Les pauses actives, activatrices de l’attention des élèves ? :: intégration du mouvement en salle de classe

Ce travail de recherche consiste à étudier l’influence que peut avoir l’utilisation du mouvement (sous forme de pauses actives) sur l’attention des élèves en classe. Les élèves doivent mobiliser leur attention lors des journées scolaires et celle-ci fait preuve de fluctuations. J’ai donc cherché à déterminer comment l’utilisation d’un dispositif (l’école bouge) proposé aux enseignants influence l’attention des élèves d’une classe de 7e année HarmoS. Pour mener à bien ce projet, les élèves d’une classe du canton de Neuchâtel ont passé un test d’attention (test de barrages) à trois reprises. Les élèves ont été soumis à ce test une première fois (lorsque le mouvement n’était pas intégré à l’enseignement) qui correspond à l’attention initiale des élèves. Après deux semaines de pratique de pauses en mouvement à l’aide du programme de « l‘école bouge » après chaque période (toutes les 45 minutes) les élèves ont été à nouveau soumis au test de barrages. La dernière passation s’est ensuite réalisée lorsque des pauses actives (toutes les 20-25 minutes) ont été mises en place. Les résultats tendent à renforcer l’hypothèse que l’intégration du mouvement en salle de classe permet d’améliorer l’attention des élèves lorsqu’elle n’est pas propice aux apprentissages

The spirit of mathematical modeling – a philosophical study on the occasion of 50 years of mathematical modeling education

We mark the 50th anniversary of mathematical modeling education by reviving the term the spirit of mathematical modeling (SoMM), which idealistically reflects core aspects of mathematical modeling. The basis of our analysis is the notion of bildung, which is an educational philosophy that strives for harmonizing heart, mind, social life and culture. We built SoMM on five descriptions of mathematical modeling: two research studies from the 1970s, two studies about the work of professional modelers, and one about an environmental school project. We captured SoMM as a collection of aspects at the micro, meso and macro level: at the micro level, we found aspects such as agency, anticipating, scrutiny and critique as part of SoMM; at the meso level, we found collaborating, consulting and navigating social norms; and at the macro level, interdisciplinarity, relevance and social justice. Through the lens of bildung-based educational philosophies, we see that instruction and assessment traditions have transposed mathematical modeling into ‘teachable’ practices that drift away from SoMM. We recommend focusing more on fostering mathematical modeling and to assess students through alternative formats (e.g., group projects)

Copyright and Innovative Technologies

This article examines how the Australian legal system manages copyright issues related to the development of innovative technologies, focusing in particular on how the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) (CA) enforces the effect of ‘technological protection measures’ and ‘access control protection measures’ by proscribing the use of ‘circumvention devices’. Cases referred to are Autodesk v Dyason [1992] HCA 2 and Stevens v Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment & Ors [2005] HCA 58. Legislation discussed is the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 (Cth), Copyright Amendment Act 2006 (Cth). Reference is also made to the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement

The object-tool duality in mathematical modelling: a framework to analyze students’ appropriation of Sankey diagrams to model dynamic processes

Students often do not experience the relevance of learning mathematics. This paper reports on an exploratory case study, in which a class of grade 8 students (n=35) was introduced to Sankey diagrams. The aim was to explore to what extent these students could appropriate Sankey diagrams, meaning: they could describe these as objects in themselves and they could use them to model and visualize phenomena relevant to them. Based on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, we developed an analytical construct defined as the object-tool duality, coordinating mathematics as a set of objects and as a set of tools. The analysis of students’ answers showed that they could use these diagrams as tools to visualize phenomena. When asked to describe the object, all mentioned the tool-side. So, in their appropriation the tool-side came before the object-side. Our contribution is that teaching the tool-side of mathematics before the object-side may increase students’ sense of the relevance of mathematics, which is a topic to develop for future research

Re-Examining the Association between Quality and Safety Performance in Construction: From Heterogeneous to Homogeneous Datasets

Recent research undertaken revealed that a significant positive relationship exists between quality and safety performance. A major limitation of this research, however, was the nature of the sample; it was heterogeneous (i.e., a combination of U.S. and international projects) and the sample was restricted to 18 projects. Building upon initial research, this paper re-examines the association between quality and safety using a homogeneous sample of 569 projects, which were derived from an Australian construction company with an annual turnover in excess of $1 billion Australian dollars (AU$). A total of 19,314 nonconformances and 17,783 injuries were used to determine the validity and reliability of previous research. A weak association between quality and safety performance was found (p<0.01). The p-values did not indicate any significant association between first aid and quality rates, except for the injury rate and rework frequency per million scope, which yielded an r-value of 0.307 and p-value 0.046 that is significant at 0.01 level. An association, however, between injuries and rework was identified (r2=0.70). The discrepancy between this research’s findings and that of previous work led to an examination of the issues of using ratios in correlation analysis. Thus, the statistical and arithmetic issues associated with the use of ratios are discussed, and it is recommended that estimating the relationships between quality and safety should be examined using regression techniques or analysis of covariance. Linear regression, therefore, was performed with the injury data as the dependent variable, and rework frequency and personnel hours as the independent variables. The regression results demonstrated that there is a significant association between injuries, and rework and personnel hours; it was revealed that both predictors accounted for 68.2% of the explained variability in injury frequency. The replication of the initial research has enabled a significant advancement in knowledge about relationship between quality and safety performance

Grade 8 students appropriating Sankey diagrams: The first cycle in an educational design research

publishedVersio