Group items tagged

When children are told to watch a television program not for fun but to learn something from it, their expenditure of mental effort rises dramatically, and with it, the quality of learning outcomes. [14] Quite clearly, children's differential perceptions of the media and of symbolic forms of representation ("pictures are realistic and hence require less mental effort than print") reflect the views of the social world around them. Where or when television is perceived as a serious medium (as was the case in Israel in the early days of television), processing capacities become mobilized, and much learning takes place. Not so when the medium is taken to be "just pictures." The socially held and communicated views of the media appear to affect the way children handle them, the depth with which they process their offerings, and thus what they actually learn from them.

Significantly, I and others have found that children often tend to handle a medium more on the basis of the general image they hold of it than on the basis of its particular offering or intrinsic attributes. Symbolic forms of representation that are perceived to duplicate reality closely (e.g., pictures) are taken to require no knowledge of authorship and no skill for processing.[12] Television, as a general rule, is perceived to be fun, simple, easy to understand, and generally useless. Comprehending televised content is perceived to require no brains, while failing to comprehend it is a sign of stupidity. On the other hand, print is generally perceived to be highly demanding, and success in comprehending a story in print is regarded as a matter of ability. Failing to comprehend print is expected because it is "tough." Do these differential perceptions make a difference in learning? Indeed, they do! In line with such perceptions, children do not expend much mental effort on a televised story, even when it is quite poetic and requires effort. Thus they learn far less from it than from an equivalent story in print. The largest and most impressive difference in responses is found in the more intelligent children, who mobilize their capacities to learn from the print story but forgo doing so when it comes to TV.[13]

Forms of Representation As Tools of the Mind Last, and perhaps most important, we need to ask whether the different symbolic forms of representation not only offer different meanings, require different mental capacities, and are differentially perceived, but also whether they leave some differential cognitive residue. That is, do they somehow affect the way we come to perceive or represent the world to ourselves? Do they affect our cognitive apparatus in some lasting way, thus coming to serve as tools of the mind?

Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? The question invites two standard replies. Some accept the demarcations of skin and skull, and say that what is outside the body is outside the mind. Others are impressed by arguments suggesting that the meaning of our words "just ain't in the head", and hold that this externalism about meaning carries over into an externalism about mind. We propose to pursue a third position. We advocate a very different sort of externalism: an active externalism, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes.

It is not just the presence of advanced external computing resources which raises the issue, but rather the general tendency of human reasoners to lean heavily on environmental supports. Thus consider the use of pen and paper to perform long multiplication (McClelland et al 1986, Clark 1989), the use of physical re-arrangements of letter tiles to prompt word recall in Scrabble (Kirsh 1995), the use of instruments such as the nautical slide rule (Hutchins 1995), and the general paraphernalia of language, books, diagrams, and culture. In all these cases the individual brain performs some operations, while others are delegated to manipulations of external media.

In these cases, the human organism is linked with an external entity in a two-way interaction, creating a coupled system that can be seen as a cognitive system in its own right. All the components in the system play an active causal role, and they jointly govern behavior in the same sort of way that cognition usually does. If we remove the external component the system's behavioral competence will drop, just as it would if we removed part of its brain. Our thesis is that this sort of coupled process counts equally well as a cognitive process, whether or not it is wholly in the head.

Toward a Theory of Online Learning

Terry Anderson Athabasca University

There is nothing more practical than a good theory. ~ James C. Maxwell (1831-1879)

Beyond Brainstorming: Sustained Creative Work With Ideas Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter

(1)The challenge in all knowledge-based organizations is sustained creativity: working with and developing ideas into powerful and useful processes, products, or theories(2). Coming up with the initial idea represents one small step; creative knowledge workers are able to make something of the idea. Developing a capacity for sustained creative work with ideas is a new challenge for education.

This is quite at variance with the norms of every knowledge-based enterprise. Whether in pure research or industry, ideas are always assumed to be improvable. It is assumed that every theory or design will eventually be replaced by a better one, and creative knowledge workers of all sorts strive to bring this about. The engineer who declares “I have designed the ultimate automobile; there can be no further improvements” would soon be out of a job, replaced by someone with ideas for improvement. If students are to feel at home in the Knowledge Society, they must learn to feel comfortable with the knowledge that their own ideas, no matter how satisfactory they may seem at present, are improvable – and that improving them is their job, not something that a teacher or mentor can be expected to do for them.

You might be looking for ways to refresh or update your bag of tricks.

Or perhaps you’re just curious to find out how technology tools can enhance your teaching and your students’ experience and engagement in your courses.

All of the tools are free as of this writing.

The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on. For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.

But individual learning is another matter, and psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.

The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding. “What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting,” said Dr. Bjork, the senior author of the two-room experiment.

To be honest, most of the time what I hear from teachers I automatically assumed to be true and would rarely question any of the material presented to me, until my most recent last several years of college….and quite frankly even now I often presume what I am being ‘told’ or ‘taught’ is true.

Even if the facilitator has effectively included motivation in their design, they will still need to successfully deliver this material.  If the delivery falls flat, then the design may not be reached as intended.

For some reason it is bothersome to me to read lengthy material on the web.  Maybe I have just taught myself this, but I do think there is some validity to the lack of actual reading that is taking place on the web.

I am personally amused by some of the materials that take an extreme stance that it is either a gift from the gods and answer to all life’s problems or the worst thing to ever happen to teaching.

I believe Carr’s article makes some good points but it goes too far. I imagine if it was a more balanced piece it would not have received as much commentary, hence the inflammatory headline.

Collaboration has never been easier and this hive mind mentality where we can pool all of our resources to create will become even more advanced as more people jump on board. Conversations involving people from all points of the globe will help foster new ideas and innovations and the Internet is the thing that makes it all possible.

I think that Frank did a wonderful job summarizing the article on Universal Learning Design.

I think that the following statement is important “UDL provides a vision for breaking the “one-size-fits-all” mold and therefore expands the opportunities for learning for all students with learning differences,”

Audio books are hit or miss for me.

I have located a few more articles on the subject that I found relevant to the issue.

3)Affective Networks-The “why” of learning. —How learners get engaged and stay motivated. How they are challenged, excited, or interested. These are affective dimensions.

I do not believe that UDL is the answer to everything, however I would say it will be a great tool and measuring stick to allow us to proceed effectively in the future.