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When I read about situated cognition, I saw that cognitive constructivism, social constructivism and situated cognition are the same in manner that all reject objectivist point of view to teaching. However, since they are three different theories, I wonder what makes them different from each other.  I encountered this article in which differences are well emphasized. According to the article: Cognitive constructivism says that people learn by building on their previous experiences with the environment. Since individuals have different history of experiences, same type of didactic teaching is not effective. Cognitive constructivism focuses on mainly individual. Social constructivism purports that knowledge are co-constructed by members of groups from different cultural backgrounds and learning environments should foster collaborative learning. Social constructivism mainly focuses on groups rather than individuals. Situated cognition, on the other hand, suggests that regardless of the fact that concepts are handled as individuals or as groups, if those concepts are not taught within their actual-natural context, learning of those concepts are meaningless and inert. Situated cognition mainly focuses on the context.

In the video, learning experiences are claimed to be the similar to roller coaster ride. Learners have control over their own learning process. In the very first place, they begin with participating in the learning experience to reach the ultimate goals. Before accomplishing the ultimate ones, they have short term goals as well. Then, their power to learn is directly related to their own motivation to learn. They need initial motivation to go further. But, how much motivation they need to accomplish reaching the ultimate goals is the question to be asked at this point. While learning process, learners use their motivation and at some point, they lose some of their motivation. So, they need to increase the amount of effort put into their learning. As they put more effort into learning, they are more likely to reach the ultimate goals. As they exert enough effort to reach them, they experience satisfaction and they feel that high achieving something by their own motivation and effort. Then, the results can be satisfactory and increase their motivation to learn again. After they accomplish one of the sub-goals, they can use their experiences and awareness to prepare themselves to reach the next one. For the next one, they need more motivation and effort to learn, and they repeat the learning motivation cycle as described in the video with roller coaster ride.

I loved this video. I remembered my first year of master as I was watching the first loop of roller coaster. I felt that last semester was the most challenging period of my life. I had too much to do. Even I felt like I would fail sometime, I never gave up and at the end of the semester I was very proud of me. Now I say if I overcame last semester's challenge, I can overcome everything. That first loop is really important to carry you to the future goals. Thanks a lot for sharing the video :))

This video is a good example of the importance of having learning goals to be motivated as you also emphasized in the forum. I also liked the phrase "Your future self depends on your present self"

Assessment of CSCL One of the messy part of CSCL is its assessment. It involves multiple processes and outcomes at multiple levels by multiple agents. This paper provides a roadmap for the role and application of intelligent tools for monitoring and assessment of (CS)CL.

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.

Mostly probably all of you are familiar with Dyned. It is an interactive software for learning English and it is a quite good innovation in the field of computer assisted language learning. It is tired to be used in the public schools and Turkish Ministry of Education supports this.

So perhaps, "motivation" is an important issue to consider with cognitive tutors. Let's cover some of the motivational aspects of cognitive tutors and intelligent tutoring systems in class.

I think when sts are first introduced with such programs, they display high motivation. They are eager to find the secrets of the program. However, as time passes and as they get used to the style of the program, their motivation decreases since there are no secrets anymore. Therefore, in my opinion, to keep their motivation at its highest level, each module (if it's modular) should introduce new ways of learning.

They arrange activities in the forest to boost children's creativity, and develop and manage their social and physical skills.

Children learn to manage the risk! It is very important for us as humans surviving through nature. Therefore it sounds good because it contains decision making as well. However preparing such an environments can be so much risky!! Preparation and implementation should be carried carefully.

Many of the approaches implemented in Nordic countries focus on child's development as a responsible individual of himself/herself and of the environment. This is a great example that connects children to nature.

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

Turkey has been undergoing education reforms because of the same reason" ..the current system was designed and conceived for a different age..." Do you think the reformed curricula meet the requirements of 21st century? I think wee need to reform the minds of people who are designing the curricula in this country...

It is like imitating other countries and take their education systems for granted rathr than reforming. Whatever it is, the education systems not only in East but also in some parts of west are based on social efficiency theory and students are conceived as to-be-workers. Self-actualization and intellectual development are not even in the secondary place.

as it is mentioned in the video, our educattion system also kill the creativity of the students and cause them to behave like robots.I think we loose huge amont of potential to produce artistic, scientific and tecnological productions.

Dr Kalyuga is a Professor at the School of Education, the University of New South Wales, where he has worked since 1995. His research interests are in cognitive processes in learning, cognitive load theory, and evidence-based instructional design principles. His specific contributions include detailed experimental studies of the role of learner prior knowledge in learning (expertise reversal effect); the redundancy effect in multimedia learning; the development of rapid online diagnostic assessment methods; and studies of the effectiveness of different adaptive procedures for tailoring instruction to levels of learner expertise

We spook about Mishra in class and Evrim Hoca gave some information about him. .
Punya Mishra is a professor of educational technology and director of the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program. He is nationally and internationally recognized for his work on the theoretical, cognitive and social aspects related to the design and use of computer-based learning environments. He has worked extensively in the area of technology integration in teacher education which led to the development (in collaboration with M. J. Koehler) of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, which has been described as "the most significant advancement in the area of technology integration in the past 25 years." He has received over $4 million in grants, published over 45 articles and book chapters and edited two books. Dr. Mishra is an award-winning instructor who teaches courses at both the masters and doctoral levels in the areas of educational technology, design and creativity. He is a gifted, creative and engaging public speaker, having made multiple keynote and invited presentations for associations and conferences nationally and internationally.
My dream is to work with him and Ann Thompson and also taking TPACK badge.:)

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 : )

This study is the latest one, to my knowledge, conducted in English language teaching field in Turkey in terms of TPACK. I do not think that this study is a powerful one because it fails to provide a vivid picture in terms of preservice EFL teachers' TPACK competencies. Nevertheless, it is a fresh one, it has been conducted in our country and it explores my target population's competencies: preservice EFL teachers. :) By the way, you can have an access to the full text through METUnique search. You're welcome. :)

"The results of the research suggest that males' technological knowledge was higher than females; however, females were better than males in pedagogical knowledge. Moreover, no significant difference was found between TPACK mean and academic achievement in terms of the correlation between TPACK scale and academic achievement of the participants". WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS MY FRIEND :)

At first glance, yes, you are the champions :), but this is only one study and it is conducted with a certain group of people. We don't know what kind of results we'll have with a different group. This means I expect you to show more evidences in favor of your "champion" title :).

This article contrasts and compares analytic approaches to common problems at two comparable institutions. In keeping with this intent, it features complementary sets of issues focusing on recruitment and related issues at UMES and retention at BSU. UMES does extend its efforts into student retention, though the details are not explicated in the article. Additionally, UMES is implementing the retention-focused aspects of Starfish Early Alert as BSU has done. Still, there are differences in approach: UMES relies primarily on the flag-centered model, while BSU relies on the student-centered model for interventions. Both institutions have integrated commercial products for data collection, analysis, and response, but BSU has invested in a locally developed analytic engine, while UMES has repurposed an investment in Microsoft's Performance Point to support collection and analysis. Use of analytics in support of student retention and success is increasingly strategic to UMES and BSU. In an effort to improve access to higher education for minority and economically disadvantaged students, who often have educational deficiencies, both universities have reached out to many at-risk students. The institutions feel an obligation to assure that these students succeed. Analytics provides an important, and previously underutilized, tool set for the institutions to achieve this. These issues are increasingly common in higher education, and the approaches taken should be broadly applicable.

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.

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. In her TEDxJacksonville talk, she vividly depicts the incalculable value of memory and movement, and the devastating biological effects of these diseases on the brain. She also details recent advances in computing technology that may help elucidate treatment targets for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. "We are now building revolutionary computer simulations of neurons," she explains, "so we can have better insight into the molecular behaviors of neural cells so we can see a play-by-play of the interworking of neurons rather than static pictures frozen in time."

"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.

Coursera is one of the best platforms for computer supported collaborative learning. There are numerous classes from the top universities in the world, and the expansion of these classes are run through discussions in class forums. Lots of people get together to create projects and share them with their peers.

Although online courses has some disadvantages, that platform is beyond online courses I think because it allow followers interaction instead of just slides or videos. Also I do not remember the exact details but when that platform was founded, the demand for one course was over the expected and the system was broken. Then, the same lesson began to be given as formal education and at all users who completed the course with 100 points are the ones who take the course online.

Coursera was suggested me to improve my academic speaking skills by my adviser so I have a coursera account :) There are presentations, online courses, online exams and homework etc. Also, you can get a certificate that is valid international after completing the course successfully. Unfortunately, I did not benefit from it because the price of the course was too high, therefore I gave up the course.