| 1. |
- Rusanganwa, Joseph
(författare)
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Enhancing Physics Learning through Instruction, Technical Vocabulary and ICT : A Case of Higher Education in Rwanda
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overarching aim of this thesis is to explore how teaching and learning in tertiary education is performed in times of change both in language policy and learning approaches. The study takes social constructivist and socio-cultural theories as its major points of departure. These theories are combined with cognitive theory of learning with multimedia.The four studies comprising this thesis are born out of a new situation demanding the mastery of a scientific language in English and new ways of teaching and learning backed with ICT. The studies set out to investigate (i) how students and teachers adapt to a change of medium of instruction (ii) what teachers and students of physics learn when constructing a multimedia vocabulary learning instrument (iii) the impact of two methods of teaching vocabulary on students’ test performance and (iv) how teachers reflect on the use of ICT in Physics teaching.To attain these targets, the study employed a blend of qualitative and quantitative designs to gather relevant data. In three studies, data were gathered from classroom practices in tertiary education. The fourth study included teacher interviews on their experiences with ICT. Findings indicate that the understanding of physics was facilitated by a variation in language use in different classroom spaces, students and teachers’ collaborative selection of technical vocabulary and a multimedia tool of technical vocabulary software constructed by two teachers and the researcher. According to the teachers, the quality of physics teaching would be enhanced further by adopting learner-centred teaching methods and the integration of more advanced ICT. The studies show that teachers and students are on their way to develop ICT tools for teaching and learning. Given adequate support, this can pave the way for transforming teaching and allowing for further quality development in innovative and creative ways of learning with ICT.
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| 2. |
- Cardell, Gunnar, 1945-
(författare)
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Trenätsmodellen : ett systemteoretiskt redskap för att beskriva helhet och komplexitet i pedagogisk praktik : exemplet värnpliktsutbildning
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- On an empiristic level this dissertation is about military training of conscripts. Etnographic research at two units showed manifoldness and complexity, order and chaos, ideas and processes. The aim of the dissertation is to produce a theoretical tool to handle all this. The starting point is the idea of the General System Theory that terms referring to systems may be transferred from one theoretic field or level to another. Following this idea resulted in a set of terms emergence, feedback, homeostasis, and coding.Using such terms in describing educational, e.g. subsystem, self-(re)organization, practice gives a rough description since the terms do not reflect all patterns typical of educational practice. The remedy was to create new adequate terms. Such work gave a set of terms called the Triple Network Model (TNM). This name relates to three aspects of reality: complexes, intentions and processes, here represented by the terms networks of needs, of strategies and of causes. Strategies originates from ideas called strategens; a strategenom is a set of strategens and may be seen as a verbal vision. The strategens reflect the teacher’s ideas about what is needed; a network of strategies reflects a network of needs. A teacher uses both co-ordinated and concurrent strategies. Needs of systems of subsystems give a network of needs that may produce rational and emotional motivation in a network of motivation. Initial and reflexive activities produce disorder, self-(re)organisation, causal spirals and circles.In a network of causes you find not only the teachers’ strategic thinking and acting but also their personal needs etc. There may be conflicts between needs of individuals, overlapping and conducting systems. The TNM-analysis of the military units showed not only relations between needs, ideas, actions, processes, order and chaos, but also that TNM is an adequate and fruitful theoretical tool for such an analysis.
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| 3. |
- Juhlin Svensson, Ann-Christine
(författare)
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Nya redskap för lärande : studier av lärarens val och användning av läromedel i gymnasieskolan
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation consists of previously published reports with a summary. The main purpose of the empirical studies is to describe and analyse the function and use of educational media in teaching through the understanding and actions of teachers and librarians. The theoretical frames of reference are "framefactor", curriculum and steering theories. In the summary a new theoretical perspective is adopted. Based on new institutional and sociocultural theory, the use of textbook and information technology is reanalysed as cultural tools.The result is based on three empirical studies. In six upper-secondary schools 35 teachers, librarians and school principals were interviewed about their understanding of textbooks and information technology and the results indicated that the pedagogical aim and structure of textbooks are the main reasons for their use. To obtain a deeper investigation an observation study of three teachers use of educational media in the classroom was carried through. Their use of different types of educational media indicated that their own style/strategy in the classroom determined in what way the textbook was tied to teaching. The case studies were followed by a survey of twenty upper-secondary schools. The main result confirmed the tradition with textbooks and showed that teachers who often use textbooks had more traditional ways of acting in the classroom than teachers who more seldom or never used textbooks. More flexible learning strategies for pupils appeared when teachers had a positive attitude towards information technology.The last part of the dissertation analyses the significance of the historical formal and informal rules and traditions for educational media as mediated means and the possibility for change. The textbook is a cultural tool shaped for the school with its institutional limits. Information technology, in contrast to textbooks, has not been shaped as a unique artefact for education. Teachers used information technology according to the restraints and rules in the activity system as a complex technology they still have not completely appropriated.
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| 4. |
- Lindwall, Oskar, 1974-
(författare)
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Lab work in science education : Instruction, inscription, and the practical achievement of understanding
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Taking an analytical perspective founded on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the four studies presented in this thesis provide detailed analyses of video recorded lab work in mechanics at secondary and university level. The investigated activities all build on educational design afforded by a technology called probeware. The aim of the thesis is to investigate how teachers, task formulations, and technology make mechanics visible and learnable, and how students and teachers witnessably orient towards the practical achievement of understanding in the setting. The first study investigates how students use the technology in the interpretation and production of graphs: how they produce increasingly precise interpretations, how they fluently switch between different modes of meaning, and how the interpretations are both prospectively and retrospectively oriented. With a starting point in the analysis, the relevance of technology and task structure for the students’ interaction and learning are discussed. In the second study, the use of probeware is contrasted with the use of a simulation software. The study shows that some important differences between the local enactment of the two technologies are to be found in the practical work of the students; more specifically, in the ways that students orient to the subject matter content. The third study demonstrates an intimate interplay between how students display their problems and understandings and how instructors try to make the subject matter content visible and learnable. The analyzed episodes are illuminating with regard to the analytical notion of disciplined perception as applied to graph interpretation, the cognitive and practical competencies involved in producing, recognizing, and understanding graphs in mechanics, and the interactive work by which these competencies are made into objects of learning and instruction. The fourth study investigates episodes where explicit references to students’ understanding are made through formulations such as, “I don’t understand” or “do you get it?” The analysis focuses on the use, reference, interactional significance, and positioning of these formulations, and is followed by a discussion on the relation between the many and varied ways references to understanding are used and the concrete conditions of lab work. In sum, all four studies contribute to a detailed understanding of lab work as an educational practice and how learning and instruction are practically achieved.
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| 5. |
- Sönnerhed, Wang Wei, 1968-
(författare)
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Mathematics textbooks for teaching : An analysis of content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge concerning algebra in Swedish upper secondary education
- 2011
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In school algebra, using different methods including factorization to solve quadratic equations is one common teaching and learning topic at upper secondary school level. This study is about analyzing the algebra content related to solving quadratic equations and the method of factorization as presented in Swedish mathematics textbooks with subject matter content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as analytical tools. Mathematics textbooks as educational resources and artefacts are widely used in classroom teaching and learning. What is presented in a textbook is often taught by teachers in the classroom. Similarly, what is missing from the textbook may not be presented by the teacher. The study is based on an assumption that pedagogical content knowledge is embedded in the subject content presented in textbooks. Textbooks contain both subject content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. The primary aim of the study is to explore what pedagogical content knowledge regarding solving quadratic equations that is embedded in mathematics textbooks. The secondary aim is to analyze the algebra content related to solving quadratic equations from the perspective of mathematics as a discipline in relation to algebra history. It is about what one can find in the textbook rather than how the textbook is used in the classroom. The study concerns a teaching perspective and is intended to contribute to the understanding of the conditions of teaching solving quadratic equations. The theoretical framework is based on Shulman’s concept pedagogical content knowledge and Mishra and Koehler’s concept content knowledge. The general theoretical perspective is based on Wartofsky’s artifact theory. The empirical material used in this study includes twelve mathematics textbooks in the mathematics B course at Swedish upper secondary schools. The study contains four rounds of analyses. The results of the first three rounds have set up a basis for a deep analysis of one selected textbook. The results show that the analyzed Swedish mathematics textbooks reflect the Swedish mathematics syllabus of algebra. It is found that the algebra content related to solving quadratic equations is similar in every investigated textbook. There is an accumulative relationship among all the algebra content with a final goal of presenting how to solve quadratic equations by quadratic formula, which implies that classroom teaching may focus on quadratic formula. Factorization method is presented for solving simple quadratic equations but not the general-formed quadratic equations. The study finds that the presentation of the algebra content related to quadratic equations in the selected textbook is organized by four geometrical models that can be traced back to the history of algebra. These four geometrical models are applied for illustrating algebra rules and construct an overall embedded teaching trajectory with five sub-trajectories. The historically related pedagogy and application of mathematics in both real world and pure mathematics contexts are the pedagogical content knowledge related to quadratic equations.
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