49 research outputs found
A health-oriented emotion-centred origami-based PSS concept. A product-service system concept aimed to help users manage and reduce their stress more tangibly to improve their health and well-being.
Emotions have a fundamental role in the experience, perception, cognition, and development of people (Barrett et al., 2016; Plutchik, 2001). Negative emotions such as stress, if not managed appropriately, may be a risk factor in developing diseases such as dementia, cardiovascular problems, and depression, amongst others (Dum et al., 2016; Sandi et al., 2001). This interdisciplinary research presents OrigamEase, a health-oriented emotion-centred origami-based PSS concept to help adults manage their stress more tangibly, in response to its main research question: How can engineering design research contribute to improving peopleâs emotional health and wellbeing? OrigamEase was designed throughout this research, and its design and testing served to develop a health & well-being oriented, emotion-centred engineering design methodology (HWOEED). Therefore, the design of this methodology is the result of the structuring and ordering of the developmental process of exploring, conducting and streamlining the research, design and testing of OrigamEase.
The design of OrigamEase (both the product and the service part) is based on the cognitive research stream of emotions and stress. Therefore, this research also aims to broaden the knowledge about the implications and management of the emotional experience of stress from an engineering and design point of view, complementing the available solutions for stress management through a structured, measurable, and tangible tool. The HWOEED methodology is influenced by Kansei Engineering and Design Thinking methodologies and integrates various engineering design research methods. However, this methodology proposes a different application of the integration of emotional considerations into engineering design processes., it seeks to improve the emotional experience of users to preserve and promote their health and well-being through specifically designed products, services or PSS. Therefore, these designs become the means and not the end of the engineering design efforts. Also, this methodology can be transferrable to other engineering design solutions.
OrigamEase was tested with 114 adults between 18 and 70 years old through three pilot tests (n=43) and six trial tests (n=71) using a concurrent triangulation mixed methods design. Then the results from these tests were contrasted with two control tests (n=22). The results show that using OrigamEase reduced the measured stress levels of participants (self-reported, heart rate and electrodermal activity) significantly, supporting the experiment hypothesis. Stress levels were recorded before and after using OrigamEase; then, a repeated-measures t-test was applied to find if these differences were significant or not. After using OrigamEase, 73.2% of participants reported feeling less stressed (mean reduction=13.94%), 85.5% experienced a reduction in their heart rate (mean reduction=9.8 bpm), and 78.9% had a lower electrodermal activity (mean reduction= 10.8 points). The testing of OrigamEase served as an initial application validation of the HWOEED methodology.
This research demonstrates that engineering and design fields not only can but need to contribute to research on emotions through interdisciplinary research. Emotions are a fundamental part of all human experiences, impacting a personâs health and well-being profoundly
Proceedings of the tenth international conference Models in developing mathematics education: September 11 - 17, 2009, Dresden, Saxony, Germany
This volume contains the papers presented at the International Conference on âModels in Developing Mathematics Educationâ held from September 11-17, 2009 at The University of Applied Sciences, Dresden, Germany. The Conference was organized jointly by The University of Applied Sciences and The Mathematics Education into the 21st Century Project - a non-commercial international educational project founded in 1986. The Mathematics Education into the 21st Century Project is dedicated to the improvement of mathematics education world-wide through the publication and dissemination of innovative ideas. Many prominent mathematics educators have supported and contributed to the project, including the late Hans Freudental, Andrejs Dunkels and Hilary Shuard, as well as Bruce Meserve and Marilyn Suydam, Alan Osborne and Margaret Kasten, Mogens Niss, Tibor Nemetz, Ubi DâAmbrosio, Brian Wilson, Tatsuro Miwa, Henry Pollack, Werner Blum, Roberto Baldino, Waclaw Zawadowski, and many others throughout the world. Information on our project and its future work can be found on Our Project Home Page http://math.unipa.it/~grim/21project.htm
It has been our pleasure to edit all of the papers for these Proceedings. Not all papers are about research in mathematics education, a number of them report on innovative experiences in the classroom and on new technology. We believe that âmathematics educationâ is fundamentally a âpracticumâ and in order to be âsuccessfulâ all new materials, new ideas and new research must be tested and implemented in the classroom, the real âchalk faceâ of our discipline, and of our profession as mathematics educators. These Proceedings begin with a Plenary Paper and then the contributions of the Principal Authors in alphabetical name order. We sincerely thank all of the contributors for their time and creative effort. It is clear from the variety and quality of the papers that the conference has attracted many innovative mathematics educators from around the world. These Proceedings will therefore be useful in reviewing past work and looking ahead to the future
Learners' perceptions of teachers' non-verbal behaviours in the foreign language class
This study explores the meanings that participants in a British ELT setting give to
teachers' non-verbal behaviours. It is a qualitative, descriptive study of the perceived functions that gestures and other non-verbal behaviours perform in the foreign language classroom, viewed mainly from the language learners' perspective. The thesis presents the stages of the research process, from the initial development of the research
questions to the discussion of the research findings that summarise and discuss the
participants' views.
There are two distinct research phases presented in the thesis. The pilot study
explores the perceptions of 18 experienced language learners of teachers' non-verbal
behaviours. The data is collected in interviews based on videotaped extracts of
classroom interaction, presented to the participants in two experimental conditions,
with and without sound. The findings of this initial study justify the later change of
method from the experimental design to a more exploratory framework. In the main
study, 22 learners explain, in interviews based on stimulated recall, their perceptions on their teachers' verbal and non-verbal behaviours as occurring within the immediate classroom context. Finally, learners' views are complemented by 20 trainee teachers' written reports of classroom observation and their opinions expressed in focus group interviews. The data for the main study were thus collected through a combination of methods, ranging from classroom direct observations and videotaped recordings, to semi-structured interviews with language learners.
The research findings indicate that participants generally believe that gestures
and other non-verbal behaviours playa key role in the language learning and teaching
process. Learners identify three types of functions that non-verbal behaviours play in
the classroom interaction: (i) cognitive, i.e. non-verbal behaviours which work as
enhancers of the learning processes, (ii) emotional, i.e. non-verbal behaviours that
function as reliable communicative devices of teachers' emotions and attitudes and (iii)
organisational, i.e. non-verbal behaviours which serve as tools of classroom
management and control.
The findings suggest that learners interpret teachers' non-verbal behaviours in a
functional manner and use these messages and cues in their learning and social
interaction with the teacher. The trainee teachers value in a similar manner the roles that non-verbal behaviours play in the language teaching and learning. However, they
seem to prioritise the cognitive and managerial functions of teachers' non-verbal
behaviours over the emotional ones and do not consider the latter as important as the
learners did.
This study is original in relation to previous studies of language classroom
interaction in that it:
⢠describes the kinds of teachers' behaviours which all teachers and learners are familiar with, but which have seldom been foregrounded in classroom-based
research;
⢠unlike previous studies of non-verbal behaviour, investigates the perceiver's
view of the others' non-verbal behaviour rather than its production;
⢠documents these processes of perception through an innovative methodology of
data collection and analysis;
⢠explores the teachers' non-verbal behaviours as perceived by the learners
themselves, suggesting that their viewpoint can be one window on the reality of
language classrooms;
⢠provides explanations and functional interpretations for the many spontaneous
and apparently unimportant actions that teachers use on a routine basis;
⢠identifies a new area which needs consideration in any future research and
pedagogy of language teaching and learning
Recommended from our members
Case study of a secondary school model for special needs students at the Eagle Hill School.
Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences Proceedings 2019
The conference proceedings of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences biannual conference, May 29-June 1, 2019 at Indiana Wesleyan University
The role of computer-aided design in the learning of practical 3D-descriptive geometry: a case study
There are a number of problems surrounding the teaching of
practical 3-D descriptive geometry to children in secondary
education, notably the difficulty pupils have with visualising
an object's form from orthographic views, and the interpretation
of an object's geometric attributes into the descriptive
geometry representation.
The purpose of the current research is to evaluate the use of
computer-aided design in this area of the curriculum and is
based upon work undertaken in a North London comprehensive school. The school and its context is described and evaluated.
Theories of child development and educational psychology of
relevance to the study are reviewed, notably the work of Piaget, Bryant, Gagne, and Freeman.
The history and nature of 3-D descriptive geometry is reviewed
in practice and in education, with special reference to various
methods employed in instruction.
Dr. J. Vince's PICASO SYSTEM of computer subroutines and
functions written in FORTRAN for graphic applications is
explained as a means of teaching the subject, with special
reference to the researcher's own instructional material and
computer programs. The use and effectiveness of these teaching materials are related and evaluated in the light of students' performance and results.
The research concludes that the special benefits of computer
graphics in this field are: the economic production of
appropriate didactic material under the direct control of the
teacher, increased pupil motivation due to the use of better
illustration and the interest generated by computer-aided design project work. and an opportunity to employ analytic geometry to support learning. Its limitations include: the high cost of the computer and peripheral devices, and the lack of a facility for modelling objects by the removal of solid volumes in the existing software. Further research is recommended in the areas of computer graphics, descriptive geometry, and psychology
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Programming unplugged : insights from theoretical models and teacher experiences.
Unplugged approaches to teaching Computational Thinking (CT), which are based on activities that do not require the use of a digital device or programming, are widely used in computing education. Evidence from the literature and practice indicates that this approach can be used successfully, although views on the value of Unplugged computing have been varied. Recently it was found that rather than comparing Unplugged with other approaches, combining Unplugged with teaching programming enabled students to achieve the same level of programming competence, but with higher self-efficacy, and a larger vocabulary in the programming language compared to a similar time span spent on programming alone. Despite this improved understanding of how to use Unplugged activities, there is little understanding of why they are effective and what ways they can be combined with plugged-in exercises effectively in a programming classroom and for teachersâ professional development (PD). In this thesis we use practical observations viewed through the lenses of theories of learning to understand why the Unplugged approach is effective.
Computational Thinking in school curricula is about teaching students to understand how to use computation to solve problems, to create, and to discover new questions that can fruitfully be explored in other disciplines and professions as well as Computer Science. Teachers need to be able to effectively communicate the ideas of Computational Thinking to students and apply these within the context of their classroom. Our initial studies with teachers indicated that understanding the nature of the commonly identi- fied difficulties and confusion caused by computer jargon among teachers is important for finding ways for effective classroom delivery. We found that the concerns from teach- ers finding computer jargon difficult can be because the computational context in which they are applied makes them difficult for teachers to understand, rather than not knowing their meanings in the first place, and appropriate support can enable teachers to learn the techniques and skills that the terminology refers to. Using Unplugged material in teachersâ professional development, we tried to understand how they perceive the utility of Unplugged, particularly in introductory programming and understanding the jargon. Findings indicate that alternating Unplugged content in introductory programming does not hinder the teachersâ teaching efficacy and self-efficacy towards computer programming, yet teachers can be equipped with more content within the same time frame as a conventional teaching approach.
Another lens that we use to understand how Unplugged and programming relate is the Notional Machine (NM), an abstract model of a computer created by teachers to facilitate learnersâ understanding. It represents something they can (mentally) interact with to draw learnersâ attention to hidden aspects of computing, is implicit in all programming teaching methods, and is a key to successful programming. We explore how Unplugged activities seem to have a close connection with Notional Machine, and therefore use the lens of Notional Machine to understand the relationship between Un- plugged and programming. Reviewing the existing Unplugged activities through this lens, we can understand where Unplugged has been successful in teaching programming and why. We also identify the possible gaps in Unplugged activities that need addressing for it to be further successful as a programming education tool. Accordingly, in our professional development experimental studies we developed and trialled new Unplugged activities focusing on modeling basic programming concepts, and studied their usefulness in alternating with conventional programming teaching practices.
The usefulness of Unplugged activities in introductory programming was then considered through the lens of Semantic Waves, a concept that describes an ideal learning journey of a novice learner over a course of learning while shifting between expert and novice understanding, abstract and concrete context, and technical and simple meanings. Studying the behavior of the Semantic Waves of Unplugged activities we saw how, heuristically, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) can be seen as a differentiation of a semantic profile of an Unplugged activity, essentially shifting learners back and forth between existing and new knowledge, while learning a programming concept. The Semantic Waves of Unplugged activities used to model programming concepts were analysed and compared with a plugged-in only lessons that taught the same concepts to show how alternating Unplugged activities with plugged-in experience successfully covers a wider semantic range, indicating the possibility of avoiding both learner anxiety as well as boredom, and enabling teachers to find better teaching strategies that suit their classrooms. Semantic profiles show the balance between what learners know and what they should know about what is actually happening, and the use of Unplugged activities supports the flow needed for creating effective semantic profiles, particularly in programming classrooms