While the challenge of improving young North Americans’ civic engagement seems to lie in the hands of schools, studying alternative ways of teaching citizenship education could benefit the current educational system. In this context, free schools (i.e., schools run democratically by students and teachers), guided by a philosophy that aims at engaging students civically through the democratic activities that they support, offer a relatively unexplored ground for research. The present inquiry is a case study using tools of ethnography and drawing upon some principles of complexity thinking. It aims at understanding students’ citizenship education experiences during democratic activities in a Canadian free school. It describes many experiences that can arise from these activities. They occurred within a school that operated democratically based on a consensus-model. More precisely, they took place during two kinds of democratic activities: class meetings, which regulated the social life of the school, and judicial committees, whose function was to solve conflicts at the school. During these activities, students mostly experienced a combination of feelings of appreciation, concernment and empowerment. While experiencing these feelings, they predominantly engaged in decision-making and conflict resolution processes. During these processes, students modified their conflict resolutions skills, various conceptions, and their participation in democratic activities and in the school. Based on these findings, the study concludes that students can develop certain skills and attitude associated to citizenship education during these activities and become active from a citizenship perspective. Hence, these democratic activities represent alternative strategies that can assist educators in teaching about citizenship.

This study explored how a video club could be used to help develop teacher’s professional vision by investigating how teachers’ professional vision changed over time. In addition, the role of the facilitator was studied to determine how it contributed to the development of professional vision. The facilitation techniques appear to be the reason why the expected growth in professional vision did not occur. While video clubs are a valuable way of embedding professional development with artifacts from the classroom, care must be taken with the facilitation techniques employed.

This study explored how a video club could be used to help develop teacher’s professional vision by investigating how teachers’ professional vision changed over time. In addition, the role of the facilitator was studied to determine how it contributed to the development of professional vision. The facilitation techniques appear to be the reason why the expected growth in professional vision did not occur. While video clubs are a valuable way of embedding professional development with artifacts from the classroom, care must be taken with the facilitation techniques employed.

While the challenge of improving young North Americans’ civic engagement seems to lie in the hands of schools, studying alternative ways of teaching citizenship education could benefit the current educational system. In this context, free schools (i.e., schools run democratically by students and teachers), guided by a philosophy that aims at engaging students civically through the democratic activities that they support, offer a relatively unexplored ground for research. The present inquiry is a case study using tools of ethnography and drawing upon some principles of complexity thinking. It aims at understanding students’ citizenship education experiences during democratic activities in a Canadian free school. It describes many experiences that can arise from these activities. They occurred within a school that operated democratically based on a consensus-model. More precisely, they took place during two kinds of democratic activities: class meetings, which regulated the social life of the school, and judicial committees, whose function was to solve conflicts at the school. During these activities, students mostly experienced a combination of feelings of appreciation, concernment and empowerment. While experiencing these feelings, they predominantly engaged in decision-making and conflict resolution processes. During these processes, students modified their conflict resolutions skills, various conceptions, and their participation in democratic activities and in the school. Based on these findings, the study concludes that students can develop certain skills and attitude associated to citizenship education during these activities and become active from a citizenship perspective. Hence, these democratic activities represent alternative strategies that can assist educators in teaching about citizenship.

The purpose of the current study is to investigate how global and local thinking styles affect psychological well-being among undergraduate students. A total of 372 (213 females and 159 males) students at Middle East Technical University participated in this study. The qualitative data were gathered via self-report questionnaires including Scales of Psychological Well-Being, Thinking Styles Inventory and a demographic information form. To be able to determine the differences between psychological well-being due to global thinking and local thinking scores as well as gender, ANOVA was held. The results revealed a significant difference between high and low scorers of local thinking in terms of psychological well-being when the global thinking style was low. In addition, the findings indicated that for higher levels of psychological well-being individuals need to adopt one of the styles and report higher levels on that adopted style. On the other hand, the statistical analysis revealed no significant differences between high scorers of global thinking and low scorers of global thinking on psychological well-being. Additionally, no significant difference found between high scorers and low scorers of local thinking in terms of psychological well-being. Upon the examination of gender related findings, it was found that females reported higher levels of psychological well-being compared to males while males reported higher levels of global thinking than females did.

The purpose of this study was to understand the relationships between multiple intelligences, thinking styles, and critical-thinking abilities of the fifth- and sixth-grade students. Investigation method was employed in the study. 578 fifth- and sixth-grade students in the suburban and urban areas of Tainan and Kaohsiung participated in this study. The employed instruments included Multiple Intelligences Appraisal, Thinking Styles Appraisal for the Primary Students, and the Test of Critical-thinking Skills for Primary and Secondary School Students. The applied analysis methods were Descriptive Statistics, Hotelling¡¦s , Multivariate Analysis of Variance, Canonical Correlation Analysis, and Discriminant Analysis. The main findings of this study were as follows: 1. There were no significant gender differences in critical-thinking abilities. 2.The students¡¦ critical-thinking abilities in urban areas were better than those in suburban areas. 3. The students¡¦ logical-mathematical intelligence and linguistic intelligence were positively correlated with their abilities of making deductions and evaluating arguments. 4. There were no significant differences in critical-thinking abilities for students with different level of executive thinking style. 5. There were significant differences in critical-thinking abilities for students with different level of legislative thinking style. 6. There were significant differences in critical-thinking abilities for students with different level of judicial thinking style. 7. The students¡¦ living areas, logical-mathematical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, and judicial thinking style were positively correlated with their abilities in recognizing assumptions, making deductions, and evaluating arguments. Finally, the researcher proposed some suggestions for the educational organizations, the primary school teachers, and future studies.

We live in a scientific society. Science is all around us. We take scientific principles for granted every time we use technology, such as a car, a computer, or a cell phone. Paradoxically, the scientific literacy of the population is minimal at best. Having a basic knowledge of scientific principles is no longer a luxury but, in today's complex world, a necessity. To increase the scientific literacy of non-science majors, an astrobiology course was developed at the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at The University of Texas at Austin. The course subscribes to an educational philosophy that promotes the significance of teaching science to non-science majors, endorses the importance of multidisciplinary content knowledge, supports the teaching of the nature of science in an implicitly mode, advances the discussion of socio-scientific issues, and includes competent thinking-based teaching strategies using the dynamic discipline of astrobiology. The thesis reviews the problems in scientific literacy, outlines the characteristics of this innovative course, proposes a novel standard - competent thinking - to evaluate scientific literacy and analyzes the results of this course in terms of competent thinking. Data collected provided evidence of an increase of competent thinking skills among the students, especially in terms of self-reflection. Both the first and the second pilot study showed strong evidence that students transitioned from naive to competent thinking arguments. The main study demonstrated that students greatly improve their self-reflecting skills. The final study confirmed improvement in terms of self-reflecting skills, and showed that students gradually improve their arguments based on logic, reason, sophistication, and evidences. Therefore, the results show that this innovative astrobiology course is an effective tool for enhancing competent thinking skills among non-science major students. / text

This research project aims to develop a novel A3 thinking approach to support knowledge driven design that aids the generation of decision making within a Lean Product and Process Development (LeanPPD) environment. This research comprises the development of a new A3 template as a technique of problem solving in product design, the adoption of a reflection practice structured in a new A3 template for knowledge capture and sharing, and the generation of the process of using the A3 thinking approach for effective implementation. Providing useful knowledge as a design reference to generate decision making at the initial stages of product development in product design helps the designers to prevent recurrence of the same problem, eliminate design mistakes and enhance design decision. In order to achieve a novel A3 thinking approach, a research methodology consisting of four phases was developed. The first phase synthesises the A3 best practice through literature and documentation reviews. The gap analysis and results from the reviews have identified several problem-solving approaches and learning cycles that have to be considered in the research. The second phase is to evaluate the approaches and their impacts and applications in product design. In order to complete this, several research methods are selected and performed (e.g. focus group and semistructured interview) within the collaborative companies. The third phase is to develop the A3 thinking approach by utilising the LAMDA learning cycle, developing a new A3 template or so-called A3LAMDA, adopting the reflection practice and generating the process of using the new A3 thinking approach. Finally, the validation of the new A3 thinking approach through industrial case studies and expert judgements have been performed. This approach has been implemented in the automotive sector and was applied to four industrial case studies and six A3LAMDA reports were collected. As a result of the findings of this research, the utilisation of the A3 thinking approach aided the generation of knowledge driven design in product design by integrating the knowledge management capabilities; knowledge creation, capture and sharing.

This research proposes that design and visual thinking in combination with narrative theory contribute to enhance knowledge of innovation processes and support managers in their work. In particular, the focus is on the use of Storyboarding to support a better definition of a project’s brief. Innovation studies have shown that the initial phases of innovation processes (typically called the “front end of innovation”) are crucial for success. A proper definition of a brief, that occurs at the front of the front end, is therefore one of the most relevant events in innovation. This study investigates the early phases of innovation by developing and evaluating a new method for developing a brief. First, an explorative approach has been used in order to develop knowledge of challenges in the front end of innovation and how design thinking, visual thinking and narratives can bring new insights in teamwork. In this explorative search the use of case studies has been employed. Then, the explorative search has focused onthe use of Storyboarding as a tool for reflection, and in particular for igniting dynamics of framing and reframing of innovation problems. Finally, in order to create a deeper knowledge in the use of storyboarding three hypotheses has been evaluated, four experiments has been conducted with the involvement of more than 60 people defining innovation briefs. In these experiments, storyboarding (visual and narrative) has been used to support “thinking” that leads to the brief. In other words, storyboarding has been seen as a process to enable innovation teams to think differently or more precisely, rather than just a tool to represent or to communicate the brief. The experiments show that using storyboarding has effects that can support innovation management. First, storyboarding is useful if management wants to “stimulate” a reflection on meaning when developing a brief, i.e. when they want an innovation team to consider both utilitarian and emotional/symbolic factors in an innovation process. Second, Storyboarding brings a narrower focus, compared to traditional written briefs, within the “area of interest” brought up by management, which sometimes may be asked for when the organization is in search for reframing the direction of innovation. / Denna avhandling föreslår att design och visuellt tänkande i kombination med narrativ teori kan bidra till en bättre förståelse och ledning av innovationsprocesser. Framför allt med fokus på användningen av storyboarding för att stödja en bättre definition av ett projekts uppdragsbeskrivning, eller som det kallas en ”brief”. Tidigare innovationsforskning har visat att de inledande faserna av innovationsprocesser (vanligen kallad “the front end of innovation”) är av avgörande betydelse för att innovationer skall nå framgång. En ordentligt utformad ”brief”, formulerad tidigt, i de inledande faserna av innovationsprocessen är således en av de mest relevanta händelserna för framgångsrikt innovationsarbete. Denna forskning bidrar till kunskap i de tidiga faserna av innovationsprocessen genom att utveckla och utvärdera en ny metod för att utveckla en ”brief”, storyboarding. Först så har en explorativ metodik använts för att skapa förståelse för de tidiga faserna av innovation och hur metoder och teorier från design, visuellt tänkande och narrativ kan ge nya insikter i teamarbete. I denna explorativa del så har fallstudier använts som forskningsstrategi. Därefter så har mitt sökande efter förståelse fokuserats på användningen av storyboarding som ett verktyg för reflektion, och i synnerhet att formulera och omformulera inramningen av möjligheter för innovation. Slutligen, för att skapa en djupare förståelse av storyboarding, så har tre hypoteser utvärderats med hjälp av ett antal experiment med mer än 60 personers deltagande där team utvecklar en ”brief”. I dessa experiment så har Storyboarding använts för att stödja teamens “tänkande” för att utveckla en ”brief”. Med andra ord så har Storyboarding setts som en process för att möjliggöra för team att tänka annorlunda eller mer exakt, snarare än bara ett verktyg för att representera eller för att kommunicera en ”brief”. Experimenten visar att användningen av Storyboarding har ett antal effekter som kan stödja ledning av innovation. För det första kan vi se att Storyboarding kan vara användbart om man vill “stimulera” reflektion kopplat till innebörd (meaning) när man utvecklar en ”brief”, dvs. när man vill att ett team ska överväga både funktionella så väl som känslomässiga/symboliska faktorer i en innovationsprocess. För det andra så skapar storyboarding en ”smalare” definition, jämfört med traditionella skriftliga ”briefs”, inom det av ledningen valda fokusområde. Detta kan vara önskvärt när ledningen söker efter nya möjligheter för innovation.

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία αφορά στη μελέτη της ανάπτυξης της πολλαπλασιαστικής σκέψης των μαθητών του Δημοτικού Σχολείου. Σκοπός της έρευνας ήταν η αξιολόγηση της επίδοσης των μαθητών των δύο τελευταίων τάξεων του Δημοτικού Σχολείου σε προβλήματα αναλογίας, ως χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα προβλημάτων πολλαπλασιαστικής σκέψης, όσο και η διερεύνηση των μαθηματικών στρατηγικών που χρησιμοποιούν για την επίλυση αυτών. Η πολλαπλασιαστική σκέψη αποτελεί μία ιδιαίτερα σημαντική ικανότητα που παρέχει τη δυνατότητα στους μαθητές να σχεδιάζουν εύστοχες στρατηγικές λύσης σε κατηγορίες προβλημάτων που έχουν αυξημένες δυσκολίες δομής και περιεχομένου. Τα δεδομένα που συλλέχθηκαν συγκρίθηκαν μεταξύ των μαθητών των δύο τάξεων και διαπιστώθηκαν οι διαφορές μεταξύ αυτών. Με τον τρόπο αυτό, ερμηνεύθηκε ο ρόλος της ηλικίας των μαθητών, ως παράγοντας που συνδέεται με την ανάπτυξη της πολλαπλασιαστικής σκέψης. Η έρευνα έδειξε ότι οι μαθητές και των δύο τάξεων παρουσιάζουν ιδιαίτερα σημαντικές δυσκολίες στην επίλυση προβλημάτων αναλογίας. Ταυτόχρονα, φαίνεται ότι οι μεγαλύτεροι σε ηλικία μαθητές έχουν μεγαλύτερη ικανότητα στη λύση των προβλημάτων. Τέλος, η έρευνα δείχνει ότι η δομή και το περιεχόμενο των προβλημάτων αυτών αποτελούν παράγοντες που επηρεάζουν τους μαθητές στη διαδικασία επίλυσης που επιλέγουν να εφαρμόσουν. / This thesis concerns the study of the development of multiplicative thinking of primary school students. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of grade 5 and grade 6 students on proportional problems, as an example of multiplicative thinking problems, and exploring mathematical strategies used to solve them. The multiplicative thinking is a very important skill that enables students to design targeted strategies in different categories of proportional problems which have increased difficulties in structure and content. The collected data were compared between students of the two grades and found the differences between them. In this way interpreted the role of students’ age, as a factor associated with the development of multiplicative thinking. The survey shows that the students of both grades have substantial difficulties in solving proportional problems. At the same time, the survey appears that the older students have greater ability in problem solving. Finally, research shows that the structure and the content of these problems are factors that affect students in the process of resolving which they choose to apply.