O desenvolvimento comercial da internet possibilitou o surgimento de sistemas de informação que se apoiam no uso da world wide web como plataforma. Esses sistemas baseados na web (web-based systems) têm aplicações em diversas áreas e setores econômicos. No ramo educacional, eles têm sido aplicados como base para os processos de ensino e aprendizagem via computador (e-learning) e são, comumente, denominados de Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVA). Os AVAs podem ser utilizados tanto para o ensino exclusivamente a distância quanto como apoio ao ensino presencial. O presente trabalho tem como objeto de investigação justamente o emprego de ambientes virtuais como tecnologia de apoio ao ensino presencial tradicional dado em sala de aula em cursos de graduação do ensino superior. O crescente uso de AVAs para tal finalidade leva ao questionamento de quais são as dimensões e características de qualidade destes ambientes e como estas dimensões estão associadas com os seus efeitos, quais sejam, a satisfação, o uso e os benefícios percebidos pelos usuários de tais sistemas? Desta forma, o trabalho tem como objetivo identificar as dimensões de qualidade em AVAs, por meio do estabelecimento de um modelo teórico que evidencie quais são os atributos determinantes em relação à qualidade em ambientes virtuais de ensino e quais são os efeitos e os impactos individuais em torno dos usuários discentes. Para tanto, são realizadas duas pesquisas de campo. A primeira é descritiva-explicativa, de abordagem quantitativa, com o emprego de Modelagem de Equações Estruturais, como método de análise e delineamento da pesquisa. Esta pesquisa foi feita com discentes usuários de um ambiente virtual disponibilizado por uma IES e teve como objetivo a elaboração de um modelo de relações de qualidade em AVAs. A segunda pesquisa consiste em um estudo com abordagem essencialmente descritiva, que tem como objetivo classificar quais são as características de relevância nos AVAs, de acordo com o Modelo Kano de classificação de requisitos. Os principais resultados apontam que a qualidade da informação e a qualidade do sistema influenciam na satisfação e nos benefícios percebidos pelos usuários dos AVAs e que as características destas dimensões são consideradas mais significativas do que as funcionalidades disponíveis nos referidos sistemas. / The commercial development of the internet enabled the birth of information systems that rely on the use of the world wide web as a platform. These web-based systems have applications in various fields and economic sectors. In the education sector, they have been used as basis for computer teaching and learning processes (e-learning) and are commonly called Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). These VLEs can be used both for distance teaching exclusively and as support for students in traditional presential classes. This work investigates the virtual environments use as support technology for students in traditional classroom undergraduate courses in higher education. The growing use of VLEs for this purpose raises the following questions: what are the dimensions and quality characteristics of these environments and how are these dimensions associated with their effects, satisfaction, use, and net benefits perceived by users of such systems? Thus, the study aims to identify the VLEs quality dimensions, through the establishment of a theoretical model showing what the relevant VLE dimensions relating to education quality are and what the effects and individuals impacts are for user-learners. To this end, two researches were conducted. The first one was descriptive-explanatory, with a quantitative approach, using Structural Equation Modeling as analysis method and research design. This research was made with students that use a VLE and had the purpose to elaborate a VLE quality relationship model. The second study is essentially descriptive, and aims to classify which features are most relevant in VLEs, according to the Kano´s Model requirements classification. The main findings indicate that the information quality and system quality influence the satisfaction and net benefits perceived by VLEs users and characteristics of these dimensions are considered more important than the functionality features available in such systems.

Abstract This study focuses on the process of self-regulated learning by investigating in detail how learners engage in self-regulated and strategic learning when studying in g/nStudy learning environments. The study uses trace methods to enable recognition of temporal patterns in learners’ activity that can signal strategic and self-regulated learning. The study comprises three data sets. In each data set, g/nStudy technology was used to support and trace self-regulated learning. In the analysis, micro-analytical protocols along with qualitative approach were favoured to better understand the process of self-regulated and strategic learning in authentic classroom settings. The results suggested that the specific technological tools used to support strategic and self-regulated learning can also be used methodologically to investigate patterns emerging from students’ cognitive regulation activity. The advantage of designing specific tools to trace and support self-regulated learning also helps to interpret the way in which the learning patterns actually inform SRL theoretically and empirically. Depending on how the tools are used, they can signal the typical patterns existing in the learning processes of students or student groups. The learning patterns found in the students’ cognitive regulation activity varied in terms of how often the patterns emerged in their learning, how the patterns were composed and when the patterns were used. Moreover, there were intra-individual differences – firstly, in how students with different learning outcomes allocated their study tactic use, and secondly, how self-regulated learning was used in challenging learning situations perceived by students. These findings indicate log file traces can reveal differences in self-regulated learning between individuals and between groups of learners with similar characteristics based on the learning patterns they used. However, learning patterns obtained from log file traces can sometimes be complex rather than simple. Therefore, log file traces need to be combined with other situation-specific measurements to better understand how they might elucidate self-regulated learning in the learning context. / Tiivistelmä Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkitaan oppilaiden itsesäätöisen ja strategisen oppimisen ilmenemistä oppimisprosessin aikana. Tutkimuksessa hyödynnetään g/nStudy- oppimisympäristöä, jonka avulla on mahdollista tukea ja jäljittää oppimisen strategista toimintaa. g/nStudy-oppimisympäristö tallentaa lokidataa, joka on tarkkaa ajallista informaatiota siitä toiminnasta, jota oppilas tekee työskentelynsä aikana. Toisin sanoen, lokidatasta on mahdollista jäljittää ne tiedot, jotka reflektoivat strategista – ja itsesäätöistä oppimista. Erityisenä mielenkiinnon kohteena oli selvittää miten lokidatasta voi löytää strategisia oppimisen toimintamalleja, ja miten nämä strategiset oppimisen toimintamallit vaihtelevat oppilaiden, oppilasryhmien ja erilaisten oppimisen tilanteiden aikana. Väitöstutkimus muodostuu kolmesta erillisestä tutkimusaineistosta. Jokaisessa kolmessa aineistossa on hyödynnetty g/nStudy-teknologian mahdollisuuksia tukea ja jäljittää itsesäätöistä oppimista. Tutkimusaineiston analyysissä hyödynnetään mikroanalyyttista lähestymistapaa sekä laadullista tutkimusotetta. Tutkimuksen analyyttinen lähestymistapa antaa mahdollisuuden ymmärtää itsesäätöisen- ja strategisen oppimisen ilmenemistä aidossa oppimistilanteessa. Tutkimustulokset osoittavat, että oppimisympäristöön sisällytettyjä teknologisia työkaluja voidaan käyttää tukemaan itsesäätöistä ja strategista toimintaa. Sen lisäksi samoja työkaluja voidaan käyttää myös menetelmällisenä välineenä tutkittaessa itsesäätöistä – ja strategista toimintaa erilaisissa oppimistilanteissa. Tutkimus -tulokset osoittavat, että oppimisen strategiset toimintamallit vaihtelivat oppilaiden – ja oppimistilanteiden välillä. Oppimisen strategisissa toimintamalleissa oli myös laadullisia eroja sen suhteen, miten usein ne ilmenivät oppimisprosessin aikana ja mistä strategisista toiminnoista ne koostuivat. Johtopäätöksenä voi todeta, että lokidatan käyttäminen tutkimusmenetelmänä edesauttaa paljastamaan opiskelun strategisia toimintamalleja oppilaiden – ja oppilasryhmien välillä. Tutkimuksen perusteella voidaan todeta, että strategiset toimintamallit voivat olla hyvinkin monimuotoisia. On tärkeää tunnistaa, missä tilanteissa ja milloin näitä toimintamalleja käytetään ja erityisesti mikä on niiden vaikutus oppimisen laatuun.

Pupils from a low SES differ in their development within the same school context. It is argued that the mechanisms through which education and the school environment as a whole can contribute to the successful development of children from a low SES should be identified and mapped. Therefore a focus on the mechanisms that lead to children with a low SES succeeding, in addition to discussing the reasons for these children not succeeding is proposed. The present research is drawn upon bio-ecological and symbolic interactionist theories of human development in an effort to understand resilience as involving person-context transactions. Specifically, the resilience of adolescents in the school context is studied as a joint function of personal characteristics and social contextual affordances that either promote or thwart the development of person-level, resilient-enhancing characteristics. The study employed inductive as well as deductive methods for knowledge development. Firstly, the concept of “resilience” was defined and operationalized in a Resilience Questionnaire (VVL). This questionnaire was validated on 399 middle-adolescents from five Educational Opportunity Schools in the Netherlands. Secondly, the inductive “Grounded Theory” method was followed with 21 middle-adolescents from three of the five Educational Opportunity Schools. In answer to the main question “How does the school environment contribute to the resilience of middle-adolescent students?”, the school environment can contribute to resilience through facilitating safety and good education. Resilient and Not-Resilient middle-adolescents differ in their dependence on the school environment for their access to these resilience-enhancing circumstances and factors. In relation to the first sub question, “What are resilient middle-adolescents’ perceptions of the contribution of the school environment to their resilience?”, the school environment contributes to the resilience of resilient middle-adolescents by challenging them (e.g with high expectations) and by offering opportunities to create constructive relationships with adults and fellow students in the school environment (e.g through informal conversations and through keeping order in the classroom). In answer to the second and third sub questions, “What are the perceptions of not-resilient middle-adolescents of the contribution of the school environment to their state of resilience?” and “How can the comparison between these two perceptions be explained?”, Not-Resilient middle-adolescents identify and utilise the services and potentially protective factors in the school enviroment less of their own accord than Resilient middle-adolescents do. The school environment can contribute to the resilience of Not-Resilient middle-adolescents by facilitating an overview, insight and positive future expectations in a very direct, controlling manner: An overview over risks for one’s own development and the presence of potential resources to assist one’s own development; insight into his or her own abilities to deal with possible risks; and positive future expectations on the improvement of a situation after a problem or risk has occurred. In summary, the daily situations in the school environment offer enough tools to contribute to the resilience of resilient and not-resilient middle-adolescents. These should, however, be recognised by both the middle-adolescent and the adults in the school environment as opportunities for development, which should subsequently be grasped in order to learn to deal with these challenges constructively. / Thesis (PhD (Learning Supoort, Guidance and Counselling))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Educational Psychology / PhD / unrestricted

No description available.

Computational thinking is a problem-solving skill and is considered to be an important part of today’s digital literacy. As it is an evolving research field and an emerging subject within the K-12 educational systems there’s a need to develop methods and environments for teaching and assessing computational thinking as well as establishing a cohesive view of its definition. A concern with computational thinking is it's neigh synonymity with programming and computer science in a classroom environment as they share several concepts and because programming is an effective way to teach it.  Acknowledging this need for this separation as well as the need for developing educational environments this study explored the aspects of problem-solving and perception of computational problems in different environment.  This was explored through a quantitative study on late-stage K-12 students and how perceived and performed in different types of problem posing environments. These environments included the challenge of using programming concepts through gamification as a way of exploring methods of teaching and assessing computational thinking in a metaphorical and real-life simulated situation.  It wound up measuring the effects that different problems had on the confidence and expertise of computational thinking capabilities within this exploratory experiment. The findings suggest an indication that too much given context can confuse students and that alleviating mental workload is crucial when presenting computational thinking problems if the correct solution should be reached.

The main objective of libraries in higher education institutions is to enable access to information that will meet the teaching, learning and research needs of the institutions’ communities (Department of Arts and Culture, 2015:18). Technology makes it easier to accomplish this by allowing librarians to embed products and services directly into the teaching, learning and research environments used by the communities. Course Management Systems such as Blackboard, are used by higher learning institutions to provide blended learning experiences. Many face-to-face lectures rely on an online module, and students appear to be more comfortable using the various online tools than ever before. For librarians, the online component of such a hybrid learning model is an opportunity to extend the traditional face-to-face library training and information literacy sessions into the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Virtually embedded librarians enable students’ access to library information online (Hoffman & Ramin, 2010:298) and libraries that have shifted towards embedding in online courses reach users at their point of need (Paganelli and Paganelli, 2017:55). If these statements are true, the question remains whether the end user is satisfied with the services rendered online or not. Many surveys have been conducted to assess users’ satisfaction with library resources and the quality of library services (Zhang, 2015:273). Some studies investigated library use patterns of different user groups but few studies focus on the needs of Engineering students (Zhang, 2015:273) and if these needs are being addressed by embedded library services and products. The objective of this research was to establish the role that Engineering students expect an Information Specialist to play in a VLE, to identify the products and services the Engineering students expect the Information Specialist to provide, and to what extent. This was done using a case study research design. As was expected, this research confirmed that the Engineering students recognise the importance of librarians embedding in their online modules. It is anticipated that librarians who embed online will be able to meet the needs of the students and build strong relationships with the students. If that does become the case, it is feasible to expect that the students’ use of library resources will increase. The next phase would be to build and launch a pilot project. Recommendations made for embedding in a VLE were (1) to consult with the faculty, library staff, and the instructional designer before the librarian attempts to launch embedded activities; (2) to identify the top in-demand products and services that can be embedded for each course as a matter of urgency; (3) to pilot the program with a few students and library staff and obtain feedback before the initiative is made publicly available to all students; and (4) to align the expectations or activities of the program with those of the course. / Mini Dissertation (MIT)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Information Science / MIT / Unrestricted

The individualized education program (IEP) is a critical component of providing special education services to children with disabilities, outlining the services and modifications that will be provided to help them make progress towards the general curriculum. While simulations have been shown to be an effective means of teaching special education policies and procedures, this can be challenging when working with distance students. The purpose of this study was to identify and examine how virtual simulations function to train preservice teachers learning to conduct IEP team meetings. Seven preservice special education teachers enrolled in a mild/moderate distance degree and licensure program participated in this research. Through multiple case study analysis, this study examined the specific behaviors emitted by each participant throughout these simulated meetings, as well as the antecedent stimuli and consequences controlling these behaviors. Additionally, participants were each asked to construct rules, based on their own simulated experiences, to govern their future behaviors for in vivo individualized education program team meetings. Results indicate that virtual simulations served a variety of functions for training teachers to work on a collaborative team, including increased practice opportunities and self-efficacy to collaborate with parents in the future. Although teacher trainees had difficulty generating complete verbal statements to govern future behaviors, each was able to identify discrete antecedents, behaviors, and consequences responsible for controlling their actions throughout the simulations.

No description available.

New types of emerging classrooms called flexible learning environments change the traditionalclassroom structure by removing barriers previously set by the room. Within these environments learningmanagement systems (LMS) are used by teachers to support them in their daily operations. The digitaltransformation of education presents new challenges of designing LMS for flexible learning environments.The research question for this study is as follows: “How do teachers experience learning managementsystems within flexible learning environments?” The aim of this study is to gain insights into teachers'experience with the use of LMS in flexible learning environments; and how the teachers experience theirdevelopment of digital competence to use the systems in their teaching. The study resulted in four themesof experiences (1) Lack of adoption, (2) Control within the system, (3) Collaboration and competencedevelopment, (4) Direct feedback and interactions. The insights of the themes of experience are presentedin the form of design propositions.

The purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge of how preschool teachers describe the work with inclusion in practice. Based on the purpose, four questions were formulated. The study was based on a phenomenographic method set to highlight variations of conceptions of inclusion and its working methods. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. The interviews are conducted both digitally and physically with five licensed preschool teachers with varied professional experience. All interviews were recorded in order to then be transcribed and analyzed. The material was then analyzed through a seven-step phenomenographic analysis model to highlight variations in preschool teachers' conceptions regarding the working methods of inclusion. In the work with inclusion, preschool teachers perceive that they work for the children to participate based on their needs and conditions. Preschool teachers perceive that they adapt and use strategies, as well as special educational tools as support. Adaptations are perceived to take place based on the children's conditions and needs. Strategies are highlighted as "training backwards" and clarifying pedagogy. Special educational tools are mainly perceived as image support and TAKK. The creation of learning environments is mainly based on the children's interest. An inclusive learning environment is perceived as changeable, visabel and accessible by preschool teachers. There has been a variation in conceptions regarding children's participation and pre-school teachers' control over the learning environment. Perceived obstacles to being able to work optimally inclusively are perceived by pre-school teachers as: lack of staff, lack of time, lack of resources regarding finances and competence development, documentation requirements and that one does not have the same view of inclusion in the work team. / Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med kunskap om hur förskollärare beskriver arbetet med inkludering i praktiken. Utifrån syftet så formulerades fyrafrågeställningar. Studien baserades på en fenomenografisk metodansats för attlyfta fram variationen av uppfattningar om inkludering och dess arbetssätt.Data har samlats in via semi-strukturerade intervjuer med öppna frågeställningar. Intervjuerna genomfördes både digitalt och fysiskt med fem legitimerade förskollärare med varierad yrkeserfarenhet. Samtliga intervjuer speladesin för att sedan kunna transkriberas och analyseras. Materialet analyseradessedan genom en sjustegs fenomenografisk analysmodell för att framhäva variationer i förskollärares uppfattningar rörande inkluderingens arbetssätt. I arbetet med inkludering uppfattar förskollärare att de arbetar för att barnen ska fådelta utifrån sina behov och förutsättningar. Förskollärare uppfattar att de anpassar och använder strategier, samt specialpedagogiska verktyg som stöd. Anpassningar uppfattas ske utifrån barnens förutsättningar och behov. Strategierlyfts som ”baklängesträning” och tydliggörande pedagogik. Specialpedagogiska verktyg uppfattas främst som bildstöd och TAKK. Vid skapandet av läromiljöer utgår man huvudsakligen från barnens intresse. En inkluderandelärmiljö uppfattas som föränderlig, tydlig och tillgänglig av förskollärarna. Dethar framkommit en variation i uppfattningar gällande barns delaktighet ochförskollärares styrande rörande läromiljön. Upplevda hinder för att optimaltkunna arbeta inkluderande uppfattas av förskollärarna såsom: personalbrist,tidsbrist, brist på resurser gällande ekonomi och kompetensutveckling, dokumentationskrav och att man inte har samma syn på inkludering i arbetslaget.