Trajetórias educacionais bem-sucedidas : o reverso da evasão

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Educação, Departamento de Pós-Graduação, Mestrado Profissional em Educação, 2015.

The Impact of Gender and Pedagogy on the Development of Self-Regulated Learning Strategies in Undergraduate Engineering Classrooms

The purpose of this paper is to examine ways in which pedagogy and gender of instructor impact the development of self-regulated learning strategies as assessed by the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) in male and female undergraduate engineering students. Pedagogy was operationalized as two general formats: lecture plus active learning techniques or problem-base/project-based learning. One hundred seventy-six students from four universities participated in the study. Within-group analyses found significant differences with regard to pedagogy, instructors’ gender, and student gender on the learning strategies and motivation subscales as operationalized by the MSLQ. Male and females students reported significant post-test differences with regard to the gender of instructor and the style of pedagogy. The results of this study showed a pattern where more positive responses for students of both genders were found with the same-gendered instructor. The results also suggested that male students responded more positively to project and problem-based courses with changes evidenced in motivation strategies and resource management. Female students showed decreases in resource management in these two types of courses. Further, female students reported increases in the lecture with active learning courses.

Undergraduate teaching of ideal and real fluid flows: The value of real-world experimental projects

This study describes the pedagogical impact of real-world experimental projects undertaken as part of an advanced undergraduate Fluid Mechanics subject at an Australian university. The projects have been organised to complement traditional lectures and introduce students to the challenges of professional design, physical modelling, data collection and analysis. The physical model studies combine experimental, analytical and numerical work in order to develop students’ abilities to tackle real-world problems. A first study illustrates the differences between ideal and real fluid flow force predictions based upon model tests of buildings in a large size wind tunnel used for research and professional testing. A second study introduces the complexity arising from unsteady non-uniform wave loading on a sheltered pile. The teaching initiative is supported by feedback from undergraduate students. The pedagogy of the course and projects is discussed with reference to experiential, project-based and collaborative learning. The practical work complements traditional lectures and tutorials, and provides opportunities which cannot be learnt in the classroom, real or virtual. Student feedback demonstrates a strong interest for the project phases of the course. This was associated with greater motivation for the course, leading in turn to lower failure rates. In terms of learning outcomes, the primary aim is to enable students to deliver a professional report as the final product, where physical model data are compared to ideal-fluid flow calculations and real-fluid flow analyses. Thus the students are exposed to a professional design approach involving a high level of expertise in fluid mechanics, with sufficient academic guidance to achieve carefully defined learning goals, while retaining sufficient flexibility for students to construct there own learning goals. The overall pedagogy is a blend of problem-based and project-based learning, which reflects academic research and professional practice. The assessment is a mix of peer-assessed oral presentations and written reports that aims to maximise student reflection and development. Student feedback indicated a strong motivation for courses that include a well-designed project component.

Analysis of the readiness of Nigerian undergraduates for eLearning courses : understanding undergraduate's perspective

There is much enthusiasm about developing eLearning coures in Nigeria, but majority of the eLearning platforms introduced from developed countries to Nigeria hardly resulted in desired outcome. Proposed reasons are lack of infrastructures such as stable electricity, inadequate rate of internet penetration, low bandwidth and low accessibility of undergraduates to sophisticated devices. These seem valid initially, but findings of this study proved otherwise. This study took a deeper evaluation of the scenarios and made viable discoveries which deviate from early findings. First, the former attempts to introduce eLearning for students in Nigeria were implemented with a rural mindset. Secondly, the undergraduate student`s technical readiness were not properly studied, also their technology user acceptance was also not properly checked and the eLearning platforms were not localized. This study conducted interviews among tertiary students at Yaba College of technology and gathered valuable information towards their readiness for eLearning.

A scaled-down conference model for courses covering ever-changing fields in computer science undergraduate degree programs

Resumen tomado de la publicación

A vector approach to the assessment of undergraduate engineering courses

In any undergraduate engineering programme there is a need to assess the balance and flavour of the various educational strands. In order for a quality assurance of these programmes to be met there is a need to evaluate the course load, academic content and the assessment marks of each course in the undergraduate programme. The existing ranges of QA methods for these programmes are focused on one or two of these issues and do not provide a comprehensive assessment procedure. Following a review of the existing QA methods, this paper will define a three-dimensional approach to the assessment of the educational aspects of an undergraduate course. Various features of this method will be described and potential benefits explained.

Self-perception, complaints and vocal quality among undergraduate students enrolled in a Pedagogy course

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

An Experience-Driven Pedagogy for the Instruction of Software Testing in Computer Science

In the realm of computer programming, the experience of writing a program is used to reinforce concepts and evaluate ability. This research uses three case studies to evaluate the introduction of testing through Kolb's Experiential Learning Model (ELM). We then analyze the impact of those testing experiences to determine methods for improving future courses. The first testing experience that students encounter are unit test reports in their early courses. This course demonstrates that automating and improving feedback can provide more ELM iterations. The JUnit Generation (JUG) tool also provided a positive experience for the instructor by reducing the overall workload. Later, undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to work together in a multi-role Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) course. The interactions use usability analysis techniques with graduate students as usability experts and undergraduate students as design engineers. Students get experience testing the user experience of their product prototypes using methods varying from heuristic analysis to user testing. From this course, we learned the importance of the instructors role in the ELM. As more roles were added to the HCI course, a desire arose to provide more complete, quality assured software. This inspired the addition of unit testing experiences to the course. However, we learned that significant preparations must be made to apply the ELM when students are resistant. The research presented through these courses was driven by the recognition of a need for testing in a Computer Science curriculum. Our understanding of the ELM suggests the need for student experience when being introduced to testing concepts. We learned that experiential learning, when appropriately implemented, can provide benefits to the Computer Science classroom. When examined together, these course-based research projects provided insight into building strong testing practices into a curriculum.

Improving learning in undergraduate control engineering courses using context-based learning models

Control Engineering is an essential part of university electrical engineering education. Normally, a control course requires considerable mathematical as well as engineering knowledge and is consequently regarded as a difficult course by many undergraduate students. From the academic point of view, how to help the students to improve their learning of the control engineering knowledge is therefore an important task which requires careful planning and innovative teaching methods. Traditionally, the didactic teaching approach has been used to teach the students the concepts needed to solve control problems. This approach is commonly adopted in many mathematics intensive courses; however it generally lacks reflection from the students to improve their learning. This paper addresses the practice of action learning and context-based learning models in teaching university control courses. This context-based approach has been practised in teaching several control engineering courses in a university with promising results, particularly in view of student learning performances.

An Integrated Programming Environment for Undergraduate Computing Courses

The Computing Division of the Business School at University College Worcester provides computing and information technology education to a range of undergraduate students. Topics include various approaches to programming, artificial intelligence, operating systems and digital technologies. Each of these has its own potentially conflicting requirements for a pedagogically sound programming environment. This paper describes an endeavor to develop a common programming paradigm across all topics. This involves the combined use of autonomous robots and Java simulations.

As disciplinas pedagógicas na formação e na construção de representações sobre o trabalho docente: visões de alunos de licenciatura em Química e Física

Este estudo tem como objetivo analisar as concepções de licenciandos em Química e em Física sobre a prática profissional e as marcas deixadas pelas disciplinas pedagógicas na sua formação, assim como identificar sinais de mudanças em suas concepções durante a realização do curso de Licenciatura. Para tanto, textos foram produzidos por 54 alunos matriculados em cursos de Licenciatura de duas universidades públicas do estado de São Paulo, nos quais os licenciandos expressaram suas experiências de formação e apontaram elementos que consideram que terão alguma influência em sua atuação profissional. Os textos revelaram que as ideias que os licenciandos carregam são consistentes com muitas das visões e objetivos apresentados em cursos de formação de professores. Nas produções dos estudantes faz-se presente o desejo de compartilhar e promover em seus futuros alunos o interesse pela Química e a Física. Os seus comentários refletiram visões de professores que tiveram no passado, os quais gostariam de imitar, e de outros que não gostariam de ser. Os comentários também tornaram evidente a vontade dos licenciandos em se estabelecerem como professores que se preocupam com seus alunos. Os textos foram analisados segundo a Análise do Discurso de linha francesa, como tem sido divulgada por Eni Orlandi, especialmente a noção de formação discursiva.

Academic dishonesty: understanding how undergraduate students think and act

The purpose of this investigation is to explore and understand the justifications given by students to the existence of dishonest behavior and understanding the extent to which the justifications given might influence denouncing and cheating behavior. 1277 undergraduate students of two Portuguese Public Universities were surveyed about their own cheating behavior, their propensity to denounce and the ―neutralizing attitudes‖. As predicted, ―neutralizing attitudes‖ was negatively correlated with self cheating behavior and positively correlated with reporting. The likelihood of copying is greater when the purpose is ―helping a friend‖, ―when the courses are more difficult‖, ―to get higher marks/grades‖, and because ―peers accept and tend to see copying practices as normal‖. Results support the notion that context emerges as a very important influence in the decision to cheating. The environment-peer pressure and the normalized attitudes towards academic dishonesty are the main influences on the propensity to cheating.

Teaching mathematics using Massive Open Online Courses

Distance learning - where students take courses (attend classes, get activities and other sort of learning materials) while being physically separated from their instructors, for larger part of the course duration - is far from being a “new event”. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, this has been done through Radio, Mail and TV, taking advantage of the full educational potential that these media resources had to offer at the time. However, in recent times we have, at our complete disposal, the “magic wonder” of communication and globalization - the Internet. Taking advantage of a whole new set of educational opportunities, with a more or less unselfish “look” to economic interests, focusing its concern on a larger and collective “welfare”, contributing to the development of a more “equitable” world, with regard to educational opportunities, the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were born and have become an important feature of the higher education in recent years. Many people have been talking about MOOCs as a potential educational revolution, which has arrived from North America, still growing and spreading, referring to its benefits and/or disadvantages. The Polytechnic Institute of Porto, also known as IPP, is a Higher Education Portuguese institution providing undergraduate and graduate studies, which has a solid history of online education and innovation through the use of technology, and it has been particularly interested and focused on MOOC developments, based on an open educational policy in order to try to implement some differentiated learning strategies to its actual students and as a way to attract future ones. Therefore, in July 2014, IPP launched the first Math MOOC on its own platform. This paper describes the requirements, the resulting design and implementation of a mathematics MOOC, which was essentially addressed to three target populations: - pre-college students or individuals wishing to update their Math skills or that need to prepare for the National Exam of Mathematics; - Higher Education students who have not attended in High School, this subject, and who feel the need to acquire basic knowledge about some of the topics covered; - High School Teachers who may use these resources with their students allowing them to develop teaching methodologies like "Flipped Classroom” (available at http://www.opened.ipp.pt/). The MOOC was developed in partnership with several professors from several schools from IPP, gathering different math competences and backgrounds to create and put to work different activities such video lectures and quizzes. We will also try to briefly discuss the advertising strategy being developed to promote this MOOC, since it is not offered through a main MOOC portal, such as Coursera or Udacity.