Game Theory (Open Access textbook with 165 solved exercises)

This is an Open Access textbook on non-cooperative Game Theory with 165 solved exercises.Comment: 578 pages, 163 figure

Expectations eclipsed in foreign language education: learners and educators on an ongoing journey / edited by Hülya Görür-Atabaş, Sharon Turner.

Between June 2-4, 2011 Sabancı University School of Languages welcomed colleagues from 21 different countries to a collaborative exploration of the challenging and inspiring journey of learners and educators in the field of language education.\ud \ud The conference provided an opportunity for all stakeholders to share their views on language education. Colleagues met with world-renowned experts and authors in the fields of education and psychology, faculty and administrators from various universities and institutions, teachers from secondary educational backgrounds and higher education, as well as learners whose voices are often not directly shared but usually reported.\ud \ud The conference name, Eclipsing Expectations, was inspired by two natural phenomena, a solar eclipse directly before the conference, and a lunar eclipse, immediately after. Learners and educators were hereby invited to join a journey to observe, learn and exchange ideas in orde

Mathematics teachers’ work with resources: four cases of secondary teachers using technology

This study examines teachers’ work with paper-based, technology and social resources with the use of two theoretical frameworks: the Documentational approach and the Knowledge Quartet. The former affords looking at teachers’ resources and resource systems and how these are utilized under schemes of work. The latter affords a closer look at teachers’ work during lessons and at their knowledge-in-action. Specifically, the study investigates how four upper secondary teachers use, re-use and balance their resources by looking at their schemes of work in class, through lesson observations; and, by reflecting on the details of their work and knowledge-in-action in pre- and post-observation interviews. Analysis examines five themes in relation to teachers’ work. First, teachers use students’ contributions as a resource during lessons. Second, teachers connect (or not) different resources. Third, institutional factors, such as examinations requirements and school policy, have impact on teachers’ decisions and on how they balance their resource use. Fourth, when mathematics-education software is used, teacher knowledge of the software comes into play. Fifth, there is ambiguity in the identification of contingency moments, particularly regarding whether these moments were anticipated (or not) or provoked by the teacher. These five themes also suggest theoretical findings. In relation to the Knowledge Quartet, the findings indicate the potency of adding a few new codes or extending existing codes. This is especially pertinent in the context of teaching upper secondary mathematics with technology resources. In relation to the Documentational approach, this study introduces two constructs: scheme-in-action and re-scheming. A scheme-in-action is the scheme followed in class and documented from the classroom. Re-scheming is scheming again or differently from one lesson to another. Finally, the study discusses implications for practice and proposes the use of key incidents extracted from classroom observations towards the development of teacher education resources (e.g. for the MathTASK programme)

Problems to discover and to boost mathematical talent in early grades: A Challenging Situations Approach

Several studies of mathematical giftedness conducted in the past two decades reveal the importance of creation of learning and teaching environment favourable to the identification and nurturing mathematically talented students. Based on psychological, methodological and didactical models created by Krutetskii (1976), Shchedrovtiskii (1968), Brousseau (1997) and Sierpinska (1994), we have developed our challenging situation approach. During 7 years of field study in the elementary K-6 classroom, we collected sufficient amount of data that demonstrate how these challenging situations help to discover and to boost mathematical talent in very young children keeping and increasing their interest towards more advanced mathematics curriculum. In this article, we are going to present our model and illustrate how it works in the mixed-ability classroom. We will also discuss different roles that teachers and students might play in this kind of environment and how each side could benefit from it

Using Popular Film As A Teaching Resource In Accounting Classes

This paper describes a pedagogical experiment that used feature films in a senior accounting class to stimulate development of student competencies and raise ethical issues. Rather than being content driven, this active learning technique focuses on skills development, while engaging the students’ emotions in the learning process. Encompassing three types of knowledge (conceptual, procedural and meta-cognitive), the exercises explore concepts of internal control, corporate governance and business ethics. They provide opportunities for accounting students to practice the higher level cognitive skills in Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy and aim to foster students’ emotional commitment to ethical decision-making. Students reacted positively to these activities, finding them most helpful in clarifying the impact of ethical issues. We observed significant differences between the beliefs of groups who participated in these exercises and those who did not, suggesting that this activity can be an effective tool for engaging students and influencing their perceptions about accounting issues

Cyber-Physical Systems: A Model-Based Approach

In this concise yet comprehensive Open Access textbook, future inventors are introduced to the key concepts of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Using modeling as a way to develop deeper understanding of the computational and physical components of these systems, one can express new designs in a way that facilitates their simulation, visualization, and analysis. Concepts are introduced in a cross-disciplinary way. Leveraging hybrid (continuous/discrete) systems as a unifying framework and Acumen as a modeling environment, the book bridges the conceptual gap in modeling skills needed for physical systems on the one hand and computational systems on the other. In doing so, the book gives the reader the modeling and design skills they need to build smart, IT-enabled products. Starting with a look at various examples and characteristics of Cyber-Physical Systems, the book progresses to explain how the area brings together several previously distinct ones such as Embedded Systems, Control Theory, and Mechatronics. Featuring a simulation-based project that focuses on a robotics problem (how to design a robot that can play ping-pong) as a useful example of a CPS domain, Cyber-Physical Systems: A Model-Based Approach demonstrates the intimate coupling between cyber and physical components, and how designing robots reveals several non-trivial control problems, significant embedded and real-time computation requirements, and a need to consider issues of communication and preconceptions