title: Becoming effective technology teachers: enhancing  assessment practices in primary classrooms

authors: Moreland, Judy

abstract: This thesis explores primary school teachers’ technology pedagogical content knowledge and how this impacts on teaching practices in technology education, particularly formative interactions. Based in the interpretist paradigm and using case study methods, the two-year journeys of eight co-educational teachers from two primary schools and their technology education perceptions and practices are described. The first year (1998) explores existing teacher knowledge and practices and student learning. The second year (1999) traces the impact of a professional development programme aimed at enhancing teachers’ technology pedagogical content knowledge in relationship to formative assessment. The significant impact of a planning framework containing the categories of technological practice, conceptual aspects, procedural aspects, societal aspects and technical aspects is examined.

Findings from the first year reveal that existing school subcultures, school policies and teacher subject expertise influence teacher classroom practices in technology. Planning, teaching and assessment were often related to social and managerial aspects rather than procedural and conceptual technological aspects. Hence, learning and formative assessment interactions focussed on these aspects rather than student understandings in technology. The second year explores the development of teachers’ technological knowledge through a collaborative, ongoing teacher development programme. The development and use of a planning framework exerted considerable influence on teachers’ constructing appropriate knowledge and understandings and on developing a technological knowledge base robust and distinct from previous knowledge bases. A complex mix of specialist knowledge is required for teachers to become competent, confident teachers of technology. It is important to decide on appropriate student learning outcomes and to transform teacher technological understandings to those suitable for students. 

Further, the study shows that improvement in classroom formative interactions, especially the provision of descriptive feedback, makes a strong contribution to enhancing learning. It confirms that enhancing teacher pedagogical content knowledge impacts on their ability to provide descriptive feedback. Embedding formative assessment in technology and undertaking it in a sociocultural, transactional, conversational and future-oriented way strengthens student technological learning. Student gains are made in technology when teachers focus descriptive feedback on specific technological goals, particular technological qualities of student work and the provision of advice on how to improve technologically. This study provides empirical evidence that teacher perceptions and practices in technology and technology education impact on the technological learning of students. The assumption that students’ learning of technology can be enhanced through enhancing teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and formative assessment practices is justified.

text: Becoming effective technology teachers: enhancing  assessment practices in primary classrooms This thesis explores primary school teachers’ technology pedagogical content knowledge and how this impacts on teaching practices in technology education, particularly formative interactions. Based in the interpretist paradigm and using case study methods, the two-year journeys of eight co-educational teachers from two primary schools and their technology education perceptions and practices are described. The first year (1998) explores existing teacher knowledge and practices and student learning. The second year (1999) traces the impact of a professional development programme aimed at enhancing teachers’ technology pedagogical content knowledge in relationship to formative assessment. The significant impact of a planning framework containing the categories of technological practice, conceptual aspects, procedural aspects, societal aspects and technical aspects is examined.

Findings from the first year reveal that existing school subcultures, school policies and teacher subject expertise influence teacher classroom practices in technology. Planning, teaching and assessment were often related to social and managerial aspects rather than procedural and conceptual technological aspects. Hence, learning and formative assessment interactions focussed on these aspects rather than student understandings in technology. The second year explores the development of teachers’ technological knowledge through a collaborative, ongoing teacher development programme. The development and use of a planning framework exerted considerable influence on teachers’ constructing appropriate knowledge and understandings and on developing a technological knowledge base robust and distinct from previous knowledge bases. A complex mix of specialist knowledge is required for teachers to become competent, confident teachers of technology. It is important to decide on appropriate student learning outcomes and to transform teacher technological understandings to those suitable for students. 

Further, the study shows that improvement in classroom formative interactions, especially the provision of descriptive feedback, makes a strong contribution to enhancing learning. It confirms that enhancing teacher pedagogical content knowledge impacts on their ability to provide descriptive feedback. Embedding formative assessment in technology and undertaking it in a sociocultural, transactional, conversational and future-oriented way strengthens student technological learning. Student gains are made in technology when teachers focus descriptive feedback on specific technological goals, particular technological qualities of student work and the provision of advice on how to improve technologically. This study provides empirical evidence that teacher perceptions and practices in technology and technology education impact on the technological learning of students. The assumption that students’ learning of technology can be enhanced through enhancing teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and formative assessment practices is justified.

year: 2003

title: Using model trees for classification

authors: Frank, Eibe

subjects: Science & Technology

abstract: Model trees, which are a type of decision tree with linear regression functions at the leaves, form the basis of a recent successful technique for predicting continuous numeric values. They can be applied to classification problems by employing a standard method of transforming a classification problem into a problem of function approximation. Surprisingly, using this simple transformation the model tree inducer M5′, based on Quinlan’s M5, generates more accurate classifiers than the state-of-the-art decision tree learner C5.0, particularly when most of the attributes are numeric.

text: Using model trees for classification Model trees, which are a type of decision tree with linear regression functions at the leaves, form the basis of a recent successful technique for predicting continuous numeric values. They can be applied to classification problems by employing a standard method of transforming a classification problem into a problem of function approximation. Surprisingly, using this simple transformation the model tree inducer M5′, based on Quinlan’s M5, generates more accurate classifiers than the state-of-the-art decision tree learner C5.0, particularly when most of the attributes are numeric.

year: 1998

title: Tū te turuturu nō Hine-te-iwaiwa: Mana wahine geographies of birth in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Simmonds, Naomi Beth

subjects: Mana wahine

abstract: This thesis examines the embodied, spiritual and spatial experiences of maternity for Māori women. It reveals how colonial and patriarchal discourses are embedded and embodied in the spaces of childbirth in Aotearoa New Zealand. I use a mana wahine (Māori women’s) framework to critique discourses that continue to marginalise and isolate Māori women and their whānau (family group) during their maternity experiences. Importantly, this research highlights the possibilities of reclaiming and reconfiguring mana wahine in both theory and practice. In doing so, I conceptualise new geographies that account for, and celebrate, uniquely Māori understandings and expressions of maternity. 
Mana wahine provides a much needed theoretical framework that enables Māori women to (re)define and (re)present our lived realities on our own terms. A qualitative mixed method approach of interviews, solicited diary writing and a marae based wānanga is employed to examine the lived experiences of birth for ten first time mothers, five midwives and a wānanga of 17 women and their whānau. In total 32 women participated in various phases of the research.
Empirical material is arranged around four key themes. The first considers the ways in which colonialism is lived and embodied in maternity experiences for many whānau. New formations of colonialism are evident in the silence that can surround the maternal body for women in this research. The second theme highlights how whakapapa (genealogy), wairua (spirituality), and whenua (land/placenta), can provide a powerful reconceptualisation of the maternal body that offers new possibilities for thinking about maternal embodiment, the spaces of birth (both material and discursive) and maternity policy and practice. Third, it is argued that many women and whānau occupy a number of in-between maternity spaces as a result of our colonised realities. As such, considerations of space from a mana wahine perspective can serve to destabilise the dualisms that dominate the spatial politics of birth in Aotearoa. Finally, this thesis posits that by reclaiming the collective and spiritual spaces of birth and afterbirth it is possible to transform and empower women and whānau in their maternity experiences. 
This thesis responds to a scarcity of academic scholarship on mana wahine maternities. It advances mana wahine and feminist geographical knowledges by providing a critical spatial perspective on Māori women’s maternal geographies. It is argued that reclaiming mana wahine maternities has the potential to transform women’s birthing experiences by (re)asserting the tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) of women, of their babies, and of their whānau, and thus the rangatiratanga of Māori communities, hapū (sub-tribe/sub-tribes) and iwi (tribe/tribes).

text: Tū te turuturu nō Hine-te-iwaiwa: Mana wahine geographies of birth in Aotearoa New Zealand This thesis examines the embodied, spiritual and spatial experiences of maternity for Māori women. It reveals how colonial and patriarchal discourses are embedded and embodied in the spaces of childbirth in Aotearoa New Zealand. I use a mana wahine (Māori women’s) framework to critique discourses that continue to marginalise and isolate Māori women and their whānau (family group) during their maternity experiences. Importantly, this research highlights the possibilities of reclaiming and reconfiguring mana wahine in both theory and practice. In doing so, I conceptualise new geographies that account for, and celebrate, uniquely Māori understandings and expressions of maternity. 
Mana wahine provides a much needed theoretical framework that enables Māori women to (re)define and (re)present our lived realities on our own terms. A qualitative mixed method approach of interviews, solicited diary writing and a marae based wānanga is employed to examine the lived experiences of birth for ten first time mothers, five midwives and a wānanga of 17 women and their whānau. In total 32 women participated in various phases of the research.
Empirical material is arranged around four key themes. The first considers the ways in which colonialism is lived and embodied in maternity experiences for many whānau. New formations of colonialism are evident in the silence that can surround the maternal body for women in this research. The second theme highlights how whakapapa (genealogy), wairua (spirituality), and whenua (land/placenta), can provide a powerful reconceptualisation of the maternal body that offers new possibilities for thinking about maternal embodiment, the spaces of birth (both material and discursive) and maternity policy and practice. Third, it is argued that many women and whānau occupy a number of in-between maternity spaces as a result of our colonised realities. As such, considerations of space from a mana wahine perspective can serve to destabilise the dualisms that dominate the spatial politics of birth in Aotearoa. Finally, this thesis posits that by reclaiming the collective and spiritual spaces of birth and afterbirth it is possible to transform and empower women and whānau in their maternity experiences. 
This thesis responds to a scarcity of academic scholarship on mana wahine maternities. It advances mana wahine and feminist geographical knowledges by providing a critical spatial perspective on Māori women’s maternal geographies. It is argued that reclaiming mana wahine maternities has the potential to transform women’s birthing experiences by (re)asserting the tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) of women, of their babies, and of their whānau, and thus the rangatiratanga of Māori communities, hapū (sub-tribe/sub-tribes) and iwi (tribe/tribes).

year: 2014