Exploring Problem-Based Learning for Middle School Design and Engineering Education in Digital Fabrication Laboratories

This is a research study of design and engineering classes that use a problem-based learning (PBL) approach in digital fabrication makerspaces in two middle schools. In these studies, teachers employ a PBL approach and provide an ill-structured problem scenario to facilitate design and engineering lessons in the FabLab (fabrication laboratory). Students in each school tackled different challenges that they defined for themselves in groups. This study provides examples of student-student interactions separated into key themes—defining specifications with teammates, personal exploration, and communication about discoveries. This study also provides examples of teacher-student interactions, and themes include demonstrations with tangible objects, discussing prototype failure, and managing behavioral issues. The purpose of this study is to provide insights about PBL in a nontraditional, technology-rich FabLab environment

Situating multimodal learning analytics

The digital age has introduced a host of new challenges and opportunities for the learning sciences community. These challenges and opportunities are particularly abundant in multimodal learning analytics (MMLA), a research methodology that aims to extend work from Educational Data Mining (EDM) and Learning Analytics (LA) to multimodal learning environments by treating multimodal data. Recognizing the short-term opportunities and longterm challenges will help develop proof cases and identify grand challenges that will help propel the field forward. To support the field's growth, we use this paper to describe several ways that MMLA can potentially advance learning sciences research and touch upon key challenges that researchers who utilize MMLA have encountered over the past few years

Reasoning Strategies in the Context of Engineering Design with Everyday Materials

‘‘Making’’ represents an increasingly popular label for describing a form of engineering design. While making is growing in popularity, there are still open questions about the strategies that students are using in these activities. Assessing and improving learning in making/ engineering design contexts require that we have a better understanding of where students’ ideas are coming from and a better way to characterize student progress in open-ended learning environments. In this article, we use a qualitative analysis of students’ responses (N = 13) in order to identify the origins of their ideas. Four strategies emerged from this analysis: unexplained reasoning; materials-based reasoning; example-based reasoning; and principle-based reasoning. We examine key characteristics of each strategy and how each strategy relates to learning and expertise through in-depth case studies. Furthermore, we identify how these four strategies are a complement to prior work on analogical problem solving and creativity, and offer a number of unique contributions that are particularly relevant for engineering education. Finally, we include two coding schemes that can be used to classify students’ responses. Studying reasoning strategies in this way is a fruitful means for characterizing student learning in complex learning environments. Moreover, understanding reasoning strategies impacts the nature of student–teacher discussions and informs how to help students progress most effectively

Estudo sobre o acolhimento de crianças e adolescentes em instituições para pessoas com deficiência

Este artigo tem como objetivo investigar as instituições de acolhimento para pessoas com deficiência no estado de São Paulo, assim como analisar o acolhimento de crianças e adolescentes nestes serviços. Trata-se de pesquisa qualitativa, de caráter descritivo e corte transversal. Na primeira etapa de coleta de dados, o estudo realizou um mapeamento das instituições em diferentes cadastros, de livre acesso, dos serviços públicos e conveniados, ligados à gestão federal, estadual e municipal nas áreas da infância, assistência social e saúde. Na segunda etapa, a coleta de dados ocorreu por meio da leitura de prontuários em uma instituição específica. Como resultado, o estudo indica ausência de tipificação única ou regulamentação específica, assim como a falta de práticas de desinstitucionalização e desarticulação com a rede intersetorial. Os resultados revelam, também, que a internação de crianças e adolescentes é recorrente nessas instituições e retratam características desta prática: ocorrência de transinstitucionalização, internações via determinação judicial e falta ou precariedade de serviços territoriais e de ações intersetoriais. Por fim, é apontada a necessidade de implantação de redes substitutivas e desenvolvimento de ações intersetoriais de atenção para crianças e adolescentes. Além da fundamental relevância de aprofundamento sobre a população institucionalizada.This study seeks to investigate the care institutions for people with disabilities in São Paulo State and analyze the admission of children and adolescents to these services. This is a qualitative descriptive study with a cross-sectional sample. In its first stage, this study mapped the institutions in different free-access registers of public and contracted services, tied to federal, state, or municipal management in the areas of childhood, social assistance, and health. In its second step, data were collected by reading the medical records of a specific institution. As a result, this study points to the lack of a single typification or specific regulation, the absence of deinstitutionalization practices, and the lack of coordination with the intersectoral network. Results also show that the recurrent institutionalization of children and adolescents in these institutions and describes the characteristics of this practice: the occurrence of transinstitutionalization, hospitalizations via judicial determination, and lack or precariousness of territorial services and intersectoral actions. Finally, this research points to the need for implementing substitutive networks and developing intersectoral actions of care for children and adolescents and highlights the key relevance of further developing knowledge about the institutionalized population

The function of discourse in digital social networks

Our discourse is produced at different levels of meaning, many of which we are not aware of: they remain, so to speak, hidden in the folds of the discourse. This is where the tools of semiotics can help us explain the production of these levels of meaning. Thus, to understand the process of signification, it is pertinent to use the concepts of intertextuality, dialogue, and polyphony. Bakhtin teaches us that the signs are not autonomous, but they are committed to a whole network of texts and contexts. We believe that our ideas show originality, uniqueness; However, when we produce a message, we barely realize that it is the result of other crossing texts and voices

Travels in Troy with Freire:technology as an agent of emancipation

The rapid dissemination of new technologies in schools is an opportunity for the popularization of the educational philosophies of two important theorists of education: Seymour Papert and Paulo Freire. Digital technologies enable diverse and innovative ways of working, expressing, and building. This chameleonesque adaptivity of computational media enables the acknowledgement and embracing of epistemological diversity (TURKLE; PAPERT, 1991), engendering an environment in which students, finding their own voice, can concretize their ideas and projects with motivation and engagement. This article describes an implementation conducted in a Brazilian public school and proposes a series of principles for the design of Papertian/Freirean learning environments, by analyzing the intellectual and emotional commitments of students, their learning paths, and the complexity of their designs, which ranged from robots and computer programs to fiction movies. The article discusses an implementation model with four components. First, we identify a community-relevant generative theme. Second, we depart from the community’s technological culture and expertise as a basis for introducing new technologies. Third, we deliberately use a mixed-media approach, in which high- and low-tech, on- and off-screen, and high- and low-cost expressive tools coexist for students’ production of artifacts. Lastly, we question (or “displace”) taken-for-granted school practices and mindsets, even those that are apparently irrelevant to teaching and learning. We conclude that such use of expressive technologies can be a powerful agent of emancipation à la Paulo Freire, especially in economically disadvantaged communities.A rápida penetração de novas tecnologias na escola constitui uma oportunidade para a disseminação da filosofia de dois importantes teóricos da educação: Seymour Papert e Paulo Freire. As tecnologias digitais possibilitam formas diversas e inovadoras de trabalhar, expressar e construir. Essa adaptabilidade camaleônica da mídia computacional promove diversidade epistemológica (TURKLE; PAPERT, 1991), criando um ambiente no qual os alunos, na sua própria voz, podem concretizar suas ideias e projetos com motivação e empenho. Este artigo descreve uma implementação conduzida em uma escola pública brasileira e gera uma série de princípios de design de ambientes Papert/Freireanos, analisando o empenho intelectual e emocional dos estudantes, suas trajetória de aprendizado e a complexidade de seus projetos, que variaram de robôs controlados por computador a filmes de ficção científica. O artigo discute um modelo de implementação com quatro componentes: primeiro, identificar um tema gerador relevante para a comunidade; segundo, partir da cultura e da experiência tecnológica da comunidade como base para a introdução de novas tecnologias; terceiro, deliberadamente usar uma abordagem de mídia mista, em que alta e baixa tecnologia coexistem; por fim, deslocar certos protocolos sociais e comportamentais considerados normais nas escolas, mesmo aqueles aparentemente irrelevantes para o ensino e a aprendizagem. Conclui-se que tal utilização de tecnologias expressivas pode ser um poderoso agente de emancipação à Paulo Freire e, em especial, em comunidades economicamente carentes