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They say "No one else does what we do" while mentioning their interdisciplinary approach. They say that "The learning sciences field emerged more than two decades ago after researchers found that what worked in a laboratory simply did not hold up with real children, teachers, classrooms and workplaces. They saw that learning technologies, which held great promise for solving education's problems, were not being transferred to classrooms and schools. Cognitive scientists, educational and instructional psychologists, and computer scientists worked together to put their ideas and knowledge to use to improve the learning outcomes for a diverse group." The institute basically do two things: 1 - They identify the critical challenges in education, literacy, mathematics, science and the social sciences. 2- They work to find solutions. Their main aim is to create learning systems for 21st century classrooms thanks to interdisciplinary research in teaching and learning. They believe that learning is a complex process and so they get benefit from different disciplines (e.g. anthropology, computer science, education, linguistics, psychology and sociology) to share knowledge and best practices on education. At their another webpage, they define learning science as a science which "focuses on how to create new, improved and equitable learning environments for 21st century learners.". In order accomplish this, they focus on four questions: 1- How do people learn? 2- What do we want them to know and be able to do? 3- How can we design learning environments that help them learn? 4- How can we monitor what they are learning? They offer a Ph.D. program to raise future learning scientists.

There are many theories in this page that we should be interested in in this page as learning sciences students. An example of two groundbreaking research results in learning sciences is (1) Entwistle's Phenomenography theory This conceptual framework focuses on the experience of learning from the student's perspective and is based upon a phenomenological approach to research. Entwistle explains: "Our task is thus to describe more clearly how learning takes place in higher education and to point out how teaching and assessment affect the quality of learning. From these descriptions teachers should be able to draw their own lessons about how to facilitate their students' learning" (Marton, Hounsell & Entwistle, 1984, p.1). (2) Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory According to cognitive dissonance theory, there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. In the case of a discrepancy between attitudes and behavior, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behavior.

I am interested in social learning theory and this famous experiment can let us discuss this alternate view on learning in the classroom. Is it influential after 50 years?

Yes actually following this experiment, we know that it has been influential in education. But still today, it provides us with alternate views for our classrooms.

Canan, I think social learning theory will be alive until societies will die..:) Main concern of the theory is related to people who is living in the society. However we could not mention the social learning in online learning or distance education settings which is without interaction between learns and instruction. Interaction at least observation of someone leads revealing social learning in every settings.

Investing heavily in school computers and classroom technology does not improve pupils' performance, says a global study from the OECD. The think tank says frequent use of computers in schools is more likely to be associated with lower results. The OECD's education director Andreas Schleicher says school technology had raised "too many false hopes". These results worth to be disscussed. Shall we go back to traditional classrooms or continue with technology? If so, how should we use it in the classroom?

It is an important an overwhelming issue about how we integrate technology into education. A well-balanced implementation is required for successful instruction between the use of technology and traditional methods like paper-pencil activities (Hitt, 2011). We should not force technology and traditional instruments like paper-pencil and blackboards fight against themselves. We may play the role of negotiator between the technology and traditional methods.

Perhaps, we need to focus more on the pedagogy rather than the technology.

Here is the reminder of 12 different learning styles and how they intersect with Multiple Intelligences

The existence of learning styles is debatable if I am not mistaken or at least there are researchers arguing against categorizing learners according to these styles. Also there exists different categorizations for them. However it is also true that they are useful in the instruction process and teachers can make use of them if used effectively.

Yeah, I think most of the learning theories to some extent depend on or connect to the said learning styles such as problem-based learning, inquiry based learning or project-based learning. We cannot separate them from our instruction methods.

"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn." ― Benjamin Franklin In the area of adult learning, Ben Franklin turns out to be quite prescient.

That's true. Education is a social-emotional act. As I said in my personal learning theory, teaching humans is not like inserting lines of codes to series of robots to make them behave in a specific way. We all have emotions and our emotions to a specific event may not be same all the time as our point of views to an event are affected by our personal experiences, culture, philosophy, etc. In that sense, for a teacher, it is important to monitor students' feelings to a specific topic and to arrange learning environments in which students have positive feelings about a topic.

"Introduce failure into your learning design." something we appreciate less in our educational system.

I've watched the video twice and in the end I've felt some concerns about the results of the studies. In the "how people learn" part, researchers were testing the storage and connection system of the brain through some high-tech tools. However, does neuropsychology provide enough evidence on the functioning of the brains? Can we generalize the results to all people from all cultures? I am not the one who is against neuropsychology, but for me one discipline may not give an appropriate answer to such a deep question. My second concern is about the integration of computer programs into the curriculum as a major learning tool. We see a program where "Betty" is speaking and giving feedback on the video. The program seems user friendly, but what about the negative aspects and limitations of the integration of technology into learning? Ok, I agree that we have to adapt to the rapid technological changes in the society. However, is technology the key to all learning processes? Plus, the program is designed on the mapping of the concepts. Does concept mapping make a curriculum compelling all the time? I am not sure about all characteristics of the program, but if it hasn't been designed in a challenging style and if all students come up with the same products, then how will they develop their knowledge and reasoning abilities? I couldn't find an answer to that. As for the part "effective teaching", I am in the same opinion with the researchers that there should be a connection between the real world and the subject taught. Moreover, I think the integration of the disciplines is difficult but a very good way of giving meaning to life. Besides, in the video we see teachers as a guide, as a facilitator and there is no doubt that providing individual support to the students helps students feel more involved.

Firstly, even if it is designed by utilizing modern technology and different understanding, which makes it a more developed and complicated one, the program used in the video reminded me the teaching machines of old times. It gives the priority to the cognitive aspect of learning. This seems to be a one-dimensional approach which underestimates the social aspect of learning. I think the value of classroom interaction for effective learning cannot be replaced by any kind of computer programs. Research on brain is really important and it provides very useful insights for learning and instructional activities. However, it should be supported by the findings of research by social psychologists as well. The very same individual may perform at varying levels when he is taught with the same methods in different environments. I personally experienced many times that even the absence of one individual in my classes affected the teaching an learning processes in a negative or positive way depending upon the classroom dinamics.

There are many different factors investigated affecting students' mathematics learning before in the literature. However I had never read a research project about the instructional gestures supporting learning. It reveals that the gestures have a substantial role in comprehension. The results even shows that some studies triggers the learning even roughly twice.

This is quite interesting. I am curious to hear more about the results of this research.

Driscoll has research centers on learning, instructional theory, and educational semiotics. She is the author or co-author of eight textbooks and an edited research handbook in learning and instruction, and has published numerous articles in professional journals on learning and instruction theory. One of her books is Psychology of Learning for Instruction which also exists in our syllabus.

Theories, Models, and Frameworks of Learning for Educational Research and Practice. This knowledge base features learning theories, models, and frameworks that address how people learn. Each one is summarized and discussed in an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand format. This site is useful for students and scholars of various fields, including educational psychology, instructional design, digital media and learning, and more.

The video is very funny and it shows the importance of interest, motivation, self-esteem as well as prior knowledge in learning to me, what do you think?

Thank you for sharing this. Sheldon typically may have aimed to transfer what is written in the books or most probably imitated his teachers as this was the way he was instructed. I say so as the physics teacher at the high school I studied was instructing in the same way and this is why I could not learn physics and developed a kind of prejudice towards that subject matter. As I could not comprehend the abstract terms he was talking about I quitted:(

I think we usually experience such a thing. Teachers want to teach whatever they want without stopping, but they sometimes forget that not every students is very interested in the stuff :( an important thing to keep in mind.

This is the article which defines critical characteristics of situated learning enviroment. The authors used a lot of literature in the analysis part of the study. The purpose of this study was firstly, to identify critical characteristics of a situated learning environment from the extensive literature base on the subject; secondly, to operationalise the critical characteristics of a situated learning environment by designing a multimedia program which incorporated the identified characteristics; and thirdly, to investigate students' perceptions of their experiences using an multimedia package based on a situated learning framework. I think it will helpful us while we are searching for more articles on situated learning, because it has an extensive reference list.

Designing the instruction to make use of authenticity is very important as we discussed in the posts. Thank you Hatice for sharing this : )

Here is an interesting example how learning is practiced in social media. If you want to find out more about the theoretical background, google "Professor Sreenivasan".

Some of social media samples can be used during some spesific classes such as History, English, Biology and likewise. But as a Maths teacher, I do not believe that I can use it as a tool to teach a subject. However, I definately aggree that it is obviously a great thing to exchange new ideas, to make brain storms, to create a discussion platform and broaden ideas according to several perspectives.

I liked the idea of integrating social media into instruction. But the teacher or instructor should be extra careful and strategic as it may be risky. Such devices or technology are mostly to capture the attention of the students or to keep students engaged in the lesson. I still think that the magic is in the hands of the teacher to keep the students attention and ensure effective learning. It may be too much technological to use facebook or tweeter in each lesson, which constitutes a balance issue. The students need to be close to the books, pencils and notebooks, papers etc. The dose of social media should be arranged carefully and strategically.

We have heard some ideas or theories about better learning from our teachers during the school years. I had organized some science fairs during my past teaching years. However none of them was in the project settings. In this project students learn how to carry out a research about how we learn by reading and listening. In your opinion, which one results in more information retained, reading or listening?

1. The purpose of this paper is to share reflections of the three authors on the process of instructional design and implementation of blended learning for teachers' professional development (PD) in rural western Kenya. 2. There are for different reserach questions but one of them is caught my attention as we have the same problem in our country I think; How appropriate is blended learning for teachers in a rural setting? 3. The design-based research methodology in the study comprised a number of research methods. The methods included ethnographic observations, qualitative interviews, narratives and documentation of design artifacts