Novice programmers often find learning programming difficult. They suffer from various misconceptions and difficulties in understanding the subject. The overall experience with programming can be negative for many students. They may feel isolated in the programming environment and think that programming is difficult for them. Many schools use automated grading tools to process student work and provide them with early feedback. Web-CAT, an open-source software system that is widely used by many universities, is an example of such an automated grading tool. We have developed a Virtual Teaching Assistant for Web-CAT, called Maria, who can support the students to help alleviate some of the negative emotions towards programming. We have used an animated pedagogical agent as the virtual assistant as certain characteristics of the agent can help with the students' perception about the virtual teaching assistant. Often, students have a fixed mindset about programming. But it is easy to master programming with practice. To promote a growth mindset, Maria also provides feedback recognizing the effort of the student in addition to the performance-oriented feedback of the students' programs. Maria can also provide motivating or encouraging comments to continue working on the assignment to get a good score. Maria can also provide information about the various errors displayed in student feedback. / Master of Science / Beginners often find learning computer programming difficult. They may suffer from various misconceptions and difficulties in understanding the subject. Also, there can be a negative experience surrounding programming for many students. They may feel isolated in the programming environment and think that programming is difficult for them. Many schools use automated software tools to grade student programs and provide them with early feedback. Web-CAT, a software system that is widely used by many universities, is an example of such an automated grading tool. We have developed a Virtual Teaching Assistant to reside within Web-CAT, called Maria, who can support the students to help alleviate some of the negative emotions towards programming. We have used an animated human-like character, known as pedagogical agent, for Maria as it is widely use in pedagogy to help students. Often, students think programming is an innate skill and it is difficult to acquire. But it is easy to master programming with practice. To encourage students to continue working, Maria also provides feedback recognizing the effort that the student has put in towards completing the programming assignment or project. In certain cases, Maria can also provide motivating or encouraging comments to the students to help them continue working on the assignment. Maria can also provide explanation about the various programming errors that students encounter during their submission to Web-CAT.

Many colleges face a lack of academic and emotional support for their computer science students. Previous research into this problem produced Maria, a virtual teaching assistant (TA). This initial version of Maria was able to answer student questions, provide error explanations, and praise students for effort on programming assignments. This research continues work on the Maria project with three design goals: (1) reducing obstacles to use of Maria, (2) allowing Maria to provide better academic support, and (3) allowing Maria to provide better emotional support (with less focus on this goal). Improvements were made to the initial version of Maria, including increasing the number of questions that Maria could answer, allowing Maria to suggest questions for students to ask, and adding longer back-and-forth dialogs between Maria and students. Following this, Maria was deployed to students for an evaluation. The evaluation revealed that certain features were popular (including the longer dialogs and easier access to error explanation) and that Maria was unable to provide relevant answers to many questions asked by students. Using data from the evaluation, more improvements were made to Maria to address some of her shortcomings and build on her popular features. Answers to more questions were added for questions about testing, general knowledge questions, questions about many other topics. Many of these new answers used the popular back-and-forth dialog feature. Additionally, this research discusses a system that could be used to automate the creation of new answers for Maria or any virtual teaching assistant using crowdsourcing. / Master of Science / Many colleges face a lack of academic and emotional support for their computer science students. Previous research into this problem produced Maria, a virtual teaching assistant (TA). This initial version of Maria was able to answer student questions, provide error explanations, and praise students for effort on programming assignments. This research continues work on the Maria project with three design goals: (1) reducing obstacles to use of Maria, (2) allowing Maria to provide better academic support, and (3) allowing Maria to provide better emotional support (with less focus on this goal). Improvements were made to the initial version of Maria, including increasing the number of questions that Maria could answer, allowing Maria to suggest questions for students to ask, and adding longer back-and-forth dialogs between Maria and students. Following this, Maria was deployed to students for an evaluation. The evaluation revealed that certain features were popular (including the longer dialogs and easier access to error explanation) and that Maria was unable to provide relevant answers to many questions asked by students. Using data from the evaluation, more improvements were made to Maria to address some of her shortcomings and build on her popular features. Answers to more questions were added for questions about testing, general knowledge questions, questions about many other topics. Many of these new answers used the popular back-and-forth dialog feature. Additionally, this research discusses a system that could be used to automate the creation of new answers for Maria or any virtual teaching assistant using crowdsourcing.

The 21st century has brought changes to education — changes that include greater distance learning options for middle and high school students. While distance learning has been around for a century, the progressive ways in which students are able to select and complete virtual courses through the internet in nearly every secondary content area are increasing. Physical education courses at the secondary level are among the courses offered online to students across the United States and Canada. One question that prevails in communities and particularly in physical education circles is, “How do you teach PE online?” In an effort to address that very question, this study sought to describe online secondary physical education instruction through the lived experiences of four teachers who were doing just that. This was a 12–week qualitative case study that included data from two interviews with each of the four online PE teachers, interviews with two distance education administrators, virtual classroom observations, field notes, and the researcher's reflections. Analysis of the data showed that these online PE teachers had similar pathways to the online setting, they provided individualized instruction to their students, they offered students choices in the online PE classes, they facilitated student success in the online PE classes, and they each implicitly ascribed to constructivist educational theories and practices as online PE teachers. The results of this study support the premise that online secondary–level PE instruction has been a viable option for some teachers in the U.S. and Canada.

Visais laikais aritmetika buvo svarbus mokomasis dalykas mokykloje: mokiniai susipažįsta su natūraliaisiais ir trupmeniniais skaičiais, išmoksta aritmetikos veiksmų, sudarančių sudėtingą pakopinę struktūrą. Kiekvienas paprastas veiksmas yra sudėtingesnių veiksmų sudėtinis elementas, todėl svarbu, kad kiekvieną paprastesnį veiksmą mokinys išmoktų atlikti greitai ir be klaidų, „negalvodamas“. Daugumai mokinių aritmetikos veiksmų atlikimo sunkumai yra pagrindinė priežastis, trukdanti mokytis ne tik aritmetikos, bet ir kitų matematikos temų. Todėl svarbu ieškoti būdų, metodų ir priemonių, kaip padėti mokiniams įveikti šiuos kliuvinius. Manoma, kad mokymo(si) turinį perkeliant į elektroninę erdvę, pavyks rasti būdų, leisiančių veiksmingiau organizuoti mokymo(si) procesą. Vis dažniau kalbama apie virtualiąsias mokymo(si) aplinka, kur mokymo(si) turinys pateikiamas nepriklausomais medžiagos gabalėliais – virtualiaisiais mokymo(si) objektais. Šiuo disertaciniu tyrimu siekta nustatyti, kokios yra virtualiųjų mokymo(si) objektų taikymo galimybės ir veiksmingumas, ugdant mokinių gebėjimus atlikti aritmetikos veiksmus IV–V klasėse. / In all times arithmetic has been an important subject at school: pupils familiarize themselves with natural and fractional numbers, learn arithmetic operations, acquire computation abilities. Actions of teaching and learning mathematics make up a complicated tiered structure. Every simple operation is a constituent of more complicated operations; therefore, the pupil has to learn to perform these operations quickly and without mistakes, „without thinking“. For the majority of pupils difficulties in performing arithmetic operations is the main reason hindering not only to learn arithmetic but also other topics of mathematics. Therefore, it is important to search for the ways, methods and means facilitating pupils to cope with these hindrances. It is supposed that as the content of teaching and learning moves to the electronic space, ways enabling to control and manage the teaching and learning process will be successfully found. More often virtual teaching and learning environments are mentioned, where the content of teaching and learning is presented in independent pieces of teaching material – virtual teaching and learning objects This dissertation research was designed to determine what is a virtual teaching and learning objects the application possibilities and efficiency, developing pupils' abilities to perform arithmetic operations in forms 4 and 5.

Visais laikais aritmetika buvo svarbus mokomasis dalykas mokykloje: mokiniai susipažįsta su natūraliaisiais ir trupmeniniais skaičiais, išmoksta aritmetikos veiksmų, sudarančių sudėtingą pakopinę struktūrą. Kiekvienas paprastas veiksmas yra sudėtingesnių veiksmų sudėtinis elementas, todėl svarbu, kad kiekvieną paprastesnį veiksmą mokinys išmoktų atlikti greitai ir be klaidų, „negalvodamas“. Daugumai mokinių aritmetikos veiksmų atlikimo sunkumai yra pagrindinė priežastis, trukdanti mokytis ne tik aritmetikos, bet ir kitų matematikos temų. Todėl svarbu ieškoti būdų, metodų ir priemonių, kaip padėti mokiniams įveikti šiuos kliuvinius. Manoma, kad mokymo(si) turinį perkeliant į elektroninę erdvę, pavyks rasti būdų, leisiančių veiksmingiau organizuoti mokymo(si) procesą. Vis dažniau kalbama apie virtualiąsias mokymo(si) aplinka, kur mokymo(si) turinys pateikiamas nepriklausomais medžiagos gabalėliais – virtualiaisiais mokymo(si) objektais. Šiuo disertaciniu tyrimu siekta nustatyti, kokios yra virtualiųjų mokymo(si) objektų taikymo galimybės ir veiksmingumas, ugdant mokinių gebėjimus atlikti aritmetikos veiksmus IV–V klasėse. / In all times arithmetic has been an important subject at school: pupils familiarize themselves with natural and fractional numbers, learn arithmetic operations, acquire computation abilities. Actions of teaching and learning mathematics make up a complicated tiered structure. Every simple operation is a constituent of more complicated operations; therefore, the pupil has to learn to perform these operations quickly and without mistakes, „without thinking“. For the majority of pupils difficulties in performing arithmetic operations is the main reason hindering not only to learn arithmetic but also other topics of mathematics. Therefore, it is important to search for the ways, methods and means facilitating pupils to cope with these hindrances. It is supposed that as the content of teaching and learning moves to the electronic space, ways enabling to control and manage the teaching and learning process will be successfully found. More often virtual teaching and learning environments are mentioned, where the content of teaching and learning is presented in independent pieces of teaching material – virtual teaching and learning objects This dissertation research was designed to determine what is a virtual teaching and learning objects the application possibilities and efficiency, developing pupils' abilities to perform arithmetic operations in forms 4 and 5.

A presente dissertação se propõe a analisar o curso de Licenciatura em Letras/LIBRAS criado pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, na modalidade de Educação a Distância, quanto aos seus aspectos de acessibilidade para surdos no seu ambiente virtual de ensino aprendizagem, no atendimento às necessidades da comunidade linguística surda para aprendizagem e a comunicação e interação, tanto entre os educandos surdos, quanto entre educandos/tutores/professores das disciplinas. Foram pesquisadas duas turmas de alunos surdos dos polos no Rio Grande do Sul, em Santa Maria e Porto Alegre, grupos estes que iniciaram as atividades acadêmicas em 2006 e 2008, respectivamente. Foi construído um questionário de pesquisa para ser aplicado às duas turmas de alunos surdos desta Licenciatura, que foram disponibilizados em dois tipos de arquivo: texto em Português e vídeo em Língua Brasileira de Sinais, LIBRAS. Isso possibilitou aos alunos escolherem a opção de resposta na modalidade de língua que se sentissem mais confortáveis, respeitando assim sua condição linguística de primeira e segunda línguas, L1 e L2. Este instrumento estava focado em três grupos de perguntas. O primeiro procurou a caracterização do grupo, no segundo buscamos investigar as questões de comunicação/interação no ambiente e, por último, as questões específicas de acessibilidade para surdos no ambiente virtual de ensino aprendizagem. Após esta coleta, foi feita a análise dos dados nos questionários respondidos pelos alunos, apontados os pontos positivos e negativos, e tabulados a partir das categorias definidas nas respostas. Foi possível perceber que, apesar de ser um curso projetado para alunos surdos e de ter as questões de acessibilidade ao ambiente virtual de ensino aprendizagem priorizadas e efetivadas positivamente, ainda assim encontramos aspectos que interferem no processo de ensino/aprendizagem e que, em função disso, podem prejudicar sua formação acadêmica. / This master thesis analyzes the undergraduate course of humanities/LIBRAS created by the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Distance Education modality, with regard to accessibility aspects for the deaf within its virtual teaching/learning environment in the treatment of deaf’s linguistic community needs and with respect to communication and interaction between both deaf students and students/tutors/professors. We surveyed two groups of deaf students from the poles of Rio Grande do Sul, in Santa Maria and Porto Alegre, which has started their academic activities in 2006 and 2008, respectively. We have mounted a survey questionary to be applied to two groups of deaf students in this undergraduate course, which were then made available in two file types: text in Portuguese and video in Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS). It has allowed the students to choose the answer option in the type of language they feel most comfortable, respecting their linguistic condition of first and second languages (L1 and L2). This questionary was focused on three groups of questions. The first sought to distinguish the students; the second attempted to investigate the issues of communication/interaction into the environment; and finally, the third attempted to find specific issues of accessibility for the deaf in the virtual teaching/learning environment. Next, by analyzing the data collected in the questionaries answered by the students, we have marked the positive and negative points and we have tabulated results in categories defined by the answers. It was possible to notice that, despite of being a course designed to deaf students and despite of having priorized and positively effected the accessibility issues in the virtual teaching/learning environment, we can yet find aspects that interfere with the teaching and learning process and that, therefore, may prejudice academic formation.

A presente dissertação se propõe a analisar o curso de Licenciatura em Letras/LIBRAS criado pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, na modalidade de Educação a Distância, quanto aos seus aspectos de acessibilidade para surdos no seu ambiente virtual de ensino aprendizagem, no atendimento às necessidades da comunidade linguística surda para aprendizagem e a comunicação e interação, tanto entre os educandos surdos, quanto entre educandos/tutores/professores das disciplinas. Foram pesquisadas duas turmas de alunos surdos dos polos no Rio Grande do Sul, em Santa Maria e Porto Alegre, grupos estes que iniciaram as atividades acadêmicas em 2006 e 2008, respectivamente. Foi construído um questionário de pesquisa para ser aplicado às duas turmas de alunos surdos desta Licenciatura, que foram disponibilizados em dois tipos de arquivo: texto em Português e vídeo em Língua Brasileira de Sinais, LIBRAS. Isso possibilitou aos alunos escolherem a opção de resposta na modalidade de língua que se sentissem mais confortáveis, respeitando assim sua condição linguística de primeira e segunda línguas, L1 e L2. Este instrumento estava focado em três grupos de perguntas. O primeiro procurou a caracterização do grupo, no segundo buscamos investigar as questões de comunicação/interação no ambiente e, por último, as questões específicas de acessibilidade para surdos no ambiente virtual de ensino aprendizagem. Após esta coleta, foi feita a análise dos dados nos questionários respondidos pelos alunos, apontados os pontos positivos e negativos, e tabulados a partir das categorias definidas nas respostas. Foi possível perceber que, apesar de ser um curso projetado para alunos surdos e de ter as questões de acessibilidade ao ambiente virtual de ensino aprendizagem priorizadas e efetivadas positivamente, ainda assim encontramos aspectos que interferem no processo de ensino/aprendizagem e que, em função disso, podem prejudicar sua formação acadêmica. / This master thesis analyzes the undergraduate course of humanities/LIBRAS created by the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Distance Education modality, with regard to accessibility aspects for the deaf within its virtual teaching/learning environment in the treatment of deaf’s linguistic community needs and with respect to communication and interaction between both deaf students and students/tutors/professors. We surveyed two groups of deaf students from the poles of Rio Grande do Sul, in Santa Maria and Porto Alegre, which has started their academic activities in 2006 and 2008, respectively. We have mounted a survey questionary to be applied to two groups of deaf students in this undergraduate course, which were then made available in two file types: text in Portuguese and video in Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS). It has allowed the students to choose the answer option in the type of language they feel most comfortable, respecting their linguistic condition of first and second languages (L1 and L2). This questionary was focused on three groups of questions. The first sought to distinguish the students; the second attempted to investigate the issues of communication/interaction into the environment; and finally, the third attempted to find specific issues of accessibility for the deaf in the virtual teaching/learning environment. Next, by analyzing the data collected in the questionaries answered by the students, we have marked the positive and negative points and we have tabulated results in categories defined by the answers. It was possible to notice that, despite of being a course designed to deaf students and despite of having priorized and positively effected the accessibility issues in the virtual teaching/learning environment, we can yet find aspects that interfere with the teaching and learning process and that, therefore, may prejudice academic formation.

A presente dissertação se propõe a analisar o curso de Licenciatura em Letras/LIBRAS criado pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, na modalidade de Educação a Distância, quanto aos seus aspectos de acessibilidade para surdos no seu ambiente virtual de ensino aprendizagem, no atendimento às necessidades da comunidade linguística surda para aprendizagem e a comunicação e interação, tanto entre os educandos surdos, quanto entre educandos/tutores/professores das disciplinas. Foram pesquisadas duas turmas de alunos surdos dos polos no Rio Grande do Sul, em Santa Maria e Porto Alegre, grupos estes que iniciaram as atividades acadêmicas em 2006 e 2008, respectivamente. Foi construído um questionário de pesquisa para ser aplicado às duas turmas de alunos surdos desta Licenciatura, que foram disponibilizados em dois tipos de arquivo: texto em Português e vídeo em Língua Brasileira de Sinais, LIBRAS. Isso possibilitou aos alunos escolherem a opção de resposta na modalidade de língua que se sentissem mais confortáveis, respeitando assim sua condição linguística de primeira e segunda línguas, L1 e L2. Este instrumento estava focado em três grupos de perguntas. O primeiro procurou a caracterização do grupo, no segundo buscamos investigar as questões de comunicação/interação no ambiente e, por último, as questões específicas de acessibilidade para surdos no ambiente virtual de ensino aprendizagem. Após esta coleta, foi feita a análise dos dados nos questionários respondidos pelos alunos, apontados os pontos positivos e negativos, e tabulados a partir das categorias definidas nas respostas. Foi possível perceber que, apesar de ser um curso projetado para alunos surdos e de ter as questões de acessibilidade ao ambiente virtual de ensino aprendizagem priorizadas e efetivadas positivamente, ainda assim encontramos aspectos que interferem no processo de ensino/aprendizagem e que, em função disso, podem prejudicar sua formação acadêmica. / This master thesis analyzes the undergraduate course of humanities/LIBRAS created by the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Distance Education modality, with regard to accessibility aspects for the deaf within its virtual teaching/learning environment in the treatment of deaf’s linguistic community needs and with respect to communication and interaction between both deaf students and students/tutors/professors. We surveyed two groups of deaf students from the poles of Rio Grande do Sul, in Santa Maria and Porto Alegre, which has started their academic activities in 2006 and 2008, respectively. We have mounted a survey questionary to be applied to two groups of deaf students in this undergraduate course, which were then made available in two file types: text in Portuguese and video in Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS). It has allowed the students to choose the answer option in the type of language they feel most comfortable, respecting their linguistic condition of first and second languages (L1 and L2). This questionary was focused on three groups of questions. The first sought to distinguish the students; the second attempted to investigate the issues of communication/interaction into the environment; and finally, the third attempted to find specific issues of accessibility for the deaf in the virtual teaching/learning environment. Next, by analyzing the data collected in the questionaries answered by the students, we have marked the positive and negative points and we have tabulated results in categories defined by the answers. It was possible to notice that, despite of being a course designed to deaf students and despite of having priorized and positively effected the accessibility issues in the virtual teaching/learning environment, we can yet find aspects that interfere with the teaching and learning process and that, therefore, may prejudice academic formation.

No description available.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:39:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5273.pdf: 2833912 bytes, checksum: 33eabfb23a45e97856c477f20f922cc3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-25 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / This research focuses on the particularities of teachers knowledge in Musical Education in the distance education modality, as well as the teachers adaptations to teach pratical music contente virtually. The investigation question was: What are the specificities and pedagogical adaptations of teachers knowledge related to the pratice of Musical Education in distance education? The specific goals of our work were: To characterize the virtual teacher s profile in the Musical Education course at the Federal University of São Carlos; (2) To identify how the investigated subjects learn to teach in distance education; (3) To point the investigated subject s possible adaptations and methodological inovations to teach music in distance education; and (4) to describe the subjects perception of how the teaching music process interaction in distance education occur. The research is descriptive and of a qualitative nature. The methodological procedures to collect the data were: a) the use of online surveys with objective and essay questions. The survey was also used to select subjects for the interviews; and b) semi-structered face to face interviews with pre-determined questions to gather deeper data and fill in the gaps lef by the survey. The theoretical referential used to analyze the gathered data contemplates distance education (Moore e Kearsley, Belloni, Mill, etc.), teacher s formation (Shulman, Tardif, Perrenoud, Mizukami, etc.) and recente scientific productions in musical education in distance education (Galizia, Krüger, Gohn, Carvalho, etc.). Regarding the the teacher knowledge specifities of the musical education virtual teacher found by our investigation, the virtual music teacher perceives him/herself as a coordinator for the virtual tutors team, as the responsible for the course s planning and the indirect interaction with the students knowledge construction. In his/her profile we found some formal pedagogical knowledge and also some formal knowledge about distance education with a considerable amount of experience in face to face education. However, the virtual music teacher depends for the most part on the reflexion upon his/her own practice to (re)build the specific knowledge for teaching music in distance education. The investigated subjects, for the most part, see the student as the key figure of the teaching-learning process in distance education. They see limitations in distance education, but also recognize advantages in the modality when comparing it to face to face education. The knowledge built by the investigated subjects by their own practices in distance education is about mastering Digital Technologies of information and communication and about virtual interaction. / Esta investigação tem como foco analisar as particularidades dos saberes docentes de professores de Educação Musical na modalidade EaD, bem como suas adaptações para ensinar conteúdos prático musicais virtualmente. A questão norteadora da pesquisa foi: Quais são as especificidades dos saberes docentes e adequações pedagógicas relacionadas ao trabalho do professor de Educação Musical a distância? Os objetivos específicos de nosso trabalho foram: (1) Caracterizar o perfil do docente virtual do curso de Licenciatura em Educação Musical a distância da Universidade Federal de São Carlos; (2) Identificar como acontece a aprendizagem da docência na EaD dos sujeitos investigados Como os professores investigados aprendem, através de sua prática docente virtual, a ensinar a distância; (3) Apontar possíveis adequações e inovações metodológicas e pedagógicas dos sujeitos para o ensino de música a distância; e (4) Descrever a percepção dos sujeitos da investigação de como ocorre o ensino de música na EaD, suas interações com alunos, tutores e o material didático. A pesquisa é de caráter qualitativo e de natureza descritiva. Os procedimentos metodológicos para a coleta de dados foram: a) Aplicação de questionários online, formados de questões objetivas e dissertativas. O questionário também foi utilizado para selecionar os sujeitos que foram entrevistados; e b) Entrevistas presenciais semi-estruturadas que contavam com um roteiro de questões que serviam para coletar dados mais aprofundados qualitativamente e preencher as lacunas deixadas pelo questionários. O referencial teórico utilizado para a análise dos dados coletados contempla Educação a Distância (Moore e Kearsley, Belloni, Mill, etc.), formação de professores (Shulman, Tardif, Perrenoud, Mizukami, etc.) e produções recentes de Educação Musical e Educação a Distância para Educação Musical (Galizia, Krüger, Gohn, Carvalho, etc.). Como especificidades dos conhecimentos e saberes docentes do professor de música a distância encontrados por nossa investigação, temos que o docente virtual de música se percebe como um coordenador da equipe de tutores virtuais e responsável pelo planejamento da disciplina e mediação indireta da construção de conhecimentos dos alunos. No seu perfil encontramos saberes pedagógicos formais e também saberes formais sobre EaD e uma considerável carga de experiência na modalidade presencial. No entanto, depende em grande parte da reflexão sobre sua prática docente para (re)construir os saberes específicos de Educação Musical a distância. Os sujeitos investigados, em sua maioria, percebem o aluno como figura central do processo de ensino-aprendizagem de música a distância. Veem limitações na EaD, mas também reconhecem vantagens em relação ao ensino presencial de música. Os conhecimentos construídos pelos sujeitos investigados por meio de suas práticas docentes na modalidade a distância têm a ver com o domínio das Tecnologias Digitais de Informação e Comunicação bem como saberes relacionados à interação virtual.