Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:23:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcia Sueli Pereira da Silva Schneider.pdf: 2335944 bytes, checksum: 60a8f683fcb5942ddf9c87354c4b6d91 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-05-30 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This research aims to discuss the teacher formation and verify how the knowledge is produced during the formation process developed in two settings: in a face-to-face environment and in a distance setting. In this way, this work chose as base for the research a continued professional development project, based on the relations between the researcher and an English teacher that worked at Basic Level I in a Municipal School in Conceição dos Ouros-MG. As foundation to the discussions this work is based on Socio-Historical-Cultural Activity Theory (TASHC) (Vygotsky, 1934/2001, 1999, 1998; Leont ev,1959, 1978; Engeström, 1987, 1999, 2006 and others), on the discussion about on line setting to understand the settings supplied by Computer Mediated Communication and its movements that take to the virtualization, founded, principally, in Levy s (1996/2003; 1999/2003) works. Regarding the critical reflective principles, the study is based on the studies developed by Freire (1979/2001), Brookfield & Preskill (1999), Liberali (2005, 2004), Brookfield (1987), Smyth (1989), and others, and in the language role mediating the social inter-relations that has the argumentation as an important allied to the development of the critical reflective thought. This research is inserted in a critical collaborative perspective (Comstock, 1982, Bredo & Feinberg, 1982, Magalhães, 1992, 1994, 1998, no prelo), since it is an investigative process that aims to observing, analyzing and transforming the educational practices of the participants. Parts of face-to-face and distance conversation, of reflective diary and reflections developed in an email setting were selected and analyzed. The intention of analyzing the cutting data was to understand how sense about teaching-learning was questioning and new meanings were shared during the teacher formation activity on the environments used. The results show that knowledge production happens when there are opportunities to the participants manifest themselves, expounding their opinions, to agree or disagree, to listen and to be listened, opportunity to argue and to convince the others, learning, this way, to interact with respectful by others. In this social production process, the role of the other becomes fundamental to trigger off news ZPDs, to reorganize and transform the senses and to develop. The results show as well that the virtual setting allows that the teacher formation activity was updated, become real in a virtual setting, and that the asynchronous communication turned out to be more formal than the synchronous communication that was characterized by an interaction similar as a face-to-face interaction / Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo principal discutir a formação de professor e verificar como o conhecimento é produzido durante o processo de formação realizado em dois ambientes: o presencial e a distância. Nessa perspectiva, este trabalho escolheu como base para estudo de pesquisa um projeto de formação contínua pautado nas relações entre pesquisadora e uma professora de inglês que atuava no Ciclo Básico I em uma Escola Municipal da cidade de Conceição dos Ouros-MG. Para fundamentar as discussões, o trabalho procurou subsídios nos pressupostos teóricos da Teoria da Atividade Sócio-Histórico-Cultural (TASHC) (Vygotsky, 1934/2001, 1999, 1998; Leont ev, 1959, 1978; Engeström, 1987, 1999, 2006, entre outros), nas discussões sobre ambientação para entender os ambientes fornecidos pela Comunicação Mediada por Computador e nos movimentos que conduzem à virtualização, alicerçadas, principalmente, nos trabalho de Lévy (1996/2003; 1999/2003). Sobre os princípios crítico-reflexivo, o estudo está embasado nos estudos desenvolvidos por Freire (1979/2001), Brookfield & Preskill (1999), Liberali (2005, 2004), Brookfield (1987), Smyth (1989), dentre outros, e no papel da linguagem na mediação das inter-relações sociais, que tem na argumentação uma importante aliada para o desenvolvimento do pensamento críticoreflexivo. Esta pesquisa se insere em uma perspectiva crítica de colaboração (Comstock, 1982, Bredo & Feinberg, 1982, Magalhães, 1992, 1994, 1998, no prelo), pois trata-se de um processo investigativo que objetiva a observação, intervenção, análise e transformações nas práticas pedagógicas das participantes. Para proceder às análises e discussões, foram selecionados recortes de conversas realizadas nas sessões reflexivas presenciais e a distância, do diário reflexivo e das reflexões sobre o diário realizadas em ambiente e-mail. A análise percorreu os recortes escolhidos como o propósito de entender os questionamentos de sentidos e o compartilhamento de novos significados sobre ensino-aprendizagem que emergem na atividade de formação nos dois contextos. A discussão dos resultados demonstra que a produção do conhecimento ocorre quando os participantes têm possibilidades de se manifestar, de expor sua opinião, de concordar, discordar, ouvir e ser ouvido, possibilidade para argumentar e convencer o outro, aprendendo, dessa maneira, a interagir com respeito pelo outro. Nesse processo de produção social, o papel do outro se torna fundamental para o desencadeamento de novas ZDPs, de reorganização e transformação dos sentidos e desenvolvimento. A discussão dos resultados revela, ainda, que o ambiente virtual permitiu a atualização da atividade de formação, tornando-a real em um ambiente virtual, e que a interação desenvolvida no ambiente virtual, por meio de uma interação assíncrona, assume uma característica de maior formalidade em relação à interação síncrona, que se caracteriza como uma interação próxima a interação presencial, ou seja, face-a-face

The creation of a community of practice of tutors--a shared practice among a group of people who share the same domain--enables second-language learners to facilitate their acquisition of English by embracing new learning strategies while they learn the target language. The community of tutors’ perspective allows for the incorporation of the individual’s particular second-language-acquisition needs and goals. This presentation presents a proposed study that took place at the Yasuda Center at California State University, San Bernardino in the summer of 2015. Students in the English Language Program housed in the College of Extended Learning were asked to participate in tutoring sessions offered by tutors who participated in a community of tutors. Tutors embraced new teaching strategies that they acquired through participating within a community of practice, sharing their background knowledge and teaching experience, and demonstrating new teaching techniques to each other by using collaborative and hybrid strategies during activities embedded in a rich learning context. The provision of community of practice for tutors in the English Language Program enabled learners to develop meaning-making and communication skills as well as language and literacy skills to address the informational and problem-solving needs of their tasks and assignments.

The focus of this study is use of discourse markers (DM). Data consists of taped interactions of informants. From this data, four particular DM are analyzed with regard to distribution in turn taking. The concepts of cohesion and coherence in text or discourse, together with informants´ communicative and discourse strategies, in a group of bilingual speakers (BS) and a control group of monolingual speakers (MS), are also analyzed. The findings confirm that BS, compared to the MS, make more frequent use of y with a pragmatic meaning when introducing various types of questions that constitute requests for elucidation directed to an interlocutor and thereby continue the interaction. In general, however, the MS use the DM y more frequently than the BS, demonstrating a more elaborate sense of stylistics in the coordination of their turn as narrations and descriptions. With regard to pero, the BS prefer to use this DM with a pragmatic meaning, in the continuation of an intervention or at the end of a turn, in order to question that which has been stated. The MS use pero primarily with a semantic meaning, to express counter-arguments inside a turn. It is exclusively the BS who use the DM así que with pragmatic meaning of consequence, in interactional exchanges, when they wish to introduce questions and assertions, where así que begins their reaction to the utterance of the interlocutor. Such questions may be regarded as a discourse strategy that permits possibilities for avoiding taking responsibility for how an utterance is interpreted. In addition, both the BS and the MS use así que at the end of turns, providing the discourse with meta-pragmatic meaning whereby it allows possibilities for interpreting this as finalizing. Through their use of es que, the BS gradually explain and justify statements made in utterances during their turns while the MS, through use in their discourse of this DM, allows them to introduce explications, justifications or excuses in the event of possible disagreement. In addition, the MS use justification introduced through this DM as a strategy to take a turn or to attempt to take over the turn, where es que conveys discourse-pragmatic meaning and introduces a tone of verbal courtesy. / Den digitala versionen: ny rev. utg. 2005.

The problem being investigated in this thesis is to understand and explain why some Setswana speaking students in the ACE-programme for Life Orientation who have voluntarily registered for a decentralised off-campus education programme at the NWU, continue to demand personal, face-to-face communication with their lecturers during the course of their studies. „Off-campus education‟ (also known as „distance education‟ and / or „decentralised education‟) is usually implemented in an attempt to afford more students the opportunity to improve their qualifications and skills – especially in the case of those students who, for a variety of reasons, may not be in a position to enrol for fulltime contact training. Off-campus education could help to serve the divergent education-related needs of poor, less privileged, geographically isolated, difficult-to-reach and deep rural communities. It could also assist with the teaching and learning of new knowledge and skills as far as its integrated use of contemporary technological developments is concerned. Besides UNISA, the North-West University is at present the biggest supplier of off-campus education programmes to practising teachers in the country. Despite the exponential increase in educational and technological developments in the late 20th and early 21st century, information and communication technology – within a broader South African context – is still not within reach of all the NWU‟s off-campus education students. Recent attempts to integrate contact education principles in off-campus education, led to the development of the (well-known) hybrid, namely „flexi-education‟. Over the past seven years or so, this state of affairs has slowly developed to the point where the number of registered, off-campus African education students at the NWU who insist (despite paper-based, electronic and mobile learning support) on demanding personal, face-to-face contact with their lecturers, has increased rapidly. It would furthermore seem that the use of, for example, internet and communication technology is increasing the existing gap between the African education student and his / her lecturer. This growing gap has already resulted in some registered African education students feeling increasingly isolated. The problem with the use of ICT in off-campus education is understood by some as leading to a situation where the ICT being implemented may, one day soon, replace the lecturer during scheduled contact facilitation sessions. Should that happen, it could mean that interactive communication and the social presence of the lecturer during scheduled contact facilitation sessions may be compromised and even permanently forfeited. The available body of scholarship does not adequately address the perceptions of students with regard to the importance of (a) the temporal-spatial, simultaneous presence of their lecturers and (b) social interactions during scheduled contact facilitation sessions. From the available literature, it is also not clear: why some students may want to entertain and maintain such perceptions, what the attitude of students with regard to social interaction and the social presence of their lecturers might be, or what role ICT could be playing in the life-world of off-campus students in South Africa. In an attempt to solve this intellectual conundrum and with a view to effecting naturalistic generalisation (and not statistical generalisation) I have decided, in light of the above, to implement and follow a multi-analytical research design (mixed methods, multi-analysis design) (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2009: passim; 117). Instead of me seeking to generalise my own research findings, I have decided to leave it to my readers to generalise the findings from their own experiences in the past (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2009: 120). This approach represents a kind of „fuzzy generalisation‟ (Ekiz, 2006:73) in the sense that something that has happened in one place could just as well be demonstrated to have happened somewhere else as well (ibid.). I have, therefore, undertaken both a quantitative as well as qualitative study in order to understand why Setswana speaking education students in the ACE-programme in Life Orientation would continue to demand personal, face-to-face contact with their lecturers, despite all the teaching and learning support that they are offered along the way. I have completed my research on the basis of (and in view of) my research aims. The same applies to the data that I have managed to capture and interpret. On the basis of these data, certain strategic guidelines for effective education in off-campus education programmes for practising teachers have then been drafted. My most important research findings include: Off-campus education is purposively delivered to the client, e.g. to the Setswana speaking student in his / her natural surroundings. Off-campus education should strive to care for the student and his / her contextualised needs. An authentic encounter between the off-campus lecturer and student should be allowed to take place. These encountering opportunities could assist in liberating the Setswana speaking student from all moral and ethical obligation of having to meet his / her lecturer and talking to him / her personally. No more moral burdening or social indebtedness should be placed on students to attend the scheduled contact facilitation sessions. The Setswana speaking student should be accompanied to feel and experience that s/he is unconditionally accepted and respected in his / her particular situation and locale. The Setswana speaking student should be able to feel and experience on a particularly deep interpersonal level the security that s/he has the right to belong to a particular off-campus education community (that is not only viewed as a communal society, but also managed as one). The University as service provider ought to create intimate, interactive spaces during scheduled contact facilitation sessions for all off-campus lecturers in order to afford their Setswana speaking students the opportunity to realise their ontic, social yearning for belonghesion. The Setswana speaking student experiences off-campus education as a process of social unity, as well as a social, communal learning community, together with his / her lecturers and fellow students. For this reason, scheduled contact facilitation sessions should be focusing (given the transactional nature of off-campus education) on communal, „perfect-fit education for us‟. Within a communal „perfect-fit‟ education community, the Setswana speaking student should be accompanied to adopt his / her reason for existence in the following manner: “We are, therefore I am.” Given the transactional nature of scheduled contact facilitation sessions (that should be focusing on transactional proximity, openness and sincerity within this communal „perfect-fit education for us‟) the Setswana speaking student does not wish the use of computer and internet technology to replace their ontic and socially cohesive, essential yearning for communal humanity and fellowship. It would seem that Setswana speaking students may not, necessarily, be less than ready for the implementation of ICT in their off-campus education programmes because they cannot afford it, but mainly because they do not yet regard computer and internet technology as part of their cultural furniture. Any attempt at implementing ICT in off-campus education should be considered and managed by universities with great circumspect, so that these students‟ social, ontic, and cohesively essential yearning and ever intensifying, deepening, socially-mutual attaching, fixative and reciprocally trusting attraction could be properly accounted for, and so that it may be managed satisfactorily on a curricular level. Off-campus education should, therefore, be based on the realisation of ontic „We-ness‟ where the members of this community continue to depend on each other and where the supply and delivery of off-campus education is constantly reformed and fine-tuned so that it may reflect an authentic collective learning community. Off-campus education should be focusing on a collectivist, communally searching, epistemological approach where human beings are constantly relating to their fellow human beings, playing different social roles and taking full responsibility for whatever may be needed to realise these students‟ off-campus studies successfully. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

The problem being investigated in this thesis is to understand and explain why some Setswana speaking students in the ACE-programme for Life Orientation who have voluntarily registered for a decentralised off-campus education programme at the NWU, continue to demand personal, face-to-face communication with their lecturers during the course of their studies. „Off-campus education‟ (also known as „distance education‟ and / or „decentralised education‟) is usually implemented in an attempt to afford more students the opportunity to improve their qualifications and skills – especially in the case of those students who, for a variety of reasons, may not be in a position to enrol for fulltime contact training. Off-campus education could help to serve the divergent education-related needs of poor, less privileged, geographically isolated, difficult-to-reach and deep rural communities. It could also assist with the teaching and learning of new knowledge and skills as far as its integrated use of contemporary technological developments is concerned. Besides UNISA, the North-West University is at present the biggest supplier of off-campus education programmes to practising teachers in the country. Despite the exponential increase in educational and technological developments in the late 20th and early 21st century, information and communication technology – within a broader South African context – is still not within reach of all the NWU‟s off-campus education students. Recent attempts to integrate contact education principles in off-campus education, led to the development of the (well-known) hybrid, namely „flexi-education‟. Over the past seven years or so, this state of affairs has slowly developed to the point where the number of registered, off-campus African education students at the NWU who insist (despite paper-based, electronic and mobile learning support) on demanding personal, face-to-face contact with their lecturers, has increased rapidly. It would furthermore seem that the use of, for example, internet and communication technology is increasing the existing gap between the African education student and his / her lecturer. This growing gap has already resulted in some registered African education students feeling increasingly isolated. The problem with the use of ICT in off-campus education is understood by some as leading to a situation where the ICT being implemented may, one day soon, replace the lecturer during scheduled contact facilitation sessions. Should that happen, it could mean that interactive communication and the social presence of the lecturer during scheduled contact facilitation sessions may be compromised and even permanently forfeited. The available body of scholarship does not adequately address the perceptions of students with regard to the importance of (a) the temporal-spatial, simultaneous presence of their lecturers and (b) social interactions during scheduled contact facilitation sessions. From the available literature, it is also not clear: why some students may want to entertain and maintain such perceptions, what the attitude of students with regard to social interaction and the social presence of their lecturers might be, or what role ICT could be playing in the life-world of off-campus students in South Africa. In an attempt to solve this intellectual conundrum and with a view to effecting naturalistic generalisation (and not statistical generalisation) I have decided, in light of the above, to implement and follow a multi-analytical research design (mixed methods, multi-analysis design) (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2009: passim; 117). Instead of me seeking to generalise my own research findings, I have decided to leave it to my readers to generalise the findings from their own experiences in the past (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2009: 120). This approach represents a kind of „fuzzy generalisation‟ (Ekiz, 2006:73) in the sense that something that has happened in one place could just as well be demonstrated to have happened somewhere else as well (ibid.). I have, therefore, undertaken both a quantitative as well as qualitative study in order to understand why Setswana speaking education students in the ACE-programme in Life Orientation would continue to demand personal, face-to-face contact with their lecturers, despite all the teaching and learning support that they are offered along the way. I have completed my research on the basis of (and in view of) my research aims. The same applies to the data that I have managed to capture and interpret. On the basis of these data, certain strategic guidelines for effective education in off-campus education programmes for practising teachers have then been drafted. My most important research findings include: Off-campus education is purposively delivered to the client, e.g. to the Setswana speaking student in his / her natural surroundings. Off-campus education should strive to care for the student and his / her contextualised needs. An authentic encounter between the off-campus lecturer and student should be allowed to take place. These encountering opportunities could assist in liberating the Setswana speaking student from all moral and ethical obligation of having to meet his / her lecturer and talking to him / her personally. No more moral burdening or social indebtedness should be placed on students to attend the scheduled contact facilitation sessions. The Setswana speaking student should be accompanied to feel and experience that s/he is unconditionally accepted and respected in his / her particular situation and locale. The Setswana speaking student should be able to feel and experience on a particularly deep interpersonal level the security that s/he has the right to belong to a particular off-campus education community (that is not only viewed as a communal society, but also managed as one). The University as service provider ought to create intimate, interactive spaces during scheduled contact facilitation sessions for all off-campus lecturers in order to afford their Setswana speaking students the opportunity to realise their ontic, social yearning for belonghesion. The Setswana speaking student experiences off-campus education as a process of social unity, as well as a social, communal learning community, together with his / her lecturers and fellow students. For this reason, scheduled contact facilitation sessions should be focusing (given the transactional nature of off-campus education) on communal, „perfect-fit education for us‟. Within a communal „perfect-fit‟ education community, the Setswana speaking student should be accompanied to adopt his / her reason for existence in the following manner: “We are, therefore I am.” Given the transactional nature of scheduled contact facilitation sessions (that should be focusing on transactional proximity, openness and sincerity within this communal „perfect-fit education for us‟) the Setswana speaking student does not wish the use of computer and internet technology to replace their ontic and socially cohesive, essential yearning for communal humanity and fellowship. It would seem that Setswana speaking students may not, necessarily, be less than ready for the implementation of ICT in their off-campus education programmes because they cannot afford it, but mainly because they do not yet regard computer and internet technology as part of their cultural furniture. Any attempt at implementing ICT in off-campus education should be considered and managed by universities with great circumspect, so that these students‟ social, ontic, and cohesively essential yearning and ever intensifying, deepening, socially-mutual attaching, fixative and reciprocally trusting attraction could be properly accounted for, and so that it may be managed satisfactorily on a curricular level. Off-campus education should, therefore, be based on the realisation of ontic „We-ness‟ where the members of this community continue to depend on each other and where the supply and delivery of off-campus education is constantly reformed and fine-tuned so that it may reflect an authentic collective learning community. Off-campus education should be focusing on a collectivist, communally searching, epistemological approach where human beings are constantly relating to their fellow human beings, playing different social roles and taking full responsibility for whatever may be needed to realise these students‟ off-campus studies successfully. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

This thesis deals with facial recognition using convolutional neural networks and with their current problems, which are pose, lighting and expression variance. It summarizes existing approaches, architectures and most recent loss functions. Further it deals with methods for rotating faces using GAN networks. In this thesis 3 neural networks are designed and trained for facial recognition. The best of them achieves 99.38% accuracy on LFW dataset and 88.08% accuracy on CPLFW dataset. Next face rotation network PCGAN is designed, which can be used for face frontalization or data augmentation purposes. This network is evaluated on Multi-PIE dataset and using the face frontalization it increases identification accuracy.

1 Theoretische Vorüberlegungen Im face-to-face (ftf) Kontext spielt das nonverbale Verhalten eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Wahrnehmung von Personen und der Interpretation des Gesagten [1,2]. Der Gesichtsausdruck [3], im Besonderen das Lächeln,nimmt in der interpersonalen Kommunikation eine essentielle Bedeutungein. So werden lächelnde Menschen in der Regel positiver, z.B.als glücklicher, höflicher und unbekümmerter, kompetenter und aufrichtiger beurteilt [4], allerdings auch als unterwürfiger [5,6]. Hinsichtlich der Bewertung von Männern und Frauen gibt es zudem stereotypbasierte Erwartungen an das Lächeln, die zu unterschiedlichen Bewertungen von Männern und Frauen bei gleichem Verhalten führen und in der Regel eine negative Bewertung von nicht lächelnden Frauen hervorrufen[7]. In der computervermittelten Kommunikation haben sich Smilies (Grafiken: J) und Emoticons (Zeichenketten wie :-)) mittlerweile als nonverbale, digitale Substitute für das Lächelnverbreitet, so dass auch im Netz sozusagen gelächelt werden kann. Verschiedene Studien untersuchten bisher die Wirkung von Smilies und Emoticons auf die Interpretation von Nachrichten und die Wahrnehmung des Smilienutzers. So kann zum Beispiel die Verwendung eines solchen Cues Zweideutigkeit reduzieren oder erzeugen, die Bedeutung einer Nachricht verstärken [8,9] oder aber die Stimmung des Lesers [10] und dessen Wahrnehmung vom Schreiber einer Nachricht [11] beeinflussen.

Research shows that consistent, supportive, and relevant professional development (PD) is an action that empowers educators to change. In the east central region of Canada, the sustainability of community colleges had been linked to program collaboration and internationalization which requires implementation of high-quality PD for its professors. Guided by Mezirow's adult transformative learning theory, the purpose of this study was to understand the PD practices of full-time professors by investigating the connections between professors' level of engagement in PD and their perceptions of the resources and processes that may improve their instructional practices. This single-phased, concurrent mixed-methods study was conducted using a self-designed 39-item web-based survey to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. From a population of 600 full-time professors at 5 colleges, 120 surveys were completed. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test, and Fisher's exact test were used for quantitative analyses. Findings indicated that professors with higher levels of engagement in PD perceived the importance of making use of online and face-to-face networking strategies as well as available online resources to improve instructional practices. Emergent themes from the qualitative data were coded and confirmed the value of networking in PD. Results were used to design a workshop to help community college professors in planning and supporting their PD activities via enhanced networking strategies and implementation of online resources for instruction. By providing college professors needed opportunities to engage in customized PD focused on networking and maximizing the use of available online resources, colleges may be better prepared to foster active, engaged, and highly trained faculty capable of producing positive social change benefitting the institutions and students they serve.

This applied dissertation was designed to understand and explore the experiences of graduate students at a public four-year higher education institution in the southeastern region of the United States. This study utilized an interview based phenomenological qualitative study design approach for data collection and analysis. Committees in the field of higher education reviewed and approved the interview protocol. The research study and data analysis were conducted in the Spring Semester of 2017. The researcher employed semi-structured interviews that were guided by ten protocol questions. Transcription accuracy, credibility, and trustworthiness were established through diligent adherence to university protocols. The collected data revealed themes that supported the researchers’ understanding of graduate students’ perception of engagement and experiences in face-to-face, online, and blended classroom settings. The qualitative research study provides in-depth insight for future enrollees and program development. The selected institution’s IRB and Nova Southeastern University’s IRB granted permission to conduct the study. A phenomenological approach was used to maximize exploration of graduate students’ perception of engagement and experiences in face-to-face, online, and blended graduate level classroom settings. Ten protocol questions guided the semi-structured interviews. Subsequent to the scheduled 60-minute interviews, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to describe the meaning of several individuals’ perceptions. The most prevalent theme that emerged was a lack of meaningful social interaction, or student engagement, in online formats. Once the data had been analyzed, recommendations for future research were provided to support the needs of a graduate student population on university campuses.

No description available.