Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T16:57:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_renata_martins_fortes.pdf: 4814619 bytes, checksum: 083ef392c333e2a2c8c9692db0ed11c1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-05-10 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This study aims to investigate the impact of a robotic environment on the strategies and representations used by students in the interpretation of distance-time graphs. It adopted a methodology based on Design Experiments (Kelly and Lesh, 2000), that is a cyclical process of reflections upon learning and teaching. A constructionist conception, following Seymour Papert (1994), informed the design of the research activities, which were intended to involve students in the creation of innovative solution strategies in the face of challenging problems. Difficulties related to the interpretation of graphs as described in the researches of Beichner (1994), Murphy (1999) and Brown and Crowder (2006) were identified, along with conflicts, such as those discussed by Arzarello e Robutti (2004), Parnafes e Disessa (2004) e Simpson, Hoyles e Noss (2006), experienced within computational environments. For the research activities, we used robotic materials of LEGO Education and the software Robolab was used by students to program the LEGO models they constructed. The activities were realized with one class of 8th grade middle-school students and one class of students from the 1st year of high school in a private school in the city of São Bernardo do Campo in the state of São Paulo. Analyses indicated that the difficulties related to the interpretation of graphs raised in other studies also emerge when students interact in a robotic environment. However, the results also suggest that work with robots, the opportunities to make connections between diverse mathematical representations. Especially the activities involving the construction of their own velocity radar contributed to the overcoming of some of these difficulties, particular as far as the students from the 1st year of high school were concerned / Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo investigar o impacto de um ambiente robótico nas estratégias e representações utilizadas por estudantes na interpretação de gráficos apresentando relações entre distância, tempo e velocidade. Como metodologia de pesquisa utilizamos Design Experiments de Kelly e Lesh (2000), isto é, um processo cíclico das reflexões acerca do ensinar e do aprender. Para o desenvolvimento das atividades buscamos referência na concepção construcionista de Seymour Papert (1994), em que o professor estimula os alunos a criarem soluções inovadoras, a partir de suas conjecturas por meio de desafios. Analisamos as dificuldades quanto à interpretação de gráficos apontadas em diversas pesquisas como Beichner (1994), Murphy (1999) e Brown e Crowder (2006) e também as dificuldades encontradas em ambientes computacionais, tendo como referência Arzarello e Robutti (2004), Parnafes e Disessa (2004) e Simpson, Hoyles e Noss (2006). Optamos por utilizar os materiais de robótica da LEGO Education e o software Robolab 2.0 para programar os modelos construídos. As atividades foram aplicadas em uma turma de alunos da 8ª série do Ensino Fundamental e outra do 1º ano do Ensino Médio, de uma escola privada localizada na cidade de São Bernardo do Campo no estado de São Paulo. Segundo nossas análises, as dificuldades envolvidas na interpretação de gráficos apontadas nas pesquisas anteriores também emergem quando os alunos interagem num ambiente robótico, mas nossos resultados indicam que o trabalho com robôs proporciona oportunidades para criar conexões entre diversas representações. Em especial, a atividade envolvendo a construção de um radar para medir a velocidade contribuiu para a superação das dificuldades, particularmente para os alunos do 1º ano do Ensino Médio

This thesis is an explorative, design-based research study towards the expressive potential of using actuators as design materials. Over three distinct phases of experimentation –all with their own particular aim– various sketches are developed that showcase different expressive qualities. These sketches consist of a variety of kitchen devices that are expanded with actuators. These actuators do not necessarily add to the functionality of the device, but rather to its expressiveness. The development of and reasoning for the sketches is clarified in an extensive way to clearly present all the insights that are gained throughout the design process. In the end, the sketches are discussed and reflected upon on the basis of the process-insights and relevant design theories.

This study investigated the use of storytelling in order to support children's emergent literacy in Malawi's resource deprived Community Based Childcare Centers (CBCCs). It focused on the professional development of four caregivers from four CBCCs following a Formative and Design Experiment model, and using qualitative methods of inquiry. The professional development on storytelling was designed following an informative two-week observation period. Following the observation, a daylong professional development was organized to train the caregivers. In the seven-week intervention period that followed the professional development, the main focus of the study was on the perceptions of the caregivers about their participation in a professional development on storytelling in CBCCs, their responses to using storytelling, and their perceptions about children's responses to using storytelling in CBCCs. Data that informed the study comprised caregivers' reflective notes in their journals, individual caregiver weekly interviews, weekly focus group discussions, and research reflective field notes that were collected over seven weeks after the professional development. Findings suggested that the four caregivers found the professional development beneficial to them all. However, out of the four caregivers, three of them and their respective children demonstrated benefit from storytelling, growth in knowledge and development of storytelling skills. The three caregivers reported becoming more connected with the children, understood them better, found storytelling to be a teaching approach, and felt that their teaching was made easier and enjoyable. The children taught by these three caregivers enjoyed their learning and even resourced stories from their communities. They too, became storytellers. In the end, the caregivers felt that they were ready to share their experiences with other caregivers in Zomba District in Malawi. These findings suggest that storytelling could be used in support of emergent literacy at a larger scale, as well as serve as springboard for pedagogical training of the caregivers culminating in the development of locally available teaching and learning resources in the Malawian CBCC. / Ph. D.

This constructive design research dissertation aims to understand how design can be used as part of a composite research approach to generate knowledge about how complex phenomena are composed through their interactions and relationships with various actors, both human and non-human. It has done this by investigating a single phenomenon, the patient experience of radiotherapy. Through the purposeful selection and application of methods, theories, and existing research from design, nursing, and STS, this thesis utilizes a mixed-method approach comprised of qualitative, quantitative methods, and design experimentation, across multiple research sites and patient populations, in three research projects – PERT, DUMBO, and POIS – to generate rich and layered knowledge of the patient experience. Experience prototypes are used to challenge, through intervention or provocation, the relationships between the various radiotherapy actors identified through the empirical methods. Together, the research generated in PERT, DUMBO, and POIS construct a map of the networked, interdependent actors which shape the patient’s emotional experience of radiotherapy: the staff, technology, information, environment, and institutions. It also calls attention to the problematic relationship between radiotherapy patients and the technologies used to treat them, which can lead to anxiety, worry, and fear. This thesis offers contributions related to both improving patient experience and designing for complex social issues. First, this research suggests that individuals, other than primary users, need to be acknowledged in the design of medical technologies. It proposes calling attention to patients by naming them as interactors in their relationships with the aforementioned technologies, removing them from the role of implicated actor. Second, this thesis problematizes treating the actors within a network as independent entities, which medical research and user-centered design often does, and calls for a new type of design practice which attends to these networked relationships. Third, this thesis suggests two ways in which design research practice should be shifted methodologically if it wants to engage with and design for complex social issues like patient experience; widening the researcher’s perspective on the issue through the use of a composite methodology, and having the researcher maintain this scope by remaining closely connected to their research context. The implications of this work concern how design research, design education, and design practice might shift their approaches to fully acknowledge and attend to the complexity of systems like healthcare.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-09-18T12:29:42Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Paula Teles de Oliveira.pdf: 1429586 bytes, checksum: 83e9261fc458586c93c9fe22bebe556c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-18T12:29:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Paula Teles de Oliveira.pdf: 1429586 bytes, checksum: 83e9261fc458586c93c9fe22bebe556c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-08-08 / In this research our aim is to investigate and evaluate a collection of data that will help understand the concept of the algebraic group, according to the question: What are the strength and limitations of a group of activities mentioned in examples and counterexamples in the algebraic structure group to generalize and formalize the context referred? It is possible to observe that this concept is organized through the following definitions: axiom and theories both containing examples and counterexamples. Our proposal consists on doing the opposite, meaning through examples and counterexamples it will be possible to study the concept involved. To start the research, we elaborated three activities, reorganized in four subgroups, which were elaborated in numeric and geometric exercises and fundamentals mentioned in Brousseau theories. We implemented the method of Design Experiments which helped us improve the activities, and thus evolve them with five individuals and subdivisions with two teams. This methodology has two perspectives: a prospective – that addresses a study of the activates proposed in the ways that will provide possible answers and further reflections - presenting an analysis of the answers and reflections obtained with the goal of meeting the proposed objective (the concepts of structure in the algebraic group). The people that took part in this research are students enrolled on the post-graduate of Mathematical Education. As a result, we point out as potentiality the movement between the phases of didactic situations in necessary concepts of the group algebraic structure identity element and associative property and also in relation to the worked examples as the reflection, composition of geometric transformations as an operation and when the same is closed in a given set and identity transformation as identity element in the set of geometric transformations. As limitations we observe that the phases of didactic situations did not occur in concepts such as binary and closed operation and the group algebraic structure. The activates done are not self-explanatory and thus needs to be clarified by individuals with the basic idea of element inverse, identity element, commutative and associative properties, composition of functions and symmetries in addition to the algebraic language / Nesta pesquisa nosso objetivo consiste em elaborar e analisar um conjunto de atividades para a constituição do conceito de estrutura algébrica grupo, direcionada pela questão: Quais são as potencialidades e limitações de um conjunto de atividades pautadas em exemplos e contraexemplos particulares de estrutura algébrica grupo para generalização e formalização do referido conceito? Observamos que esse conceito é organizado a partir de definições, axiomas, teorias, seguido de exemplos e contraexemplos. Nossa proposta consiste em fazermos uma inversão, ou seja, a partir de exemplos e contraexemplos estudarmos o conceito. Dessa forma, para iniciar os trabalhos de pesquisa, elaboramos três atividades, reorganizadas em quatro durante a pesquisa, que pautamos em exercícios numéricos e geométricos e fundamentamos teoricamente nas situações didáticas de Brousseau. Empregamos a metodologia Design Experiments, que nos permitiu aprimorar as atividades, e as desenvolvemos com cinco indivíduos, subdivididas em duas equipes. Essa metodologia envolve duas faces: uma prospectiva – que aborda um estudo das atividades propostas no sentido de fornecer possíveis respostas e resoluções, e outra reflexiva – que apresenta uma análise das respostas e resoluções obtidas com a finalidade de atingir o objetivo proposto (constituição do conceito de estrutura algébrica grupo). Os sujeitos de pesquisa, que compuseram as equipes, foram alunos matriculados no curso de pós-graduação em Educação Matemática. Como resultado, apontamos como potencialidade o movimento entre as fases das situações didáticas em conceitos necessários da estrutura algébrica grupo, elemento neutro e propriedade associativa e, ainda, exemplos trabalhados como reflexão, composição de transformações geométricas como uma operação, mesmo que seja fechada em um determinado conjunto, e transformação identidade como elemento neutro no conjunto das transformações geométricas. Em relação às limitações observamos que as fases das situações didáticas não ocorreram em conceitos como operação binária, fechada e a estrutura algébrica grupo. As atividades não são autoexplicativas e precisam ser desenvolvidas por indivíduos com ideias básicas de elemento inverso, elemento neutro, propriedades comutativa e associativa, composição de funções e simetrias, bem como a utilização de linguagem algébrica

Using elements of design experiment research and autoethnography, this action research project investigated how viewing learning as complex participation in a community of practice characterized by mathematical inquiry impacted my teaching practice in a grade 10 Applied Mathematics class in a rural Manitoba high school. This report of the research project describes and analyzes both my attempts to change my teaching practice by drawing on theories of learning mathematics as complex participation in a community of practice and the changes that resulted from these attempts. The analysis focuses on the characteristics of a community of practice characterized by mathematical inquiry, how I attempted to foster such a community, what challenges I faced when I changed my teaching practice in this way, and how insights from this practitioner research project can inform the teaching of mathematics as well as theorizing about the learning of mathematics.

Online courses of distance learning programmes at universities are designed considering the characteristics and needs of their adult learners. Basically, there are two types of learners in an online course: individual learners and collaborative learners. Designing for learner satisfaction and learning effectiveness for both types of learners is challenging. In fact, previous research has noted that many online courses fail due to poor design. As a solution, researchers have identified instructional design principles that can guide the design of successful online courses. However, these principles lack detailed information to apply them in contexts different from where they had been identified. This consideration raises a question: how does one adapt the existing design principles to design online courses that promote both individual and collaborative learning, particularly in contexts where online courses are supposed to be conducted with minimal teacher support? In the present research, this question is addressed via two sub-research questions: (1) which course components and their design features can promote learners’ satisfaction, perceived learning, and learning effectiveness, and (2) which course components and their design features can stimulate inquiry-based learning and peer-teaching? The research was carried out in the field of educational design research with sets of students and instructional designers of a virtual learning environment prepared for a university-level degree programme in Sri Lanka. Referring to the findings of this research, the thesis discusses how to design online courses that promote both individual and collaborative learning. Further, based on the findings, the thesis presents a set of design principles and guidelines to promote both individual and collaborative learning in online courses that are on information technology related subjects and prepared for distance learning programmes. / SIDA Funded National e-Learning Centre Project at the University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka

Using elements of design experiment research and autoethnography, this action research project investigated how viewing learning as complex participation in a community of practice characterized by mathematical inquiry impacted my teaching practice in a grade 10 Applied Mathematics class in a rural Manitoba high school. This report of the research project describes and analyzes both my attempts to change my teaching practice by drawing on theories of learning mathematics as complex participation in a community of practice and the changes that resulted from these attempts. The analysis focuses on the characteristics of a community of practice characterized by mathematical inquiry, how I attempted to foster such a community, what challenges I faced when I changed my teaching practice in this way, and how insights from this practitioner research project can inform the teaching of mathematics as well as theorizing about the learning of mathematics.