This research aims to understand critically the activity of teaching and learning of History in a public school of São Paulo state, in Brazil, and its relation to a formation of citizen students. The goal is on the comprehension and critical analysis about the paper of the teachers creating a personal meeting to share the meanings, possibiliting the anticipation of students, and not only the transmission of knowledge without goals. It was realized in a public school, in Mauá city. The students involved was in a third grade, in high school, they study at night. The questions about learning and teaching of History are discussed basing in Bittencourt (1988/1990, 1997/2006), Fonseca (2003, 2004, 2007/2009) e Kuenzer (2004) that points to criticize expositive classes justifying this like a problem that makes the students have a passive position in History classes and in their lives. The learning-teaching process is understood like a social-historic activity culturally situated, focusing a paper of language in the social interaction in the introduction of learning. The theory is based in TASHC- Social Historic cultural Activity theory. According to a Vygotskian theory (1925/2004, 1930/2004, 1930a/1991, 1934/2001), Leontiev (1978) and Engeström (1987, 1999 ,2001). The metodology adopted is a critical collaboration research, according discussed by Magalhães (1994/2007, 1998b/2007, 2003/2007, 2004, 2009p),it is a intervention research focused in the comprehension of context and collaborative production of actions that aims the cohesion of groups, harmonious intimacy and the power of the people that participated of the research. The results reveal that the change in the mediated action, that are in function of needs of perceiving , act and understanding the objective reality, stimulating the exercise of citizen action more participative and critical.

Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / The COVID-19 pandemic challenged higher education institutions to close their campuses for the purpose of managing and controlling the spread of the coronavirus during the national lockdown. Institutions had to migrate from blended learning and teaching to emergency online learning and teaching only, posing challenges to the learning experiences of student social workers. This study aimed to explore and describe the experiences of student social workers and educators regarding online learning and teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the influence of socioeconomic factors on student social workers’ academic experiences.

This qualitative study looks into some Kenyan school teachers strategies in the multilingual environment they work in. The school of this study uses a foreign language as the medium of instruction, instead of the mother tongue culturally spoken by both teachers and students. It presents some of the strategies observed and at the same time looks closely into the possible positive and negative outcomes it has on the students learning. It also looks into the reason for why the medium of instruction is another than mother tongue and the cultural effects of this. By observations and interviews data has been collected and presented aiming to show the teachers thoughts about their working situation, and also their thoughts about their role in the classroom.

A recente explosão do conhecimento da genética molecular e o avanço da indústria da biotecnologia requerem que o público compreenda muitos conceitos da genética para a tomada de decisões sobre a pertinência do uso dessas novas ferramentas. Durante os últimos 30 anos a literatura educacional produziu conceitos e teorias para lidar com estas dificuldades, mas a maioria dos professores desconhece estas produções, principalmente porque os periódicos de referência são publicados em línguas estrangeiras (principalmente em inglês). Esta pesquisa-ação pretende preencher esta lacuna e foi baseada em testes que envolveram 283 estudantes de 12 a 15 anos de idade. Nela descrevemos as concepções dos estudantes sobre a localização e transmissão da informação genética antes e após a aplicação de uma seqüência didática elaborada especificamente para desenvolver estratégias metacognitivas de aprendizagem. As idéias dos estudantes foram colhidas por meio dos questionários e redações, nas quais os estudantes descrevem como imaginam ser o interior das células e dos gametas. Verificamos que as crianças do ensino fundamental possuem concepções semelhantes àquelas descritas para estudantes do ensino médio. A comparação das redações produzidas pelos estudantes antes e após a aplicação da seqüência didática permitiu verificar que o padrão mais comum de aprendizagem é sincrético, ou seja, as crianças tendem a distorcer as informações oferecidas pelo professor em virtude da existência de conhecimentos prévios. Por fim, a descrição e a documentação de seqüências didáticas planejadas a partir de conhecimentos produzidos na literatura educacional permitem o entendimento dos processos de transposição didática e a relação deste com a aprendizagem dos estudantes. / The recent knowledge explosion on the areas of genetics, molecular biology and biotechnology introduced many new concepts hard for common people to grasp in their decision-making processes. During the last 30 years or so the educational literature produced concepts and theories to cope with these difficulties but the vast majority of our elementary and highschool teachers remain unaware of them possibly because the available literature is written in foreign languages (mainly in English). The action-research here presented intends to fill this gap and was based on tests performed with 283 students aged 12 to 15. We describe their conceptions on the location and transmission of genetic information before and after the application of a didactic sequence specifically elaborated to develop metacognitive learning strategies. The students\' ideas were gathered by means of questionnaires and through essays describing how they imagine the interior of cells and germ-cells. We verified that children on basic educational level have conceptions very similar to those of students of middle-level education. The paired comparison of before and after essays suggests the existence of a common, syncretic learning standard. In plain language, the results indicate that previous informal knowledge of children tends to distort the formal information transmitted by their teachers. It is clear that the description and documentation of planned didactic sequences, available from the specialized literature, provide the understanding of the didactic transposition process and its relation with the students´ learning process.

Government initiatives for strengthening the safety of the United States led to increased requirements for military linguists' knowledge of foreign languages. This study explored the development of professional training for instructors at a military language school to address the gap in teaching services. The purpose of this single case study was to explore best teaching practices for engaging adult students' foreign language learning following andragogical principles. Knowles's theory of andragogy provided the conceptual framework. Data were collected using anonymous responses to an online survey from 26 instructors who answered 3 open-ended questions. Data were analyzed by coding answers to the research question and indicated that approximately one third of participants preferred language-centered practices for engaging their students' foreign language learning. Another third of the respondents noted learner-centered approaches, and the remainder listed both language- and learner-centered approaches among best teaching practices. The proposed curriculum might facilitate discussion about the benefits of each approach to promote teaching and learning at the site. Participating in suggested training that is grounded in the theory of andragogy and local data may bring about positive change by advancing instructors' expertise, improving educational services, and resulting in increased students' proficiency.

This exploratory research investigates students’ responses to innovative instructional methods, focusing primarily on identifying the barriers that discourage students from engaging with methods that are new or not expected. The instructional methods explored are examples of learning-centred teaching and assessment methods, and are considered to be innovative since they are not yet widely used in higher education. To investigate this issue, literature from organizational change management, resistance to change, and higher education is reviewed. Gaps from the higher education literature suggest that no comprehensive framework or model exists regarding students’ barriers to engaging with innovative, learning-centred instructional methods. Additionally, few studies compare faculty member and student perceptions, clarify whether the instructional methods studied are innovative for the students, or apply theories and concepts from the change management literature. This research attempts to address these gaps. Case study methodology is selected to enable a detailed study of a course that employs innovative instructional methods. A modified grounded theory approach is used to inform both research instrument design and data analyses. Data are collected from multiple sources and via multiple methods, and both thematic and comparative analyses are presented. Overall, support is found for the four research propositions posed. The students’ barriers fall into eight key themes, and comprise various codes and properties to provide further understanding. The saliency of the codes appears to vary by time of term and type of instructional method. Other relevant factors include: the students’ year of study and amount of instructional variety, the academic discipline and culture of the innovative course, and misalignments between the students’ and instructor’s perceptions of the barriers to change. The value of course evaluation data as feedback about innovative courses is also questioned. Finally, connections are made between the findings and the Reasoned Action Approach theory for future possible research. The findings provide a new comprehensive barrier framework, analytic fishbone tool, and testable theory to help guide the development of future research projects. Additionally, future practitioners – both faculty members and educational developers – can benefit from knowing what factors to consider when planning for and confronting student resistance to innovative instructional methods.

Mathematics is perceived as a difficult subject to many students internationally and Sweden ranks among EU/OECD countries that perform poorly, cited in the TIMSS 2007 assessments. The aim of this essay is to investigate the causes of the poor performance in Mathematics in many of Swedish Secondary schools and it will contribute to the solutions of this problem. The framework of this essay takes into consideration issues on; school curriculum, instruction of knowledge by teachers, construction of knowledge by students, their interactions and experiences in the situation of learning. Teaching methods have been seen as the starting point upon which students can be invited to carry out communications, reasoning and arguments in mathematics. This can be useful in developing capabilities of solving mathematical problems as recommended in Secondary School regulations book. The interviewed teachers’ experiences and approaches in selecting teaching methods have been interpreted to correspond with students’ involvement in learning mathematics. The essay has found out that there is a positive effect on understanding mathematics if teachers can select teaching methods that suits a specific object of learning. This however, has left one disturbing question for further researchers to answer; to whether it is enough for highly motivated and hard working students to study mathematics based on memorized wisdom (ideas) as it does not promote mathematical awareness.

Transnational Higher Education Networks for Learning and Teaching (TNLTs) in Geography are networks of academic geographers that facilitate a common interest in exchanging knowledge about higher education learning and teaching. Participation within these learning and teaching networks arguably provides benefits of information sharing but is often compromised by barriers such as finance and time. The aim of this study is to contribute to geographies of higher education by exploring academic networking practices for learning and teaching through geographers motivations, experiences and outcomes of participation alongside the role that technology plays in facilitating these. The subject of learning and teaching is an increasingly important area of study. The complex relationship between the practices of learning and teaching alongside research and administration duties within higher education has been previously explored yet little discussion is offered on academics who focus on learning and teaching practice. However, within the context of human geography research TNLTs as defined within this thesis have only received cursory treatment. This study situates TNLTs under the umbrella of geographies of higher education that are increasingly being studied with focuses on transnational academic mobility, international student mobility and international collaborations in higher education. This study sketches a conceptual framework for engaging in academic networking by bringing research together on TNLTs, Continuing Professional Development (CPD), higher education on a global scale, Communities of Practice (CoP) and the technology driven-network society that comprise five bodies of literature that have not been considered collectively before. Due to a lack of literature and previous work on TNLTs, this thesis applies grounded theorising that generated findings out of the data rather than testing a hypothesis. Such inductive methodology develops and constructs theory and is a useful approach to researching TNLTs because it also allows for a combination of different research methods. In this thesis, various ways to access TNLTs are blended to effectively study them, including both face-to-face and online surveys and interviews.

SANTRAUKA Darbo autorius Irma Kačinienė Darbo tema: E-mokymo/si sampratos ir plėtotės galimybių tyrimas LŽŪU pedagogų bendruomenėje Darbo rengimo vieta: Lietuvos žemės ūkio universitetas, Profesinės pedagogikos ir psichologijos katedra, Akademija, 2008. Darbo apimtis: 56 lapai Darbe yra: 5 lentelės, 25 paveikslai, 2 priedai Literatūros šaltiniai: 35 Tyrimo objektas: LŽŪU pedagogų bendruomenės narių samprata apie e-mokymą/si ir jo plėtotę universitete Tyrimo metodai: 1) Mokslinės literatūros ir dokumentų analizė; 2) LŽŪU pedagogų anketinė apklausa; 3) kiekybinė (procentinis duomenų vertinimas, koreliacinių ryšių nustatymas) ir kokybinė (sisteminimas, klasifikavimas) duomenų analizė Tyrimo tikslas: Ištirti LŽŪU pedagogų bendruomenės narių sampratą apie e mokymą/si ir įvertinti e-mokymo/si plėtros strategijos pagrįstumą universitete. Tyrimo rezultatai: Tyrimo rezultatai patvirtino hipotezę, jog LŽŪU pedagogų bendruomenės nariai nėra tinkamai pasirengę taikyti e-mokymo pedagogines technologijas. Dauguma respondentų žino pagrindinius e- mokymo ir nuotolinio mokymo metodų principus, bet tik nedidelė dalis iš jų yra praktiškai ruošę e-mokymo medžiagą. Tyrimas taip pat parodė, jog pedagogai nėra abejingi moderniems mokymo metodams: turėdami didesnį institucijos paskatinimą bei geresnį metodinį pasiruošimą, jie aktyvintų šias veiklas. Ypač tai linkę daryti jaunesni ir žemesnes pareigas užimantys dėstytojai. Šiuo metu esančią nuotolinio mokymo situaciją universitete pedagogai... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Author: Irma Kačinienė Subject: Research of E-learning/ e-teaching Notion and Development Possibilities in LŽUU Pedagogic Community Location: Lithuanian University of Agriculture, Department of Vocational Pedagogy and Psychology, Akademija, 2008. Coverage: 56 pages Volume: 5 tables, 26 pictures, 2 annexes References: 35 literature sources Research object: LŽŪU pedagogue community members’ understanding of e-learning/ teaching and its development Research methods: 1) Analysis of scientific literature and documents; 2) Questionnaire survey of LŽŪU pedagogues; 3) Quantitative (percentage data evaluation, establishment of correlative connections) and qualitative (systemizing, classification) analysis of the data. Research purpose: To research the LŽŪU pedagogue community members’ understanding of e-learning/ teaching and to evaluate the reasoning of e-learning/ teaching development strategy at the university. Research results: Research results confirmed the hypothesis that members of LŽŪU pedagogues’ community are not properly prepared to apply e-teaching pedagogical technologies. Most of the respondents know the main principles of e-teaching and remote teaching methods, but only small part of them were practically engaged in preparation of e-teaching material. The research also revealed that pedagogues are not uninterested in the modern teaching methods: in case of motivation from the institution and better methodical preparation they would be engaged more actively in these... [to full text]

This exploratory research investigates students’ responses to innovative instructional methods, focusing primarily on identifying the barriers that discourage students from engaging with methods that are new or not expected. The instructional methods explored are examples of learning-centred teaching and assessment methods, and are considered to be innovative since they are not yet widely used in higher education. To investigate this issue, literature from organizational change management, resistance to change, and higher education is reviewed. Gaps from the higher education literature suggest that no comprehensive framework or model exists regarding students’ barriers to engaging with innovative, learning-centred instructional methods. Additionally, few studies compare faculty member and student perceptions, clarify whether the instructional methods studied are innovative for the students, or apply theories and concepts from the change management literature. This research attempts to address these gaps. Case study methodology is selected to enable a detailed study of a course that employs innovative instructional methods. A modified grounded theory approach is used to inform both research instrument design and data analyses. Data are collected from multiple sources and via multiple methods, and both thematic and comparative analyses are presented. Overall, support is found for the four research propositions posed. The students’ barriers fall into eight key themes, and comprise various codes and properties to provide further understanding. The saliency of the codes appears to vary by time of term and type of instructional method. Other relevant factors include: the students’ year of study and amount of instructional variety, the academic discipline and culture of the innovative course, and misalignments between the students’ and instructor’s perceptions of the barriers to change. The value of course evaluation data as feedback about innovative courses is also questioned. Finally, connections are made between the findings and the Reasoned Action Approach theory for future possible research. The findings provide a new comprehensive barrier framework, analytic fishbone tool, and testable theory to help guide the development of future research projects. Additionally, future practitioners – both faculty members and educational developers – can benefit from knowing what factors to consider when planning for and confronting student resistance to innovative instructional methods.