Aspirations for equality between the English and Welsh languages are widely held in Wales although Welsh is spoken by a minority of the population. Practitioners working through the medium of Welsh face particular challenges which include shortages of resources and limited access to support from Welsh speaking professionals. This thesis describes an intervention over time to strengthen the marginal position of a team of practitioners whose practice takes place through the medium of the Welsh language. Drawing on discursive evidence gathered in a series of team meetings conducted through the medium of Welsh the case study explores the potential of developmental project work to provide a context within which to effect change for practice, professional development and professional identity. The research is grounded in Engeström’s theory of expansive learning and uses methodology based on Vygotsky’s notion of dual stimulation. Forms of discourse analysis is applied to transcripts and textual records of the communicative action of the team. The study charts trajectories of change for the team and team members occurring during the study and beyond. Outcomes have included the establishment of self directed working practices in the development of resources which are valued by local, regional, national and commercial colleagues. The study provides an illustration of how this interventionist approach to support practitioners apply and extend their knowledge and expertise in developmental project work also contributed to professional development through reconstructions of professional identity.

This study addresses the question: How do the structural conditions of university organisation modulate subject position, social relations and discourse and therefore shape individual consciousness and activity? The response is informed by an empirical pedagogical problem located at the tertiary level in Japan: What makes acquirers attain higher levels of language mastery in foreign language (Spanish) settings informed by communicative language teaching? The attempted answer is framed within cultural-historical activity theory, the cultural theory of Holland et al. (2001), and Basil Bernstein’s code theory. These theories have been combined using Marxian-Hegelian notions of culture and subject, which allow language development and mastery to be treated as the acquisition by an individual of a cultural tool (semiotic mediation) subject to both individual agency and historical forces. The organisational and pedagogical contexts of three institutions engaged in Spanish language education have been analysed using motive-action/educational task as the unit of analysis that situates the observation in between micro and macro levels of analysis, in combination with the methodologies for ascertaining subject position provided by Bernstein’s code theory and the cultural theory of Holland et al. This procedure made it possible to determine acquirers’ coding orientations (orientations to meaning) and to establish comparisons between organisation and learning settings. The findings indicate that acquirers who have a formal trajectory of language learning and who are able to recognise grammar instructional discourse – i.e., who possess a representational gaze – attain better levels of language mastery (active realisation) than those with informal trajectories (e.g. learning languages overseas in a conversational fashion without following a formal programme) and who do not recognise grammar instructional discourse. Evidence is provided to indicate that there is no way to avoid representational-function programmes. The bottom-up move within Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development is suggested as a feasible intervention without a drastic reshaping of the programmes.

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Currently for travel planning, guests will research via hotel websites while still preferring to book through third-party sites, which leads to a disconnect between hotels and their guests. A chat widget artifact that is added onto the hotel’s website and linked through messaging applications was created by a start-up company, Bookboost, to bridge this gap. The current intuitiveness of the artifact and future improvements that may increase intuitiveness was investigated through a case study of user and expert analysis. 10 participants – 5 hotel staff users and 5 guest users – were sampled at hotel lobbies via systematic sampling and non-random sampling. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 65 years old, with 30% being millennials. Task analysis, an interview, and a questionnaire were used for user analysis. The researcher acted as an evaluator and examined the artifact for flaws and possible improvements using activity theory’s human-artifact model (HAM). Analyses suggest that current intuitiveness is fairly high, but there is room for improvement. There seems to be a difference between millennials and non-millennials, especially regarding the amount of time taken and preference for the artifact (versus more familiar methods for communicating with others). Interest and comfort in technology usage was a factor in intuitiveness. Generally, those more comfortable with technology had higher zone of proximal development (ZPD) scores. Improvements have been suggested that may increase artifact intuitiveness, although this was not tested due to the scope of the study. Future research can continue to examine if the suggested improvements have indeed increased intuitiveness in the artifact for users of all ages.

A presente dissertação possui como problemática de pesquisa o trabalho docente na Escola Móvel/Aluno Específico, localizada na cidade de São Paulo. A atuação de profissionais da área de educação em ambientes hospitalares ocorre no Brasil desde a década de cinquenta. Todavia, trata-se de um campo de investigação científica ainda pouco explorado, em especial quando lançamos o olhar sobre o Ensino de Ciências neste contexto. Como base teórica, foi utilizada a Teoria da Atividade como uma ferramenta analítica da atividade docente. A escolha e aplicação deste instrumento teórico-metodológico justificam-se pelo enfoque no desenvolvimento humano nos âmbitos sociais, culturais e históricos, em que a ação individual adquire sentido através das relações que se estabelecem na atividade coletiva. Foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas com professores de ciências que atuaram em diferentes períodos na escola hospitalar e também com coordenadores. A análise dos dados permitiu identificar dimensões de contradições que expressam algumas das características do ser docente na escola hospitalar. Tais evidências explicitam a necessidade de repensarmos os cursos universitários de Licenciaturas, de modo, que incluam no seu processo formativo meios de preparar o professor para que consiga se adaptar a diferentes tipos de ambientes pedagógicos com diferentes tempos, espaços e finalidades. / This thesis has as research problem the teacher\'s work in a hospital school in São Paulo city. The professionals of education have been working in hospitals in Brazil since the fifties. However, it is a field of research that is underexplored, especially when we launched the look on the Teaching of Science in this context. As theoretical basis, we used the Activity Theory as an analytical tool of teacher\'s activity. The selection and application of this theoretical-methodological tool is justified by the focus on human development in social, cultural and historical areas, in which individual action acquires meaning through relationships established in the collective activity. To support the data, we used transcripts of interviews with science teachers who worked in different time periods in the hospital school. Data analysis identified the dimensions of contradictions that express some of the characteristics of being a teacher in the hospital school. Such findings clearly demonstrate the need for rethinking undergraduate university courses, in order to include in educational process ways to prepare the teacher to suit different types of learning environments, with different times, spaces and purposes.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo principal analisar as atividades experimentais como recurso de ensino-aprendizagem, com base na Teoria da atividade. As atividades experimentais têm sido apontadas por muitos professores e pesquisadores como responsável por diminuir as dificuldades e proporcionar uma aprendizagem mais prazerosa. Porém, pesquisas ainda não mostraram de maneira clara qual a relação entre a realização de atividades deste tipo e a aprendizagem. Diante da diversidade de sentidos atribuídos à atividade experimental buscamos entender como este tipo de atividade tem sido concebida. Este panorama geral nos permite entender o grande número de abordagens que se pode conseguir com este recurso. Com isso, evidenciamos problemas que têm sido associados a realização de atividades experimentais, os quais exploramos, sob a perspectiva cultural-histórica, suas origens. Nesta perspectiva, entendemos que a Física é uma manifestação da atividade do homem no mundo, isto é, não pode ser compreendida de maneira descontextualizada, fora das práticas humanas. Dessa forma, a educação deve proporcionar aos sujeitos a imersão nas práticas culturais já estabelecidas e fornecer a ele instrumentos de mediação, inclusive os da ciência, para que atue no mundo de maneira consciente. A atividade experimental, como parte dessa produção cultural, só adquire sentidos quando mergulhada em uma práxis, onde sujeitos compreendem seu papel na atividade, quando compartilham certos instrumentos mediadores comuns que os farão ter acesso ao mesmo objeto, ou seja, participar de uma mesma atividade. Como fruto desta atividade, após um processo de significação e ressignificação, de reconhecimento dos contextos de validade dos instrumentos mediadores, os sujeitos, de posse destes instrumentos, tem chance de atuar em outros contextos dando novos significados a sua vivência. / The main objective of this work is to analyze the experimental activities as tools for teaching and learning based on Activity Theory. The experimental activities have been pointed out by many teachers and researchers as responsible for reducing the difficulties and provide a more enjoyable learning. However, researches do not show clearly what is the relationship between perform such activities and learning. Facing the diversity of meanings attributed to the experimental activity we initially review the literature about the ways this type of activity has been designed. This overview allows us to understand the numerous approaches that can be achieved with this resource. Then, we highlight problems that have been associated with the use of experiments and we explore them from the cultural-historical perspective. From this point of view, we understand that physics is a manifestation of human activity in the world, i.e. cannot be understood decontextualized from the human practices. Thus, education should provide subjects\' immersion in the cultural practices already established and providing mediation tools, including science, to act consciously in the world. The experimental activity, as part of cultural production, only acquires meaning when imbibed into a practice where subjects understand their role in the activity, they share common mediating tools that will provide access to the same object, or part of the same activity. As a result of this activity, after a process of meaning and reinterpretation, the recognition of the contexts of validity of the mediators\' instruments, the subjects in possession of these instruments have a chance to perform in other contexts, giving new meaning to their living situation.

Nesta dissertação apresentamos um estudo teórico que visa, a partir de uma perspectiva sócio-cultural-histórica, rever o modelo cognitivo de perfil conceitual inserindo em sua estrutura a noção de contexto. Para realizar esta conciliação teórica entre perfil conceitual e contexto, nos utilizamos da teoria da atividade e dos ferramentais teóricos que ela dispõe para entender o uso e a formação de conceitos. A teoria criada por Vigotski e posteriormente desenvolvida por Leontiev e Engeström somada a princípios de sistemas complexos, nos ajudarão na busca por uma compreensão mais ampla do processo de ensino-aprendizagem. Como indício empírico, utilizamos um questionário aplicado a estudantes do ensino médio em que eram perguntados em diferentes disciplinas sobre o conceito de energia. Este questionário tem por intenção indicar a dependência entre o conceito e as diversas disciplinas, em outras palavras, entre o perfil conceitual e os diversos micro-contextos, fornecendo elementos para repensar as questões metodológicas que envolvem a medição e construção tanto do perfil conceitual, quanto do contexto. Outro indício empírico que utilizamos foi a gravação em vídeo de uma aula de física, em que a análise possibilitou evidenciar os processos dinâmicos da atividade, o papel da negociação e suas relações com o contexto. Neste sentido, tornamos intrínseco ao processo de ensino-aprendizagem uma dinâmica peculiar que alterna entre a internalização de conceitos e a tomada de consciência dos mesmos. Esta dinâmica foi caracterizada em três níveis qualitativamente distintos: primeira ordem de aprendizagem; segunda ordem de aprendizagem e terceira ordem de aprendizagem. Estes três níveis funcionam como marcadores da dinâmica do processo de ensino-aprendizagem e podem ser ferramentas de avaliação do desenvolvimento da atividade e norteador das ações pedagógicas. / In this thesis we present a theoretical study aimed at, from a socio-cultural-historical approach, the cognitive model of conceptual profile inserting in its structure the notion of context. To accomplish this reconciliation between theoretical conceptual profile and context, we use activity theory and theoretical tools that it has to understand the use and formation of concept. The theory created by Vygotsky and Leont\"ev further developed by Engeström and added to the principles of complex systems, will help us in the search for a broader understanding of the teaching-learning process. As empirical evidence, we used a questionnaire administered to high school students that were asked in different disciplines about the concept of energy. This questionnaire is intended to indicate the dependency between the concept and the various disciplines, in other words, between the conceptual profile and various micro-contexts, providing information to rethink the methodological issues surrounding the measurement and construction of both the conceptual profile, as context. Other empirical evidence we used was the video recording of a physics class, where the analysis made it possible to reveal the dynamic processes of activity, the role of negotiation and its relations with the context. In this sense, become intrinsic to the teaching-learning process a peculiar dynamic that alternates between the internalization of concepts and conscious awareness. This dynamic has been characterized in three qualitatively distinct levels: first order learning, second order learning and third-order learning. These three levels act as markers of the dynamics of the teaching-learning process and can be tools for assessing activity performance and guiding the pedagogical actions.

O presente trabalho propõe-se a analisar a controvérsia da experimentação animal por meio do método da dialética materialista a partir de duas unidades que compõem a temática: o teor dos argumentos usados por diferentes atores na controvérsia e as contradições que engendram os sistemas de atividade dos sujeitos. Por meio da dialética, buscou-se superar a dualidade dos argumentos apresentados, na busca por novas formas de divulgação científica. Sem julgar a validade e o mérito das argumentações, foram analisados o discurso de duas pesquisadoras, dois ativistas, um político e um representante do Conselho Nacional de Controle de Experimentação Animal. A partir do arcabouço estrutural da Teoria da Atividade, proposto por Engeström, buscamos compreender onde se localizam as contradições mais evidentes no discurso dos sujeitos e discutir como ações de divulgação científica poderiam propiciar um ambiente favorável para a superação dessas contradições e o desenvolvimento qualitativo do sistema de atividade. Por essa razão, queremos trazer, para esta investigação, as conferências de consenso como ferramenta inovadora de comunicação da ciência, em uma abordagem deliberativa e com participação ativa da sociedade, que nos auxilie no avanço desses conflitos. / This study proposes to analyze the controversy of animal experiments by the method of materialist dialectics from two units that make up the theme: the content of the arguments used by different actors in the controversy and contradictions that engender the activity systems subject. Through the dialectic, he sought to overcome the duality of the arguments made in the search for new forms of science communication. Without judging the validity and the merits of the arguments, we analyzed the speech of two researchers, two activists, a politician and a representative of the National Council for Animal Experimentation Control. From the structural framework of Activity Theory, proposed by Engeström, we try to understand where there are the most obvious contradictions in the discourse of subjects and discuss how science communication actions could provide a favorable environment for overcoming these contradictions and the qualitative development of the system activity. For this reason, we want to bring to this research, consensus conferences as an innovative communication tool of science, in a deliberative approach and active participation of society, to assist in the advancement of these conflicts.

If not ignored completely, the body has been under theorized in literacy research. However, recent research in cultural studies, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, education, and the arts suggests that the body is implicated in thinking and knowing as well as doing. In this dissertation I examine high school technical theater. In this robustly embodied activity students build sets, rig lights, and paint backdrops in preparation for a theatrical production, as well as run sound and lighting and perform scene changes during the production. I use data from high school technical theater to explore the body in literacy, embodied learning, collaboration, composition processes, and experiential learning. I gathered data primarily during out of school work sessions over the multi-week production cycles of six plays produced at one high school over two school years. As an experienced theater technician, I used participant observation as the primary method of data collection, supplemented with semi-structured interviews with the technical director, artistic director, and four students. I collected data and analyzed data through iterative processes in which analysis began during data collection, emerging analyses influenced data collection, and constant comparisons to new data influenced emerging analyses. Observations of student work revealed that student theater technicians employed literacy skills including speaking, reading, writing, drawing, calculating, and interpreting the written text of plays as necessary elements of the normal course of technical theater work. Observations of teaching and learning showed that little explicit instruction was used but that mini-lessons, individual and collective problem solving, and multiple configurations of collaboration among more and less experienced technicians led to the development of critical thinking and physical skills, as well as proficiency in the creation of props through the evaluation and application of building techniques and materials. I used theories from art making and multimodal literacy to examine technical theater building projects as examples of composition. My findings show that the design of technical theater texts - e.g. props, scenery, lighting - emerges through a recursive process of creation and interpretation and is mediated by the technicians' knowledge of building techniques and materials. Situated learning and activity theory were used to analyze learning in the technical theater community. Results demonstrate that the structure of the community allows for learning through experience, apprenticeship, and collaboration as well as through the creation of texts that balance personal expression with collaborative enterprise.

Although researchers in composition studies have examined the instructional conditions that help students revise successfully, there is little published scholarship about how college students use feedback from a peer tutor in the revising process. Thus, I designed a qualitative, collective case study to investigate how students revised after writing center conferences. I used the conceptual framework of activity theory to analyze the entire system of student revision. I used the concept of situation definition to examine how students' understanding of writing conferences and rhetorical concepts, such as revision, changed (or did not change) during the writing conference. I analyzed the revisions with a taxonomy from a study by Faigley and Witte (1981). The findings of this study were centered on two different groups of students who had writing center conferences: those who had specific goals for their writing conferences and those who did not. Students who did not have specific goals for their conferences ceded authority to the writing consultant (the title that this writing center used instead of "peer tutor") who they believed could identify and correct sentence-level errors. When these students revised, they almost always integrated direct feedback about how to correct errors in grammar and mechanics because they believed that their instructors valued writing that was free of errors. But these students only integrated indirect feedback about microstructure revisions if they believed that the revisions were important to other aspects of the activity system such as their instructors. Students rarely made macrostructure revisions, but writing consultants rarely discussed this kind of revision. The writing consultants and the students without specific goals for their conferences had different situation definitions of the purpose of a writing conference and how to meaningfully revise their writing. The writing consultants did not try to promote situation re-definition by moving the discussion away from the text toward a conversation about the strategies that the student used to produce the draft. The conducted the conference at the level of the student in order to fulfill the student's agenda. This contradicted the main philosophy of the writing center, which was that a conference should be a productive conversation about the ideas in a piece of writing. The second group of students, who had specific goals for their conferences, consisted of writing consultants who also had writing conferences with other writing consultants. Writing consultants shared the same situation definition of the purpose of a writing conference and this led to them having productive conversations that framed the act of revision in a more complex way than "revising for the instructor." However, their conferences were focused on how to revise the text, so the consultants also did not try to promote situation re-definition to help their peers develop new writing strategies. The faculty in this research study had differing conceptions of the purpose of the writing center, but their situation definition was closer to that of the students who believed that the writing center was for helping students edit their texts. Instructors used the writing center as a resource to help their students revise their writing, but those who believed the writing center was only for basic writing assignments did not use the writing center or relied on writing consultants with specialized knowledge to help them. An important implication of this research is that peer tutors should be trained to elicit the students' situation definitions of what a writing conference is for and what it means to meaningfully revise. In this way, peer tutors can structure an activity that focuses on helping students to develop situation definitions that are more appropriate for successfully revising their academic writing and for completing future writing projects. Writing centers can also work to help instructors develop more appropriate situation definitions of what a writing conference can do for their students.