How teachers think about the role of digital technologies in student assessment in mathematics

This study concerns teachers’ use of digital technologies in student assessment, and how the learning that is developed through the use of technology in mathematics can be evaluated. Nowadays math teachers use digital technologies in their teaching, but not in student assessment. The activities carried out with technology are seen as ‘extra-curricular’ (by both teachers and students), thus students do not learn what they can do in mathematics with digital technologies. I was interested in knowing the reasons teachers do not use digital technology to assess students’ competencies, and what they would need to be able to design innovative and appropriate tasks to assess students’ learning through digital technology. This dissertation is built on two main components: teachers and task design. I analyze teachers’ practices involving digital technologies with Ruthven’s Structuring Features of Classroom Practice, and what relation these practices have to the types of assessment they use. I study the kinds of assessment tasks teachers design with a DGE (Dynamic Geometry Environment), using Laborde’s categorization of DGE tasks. I consider the competencies teachers aim to assess with these tasks, and how their goals relate to the learning outcomes of the curriculum. This study also develops new directions in finding how to design suitable tasks for student mathematical assessment in a DGE, and it is driven by the desire to know what kinds of questions teachers might be more interested in using. I investigate the kinds of technology-based assessment tasks teachers value, and the type of feedback they give to students. Finally, I point out that the curriculum should include a range of mathematical and technological competencies that involve the use of digital technologies in mathematics, and I evaluate the possibility to take advantage of technology feedback to allow students to continue learning while they are taking a test.

La sorpresa come fattore critico indicatore di sintonizzazione emotiva in bambini normali e con disturbi pervasivi dello sviluppo

The topic of this study is surprise, re gard as an evolutionary complex process, with manifold implication in different fields, from neurological, since aspecific correlate of surprise exist more or less at every level of neuronal processes (e.g. Rao e Ballard, 1999.), to behavioral , inasmuch a s our ability to quickly valuate(assess), recognize and learn from surprising events, are be regarded as pivotal for survival (e.g. Ranganath e Rainer, 2003). In particular this work, going from belief that surprise is really a psychoevolutive mechanism of primary relevance, has the objective to investigate if there may be a substantial connection between development of surprise' emotion and specific developmental problems, or, if in subjects with pervasive developmental disorders surprise may embody (represent) a essential mechanism of emotional tuning, and consequently if abnormalities in such process may be at the base of at least a part of cognitive and behavioural problems that determine (describe) this pathology. Theoretical reasons lead us to conside r this particular pathologic condition, recall to a broad area of research concern the comprehension of belief as marker of ability to reasons about mental states of others (i.e. Theory of Mind), and in addition, at the detection of specific subjects' diff iculty in this field. On the experimental side, as well as limited of this work, we have to compare comprehension and expression of surprise in a sample of 21 children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), with a sample of 35 children without deve lopmental problems, in a range of age 3-12. Method After the customary approach to become friendly with the child, an experimenter and an accomplice showed three boxes of nuts, easily to distinguish one from the other because of their different colours an d , working together with the child, the contents of one of the boxes were replaced and a different material (macaroni, pebbles) was put in the box. for the purpose of preparing a surprise for someone. At this stage, the accomplice excused himself/herself and left and the experimenter suggested to the child that he prepare another surprise, replacing the contents in the second box. When the accomplice came back, the child was asked to prepare a surprise for him by picking out the box that he thought was the right one for the purpose. After, and the child doesn't know it, the accomplice change the content of one of the boxes with candies and asked out to the children to open the box, in order to see if he show surprise. Result Date have obtain a significant difference between autistic and normal group, in all four tests. The expression of surprise too, is present in significantly lower degree in autistic group than in control group. Moreover, autistic children do not provide appropriate metarappresentative explanations. Conclusion Our outcome, with knowledge of the limit of our investigation at an experimental level (low number of the champions, no possibility of video registration to firm the expressions ) orient to consider eventuality that surprise, may be seen as relevant component, or indicative, in autistic spectrum disorders.

L'attitudine alla comunicazione. Uno studio nel Corso di Laurea in Infermieristica

It is believed that the way of being and the communicative-relational skills of every individual have multifactorial origins, including the quality of primary relationships with caregivers. For some time, the need for health care professionals to possess specific communicative and interpersonal skills has been highlighted. To the degree course in Nursing, like to all other degree programs related to health, access is granted to students who have large individual differences, both in terms of personality, and in terms of relational skills. Each academic year, therefore, the people responsible for the didactic organization of every course, are faced with having to prepare a training plan capable of addressing communicative-relational aspects and, at the same time, of being adequate to the real attitudes of incoming students. Thus, the need for appropriate tools for measuring the personological and vocational traits considered specific to health professions was born. This study has a twofold objective. On one hand, it aims at selecting a battery of psychological tests to detect psychological and attitudinal patterns, to facilitate the coordinators of graduate courses in their didactic organization and planning of educational training; on the other hand, it seeks to assess the correlations between communicative-relational skills (Relational-Communicative style, according to the model of patient-centered medicine-TRS) (Mucchielli’s Test of Spontaneous Attitudes – usual kind of attitude in dual relationships), personality traits (Alexithymia), styles of attachment to parental figures (PBI), and the capability of recognizing facial emotions, in a sample of students enrolled in the first year of a degree in Nursing.

Intuizione e visualizzazione in matematica con particolare riferimento a Felix Klein

Questo lavoro trae spunto da un rinnovato interesse per l’«intuizione» e il «pensiero visivo» in matematica, e intende offrire un contributo alla discussione contemporanea su tali questioni attraverso lo studio del caso storico di Felix Klein. Dopo una breve ricognizione di alcuni dei saggi più significativi al riguardo, provenienti sia dalla filosofia della matematica, sia dalla pedagogia, dalle neuroscienze e dalle scienze cognitive, l’attenzione si concentra sulla concezione epistemologia di Klein, con particolare riferimento al suo uso del concetto di ‘intuizione’. Dai suoi lavori e dalla sua riflessione critica si ricavano non solo considerazioni illuminanti sulla fecondità di un approccio «visivo», ma argomenti convincenti a sostegno del ruolo cruciale dell’intuizione in matematica.