The main purpose of this multiple case study is to investigate how high school history teachers in Sweden use historical explanations in their classroom teaching.  Specifically, the study explores how explanations are constructed in the clasroom interactions, and what thinking tools, if any, the teachers use to help students grasp central aspects of the historical explanation in question. The case study is based upon observation data from the classrooms of five Swedish high school teachers. A theoretical underpinning of this study is that historical explanations are best understood as cases of complex causality. In order to describe these cases as they are presented in the context of a classroom, a model for analysis is used which draws upon research conclusions from several fields, chiefly instructional theory (Gaea Leinhardt), theory of history (C.Behan McCullagh) and historical thinking (Peter Seixas). The study presents each teacher as a separate case in one chapter, while another chapter focuses on what different tools each teacher uses in his/her explanations. In the last empirical chapter, the teachers’ explanations are discussed in relation to how they emphasize and relate to diffent historical thinking concepts. The study shows that while explanations are intimately interconnected with causality, their use is intertwined with other historical thinking concepts. Furthermore,  teachers use a multitude of different tools when working with  explanations. While certain tools aim at reinforcing students’ thinking about causality, they may simultaneously weaken the explanation’s value for something else, such as historical empathy. Thus, the importance of planning for specific teaching objectives is emphasized by the study. / Förmågan att resonera om orsaker och konsekvenser för att därigenom förklara historiska skeenden är en central förmåga i historisk kunskap. Hur gör lärare när de arbetar med historiska förklaringar i undervisningen? Den frågan är utgångspunkten för denna studie, som bygger på klassrumsstudier av fem yrkesverksamma historielärares undervisning. Särskild vikt läggs vid att identifiera olika redskap som lärarna använder för att tydliggöra olika aspekter av förklaringar i undervisningen.  Undersökningen visar hur förklaringar i undervisningspraktiken påverkas av faktorer som kursinnehåll, elevgrupp och undervisningens målsättningar. Ett antal didaktiska redskap för att arbeta med förklaringar identifieras. Vidare visar undersökningen också hur förklaringar i undervisningspraktiken kan vara sammanflätade med andra aspekter av historisk kunskap, som historisk empati och källhantering.

This project is aimed at generating new knowledge and improving our understanding of how Modified for Language Support-Worked Example Pairs (MLS-WEPs) contribute to effective mathematics learning and teaching in an ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) context. The current study investigated a novel instructional approach to help English Language Learners (ELLs) develop better understanding in mathematical reasoning, problem solving, and literacy skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) while they are still developing their English language proficiency. The current study followed a wait-list control design, with both the treatment and control groups receiving intervention materials. The intervention materials were administered multiple times with different topics (units) throughout the study. The lessons were audio-recorded when the selected topics were taught. Pretest and posttest were given each time when the selected topics were taught. The data analysis for this study included both qualitative and quantitative analyses. The present study revealed the following results: (1) MLS-WEPs not only enhanced ELLs’ ability to solve mathematical problems, but also improved their written explanation skills and enabled them to transfer such skills to different mathematical concepts; (2) when controlling ELLs’ prior knowledge, the effectiveness of the MLS-WEPs intervention did not vary by their English language proficiency; (3) the MLS-WEPs intervention materials facilitated teachers to provide ELLs with more opportunities to read, write, and speak in mathematics and enabled teachers to ask more and deeper questions. However, worked example comparisons did not appear to motivate the participant teachers to promote equitable participation in mathematics classrooms. These findings provide direct empirical support for the need to reform mathematics teaching and learning in the ESOL context. / Math & Science Education

The purpose of this study was to improve my teaching practice, as well as my second grade students' success with two-digit addition concepts, by allowing them to choose the manipulative tools to explore problems and justify solutions. I examined how allowing my students this choice influenced their attitudes, achievement, and explanations of their thought processes. I found that allowing students to choose their own manipulatives had positive influences in all three areas. Pre- and post-test results showed an overall shift toward more positive mathematics attitudes, as well as increased academic achievement with two-digit addition concepts. Students also demonstrated changes in the ways they used the manipulatives, as well as how they explained their solutions to two-digit addition problems.

No description available.

This thesis delves into eye tracking, a technique for estimating an individual’s point of gaze and understanding human interactions with the environment. A blossoming area within eye tracking is appearance-based eye tracking, which leverages deep neural networks to predict gaze positions from eye images. Despite its efficacy, the decision-making processes inherent in deep neural networks remain as ’black boxes’ to humans. This lack of transparency challenges the trust human professionals place in the predictions of appearance-based eye tracking models. To address this issue, explainable AI is introduced, aiming to unveil the decision-making processes of deep neural networks and render them comprehensible to humans. This thesis employs various post-hoc explainable AI methods, including saliency maps, gradient-weighted class activation mapping, and guided backpropagation, to generate heat maps of eye images. These heat maps reveal discriminative areas pivotal to the model’s gaze predictions, and glints emerge as of paramount importance. To explore additional features in gaze estimation, a glint-free dataset is derived from the original glint-preserved dataset by employing blob detection to eliminate glints from each eye image. A corresponding glint-free model is trained on this dataset. Cross-evaluations of the two datasets and models discover that the glint-free model extracts complementary features (pupil, iris, and eyelids) to the glint-preserved model (glints), with both feature sets exhibiting comparable intensities in heat maps. To make use of all the features, an augmented dataset is constructed, incorporating selected samples from both glint-preserved and glint-free datasets. An augmented model is then trained on this dataset, demonstrating a superior performance compared to both glint-preserved and glint-free models. The augmented model excels due to its training process on a diverse set of glint-preserved and glint-free samples: it prioritizes glints when of high quality, and adjusts the focus to the entire eye in the presence of poor glint quality. This exploration enhances the understanding of the critical factors influencing gaze prediction and contributes to the development of more robust and interpretable appearance-based eye tracking models. / Denna avhandling handlar om ögonspårning, en teknik för att uppskatta en individs blickpunkt och förstå människors interaktioner med miljön. Ett viktigt område inom ögonspårning är bildbaserad ögonspårning, som utnyttjar djupa neuronnät för att förutsäga blickpositioner från ögonbilder. Trots dess effektivitet förblir beslutsprocesserna i djupa neuronnät som ”svarta lådor” för människor. Denna brist på transparens utmanar det förtroende som yrkesverksamma sätter i förutsägelserna från bildbaserade ögonspårningsmodeller. För att ta itu med detta problem introduceras förklarbar AI, med målet att avslöja beslutsprocesserna hos djupa neuronnät och göra dem begripliga för människor. Denna avhandling använder olika efterhandsmetoder för förklarbar AI, inklusive saliency maps, gradient-weighted class activation mapping och guidad backpropagation, för att generera värmekartor av ögonbilder. Dessa värmekartor avslöjar områden som är avgörande för modellens blickförutsägelser, och ögonblänk framstår som av yttersta vikt. För att utforska ytterligare funktioner i blickuppskattning, härleds ett dataset utan ögonblänk från det ursprungliga datasetet genom att använda blobdetektering för att eliminera blänk från varje ögonbild. En motsvarande blänkfri modell tränas på detta dataset. Korsutvärderingar av de två datamängderna och modellerna visar att den blänkfria modellen tar fasta på kompletterande särdrag (pupill, iris och ögonlock) jämfört med den blänkbevarade modellen, men båda modellerna visar jämförbara intensiteter i värmekartorna. För att utnyttja all information konstrueras ett förstärkt dataset, som inkorporerar utvalda exempel från både blänkbevarade och blänkfria dataset. En förstärkt modell tränas sedan på detta dataset, och visar överlägsen prestanda jämfört med de båda andra modellerna. Den förstärkta modellen utmärker sig på grund av sin träning på en mångfaldig uppsättning av exempel med och utan blänk: den prioriterar blänk när de är av hög kvalitet och justerar fokuset till hela ögat vid dålig blänkkvalitet. Detta arbete förbättrar förståelsen för de kritiska faktorerna som påverkar blickförutsägelse och bidrar till utvecklingen av mer robusta och tolkningsbara modeller för bildbaserad ögonspårning.

The thesis focuses on how students learn history in the classroom, more precisely on their possibilities and difficulties in developing competence in the school subject of history. There is a particular emphasis on how they explain and understand historical processes and concepts within the subject of history. Participants are students of different grades, 8–19 years old. The purpose of the study is to explore how students learn history in concrete learning situations and my focus is on the types of knowledge students understand, learn, develop and use in comparison with what they are expected to learn.  This is done based on three fundamental and well-established principles of learning. To examine what kinds of knowledge students need I use three main types of knowledge: declarative content knowledge (facts and concepts), procedural knowledge (knowledge about how to do things) and self-regulatory knowledge (knowledge about how to regulate our memory, thought and learning). I also use concepts and insights from systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in order to explain why the students use language and communicate the way they do. The thesis shows that history is challenging for young students. Young students have difficulties with complex and abstract concepts in history as they treat concepts as facts. Older, more competent, students use concepts on a more abstract level and use different kinds of linguistic resources when formulating explanations of higher complexity, more similar to the way explanations in the domain of history are commonly written. The youngest students and some of the older students lacked factual knowledge, concept knowledge, domain specific self-regulatory knowledge and linguistic resources. Declarative content knowledge and facts are more important and more difficult for young students to understand, develop, organize and learn than previous scholars have shown empirically. Students’ abilities to understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework and to organize and structure facts with the help of concepts at different level of abstraction (conceptual understanding) are crucial. Students also need linguistic resources, both lexical knowledge and knowledge of text structures. Language is crucial both in the process of acquiring knowledge and in the process of communication. In the learning process, teaching is crucial, since individual students’ potential to develop competence depend on the potential of the teacher to discover and engage their preconceptions and arrange for learning in a way that give students the kind of knowledge they need.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Les concepts d’écosystèmes et de communautés sont centraux aux explications en écologie ainsi qu’à plusieurs débats environnementaux. Cependant, depuis l’introduction de ces concepts, leur statut ontologique est controversé (c'est-à-dire un écosystème a-t-il une existence à part entière au-delà de l’existence de ses parties constituantes?). Alors que certains favorisent une interprétation épistémique de ces concepts, d’autres défendent plutôt que ces unités écologiques fassent partie intégrante du monde naturel. Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, j’argumente que la meilleure manière d’appréhender cette question ontologique est de comprendre que les communautés ainsi que les écosystèmes sont des mécanismes. Plus précisément, je propose que les écosystèmes et les communautés soient des ensembles d’entités et d’activités organisés de manière à exhiber de manière régulière des phénomènes précis. Les entités sont les composantes de ces mécanismes (ex : espèce, niche écologique) alors que les activités sont les relations causales produisant des changements (ex : photosynthèse, prédation). Finalement, les phénomènes que ces mécanismes produisent sont les propriétés émergentes propres au niveau d’organisation des communautés et des écosystèmes (ex. : pH, Biomasse). En utilisant l’approche manipulationniste développée par James Woodward (2003, 2004, 2010), j’argumente qu’il est possible d’identifier les composantes causales des écosystèmes et des communautés ainsi que leurs relations. Puisqu’il est possible de manipuler empiriquement et de manière contrefactuelle de différentes manières les communautés et les écosystèmes (Penn 2003; Swenson et Wilson 2000), je conclus que nous pouvons affirmer de manière robuste (Wimsatt 2007) que ces entités existent réellement. / The concepts of ecosystem and community are central to ecological explanations. However, since the introduction of these concepts, their ontological status is controversial. Taking as a starting point the mechanistic explanatory theories in philosophy of science, I argue that ecosystems and communities are mechanisms. More precisely, I suggest that they are entities and activities organized in such a way as to exhibit regular and precise phenomenons (Machamer, Darden, Craver 2000). While entities are the components of the mechanisms (ex: species, ecological niche), activities are the causal relations that produce changes (ex: photosynthesis, predation). Finally, the interaction of the entities and the activities produce emerging properties that are unique to the community and ecosystem level (ex: pH, biomass). By using the manipulationniste theory of Woodward (2003) and the experimental results of Swenson and Wilson (2000), I argue that it is possible to identify the causal components of the ecosystems and communities and their relations to one another. Since it is possible to manipulate empirically and counterfactually ecosystems and communities, I conclude that they are real entities.

Certains philosophes affirment que les relations causales sont fondées sur les lois de la nature. Cette conception cadre mal avec la réalité des sciences biomédicales et des sciences humaines. Pour se rapprocher de la pratique réelle des diverses sciences, James Woodward propose une conception de la causalité et de l’explication causale fondée sur une relation beaucoup moins exigeante que celle de loi de la nature, qu’il appelle l’invariance. Le but de ce mémoire est de présenter le concept d’invariance et les autres concepts causaux qui s’y rattachent et, d’identifier certaines difficultés, dans le but de cerner l’usage approprié de cette famille de concepts. La conception causale de Woodward suppose que le but de la recherche des causes est pratique plutôt que simplement épistémique : il s’agit pour les agents de s’appuyer sur les causes pour modifier les phénomènes. Cette conception est également non-réductive; elle utilise des contrefactuels et reflète les méthodes expérimentales des diverses sciences. La cohérence de cette conception avec les généralisations causales réelles des sciences fait en sorte qu’elle abandonne l’objectif d’universalité rattaché à la notion de loi de la nature, en faveur d’un objectif de fiabilité temporaire. De plus, comme le critère d’invariance est peu exigeant, d’autres critères doivent lui être ajoutés pour identifier, parmi les relations causales (c’est-à-dire invariantes), les relations les plus susceptibles d’être employées pour modifier les phénomènes de façon fiable. / Some philosophers claim that causal relations are based on the laws of nature. This view is not consistent with the actual causal relations found in the biomedical and social sciences. In order to better reflect the actual practice in the various sciences, James Woodward puts forward a view of causation and causal explanation based on a much less demanding relation than that of law of nature, which he calls ‘invariance’. This essay presents the concept of invariance and other related causal concepts, and identifies certain problems, in order to outline the proper use of this group of concepts. Woodward’s conception assumes that the goal of causal inquiry is practical rather than merely epistemic : agents use causal relationships to modify outcomes. The conception is also non reductive ; it uses counterfactuals and is a reflection of the experimental methods of the various sciences. The fact that this conception is consistent with the actual causal generalizations found in the various sciences implies that the goal of universal truth associated with the notion of law of nature is set aside and is replaced by an objective of temporary reliability. In addition, since the invariance criterion is not very demanding, other criteria must be added to identify, among causal (i.e. invariant) relations, those relations that can be relied upon to reliably modify outcomes.

O objetivo desta pesquisa é explicar os mecanismos sociais das decisões judiciais. Em particular, a investigação centra-se no processo de tomadas de decisões de operadores do Direito no sistema de justiça juvenil em São Paulo. Busca-se, assim, verificar quais são os fatores determinantes da aplicação da medida socioeducativa de internação para adolescentes acusados de cometimento de ato infracional e o modo pelo qual se dá esse processo decisório. Desde a promulgação do Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente, em 1990, o sistema de justiça juvenil brasileiro passou a operar em um novo registro: as medidas socioeducativas passaram a se restringir a autores de infrações penais; e a medida de internação, em particular, a crimes cometidos com violência e/ou grave ameaça à pessoa. Mas a gravidade do ato infracional é de fato o principal preditor das decisões judiciais na justiça juvenil? Ou haveria outros fatores explicativos, como aqueles relacionados às características sociais dos adolescentes, às relações de poder inscritas nas interações sociais ou mesmo à estrutura organizacional dos tribunais? Na busca pela explicação dos mecanismos sociais dessas decisões judiciais, esta pesquisa propôs um desenho multimetodológico, integrando técnicas quantitativas e qualitativas para investigar os mecanismos das decisões e verificar os determinantes da aplicação da medida socioeducativa de internação em São Paulo. Assim, em um primeiro momento, as hipóteses citadas foram testadas por meio de modelos logísticos binomiais tendo a decisão sobre a internação como variável dependente em um cenário multivariado. Os resultados encontrados indicam um alto grau de proporcionalidade entre crime e pena, tendo os atos infracionais considerados mais graves os mais significativos efeitos sobre a probabilidade de internação; mas indicam, também, a reprodução de relações de poder - adolescentes usuários de drogas e que não trabalham nem estudam, mantidas as outras dimensões constantes, também têm maior chance de receber a medida socioeducativa de internação. Em seguida, a fim de explicar os mecanismos dos efeitos do tratamento estimados anteriormente, foram acompanhadas semanalmente as audiências de apresentação e de continuação e as oitivas informais no Fórum Brás, em São Paulo. Ao mesmo tempo em que se concluiu que as oitivas informais, centrais no processo decisório, ocorrem cerimonialmente e que as decisões são tomadas via documentos, o que explica o mecanismo de proporcionalidade encontrado anteriormente, pôde-se concluir que eventualmente os Promotores de Justiça \"voltam atrás\" de suas decisões quando há um rompimento na definição da situação, o que explica o mecanismo dos efeitos das características individuais dos adolescentes. / This research aims at investigating the social mechanisms of judicial decisions. It particularly focuses on the decision-making process of legal actors in the juvenile justice system in São Paulo. Thus, the research aims at verifying the determinants of the confinement disposition for juveniles who have been accused of a crime and the way which this decision is made by. Since the Child and Adolescent Statute was promulgated in 1990, the Brazilian juvenile justice system started working under new guidelines: dispositions are now restricted to offenders; and the confinement disposition is restricted to offenses committed with violence and/or with a threat to a person. But is the seriousness of the crime indeed the best predictor of judicial decisions? Or are there other explanatory factors, such as the ones related to the individual characteristics of the teenagers, to the power relations within social interactions, or even to the court organizational structure? Aiming at a mechanism-based explanation of these judicial decisions, this research has proposed a mixed-methods research design, integrating both quantitative and qualitative techniques to investigate mechanisms of the decision-making process and to verify the determinants of the confinement disposition in São Paulo. Thus, at first, the aforementioned hypotheses were tested with binary logistic models, presenting the decision concerning the confinement disposition as the dependent variable on a multivariable scenario. Results indicate a high degree of proportionality between crime and punishment, with the seriousness of the offenses having significant effects on the probability of confinement; but the results also indicate some reproduction of power relations - drug user youth and those who neither work nor study increase their odds of being more severely punished. After that, aiming at explaining the mechanisms of the treatment effects estimated beforehand, both judicial and informal hearings (at the State\'s Attorney office) were weekly observed at the juvenile court in São Paulo. While it was possible to conclude that the informal hearings are central to the decision-making process and occur ceremonially, with decisions being made by documents-consulting (which explains the proportionality mechanism), the research also found that the Attorneys often regret their decisions when there is a rupture of the definition of the situation. This explains the mechanism of the individual characteristics effects on juvenile sentencing.