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Networks (also known as graphs) are everywhere. People-contact networks, social networks, email communication networks, internet networks (among others) are examples of graphs in our daily life. The increasing size of these networks makes it harder to understand them. Instead, summarizing these graphs can reveal key patterns and also help in sensemaking as well as accelerating existing graph algorithms. Intuitively, different summarizes are desired for different purposes. For example, to stop viral infections, one may want to find an effective policy to immunize people in a people-contact network. In this case, a high-quality network summary should highlight roughly structurally important nodes. Others may want to detect communities in the same people-contact network, and hence, the summary should show cohesive groups of nodes. This implies that for each task, we should design a specific method to reveal related patterns. Despite the importance of task-specific summarization, there has not been much work in this area. Hence, in this thesis, we design task-specific summarization frameworks for univariate and multivariate networks. We start with optimization-based approaches to summarize graphs for a particular task and finally propose general frameworks which automatically learn how to summarize for a given task and generalize it to similar networks. 1. Optimization-based approaches: Given a large network and a task, we propose summarization algorithms to highlight specific characteristics of the graph (i.e., structure, attributes, labels, dynamics) with respect to the task. We develop effective and efficient algorithms for various tasks such as content-aware influence maximization and time segmentation. In addition, we study many real-world networks and their summary graphs such as people-contact, news-blogs, etc. and visualize them to make sense of their characteristics given the input task. 2. Learning-based approaches: As our next step, we propose a unified framework which learns the process of summarization itself for a given task. First, we design a generalizable algorithm to learn to summarize graphs for a set of graph optimization problems. Next, we go further and add sparse human feedback to the learning process for the given optimization task. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to systematically bring the necessity of considering the given task to the forefront and emphasize the importance of learning-based approaches in network summarization. Our models and frameworks lead to meaningful discoveries. We also solve problems from various domains such as epidemiology, marketing, social media, cybersecurity, and interactive visualization. / Doctor of Philosophy / Networks (also known as graphs) are everywhere. People-contact networks, social networks, email communication networks, internet networks (among others) are examples of graphs in our daily life. The increasing size of these networks makes it harder to understand them. Instead, summarizing these graphs can reveal key information and also help in sensemaking as well as accelerating existing graph analysis methods. Intuitively, different summarizes are desired for different purposes. For example, to stop viral infections, one may want to find an effective policy to immunize people in a people-contact network. In this case, a high-quality network summary should highlight roughly important nodes. Others may want to detect friendship communities in the same people-contact network, and hence, the summary should show cohesive groups of nodes. This implies that for each task, we should design a specific method to reveal related patterns. Despite the importance of task-specific summarization, there has not been much work in this area. Hence, in this thesis, we design task-specific summarization frameworks for various type of networks with different approaches. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to systematically bring the necessity of considering the given task to the forefront and emphasize the importance of learning-based approaches in network summarization. Our models and frameworks lead to meaningful discoveries. We also solve problems from various domains such as epidemiology, marketing, social media, cybersecurity, and interactive visualization.

The research described in this dissertation has its antecedents in my own experiences as a student and teacher of history in both England and the USA. Reflecting back on such experiences as a teacher educator in the US has led to a hypothesis that history teaching is conceptualized and performed differently by teachers in England and the US. This study used contrasting case studies of two English and two American preservice history teachers to illuminate and compare how the development of their understanding of history and evolving construction of self as history teacher influenced their everyday pedagogical performances as they began to teach history. Detailed portraits of teaching developed for this study show how the pedagogical approach to teaching history with an emphasis on developing historical understanding through learning the skills of the discipline of history in England contrast with the American emphasis on content coverage through the pedagogy of telling the tale of the past. The study revealed the participant's adherence to these two contrasting traditions in the teaching of history. This can be understood by examining two continually interweaving components: 1) well remembered events, and interactions associated with learning history and history teaching that form a "biographic conception" of history teaching, and 2) ongoing experiences and expected outcomes of planning and teaching history in a particular way. Within the scope of this study, particular attention was given to the participant's contextual understandings of: A) official history curriculum, B) their cooperating teacher and C) their students as they began to plan and teach history within their internship. The case studies compare and describe how the participants' biographic conceptions of both history and history teaching act as a filter through which the differing expectations of their respective history curriculum, their cooperating teacher and departments were mediated and negotiated. While the biographic conception of history exerted an enduring influence on their understanding of what it means to learn and study history in high school, the study revealed that the participants' ongoing classroom interactions with their students in conjunction with meeting the expectations of their cooperating teachers and departments constrained and limited the participants' perspectives as to what they believed was possible within the history classroom. The case studies here highlight the interactive forces and complexity of learning to become a teacher of history and have further implications for exploring the possibilities and constraints of two competing traditions in the teaching of history. This comparative study raises questions and opportunities for examining such epistemological questions as What is history? and How should it be taught in high school? The work shows that the role of history teacher can be and should be more than a teller of the tale of the past. It also highlights the problems faced by teachers and students when the primary goal of history is focused on the difficult task of learning historical skills and concepts. However, if the goals of history teaching in the US are truly for the development of knowledgeable, critically thinking citizens, then teacher educators must begin to provide opportunities and create communities of practice which encourage preservice teachers to not only break their attachment to the pedagogy of telling but also develop their skills to think historically to the end of organizing learning experiences that emphasize the doing of history within their classrooms. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study is to develop a readiness program which will be an aid in eliminating many failures in reading and to help the children be happy while learning to read.

Online shopping offers numerous benefits, but large product catalogs make it difficult for shoppers to understand the existence and characteristics of every item for sale. To simplify the decision-making process, online retailers use ranking models to recommend products relevant to each individual user. Contextual user data, such as location, time, or local weather conditions, can serve as valuable features for ranking models, enabling personalized real-time recommendations. Little research has been published on the usefulness of weather-based features for ranking models in online clothing retailing, which makes additional research into this topic worthwhile. Using Swedish sales and customer data from Babyshop, an online retailer of children’s fashion, this study examined possible correlations between local weather data and sales. This was done by comparing differences in daily weather and differences in daily shares of sold items per clothing category for two cities: Stockholm and Göteborg. With Malmö as an additional city, historical observational weather data from one location each in the three cities Stockholm, Göteborg, and Malmö was then featurized and used along with the customers’ postal towns, sales features, and sales trend features to train and evaluate the ranking relevancy of a gradient boosted decision trees learning to rank LightGBM ranking model with weather features. The ranking relevancy was compared against a LightGBM baseline that omitted the weather features and a naive baseline: a popularity-based ranker. Several possible correlations between a clothing category such as shorts, rainwear, shell jackets, winter wear, and a weather variable such as feels-like temperature, solar energy, wind speed, precipitation, snow, and snow depth were found. Evaluation of the ranking relevancy was done using the mean reciprocal rank and the mean average precision @ 10 on a small dataset consisting only of customer data from the postal towns Stockholm, Göteborg, and Malmö and also on a larger dataset where customers in postal towns from larger geographical areas had their home locations approximated as Stockholm, Göteborg or Malmö. The LightGBM rankers beat the naive baseline in three out of four configurations, and the ranker with weather features outperformed the LightGBM baseline by 1.1 to 2.2 percent across all configurations. The findings can potentially help online clothing retailers create more relevant product recommendations. / Internethandel erbjuder flera fördelar, men stora produktsortiment gör det svårt för konsumenter att känna till existensen av och egenskaperna hos alla produkter som saluförs. För att förenkla beslutsprocessen så använder internethandlare rankningsmodeller för att rekommendera relevanta produkter till varje enskild användare. Kontextuell användardata såsom tid på dygnet, användarens plats eller lokalt väder kan vara värdefulla variabler för rankningsmodeller då det möjliggör personaliserade realtidsrekommendationer. Det finns inte mycket publicerad forskning inom nyttan av väderbaserade variabler för produktrekommendationssystem inom internethandel av kläder, vilket gör ytterligare studier inom detta område intressant. Med hjälp av svensk försäljnings- och kunddata från Babyshop, en internethandel för barnkläder så undersökte denna studie möjliga korrelationer mellan lokal väderdata och försäljning. Detta gjordes genom att jämföra skillnaderna i dagligt väder och skillnaderna i dagliga andelar av sålda artiklar per klädeskategori för två städer: Stockholm och Göteborg. Med Malmö som ytterligare en stad så gjordes historiska metereologiska observationer från en plats var i Stockholm, Göteborg och Malmö till variabler och användes tillsammans med kundernas postorter, försäljningsvariabler och variabler för försäljningstrender för att träna och utvärdera rankningsrelevansen hos en gradient-boosted decision trees learning to rank LightGBM rankningsmodell med vädervariabler. Rankningsrelevansen jämfördes mot en LightGBM baslinjesmodel som saknade vädervariabler samt en naiv baslinje: en popularitetsbaserad rankningsmodell. Flera möjliga korrelationer mellan en klädeskategori som shorts, regnkläder, skaljackor, vinterkläder och och en daglig vädervariabel som känns-som-temperatur, solenergi, vindhastighet, nederbörd, snö och snödjup upptäcktes. Utvärderingen av rankingsrelevansen utfördes med mean reciprocal rank och mean average precision @ 10 på ett mindre dataset som bestod endast av kunddata från postorterna Stockholm, Göteborg och Malmö och även på ett större dataset där kunder med postorter från större geografiska områden fick sina hemorter approximerade som Stockholm, Göteborg eller Malmö. LigthGBM-rankningsmodellerna slog den naiva baslinjen i tre av fyra konfigurationer och rankningsmodellen med vädervariabler slog LightGBM baslinjen med 1.1 till 2.2 procent i alla konfigurationer. Resultaten kan potentiellt hjälpa internethandlare inom mode att skapa bättre produktrekommendationssystem.

This study examines a reader used in grade 1, Den magiska kulan, which is a part of the ABC-klubben series of teaching material. It is level-based, available in three different levels of difficulty, and one and the same class is supposed to share the same reading experience but be able to read the story at the level that each individual pupil has reached. The study analyses linguistic adaptation and elements intended to give motivation in the different books. The study shows that the simplest of the books may not help to increase the pupils’ motivation for reading but can only be regarded as training in decoding. The two more advanced books can give pupils more pleasurable reading because the language is more nuanced and expressive. The pupils thus have the chance to become absorbed in the books, with an understanding for the characters and events.

Paauglių mokymas/is spręsti jiems aktualias problemas, taikant Forumo teatro metodą, Lietuvoje yra netyrinėta mokslinėje literatūroje tema. Tyrimo tikslas - atskleisti, kokios vidinės (psichologinės) ir išorinės (socialinės) problemos jaudina 17-19 metų paauglius, ir kaip, taikant Forumo teatro metodą, susiformuoja gebėjimai jas iškelti ir konstruktyviai išspręsti. Darbe buvo siekiama išanalizuoti mokslinę, metodinę literatūrą, susijusią su Forumo teatro metodo taikymu; nustatyti Forumo teatro veikimo principus; apibūdinti paauglių požiūrį į Forumo teatro taikymo atitikimą jų poreikiams; išaiškinti, kaip, taikant Forumo teatro metodą, vyksta 17-19 metų paauglių gebėjimų spręsti problemas formavimosi procesas; nustatyti paauglių gebėjimus, įgytus mokymo/si spręsti jiems aktualias psichologines ir socialines problemas procese, taikant Forumo teatro metodą. Siekiant išsamiai ir detaliai išnagrinėti paauglių mokymo/si spręsti jiems aktualias problemas Forumo teatre procesą nuo 2007 m. lapkričio mėnesio iki 2008 m. gruodžio mėnesio 17-19 metų paaugliams buvo organizuoti Forumo teatro užsiėmimai ir atliekamas atvejų tyrimas. Tyrimo metu duomenys buvo renkami stebint atskirų individų ir individų grupių užduočių atlikimą, apklausiant ir fiksuojant (užrašant ir filmuojant) su tyrimo objektu susijusią informaciją. Tyrime dalyvavo 79 paaugliai. Forumo teatro taikymo procese paaugliai įgijo gebėjimų iškelti ir įvardinti jiems aktualias vidines (psichologines) ir išorines... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The topic of teenagers teaching and their learning how to solve their urgent problems through the method of Forum Theatre has not been investigated in Lithuanian scientific literature. The purpose of the investigation is to reveal what internal (psychological) and external (social) problems are important to 17-19-year-old teenagers and how the skills of revealing and solving these problems are formed using the method of Forum Theatre. This paper aims to analyze scientific, methodological literature connected with the Forum Theatre method application; establish Forum Theatre effect principles; describe the views of teenagers on how Forum Theatre application meets their needs; find out how, using the method of Forum Theatre, the process of building up teenagers skills of solving problems happens; reveal the abilities of the 17-19-year-olds which they developed through the process of learning-teaching how to cope with their psychological and social problems, using the method of Forum Theatre. Seeking to carry out a detailed investigation of the process of teenagers’ learning-teaching how to solve their urgent problems through Forum Theatre, from November 2007 till December 2008, Forum Theatre lessons were given to 17-19-year-old teenagers, after which the analysis of the cases was performed. During the investigation the data was collected monitoring how separate individuals and groups of individuals perform the tasks, interviewing and fixing (writing down and filming) the... [to full text]

All pupils have an individual reading development and need different forms of support. The aim of this study is to investigate teachers’ experiences of and ideas about the use of easy-reading books when teaching children to read. Data collection was done through four interviews with active teachers representing three schools in a municipality in southern Sweden. The interviewed teachers’ experiences turned out to agree with previous findings: the teachers were favourably disposed towards easy-reading books and considered them important for learning to read. The teachers also thought that it is essential to aim the teaching at the pupils’ own level so that they will develop in their acquisition of literacy. With the help of easy-reading books, pupils who find it hard to learn to read can also be given a chance to develop.

The process of ‘learning to teach’ is still not well understood. In particular, existing research does not fully reflect the complexities of the process; how student teachers’ level of subject matter knowledge influences their teaching, or how their placement affects the process. This study provides an alternative nonlinear, relational model for understanding the process of ‘learning to teach’. I study the ways in which 66 BEd students teach during eight school-based Teaching Experience sessions, conducted over the four year duration of their preservice teaching degree. I primarily draw on evidence obtained from lesson observation reports written by university tutors as they respond to lessons taught by this cohort of student teachers. I cluster their comments into five facets necessary for enabling learning, namely, student teachers’ knowledge and understanding of content; their preparation; their teaching strategies; their classroom management; and the ways in which they monitor learning. These five facets have links to the process of teaching described by Shulman’s (1987b) Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action. Within each of these five facets, varying levels of competence were demonstrated by the student teachers in this study. I develop an analytical tool that describes four developmental levels of student teaching over each of the five facets of the teaching process. An in-depth study of the developmental teaching portraits of five student teachers illustrates that they are often more advanced in some facets of their teaching, and less so in others. The portraits highlight the ways in which certain facets affect teaching in other facets. The interactions between these differing levels and facets give rise to particular challenges that student teachers experience as they ‘learn to teach’. Some of these challenges are more significant than others, as certain inter-facet relationships are essential to the development of pedagogically reasoned action, and other relationships are less crucial. My findings suggest that although ‘learning to teach’ is a non-linear process, there nevertheless exists a logical hierarchy within the facets, whereby some facets create conditions of possibility for others. In particular, I find that the way in which student teachers use their knowledge and understanding of the content to inform other facets, establishes the 2 logical conditions necessary for the development of teaching as pedagogically reasoned action.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2016-08-26T13:17:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Wania Maria Previattelli.pdf: 1109171 bytes, checksum: 9ab35a624cfc4e44b04b74086de41461 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-26T13:17:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Wania Maria Previattelli.pdf: 1109171 bytes, checksum: 9ab35a624cfc4e44b04b74086de41461 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-10 / The present work is a research that aimed to analyze to what extent the pedagogical coordinators, subject of training reading teaching have appropriated the principles of collaborative/shared reading and as forwarded this discussion with teachers. The critical incident technique were used for data collection with the pedagogical coordinators of a Directorate of Public Education in the interior of São Paulo State. As theoretical referents were used that deal with authors of such training as Délia Lerner, Isabel Solé, Frank Smith e Ângela Kleiman. The analysis of the responses identified that: there are different understandings about the purpose of the shared reading and to whom; the applicant's idea of "help the professor" in forwards proposed by them, yet prescriptive character-based. The data allowed the analysis of the interactions between the pedagogical coordinators with their teachers and their consequences on pedagogical practice / O presente trabalho trata de uma pesquisa que teve como objetivo analisar em que medida os coordenadores pedagógicos, sujeitos da formação sobre didática da leitura se apropriaram dos princípios da leitura colaborativa/compartilhada e como encaminharam essa discussão junto aos professores. Utilizou-se a técnica dos incidentes críticos para a coleta de dados junto aos coordenadores pedagógicos de uma Diretoria de Ensino da Rede Pública Estadual do interior de São Paulo. Como referentes teóricos foram utilizados textos de autores que tratam dessa formação, como Délia Lerner, Isabel Solé, Frank Smith e Ângela Kleiman. A análise das respostas permitiu identificar que: há diferentes entendimentos acerca do propósito da leitura compartilhada e a quem se destina; a recorrente ideia de “ajuda ao professor” nos encaminhamentos propostos por eles é ainda baseada em caráter prescritivo. Os dados permitiram, ainda, a análise do tipo de interação entre os coordenadores pedagógicos com seus professores e suas consequências na prática pedagógica