Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-221). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-221). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.A.T.) -- School for International Training, 2006. / Advisor -- Pat Moran Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-72).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-122).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--George Mason University, 2008. / Vita: p. 96. Thesis director: Victoria Salmon. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Community College Education. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed July 3, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-95). Also issued in print.

The Gazebo Project is an open ended, generative, model eliciting project that was designed to allow students to develop their own understanding of fractions rather than receiving direct instruction. The students were placed in three different sections to work on the project, a group section that allowed for collaborative work, a peer tutoring section and an individual section. All students were given a pre-project clinical interview to assess their knowledge prior to beginning The Gazebo Project. They were then separated into one of the three sections for the project. The Gazebo Project charged the students with the task of designing a gazebo that would maximize the amount of seating and minimize the size of the entrance, which needed to be a whole side length. By challenging the students to minimize the entrance they were guided to explore the relationship between side length and number of sides. Upon completion of the project all students were then given a post-project clinical interview to determine the growth in their understanding of fractions. The study suggested that The Gazebo Project was effective in helping students develop their understanding of fractions, but only when the students worked in the group section or the peer tutoring section. The element of student discourse created an environment where students could create, and critique each other’s plan and in the process student discourse contributed to revised thinking. This study challenges educators to consider the benefits of open ended generative activities and discourse in student learning and also encourages the use of regular clinical interviews to assess student reasoning. / text

This thesis is a critical reflection of the author’s time as a Principal of an Indigenous state school from 2003-2004. The purpose is to reassess the impact of her principalship in terms of the staff, students and Community change that affected learning outcomes at the school and to reanalyse to what actions and to whom positive changes could be attributed. This thesis reflects and identifies, in light of the literature, strategies which were effective in enhancing student learning outcomes. The focus of this thesis was the Doongal State School*, its students, staff and facilities. The author will attempt to draw out theoretical frameworks in terms of: (1) what changed educationally in Doongal State School, (2) what seemed to be important in the Principal’s role, (3) the processes that took place, and (4) the effect of being non- Indigenous and a female. Overall, the author undertook this critical reflection in order to understand and embrace educational practices that will (a) lessen the gap between the academic outcomes achieved by Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, and (b) enhance life choices for Indigenous children. The findings indicate that principal leadership is critical for success in Indigenous schools and is the centrepiece of the models developed to explain improvement at Doongal State School. School factors, Principal Leadership factors, Change factors and factors relating to being a non-Indigenous female principal, which, when implemented, will lead to improved educational outcomes for Indigenous students, have evolved as a result of this thesis. Principal Leadership factors were found to be the enablers for the effective implementation of the key components for success.

With the increasing pace of technological changes in the modern society, there has been a growing interest from educators, business leaders, and policymakers in teaching important higher-order skills which were identified as necessary for thriving in the present-day globalized economy. In this regard, one of the most widely discussed higher order skills is critical thinking, whose importance in shaping problem solving, decision making, and logical thinking has been recognized. Within the domain of distance and online education, the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model provides a pedagogical framework for understanding the critical dimensions of student learning and factors which impact the development of student critical thinking. The CoI model follows the social-constructivist perspective on learning in which learning is seen as happening in both individual minds of learners and through the discourse within the group of learners. Central to the CoI model is the construct of cognitive presence, which captures the student cognitive engagement and the development of critical thinking and deep thinking skills. However, the assessment of cognitive presence is challenging task, particularly given its latent nature and the inherent physical and time separation between students and instructors in distance education settings. One way to address this problem is to make use of the vast amounts of learning data being collected by learning systems. This thesis presents novel methods for understanding and assessing the levels of cognitive presence based on learning analytics techniques and the data collected by learning environments. We first outline a comprehensive model for cognitive presence assessment which builds on the well-established evidence-cantered design (ECD) assessment framework. The proposed assessment model provides a foundation of the thesis, showing how the developed analytical models and their components fit together and how they can be adjusted for new learning contexts. The thesis shows two distinct and complementary analytical methods for assessing students’ cognitive presence and its development. The first method is based on the automated classification of student discussion messages and captures learning as it is observed in the student dialogue. The second analytics method relies on the analysis of log data of students’ use of the learning platform and captures the individual dimension of the learning process. The developed analytics also extend current theoretical understanding of the cognitive presence construct through data-informed operationalization of cognitive presence with different quantitative measures extracted from the student use of online discussions. We also examine methodological challenges of assessing cognitive presence and other forms of cognitive engagement through the analysis of trace data. Finally, with the intent of enabling for the wider adoption of the CoI model for new online learning modalities, the last two chapters examine the use of developed analytics within the context of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Given the substantial differences between traditional online and MOOC contexts, we first evaluate the suitability of the CoI model for MOOC settings and then assess students’ cognitive presence using the data collected by the MOOC platform. We conclude the thesis with the discussion of practical application and impact of the present work and the directions for the future research.

The thesis deals with education in Community Programmes. It focuses on Education Policy in EU and Lifelong Learning Programme which was concentrated on Education and Training in 2007 - 2014. Since 2014 the programme has a new form and a new name, Erasmus+. New programme connects six existing programs into a single framework which covers Education, Training, Youth and Sport. In the final part is presented the practical example of completing funding application form to support projects in the education area. The completed form can serve as a guide for future applicants.