In interdisciplinary and cross-functional groups and teams, members pool diverse perspectives for the purposes of new product design and innovation, but these different perspectives may cause interruptions in effective communication. This study examines the use of analogies and metaphors as effective communication tools in interdisciplinary group settings. Analogies and metaphors are an important aspect of our cognitive activities. Communication using analogies and metaphors plays an important role in constructing our knowledge structures. In this study, an instructional tool with group activities has been designed and tested to teach the effective use of analogies and metaphors in interdisciplinary and cross-functional group and team settings. The tool was designed using theories of pedagogy and includes activities for group members. The instructional tool was tested in interdisciplinary group settings. The results from a mixed methods analysis of data the collected are presented as contributions to the research in group communication and analogies and metaphors. The study also identified characteristics of effective analogies that may be used as potential communication tools in interactions between members from different disciplines and functions. / Master of Science

O objetivo desta dissertação foi o de analisar a Proposta de Formação Continuada do Professor em parceria com a equipe interdisciplinar, desenvolvida pela Secretaria de Educação de São Bernardo do Campo no período de 1996-2003. Identificar com professores da rede municipal de ensino desse Município que atuam na Educação Especial e que vivenciaram esse processo: como repercutiu em suas práticas e se modificou a visão que possuíam sobre a deficiência; se conferiu-lhes instrumentos que os auxiliassem a enfrentar as situações do dia-a-dia, no atendimento à diversidade e na compreensão das situações dela decorrentes; se contribuiu para refletir sobre o seu papel profissional na mediação de um projeto pedagógico mais flexível e transformador; se levou a mudanças no âmbito do ser professor, do saber e do fazer pedagógico. Este trabalho está fundamentado nos estudos da psicologia histórico-cultural de Vygotsky e seus seguidores, nas concepções que embasam a formação do professor e nas contribuições dos pressupostos sobre a Interdisciplinaridade. A metodologia adotada foi o da modalidade qualitativa, imprescindível à análise das percepções e significados atribuídos pelos participantes a esse modelo formativo, expressos em entrevistas e com uso de questionários. A análise dos dados das entrevistas foi realizada em três etapas: 1) categorização das respostas das entrevistadas; 2) categorização definida sob o prisma das teorias que fundamentaram a investigação; 3) reflexões sobre as categorizações, estabelecendo uma convergência dos dados analisados na perspectiva dos dois grupos de categorias. Evidenciaram-se: a importância do processo formativo, valorizando o papel do professor e propiciando crescimento profissional; a contribuição da atividade partilhada e dos vários campos teóricos para apropriação de conhecimentos sobre a criança e suas condições de aprendizagem, fortalecendo o professor para a tomada de decisões mais refletidas e autônomas; as dificuldades relativas à formação dos profissionais da equipe que coordenavam o processo; a pouca clareza na definição dos papéis dos diferentes profissionais; o pouco envolvimento de alguns e excesso de demanda de outros; as dificuldades estruturais e de organização das unidades, deflagrando ausência de sintonia entre Secretaria de Educação e Escola. A análise mostrou que a proposta auxiliou os educadores entrevistados a reconhecerem a importância de um projeto pedagógico elaborado em bases teóricas que ampliem a condição de o professor intervir na aprendizagem de seus alunos com mais clareza e decisão. Por outro lado, assinalou a importância de realizar modelos de formação que ofereçam ao professor um referencial de trabalho mais voltado à análise, reflexão e reconstrução da prática. / This dissertation has as an objective the analysis of the Continuous Development Project, in partnership with an interdisciplinary group, developed by the São Bernardo Educational Department between the years of 1996-2003; to identify along with teachers who work with special education in that city and which have had such experience: how it reflected on their teaching and if it modified their point-of-view on the impairments; if it gave them tools to help with everyday occurrences such as the observation of the diversities and the comprehension of situations occurring due to them; if it helped them to ponder about their roles in the conciliation of more flexible and changing academic tasks; if it led to a transformation on their abilities of being teachers, having knowledge and academic skills. It has been based on Vygotsky (and disciples) historical-cultural psychology studies, regarding the concepts that support the development of the teacher and their contributions to interdisciplinary group formation. The implemented methodology considered quality, essential to the examination of the perceptions and meanings the participants assigned to this development standard, through interviews and surveys. The interviews analysis was carried on in three steps: 1st was the classification of the answers; the classification 2, defined under the hood of the theories that sustained the study; pondering on the classifications leading to a convergence of verified data on the points-of-view of both classified groups. The significance of the developing process valuing the role of the teacher and providing with professional growth became evident; the contribution of the shared activities and academic fields for the gathering of knowledge of kids and for the learning processes, stimulating the teacher on more pondered and independent decision making; the difficulties related to the development of the professionals on the group that coordinated the project; the lack of understanding on the definition of roles of the distinct professionals; the lack of commitment of some professionals and the excessive demand of others; the structural and organizational obstacles of the facilities showing the deficient synchronization between the School Board and the School itself. The analysis has shown that the project helped the surveyed educators to recognize the value of an academic project supported on conceptual basis, which broadens the role of the educators on a clearer and more independent teaching method. On the other hand, it has revealed the importance of the creation of a development standard which can provide the teacher with analytic, pondered, and skill remodeled work orientation.

O objetivo desta dissertação foi o de analisar a Proposta de Formação Continuada do Professor em parceria com a equipe interdisciplinar, desenvolvida pela Secretaria de Educação de São Bernardo do Campo no período de 1996-2003. Identificar com professores da rede municipal de ensino desse Município que atuam na Educação Especial e que vivenciaram esse processo: como repercutiu em suas práticas e se modificou a visão que possuíam sobre a deficiência; se conferiu-lhes instrumentos que os auxiliassem a enfrentar as situações do dia-a-dia, no atendimento à diversidade e na compreensão das situações dela decorrentes; se contribuiu para refletir sobre o seu papel profissional na mediação de um projeto pedagógico mais flexível e transformador; se levou a mudanças no âmbito do ser professor, do saber e do fazer pedagógico. Este trabalho está fundamentado nos estudos da psicologia histórico-cultural de Vygotsky e seus seguidores, nas concepções que embasam a formação do professor e nas contribuições dos pressupostos sobre a Interdisciplinaridade. A metodologia adotada foi o da modalidade qualitativa, imprescindível à análise das percepções e significados atribuídos pelos participantes a esse modelo formativo, expressos em entrevistas e com uso de questionários. A análise dos dados das entrevistas foi realizada em três etapas: 1) categorização das respostas das entrevistadas; 2) categorização definida sob o prisma das teorias que fundamentaram a investigação; 3) reflexões sobre as categorizações, estabelecendo uma convergência dos dados analisados na perspectiva dos dois grupos de categorias. Evidenciaram-se: a importância do processo formativo, valorizando o papel do professor e propiciando crescimento profissional; a contribuição da atividade partilhada e dos vários campos teóricos para apropriação de conhecimentos sobre a criança e suas condições de aprendizagem, fortalecendo o professor para a tomada de decisões mais refletidas e autônomas; as dificuldades relativas à formação dos profissionais da equipe que coordenavam o processo; a pouca clareza na definição dos papéis dos diferentes profissionais; o pouco envolvimento de alguns e excesso de demanda de outros; as dificuldades estruturais e de organização das unidades, deflagrando ausência de sintonia entre Secretaria de Educação e Escola. A análise mostrou que a proposta auxiliou os educadores entrevistados a reconhecerem a importância de um projeto pedagógico elaborado em bases teóricas que ampliem a condição de o professor intervir na aprendizagem de seus alunos com mais clareza e decisão. Por outro lado, assinalou a importância de realizar modelos de formação que ofereçam ao professor um referencial de trabalho mais voltado à análise, reflexão e reconstrução da prática. / This dissertation has as an objective the analysis of the Continuous Development Project, in partnership with an interdisciplinary group, developed by the São Bernardo Educational Department between the years of 1996-2003; to identify along with teachers who work with special education in that city and which have had such experience: how it reflected on their teaching and if it modified their point-of-view on the impairments; if it gave them tools to help with everyday occurrences such as the observation of the diversities and the comprehension of situations occurring due to them; if it helped them to ponder about their roles in the conciliation of more flexible and changing academic tasks; if it led to a transformation on their abilities of being teachers, having knowledge and academic skills. It has been based on Vygotsky (and disciples) historical-cultural psychology studies, regarding the concepts that support the development of the teacher and their contributions to interdisciplinary group formation. The implemented methodology considered quality, essential to the examination of the perceptions and meanings the participants assigned to this development standard, through interviews and surveys. The interviews analysis was carried on in three steps: 1st was the classification of the answers; the classification 2, defined under the hood of the theories that sustained the study; pondering on the classifications leading to a convergence of verified data on the points-of-view of both classified groups. The significance of the developing process valuing the role of the teacher and providing with professional growth became evident; the contribution of the shared activities and academic fields for the gathering of knowledge of kids and for the learning processes, stimulating the teacher on more pondered and independent decision making; the difficulties related to the development of the professionals on the group that coordinated the project; the lack of understanding on the definition of roles of the distinct professionals; the lack of commitment of some professionals and the excessive demand of others; the structural and organizational obstacles of the facilities showing the deficient synchronization between the School Board and the School itself. The analysis has shown that the project helped the surveyed educators to recognize the value of an academic project supported on conceptual basis, which broadens the role of the educators on a clearer and more independent teaching method. On the other hand, it has revealed the importance of the creation of a development standard which can provide the teacher with analytic, pondered, and skill remodeled work orientation.

Purpose – The paper reports on an ongoing research project of TU Dresden Laboratory of Knowledge Architecture aiming the investigations of the traceability and visualization of upcoming ideas and topics within discussions. Communication and conversation analysis – to explore knowledge processes communication and interaction analyses emerged as a central scientific approach. Hereby knowledge creation and Knowledge Transfer are understood as collective and co-creative effort. Corresponding analysis tools and methods have been developed for the communication- and knowledge creation processes digital media extensively (Faraj et al 2011). However, research focusing on direct and immediate conversation, and not only based on digital media, rarely exists. Development requirements – The existing tools for the analysis of digital communication data are yet not widely applied in the domain of spoken discussions. Whereas communication processes in the digital domain create their data automatically, the data from natural settings have to be extracted laboriously (Tonfoni 2004). Since there are no effective methods on data recording of voice communication yet existing, there are no strong and evident methods on computer aided conversation tracking and analysing existing too. The Ideagram tool tries to overcome this shortcoming. Approach – A prototype of a transcription, visualization and analysis tool was designed, which is able to capture discussions by keywords and analyse them in real-time. The results are presented in several forms: histograms, semantic networks and mixtures between both. These visualizations allow identifying topic and concept dynamics, heuristic paths and creative moments. Central features of the discussion like knowledge communication, orientation for innovation and speech efficiency can be understood and designed. In the different figures - Ideagram - of spoken discussions the logged content is visualised. The program prototype counts the occurrence of the logged words. These can be marked within a chronological re-presentation graph and shows at what time which issue was discussed. By “peaks” and “valley’s” it is obviously visible where the talk was most or least active. The prototype tool allows analysing the used phrases according to their frequency and their appearance during the captured conversation. Practical implications & Value – In contrast of conventional protocol and transcription techniques this kind of knowledge mining allows a greater information bandwidth and a more efficient access on core topics, thematic conflicts, idea generation etc. Experiences in very different settings created a very rich data set and allows to state that the application in business and science seems to very useful according to recording, analysing and deepening of spoken discussions. Hence, the Ideagram is still a prototype version and need further investigation and development.