The Influence of Space Layout, Technology and Teaching Approach on Student Learning: An Architectural Technology Perspective

Some would argue that there is a need for the traditional lecture format to be rethought in favour of a more active approach. However, this must form part of a bipartite strategy, considered in conjunction with the layout of any new space to facilitate alternative learning and teaching methods. With this in mind, this paper begins to examine the impact of the learning environment on the student learning experience, specifically focusing on students studying on the Architectural Technology and Management programme at Ulster University. The aim of this study is two-fold: to increase understanding of the impact of learning space layout, by taking a student centered approach; and to gain an appreciation of how technology can impact upon the learning space. The study forms part of a wider project being undertaken at Ulster University known as the Learning Landscape Transition Project, exploring the relationship between learning, teaching and space layout. Data collection was both qualitative and quantitative, with use of a case study supported by a questionnaire based on attitudinal scaling. A focus group was also used to further analyse the key trends resulting from the questionnaire. The initial results suggest that the learning environment, and the technology within it, can not only play an important part in the overall learning experience of the student, but also assist with preparation for the working environment to be experienced in professional life.

"Where is the value in education for me?": experiences and perspectives of Ontario secondary students at risk of non-completion of their Ontario Secondary School Diploma /

This study examined students considered at risk of non-completion of their Ontario Secondary School Diploma and aimed to offer insight into the questions, "What factors currently lead to school disconnect" and "How can these factors be addressed?" Eight students currently enrolled in an alternative learning environment participated in the study. Each was asked to take part in two, digitally recorded interviews that were subsequently transcribed by the researcher. The data were then coded and analysed according to specific themes: obstacles, empowerment, goals, views about success, opinions of school, and power of the teacher. From these themes, three broad focus areas emerged that were used to keep the data analysis focused: worldview, school effects, and self-image. Variances between the data collected and ideas presented in the current literature were highlighted as a reminder that when dealing with a human population, we cannot rely on textbook definitions and theory alone.

Calculando distância em geometria espacial usando material manipulável como recurso didático

This work presents a proposal for introducing the teaching of Geometry Space study attempts to demonstrate that the use of manipulatives as a teaching resource can be an alternative learning facilitator for fixing the primitive concepts of geometry, the postulates and theorems, position relationships between points, lines and planes and calculating distances. The development makes use of a sequence of activities aimed at ensuring that students can build a more systematic learning and these are divided into four steps

Uma proposta linguística para o ensino da escrita formal para surdos brasileiros e portugueses

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

CENTROS EDUCACIONAIS DE SANTO ANDRÉ: NOVAS FORMAS DE ORGANIZAÇÃO DA ESCOLA PÚBLICA

Este estudo tem por objetivo refletir sobre a educação não-formal e seu papel educativo nos marcos de uma Escola Cidadã: os Centros Educacionais de Santo André (CESAs), que se apresentam como um projeto contra-hegemônico de escola inclusiva. Considerando-se a educação não-formal um campo de conhecimento em construção, analisa-se outra forma de organização da escola pública e como ocorre a mediação deste processo educativo. O espaço arquitetônico, as novas dimensões do educar, a formação dos professores e a entrada de outros atores na escola são apreciados ouvindo-se as vozes de crianças, pais e professores. Partindo-se de referências teóricas de estudiosos da corrente crítico-reprodutivista que analisam a escola no contexto de sociedades de classe, buscam-se, apoiados na perspectiva da escola única, defendida por Gramsci (1981), alternativas em que as aprendizagens aconteçam nas interações geradas no processo participativo em todo seu significado social. Nos capítulos iniciais, de caráter histórico e bibliográfico, discute-se a implantação de políticas públicas dessa natureza, que lançam mão da educação não-formal; finalizamos buscando evidenciá-las na política pública de educação desenvolvida nos CESAs, explorando, principalmente, as linguagens artísticas no desenvolvimento da cidadania.(AU)

CENTROS EDUCACIONAIS DE SANTO ANDRÉ: NOVAS FORMAS DE ORGANIZAÇÃO DA ESCOLA PÚBLICA

Este estudo tem por objetivo refletir sobre a educação não-formal e seu papel educativo nos marcos de uma Escola Cidadã: os Centros Educacionais de Santo André (CESAs), que se apresentam como um projeto contra-hegemônico de escola inclusiva. Considerando-se a educação não-formal um campo de conhecimento em construção, analisa-se outra forma de organização da escola pública e como ocorre a mediação deste processo educativo. O espaço arquitetônico, as novas dimensões do educar, a formação dos professores e a entrada de outros atores na escola são apreciados ouvindo-se as vozes de crianças, pais e professores. Partindo-se de referências teóricas de estudiosos da corrente crítico-reprodutivista que analisam a escola no contexto de sociedades de classe, buscam-se, apoiados na perspectiva da escola única, defendida por Gramsci (1981), alternativas em que as aprendizagens aconteçam nas interações geradas no processo participativo em todo seu significado social. Nos capítulos iniciais, de caráter histórico e bibliográfico, discute-se a implantação de políticas públicas dessa natureza, que lançam mão da educação não-formal; finalizamos buscando evidenciá-las na política pública de educação desenvolvida nos CESAs, explorando, principalmente, as linguagens artísticas no desenvolvimento da cidadania.(AU)

CENTROS EDUCACIONAIS DE SANTO ANDRÉ: NOVAS FORMAS DE ORGANIZAÇÃO DA ESCOLA PÚBLICA

Este estudo tem por objetivo refletir sobre a educação não-formal e seu papel educativo nos marcos de uma Escola Cidadã: os Centros Educacionais de Santo André (CESAs), que se apresentam como um projeto contra-hegemônico de escola inclusiva. Considerando-se a educação não-formal um campo de conhecimento em construção, analisa-se outra forma de organização da escola pública e como ocorre a mediação deste processo educativo. O espaço arquitetônico, as novas dimensões do educar, a formação dos professores e a entrada de outros atores na escola são apreciados ouvindo-se as vozes de crianças, pais e professores. Partindo-se de referências teóricas de estudiosos da corrente crítico-reprodutivista que analisam a escola no contexto de sociedades de classe, buscam-se, apoiados na perspectiva da escola única, defendida por Gramsci (1981), alternativas em que as aprendizagens aconteçam nas interações geradas no processo participativo em todo seu significado social. Nos capítulos iniciais, de caráter histórico e bibliográfico, discute-se a implantação de políticas públicas dessa natureza, que lançam mão da educação não-formal; finalizamos buscando evidenciá-las na política pública de educação desenvolvida nos CESAs, explorando, principalmente, as linguagens artísticas no desenvolvimento da cidadania.(AU)

La educación formal en cuestionamiento: voces y vivencias de las y los estudiantes de un liceo del cantón central de Heredia

This article presents the results of a participant action research applied in a High School in Heredia, in which the life experiences and voices of the involved students are taking into account. Moreover, their critics towards formal education and its curricular organization lead to a proposal on alternative school experiences that can be called a paralleled curriculum. This type of curriculum breaks up with the Costa Rican public high school official curriculum by inserting the students’ ways of being and doing.

Alternative Identities and Foreign Language Learning

My D-essay has the working title “Alternative Identities and Foreign Language Learning”. I have chosen this area because I have noticed a certain reluctance among Swedish students to use the foreign language English in English classes. They often seem embarrassed to express themselves in a language which is not their mother tongue, but they seem less embarrassed when they are allowed to act somebody else. These two observations converge into a focus of discussion on the matter, which will be supported by a minor study of my own, by extracts from other people’s essays on the matter, and by an overview of current litterature on language, identity and drama.The aim of my essay is to compare Swedish students’ willingness to use the foreign language English when acting minor plays in school, as themselves and as a chosen character, and to investigate the possibility of improving students’ willingness to use a foreign language, when given the opportunity to do so through acting somebody else.

Alternative Tasks for the Teaching and the Learning of functions: analysis of an intervention in the High School

In this paper we focus on the application of two mathematical alternative tasks to the teaching and learning of functions with high school students. The tasks were elaborated according to the following methodological approach: (i) Problem Solving and/or mathematics investigation and (ii) a pedagogical proposal, which defends that mathematical knowledge is developed by means of a balance between logic and intuition. We employed a qualitative research approach (characterized as a case study) aimed at analyzing the didactic pedagogical potential of this type of methodology in high school. We found that tasks such as those presented and discussed in this paper provide a more significant learning for the students, allowing a better conceptual understanding, becoming still more powerful when one considers the social-cultural context of the students.

Heritage and innovative learning approaches:an alternative approach to engineering education

Over recent years, the role of engineering in promoting a sustainable society has received much public attention [1] with particular emphasis given to the need to promote the future prosperity and security of society through the recruitment and education of more engineers [2,3]. From an employment perspective, the Leitch Review [4] suggested that ‘generic’ transferable employability skills development should constitute a more substantial part of university education. This paper argues that the global drivers impacting engineering education [5] correlate strongly to those underpinning the Leitch review, therefore the question of how to promote transferable employability skills within the wider engineering curriculum is increasingly relevant. By exploring the use of heritage in the engineering curriculum as a way to promote learning and engage students, a less familiar approach to study is discussed. This approach moves away from stereotypical notions of the use of information technology as representing the pinnacle of innovation in education. Taking the student experience as its starting point, the paper draws upon the findings of an exploratory study critically analysing the pedagogical value of using heritage in engineering education. It discusses a teaching approach in which engineering students are taken out of their ‘comfort zone’ - away from the classroom, laboratory and computer, to a heritage site some 100 miles away from the university. The primary learning objective underpinning this approach is to develop students’ transferable skills by encouraging them to consider how to apply theoretical concepts to a previously unexplored situation. By reflecting upon students’ perceptions of the value of this approach, and by identifying how heritage may be utilised as an innovative learning and teaching approach in engineering education, this paper makes a notable contribution to current pedagogical debates in the discipline.

An alternative to BlackboardTM? Student use of web-based textbook teaching and learning material

This paper investigates the use of web-based textbook supplementary teaching and learning materials which include multiple choice test banks, animated demonstrations, simulations, quizzes and electronic versions of the text. To gauge their experience of the web-based material students were asked to score the main elements of the material in terms of usefulness. In general it was found that while the electronic text provides a flexible platform for presentation of material there is a need for continued monitoring of student use of this material as the literature suggests that digital viewing habits may mean there is little time spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority. From a lecturer perspective these materials may provide an effective and efficient way of presenting teaching and learning materials to the students in a variety of multimedia formats, but at this stage do not overcome the need for a VLE such as Blackboard™.

Alternative approaches to education: Tolstoy’s thinking on teaching and learning and its relevance for today

In this article I reflect upon the educational writings and teaching experiences of the 19th-Century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy is known to have attached much importance to his own writing on education, even more than to the literary creations for which he is best remembered. His writings on education have much to contribute to our present-day understanding of the learning process and cover such issues as, ‘learner autonomy’, ‘motivation’, ‘relationship’ and ‘student voice’. Tolstoy’s teaching experience was with multiethnic peasant children in his schools in Yasnaya Polyana. I intend to illustrate that the themes and issues that arose from his experiences in the 1860s can still find resonance with students and teachers in the 21st century.

Learning math through movement: physical education as another alternative

The purpose of this study was to determine the cognitive effects of applying physical recreational activities to two groups of pre-school students, related to mathematics to one of the groups and recreational games to the other.  A total of 27 subjects (13 girls and 14 boys) of 5 and a half and 6 and half years of age participated in the study.  The instrument used was a questionnaire including basic math concepts such as geometry, basic operations with concrete elements, and how to read the clock, based on the topics established by the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Education.  Once the instrument was developed, a plan of physical recreational activities related to math was prepared and applied to the experimental group (pre-school B) for one and a half months, while the other group played recreational games.  Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.  Positive and significant effects were found in the physical recreational activity program regarding student performance in 10 of the 12 items that were applied to assess mastery of basic math concepts.  In conclusion, using physical education as another instrument to teach other disciplines represents an excellent alternative for pre-school teachers that try to satisfy the learning needs of children that will soon be attending school.  Using movement as part of guided and planned activities plays an indispensable role in children’s lives; therefore, learning academic subjects should be adapted to their needs to explore and know their environment.