Understanding scientific models is an important issue when developing new curricula for beta sciences in secondary school. When we let students design their own models, they tend to develop better scientific understanding of the subject. Also, when they develop models themselves, they can experience the dynamic aspect of these models. The aim of this project is to find out how we can let students design visual and dynamic models, using drawing based modelling. By doing this, students will get a better insight in the meaning of models in science and society as a representation of the world they live in. Also, it will show them that existing models can be adjusted, according to new approaches and growing insight.

In dit onderzoek wordt naar een aanpak gezocht om het inzicht van leerlingen uit vwo leerjaar 2 in het domein statistiek te vergroten. Vanuit het vakgebied van de wiskundige statistiek wordt geïnventariseerd waarop de nadruk binnen statistiekonderwijs moet liggen. De focus hierbij ligt op het analyseren van datasets door typeren van belangrijke kenmerken en het gebruik van visuele representaties. De bevindingen informeren het ontwikkelen van lesmateriaal binnen de Digitale Wiskunde Omgeving (DWO). Bij het ontwikkelen van het lesmateriaal is aandacht voor verschillen tussen leerlingen. Vanaf het begin van het schooljaar worden leerlinggegevens verzameld op het gebied van Reproductie, Training, Transfer , Inzicht en Innovatie (RTTI). Op basis hiervan worden leerlingen ingedeeld in drie niveaugroepen. Met behulp van de DWO worden vervolgens gedifferentieerde onderwijsarrangementen ontwikkeld en aangeboden die aansluiten bij de onderwijsbehoefte van deze niveaugroepen. Tot slot volgt een analyse van het leerproces.

Is cognition really located in the brain? According to theories such as embodied, embedded, extended cognition (E3C) is cognition distributed over the body, embedded in the environment, and extended by means of technology. E3C has been applied to many practical skills, but hardly for abstract knowledge, such as mathematics. But what then is mathematical cognition from an E3C perspective? And if we better understand this, how to teach mathematics differently? In this project, philosophers, logicians, programmers and educational researchers addressed these questions. Products include recognition software for mathematical signs, action-based embodied tools for learning mathematics, and accompanying educational materials.

The central question in this project is how we can improve the mathematical abilities of Braille-dependent students. We want to investigate if insight in perception and processing of formulas and graphs by normally sighted people can be used to design and test a better accessible Braille notation for mathematics.

BIG DATA MINING, ONTOLOGY DESIGN, SEMANTIC INTEROPERABILITY, EXOTIC DRUG TRAJECTORIES, CULTURAL HERITAGE. THE PROJECT aims to develop a context-aware search engine which will serve two purposes: 1) It fosters the research capacities of scholars in the field of digital humanities, and 2) can profitably be exploited by the creative industry and other stakeholders. By using spatiotemporal metadata gathered in TIME CAPSULEs semantic interoperable ontology, for the first time long-term developments and transformations can be analyzed in big data collections, both diachronically and synchronically. TIME CAPSULE will gather data from ten disparate cultural heritage databases into a single, autonomous database from which data can be retrieved in a unified manner. This will enable us to aggregate a variety of dissimilar but contextually related digital heritage items in an accessible way. TIME CAPSULE uses innovative computational and information methodology to build the semantic interoperable ontology with a multimedia search engine using geographical and temporal metadata. The resulting birds eye view of a wide range of structured and related heritage data will provide new insights and raise interdisciplinary research questions, that are useful within the context of current and future efforts to build digital national thesaurus resources as part of a cultural commonwealth. Data sets relating to the early modern history of medicinal plants in the Low Countries (i.e. 1550-1850) will be used as proof of concept. The research on semantic interoperability and historical research of therapeutic drugs will come together in TIME CAPSULE, in order to generate new perspectives on the circulation of botanical and medico-pharmaceutical knowledge in the early modern world.