Students often struggle to understand why the required writing course is important in their academic and non academic life. My project seeks to bring these two parts of students' lives together by urging writing teachers and students to consider a richer concept of the term "composition," one that includes the fundamental work of composing meaningful knowledge by assembling and reflecting on raw experiences. Dewey's term "an experience" clarifies how students constitute knowledge from their experiences, and Burke's methodological concept of form offers students a model for writing that accommodates that Deweyian sort of learning. Building off of these aesthetic theories, I suggest that significant learning experiences must be composed and organized through critical reflection.

No description available.

The presence of outlying anchor items is an issue faced by many testing agencies. The decision to retain or remove an item is a difficult one, especially when the content representation of the anchor set becomes questionable by item removal decisions. Additionally, the reason for the aberrancy is not always clear, and if the performance of the item has changed due to improvements in instruction, then removing the anchor item may not be appropriate and might produce misleading conclusions about the proficiency of the examinees. This study is conducted in two parts consisting of both a simulation and empirical data analysis. In these studies, the effect on examinee classification was investigated when the decision was made to remove or retain aberrant anchor items. Three methods of detection were explored; (1) delta plot, (2) IRT b-parameter plots, and (3) the RPU method. In the simulation study, degree of aberrancy was manipulated as well as the ability distribution of examinees and five aberrant item schemes were employed. In the empirical data analysis, archived statewide science achievement data that was suspected to possess differential opportunity to learn between administrations was re-analyzed using the various item parameter drift detection methods. The results for both the simulation and empirical data study provide support for eliminating the use of flagged items for linking assessments when a matrix-sampling design is used and a large number of items are used within that anchor. While neither the delta nor the IRT b-parameter plot methods produced results that would overwhelmingly support their use, it is recommended that both methods be employed in practice until further research is conducted for alternative methods, such as the RPU method since classification accuracy increases when such methods are employed and items are removed and most often, growth is not misrepresented by doing so.

No description available.

As contemporary federal education legislation requires schools to ensure that all students are prepared for college and careers upon graduation, the college and career readiness of ELs is an urgent matter requiring investigation. Within this policy context, career and technical education (CTE) has been presented as a potential pathway for ELs to achieve college and career readiness. This necessitates research examining ELs’ opportunities to participate in CTE programs as an alternative to traditional secondary schools. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is (a) to examine the processes required to access CTE programs and the barriers ELs face when attempting to enroll in CTE, (b) to understand how institutional culture and the distribution of resources support ELs and instructors with ELs in their courses, and (c) to investigate ELs’ classroom experiences and opportunities to learn, as understood by the students, teachers, and administrators in a school dedicated to CTE programming. Drawing on ethnographic methodology, data were collected through fieldwork and classroom observations documented as fieldnotes; 36 in-depth interviews with teachers, administrators, ELs and former ELs; artifacts from classrooms; policy documents; student academic records; and state-level data from the Department of Education. The data analysis demonstrated that, overall, ELs did not experience equitable access to educational experiences leading to college and career readiness. First, ELs’ access to CTE programs that aligned with their career aspirations was restricted; administrators and counselors justified this practice through discourses of meritocracy and deficit framing of ELs. Second, despite the fact that ELs and instructors complained about the lack of support and resources, administrators drew upon race- and language-neutral ideologies to rationalize their failure to invest in programs and practices that would ensure equitable access and success for ELs. Finally, within this context of limited support, instructors expressed deficit views of ELs and relied on pedagogies that did not accommodate the linguistic needs of ELs. As a result, ELs believed that they did not receive adequate support, and many felt unprepared for college and careers. Interpreting these data from a critical race theory perspective, these findings suggest that CTE functions as a White educational space, operating under tacit White supremacist ideologies to justify inequitable treatment of ELs and privilege the cultural and linguistic practices of White students. This undermines CTE’s potential in providing equitable access to college and career readiness for ELs. / Teaching & Learning

Tractography is a tool that is often used to study structural brain connectivity from diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data. Despite its ability to visualize fibers in the white brain matter, it results in a high number of invalid streamlines. For the sake of research and clinical applications, it is of great interest to reduce this number and so improve the quality of tractography. Over the years, many solutions have been proposed, often with a need for ground truth data. As such data for tractography is very difficult to generate even with expertise, it is meaningful to instead use methods like reinforcement learning that does not have such a requirement. In 2021 a deep reinforcement learning tractography network was published: Track-To-Learn. There is however still room for improvement in the reward function of the framework and this is what we focused on in this thesis. Firstly we successfully reproduced some of the published results of Track-To-Learn and observed that almost 20 % of the streamlines were anatomically plausible. Continuously we modified the reward function by giving a reward boost to streamlines which started or terminated within a specified mask. This addition resulted in a small increase of plausible streamlines for a more realistic dataset. Lastly we attempted to include anatomical filtering in the reward function. The produced results were however not enough to draw any valid conclusions about the influence of the modification. Nonetheless, the work of this thesis showed that including further fiber specific anatomical constraints in the reward function of Track-To-Learn could possibly improve the quality of the generated tractograms and would be of interest in both research and clinical settings.

A renewed focus to produce college and career ready graduates capable of thriving in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and other career and technical education professions has made access to advanced mathematics and science courses for all students a priority in K-12 education. Previous research on achievement has indicated that Black and Latino students are underrepresented in advanced mathematics and science courses and are lagging behind their peers in academic performance. Some researchers have suggested that these disparities in participation and achievement result from unequal access to educational opportunities. This purpose of this study was to examine student access to advanced mathematics and sciences courses in Virginia public high schools as an indicator of college and career readiness. This study employed secondary data analysis of school level data from the Virginia Department of Education. Regression analyses, simple and multiple, were used to examine access to advanced mathematics (Algebra II and higher) and advanced science (Chemistry and higher) course offerings by school characteristics, including school size, economically disadvantaged percentage, the percentage of minority students, and urbanicity locale. The results of this study indicated that student access to advanced mathematics and science course offerings, excluding and including AP mathematics and science courses, as in indicator of college and career readiness, differed based upon school size, economically disadvantaged percentage, and urbanicity locale. These findings, consistent with national statistics and other research, suggested that students who attend public high schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia do not have equal access to advanced mathematics and science course offerings, including AP mathematics and science courses, when school size, economically disadvantaged, and urbanicity locales are considered. Other findings related to access based on the percentage of minority students were inconsistent with prior research, as there was no significant difference in the number of advanced mathematics and science course offerings, excluding and including AP mathematics and science courses, based on the percentage of Black and Latino students enrolled in Virginia public high schools. / Ed. D.

Students only learn what they get the opportunity to learn. This means, for example, that students do not develop their reasoning- and problem solving competence unless teaching especially focuses on developing these competencies. Despite the fact that it has for the last 20 years been pointed out the need for a reform-oriented mathematics education, research still shows that in Sweden, as well as internationally, an over-emphasis are placed on rote learning and procedures, at the cost of promoting conceptual understanding. Mathematical understanding can be separated into procedural and conceptual understanding, where conceptual understanding can be connected to a reform oriented mathematics education. By developing a reasoning competence conceptual understanding can also be developed. This thesis, which deals with students’ opportunities to learn to reason mathematically, includes three studies (with data from Swedish upper secondary school, year ten and mathematics textbooks from twelve countries). These opportunities have been studied based on a textbook analysis and by studying students' work with textbook tasks during normal classroom work. Students’ opportunities to learn to reason mathematically have also been studied by examining the relationship between students' reasoning and their beliefs. An analytical framework (Lithner, 2008) has been used to categorise and analyse reasoning used in solving tasks and required to solve tasks. Results support previous research in that teaching and mathematics textbooks are not necessarily in harmony with reform-oriented mathematics teaching. And that students indicated beliefs of insecurity, personal- and subject expectations as well as intrinsic- and extrinsic motivation connects to not using mathematical reasoning when solving non-routine tasks. Most commonly students used other strategies than mathematical reasoning when solving textbook tasks. One common way to solve tasks was to be guided, in particular by another student. The results also showed that the students primarily worked with the simpler tasks in the textbook. These simpler tasks required mathematical reasoning more rarely than the more difficult tasks. The results also showed a negative relationship between a belief of insecurity and the use of mathematical reasoning. Furthermore, the results show that the distributions of tasks that require mathematical reasoning are relatively similar in the examined textbooks across five continents. Based on the results it is argued for a teaching based on sociomathematical norms that leads to an inquiry based teaching and textbooks that are more in harmony with a reform-oriented mathematics education. / Elever kan bara lära sig de det de får möjlighet att lära sig. Detta innebär till exempel att elever inte utvecklar sin resonemangs- och problemlösningsförmåga i någon större utsträckning om inte deras undervisning fokuserar på just dessa förmågor. Forskning, nationellt och internationellt visar att det finns en överbetoning på utantillinlärning och på procedurer. Detta verkar ske på bekostnad av en konceptuell förståelse, trots att det under 20 års tid pekats på behovet av en reforminriktad matematikundervisning. Matematisk förståelse kan delas in i procedurell- och konceptuell förståelse där en konceptuell förståelse kan kopplas till en reforminriktad matematikundervisning. Genom att utveckla förmågan att resonera matematiskt utvecklas också den konceptuella förståelsen. Denna avhandling, som inbegriper tre studier (med empiri från gymnasiet år ett och matematikläroböcker från tolv länder) behandlar elevers möjlighet att lära sig att resonera matematiskt. Dessa möjligheter har studerats utifrån att undersöka vilka möjligheter läroboken ger att lära sig matematiska resonemang, dels via en läroboksanalys och dels genom att studera elevers arbete med läroboksuppgifter i klassrumsmiljö. Elevers möjligheter att lära sig att resonera matematiskt har också studerats genom att undersöka relationen mellan elevers matematiska resonemang och deras uppfattningar om matematik. Ett analytiskt ramverk (Lithner, 2008) har används för att kategorisera och analysera resonemang som använts för att lösa uppgifter och som behövs för att lösa en uppgift. Resultaten från studierna har givit stöd åt tidigare forskning vad gäller att undervisning och läroböckerna inte nödvändigtvis harmonierar med en reforminriktad matematikundervisning. Och att elever har uppfattningar om matematik som bygger på osäkerhet, förväntan på ämnet och sin egen förmåga samt motivation och att dessa uppfattningar delvis kan kopplas till att eleverna inte använder matematiska resonemang för att försöka lösa icke-rutinuppgifter. Det vanligaste sättet att lösa läroboksuppgifter var att välja andra strategier än att använda sig av matematiska resonemang. Ett vanligt sätt att lösa uppgifter var att låta sig guidas, av främst en annan elev. Eleverna arbetade framförallt med de enklare uppgifterna i läroböckerna. Bland dessa enklare uppgifter var det mer sällsynt med uppgifter som krävde matematiska resonemang för att lösas relativt de svårare uppgifterna. Resultaten visade även att det fanns en negativ relation mellan en uppfattning av osäkerhet hos elever och ett användande av matematiska resonemang. Resultaten visade vidare att fördelningen av uppgifter som krävde matematiska resonemang var relativt lika i alla undersökta läroböcker från fem världsdelar. Utifrån resultaten argumenteras för en förändrad undervisning mot en undersökande undervisning och läroböcker som är mer i harmoni med en reforminriktad matematikundervisning.

<p>Students perceive physics as a difficult teaching subject and have<br />prejudices&nbsp; about&nbsp; this&nbsp; subject&nbsp; before&nbsp; they&nbsp; get&nbsp; acquainted&nbsp; with&nbsp; its<br />content as a part of teaching physics. Poor students&rsquo; performance<br />in&nbsp; physics&nbsp; indicate&nbsp; the&nbsp; need&nbsp; to&nbsp; use&nbsp; appropriate&nbsp; strategies&nbsp; in&nbsp; the<br />teaching&nbsp; process&nbsp; that&nbsp; can&nbsp; help&nbsp; students&nbsp; in&nbsp; mastering&nbsp; physics<br />contents.&nbsp; Since&nbsp; there&nbsp; is&nbsp; a&nbsp; correlation&nbsp; between&nbsp; students&rsquo;<br />performance and metacognition, it is preferably to apply strategies<br />that at the same time encourage the development of metacognition.<br />In this paper a modified Know-Want-Learn strategy is proposed,<br />which&nbsp; can&nbsp; be&nbsp; used&nbsp; in&nbsp; teaching&nbsp; with&nbsp; the&nbsp; aim&nbsp; of&nbsp; encouraging<br />research and practical work. Within the modified strategy, students<br />fill&nbsp; in&nbsp; four&nbsp; columns:&nbsp; What&nbsp; I&nbsp; Think&nbsp; and&nbsp; what&nbsp; I&nbsp; know;&nbsp; What<br />Questions I have; How can I find out; and What I Learned.<br />The aim of the conducted research was to examine the impact of<br />the modified Know-Want-Learn strategy on students&rsquo; performance<br />and&nbsp; metacognition&nbsp; in&nbsp; primary&nbsp; school&nbsp; physics&nbsp; teaching.<br />Pedagogical&nbsp; experiment&nbsp; with&nbsp; parallel&nbsp; groups&nbsp; (experimental&nbsp; andcontrol) was carried out; 141 students (5 classes) of the sixth grade<br />(aged&nbsp; 11-12&nbsp; years)&nbsp; participated.&nbsp; Students&#39;&nbsp; performance&nbsp; was<br />assessed with the use of pre-test and post-test that were created for<br />the purpose of research, while questionnaire on metacognition was<br />used for evaluation of students&#39; metacognition. Statistical analysis<br />of&nbsp; the&nbsp; obtained&nbsp; data&nbsp; showed&nbsp; that&nbsp; the&nbsp; implementation&nbsp; of&nbsp; the<br />modified&nbsp; Know-Want-Learn&nbsp; strategy,&nbsp; in&nbsp; sixth&nbsp; grade&nbsp; primary<br />school&nbsp; physics&nbsp; teaching,&nbsp; has&nbsp; positive&nbsp; impact&nbsp; on&nbsp; students&#39;<br />performance&nbsp; and&nbsp; metacognition.&nbsp; Besides,&nbsp; it&nbsp; has&nbsp; been&nbsp; shown&nbsp; that<br />performance&nbsp; is&nbsp; not&nbsp; dependant,&nbsp; while&nbsp; metacognition&nbsp; is&nbsp; dependant<br />on students&#39; gender. On the basis of the obtained data, it was found<br />that&nbsp; there&nbsp; is&nbsp; statistically&nbsp; significant&nbsp; weak&nbsp; correlation&nbsp; between<br />students&#39;&nbsp; performance&nbsp; and&nbsp; metacognition.&nbsp; The&nbsp; research&nbsp; results<br />suggest&nbsp; that&nbsp; proposed&nbsp; strategy&nbsp; should&nbsp; be&nbsp; used&nbsp; in&nbsp; primary&nbsp; school<br />physics teaching.</p> / <p>Učenici&nbsp; doživljavaju&nbsp; fiziku&nbsp; kao&nbsp; težak&nbsp; nastavni&nbsp; predmet&nbsp; i&nbsp; imaju predrasude o fizici kao nauci i pre nego &scaron;to se upoznaju sa njenim sadržajem&nbsp; u&nbsp; okviru&nbsp; nastave&nbsp; fizike.&nbsp; Slaba&nbsp; postignuća&nbsp; učenika&nbsp; iz fizike ukazuju na potrebu da se u nastavi primenjuju odgovarajuće strategije&nbsp; koje&nbsp; mogu&nbsp; pomoći&nbsp; učenicima&nbsp; u&nbsp; savladavanju&nbsp; sadržaja fizike.&nbsp; S&nbsp; obzirom&nbsp; na&nbsp; to&nbsp; da&nbsp; postoji&nbsp; veza&nbsp; između&nbsp; postignuća&nbsp; i metakognicije&nbsp; učenika,&nbsp; poželjno&nbsp; je&nbsp; primenjivati&nbsp; strategije&nbsp; koje istovremeno&nbsp; podstiču&nbsp; razvoj&nbsp; metakognicije.&nbsp; U&nbsp; ovom&nbsp; radu&nbsp; je predložena modifikovana strategije Znam-Želim da&nbsp; znam-Naučio sam,&nbsp; koja&nbsp; se&nbsp; može&nbsp; koristiti&nbsp; u&nbsp; nastavi&nbsp; fizike&nbsp; s&nbsp; ciljem&nbsp; podsticanja istraživanja&nbsp; i&nbsp; praktičnog&nbsp; rada.&nbsp; U&nbsp; okviru&nbsp; modifikovane&nbsp; strategije učenici&nbsp; popunjavaju&nbsp; tabelu&nbsp; od&nbsp; četiri&nbsp; kolone:&nbsp; Mislim&nbsp; i&nbsp; znam; Pitanja koja imam; Kako mogu da saznam; i Naučio sam.Cilj&nbsp; sprovedenog&nbsp; istraživanja&nbsp; bio&nbsp; je&nbsp; da&nbsp; se&nbsp; ispita&nbsp; uticaj&nbsp; primene modifikovane&nbsp; strategije&nbsp; Znam-Želim&nbsp; da&nbsp; znam-Naučio&nbsp; sam postignuća&nbsp; i&nbsp; metakogniciju&nbsp; učenika&nbsp; u&nbsp; osnovno&scaron;kolskoj&nbsp; nastavifizike.&nbsp; U&nbsp; realizovanom&nbsp; pedago&scaron;kom&nbsp; eksperimentu&nbsp; sa&nbsp; paralelnim grupama&nbsp; (eksperimentalnom&nbsp; i&nbsp; kontrolnom),&nbsp; učestvovao&nbsp; je&nbsp; 141 učenik&nbsp; (5&nbsp; odeljenja)&nbsp; &scaron;estog&nbsp; razreda&nbsp; (uzrasta&nbsp; 11-12&nbsp; godina). Postignuća učenika su procenjena primenom inicijalnog i finalnog testa&nbsp; koji&nbsp; su&nbsp; kreirani&nbsp; za&nbsp; potrebe&nbsp; istraživanja,&nbsp; dok&nbsp; je&nbsp; za&nbsp; procenu metakognicije&nbsp; učenika&nbsp; kori&scaron;ćen&nbsp; upitnik&nbsp; o&nbsp; nivou&nbsp; metakognicije.<br />Statističkom obradom dobijenih podataka pokazano je da primena modifikovane&nbsp; strategije&nbsp; Znam-Želim&nbsp; da&nbsp; znam-Naučio&nbsp; sam,&nbsp; u realizaciji&nbsp; nastave&nbsp; fizike&nbsp; u&nbsp; &scaron;estom&nbsp; razredu&nbsp; osnovne&nbsp; &scaron;kole,pozitivno&nbsp; utiče&nbsp; na&nbsp; učenička&nbsp; postignuća&nbsp; i&nbsp; metakogniciju.&nbsp; Takođe,pokazano je da postignuća ne zavise, dok metakognicija zavisi od pola učenika. Na osnovu dobijenih podataka utvrđeno je da postoji statistički značajna slaba korelacija između učeničkih postignuća i metakognicije.&nbsp; Rezultati istraživanja&nbsp; ukazuju&nbsp; na to&nbsp; da&nbsp; bi opisana strategija trebalo da se koristi u osnovno&scaron;kolskoj nastavi fizike.</p>

Submitted by Marlene Aparecida de Souza Cardozo (mcardozo@pucsp.br) on 2016-12-19T16:23:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Valéria Nicolau Paschoal.pdf: 3718463 bytes, checksum: a110ca5d0455634bc6a1de611f2ad18a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-19T16:23:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Valéria Nicolau Paschoal.pdf: 3718463 bytes, checksum: a110ca5d0455634bc6a1de611f2ad18a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-22 / This study is characterized as a research-action, resulting from the claim of a school interested in providing the possibilities of perception wideness and a characterization that the teachers have from their students, which many times they are marked by negative and depreciative denotations. It was developed through collaborative and dialogic practices, which were brought to create a space that would enable the improvement of relationships in the scholar environment. According to UNESCO (2016), education must be integrated and humanist through the development of competencies to reach the living in society, becoming a viable way to enable people to respond to the transformations and challenges of present times. The four pillars of education for the 21st century – learn to know, learn to make, learn to be and to live together – they need to be incorporated in the implementation of the educational programs of the schools. The search for a construction of a conversational context organized for the promotion of new types and qualities of connections between teachers-students and students-students evidencing two pillars that represent the social function of a school: which are learning to be and learning to live together, started from the four pillars concept and was based on the social constructionism ideas and on the narrative and collaborative practices. Since this is a research-action, the research made use of procedures which were adapted to each of its four phases including: a free meetings and an interview with the curator; meetings with the teachers; meetings with the parents or with those responsible for the student; workshops of selfknowledge and reflective processes with students and teachers; feedbacks from all participants; and assessment meetings with teachers. The parts who took part of this research are: the curator, six teachers from the 1st to the 5th teaching course, one teacher assistant, ten children (from the age of seven to ten), their parents/or those responsible for them and the school group. The intervention made didn’t intend to find out a new problem and to resolve it, but it did have the proposition of building together with the participants new ways to be and to live together, re-affirming the social function of the school and its commitments with the transformation of the current reality. The narratives generated from this experience, were analyzed according to the social poetics and they were organized, being considered as arresting moments, around four categories: the effects of the collaborative and dialogic practices in the scholar context; considerations about the function of the school and their teachers in the 21st century; the collaborative posture in the implementation of such practices; and the development of the research through the planning of new actions. The application of this model to the scholar context was proved to be viable and useful for the construction of a more agreeable environment encouraging people to be together, mainly for the fact that it talks about values and because it triggers thoughts and attitudes to be reviewed, giving visibility to aspects of the participants’ life that weren’t noticed by them before the application of this experience / Este trabalho caracteriza-se como uma pesquisa-ação, resultante da demanda de uma escola interessada em fornecer possibilidades de ampliação da percepção e descrição que professores têm de seus alunos, muitas vezes marcada por denotações negativas e depreciativas. Desenvolveu-se por meio de práticas colaborativas e dialógicas, desenhadas para criar um espaço que facilitasse a melhoria das relações no ambiente escolar. Segundo a UNESCO (2016), a educação deve ser integrada e humanista pelo desenvolvimento de competências para o viver em sociedade, tornando-se um caminho viável para a formação de pessoas capazes de responderem às transformações e desafios da atualidade. Os quatro pilares da educação para o século XXI – aprender a conhecer, a fazer, a viver juntos e a ser – precisam ser incorporados na implementação dos programas das escolas. A partir desta proposta e baseada nas ideias construcionistas sociais e nas práticas colaborativas e narrativas, buscou-se a construção de um contexto conversacional organizado para a promoção de novos tipos e qualidades de conexões entre professores-alunos e alunos-alunos, evidenciando dois pilares: aprender a viver juntos e aprender a ser. Tratando-se de uma pesquisa-ação, utilizou-se de procedimentos adequados a cada uma das quatro fases que a compõem, incluindo: reunião livre e entrevista com a mantenedora; encontros com professores; reunião com pais e/ou responsáveis; oficinas de autoconhecimento e processos reflexivos com alunos e professores; feedbacks de todos os participantes; e encontros avaliativos com professores. Participaram da pesquisa: a mantenedora, seis professoras do Ensino Fundamental I (1o ao 5o ano), uma auxiliar de sala, dez crianças (de sete a dez anos de idade), seus pais e/ou responsáveis, e a equipe escolar. A intervenção realizada não teve o propósito de descobrir um problema e solucioná-lo, mas de construir juntamente com os participantes, novas possibilidades de ser e de conviver, reafirmando a função social da escola e seu compromisso com a transformação da realidade. As narrativas geradas a partir desta experiência, foram analisadas de acordo com a poética social e organizadas em momentos marcantes em torno de quatro categorias: efeitos da prática colaborativa e dialógica no contexto escolar; considerações sobre a função da escola e dos professores no século XXI; postura colaborativa na implementação de tais práticas; e desdobramentos da pesquisa pelo planejamento de novas ações. A aplicação desse modelo ao contexto escolar mostrou-se viável e útil na construção de um ambiente de convivência mais harmonioso, principalmente por abordar valores e encorajar a revisão de pensamentos e atitudes, dando visibilidade a aspectos de vida dos participantes que não eram percebidos por eles antes desta experiência