Learning Events (learning + event)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


The Effect of Learning Experiences and Context on Infant Imitation and Generalization

INFANCY, Issue 6 2008
Emily J. H. Jones
Over the first years of life, infants gradually develop the ability to retrieve their memories across cue and contextual changes. Whereas maturational factors drive some of these developments in memory ability, experiences occurring within the learning event may also impact infants' ability to retrieve memories in new situations. In 2 experiments we examined whether it was possible to facilitate 12-month-old infants' generalization of learning in the deferred imitation paradigm by varying experiences before or during the demonstration session, or during the retention interval. In Experiment 1, altering the length, timing, or variability of training had no impact on generalization; infants showed a low, but consistent level of memory retrieval. In Experiment 2, infants who experienced a unique context for encoding and retrieval exhibited generalization; infants who experienced the context prior to the demonstration session, or during the retention interval, did not. Specificity is a robust feature of infant memory and is not substantially altered by encoding experiences in an observational learning paradigm. Previous history with a learning environment can, however, impact the flexibility of memory retrieval. [source]


School Art Education: Mourning the Past and Opening a Future

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ART & DESIGN EDUCATION, Issue 1 2006
Dennis Atkinson
This article begins with a brief summary of the findings of a recent research project that surveyed the content of the art curriculum in a selection of English secondary schools. The research findings suggest a particular construction of pedagogised subjects and objects rooted in ideas of technical ability and skill underpinned by a transmission model of teaching and learning. Drawing upon psychoanalytic and social theory reasons for passionate attachments to such curriculum identities are proposed, when in the wider world of art practice such identities were abandoned long ago. Working with the notion of the subordination of teaching to learning and the difficulties of initiating curriculum practices within increasingly complex social contexts, the article argues for learning through art to be viewed as a productive practice of meaning-making within the life-worlds of students. The term, ,encounters of learning' is employed to sketch a pedagogical quest in which an ethics of learning remains faithful to the truth of the learning event for the student. [source]


Crossing complex boundaries: transnational online education in European trade unions

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING, Issue 5 2005
S. Walker
Abstract Collaboration across boundaries in work and learning is increasingly a feature of networked organisation. We present a framework for analysing learning events as encounters across multiple boundaries of differing types, significance, role and severity. These boundaries may provide either/both obstacles to, and opportunities for, learning. Tutors and learners may negotiate these various boundaries with a variety of digital practices and artefacts. We apply this provisional framework of boundaries, artefacts and practices to the case of transnational trade union education, in which tutors and course participants negotiate a complex mix of boundaries. We identify ways in which practices and tools can have consequences for multiple boundaries and conclude that this approach provides a way to unpack some of the complexity of interactions in transnational learning situations and offers a framework to identify effective tools and practices. [source]


The quality of questions and use of resources in self-directed learning: Personal learning projects in the maintenance of certification

THE JOURNAL OF CONTINUING EDUCATION IN THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS, Issue 2 2009
T. Horsley PhD
Abstract Introduction: To engage effectively and efficiently in self-directed learning and knowledge-seeking practices, it is important that physicians construct well-formulated questions; yet, little is known about the quality of good questions and their relationship to self-directed learning or to change in practice behavior. Methods: Personal learning projects (PLPs) submitted to the Canadian Maintenance of Certification program were examined to include underlying characteristics, quality of therapeutic questions (population, intervention, comparator, outcome [PICO] mnemonic), and relationships between stage of change and level of evidence used to resolve questions. Results: We assessed 1989 submissions (from 559 Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada [RCPSC]). The majority of submissions were by males (69.2%) aged 40,59 (59.4%) with an average of 24.3 (range 6,58, SD 11.1) years since graduation. The most frequent submissions were treatment (36.6%) and diagnosis (22.3%) questions. Half of all questions described ,2 components (PICO), and only 3.7% of questions included all 4 components. Cross tabulations indicated only 1 significant trend for the use of narrative reviews and the outcome "integrating new knowledge' (P < .000). Discussion: Self-directed learning skills comprise an important strategy for specialists maintaining or expanding their expertise in patient care, but an important obstacle to answering patient care questions is the ability to formulate good ones. Engagement in most major learning activities is stimulated by management of a single patient: formal accredited group learning events are of limited value in starting episodes of self-directed learning. Low levels of evidence used to address learning projects. Future research should determine how best to improve the quality of questions submitted and whether or not these changes result in increased efficiencies, more appropriate uses of evidence, and increased changes in practice behaviors. [source]


Optimising learning using flashcards: Spacing is more effective than cramming

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 9 2009
Nate Kornell
The spacing effect,that is, the benefit of spacing learning events apart rather than massing them together,has been demonstrated in hundreds of experiments, but is not well known to educators or learners. I investigated the spacing effect in the realistic context of flashcard use. Learners often divide flashcards into relatively small stacks, but compared to a large stack, small stacks decrease the spacing between study trials. In three experiments, participants used a web-based study programme to learn GRE-type word pairs. Studying one large stack of flashcards (i.e. spacing) was more effective than studying four smaller stacks of flashcards separately (i.e. massing). Spacing was also more effective than cramming,that is, massing study on the last day before the test. Across experiments, spacing was more effective than massing for 90% of the participants, yet after the first study session, 72% of the participants believed that massing had been more effective than spacing. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Electrifying diagrams for learning: principles for complex representational systems

COGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 6 2002
Peter C.-H.
Abstract Six characteristics of effective representational systems for conceptual learning in complex domains have been identified. Such representations should: (1) integrate levels of abstraction; (2) combine globally homogeneous with locally heterogeneous representation of concepts; (3) integrate alternative perspectives of the domain; (4) support malleable manipulation of expressions; (5) possess compact procedures; and (6) have uniform procedures. The characteristics were discovered by analysing and evaluating a novel diagrammatic representation that has been invented to support students' comprehension of electricity,AVOW diagrams (Amps, Volts, Ohms, Watts). A task analysis is presented that demonstrates that problem solving using a conventional algebraic approach demands more effort than AVOW diagrams. In an experiment comparing two groups of learners using the alternative approaches, the group using AVOW diagrams learned more than the group using equations and were better able to solve complex transfer problems and questions involving multiple constraints. Analysis of verbal protocols and work scratchings showed that the AVOW diagram group, in contrast to the equations group, acquired a coherently organised network of concepts, learnt effective problem solving procedures, and experienced more positive learning events. The six principles of effective representations were proposed on the basis of these findings. AVOW diagrams are Law Encoding Diagrams, a general class of representations that have been shown to support learning in other scientific domains. [source]