Learning Sciences

Professor John Loughran of Monash University shares his ideas about how to become an expert teacher. Do you agree? What are your individual opinions about how to become an expert teacher? Metacognitive abilities? Ability of selecting among procedures?

Guess how many hours is needed to become an expert on yoga, celebrity gossip, knitting, science fiction, astrology or etc.?

This link have helped me to make a comparison of how many hours will it take to become an expert in different fields.

You can find a brief summary of how expert can be defined. I think this will helpful for your readings.

Is it valid for any kind of knowledge or subject area that expert learners follow some of those guidelines? Are there any previous ideas or "expertise" in such a field to learn as experts? Are expert learners use those learning styles in any topic even they do not have any particular idea about it?

CORVALLIS, Ore. - English learners are more likely to become proficient English speakers if they enter kindergarten with a strong initial grasp of academic language literacy, either in their primary language or in English, a new analysis from Oregon State University has found.

Even if someone would be an expert, the things that he can do have a boundary. Do not expect impossible thing from experts. this video is a good example for this.

The video is generally about what is situated learning theory, how it is occurred, what is the Community of Practice and its structural elements. In the video, it is explained that Lave and Wenger observed different populations that learning takes place in social situations with other people thus the situated learning theory was born.

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.

The curriculum of Concordia Language Villages immersion programs distinguishes itself by being designed on the following precepts. Students participate in a grand simulation that creates a purposeful 24/7 environment where participants engage in a community of learners. This setting, centered around community-based learning, creates a focused and supportive environment that facilitates learning from peers and mentors alike.

What is the Situated Learning Theory? Situated learning, simply put, is learning that takes place in the same context in which it is applied. It was first proposed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger as a model of learning in among group of people who share a craft and/or a profession, i.e., a community of practice.The basic tenet of the theory is that abstract knowledge usually given in the classroom is harder to retain.

A short funny video about situated learning. A teacher takes students to the supermarket so that they naturally learn basic subtraction in Math.

Situated cognition theory

I like this website; it gives the connection between situated learning and current educational necessities like modeling, scaffolding. In the class, these are expected from us and it really helps students visualize the target point. Thank you for sharing it with us.

A case study in situated learning

When situated learning theory (SLT) is investigated, it can be seen that most of the articles or documents mention learning by doing within an actual context. The first thing that comes to mind is the real world environment while someone mentions the SLT. What if we want to form a "legitimate peripheral participation" environment to learn a concept by the boundaries of online platforms? How can we design online platforms by using situated learning theory?

"Participation Learning becomes a social process dependent upon transactions with others. Learning is not separated from the world of action but exists in robust, complex, social environments made up of actors, actions, and situations. How to incorporate participation in online learning? *Create discussion boards to enable students to reflect socially *Encourage engagement in discussions and issues presented *Require students to present/defend their arguments in forums, discussion groups, bulletin boards *Encourage students to engage in critical reflection with other *Instructors should continually assess the growth of the student, and let the student know " These are the principles applied in our 542 course. We are experiencing situated cognition in progress.

In the video, students are learning and getting expertise concepts by engaging different activities. Through activities students make some research about the topic and teachers help them to get deeper knowledge about topic by asking questions. In the activities, the source of knowledge not only teachers but also students themselves. I mean, students also learn from each other. Moreover, teachers' role is guiding and helping students when they stuck on something.

My conclusions from this video are: for students to develop expertise, teachers should scaffold them. Teachers should question the students and make them articulate their ideas. Moreover teachers should teach students as teams formed from expert teachers.

The part of the teacher brain that detects student confusion was identified by fMRI

A sample of CSCL environment using a typewith.me

Thank you Murat hoca. This is a good example of CSCL environment.

A nice illustrative video on cooperative learning. It says there are five elements of true cooperative learning: 1. Face to face interaction 2. Positive interdependence 3. Individual accountability 4. Collaborative skills 5. Group processing. Face-to-face interaction does not necessary occur in physical environment. Phones or video-conferencing tools can be used in that process which leads to CSCL.

Fostering an effective discussion can be a challenging activity for an instructor in a face-to-face situation and can be even more challenging in an online setting. Here are some planning and facilitation strategies to help you to successfully implement collaborative online discussions into your own course.