Impact on the knowledge construction process of multimedia online interactions in audio-graphic conferencing systems: the case of adult distance learners of French

Online researchers suggest that synchronous audio-graphic corm encing systems provide different mediational tools that create different mediated educa nal interactions that support the collaborative process of meaning construction, However, the existing literature does not indicate whether the quality of multimodal online interactions as well as the affordances of the use of the synchronous medium can effectively enh ce this process. This thesis brings together two lines of research. The thesis develops a methodological framework for the presentation and analysis of multimodal online interactions that draws on socio-constructivist understanding that the process of meaning construction is social and individual. The second is concerned with the analysis of online multimodal discussions; it examines the interrelationship between the different tools of communication and the different affordances of their simultaneous and single use that may hinder or promote the collaborative process of meaning construction. The design of this research focuses on interaction patterns and examines the extent which online discussions, mediated by the different tools of communication, reach high levels of collaborative meaning construction.This study assumes the knowledge construction process to be empirically observable through analysing online interactions and students' perceptions of the learning experiences. It examines, through interviews, questionnaires and video recordings of online tutorials, the quality of online learning experiences of two different UK Open University tutorial groups learning French. Results show that: participants make different multimodal choices which lead to the creation of different patterns of multi modal interactions and on line exchanges that affect differently participants' engagement in the collaborative meaning construction process; the single and the simultaneous use of the different tools of communication create different affordances for participants to perform different interactive and communicative roles; the multi modal competencies of students and tutors, the tutors' styles and task design play an important role in supporting the collaborative meaning construction process

An evaluation of desktop video conferencing for one-to-one tutorial support in mathematics

Merged with duplicate record: 10026.1/683 on 01.02.2017 by CS (TIS)The growth in Flexible and Distributed Learning will, it is believed, lead to a need for a more innovative and flexible approach to the way support is offered to students. This study which was conducted with students at a Further Education College looks at the effectiveness of using Desktop Video Conferencing (DVC) to provide support to students studying mathematics at a number of different levels. The research design adopted the concept of triangulation with three different approaches being used. The first strand of the methodology was the collection of statistical data for all students re-sitting GCSE mathematics to develop a model to predict the learning outcome for students. The second strand was the extensive use of questionnaires and interviews with students receiving learning support. The final strand was the application of discourse analysis to recordings of both face-toface and DVe tutorials in order that a comparison could be made between them. To do this it was necessary to develop a research tool to record both verbal and non-verbal dialogue. The main conclusion from the study was that there was no identifiable difference in learning outcome between tutorials conducted face-to-face and those conducted using DVe. A number of positive advantages of using DVe emerged during the course of the study. These included the fact that most students preferred tutorials using DVC as they found the environment less threatening than when sitting next to a tutor. Other advantages resulted from the use of the electronic Whiteboard, these included being able to give students quicker feedback, if appropriate

Advancing AVID Tutoring: Blended Professional Learning for College Tutor/Mentors in AVID

abstract: In an effort to better prepare K-12 students for college and career readiness, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) has created a college and career readiness system that is implemented in schools across the United States and in many international locations. Part of this system of schoolwide transformation, is the AVID Elective class, designed for students in the academic-middle. In the AVID Elective, students are supported in their efforts to attend four-year universities. A critical aspect of the AVID Elective class is the weekly implementation of AVID Tutorials, ideally led by trained college tutor/mentors. The purpose of this action research study is to investigate support structures of AVID Tutors beyond the current tutor training system, in order to see how additional methods can contribute to continual improvement of the tutor training system. Findings from this study indicate that expanding current tutor-training practice to include a blended-learning, on-the-job model, might be beneficial for AVID Tutors and AVID Students. Through a mixed methods action research study, both qualitative and quantitative data collection tools were employed to help understand the effect of additional tutor training supports. Interviews, tutor assignments, observations of tutorials, and pre- and post-tests provide the bulk of the data studied. Further, this study could provide critical information for key AVID stakeholders who seek to offer training to tutors in AVID.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 201

Speaking The Subject: A Discourse Analysis Of Undergraduate Seminar Practice

This dissertation explores talk in an undergraduate seminar context. Research design was informed by an interpretive, ethnomethodological approach to understanding talk as a situated activity. A series of student-led seminars were audio recorded; students and staff were interviewed and post-seminar group debriefing sessions were held. The data was subsequently transcribed and analysed using a functional systemic linguistics and discourse analysis approach. Analysis identified structural and linguistic elements of seminar talk and links between language, identity, power and status was explored through an analysis of the discursive processes at work in the seminar events.An heuristic model of the seminar as a socio-pedagogic space, a site of hegemonic struggle, was used to aid concept development. A number of issues emerged within an interpretative framework of the cognitive, interpersonal and textual elements of seminar talk. In the analysis of the textual meta-function of seminars, how complexity is achieved and how conversational moves are patterned, seminars appear to constitute a hybrid talk variety, a highly unusual textual form in which participants need to learn how to participate. Tensions were found between the social and the cognitive elements of seminars. Student participants tend to use the seminar to achieve social effects, identifying and maintaining interpersonal relationships. The collaborative discourse strategies they employ constrain other opportunities for achieving educational outcomes. The learning which does take place is more likely to be related to personal and skills development than to learning about the academic subject. Students deployed a range of heteroglossic discursive strategies to practice their skills in forming ideas, marshalling evidence and constructing argument. The discursive practices of seminar events foreground tensions between socially situated identities. The research identifies a number of areas for improving practice including: enhanced specification of seminar processes and outcomes; embedding opportunities for preparation and critical reflection; teaching the subject of communication and foregrounding understandings of the discursive practices at work in seminars so as to empower individual learners

DEVELOPING APPROPRIATE ENGLISH SPEAKING LEARNING MATERIALS FOR ENGLISH TUTORIAL PROGRAM FOR THE STUDENTS OF INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICS EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM OF YOGYAKARTA STATE UNIVERSITY

The objectives of this research were 1) to identify the target needs and learning needs of the students of International Mathematics Education Study Program of Yogyakarta State University 2) to develop appropriate English speaking learning materials for the students of International Mathematics Education Study Program of Yogyakarta State University for academic purposes. This research was Research and Development (R&D) study. The research procedure followed the research design proposed by Gall, Gall, and Borg (2003) with some modifications. The steps were (1) collecting data and information, (2) writing course grids/syllabus, (3) developing the first draft of the materials, (4) evaluating the first draft of the materials, (5) revising the first draft and writing the finals draft, and (6) making conclusions and recommendations. There were two questionnaires employed in this research: (1) needs analysis questionnaire and (2) materials evaluation questionnaire. The needs analysis questionnaire was distributed to the students to find out the students target needs and learning needs. The materials evaluation questionnaire was distributed to the materials expert to evaluate the materials whether the developed materials were appropriate or not to be used as speaking learning materials for the students. The questionnaire was adapted from “Instrumen Penilaian Buku Teks Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris” from BSNP (2007). The questionnaire covered four aspects, namely the appropriateness of the content, the language, the presentation and the lay out. The data obtained from the needs analysis questionnaire were analyzed using frequency and percentage and the results were then used as the basis to develop the course grids, while the data from evaluation questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics. This research developed three units of materials. Each unit is made up of introduction, main lesson and reinforcement tasks ranging from 15-16 tasks. The tasks focus on improving the students’ speaking ability. The input is in the form of monologues, dialogues, pictures, explanations and vocabulary list. The types of the tasks are mostly listening to recording, answering WH questions, completing dialogue using provided words or the students’ words, acting out dialogue, creating dialogue and game. The students were encouraged to do the tasks in pairs and small group. Based on the findings from materials evaluation, the content, the language, the presentation and the layout of the developed materials are appropriate. The mean score of all aspects of the developed materials is 3.65 which is categorized as “Good”

Interactional Slingshots: Providing Support Structure to User Interactions in Hybrid Intelligence Systems

The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) systems has enabled us to engage more deeply and powerfully with our digital and physical environments, from chatbots to autonomous vehicles to robotic assistive technology. Unfortunately, these state-of-the-art systems often fail in contexts that require human understanding, are never-before-seen, or complex. In such cases, though the AI-only approaches cannot solve the full task, their ability to solve a piece of the task can be combined with human effort to become more robust to handling complexity and uncertainty. A hybrid intelligence system—one that combines human and machine skill sets—can make intelligent systems more operable in real-world settings. In this dissertation, we propose the idea of using interactional slingshots as a means of providing support structure to user interactions in hybrid intelligence systems. Much like how gravitational slingshots provide boosts to spacecraft en route to their final destinations, so do interactional slingshots provide boosts to user interactions en route to solving tasks. Several challenges arise: What does this support structure look like? How much freedom does the user have in their interactions? How is user expertise paired with that of the machine’s? To do this as a tractable socio-technical problem, we explore this idea in the context of data annotation problems, especially in those domains where AI methods fail to solve the overall task. Getting annotated (labeled) data is crucial for successful AI methods, and becomes especially more difficult in domains where AI fails, since problems in such domains require human understanding to fully solve, but also present challenges related to annotator expertise, annotation freedom, and context curation from the data. To explore data annotation problems in this space, we develop techniques and workflows whose interactional slingshot support structure harnesses the user’s interaction with data. First, we explore providing support in the form of nudging non-expert users’ interactions as they annotate text data for the task of creating conversational memory. Second, we add support structure in the form of assisting non-expert users during the annotation process itself for the task of grounding natural language references to objects in 3D point clouds. Finally, we supply support in the form of guiding expert and non-expert users both before and during their annotations for the task of conversational disentanglement across multiple domains. We demonstrate that building hybrid intelligence systems with each of these interactional slingshot support mechanisms—nudging, assisting, and guiding a user’s interaction with data—improves annotation outcomes, such as annotation speed, accuracy, effort level, even when annotators’ expertise and skill levels vary. Thesis Statement: By providing support structure that nudges, assists, and guides user interactions, it is possible to create hybrid intelligence systems that enable more efficient (faster and/or more accurate) data annotation.PHDComputer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163138/1/sairohit_1.pd

Breaking into the tutor\u27s toolbox : an investigation into strategies used in writing center tutorials.

In this dissertation, I present the results of research conducted in the University Writing Center at the University of Louisville during the fall of 2006 and serves as an example of an empirical study blending qualitative and quantitative methods. It highlights and critiques the strategies tutors use to address students\u27 concerns about their writing during writing tutorials by addressing two research questions: (1) What strategies do tutors employ during tutorials to address higher-order concerns? And, what strategies do tutors employ during tutorials to address later-order concerns? (2) How are these strategies perceived by participants in tutorials? The data revealed that tutors tend to use three of the same strategies to address both higher-order and later-order concerns: Open-Ended Questioning, Reader Response, and Suggestion. Although tutors employed more strategies to address later-order concerns, which is congruent with advice from tutor-training manuals, they used these three strategies as default strategies throughout the observed tutorials. These strategies can be used effectively to address higher-order and later-order concerns; however, when used broadly, unique problems and potential pitfalls surfaced. The data also revealed that strategies generally assumed by writing center scholars to lessen control over the student and his or her writing can be used just as easily as other strategies to dominate the tutorial. Other factors apart from the strategies themselves affect whether the tutor dominates the tutorial, including amount of time the tutor pauses to allow the student to answer questions or respond to suggestions, students\u27 overall level of participation/interest in the tutorial, students\u27 expectations for the tutorial, and tutors\u27 listening to students\u27 concerns (really hearing those concerns). Moreover, the use of praise and time spent on rapport building may have an effect on whether the tutor dominates the tutorial. These findings invite further investigation and research