunos. Para alcançar tais objetivos, utilizamos como suporte as teorias que defendem a necessidade de se formar ainda durante a graduação, um profissional criterioso e reflexivo. Além disso, fizemos uso da Teoria da CALL para demonstrar a importância de se promover um contato do aluno/professor com o ensino e aprendizagem mediado pelo computador. Como o foco de interesse desta investigação está em perceber o que acontece com o sistema de atividade quando se altera o artefato de ensino, adotamos como suporte teórico, dentre outros, o princípio da contradição encontrado na Teoria da Atividade que nos permite entender as alterações no sistema de atividade a partir dos diferentes artefatos utilizados pelos sujeitos. A análise dos dados proveniente de uma abordagem metodológica exploratória mostrou que na tentativa de se criar tarefas pedagógicas, utilizando diferentes artefatos de ensino, o aluno/professor desenvolveu práticas diferentes de acordo com o artefato utilizado. Além disso, podemos afirmar que a intervenção do professor ajudou esse sujeito a desenvolver uma postura reflexiva sobre suas escolhas pedagógicas e sobre sua prática, desenvolvendo capacidades para se autoavaliarem. Um fator importante a ser mencionado é que essa intervenção, também se altera de acordo com o artefato utilizado. Quanto às contradições encontradas no sistema de atividade em estudo, podemos afirmar que, elas acontecem em seus quatro níveis assim como proposto por Engeström (1987) e se configuram de acordo com a mudança do artefato de ensino. Os resultados obtidos indicam que, como previsto pela Teoria da Atividade a alteração do artefato de ensino, pode causar tensões no sistema e alterar os elementos que o constitui / Abstract: The present work considers the Internet impact as a source of classroom material and as means of foreign language teaching on the creation process of pedagogical tasks and their execution by the Pre-Teachers in a Language Course. The main goal is to identify the tasks similarities and differences as well identify a pattern on the Pre-service Teachers¿ practice. As a specific goal this work aims to find out the contradictions established through the activity ¿create pedagogical tasks to be accomplished using different artifacts¿ in an activity system. In addition, we also observed the professor¿s interference on this activity system. To reach these goals we used theories that deal with the necessity of teaching undergraduate students how to be reflective. We also used CALL theory to show how important it is to Pre-service Teachers understand the teaching and learning processes mediated by computers. Finally we used the Activity Theory specifically referring to the contradiction principle to help us understand what happens in the activity system when we change the artifact. The dada analysis from an exploratory methodology showed us that the Pre-service Teachers created different pedagogical tasks according to the artifacts used. The professor¿s intervention, influenced by the artifact used, helped the Pre-service Teachers develop a reflective posture about their pedagogical choices, practices and self evaluation. We can say that the contradictions in the activity system occurred in four levels corresponding to studies completed by Engeström (1987). The results showed that when you modify the artifact, you can cause tensions in the system that can also modify the elements / Tese (doutotrado) - Universida / Lingua Estrangeira / Doutor em Linguística Aplicada

This study focuses on blogging, as one of the possible uses of the computer in an Afrikaans class in order to improve integration between the learning areas in a school environment. It was a new experience for learners, especially the use of technology in an Afrikaans class. The researcher wanted to determine how learners will handle frustration in a new situation, with the focus on the different components operating in a school environment: the frustration caused by the use of the technology, the subjects / learners themselves, the rules they had to adhere to, the community they lived in: teacher, other learners, parents, who had to consider the project viability. The most important recommendation is that this type of exercise should become a preferred way of teaching and learning, due to its educational value in shaping learner’s minds and guiding teachers to see and do things differently in a technology driven society. / Dissertation (MEd (Computer Integrated Education))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

At the present time there is common agreement among academics and practitioners that the notion of inclusion means more than simply access to education. The mere placement of children in mainstream educational environments does not suffice to foster participation and equal opportunities for success. In Greece, this is particularly the case for children with challenging behaviour, the majority of whom are educated in mainstream classrooms. Personal experience shows that students and experienced kindergarten teachers feel ill prepared to manage these children. This, in most cases, results in the children being isolated from the pedagogical process. This form of internal segregation, in addition to the fact that the teacher’s role, and consequently teacher education, is key in promoting inclusive practices, provides the overall rationale of this study. Initial teacher education is a context in which changes in professional values, knowledge and beliefs can and do occur. Within this frame, the present study examined the initial kindergarten teacher education provided to kindergarten teachers with an aim to shed further light into how they can be better prepared to accommodate the needs of their hard-to-manage pupils within mainstream settings. Using an activity theory perspective, the study was designed in such a way so as to allow student teachers to be followed in their transition between university and school through their school placement. This allowed for a coupling of the university and school contexts and thus provided a means of analysing contrasting practices in order to find possible misalignments and contradictions between these two contexts. The aim was to learn more about how these two systems can be better aligned with implications for improving the initial kindergarten teacher education curricula and pedagogy. A qualitative multiple case study design was employed in order to explore student teachers’ experiences of their teaching practice. The participants in the study were drawn mainly from student teachers on a four-year teacher education programme at one of the universities in Greece. Beginning teachers were also observed and asked to reflect retrospectively on their transition from university learning to actual teaching at school. Inadequate preparation, lack of relevant modules and the gap between theory and practice were a few of the constraints that were pointed by this study. However the interest focused on the way these elements were located in concrete contextual conditions. The constraints students and beginning teachers face in developing inclusive practices for their challenging pupils are located at the level of the contrasting practices and discourses of the school practicum. Within these constraints students and beginning teachers adopt particular student teacher/teacher identities with ramifications on the children who have challenging behaviour.

The persistence of a 120 year-old mathematics curriculum despite dramatic changes in society (Dossey et al., 2016; NCTM, 2018) and the failure of the US mathematics education system to achieve many of its stated aims, especially for students from traditionally marginalized populations (Attridge & Inglis, 2013; Carnevale & Desrochers, 2003a; Ganter & Barker, 2004; Kastberg et al., 2016; Lei et al., 2015; Mullis et al., 2016) raises the question: “What aims, if any, actually shape the curriculum experienced by students?” This dissertation adds to what is known about curricular systems by building a theory of the role of aims for school mathematics in curriculum development, planning, and enactment. It does so by undertaking a qualitative analysis of ten lessons by four different teachers at two different high schools; tracking how the lessons are transformed from instructional materials into plans by the teacher and then enacted in classrooms and perceived by students. This dissertation analyzes these lessons through the lens of activity theory, enabling a deeper understanding of how aims can be described and how they permeate curricular systems. The data analysis produces a framework for how aims can be described and categorized, how aims permeate an individual stage of curriculum, and how aims permeate across stages of curriculum. It finds that aims can be conceptualized as having two parts, a central activity for which mathematical learning is designed to prepare students and the function that school mathematics plays in preparing students to participate in that central activity. The extent to which and how aims permeate a stage of curriculum can be described as the extent to which the mathematical goals for the lesson are connected to clear central aims. The aims found in particular stages of curriculum and the levels of permeation of those aims in those stages can be tracked across stages to determine whether the stages are reinforcing each other’s support for the achievement of aims or working at cross purposes. The application of this framework to the selected curricular systems reveals many lessons with low levels of aim permeation and extensive changes in the aims of lessons as the curriculum is transformed from intention to plan to enactment. This study suggests that aims are underutilized in curricular planning and provides evidence that the mathematics curriculum may be built following disciplinary logic with aims created to justify what is already in place. Further research must be done to explore this conjecture. If it is supported, then curriculum decision makers who seek to improve the extent to which they achieve their aims and eliminate racial and economic disparities in this achievement must begin by elevating the role of aims in their curricular work.

A significant body of writing and rhetoric research focuses on the literate practices that reflect or construct the professional self, particularly in disciplines that rely heavily on the use of forms to categorize or identify customers, clients, or patients. Many of these studies examine the influence of discipline-specific genres on the creation of a professional self for healthcare practitioners. Occupational therapy, a nearly 100-year-old yet little understood profession, is significantly different from many other healthcare disciplines, in part, because the genres used by occupational therapists reflect the profession's careful attention to the whole life of a patient. These genres are built around an understanding of a patient's occupation as the object of the profession's activity system. "Occupation" (commonly defined too narrowly by those outside of the profession as "work"), is, quite simply, anything that meaningfully and purposefully occupies a person's time. This broadly defined object invites an expansive professional vision that includes the patient's life and history outside of a diagnosis. This study presents the narratives of four occupational therapists and the literate activities that inform their practice. Their voices, as excerpted in this case study, join a strong, ongoing conversation in writing and rhetoric studies about the relationship between genre and identity. Using the lens of activity theory, this is one account of a healthcare profession that pays unusual attention to patients' whole lives through genres that mediate shared agency between the caregiver and patient. It is also, however, the story of the ways in which this identity, as a uniquely occupation-based discipline, becomes obscured as therapists translate their work to genres created and controlled by other, more powerful activity systems.

This paper uses Routine Activity Theory to examine online routine activities and individual level guardianship and the impact on online purchase fraud victimization across Europe. The findings suggest differences between the EU member states in online purchase fraud victimization. Moreover, it discovers that several online routine activities rise the victimization rate. However individual level guardianship has no great success in reducing victimization rates.