A case study on how language learning strategies are fostered in an EFL chilean classroom context

Tesis (Profesor de Inglés para la Enseñanza Básica y Media y al grado académico de Licenciado en Educación)This mixed-methods case study attempted to explore how Language Learning Strategies (LLS) are fostered within a secondary level Chilean EFL public school context, based on a teacher’s pedagogical actions. Through empirical observation, task analysis, and an interview, this thesis intended to unveil the rationale behind the predominance of certain LLS at expense of others. Previous studies and literature served as a reference to later on determine potential cohesion between background records and first-hand evidence, which proved to be in relative alignment. Accordingly, this paper looked forward to extrapolating thoughts and assumptions the teacher had about that strategy-fostering bias with objective information evidenced through the development of the tasks carried out during the observation period. The results drew a tendency placing Memory strategies among the rest as the most fostered category, whereas Compensation befell to be the least favored LLS category overall.El propósito de este estudio de caso con un enfoque de investigación mixto fue explorar el desarrollo de la promoción de Estrategias del Estudio de la Lengua (Language Learning Strategies) dentro de una clase de Inglés como Lengua Extranjera (EFL) en un curso/nivel de educación secundaria inmerso en el contexto de un establecimiento educacional público chileno basado en las acciones pedagógicas del profesor a cargo. A través de observaciones empíricas, análisis de actividades y una entrevista, la intención de esta tesis fue develar la lógica tras la predominancia de ciertas Estratégias del Estudio de la Lengua en desmedro de otras. Varios artículos, tesis y otros tipos de documentos literarios sirvieron como referencia para posteriormente determinar la cohesión entre estos precedentes y la evidencia empírica recolectada, la cual ha probado estar en relativa concordancia. Por consiguiente, este documento buscó extrapolar la subjetividad de las reflexiones y suposiciones que el profesor-muestra del caso en cuestión fue capaz de dilucidar respecto a la tendencia a parcializar la promoción de ciertas estrategias con información objetiva obtenida a través del análisis de las instrucciones y actividades desarrolladas por el profesor durante el periodo de observación. Los resultados arrojaron tendencias favoreciendo a las estrategias de Memoria por encima del resto como la categoría más fomentada, mientras que las estrategias de Compensación resultaron ser aquellas con menos rodaje

Method for quality evaluation of digital learning tools

The students´ overcrowding in classrooms and the offer of digital media courses imply the need of new learning objects in education, as these reusable electronic tools allow objective evaluation in large groups by using few resources. The aim of this research is a proposal for a massive assessment in the quality of digital learning tools used in the students´ learning process, by using statistical methods (cluster analysis). This method facilitates the classification and identification of gaps within the assessment and self-learning instruments from different psychometric indicators. The research corresponds to a study case using a learning virtual platform (moodle) where different digital learning objects were implemented and used by students as tools for learning and assessment. Teachers analysed the results applied to objective evaluation and self- assessment tests, which determined whether they were properly designed learning activities and their discriminatory properties. In conclusion, the use of statistical methods massively detected failures or errors in the design of objective tests, allowing an important improvement in the quality and reuse of these resources.This research is based on the findings of the “Research in the use of Learning Object for academic teaching”, and was conducted within the context of the call for proposals issued by the "University Teaching Research Networks Project 2012-2013", supported by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Strategic Planning and Quality and the Institute of Education Sciences at the University of Alicante

When 'knowing what' is not enough: Role of organised simulations for developing effective practice

A decade on from the Rethinking Project Management (PM) network, concerns about the relevance gap continue with a number of multinationals looking explicitly to alternative strategies and forms of PM staff development. The literature is light on how project simulations can help the development of experienced managers as reflective experts. Few have examined the link between intended learning outcomes and real-time performance. Posing the question of “how easily is knowledge developed in the classroom transformed into effective practice?” the paper presents a chronological account of a 3-day simulated project by 25 experienced managers. Despite their prior experience and learning from shared problem-solving and structured reflections, participants struggled to deliver their projects as planned. Analysis referencing the knowledge epistemology and ambidexterity literatures yielded a number of design improvement opportunities and the insight that closing the knowing-doing gap requires courses to incorporate the ‘soft’ perceptual and attitudinal aspects underlying why people fail to convert their learning into effective practice

Undesigning sound: AdriftPM’s Portable Soundscapes

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.In July 2015, Adrift Performance Makers developed the project Portable Soundscapes: An Acoustic Travelogue, travelling down from Portsmouth, UK, to Thessaloniki, Greece, through Paris, Munich, Zagreb, and Belgrade. Carrying pre-recorded Southsea sound clips in their luggage, they listened out for unexpected voicings, misplaced soundtracks, fleeting sonic passersby. The project was curated as a series of online responses to inadvertent encounters with unfamiliar sonic environments. AdriftPM developed DIY strategies of aural dramaturgy, such as sonic conflations, sonic invitations, impromptu compositions, short poetic responses, and dubious definitions of sound terminology. This project revealed sound design as the enabling condition of a theatre, as the very organizing principle of a performative dramaturgy of listening, therefore effecting a reversal of conventional understandings of theatre sound design, which presuppose theatre as the context and sound as the designed intervention. This article seeks to lend an attentive ear to such unspoken assumptions. What if the complexity of the project posits the listener as both the deviser of the audio project and the spectator of the ongoing process that is the project? What happens when both audience and performance are diffused across a variety of media? What practices of listening, designing and archiving are required when Europe is your stage

The Tacit Dimension

"In architecture, tacit knowledge plays a substantial role in both the design process and its reception. The essays in this book explore the tacit dimension of architecture in its aesthetic, material, cultural, design-based, and reflexive understanding of what we build. Tacit knowledge, described in 1966 by Michael Polanyi as what we ‘can know but cannot tell’, often denotes knowledge that escapes quantifiable dimensions of research. Much of architecture’s knowledge resides beneath the surface, in nonverbal instruments such as drawings and models that articulate the spatial imagination of the design process. Awareness of the tacit dimension helps to understand the many facets of the spaces we inhabit, from the ideas of the architect to the more hidden assumptions of our cultures. Beginning in the studio, where students are guided into becoming architects, the book follows a path through the tacit knowledge present in materials, conceptual structures, and the design process, revealing how the tacit dimension leads to craftsmanship and the situated knowledge of architecture-in-the-world.

Instrumental Use of Information in the Design of the Chilean Secondary Education Reform

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which different types of information were instrumentally used for the formulation of policy problems and the delineation of policy solutions stated by the policymakers in charge of the Chilean secondary education reform carried out between 1995 and 2000. This is an unusual setting where the administrators responsible for the design and implementation of the reform policy had strong backgrounds in social research. This type of setting has not been explored substantively by other researchers. The data analyzed in the study were 63 pieces of information used as evidence for 53 policy claims in appropriate documents as well as feedback from participating policymakers. The study showed a high degree of instrumental use of information both for identifying problems of secondary education in Chile, as well as policies to address them. Almost every policy claim identified in the reform documents analyzed was based directly on some type of evidence. Approximately 85% of the evidence used to support claims was research based. The research implied that use of information in policymaking can be increased by planning long-term processes of policy development with a stable policymaking team, including policymakers in production of research and other information needed, strengthening national research capacity in education, and to consult a wide variety of information

Collaborative Teacher Educator Professional Development in Europe: Different Voices, One Goal

In this paper we present an embedded case study focussed on the learning activities provided for and by us through our involvement in an international forum focused on the professional development of teacher educators. The aim of this research was to get more insights into the complicated processes of professional learning across national borders. Data included personal narratives about learning and documentary analysis of written accounts of the forums’ activities. Following a collaborative self-study approach we utilised an interactive exploration of the data, using coding techniques derived from grounded theory. We conclude that our professional learning can be seen through two inter-related perspectives. The first perspective is the interplay between our own learning and the ways in which we want to support colleagues in their professional development. The second perspective is the reciprocal effect of working in national as well as in transnational contexts. By studying our professional learning processes we developed insights in how a shared communal international forum can be established without losing individual voices and national perspectives. Moreover, by our involvement in an international forum we also continue to develop our own self-understanding as ‘educators of teacher educators’

Objetos de aprendizaje y análisis de ítems

Las experiencias previas con objetos de aprendizaje (learning objects) en el área de conocimiento de Construcciones Arquitectónicas han verificado la idoneidad y bondad de estas herramientas electrónicas reutilizables. El objetivo de esta comunicación es evaluar la calidad de los instrumentos utilizados en el aprendizaje del estudiante en un estudio de caso, concretamente en la asignatura Construcción de elementos no estructurales del grado en Ingeniería de Edificación. Se utilizará una plataforma de aprendizaje virtual (moodle) donde se implementarán diversos objetos de aprendizaje digitales, los cuales serán utilizados por el alumnado y analizados por el profesorado. Para ello se empleará el análisis de ítems aplicado a estas pruebas objetivas de evaluación y autoevaluación, que permitirá determinar si se han diseñado adecuadamente las actividades de aprendizaje y la bondad discriminatoria de las mismas. De esta manera se podrán detectar las actividades poco interesantes en cuanto al aprendizaje así como fallos o errores en su diseño, lo que permitirá una mejora importante en la calidad y reutilización de estos recursos

Playing with Aesthetics in Art Museums

Playing with Aesthetics in Art Museums presents a strategy for using design thinking to mediate engrossing art experiences for adult museum visitors. Built upon a substantiated family resemblance between art and play experiences, the study synthesizes a typology of aesthetic theories, ten germane tenets of game design, and a psychographic portrait of the archetypal museum visitor to create a practical framework for delivering engrossing art experiences to adult visitors who typically enter museums with limited art historical knowledge. The interdisciplinary approach used is intended to replace the singular methodologies (whether art historical, pedagogical or aesthetic) that have informed museum practice in the United States since the late nineteenth century