Collaborative design decision-making as social process

ABSTRACT

Collaborative design is recognised as being shaped by complex social, cognitive, material, and technical processes. In the case of design decision-making, however, the social dimension has yet to be fully understood as the product of the whole team dynamic rather than as simply the sum of the individual (cognitive) contributions. This paper examines the interactional work teams of first-time design students do that produces decisions in undergraduate engineering design projects. Close analysis of decision-making episodes, recorded in design meetings in a yearlong ethnographic study, reveals the joint social and situated work teams do to produce decisions. Students were found to do decision-making via three overlapping phases that were invariant across the database: (i) Design options emerge, (ii) teams orient to design options, and (iii) design decisions come off. This paper exemplifies these phases of decision-making as inherently – and not just incidentally – social, and illustrates how decisions are produced in novice design teams via these phases in multifarious ways. We argue for an explicit retrospective focus on the processes and consequences of team decisions following projects as an avenue for fostering the development of design judgment that engineering graduates will take into their professional practice.     

The problem of the particular and its relation to the general in mathematics education

Research in the didactics of mathematics has shown the importance of the problem of the particular and its relation to the general in teaching and learning mathematics as well as the complexity of factors related to them. In particular, one of the central open questions is the nature and diversity of objects that carry out the role of particular or general and the diversity of paths that lead from the particular to the general. The objective of this article is to show how the notion of semiotic function and mathematics ontology, elaborated by the onto-semiotic approach to mathematics knowledge, enables us to face such a problem. This paper has been elaborated in the frame of the project I+D: MEC-FEDER: SEJ2004-06637/EDUC     

Reflection and professional identity in teachers’ future-oriented discourse

Educational researchers have recently suggested that Schön's influential model of the ‘reflective practitioner’ lacks a prospective, or future, dimension. In this study, we examine instances of future-oriented talk produced by novice English as-a-second-language (ESL) teachers during mentoring meetings in one North American university setting. Context-specific functions of future-oriented discourse (e.g., planning, prediction) are investigated in relation to reflective thinking and teacher identity. We illustrate how teacher mentoring meetings represent discursive spaces in which novice teachers have an opportunity to verbalize plans, predict outcomes, consider possibilities, and reflect on their evolving pedagogical practices. We argue that teacher mentors should become aware of these important functions, and encourage prospective reflection in novice teachers.     

Curriculum integration in arts education: connecting multiple art forms through the idea of ‘space’

Arts integration research has focused on documenting how the teaching of specific art forms can be integrated with ‘core’ academic subject matters (e.g. science, mathematics and literacy). However, the question of how the teaching of multiple art forms themselves can be integrated in schools remains to be explored by educational researchers. This paper draws on data collected at a secondary school in Singapore. The case study analyses how three art teachers, using the idea of ‘space’ as organizing theme, implemented a module of instruction that connected concepts and processes from a variety of art forms (including dance, music, drama and visual arts). We present evidence from curriculum materials, lesson plans, student–teacher classroom interactions and students’ productions. Students were able to reflect upon the importance of space within the arts, analyse the points of convergence and divergence among several art forms, experiment with space and create their own interdisciplinary performances. Our ultimate aim is to provide insights that might inspire art teachers in designing instructional units focused on ‘big ideas’. We suggest that allowing more curricular freedom and providing teachers with adequate structures for interdisciplinary collaboration are key to achieving meaningful levels of integration.     

Writing difficulties in Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment

The present study addresses the scope of the writing difficulties observed in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Patients with AD, patients with MCI and healthy controls performed a written picture-naming task and a direct copy transcoding task in which phonology-to-orthography (P–O) consistency was manipulated. Written latencies, inter-letter durations, mean word pen pressure and number of errors were measured. Results revealed that there was a significant difference between the control group and both groups of patients in written latencies and number of errors. However, in inter-letter interval or mean pen pressure there were significant differences only between the group with AD and the other groups. P–O consistency and the type of task produced similar effects in the three groups of participants, suggesting a general deficit affecting the ability to access/generate orthographic representations. The relevance of these results for understanding the spelling impairment in AD and MCI are discussed.

     

Supporting Blended-Learning: tool requirements and solutions with OWLish

Currently, most of the educational approaches applied to higher education combine face-to-face (F2F) and computer-mediated instruction in a Blended-Learning (B-Learning) approach. One of the main challenges of these approaches is fully integrating the traditional brick-and-mortar classes with online learning environments in an efficient and flexible way. In this paper, we present a set of requirements to be met by a computer system in order to adequately support both students and teachers in a B-Learning context. Then, it defines a suitable conceptual architecture to meet the requirements, and the multi-agent implementation of the architecture. Next, it presents the evaluation of the functionality implemented. Finally some conclusions are drawn.     

Un estudio sobre la comprensión de términos espacio-temporales en niños de 4 a 6 años

Resumen

Este estudio trató de comprobar si la comprensión de los pares de palabras «antesldespués», «delanteldetrás» y «primerolúltimo» presenta relación con el significado dominante en la comunidad lingüistica, la complejidad de la tarea, la asimetría de los términos y la edad. Se utilizaron 90 adultos y 180 niños entre 4 y 6 años. Los adultos definieron las palabras a analizar; loi niños ejecutaron las consignas en tres contextos: espacial, espacio-temporal y temporal. Los resultados indican que el par «antesldespués» es comprendido más pronto en el sentido temporal, el par «delanteldetrás» en sentido espacial. Estos datos coinciden con los obtenidos en las definiciones adultas. «Primeroúltimo» es mejor comprendido en tareas temporales, aunque los adultos dieron definiciones ambiguas. Por otra parte, la compejidad de la tarea parece influir en la comprensión: l'a ausencia de rasgos de los objetos y. el. orden gramatical inverso dificultan la tarea. Estos resultados sugieren que la hipótesis de los rasgos sonánticos es insuficiente para explicar la adquisición del signifcado.     

Comparing cognitive performance in illiterate and literate children

While it is known that the process of becoming literate begins in early childhood and usually involves several years of schooling, research related to cognitive characteristics has been done mostly on illiterate adults, and information concerning illiterate children is therefore limited. The aim of the present study, involving 21 illiterate and 22 literate Mexican children aged 6 to 13, was to investigate the effects of literacy on neuropsychological characteristics during childhood. The children??s performance on 16 cognitive domains of the Evaluación Neuropsicológica Infantil (ENI, Child Neuropsychological Assessment) was examined in three mixed within- and between-groups profile analyses. The results suggest that the effect of literacy observed in adults is already evident in children in almost every task analysed. Moreover, the fact that an age effect was detected for the calculation abilities suggests that maths learning is school- and environment-dependent.     

Formación de profesorado en España orientada a la sostenibilidad: implementación y análisis de una ‘ecometodología’

Es indudable que la preocupación por el medio ambiente es una nueva seña de identidad de la sociedad al comienzo del siglo XXI. Pero ésta preocupación no siempre lleva aparejada los conocimientos, las actitudes y, sobre todo, la competencia necesaria para su protección. En este contexto, cobra sentido una educación superior orientada hacia la sostenibilidad que involucre a la comunidad universitaria, y en concreto a los futuros docentes, capacitándolos para participar, individualmente y colectivamente, a favor de la sostenibilidad. Para tal fin, la implementación de una ‘ecometodología’ basada en la aplicación de la Agenda 21 y el cálculo de la ‘huella ecológica’, se revela como una eficaz herramienta para avanzar hacia la sostenibilidad en la formación del profesorado en España, tal como pone de manifiesto el análisis y la discusión de los resultados del estudio realizado.

Teacher training in Spain towards sustainability: implementation and analysis of ‘ecomethodology’

There is no doubt that concern for the environment is a new feature of society’s identity at the beginning of the twenty-first century. But this concern is not always accompanied by the necessary knowledge, attitude, and above all competence to ensure its protection. In this context, it makes sense for higher education to be oriented towards sustainability, involving the university’s community, especially future teachers, and enabling them to participate, individually and collectively, in favour of sustainability. To this end, the implementation of an ‘ecomethodology’ based on the application of Agenda 21 and the calculation of the carbon footprint, is revealed as a powerful tool for progressing towards sustainability in teacher training in Spain, as shown by the analysis and discussion of the results of this study.