Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-48). / by Matthew T. Hutson. / S.M.in Science Writing

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Underneath is a full-length novel that follows Maggie Lawrence, a twelve-year-old girl growing up in the late 1970s, through the first eight months of her parents' divorce. To escape their fighting, Maggie crawls under her bed. There, she is transported to the Forest, a place where all the animals who were in the tree when the tree was cut down to make Maggie's bed are trapped. Maggie helps her friends attempt to escape the Forest, a place where nothing can change or grow, while struggling with the feeling that, in her real world, Maggie doesn't want anything to change or to grow. In an attempt to remain thin enough to fit under her bed and visit the Forest, Maggie develops an eating disorder, which eventually places her in the hospital. Through recovery, Maggie must learn to adapt to new changes in her life and accept her parents as they are, while also finding her own reasons to want to grow up and reflect these adults who aren't always perfect. / by Aimee Harrison. / S.B.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, September 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36-41). / by Amitabh Avasthi. / S.M.

Much research has been carried out to demonstrate how the online platforms can be used to improve teaching and learning processes. However, they have been less explored in relation to vocational education, where the situation is often more complex and the possible solution options tend to be more constrained than in the contexts where these online technologies have been created. The aim of this research is to investigate the experience of teachers' current use of the online platform (Moodle) in vocational teaching by using a multi-method phenomenographic approach. With data collected by a quantitative survey and in-depth interviews, a complete picture has been developed for the phenomenon being investigated. Findings from the survey and interviews have been used to identify different approaches that teachers can adopt in using Moodle for their vocational subjects in Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education. Through an iterative process of analysis, numerous issues related to vocational teaching with Moodle are revealed in the research process to extend previous knowledge, including: shift in the vocational teachers' role, adjustment of communication with students, necessity of face-to-face coaching, blended learning, control of the learning progress, preparation of the online content, teaching and learning effectiveness, change of student quality and expectations, and amplified support by the media richness. In addition to analyzing the complexity of the phenomenon, the findings of this research highlight the value of sharing teachers' experience; this provides guidance and insights for other vocational teachers to explore the possibilities and opportunities of using the online platforms in their areas of vocational teaching. Complexity and opportunities have been created, not only for both vocational teachers and students, but also for the stakeholders such as course administrators, curriculum developers, faculty members, educational specialists, and organization leaders considering or using online learning platforms for vocational teaching. Recommendations are given in the conclusion for development of staff capacity and capability in vocational teaching with online platforms, particularly with Moodle. Above all, the results of this research substantiate previous ones in showing the importance of teaching with technology, rather than teaching about technology, or technology for teaching.

This thesis focuses on a political economy analysis of the relationship between the professional identity and professional development practices of instructors in the postsecondary educational sector of technical and vocational education and training (TVET). My study brings together the concept of the dual-professional identity of postsecondary TVET instructors, the practice of professional development in TVET, and a political economy approach. The research methods adapted for this postgraduate research study were from a qualitative perspective using a case study approach. The case study involved eight culinary instructors, the supervisor of the professional cooking programme, and the director of the hospitality and culinary careers school at a postsecondary polytechnic in Canada, selected using a non-probability sampling technique. My research explored what a political economy analysis would reveal about the relationship between the professional identity and the professional development practices of the culinary instructors/chefs. Throughout this thesis, I use the term, TVET professionalisation, to denote this relationship This case study contributes to knowledge and the TVET community in three intersecting ways. Its first contribution is in context - the research took place in the Canadian postsecondary TVET sector, for purposes of analysing the professional identity/professional development relationship in consideration of the historical, structural, and socio-cultural contexts of the institution. The case study's second contribution is in extending the literature of the political economy of skills. The findings demonstrate that analysing the professionalisation of the TVET culinary instructors, in consideration of the inter-relationship among the cultural, economic, political, and social contexts of the TVET system, is a suitable extension of the literature on the political economy of skills. From another perspective, the study also adds to the literature on the professionalisation of TVET instructors by considering professionalisation as an extension of the TVET workforce development imperative, which I note in this study as the discourse promoting employability and the axiomatic assumptions of TVET as 'training-for-growth' and 'skills-for work' (Anderson 2008). Thus, the study contributes to wider debates about the applicability of a political economy analysis beyond skill formation systems. Lastly, the case study contributes a conceptual framework for TVET professionalisation by interpreting the relationship between TVET professional identity and professional development through a political economy lens. The findings demonstrate that both the professional identity and the professional development practices of the culinary instructors in the case study were shaped by various contextual factors within the field of practice: namely, the instructor's personal history and sense of agency, the socio-cultural conventions of the culinary trade under investigation, the social and structural setting of the postsecondary TVET institution, and the workforce development imperative of TVET. The conceptual framework for TVET professionalisation also contributes another perspective toward the dual-professional identity of TVET instructors. Dual-professional identity formation within this study, and drawing upon the language of the research participants, refers to the process where the 'recipe' for the chefs' base identity was written in the professional trade of culinary arts. Once they joined the polytechnic, though, the chefs used the institution as 'stage' to 'go beyond the recipe' and elevate their identities by adding the ingredient of 'becoming an educator'. Based on an interpretation of the case study's findings, through a political economy lens of analysis, I suggest that the 'skilled-educator' identity of the culinary instructors is bound by the structural and socio-economic contexts of the postsecondary polytechnic, whereas the 'skilled-tradesperson' identity of the culinary instructors reflects the historical and socio-cultural contexts of the instructors' lived experience as chefs. Further, I posit that each instructor's perception of meaningful professional development reflects the individual's personal sense of agency; what constitutes both a personal and shared sense of legitimacy concerning the value of professional development; and, an allegiance to one of the dual-professional identities over the other.

Lifelong learning (LLL), a concept dating back to the 1920s, is much used both by the OECD, UNESCO and the EU. But while intergovernmental think-tanks and supranational organisations often use the term in a positive sense, many (not least scholars) are critical of the term. The critique either deals with the lack of a universal definition, that the implicit responsibility for LLL has shifted onto the individual, or that the meaning of the term has shifted from a humanistic one linked to the personal development and a better society to a neoliberal one that involves growth, competition, globalisation and human capital theory. This study is based on interviews with nine trade union representatives on their understandings of lifelong learning. The results showed that while LLL was positively viewed by most, there was virtually no communication vis-à-vis members on the topic, most trade unions have no policy regarding LLL, and responses from representatives were sometimes self-conflicting.

Thesis--Gothenburg. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-165).

Thesis (M.A.)--Denver Seminary, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-124).

It is not uncommon to hear people speak of their worlds coming undone during traumatic events of existential crisis or catastrophe. Yet, human geographers have largely neglected to attend to the phenomenal nature of this unbounded sense of 'unworlding' disintegration, as well as the wild material forces, agencies and passions at loose in the world that carry the unlimited potential to wreck the integrity of our worlds. This dissertation dedicates itself to critically thinking through the human experience of suffering to live through, confront and respond to unworlding disasters of sense that are materially capable of disrupting the functional and relational composition of our worlds. More concretely, in this dissertation I explore unworlding disasters of sense through the specific experiences of agoraphobic sufferers. While social scientists, including human geographers, have long been interested in what is sociologically, spatially and clinically exceptional about agoraphobia as a static predicament of being spatially bounded due to fear of public space, little to no consideration has been given to how agoraphobia primitively and phenomenally manifests itself as an eventful disordering of sense that unsettles not just one's situated place in the world, but the entire relational order of the world itself. By critically attending to agoraphobia as an eventful disordering of sense that improperly deforms the structure of a human world, I seek to develop new ways to account for affective disasters of unworlding that carry the potential to overturn a proper sense of the world. Furthermore, I also speculate on the finite human ability to affirmatively respond to, make sense of, and impose limits on unworlding disasters that exceed one's subjective ability to grasp, yet improperly and materially affect the entire scope of one's lifeworld. In terms of its greater contribution to the discipline of geography, in this dissertation I strive to develop new understandings about the human condition of being in an eventful, material world that infinitely exceeds our ability to subjectively control or understand. By doing so, this dissertation aims to reaffirm the humanistic perspective as a theoretically valid and ethically critical way of practicing geography after the non-representational turn. / text

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