The purpose of this action research project was to determine how my practice of implementing Universal Design for Learning-Representation (UDL-R) principles influenced my students’ understanding of content and enhanced their ability to organize their knowledge using concept maps. A secondary purpose of this action research project was to determine if student created concept maps served as a useful tool to enrich students’ written scientific explanations. Students in this study completed concept maps and wrote explanations about adaptations before and after participating in lessons enriched with UDL-R principles that included the use of multimedia sources, website searches, and trade books. The processes used to collect data for this action research project were concept maps, written explanations, student notes, and videotaped accounts of learning from UDL-R principles. The themes that emerged were deeper content understanding for students and greater engagement in learning through UDL-R practices as evidenced through student notes, student discussions and videotaped accounts. The students in this study showed minimal change in the total average scores on concept maps with mixed results for males versus female students’ scores. Although students’ concept maps and written explanations indicated minimal improvement or change, their notes listing thirty to over one hundred facts and their comments indicated their interest and engagement in the learning process supported by UDL-R practices.

The purpose of this action research project was to determine how my practice of using graphic organizers during instruction influenced my students' ability to summarize and comprehend significant fifth grade Earth Science content regarding the Earth's changing surface. A secondary purpose was to determine the students' perceptions of how concept mapping assisted in making connections to understand the fifth grade Earth Science content regarding the Earth's changing surface. The three processes used to collect data for this research were concept maps, focus groups and the pre- and post-test results. The themes that emerged were the ability to describe, categorize and classify details, the increased accuracy of the use of vocabulary and the memory of the concepts that students' ability to recall information and understand the Earth Science concepts as evidenced through summarization and comprehension through the pre- and post-test.

The likelihood of conducting safe operations increases when operators ave effectively integrated their knowledge of the operation into meaningful relationships, referred to as knowledge structures (KSs). Unlike knowing isolated facts about an operation, well integrated KSs reflect a deeper understanding. It is, however, only the isolated facts that are often evaluated in training environments. To know whether an operator has formed well integrated KSs, KS evaluation methods must be employed. Many of these methods, however, require subjective, human-rated evaluations. These ratings are often prone to the negative influence of a rater's limitations such as rater biases and cognitive limitations; therefore, the extent to which KS evaluations are beneficial is dependent on the degree to which the rater's limitations can be mitigated. The main objective of this study was to identify factors that will mitigate rater limitations and test their influence on the reliability and validity of KS evaluations. These factors were identified through the delineation of a framework that represents how a rater's limitations will influence the cognitive processes that occur during the evaluation process. From this framework, one factor (i.e., operation knowledge), and three mitigation techniques (i.e., frame-of-reference training, reducing the complexity of the KSs, and providing referent material) were identified. Ninety-two participants rated the accuracy of eight KSs over a period of two days. Results indicated that reliability was higher after training. Furthermore, several interactions indicated that the benefits of domain knowledge, referent material, and reduced complexity existed within subsets of the participants. For example, reduced complexity only increased reliability among evaluators with less knowledge of the operation. Also, referent material increased reliability only for those who scored less complex KSs. Both the practical and theoretical implications of these results are provided.

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Over the decades, computer forensics has expanded from primarily examining computer evidence found on hard drives into the examination of digital devices with increasing storage capacity, to the identification of crimes and illegal activities involving the use of computers, to addressing standards and practices deficiencies, and to addressing the need to educate and train law enforcement, computer forensic technicians, and investigators. This dissertation presents the concept mapping case domain modeling approach to aid examiners/investigators in searching and identifying digital evidence and analyzing the case domain during the examination and analysis phase of the computer forensic investigation. The examination and analysis phases of a computer forensic process are two of the most important phases of the investigative process because the search for and identification of evidence data is crucial to a case; any data uncovered will help determine the guilt or innocence of a suspect. In addition, these phases can become very time consuming and cumbersome. Therefore, finding a method to reduce the amount of time spent searching and identifying potential evidence and analyzing the case domain would greatly enhance the efficiency of the computer forensic process. The hypothesis of this dissertation is that the concept mapping case domain modeling approach can serve as a method for organizing, examining, and analyzing digital forensic evidence and can enhance the quality of forensic examinations without increasing the time required to examine and analyze forensic evidence by more than 5%. Four experiments were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the concept mapping case domain modeling approach. Analysis of the experiments supports the hypothesis that the concept mapping case domain modeling approach can be used to organize, search, identify, and analyze digital evidence in an examination.

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No description available.

Concept maps, introduced by Novak, aid learners' understanding. I hypothesize that concept maps also can function as a summary of large documents, e.g., electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). I have built a system that automatically generates concept maps from English-language ETDs in the computing field. The system also will provide Spanish translations of these concept maps for native Spanish speakers. Using machine translation techniques, my approach leads to concept maps that could allow researchers to discover pertinent dissertations in languages they cannot read, helping them to decide if they want a potentially relevant dissertation translated. I am using a state-of-the-art natural language processing system, called Relex, to extract noun phrases and noun-verb-noun relations from ETDs, and then produce concept maps automatically. I also have incorporated information from the table of contents of ETDs to create novel styles of concept maps. I have conducted five user studies, to evaluate user perceptions about these different map styles. I am using several methods to translate node and link text in concept maps from English to Spanish. Nodes labeled with single words from a given technical area can be translated using wordlists, but phrases in specific technical fields can be difficult to translate. Thus I have amassed a collection of about 580 Spanish-language ETDs from Scirus and two Mexican universities and I am using this corpus to mine phrase translations that I could not find otherwise. The usefulness of the automatically-generated and translated concept maps has been assessed in an experiment at Universidad de las Americas (UDLA) in Puebla, Mexico. This experiment demonstrated that concept maps can augment abstracts (translated using a standard machine translation package) in helping Spanish speaking users find ETDs of interest. / Ph. D.

Esta tese investigou as potencialidades pedagógicas que podem ser atribuídas ao mapeamento conceitual (Novak) para a visibilidade do protagonismo da aprendizagem significativa dos alunos (Ausubel). É resultado de pesquisa descritivo-explicativa do registro de relações da técnica de mapeamento, aprendizagem significativa e novas práticas de avaliação. Tais relações foram contempladas com a revisão de literatura (documentos da legislação educacional brasileira; banco de teses e dissertações; artigos publicados em periódicos; livros de formação docente e em eventos específicos sobre o tema). A opção metodológica adotada para entender a operacionalização da técnica de mapeamento provocou pesquisa na realidade escolar. A observação sistemática durante um ano letivo desta técnica no ensino de Geografia revelou uma cartografia da aprendizagem de alunos do Ensino Médio, importante e essencial para as reflexões docentes sobre mudanças inovadoras nas práticas avaliativas. A vivência docente exigiu investimento permanente em reflexões, sínteses, organização e planejamento das aulas. Desde a fase de uso da papelaria tradicional comum nas escolas públicas até o requinte de uso de computadores com o software CmapTools. As análises realizadas sobre os mapas criados em temas complexos contribuíram para fundamentar as questões didáticas do ensino de Geografia. Reafirmaram a importância do planejamento com ênfase em estratégias colaborativas e também digitais. Os resultados indicam caminhos possíveis para ampliar a visibilidade do protagonismo dos alunos e a função social do professor, na sua relação com práticas de avaliação importantes à aprendizagem significativa em Geografia. Limitações em relação ao uso da técnica possibilitaram refletir sobre sua visibilidade impostas, tanto pela ausência de formação docente sobre ela, como pelas condições de infraestrutura, de tempo e de desvalorização do trabalho docente nas instituições. Elas podem justificar a escassa produção sobre o tema. O planejamento do professor para elaboração dos mapas conceituais e a análise crítica devem ser fundamentados por teorias como a da aprendizagem significativa. Destaca-se a importância da pesquisa na prática docente, pressuposto essencial à fundamentação de transformações nas práticas avaliativas tanto da aprendizagem como do ensino. / This thesis investigated the pedagogical potentialities that can be attributed to the concept mapping (Novak) for the visibility of the protagonist of meaningful learning in the student (Ausubel). It is the result of descriptive-explanatory research of the related record of the mapping technique, meaningful learning, and new evaluation practices. These relationships were considered with the literature review (documents of the Brazilian educational legislation, theses and dissertations databases, articles published in periodicals, teacher training books and specific events on the subject). The methodological option adopted to understand the operationalization of the concept mapping technique provoked research in the school reality. Systematic observation during a school year of this technique in Geography Teaching revealed cartography of the learning of high school students, important and essential for teachers\' reflections on innovative changes in evaluation practices. The teaching experience required permanent investment in reflections, synthesis, organization and class planning. From the phase of using traditional stationery common in public schools to the refinement of using computers with CmapTools software. The analyses carried out on the maps created in complex subjects contributed to support the didactic questions of the teaching of Geography. They reaffirmed the importance of planning with an emphasis on collaborative and digital strategies. The results indicate possible ways to increase the visibility of the protagonist of the students and the social function of the teacher in its relationship with important assessment practices to meaningful learning in Geography. Limitations in relation to the use of the technique made it possible to reflect on their visibility imposed, both by the absence of teacher training on it and by the conditions of infrastructure, time and evaluation of teaching work in institutions. They can justify the scarce production on the subject. The teacher\'s planning for concept mapping and critical analysis should be grounded by theories such as meaningful learning. It is important to highlight the importance of research in teaching practice, an essential presupposition for the foundation of transformations in the evaluation practices of both learning and teaching.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the difficulties encountered by the grade ten township learners with respect to the concept of electricity. More specifically, the study attempted to explore the learners’ scientific knowledge by investigating their conceptions or alternative conceptions about electricity; the influence of learners’ age, career interests and gender issues on their conceptions of electricity and; the effectiveness of concept mapping (a pedagogic tool designed by Novak in the 1970s) in facilitating the learners’ understanding of electricity. The study was premised on socio-cultural constructivism as well as meaningful learning as espoused by Ausubel (1968). A Pre-Test-Post-Test Control Group Design was adopted in the study in which two comparable groups were used. The data was analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative research methods and the instruments that were used included a conception of electricity (COET) (originally adopted and administered in the Western Cape, Northern Cape provinces and in Norway in 1999 for the purpose of Science and Technology Literacy Project (STLP) with the hope that their reliability and validity was guaranteed); selected learner interviews and evaluation forms. The summary of findings has suggested that the Grade ten learners held misconceptions about the concept of electricity even after they were exposed to intervention that included concept mapping. In terms of the gender issues, there was no significant difference in performance between the boys and girls though the females outperformed their male counterparts at both groups. The underachievement of the older learners compared to the younger ones has also surfaced and that is against expectation since a number of studies carried out earlier (see Ogunniyi (1999)) have already corroborated such findings. With respect to career interests, what the learners indicated as their future dreams, i.e. what they intend to do and become, seems to have been influenced their performance at the pre- and post-test stages. / Magister Educationis - MEd