In my thesis, I argue that the philosophical and psychological study of concept-learning mechanisms has failed to take the diversity of learning mechanisms into account, and that consequently researchers should embrace a new way of thinking about concept learning: `concept learning' as a class of psychological mechanisms is not a natural kind lending itself to unified study and should be eliminated. To arrive at this, I discuss several concept-learning models that attempt to overcome Jerry Fodor's challenge and base my judgement on the plurality of feasible concept-learning mechanisms and on criteria for theoretical notions from the philosophy of science. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to the topic `concept learning' and highlights its importance as a research topic in the study of the mind. I argue that a mechanistic understanding of the shape of concept learning is best suited to explain the phenomena, in line with the recent resurgence of mechanism-based explanation in the philosophy of mind. As the main challenge to the idea that concepts can be learnt, I proceed to set up Fodor's challenge for concept learning in Chapter 2. This challenge is the idea that concepts cannot be learnt given the logically possible mechanisms of concept learning. I lay out the argumentative structure and background assumptions that support Fodor's argument, and propose to scrutinise his empirically based premise most closely in my thesis: this empirically based premise is that the only possible mechanism of concept learning is the process of forming and testing hypotheses. As replies to Fodor's challenge, I discuss Perceptual Learning (R. Goldstone), Perceptual Meaning Analysis (J. Mandler), Quinean Bootstrapping (S. Carey), pattern-governed learning (W. Sellars), joint-attentional learning (M. Tomasello), and the Syndrome-Based Sustaining Mechanism Model (E. Margolis and S. Laurence). I argue that almost every mechanism I discuss has some leverage against Fodors argument, suggesting that there may be a wide variety of non-hypothesis-based concept-learning mechanisms. The final chapter of my thesis, Chapter 7, takes a step back and reviews the fate of the notion of concept learning in light of the diverse set of learning mechanisms brought up in my thesis. My first and main worry is that it is questionable whether the previously discussed mechanisms of concept learning share many scientifically relevant properties that would justify seeing them as instances of the natural kind 'concept learning mechanism'. I argue that the substantiation of this worry would necessitate the elimination of 'concept learning' and 'concept-learning mechanism' as terms of the cognitive sciences. The chapter lays out the argumentative structure on which Concept Learning Eliminativism (CLE) rests, along with a discussion of questions about natural kinds and pragmatics in theory construction. This is inspired by Edouard Machery's argument for the elimination of 'concept', but independent of Machery's own project. With this in place, I go on to give a conclusive argument that supports CLE, based on the claims that 'concept learning' is not a natural kind and that there are pragmatic advantages to eliminating 'concept learning'. In this final chapter, I also raise pragmatic considerations that support the argument for CLE, and propose new research directions that could pro t from the eliminativist position.

This dissertation explores women’s participation and engagement in literacy courses from an identity perspective within the broader context of women’s life stories and the socio-cultural, economic and institutional contexts within which the courses take place. The approach I develop rests on a combination of literacy, discourse and identity theories. It draws on the social theory of literacy to show how women’s valuations of literacy and education contributed to the construction of the subject positions they attempted to enter through their participation in literacy courses. Drawing on Norman Fairclough’s understanding of discourse, I focus on the link between identity processes and the discourses and socio-political structures which are understood to be in a dialectical relationship with each other. I draw on feminist theories of self and subjectivity to understand how women attempted to change aspects of their selves created by the interplay of their social and material circumstances, their agency, and specific life trajectories. In Turkey, the majority of the participants in the literacy courses are women. The state-funded People’s Education Centres (PEC), with their extended network, attract the majority of the participants. Adult literacy programmes are organised as Level 1 and Level 2 by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) and these two levels of adult literacy and basic education courses in Turkey are offered under the monitoring and inspection of said Ministry. I chose for the sites of my research two PEC literacy courses in disadvantaged areas of Istanbul where the occasional shanty house coexists with haphazardly-built apartment buildings. Methodologically, my study has an ethnographic approach to feminist discourse analysis. I observed one Level 2 literacy course at each centre over the course of four months. I had repeated interviews and conversations with seven women participants at Akasya PEC and four women participants at Lale PEC. Fieldnotes and interview transcriptions of more structured interviews constituted the major body of my data. The study shows that women’s accounts of their participation in the courses were underlined by discourses of formal education and literacy. These discourses have a prominent role in the official policy documents. However, the dissertation argues that the significance of the discourses of formal education and literacy was equally rooted in women’s attempts to redress, through their participation in the courses, some of the structural and institutional injustices they experienced as girl-children. These injustices made it difficult for my participants to access most of the prestigious literacy practices, knowledge and associated identities. The study highlights the meanings of the subject position of the schooled person which women attempted to take on through their participation. It also brings to the fore ways in which the discourses of formal education and literacy and the subject position of the schooled person were underpinned by socio-political structures such as gender, social class, ethnicity, rural-urban migration and the extent of poverty individual women lived in. It reveals women’s persistent attempts to access and continue the courses within the constraints of bureaucratic hurdles and socio-economic hardship and responsibilities. The study demonstrates how women “took hold” of the dominant literacy practices and power relations they found in the literacy classrooms. It shows the ways in which women aligned themselves with the schooled literacy practices and at times challenged the dominant literacy practices and power relations they found in the classroom. The study shows that women’s understanding of the value they found in education changed as a result of their educational experiences. It shows that women found joy in learning things they found both challenging and important. These findings contribute to discussions on the symbolic value of education and school literacy practices for literacy learners by exploring the roots of this symbolic importance in women’s life stories. The study demonstrates the importance of both schooled literacy practices and the broader value of education and the emerging specific uses of literacy in everyday life. The findings challenge the portrayal of literacy learners in policy documents and most of the literature in Turkey which assume that their most important literacy need is access to school literacy practices. The findings also challenge the deficit view of literacy learners in policy documents which undermines their social and economic capabilities. Thus the study extends understanding of what is considered as literacy that has the potential to improve one’s material and social conditions by exploring the perspectives of different women who lived in differing levels of poverty and socio-economic obligations. It also contributes to arguments on the reasons of finding value in education by showing the ways in which women found joy in learning in formal literacy classrooms as a result of their educational experiences.

An Analysis of Interreg Projects across Europe A critical examination on the role of networks and the implementation of EU concepts The intention of this thesis project was to get a deeper insight into the effect the European Union can have in the regions of Europe, in particular through the workings of the Interreg program. From study the theoretical concepts, we wished to discover how these concepts were practically implemented through different projects and partnerships. Due to the informal nature of the European Union spatial planning, we also wished to understand the importance that networks play in the projects and the effect they have on the activities of the project partnerships. We decided that the best way to study this subject was through a comparison of two contrasting projects in different parts of Europe but that deal with similar concepts. The theoretical perspective we took to approaching the subject matter, was to include much of the theory and ideas on the workings of networks and the potential results they can bring. In particularly we focused upon networks in the context of the transfer of knowledge, and their importance for creating the environment for such transfer to occur, and the many elements that can support or hinder .Furthermore we looked at much of the theory behind the concepts that the EU promotes, such as Sustainability, the different models that can be followed, as well the suggested conflict between Cohesion and Competitiveness. For the comparison we chose two contrasting projects; - BalticMaster Interreg IIIB based in Karlskrona, Sweden, involving 40 partners - EARD Interreg IIIC based in Brandenburg, Germany, involving 10 partners Both projects were established under the intention of Sustainable Development in their respective regions. One based on protecting the Baltic Sea from oil spillages, and the second aimed at sustainable development of regions around airports. The comparisons in terms of networks were quite striking; one the one hand, BalticMaster was largely based on pre-existing networks between the different regions of the Baltic Sea and had an emphasis on partner interaction. On the other hand, EARD was a brand new project partnership with no history of collaboration between the regions and interaction of the partners was rare. In terms of EU concepts, there were similarities as both projects took a bottom up approach to the broad concepts and connected this concepts to their work and aims in different ways to make them relevant. Interestingly, those project participants that were interviewed shared a lack of understanding of some the concepts before undertaking the project, some by their own admission, even though it was the main theme of their project. Conclusions that could be drawn from the work included the interaction of concepts and networks, and how each can affect each other. EU concepts can form new partnerships and networks because common goals can be shared in new partnership under the broad concepts. Furthermore, strong networks can assist the concrete implementation of these broad concepts and assist in the understanding of these concepts across the project partnership. In conclusion, we can see that there are many advantages to the flexibility of the EU broad concepts and how Interreg allows them to be interpreted, but there are also many problems in trying to insure that what is funded by Interreg is faithful to the intent of those broad concepts. The challenge is how to strike a balance between the necessary flexibility and insuring the outcomes are in line with the intent.

Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis is a proposed methodology for attributing correct application conditions, or 'meanings', to concepts. This methodology involves two stages: first, we seek an empirical understanding of the ways in which usage of a given concept has regularly delivered benefits, and, second, we seek an explication of that concept which is optimally capable of delivering benefits in these ways. Such an explication captures the 'pragmatic meaning' of a given concept. Chapters 1-3 articulate Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis and the notion of pragmatic meaning, and show how these are related to other philosophical methodologies and accounts of concept-meaning.Chapter 4 uses a 'bootstrapping argument' to establish that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis has two important virtues. The first phase of this argument establishes that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis has normative authority - it reveals explications that we have practical and epistemic reason to adopt, whether we take these explications to be semantically revisionary or not. This normative authority licenses using Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis, in the second phase, to explicate our shared concept of concept-meaning. This yields the conclusion that we have epistemic reason to adopt the notion of pragmatic meaning as our explication of 'concept-meaning'. Having explicated our concept in this way, we see that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis also has descriptive authority - it is a semantically conservative tool that reveals concept-meaning, thus explicated.The initial presentation of the bootstrapping argument considers only one sort of work that our concept of concept-meaning does - helping to guide our application of other concepts. But this concept also regularly delivers benefits in a second way - by helping us to give good explanations for the behavior and behavioral success of various concept-users. Chapter 5 uses the normative authority of Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis to justify a particular account of how good explanations work. Chapter 6 draws upon this account to argue that, in order best to explain people's behavioral successes, we need an explication of concept-meaning that is closely related to the one presented in Chapter 4.Chapter 7 considers several objections and hard cases, and argues that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis weathers these storms in good shape.

Biological evolution can be described as a unifying concept in biology. A thorough understanding of evolution is thus important to fully understand different areas of biology. However, learning the concepts of evolution has proven difficult, both to students and teachers. During the last decade, the notion of threshold concepts in learning has emerged. Passing the threshold or grasping the threshold concept is a transformative process, thought to be irreversible and has been described as passing a portal to new areas of understanding. Threshold concepts of importance to understanding evolution has been suggested to be time, spatial scale, complexity, randomness and probability. A hypothesis is therefore that facilitating understanding of those threshold concepts also will lead to a greater understanding of evolutionary mechanisms. Visualisations in science communication and learning has gained increased interest and animations as a form of visualisations has proven to facilitate learning in some situations. Since many (threshoid) concepts in evolution are untangible, such as deep time, small scale (micro and sub micro scale) animations could be a way to make those concepts more tangible for learners. In order to explore the potential for animations in learning evolution by making threshold concepts more tangible an interactive animation was designed and tested with upper secondary students in the course Biology 1. The subject of the animation was development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Learning effect was measured as differences in pre and post test scores on a selection of previously used concept questions from the literature, the concept inventory of natural selection (CINS). Open ended questions were also used as well as interview sessions, to gain more insight to the eventual effects of the animation. No statiscally significant improvement in the CINS scores could be observed in total, however improvement on a specific question category (biotic potential) could be observed. The number of misconceptions on evolution seemed unaffected after animation. Indications of conceptual conflicts could also be observed after the animation, indicating a potential for conceptual change with future revisions of the animation.

Mind and World is written in a Wittgensteinian spirit. It is a work whose aim is to address a specific philosophical discomfort. John McDowell diagnoses a tension between the urge for what he describes as 'minimal empiricism' and its apparent impossibility. Minimal empiricism is defined as the idea that constraint is exercised on our thought by the world through experience. In his view, minimal empiricism stands in tension with the fact that conceptually unstructured impressions can have no rational bearing on our beliefs and judgements. This tension forces an oscillation between two equally unattractive positions: the Myth of the Given and coherentism. McDowell's aim is to dissolve this apparent tension which he sees as resting on the more basic assumption of a dualism between reason and nature. Through his invocation of 'second nature' he aims to present a naturalised Platonism in which man's occupation of the space of reasons can be seen as an aspect of his animal nature, not as something essentially alien to us. The thesis starts by outlining McDowell's attempt to escape the oscillation he detects between the Myth of the Given and coherentism. In Chapter One, the content of Mind and World is briefly laid out. The underlying dualism of reason and nature on which the oscillation is said to rest is considered and the resources he employs in his attempt to escape it discussed. These resources include his metaphysical rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding. The second chapter reinforces the first by isolating and defining a number of key concepts in McDowell's picture. The material discussed here is largely drawn from works other than Mind and World. Three key assumptions are isolated: the rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding, the de re nature of singular thought and the fully conceptual nature of experience. These assumptions are shown to play a pivotal role in his philosophy by considering his work on Aristotle and Descartes. McDowell aims to provide a 'therapeutic dissolution' of the oscillation between the Myth of the Given and coherentism. In order to be successful it must meet (at least) three criteria which emerge from his writings. These criteria are discussed alongside attempts by other philosophers to escape the oscillation that McDowell detects. The third chapter develops, in broad outline, the argument of the thesis. Two lines of thought are traced from the three central elements of McDowell's view identified in the second chapter. The first stems from his rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding, whilst the second arises from the object-dependence of singular thought. The picture in Mind and World incorporates what Julian Dodd has termed a 'modest identity theory of truth'. Put simply, an identity theory states that facts are true propositions, and the theory is modest if facts are taken to be composed of senses. McDowell himself explicitly accepts that his picture is committed to a modest identity theory, though its exact nature is unclear from his writings. McDowell's semantic externalism appears to provide an account in which singular senses are object-dependent. Thoughts are composed of these senses, and so are dependent on objects in the world for their content. One would expect that facts too (which are true possible thoughts) would be object-dependent. After all they are composed of object-dependent entities, namely senses. Such a position encourages the idea that objects are explanatorily independent of facts. In Kit Fine's terminology, propositions about objects 'ground' propositions about senses. However, this idea stands in tension with McDowell's rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding. He claims that the world is composed of facts and that reality does not exist beyond the conceptual realm. Such a position suggests that objects exist only derivatively from their role in facts: "objects figure in the world by figuring in facts, which are true thinkables" [McDowell (1999a) p94. My italics]. In other words, that propositions about facts 'ground' propositions about objects. Since 'grounding' is an asymmetric notion, there is a tension in McDowell's picture which needs to be resolved. Chapter Four examines McDowell's Kantian account of objects. Objects are derived from facts. McDowell is not committed to a substantial semantic externalism in which, when we investigate whether our terms have a reference, we look at the world to see whether there is an object corresponding to our sense of the term. Instead, McDowell's semantic externalism is truistic: once a sense appears in a fact, no further questions can be asked about the reference of the term. The sense's figuring in a true possible thought ensures that there is a reference. There can be no sense without reference because objects are derived from facts (which are true possible thoughts). The conception of objects that McDowell offers, however, fails to sustain important common-sense realist intuitions. Looked at as an account of empirical objects (rather than formal objects, such as mathematical ones), there are deficiencies which can be brought out. His account can be challenged on the grounds that it is unable to allow that sapient and sentient environments have a common ontology. The discussion is framed as a dialogue between a common-sense realist and a McDowellian thinker. This provides for responses to the reasoning to be considered at every appropriate point. These responses are, in the end, not sufficient to allow his account to meet the realist intuitions. He has therefore failed to provide an account based on mere reminders of common-sense truisms. His account of objects is revisionary and must be either replaced or defended by positive arguments. The quietist's claim that only negative arguments are needed to defend his position is undermined once the position abandons common-sense realism. In Chapter Five the focus shifts back to the overall argument laid out in Chapter Three. It might be thought that McDowelPs particular conception of objects is a peripheral error. If this were the case, since his basic account has not been shown to abandon common-sense realism, his revisionary conception of objects could simply be dropped. This line of thought is countered. I present the arguments of two commentators to show the strength of my objection. Mark Sainsbury argues that McDowell should not maintain a substantial form of semantic externalism if he stands firm to his rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding. Ruth Millikan argues that McDowelPs commitment to a substantial form of semantic externalism stands in tension with his account of sense, which is a central element in his rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding. The tension which concerns these commentators needs to be addressed. The conception of objects considered in Chapter Four is required. It provides McDowell's explanation of how his rejection of sideways-on accounts of understanding is consistent with his semantic externalism. The final chapter concludes the argument of the thesis. It is shown that McDowell's theory (as it stands) fails to meet his therapeutic aspirations. In particular he has failed to meet two of the three therapeutic requirements attributed to him in Chapter Two. His conception of objects is revisionary and his picture does not avoid the appearance of an insurmountable problem in world-directed thoughts. Its failure to provide for common-sense realism means that he can no longer avail himself of the quietist strategy which disavows the need to provide positive arguments for its conclusions. Therapeutic dissatisfaction with his picture is the result. The argument of this thesis is then located within a broader philosophical landscape.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

This study focuses on the ten most valued groups on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange and their reported results for the period of 2009-2015. The purpose of the study was to investigate correlation between reported results on different levels and the progress of the share prices. Using Pearson’s correlation coefficient I was able to compare operating profit, net result and other comprehensive income to one another. I found that operating profit and net result came very close to each other, whilst other comprehensive income fell behind.  As it seems, share prices are affected by a numerous of variables, not only by reported results and earnings.

L’approche d’apprentissage par problèmes (APP) a vu le jour, dans sa forme contemporaine, à la Faculté de médecine de l’Université MacMaster en Ontario (Canada) à la fin des années 1960. Très rapidement cette nouvelle approche pédagogique active, centrée sur l’étudiant et basée sur les problèmes biomédicaux, va être adoptée par de nombreuses facultés de médecine de par le monde et gagner d’autres disciplines. Cependant, malgré ce succès apparent, l’APP est aussi une approche controversée, notamment en éducation médicale, où elle a été accusée de favoriser un apprentissage superficiel. Par ailleurs, les étudiants formés par cette approche réussiraient moins bien que les autres aux tests évaluant l’acquisition des concepts scientifiques de base, et il n’a jamais été prouvé que les médecins formés par l’APP seraient meilleurs que les autres. Pour mieux comprendre ces résultats, la présente recherche a voulu explorer l’apprentissage de ces concepts scientifiques, en tant que processus de construction, chez des étudiants formés par l’APP, à la Faculté de médecine de l’Université de Montréal, en nous appuyant sur le cadre théorique socioconstructivisme de Vygotski. Pour cet auteur, la formation des concepts est un processus complexe de construction de sens, en plusieurs étapes, qui ne peut se concevoir que dans le cadre d’une résolution de problèmes. Nous avons réalisé une étude de cas, multicas, intrasite, les cas étant deux groupes de neuf étudiants en médecine avec leur tuteur, que nous avons suivi pendant une session complète de la mi-novembre à la mi-décembre 2007. Deux grands objectifs étaient poursuivis: premièrement, fournir des analyses détaillées et des matériaux réflectifs et théoriques susceptibles de rendre compte du phénomène de construction des concepts scientifiques de base par des étudiants en médecine dans le contexte de l’APP. Deuxièmement, explorer, les approches de travail personnel des étudiants, lors de la phase de travail individuel, afin de répondre à la question de recherche suivante : Comment la dynamique pédagogique de l’APP en médecine permet-elle de rendre compte de l’apprentissage des concepts scientifiques de base? Il s’agissait d’une étude qualitative et les données ont été recueillies par différents moyens : observation non participante et enregistrement vidéo des tutoriaux d’APP, interview semi-structuré des étudiants, discussion avec les tuteurs et consultation de leurs manuels, puis traitées par diverses opérations: transcription des enregistrements, regroupement, classification. L’analyse a porté sur des collections de verbatim issus des transcriptions, sur le suivi de la construction des concepts à travers le temps et les sessions, sur le role du tuteur pour aider au développement de ces concepts Les analyses suggèrent que l’approche d’APP est, en général, bien accueillie, et les débats sont soutenus, avec en moyenne entre trois et quatre échanges par minute. Par rapport au premier objectif, nous avons effectivement fourni des explications détaillées sur la dynamique de construction des concepts qui s'étend lors des trois phases de l'APP, à savoir la phase aller, la phase de recherche individuelle et la phase retour. Pour chaque cas étudié, nous avons mis en évidence les représentations conceptuelles initiales à la phase aller, co-constructions des étudiants, sous la guidance du tuteur et nous avons suivi la transformation de ces concepts spontanés naïfs, lors des discussions de la phase retour. Le choix du cadre théorique socio constructiviste de Vygotski nous a permis de réfléchir sur le rôle de médiation joué par les composantes du système interactif de l'APP, que nous avons considéré comme une zone proximale de développement (ZPD) au sens élargi, qui sont le problème, le tuteur, l'étudiant et ses pairs, les ressources, notamment l'artefact graphique carte conceptuelle utilisée de façon intensive lors des tutoriaux aller et retour, pour arriver à la construction des concepts scientifiques. Notre recherche a montré qu'en revenant de leurs recherches, les étudiants avaient trois genres de représentations conceptuelles: des concepts corrects, des concepts incomplets et des concepts erronés. Il faut donc que les concepts scientifiques théoriques soient à leur tour confrontés au problème concret, dans l'interaction sociale pour une validation des attributs qui les caractérisent. Dans cette interaction, le tuteur joue un rôle clé complexe de facilitateur, de médiateur, essentiellement par le langage. L'analyse thématique de ses interventions a permis d'en distinguer cinq types: la gestion du groupe, l'argumentation, les questions de différents types, le modelling et les conclusions. Nous avons montré le lien entre les questions du tuteur et le type de réponses des étudiants, pour recommander un meilleur équilibre entre les différents types de questions. Les étudiants, également par les échanges verbaux, mais aussi par la construction collective des cartes conceptuelles initiales et définitives, participent à une co-construction de ces concepts. L'analyse de leurs interactions nous a permis de relever différentes fonctions du langage, pour souligner l'intérêt des interactions argumentatives, marqueurs d'un travail collaboratif en profondeur pour la co-construction des concepts Nous avons aussi montré l'intérêt des cartes conceptuelles non seulement pour visualiser les concepts, mais aussi en tant qu'artefact, outil de médiation psychique à double fonction communicative et sémiotique. Concernant le second objectif, l’exploration du travail personnel des étudiants, on constate que les étudiants de première année font un travail plus approfondi de recherche, et utilisent plus souvent des stratégies de lecture plus efficaces que leurs collègues de deuxième année. Ceux-ci se contentent, en général, des ouvrages de référence, font de simples lectures et s’appuient beaucoup sur les résumés faits par leurs prédécesseurs. Le recours aux ouvrages de référence essentiellement comme source d'information apporte une certaine pauvreté au débat à la phase retour avec peu d'échanges de type argumentatif, témoins d'un travail profond. Ainsi donc, par tout ce soutien qu'elle permet d'apporter aux étudiants pour la construction de leurs connaissances, pour le type d'apprentissage qu'elle offre, l’APP reste une approche unique, digne d’intérêt. Cependant, elle nécessite d'être améliorée par des interventions au niveau du tuteur et des étudiants. / The Problem-based learning (PBL) approach was developed, in its contemporary form, at the Faculty of Medicine, of MacMaster University in Ontario (Canada) in the late 1960s. Very quickly, this new active pedagogical approach, student-centered and based on biomedical problems, will be adopted by many medical schools around the world and used also in other disciplines. Despite its apparent success, however, PBL is also a controversial approach, particularly in medical education, where it has been blamed for promoting superficial learning. Furthermore, it has been documented that students trained by this approach, tend to be less successful at tests assessing the acquisition of basic scientific concepts.To what degree doctors trained by PBL excel in their work as doctors, remains to be determined as well. To better understand these results, this study sought to explore further the construction of scientific concepts, in the context of PBL, at the Faculty of Medicine, of Université de Montréal. The study is grounded in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and its inherent treatment of concepts’ formation as a complex construction process of meaning. We conducted a case study, multiple cases in the same site, the cases being two groups of nine medical students with their tutor that we followed during a full session, from mid-November to mid-December 2007. Two major objectives guided the study: First, we sought to offer a detailed study of the process of meaning making and development of scientific concepts by medical students in the context of PBL. Second, we studied students’ individual work that followed initial tutor mediated discussion of the case, and preceded the return session. We tried to answer to the following research question: How do the dynamics of PBL in medicine support students’construction of scientific concepts? The study was qualitative in nature, and data were collected through various means: no participant observation, video recordings of PBL tutorial sessions, semi-structured interviews of students, discussion with tutors and the consultation of their manuals. Analysis entailed the verbatim transcriptions of the observed problem solving sessions and interviews, and in turn inductive data analysis of concept formation accross time and over session. Through the grouping and classification of data and study of evolution of concepts over time, insights could be gathered into students’development of scientific concepts and the tutor’s role in this construction. Analysis suggests that PBL approach is generally well received, and discussions are lively, with an average of three to four exchanges per minute. Considering the first goal, we offered detailed explanations of the dynamics of concepts’ building that extends in all three phases of the PBL, namely the initial phase, the individual student research phase and the return phase. For each case studied, we highlighted the initial conceptual representations, resulting of students’ interactions, under the guidance of the tutor, and followed their transformation, through discussions at return phase. The choice of social constructivist theoretical framework of Vygotsky has allowed us to reflect on the mediation role played by components of the interactive system of PBL, that we considered as a zone of proximal development (ZPD) in a broader sense, and which are the problem, the tutor, the student and his peers, resources, including graphics artifact conceptual map, used extensively in all tutorials, to support the construction of scientific concepts. Our research has shown that students developed three kinds of conceptual representations: correct concepts, incomplete concepts and misconceptions, returning from their research. So, it is necessary, through social interaction, that attributes of scientific theoretical concepts be validated by facing the practical problem. In this interaction the tutor plays a key complex role of facilitator, mediator, mainly through language. Thematic analysis of his interventions helped to distinguish five themes: group management, arguments, questions of different types, modeling and conclusions. We have shown the link between tutor’s questions and the type of student responses, to recommend a better balance between different types of tutor’s questions. Students, also by verbal exchanges and by the collective construction of initial and final concept maps participate in the co-construction of these concepts. Analysis of their interactions enabled us to identify different functions of language, to emphasize the importance of argumentative interactions, markers of in depth collaborative work. We also showed interest of concept maps not only to visualize the concepts, but also as artifacts and tools of psychic mediation that play both, communicative and semiotics functions, in the development of scientifically sound concepts. Regarding the second objective, the exploration of students’ personal work, we found that first year students pursued a more thorough search, and relied on more effective reading strategies than their second year colleagues. These second year students relied more on reference books, reading simply and relying heavily on the summaries made by their predecessors, which is suggestive of a more superficial learning. Those students also, relied more on tutor. By using textbooks essentially as information source, debates were marked by cognitive low level exchanges, leading to little argumentative exchange and lack of deep and engaging collaborative work. Overall, however, the research suggests PBL is a unique, worthwhile pedagogical approach, offering students with opportunities to construct new conceptual understandings of complex medical concepts with help of a team within the zone of proximal development. But it requires to be improved by interventions concerning both tutors and students.

The ecological design considerations are focusing on the built environment and the living process of the building. It considering the environment impact in designing building, and integrating ecological responsive design methods. While the traditional Chinese building shared the same design philosophy. Our ancestors are really concerning the connection between their living space with the broader environment, not only in the time they occupying the building, but also when they construct and demolish it. They use the word "harmony" to describe this relationship with the environment, and consider it as the high-quality pursuit of life. Wooden building has been a major building type in China for thousands of years, however, over 40 thousand traditional Chinese building has been demolished in the past 30 years, most of them are wooden buildings. Since the steel, concrete and other emerging materials has become the major materials for the modern building, wooden building seems to step down from the stage of history. Not until in recent years, wooden building come into people’s view again, it’s increasingly appeared in all over the world and take part in a major role in mordent architecture. Since the wood is a sustainable and renewable building material, and a good carbon sink, it is more environmental friendly than steel, concrete or some other building materials. The wooden building has a great potential to discover its ecological benefits and as a carrier of traditional Chinese culture. In seeking the development of wood as a building material, and the future of sustainable buildings, I integrate the theory with practice that human population is growing rapidly, the high-rise wooden building might be a best solution for this quest. I expect to explore the application of wood in high rise building’s envelope and structure, integrate the wood with other material to expand its performance, emotionally and reality connect the traditional Chinese culture and people’s memory of the land to the present day.