ABSTRACT FOREIGN LANGUAGE FOR CONTENT: AIMING TO DEVELOP LIFELONG LEARNING DISPOSITIONS by Svetoslava Dimova In the context of emphasis on English language, mathematics and science within the American educational system (No Child Left Behind, 2001), foreign language education appears to be increasingly dissociated from educational priorities. Ways to create relevant goals and optimize the effects of foreign language teaching emerge through the use of communication technologies and connections to academic content. This qualitative study explores the relationship between high school students’ skills in French as a foreign language (L2), their cognitive strategies during reading in L2 for academic content, and their motivation to read authentic French texts. The following questions guided the study: 1) How do students internalize the task of self-selected online reading in L2 for content understanding pertaining to their History of the Americas course? 2) What processes and skills do students evidence and draw upon to locate and read for information in L2?, and 3) What are the implications for building a theory of student motivations for extensive reading in L2 beyond the classroom context? The study was realized in the setting of an International Baccalaureate (IB) program, where 4 key informants were selected, and analysis was presented in the form of 4 case studies. Informants’ French language proficiency ranged from intermediate-mid to advanced levels (ACTFL Guidelines, 1999). Data collection occurred during 8 weeks and included three rounds of formal, phenomenological interviews, classroom observations, and students’ learning journals. Data were analyzed through the lens of Activity theory (Engeström, 1999) and motivation theory (Keller, 2008) in order to determine emerging themes. While both L2 skills and interest in historical content influenced the task completion, and informants used multiple strategies to search and read, internalization and motivation aspects related to acquiring content superseded those related to increasing language skills. Informants’ differences in attitudes toward the curriculum integrative task were additionally caused by their ideas of content appropriateness in a L2 course. Development of cultural awareness and critical thinking was also primarily shaped by interest in content. Findings from the analysis suggested further directions for L2 classroom instruction that could lead to developing students’ lifelong learning dispositions.

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<p>Nowadays, business intelligence techniques are applied more and more often in different settings including corporations and organizations both in the private and public sector. It is really a broad field which can assist business people to realize the state of their organization and make profitable decisions.</p><p>In this thesis, I will focus on one of its components, data warehouse, by proposing activity theory as the method to solve the dimension identification problem in data warehouse. Under the background of project IMIS and the involved personnel, who determine the dimension, firstly I study how to use the ER method, “bottom up” method, and activity theory method to identify the dimension in data warehouse, and some relevant knowledge about the three methods. Then, we apply the three methods to identify the dimension. After that, I evaluate the dimension identification results of the three methods according to the feedback from the healthcare organization to get their veracity and integrality. Finally, based on the results of my efforts, I arrive to the conclusion that the activity theory method can be applied to identify the dimension in data warehouse, and with the comparison to the other two traditional methods (ER model and “bottom up”), the activity theory method is more easy and natural to identify the dimension of a dimensional model.</p>

For several decades improvement of science education has been a major concern of policy makers concerned that the U.S. is a “nation at risk” owing to the dearth of students pursing careers in science. Recent policy proposals have argued that provision of broadband digital connectivity to organizations in the informal sector would increase the reach of the formal, academic sector to raise the overall level of science literacy in the country. This dissertation reports on a longitudinal study of a physics telementoring activity jointly run by a university-community collaborative at a community learning center. The activity implemented a digital infrastructure that exceeds the technical and social-institutional arrangements promoted by policy makers. In addition to broadband internet access (for tele-conferencing between students at the community center and physicists at a university), supplemented by digital software designed to promote physics education, the activity included the presence of a collaborating researcher/tutor at the community learning center to coordinate and document the instructional activities. The current research revealed a fundamental contradiction between the logic, goals, and practices of the physics instructors, and the corresponding logic, goals, and practices of the participants at the community learning center. This contradiction revolves around a contrast between the physicists’ formal, logocentric ways of understanding expressed in the ability to explain the scientific rules underlying physical phenomena and the informal, pragmatic orientation of the youth and adults at the learning center. The observations in this dissertation should remind techno-enthusiasts, especially in the arena of public education policy, that there are no turnkey solutions in “distance” science education. Technically “connecting” people is not equivalent to creating conditions that expand opportunities to learn and a functioning socio-technical system that supports learning. Secondly, for designers and practitioners of informal learning in community-university collaborative settings, it is critically important to understand distance learning activities as developing “cross-cultural, ” collaborative encounters, the results of which are more likely to be hybrids of different ways of learning and knowing than the conversion of informal learning into a tool for instruction that will allow youth to “think like physicists.”

Denna studie beskriver innebörden i begreppen användbarhet och Activity Theory, samt hur den senare kan användas för att stärka utvecklingen av användbara webbplatser. Studien är genomförd ur ett utvecklarperspektiv. Resultatet av studien visar att användbarhet är en egenskap som uppstår i användandet av en artefakt, detta pekar både teori och empiri på. Studien visar också att Activity Theory kan användas på flera sätt för att stärka utvecklingen av användbara webbplatser. Vi anser att de resultat vi kommit fram till i vår studie gäller inte bara för utveckling av webbplatser utan de gäller även utvecklingen av informationssystem och informationsteknologi i en vidare utsträckning.

Socio-cultural activity theory (SCAT) was used to examine the nature of collaborative working in a case study of school-based occupational therapy (SBOT) in Ontario. Collaborative consultation has been widely adopted in SBOT practice. However, we know little about the impact of collaboration for students and lack understanding about how the organization of SBOT service contributes to collaborative working among educators and occupational therapists. Grounded in theoretical understanding about the distributed nature of group learning, SCAT was used as a conceptual and analytical tool in this study to describe SBOT collaborative consultation from multiple stakeholder perspectives. The research took place in two phases. Phase One involved case study research to describe SBOT for three students with disabilities from multiple stakeholder perspectives. Data were gathered using a combination of observation, document analysis, and interviews involving participants directly involved in the delivery of SBOT with each focal participant. SCAT provided a framework for describing the nature of joint effort. Dilemmas emerging from incongruence between elements in the activity system were identified and described. Common characteristics in two cases enabled cross-case analysis to also identify features of collaborative working that facilitated educational programming and outcomes for students with developmental disability. In Phase Two, program administrators participated alongside service recipients and service providers in a series of focused discussion workshops to reflect on case study findings and prioritize areas for program improvement. Developmental Work Research (Engeström, 2000) and Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider, Whitney, & Stavros, 2003) methods were used within a participatory action research approach to facilitate organizational learning among stakeholders. Engagement of stakeholders supported program administrators in critically examining decision-making for the delivery of SBOT service in the region studied. Combining practice-driven dilemmas with conceptual tools of analysis enabled a multiple-perspective understanding about the social, cultural, and historical work practices that have influenced collaborative interactions in SBOT practice and led to the development of principles for improving how work is shared. Program administrators used their shared understanding to propose a new model for delivering SBOT services. / Thesis (Ph.D, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-28 21:31:58.308

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