Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'New pedagogies and stratigies'

La présente recherche porte sur l'enseignement-apprentissage du FLE dans le cycle secondaire en Libye. Elle a pour visée de remettre en question le programme suivi, mais aussi les manuels scolaires et les matériels didactiques utilisés au sein des écoles secondaires. Compte tenu de la nature cruciale du rôle joué par les MS/MD dans la réussite ou l'échec de l'enseignement-apprentissage (Mackey, 1972, p. 193), et des conditions difficiles qu'a traversées et que traverse encore, de nos jours, l'enseignement du FLE dans le cycle secondaire, la remise en question de l'ensemble didactique et de son contenu est devenue une nécessité. En effet, notre étude de ter-rain démontre qu'il est indispensable et même urgent de vérifier l'applicabilité de ce dispositif didactique, son efficacité, mais aussi sa conformité au public destinataire, à ses besoins et aux objectifs et aux recommandations du ministère de l'Éducation. Pour étudier cette question, notre thèse définit, dans une première partie, le cadre théorique de cette recherche en abordant les prin-cipaux courants méthodologiques de l'EA des langues étrangères et les théories psychologiques de l'apprentissage. Cette partie traite également des méthodologies d'analyse des MS/MD. La deuxième partie porte, en premier lieu, sur une présentation générale du contexte historico-géographique de la Libye mais également sur le statut du FLE en Libye. Par la suite, nous fai-sons le point sur les MS/MD, avec une présentation des MS/MD (Oasis 1, 2, 3) utilisé de 2007 à 2014. Puis, nous réalisons une analyse comparative de nature contrastive des deux méthodes de FLE : Le Nouveau Pixel 1 (Favret : 2016) et Le français pour la Libye/Pixel 1 (Favret : 2019). Enfin, nous présentons différentes pistes didactico-pédagogiques et méthodologiques, en nous fondant sur les résultats des analyses effectuées
This research focuses on the teaching-learning (EA) French as a foreign language (FLE) in sec-ondary school in Libya. It aims to question the program followed, but also the textbooks and teaching materials used in secondary schools. Given the critical nature of the role played by the MS / MD in the success or failure of EA (Mackey, 1972: 193), and the difficult conditions that the teaching of FLE in secondary school has gone through and still goes through today, ques-tioning the teaching set and its content has become a necessity. Indeed, our field study shows that it is essential and even urgent to verify the applicability of this didactic device, its effective-ness, but also its compliance with the intended audience, its needs and the objectives and rec-ommendations of the Ministry of Education. To study this question, our thesis defines, in a first part, the theoretical framework of this research by addressing the main methodological currents of the EA of foreign languages and the psychological theories of learning. This part also deals with methodologies of MS / MD analysis. The second part concerns, first, a general presenta-tion of the historical and geographical context of Libya but also on the status of FLE in Libya. Subsequently, we take stock of the MS / MD, with a presentation of the MS / MD (Oasis 1, 2, 3) used from 2007 until 2014. Then, we carry out a comparative analysis of a contrastive nature of the two methods of FLE: Le Nouveau Pixel 1 (Favret: 2016) and Le français pour la Libye/Pixel 1 (Favret: 2019). Finally, we present various didactico-pedagogical and methodolog-ical avenues, based on the results of the analyzes carried out

Traditionally, the field of rhetoric and composition has valued long-form essay writing, which requires students to engage patiently and at length with revision. In contrast, students today spend much time outside of school producing fast-paced and short posts for social media. This dissertation argues that students’ social media interactions provide them nuanced, dialogic, and complex rhetorical understandings about writing—but that students need help developing discursive processes to support transfer of their social media knowledge to other writing contexts, including long-form academic writing. Drawing from two semesters of in-class study, I construct for first-year composition classrooms a pedagogy that embraces and cultivates the rhetorical knowledge students gain from social media; I demonstrate how students can analyze, reflect on, and transfer this knowledge to academic contexts. Citing students’ social media and academic writing, I draw from students’ intuitive understandings of the rhetorical concepts medium, context, audience, ethos, and purpose to illustrate how these concepts can productively shift and expand in FYC instruction. To situate this pedagogy within contemporary practices, I analyze leading FYC textbooks and highlight how textbook pedagogies can acknowledge and foreground students’ expanded rhetorical understandings of social media for richer composing processes in all media and for all contexts, digital and non-digital.

Kazakhstan has used the Soviet system of education since its independence in 1990. Researchers have noted shortfalls in education reform efforts and documented factors of teachers' resistance to new pedagogies. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore local teachers' perceptions of the new pedagogies in the context of understanding the local-international teacher program in Agrenov international schools (AIS). Three research questions focused on teachers' perceptions of factors for adoption of new pedagogies in an educationally transforming school using the motivational and systems approaches and emotional intelligence conceptual frameworks. A conceptual framework constructed from three theories of motivation, systems approach, and emotional intelligence was used. The target participants were local teachers who had worked in state schools for a minimum of 3 years and for 2 years in AIS, and who had worked with national teachers. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with a random sample of 10 local veteran teachers from the target population. Thematic coding produced 4 themes: school, teacher, time, and political factors with 15 subthemes which can be used as areas of focus in researching, analyzing, and enhancing adoption of new pedagogies. The results of the study can be used to enhance teacher adoption of educational reform efforts locally in Agrenov international school Centre City and the AISes, and internationally.

Recent developments in educational research raise important questions about the design of learning environments—questions that suggest the value of rethinking what is taught, how it is taught, and how is it assessed. During the past few decades, STEM disciplines began formally recognizing and integrating discipline-based education research (DBER) into their research programs to improve STEM education. One of the less literature-affluent areas of DBER addresses curriculum order and design appertaining to concept types and the order in which we teach those concepts. As educational researchers, we pose the question: does content order matter? In this project we designed, implemented and analyzed a concrete-to-abstract curriculum as a way of teaching and learning that not only builds off what students already know but how their intellect develops throughout the learning process. This semester-long curriculum design is scientifically supported and provides a learning environment aimed to not only building a student’s declarative knowledge of the subject but procedural knowledge as well and a way of developing scientific reasoning skills. This design also aimed at enhancing a student’s ability to make connections between biological concepts despite being classified as different biological concept types (e.g. descriptive, hypothetical, and theoretical concepts) as described by Lawson et al (2000). The reasoning behind and development of this project was based from Jean Piaget’s proposed stages of intellectual development, which supports the concrete-to-abstract theory. We found that, when compared to a traditional biology course (abstract-to-concrete in terms of content order), a concrete-to-abstract order of content resulted in significantly higher biological declarative knowledge and ability to make concept connections. While we failed to detect a significant difference between the two courses in terms of how quickly scientific reasoning skills are developed or how students’ scores on scientific reasoning skill assessments, the concrete-to-abstract course did show significantly higher gains in reasoning between the start and end of the semester. In addition to this project, a significant amount of time was also allocated to the design and evaluation of a health promotion and education program in Samoa. We developed a program which centered on a principal-run caregiver meeting as a means to expand health promotion and prevention efforts concerning Rheumatic Heart Disease, which is a significant cause of child morbidity and mortality in Samoa. We found that training principals on how to inform their student’s caregivers was an effective way to increase RHD awareness and disseminate correct health information including what to do if their child presents with a sore throat.

This thesis analyses screenwriting as an exemplary and idiosyncratic form of creative labour in the ‘new cultural economy’ and specifically, in the contemporary UK screen production industry. Using a critical sociological framework combined with a neo-Foucauldian understanding of work and subjectivity, a series of explicit analytical connections are made in this project, between screenwriting, creative labour and the new cultural economy. I contend that screenwriting, as a form of creative labour which in many ways eschews the term ‘creative’, is an instructive, timely case study precisely because it agitates traditional dichotomies - between creativity and craft, art and commerce, individual and collaborative work - in pedagogy and practice. After tracing the dynamics of this form of creative work in theoretical, discursive and historical terms, I then analyse how screenwriting is constructed, taught and practiced as labour in three areas: ‘How-to’ screenwriting manuals, pedagogical locations for screenwriting in the UK and British screenwriters’ working lives. At each site, I focus on how craft and creativity are defined and experienced, how individual and collective forms of work are enacted at different locations and what implications these shifting designations have. Screenwriting within the mainstream Hollywood and British film industries in the contemporary moment demands particular and complex forms of worker subjectivity in order to distinguish it from other forms of filmmaking and writing, and to make the work knowable and do-able. I follow the voices of screenwriters and those who teach and instruct about screenwriting across the fieldwork sites and analyse the ways in which they calculate, navigate and make sense of the screen production labour market in which they are immersed. The theatrical, mythic and practical navigations of screenwriters in pedagogy and practice that are the centre of this thesis offer an antidote to impoverished, economistic readings of creativity, craft and creative labour in contemporary worlds of work.

This qualitative research project describes the experiences of students in BYU's Hands on a Camera Project as they were introduced to co-learning pedagogies. Hands on a Camera is a media literacy service-learning project where university students are placed in public schools to teach K-12 students documentary production and media literacy. The project consists of a preparation phase and a teaching phase. In the research project, students were required to complete peer-learning and peer-teaching assignments during the preparation phase as in order to prepare for the teaching phase. This ethnographic study describes student experiences—positive and negative—with peer learning during both phases of the project.

Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, February, 2020
Cataloged from student-submitted thesis. Page 172 blank.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-171).
The playful distancing of academic work allows for freedom and innovation, yet architects have not fully explored the expansive opportunities inherent in a more political understanding of play. We conduct this exploration as both means for expanding and growing our own capacity for creativity and as a critique of our own architectural education, which has necessarily been focused on the delivery of defined assets. We are approaching play as a means of developing our own design philosophy. By understanding play as a powerful methodology, architects can engage others in creative processes with the ambition of implementing new, meaningful, and imaginative design strategies. Play is not aimless but productive; it is the way in which we learn to exist in the world. Play changes the way we see our environment, the way we understand ourselves. It creates collaborations and moments of solitude; it is dynamic; it is static. Like the imaginaries we engage, the design of play has always been intrinsically tied to the politics of its era. Today, "play," as we know it, is controlled by an industry obsessed with risk aversion. Play spaces are standardized and generic, not open but relegated to risk-free, fenced off areas. Similarly, our design processes are often isolated, not attentive to the potentials of external communities to open up new possibilities. In the midst of a global call for a new and equitable era, architects can return again to play, not just as a subject but as a method--as a way of working and a form of design research. In a world of increasing tensions and isolationism, architectural work needs to find new ways to be immersed in the world around it. Architects must learn to play with others. This thesis states that for architecture to reimagine play, it must in-turn, learn from play to re-imagine the process and products of design.
by Alexandre Beaudouin-Mackay [and] Sarah Wagner.
M. Arch.
M.Arch. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture

Thesis (S.M. in Technology and Policy)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2013.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-97).
The continued usage of poor pedagogies in K-12 classrooms, despite large pressures for teachers to change their practice, points towards systematic barriers to change. In the last few decades, there has been a national focus to improve Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education. Driven by their concern for developing their future workforce, science and technology companies have invested billions of dollars in improving student outcomes. Further, the federal and state governments have responded by adopting new policies meant to improve student performance. Promising new pedagogies, such as Project Based Learning or the Flipped Classroom, have been developed alongside new technologies to complement them. Yet despite this support, pedagogical practice has not drastically changed and students are primarily taught through lectures and homework sets. This thesis argues that teachers do not adopt new pedagogies because they are under short-term pressure to improve test scores, often face an uphill battle against their school culture and/or do not have deep enough pedagogical or content expertise. A causal model of pedagogical implementation barriers is developed using the results of in-depth surveys and interviews of administrators, principals and teachers. Within this model, critical points of leverage are identified that can interrupt the negative feedback loops creating pedagogical lock-in, and three case studies of international attempts at pedagogical reform are presented to illustrate effective strategies to utilize these leverage points. General policy recommendations are then developed that will remove the current system of pressures and incentives for teachers to use rote memorization and incentivize use of more effective pedagogies.
by Mackenzie Douglas Hird.
S.M.in Technology and Policy

This international research set out to exemplify the pedagogical practices of 11 teachers from Christchurch/Ōtautahi, New Zealand (Aotearoa) and Saskatoon, Canada. It explores their resistance to the various colonial and neocolonizing constructs central to contemporary mainstream schooling in both cities (due to forces such as neoliberalism). These acts of resistance were the result of contesting ideologies of time, space, curriculum and assessment. The research, therefore, describes some of the pedagogical practises of these teachers. It also considers their narratives about their usage of place-based education (PBE) approaches and their commitment to the adoption of critical pedagogies of place (CPP) to meet the real needs of their students (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous). An interpretive paradigm was employed within a qualitative framework to underpin this research. A case study approach was also adopted and informed by a bricolage methodological framework. Primary and secondary data were collected from a number of storage sites (libraries) in both countries and through a questionnaire, interview and observation of each teacher’s classroom space. The data was analysed by coding key information while drawing out any recurring themes and points of difference. The findings reveal that certain aspects of PBE and CPP are accessible to teachers despite their feelings of being confined in terms of their ability to use time, space, curriculum and assessment within their traditional school institutions. Although their abilities to engage with PBE and CPP were limited, those teachers that had more control over time, space, curriculum and assessment were able to dive deeper into PBE and especially CPP. A key finding of this research was the extent of awareness and engagement that the teachers had in transforming controlled, static, spaces found in the classrooms, communities and natural environments into meaningful places with students. This finding also suggests that teachers with more control over time, space, curriculum and assessment have an easier time in creating this change. The findings also indicate that these teachers first needed to have the courage to challenge traditional systems of schooling, because teachers can become marginalized by other teachers and administrators when seen to be attempting to transform entrenched institutional (schooling) cultures. Flexibility and trust were two of the other recurring themes that emerged from the data collected. Teachers possessing more flexibility (with regards to time, space, curriculum and assessment design procedures) were most able to enact PBE and CPP. They were also the best-positioned participants to create meaningful professional relationships with their students and local community members. Issues of trust were clearly evident in recurring discussions around the increased amount of trust teachers needed to have with students for the students to be able to engage with space and place. There was also an increased amount of trust that school administrators (principals) needed to have in their teachers who were engaging with PBE and CPP. The research participants in this study demonstrated that, in different ways, they were striving to resist the ideologies underpinning traditional mainstream schooling, and that they were able to enact change regardless of the challenges they experienced. Their perseverance to ground their teaching in PBE and CPP approaches testifies to their love of education and their acceptance of it as a legitimate process for change and growth.

African American Studies
Ph.D.
This study examines how legislated policy, the New Jersey Amistad Bill, and the subsequently created Amistad Commission, shifted the mandated educational landscape in regard to the teaching of social studies in the state of New Jersey—by legislative edict and enforcement, within every class in the state. Through a century of debates, reforms, and legislations, there has been a demand to include the contributions, achievements, and perspectives of people of the African Diaspora that deconstruct the European narrative of history. It is my belief that the formation of an educational public policy that is reflective of the Afrocentric paradigm in its interpretation and operation, such as the Amistad law, with subsequent policy manifestations that result in curriculum development and legalized institutionalization in classrooms across the country is central to creating the curriculum that will neutralize mis-education and will help American students to obtain an understanding of African American agency and the development of our collective history. The Amistad Commission, created by legal mandate in the state of New Jersey in 2002, is groundbreaking because it is a legal decree in educational policymaking that codifies the full infusion and inclusion of African American historical content into New Jersey’s K-12 Social Studies curriculum and statewide Social Studies standards. This infusion, directed by the executive leadership team, is a statewide overhaul and redirection for Social Studies and the Humanities in all grades in every district throughout the state. The Commission’s choice of the Afrocentric theoretical construct—a cultural-intellectual framework that centers the African historical, social, economic, spiritual and political experience as pertains to any intellectual experience involving Africans and people of African descent—as its organizing ethos and central ideology was central in framing the resulting curriculum products and programmatic directives. This study’s conclusive premise in utilization of the Afrocentricity construct is evidenced in the Amistad curriculum’s Afrocentric tenets: de-marginalization of African historical contribution and agency; the importance of voice and first person narrative when transcribing history, and how shifting of —as in, correcting—the entire Eurocentric structure is important. Rather than an additive prescription of historical tokenisms, or a contributive prescription that does not allow for a centralized locality from within the culture, Afrocentricity allows for a cultural ideology when applicable to the Amistad law. Thus the use of Afrocentricity in the implementation of the Amistad law transforms the entire narrative of American history in the state of New Jersey, one of the original thirteen colonies. The study seeks to remedy the void of research as to how the incorporation of the particular theoretical framework of Afrocentricity impacted the decision guiding the policy directives, programmatic and the curriculum outcomes within the implementation of the New Jersey Amistad Commission mandate. The case study asserts that the Afrocentric theory was put into praxis when operationalizing the New Jersey Amistad law and the work of the Amistad Commission. It chronicles the history of similar mandates focused on the incorporation of African American history in American classrooms that led to the Amistad law. It also enumerates the Amistad law’s subsequent operationalization and curriculum development efforts elucidating practical application of the Afrocentric theory. It has direct implications for teacher education, practicing teachers, and policymakers interested in understanding how Afrocentricity and its tenets are paramount in curriculum development efforts, especially as it pertains to New Jersey, New York, and Illinois. These three states have passed legislations that have attempted to proactively remedy their educational policies. The disparities in knowledge and education about African diaspora people in our Social Studies classrooms are targeted by these states.
Temple University--Theses

This study examines how university academics understand and enact knowledge requirements embedded in official teacher education policies. The research probes faculty understandings of what constitutes ‘relevant and appropriate pedagogies’ in teacher education curricula, and the basis of such knowledge selections in the absence of a stable ‘knowledge base’ of teacher education. In teacher education, new national norms and standards are intended to guide curriculum processes in new programmes. However, policies remain open to wide interpretation and assume common understandings among the teacher education community with regard to knowledge, practices and values. This study, conducted in three university-based Faculties of Education, analyses the curriculum motivations, processes and practices of education academics, in an attempt to understand and explain their responses to policy requirements. The conceptual framework of Paul Trowler is employed to examine the Teaching and Learning Regimes (TLRs) at work in academic contexts. By lifting out the discursive repertoires, identities in interaction, tacit assumptions, connotative codes, implicit theories of teaching and learning, power relations, rules of appropriateness and recurrent practices among faculty members, this research demonstrates how knowledge is mediated in and through institutional contexts. Three parallel Faculty portraits elucidate stark differences in approaches to curricula and in curriculum processes, a consequence of the lack of a stable knowledge base and the perceived vagueness of policy directives. Significantly, institutional histories and traditions feature prominently as ‘shapers’ of academic responses to change, factors that, the study argues, government policies have not taken into account.
Thesis (PhD (Education Policy Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2006.
Education Management and Policy Studies
unrestricted

Em uma época em que o excesso de informações, técnicas e padrões parecem sufocar o indivíduo; e ao mesmo tempo, incitá-lo a questionar a si próprio e ao próximo diante de situações a serem resolvidas; torna-se imprescindível pensar nas possibilidades de compreensão e simplificação de sua rotina, isso sem causar a perda da essência do que é de fato ser humano. Surgem daí questões fundamentais para investigar a sobrevivência e o convívio harmônico da espécie, ou seja, buscar princípios correspondentes ao anseio de viver juntos e em paz. Posto dessa maneira, a pesquisa em questão tem como objetivo dialogar sobre esses assuntos por meio da educação de novas metodologias frente à aprendizagem de diversos saberes nos quais envolvam o mundo, seus objetos e, por fim, suas relações. Desse modo, a fim de entender melhor as necessidades humanas no processo de aprendizagem, realizei um estudo sobre a teoria da mente, que foi seguido de uma pesquisa de campo cuja base foi observar as novas pedagogias postas em ação, especificamente, em duas escolas: a EMEF Desembargador Amorim Lima e Escola Waldorf. Ao cumprir essa demanda, entrevistei alguns professores para analisar quais motivos que levaram à adoção dessa nova diretriz em suas práticas de ensino. Opção tomada na busca de subsidiar a formação de seus alunos, no sentido de torná-los adultos capazes de criticar e refletir sobre a sua própria realidade, permitindo, assim, a criação de mecanismos de interação com o mundo ao seu redor.
In an age where the sheer breadth of information, techniques and patterns appear to stifle the individual, but at the same time, encourage him/her to question oneself and others in situations that need a resolution, it is important to try and understand and simplify ones approach so as not to lose the essence of what it is to maintain ones \"humanity\". This leads to fundamental questions regarding the survival and harmonious coexistence of the species, i.e., in the effort to find ways and principles that lead to living together in peace. As such, this research intends to address these issues through the promotion (and via education) of newer methodologies and current knowledge (as opposed to outdated knowledge and materials) of the world, its objects and, their complex relationships using the modern marvels of technology, art and other mechanisms heretofor not considered. In the effort to better understand human needs in the learning process, I conducted a study on the theory of the mind, followed by a field study/examination, the purpose of which was to observe how new teaching methods put into action, specifically in two schools: EMEF Desembargador Amorim Lima and Waldorf Schools. Accordingly, I interviewed several teachers to learn their motivations for the adoption of this new direction in their teaching practices, after they graduated from the traditional educational system. I found that their approach took into consideration subsidizing the education of their students in order to give them the opportunity to grow into thinking adults who are able to criticize and reflect on their own reality, thus allowing the creation of mechanisms of interaction with the world around them.

Tese de Doutoramento Ciências da Saúde – Ciências Biológicas e Biomédicas
Worldwide, Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections are responsible for approximately 2 million deaths each year and the control of tuberculosis remains one of the most important challenges in the fight against infectious disease. The struggle against this mycobacterial infection has been performed using the vaccine M. bovis Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) and the administration of anti-mycobacterial drugs. However it is clear that vaccination has to be improved for the following reasons: i) the efficacy of BCG vaccination is not satisfactory, ranging from 0-80%, ii) there has been an increase of mycobacterial strains resistant to the most common drugs actually used. The development of new vaccines requires however that significant effort be put into the study of the host-parasite interactions in this infection. It is with this in mind that I have investigated the cellular response to the vaccine BCG. It is known that interferon (IFN)-γ, associated with the development of acquired immune responses mediated by T helper (Th)1 lymphocytes, plays an essential role in the control of infection by mycobacteria. IFN-γ-gene-deficient ( ifn2-/-) mice are highly susceptible to mycobacterial infection and exhibit enhanced accumulation of activated effector T cells and neutrophils within granulomatous lesions. Nevertheless these T cells are not associated with control of bacterial growth and are associated with the development of pathology. Recently a new phenotype of T lymphocytes (Th17), which is associated with the development of inflammatory type of responses and pathology, has been described. Th17 cells produce mainly interleukin (IL)- 17, IL-6 and tumour necrosis factor (TNF). IL-17 can act on macrophages inducing the expression of TNF, granulocyte macrophage colony stimulatin factor (GM-CSF) and IL-8, resulting in the maturation and recruitment of neutrophils. The dynamics and regulation of these cells following infection by bacteria are poorly understood. I have therefore examined the kinetics of Th1 and Th17 cellular response following infection by BCG. My data show that in C57BL/6 mice infected with BCG, both IFN-γ and IL-17-producing T cells develop early after infection, however only IFN-γ-producing T cells expand as infection progresses. In contrast, in ifn2-/- mice infected with BCG the number of IL-17-producing T cells increases dramatically. These observations point to a regulatory role of IFN-γ on the differentiation of Th17 cells. To elucidate the mechanism underlying this observation, CD4 T cells from OT II transgenic mice were cultured in the presence of bone marrow derived dendritic cells (BMDC) infected with BCG and the cognate antigen. I observed that in these conditions a significant number of Th17 cells differentiate and that the differentiation of these cells can be inhibited by the presence of IFN-γ. Furthermore IFN-γ, by increasing the production of IL-12 and decreasing the synthesis of IL-23 (a cytokine important for the differentiation of Th17 cells), modulates the differentiation of Th1 and Th17 cells. These data reinforce the necessity to perform further studies to understand the dynamics of Th1/Th17 cells following infection by mycobacteria as well as the regulatory role of IFN-γ. Although IL-17 is induced soon after mycobacterial infection, the effect of IL-17 on the bactericidal activity of macrophages was not known. To address this question bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDM) were infected with M. tuberculosis or M. bovis BCG, and treated with IFN-γ, IL-17 or both. I have shown that IL-17 increases the susceptibility of macrophages to the intracellular infection with mycobacteria and that it inhibits the macrophage bactericidal activity induced by IFN-γ. This effect of IL-17 is not dependent on the macrophage effector mechanisms related with nitric oxide production or phagosome maturation. Surprisingly, IL-17 alone but not in the presence of IFN-γ, increases macrophage survival which is related to an increased expression of IL-6, a cytokine known to induce cell survival. These data illustrate the potential for IL-17 to have an impact on disease progression and support the necessity to elucidate the role of IL-17 on mycobacterially-infected macrophages. The differentiation and persistence of Th17 cells has been considered responsible for several pathologies, including those associated with autoimmune and chronic infectious diseases. This is of interest as a well-known phenomenon of mycobacterial infection is the Koch reaction. This reaction occurs in mycobacterially-infected hosts re-exposed to mycobacterial antigens and is characterized by a massive influx of neutrophils and damaging pathologic consequences. As a result of the low level of protection afforded by BCG vaccination, and because protection is not long-lived, it has been proposed that re-vaccination should be considered. In view of the potential for Koch reaction in response to re-vaccination it is therefore essential that we have a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms leading to the Koch reaction; specifically whether Th17 cells play a role. To address this question, C57BL/6 mice were infected with M. tuberculosis. Fifteen days after infection mice were vaccinated sub-cutaneously once, twice or three-times with BCG, with an interval of fifteen days between each vaccination. Importantly I determined that the number of Th17 cells increases with the number of M. bovis BCG revaccinations. Since the presence of Th17 cells has been associated with the induction of cytokines and chemokines responsible for the differentiation and recruitment of neutrophils, I postulate that neutrophils are responsible for the pathology and tissue damage associated to the Koch reaction. In summary, my work has identified potential new mechanisms into the complex network of immune responses, occurring in response to infection and vaccination with mycobacteria. Specifically, I have demonstrated a role for IFN-γ in the regulation of Th17 cells differentiation, and the relevance of IL-23 in the sustained differentiation of Th17 cells. I have also shown that IL- 17 inhibits the bactericidal activity of infected macrophages. This has the potential to be important and of biological relevance but the role of this molecule in bacterial control must be clarified. Finally, my data support a role for IL-17 in the pathology associated to the Koch reaction and this is important for the understanding of this unique reaction. Altogether my results point to the fact that the dynamics and effector function of Th17 cells have to be taken into consideration for a better understanding of the mechanisms leading to resistance and/or pathology following infection by M. tuberculosis, as well as for the design of new vaccines.
As infecções por Mycobacterium tuberculosis constituem um grave problema de saúde pública a nível mundial, sendo responsáveis por cerca de 2 milhões de mortes por ano. O controlo da infecção por M. tuberculosis tem vindo a ser feito pelo recurso à vacinação com M. bovis Bacilo Calmette-Guérin (BCG) e pela administração de fármacos anti-micobacterianos. Contudo é cada vez mais evidente que o desenvolvimento de novas vacinas é fundamental tendo em consideração: i) que a eficácia da vacinação por BCG é muito variável, com um grau de protecção que varia entre 0-80%, dependendo de factores genéticos das populações e também de factores ambientais, ii) que se tem assistido nas últimas décadas a um aparecimento cada vez mais acentuado de estirpes de M. tuberculosis multi-resistentes aos fármacos disponíveis. Neste contexto, um conhecimento mais profundo das interacções parasita-hospedeiro é necessário para que se possam desenvolver estratégias preventivas e terapêuticas mais eficazes. Tendo por base este conhecimento, fui estudar a resposta celular à vacinação por BCG. A produção de interferão (IFN)-γ, associada ao desenvolvimento de respostas imunes adquiridas do tipo de linfócitos T de ajuda (Th)1, desempenha um papel fundamental no controlo das infecções por micobactérias, pelo seu papel na potenciação dos mecanismos efectores dos macrófagos e na formação de granulomas. A formação de granulomas também ocorre em ratinhos deficientes em IFN-γ infectados por micobactérias. No entanto, estas estruturas exibem uma acumulação de neutrófilos e células T efectoras. Apesar da presença destas células no local da infecção, não se verifica o controlo do crescimento bacteriano, observando-se o desenvolvimento de patologia. Recentemente, foi descrito um novo fenótipo de linfócitos T designado por Th17. Estas células produzem essencialmente interleucina (IL)-17, IL-6 e factor de necrose tumoral (TNF) e estão associadas ao desenvolvimento de respostas inflamatórias. A acção da IL-17 sobre os macrófagos induz a expressão de TNF, factor estimulador de colónias de granulócitos e macrófagos (GM-CSF) e IL-8. Contudo, a dinâmica, regulação e função efectora destas células após uma infecção por micobactérias não são conhecidas. Neste sentido, decidimos estudar a dinâmica das células Th1 e Th17 após uma infecção por BCG. Os resultados mostram que a infecção de ratinhos selvagens por BCG induz a diferenciação de células T produtoras de IFN-γ e de células T produtoras de IL-17. No entanto, apenas o número de células T produtoras de IFN-γ expande durante o curso da infecção. Pelo contrário, a infecção por BCG em ratinhos deficientes em IFN-γ resulta numa expansão do número das células T produtoras de IL-17. Esta observação sugere que o IFN-γ regula negativamente a diferenciação de células Th17. Para elucidar o mecanismo por detrás desta observação, células T CD4+ de ratinhos transgénicos (OT II) foram cultivadas com células dendríticas derivadas da medula óssea (BMDC) infectadas com BCG e antigénio. Nestas condições, observou-se a diferenciação de um elevado número de células Th17, sendo esta diferenciação inibida pela presença de IFN- γ. Observou-se, ainda, que o IFN-γ, aumentando a produção de IL-12 e inibindo a produção da IL-23 (uma citocina importante para a diferenciação de células Th17), modela a diferenciação de células Th1 e Th17. Os meus resultados mostram, pela primeira vez, que a IL-17 pode estar envolvida na patologia associada a infecções por micobactérias e que as células Th17 são reguladas pelo IFN-γ. Estes resultados realçam a importância de estudar a dinâmica das células Th1/Th17, assim como o papel regulador do IFN-γ. No decurso das infecções experimentais por micobactérias a IL-17 é induzida numa fase precoce, no entanto, o seu papel na actividade bactericida dos macrófagos não é conhecido. Para avaliar o efeito da IL-17 na actividade dos fagócitos, macrófagos derivados da medula óssea (BMDM) foram infectados com M. tuberculosis ou M. bovis BCG e tratados com IFN-γ ou IL-17. Os resultados mostram que a IL-17 aumenta a susceptibilidade dos macrófagos a infecções por micobactérias e que, adicionalmente, inibe a acção bactericida induzida pelo IFN-γ. Observei ainda que estes efeitos não são dependentes da produção de óxido nítrico nem da maturação do fagosoma, dois mecanismos efectores do macrófago descritos como intervindo no controlo das infecções por micobactérias. Verificou-se, ainda, que a IL-17 aumentava a sobrevivência in vitro dos macrófagos infectados. Dada a capacidade da IL-17 induzir nos macrófagos um aumento da expressão de IL-6, uma citoquina conhecida pelo seu efeito na sobrevivência de várias populações de células, podemos especular que o aumento da sobrevida dos macrófagos induzido pela IL-17 estará relacionado com o aumento da expressão de IL-6. Estudos adicionais serão necessários para elucidar o papel da IL-17 na progressão da infecção por micobactérias em macrófagos. A diferenciação e persistência de células Th17 estão associadas à patologia observada em algumas doenças auto-imunes e infecções crónicas. A exposição a antigénios micobacterianos em hospedeiros previamente infectados por M. tuberculosis resulta no desenvolvimento de uma patologia severa associada a um influxo massivo de neutrófilos, fenómeno designado por reacção de Koch. Como a protecção conferida pela vacinação por BCG é variável e tem, segundo alguns autores, uma duração de apenas 10 a 20 anos, tem-se vindo a sugerir que a re-vacinação pelo BCG seria uma estratégia para o controlo da tuberculose. Neste sentido, é necessário um conhecimento mais profundo dos mecanismos moleculares e celulares associados ao desenvolvimento da reacção de Koch. Para elucidar esta questão, ratinhos selvagens foram infectados com M. tuberculosis. Quinze dias depois, foram vacinados uma, duas ou três vezes com M. bovis BCG, com um intervalo de quinze dias entre cada vacinação. Os meus resultados mostram que o número de células Th17 aumentava com o aumento do número de revacinações. Uma vez que a presença de células Th17 está relacionada com o recrutamento massivo de neutrófilos, é de esperar que estes possam ser responsáveis pela patologia associada ao desenvolvimento da reacção de Koch. Em resumo, este trabalho introduz novos mecanismos na já complexa rede do desenvolvimento e regulação de respostas imunológicas, nomeadamente a regulação das células Th17 pelo IFN-γ, e a relevância da IL-23 na diferenciação das células Th17. Mostrei ainda que a IL-17, actuando nos macrófagos, inibe a sua actividade bactericida. Contudo, a relevância biológica desta observação tem que ser clarificada. Os meus resultados sugerem adicionalmente que a IL-17, associada a um recrutamento massivo de neutrófilos, poderá ser responsável pelo desenvolvimento da patologia associada à reacção de Koch. Os resultados apresentados nesta tese abrem novas perspectivas sobre a importância do estudo da dinâmica e função das células Th17 nas infecções por micobactérias, nomeadamente nos mecanismos envolvidos na resistência e desenvolvimento de patologia, tendo implicações para o desenvolvimento de novas estratégias preventivas.
Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - SFRH/BD/9624/2002; POCTI 2010.

This qualitative multiple case study provides insight into how teachers make sense of the teaching of writing within the context of a prescriptive curriculum designed by Excellence Academies, a prominent no excuses charter management organization. Drawing from Ivanič’s discourses of writing (2004) and the tenets of culturally sustaining pedagogies (Alim & Paris, 2014), the study relies on multiple data sources to make sense of the discourses that teachers have access to: the teacher education curriculum, their school level writing curriculum, primary teacher interviews, and secondary administrative interviews. A critical curriculum content analysis reveals that while the genre and process discourses are present at the macro level in graduate coursework and institutional materials, these discourses are muted by an emphasis on literacy as a tool for college readiness. My analysis reveals how literacy as a primarily skills-based endeavor becomes entangled with a coherent instructional model aimed to achieve college readiness through the acquisition of high test scores. The objectification of students and their capacities to be literate only in the ways valued by direct writing assessment constrained teachers from accessing a robust understanding of discourses of writing. Findings also reveal a lack of teacher knowledge and training devoted to the teaching of writing which results in students being subjected to underprepared teachers who are more susceptible to and reliant on harmful prescriptive skills-based writing pedagogies, curricula, and assessment practices. Additionally, the study reveals the paradox of an Advanced Placement course that appears to be a rigorous college preparatory learning experience, highlighting meso and macro level discourses that work to restrict student opportunities for meaningful writing experiences and tangibly benefit the charter management organization’s expansion rather than students themselves. Recommendations for policy, practice, and research are provided.

This study examines how university academics understand and enact knowledge requirements embedded in official teacher education policies. The research probes faculty understandings of what constitutes ‘relevant and appropriate pedagogies’ in teacher education curricula, and the basis of such knowledge selections in the absence of a stable ‘knowledge base’ of teacher education. In teacher education, new national norms and standards are intended to guide curriculum processes in new programmes. However, policies remain open to wide interpretation and assume common understandings among the teacher education community with regard to knowledge, practices and values. This study, conducted in three university-based Faculties of Education, analyses the curriculum motivations, processes and practices of education academics, in an attempt to understand and explain their responses to policy requirements. The conceptual framework of Paul Trowler is employed to examine the Teaching and Learning Regimes (TLRs) at work in academic contexts. By lifting out the discursive repertoires, identities in interaction, tacit assumptions, connotative codes, implicit theories of teaching and learning, power relations, rules of appropriateness and recurrent practices among faculty members, this research demonstrates how knowledge is mediated in and through institutional contexts. Three parallel Faculty portraits elucidate stark differences in approaches to curricula and in curriculum processes, a consequence of the lack of a stable knowledge base and the perceived vagueness of policy directives. Significantly, institutional histories and traditions feature prominently as ‘shapers’ of academic responses to change, factors that, the study argues, government policies have not taken into account.
Thesis (PhD (Education Policy Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2008.
Education Management and Policy Studies
unrestricted