Interventions using digital tools to improve students’ engagement and learning outcomes in higher business education

The papers of this thesis are not available in Munin. Paper 1: Bertheussen, B. A.: "Cultivating spreadsheet usage in a finance course through learning and assessment innovations". Available in International Journal of Innovation in Education 2015, 3(1). Paper 2: Bertheussen, B. A., Myrland, Ø.: "Relation between academic performance and students’ engagement in digital learning activities". Available in Journal of Education for Business 2016, 91(3), 1–7. Paper 3: Bertheussen, B. A.: "Er handelshøyskolene innelåst i historiske pedagogiske spor?". Available in Magma 2013, 16(5),40–48. Paper 4: Bertheussen, B. A. "Ruteark eller regneark. Kognitive utfordringer med å løse finansoppgaver på papier og PC". Available in Uniped 2012, 35(3):87–101. Paper 5: Bertheussen, B. A.: "Validating a Digital Assessment Practice". (Manuscript). Paper 6: Bertheussen, B. A. "Power to business professors. Automatic grading of problem-solving tasks". Available in Journal of Accounting Education 2014, 32(1):76–87. Paper 7: Bertheussen, B. A.: "Automatisk formativ feedback kan gi god motivasjon og læring". Available in Uniped 2014, 37(4):59–71. Paper 8: Bertheussen, B. A. "Revitalizing plenary finance lectures". Available in Beta 2013, 27(1):78–92. The purpose of the present study was to develop interventions using digital tools to improve student engagement and learning outcomes. The empirical context was an undergraduate finance course wherein digital learning and assessment interventions were important features of the course design. When designing the interventions, the development activities were underpinned by pedagogical principles based on cognitive and sociocultural learning perspectives. Special emphasis was placed on integrating spreadsheet usage into all learning and assessment activities and constructively aligning course targets, assessment tasks and learning activities with the overall goal to foster an active and engaging learning environment. In addition, rooted in a pragmatic research paradigm, the methodology utilised includes many similarities with interventionist action research, which has gained a foothold in qualitative management accounting research. This interventionist research project includes two main contributions. The first is its impact on practice by designing and developing interventions to solve complex problems in an authentic classroom setting. Consequently, six practical educational interventions are discussed in this dissertation. The second contribution is theory building, which advances our knowledge regarding the characteristics of the interventions and the process of designing and developing them. Consequently, a total of eight refereed scientific articles have been produced during this research and development project. As outlined in this study, the development of the digital formative feedback intervention, is in line with research stating that, in higher education, traditional paper-based feedback is being supplemented with and in some cases replaced by innovative use of ICT. Moreover, software algorithms can effectively provide detailed and helpful individual formative feedback to students regarding their learning processes and outcomes. This study strongly supports the claim that it is problematic to use technology to enhance learning without recognition through assessments. The digital summative assessment intervention reported is regarded as a precondition for establishing a spreadsheet user-culture in the subject, especially as it served as an ‘icebreaker’ for other learning interventions that were integrated into the course design. The intervention processes discussed have been through several iterations and their stepwise development and implementation have emerged through negotiating, compromising and resolving tension between the practitioner researcher, students and institution. The resulting compromises resolved tensions which sometimes resulted from limited physical resources. As the students valued the outcome from engaging in the digital learning and assessment interventions, they had a flexible attitude and deployed their private infrastructure (laptops) within the learning environment. Consequently, a vital part of the institution’s infrastructure was transformed from a fixed asset (number of PCs available in a data lab) to a flexible asset in the theatres. This compromise that was negotiated between the institution, the practitioner researcher and the students was essential for the digital educational interventions to work and progress. The overall theoretical research findings from this study are presented in the form of a tentative framework, which can help bridge the gap between the intervention practice and theory. A central conjecture in the framework is that tool usage that is integrated into interventions can be influential on learning activity and engagement and consequently on students’ learning outcomes. Moreover, the framework supports the notion of ICT as a mediating cultural tool that provides a new type of affordance that can extend the mind and promote an active and engaging learning environment. In particular, integrating a spreadsheet tool in learning of management accounting subjects can offer opportunities for learners to rapidly construct financial models, enable simulations using the completed models and stimulate subject reflections based on the functions of the models and their results. The practical outcome of this study has been emphasised through the development of artefacts that aim to support practitioners intending to integrate spreadsheet usage within their subject teaching and learning. By publishing and sharing the artefacts, the current research project is capable of informing future development and implementation decisions by guiding practitioners in similar pedagogical contexts

Role of an artefact of Dynamic algebra in the conceptualisation of the algebraic equality

In this contribution, we explore the impact of Alnuset, an artefact of dynamic algebra, on the conceptualisation of algebraic equality. Many research works report about obstacles to conceptualise this notion due to interference of the previous arithmetic knowledge. New meanings need to be assigned to the equal sign and to letters used in algebraic expressions. Based on the hypothesis that Alnuset can be effectively used to mediate the conceptual development necessary to master the algebraic equality notion, two experiments have been designed and implemented in Italy and in France. They are reported in the second part of this pape

Towards multilingual domain module acquisition

Máster y Doctorado en Sistemas Informáticos Avanzados, Informatika Fakultatea - Facultad de InformáticaDOM-Sortze is a framework for Semi-Automatic development of Domain Modules, i.e., the pedagogical representation of the domain to be learnt. DOM-Sortze generates Domain Modules for Technology Supported Learning Systems using Natural Language Processing Techniques, Ontologies and Heuristic Reasoning. The framework has been already used over textbooks in Basque language. This work presents the extension that adds English support to the framework, which is achieved with the modification of ErauzOnt. This is the tool that enables the acquisition of learning resources, definitions, examples, exercises, etc. used in the learning process. Moreover, some tests have been made to evaluate the performance of the tool with this new language. Principles of Object-Oriented Programming textbook for Object-Oriented Programming university subject is used for evaluation purposes. The results of this tests show that DOM-Sortze is not tight to a particular domain neither language

Processing mathematical thinking through digital pedagogical media: the spreadsheet

Abstract This study is concerned with the ways mathematical understanding emerges when mathematical phenomena are encountered through digital pedagogical media, the spreadsheet, in particular. Central to this, was an examination of the affordances digital technologies offer, and how the affordances associated with investigating mathematical tasks in the spreadsheet environment, shaped the learning trajectories of the participants. Two categories of participating students were involved, ten-year-old primary school pupils, and pre-service teachers. An eclectic approach to data collection, including qualitative and quantitative methods, was initially undertaken, but as my research perspective evolved, a moderate hermeneutic frame emerged as the most productive way in which to examine the research questions. A hermeneutic process transformed the research methodology, as well as the manner in which the data were interpreted. The initial analysis and evolving methodology not only informed this transition to a moderate hermeneutic lens, they were constitutive of the ongoing research perspectives and their associated interpretations. The data, and some that was subsequently collected, were then reconsidered from this modified position. The findings indicated that engaging mathematical tasks through the pedagogical medium of the spreadsheet, influenced the nature of the investigative process in particular ways. As a consequence, the interpretations of the interactions, and the understandings this evoked, also differed. The students created and made connections between alternative models of the situations, while the visual, tabular structuring of the environment, in conjunction with its propensity to instantly manage large amounts of output accurately, facilitated their observation of patterns. They frequently investigated the visual nature of these patterns, and used visual referents in their interpretations and explanations. It also allowed them to pose and test their informal conjectures and generalisations in non-threatening circumstances, to reset investigative sub-goals easily, hence fostering risk taking in their approach. At times, the learning trajectory evolved in unexpected ways, and the data illustrated various alternative ways in which unexpected, visual output stimulated discussion and extended the boundaries of, or reorganised, their interaction and mathematical thinking. An examination of the visual perturbations, and other elements of learning as hermeneutic processes also revealed alternative understandings and explanations. Viewing the data and the research process through hermeneutic filters enhanced the connectivity between the emergence of individual mathematical understanding, and the cultural formation of mathematics. It permitted consideration of the ways this process influences the evolution of mathematics education research. While interpretive approaches are inevitably imbued with the researcher perspective in the analysis of what gets noticed, the research gave fresh insights into the ways learning emerges through digital pedagogical media, and the potential of this engagement to change the nature of mathematics education

Robot life: simulation and participation in the study of evolution and social behavior.

This paper explores the case of using robots to simulate evolution, in particular the case of Hamilton's Law. The uses of robots raises several questions that this paper seeks to address. The first concerns the role of the robots in biological research: do they simulate something (life, evolution, sociality) or do they participate in something? The second question concerns the physicality of the robots: what difference does embodiment make to the role of the robot in these experiments. Thirdly, how do life, embodiment and social behavior relate in contemporary biology and why is it possible for robots to illuminate this relation? These questions are provoked by a strange similarity that has not been noted before: between the problem of simulation in philosophy of science, and Deleuze's reading of Plato on the relationship of ideas, copies and simulacra

Proceedings of the Seventh Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education

International audienceThis volume contains the Proceedings of the Seventh Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (ERME), which took place 9-13 February 2011, at Rzeszñw in Poland

Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching ICTMT 12

Innovation, inclusion, sharing and diversity are some of the words that briefly and suitably characterize the ICTMT series of biennial international conferences – the International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching. Being the twelfth of a series which began in Birmingham, UK, in 1993, under the influential enterprise of Professor Bert Waits from Ohio State University, this conference was held in Portugal for the first time. The 12th International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching was hosted by the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Algarve, in the city of Faro, from 24 to 27 June 2015, and was guided by the original spirit of its foundation. The integration of digital technologies in mathematics education across school levels and countries, from primary to tertiary education, together with the understanding of the phenomena involved in the teaching and learning of mathematics in technological environments have always been driving forces in the transformation of pedagogical practices. The possibility of joining at an international conference a wide diversity of participants, including school mathematics teachers, lecturers, mathematicians, mathematics educators and researchers, software designers, and curriculum developers, is one facet that makes this conference rather unique. At the same time, it seeks to foster the sharing of ideas, experiences, projects and studies while providing opportunities to try-out and assess tools or didactical proposals during times of hands-on work. The ICTMT 12 had this same ambition, when embracing and welcoming just over 120 delegates who actively and enthusiastically contributed to a very packed program of scientific proposals and sessions on various topics