Do individual differences in children's curiosity relate to their inquiry-based learning?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Schijndel, Tessa J. P.; Jansen, Brenda R. J.; Raijmakers, Maartje E. J.

2018-06-01

This study investigates how individual differences in 7- to 9-year-olds' curiosity relate to the inquiry-learning process and outcomes in environments differing in structure. The focus on curiosity as individual differences variable was motivated by the importance of curiosity in science education, and uncertainty being central to both the definition of curiosity and the inquiry-learning environment. Curiosity was assessed with the Underwater Exploration game (Jirout, J., & Klahr, D. (2012). Children's scientific curiosity: In search of an operational definition of an elusive concept. Developmental Review, 32, 125-160. doi:10.1016/j.dr.2012.04.002), and inquiry-based learning with the newly developed Scientific Discovery task, which focuses on the principle of designing informative experiments. Structure of the inquiry-learning environment was manipulated by explaining this principle or not. As intelligence relates to learning and possibly curiosity, it was taken into account. Results showed that children's curiosity was positively related to their knowledge acquisition, but not to their quality of exploration. For low intelligent children, environment structure positively affected their quality of exploration, but not their knowledge acquisition. There was no interaction between curiosity and environment structure. These results support the existence of two distinct inquiry-based learning processes - the designing of experiments, on the one hand, and the reflection on performed experiments, on the other - and link children's curiosity to the latter process.

Learner Self-Regulation and Web 2.0 Tools Management in Personal Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yen, Cherng-Jyh; Tu, Chih-Hsiung; Sujo-Montes, Laura E.; Armfield, Shadow W. J.; Chan, Junn-Yih

2013-01-01

Web 2.0 technology integration requires a higher level of self-regulated learning skills to create a Personal Learning Environment (PLE). This study examined each of the four aspects of learner self-regulation in online learning (i.e., environment structuring, goal setting, time management, & task strategies) as the predictor for level of…

Theoretical Foundations for Enhancing Social Connectedness in Online Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Slagter van Tryon, Patricia J.; Bishop, M. J.

2009-01-01

Group social structure provides a comfortable and predictable context for interaction in learning environments. Students in face-to-face learning environments process social information about others in order to assess traits, predict behaviors, and determine qualifications for assuming particular responsibilities within a group. In online learning…

Defining a Set of Architectural Requirements for Service-Oriented Mobile Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Filho, Nemésio Freitas Duarte; Barbosa, Ellen Francine

2014-01-01

Even providing several benefits and facilities with regard to teaching and learning, mobile learning environments present problems and challenges that must be investigated, especially with respect to the definition and standardization of architectural aspects. Most of these environments are still built in isolation, with particular structures and…

The Ecology of Learning: A Comparison of Alternative Elementary School Learning Environments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoaglund, Mary; And Others

This paper is the first-year report of a three-year project in Edina, Minnesota, developing a system for measuring differences among classroom environments and organizational patterns. Dimensions measured include teacher preferences for classroom structure, student perceptions of learning environments and classmate behavior, student attitudes,…

Learning to Learn about Uncertain Feedback

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Faraut, Mailys C. M.; Procyk, Emmanuel; Wilson, Charles R. E.

2016-01-01

Unexpected outcomes can reflect noise in the environment or a change in the current rules. We should ignore noise but shift strategy after rule changes. How we learn to do this is unclear, but one possibility is that it relies on learning to learn in uncertain environments. We propose that acquisition of latent task structure during learning to…

Learning predictive statistics from temporal sequences: Dynamics and strategies

PubMed Central

Wang, Rui; Shen, Yuan; Tino, Peter; Welchman, Andrew E.; Kourtzi, Zoe

2017-01-01

Human behavior is guided by our expectations about the future. Often, we make predictions by monitoring how event sequences unfold, even though such sequences may appear incomprehensible. Event structures in the natural environment typically vary in complexity, from simple repetition to complex probabilistic combinations. How do we learn these structures? Here we investigate the dynamics of structure learning by tracking human responses to temporal sequences that change in structure unbeknownst to the participants. Participants were asked to predict the upcoming item following a probabilistic sequence of symbols. Using a Markov process, we created a family of sequences, from simple frequency statistics (e.g., some symbols are more probable than others) to context-based statistics (e.g., symbol probability is contingent on preceding symbols). We demonstrate the dynamics with which individuals adapt to changes in the environment's statistics—that is, they extract the behaviorally relevant structures to make predictions about upcoming events. Further, we show that this structure learning relates to individual decision strategy; faster learning of complex structures relates to selection of the most probable outcome in a given context (maximizing) rather than matching of the exact sequence statistics. Our findings provide evidence for alternate routes to learning of behaviorally relevant statistics that facilitate our ability to predict future events in variable environments. PMID:28973111

Learning predictive statistics from temporal sequences: Dynamics and strategies.

PubMed

Wang, Rui; Shen, Yuan; Tino, Peter; Welchman, Andrew E; Kourtzi, Zoe

2017-10-01

Human behavior is guided by our expectations about the future. Often, we make predictions by monitoring how event sequences unfold, even though such sequences may appear incomprehensible. Event structures in the natural environment typically vary in complexity, from simple repetition to complex probabilistic combinations. How do we learn these structures? Here we investigate the dynamics of structure learning by tracking human responses to temporal sequences that change in structure unbeknownst to the participants. Participants were asked to predict the upcoming item following a probabilistic sequence of symbols. Using a Markov process, we created a family of sequences, from simple frequency statistics (e.g., some symbols are more probable than others) to context-based statistics (e.g., symbol probability is contingent on preceding symbols). We demonstrate the dynamics with which individuals adapt to changes in the environment's statistics-that is, they extract the behaviorally relevant structures to make predictions about upcoming events. Further, we show that this structure learning relates to individual decision strategy; faster learning of complex structures relates to selection of the most probable outcome in a given context (maximizing) rather than matching of the exact sequence statistics. Our findings provide evidence for alternate routes to learning of behaviorally relevant statistics that facilitate our ability to predict future events in variable environments.

Examining Metacognitive Processes in Exploratory Computer-Based Learning Environments Using Activity Log Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Yoo Kyung

2010-01-01

Metacognition is widely studied for its influence on the effectiveness of learning. With Exploratory Computer-Based Learning Environments (ECBLE), metacognition is found to be especially important because these environments require adaptive metacognitive control by the learners due to their open-ended structure that allows for multiple learning…

Putting Structure to Flipped Classrooms Using Team-Based Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jakobsen, Krisztina V.; Knetemann, Megan

2017-01-01

Current educational practices and cognitive-developmental theories emphasize the importance of active participation in the learning environment, and they suggest that the first, and arguably most important, step to creating a better learning environment is to make learning an active and reciprocal process. Flipped classrooms, in which students…

The Effects of Student Engagement, Student Satisfaction, and Perceived Learning in Online Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gray, Julie A.; DiLoreto, Melanie

2016-01-01

Studies have shown that course organization and structure, student engagement, learner interaction, and instructor presence have accounted for considerable variance in student satisfaction and perceived learning in online learning environments through a range of pathways, although no research to date has tested the mediational relationship…

Designing Science Learning in the First Years of Schooling. An Intervention Study with Sequenced Learning Material on the Topic of "Floating and Sinking"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leuchter, Miriam; Saalbach, Henrik; Hardy, Ilonca

2014-01-01

Research on learning and instruction of science has shown that learning environments applied in preschool and primary school rarely makes use of structured learning materials in problem-based environments although these are decisive quality features for promoting conceptual change and scientific reasoning within early science learning. We thus…

Design of Learning Spaces: Emotional and Cognitive Effects of Learning Environments in Relation to Child Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arndt, Petra A.

2012-01-01

The design of learning spaces is rightly gaining more and more pedagogical attention, as they influence the learning climate and learning results in multiple ways. General structural characteristics influence the willingness to learn through emotional well-being and a sense of security. Specific structural characteristics influence cognitive…

Technically Speaking: Transforming Language Learning through Virtual Learning Environments (MOOs).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

von der Emde, Silke; Schneider, Jeffrey; Kotter, Markus

2001-01-01

Draws on experiences from a 7-week exchange between students learning German at an American college and advanced students of English at a German university. Maps out the benefits to using a MOO (multiple user domains object-oriented) for language learning: a student-centered learning environment structured by such objectives as peer teaching,…

Galileo Educational Network: Creating, Researching, and Supporting 21st Century Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Friesen, Sharon

2009-01-01

School and classroom structures designed to meet the needs of the industrial past cannot "maintain the temperature required for sustaining life." Recent learning sciences research findings compel educators to invent new learning environments better suited to meet the demands of the 21st century. These new learning environments require…

Dialogue and Structure: Enabling Learner Self-Regulation in Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Andrade, Maureen Snow

2014-01-01

Distance learning that incorporates technology-enhanced learning environments provides a solution to the ever-increasing global demand for higher education. To be successful in these contexts, learners must be self-regulated, or have the ability to control the factors affecting their learning. Based on the theories of transactional distance,…

Applying Adaptive Swarm Intelligence Technology with Structuration in Web-Based Collaborative Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Yueh-Min; Liu, Chien-Hung

2009-01-01

One of the key challenges in the promotion of web-based learning is the development of effective collaborative learning environments. We posit that the structuration process strongly influences the effectiveness of technology used in web-based collaborative learning activities. In this paper, we propose an ant swarm collaborative learning (ASCL)…

Relationship between Online Learning Readiness and Structure and Interaction of Online Learning Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Demir Kaymak, Zeliha; Horzum, Mehmet Baris

2013-01-01

Current study tried to determine whether a relationship exists between readiness levels of the online learning students for online learning and the perceived structure and interaction in online learning environments. In the study, cross sectional survey model was used. The study was conducted with 320 voluntary students studying online learning…

Factors Affecting Study-Related Burnout among Finnish University Students: Teaching-Learning Environment, Achievement Motivation and the Meaning of Life

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meriläinen, Matti

2014-01-01

This study of a large sample (n = 3035) examined relationships between study-related burnout and components of the teaching-learning environment, achievement motivation and the perceived meaning of life. The overall model, tested with structural equation modelling, revealed that the factor of the teaching-learning environment correlated with both…

Role of Social Presence and Cognitive Absorption in Online Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leong, Peter

2011-01-01

This article investigates the relationships between social presence, cognitive absorption, interest, and student satisfaction in online learning. A hypothesized structural equation model was developed to study these critical variables that may influence interaction in online learning environments. Contrary to expectations, the study determined…

Maker Culture and "Minecraft": Implications for the Future of Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Niemeyer, Dodie J.; Gerber, Hannah R.

2015-01-01

Collaborative learning environments found with gaming communities can provide excellent structures to study the way that learners act within informal learning environments. For example, many of these gaming communities encourage gamers to create videogames and virtual world walkthroughs and commentaries. Walkthroughs and commentaries provide…

PLATE: Powerful Learning and Teaching Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Housand, Angela

2009-01-01

The environment has a profound effect on the ability of students to regulate their behavior or disposition and effectively engage in the learning processes. Active engagement is important because it increases performance. Certain types of environmental structures actually increase students' ability to be agents of their own learning. These…

Structured Learning Teams: Reimagining Student Group Work

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lendvay, Gregory C.

2014-01-01

Even in a standards-based curriculum, teachers can apply constructivist practices such as structured learning teams. In this environment, students become invested in the learning aims, triggering the desire in students to awaken, get information, interpret, remix, share, and design scenarios.

Statistical learning and language acquisition

PubMed Central

Romberg, Alexa R.; Saffran, Jenny R.

2011-01-01

Human learners, including infants, are highly sensitive to structure in their environment. Statistical learning refers to the process of extracting this structure. A major question in language acquisition in the past few decades has been the extent to which infants use statistical learning mechanisms to acquire their native language. There have been many demonstrations showing infants’ ability to extract structures in linguistic input, such as the transitional probability between adjacent elements. This paper reviews current research on how statistical learning contributes to language acquisition. Current research is extending the initial findings of infants’ sensitivity to basic statistical information in many different directions, including investigating how infants represent regularities, learn about different levels of language, and integrate information across situations. These current directions emphasize studying statistical language learning in context: within language, within the infant learner, and within the environment as a whole. PMID:21666883

Analytic Frameworks for Assessing Dialogic Argumentation in Online Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clark, Douglas B; Sampson, Victor; Weinberger, Armin; Erkens, Gijsbert

2007-01-01

Over the last decade, researchers have developed sophisticated online learning environments to support students engaging in dialogic argumentation. This review examines five categories of analytic frameworks for measuring participant interactions within these environments focusing on (1) formal argumentation structure, (2) conceptual quality, (3)…

jAMVLE, a New Integrated Molecular Visualization Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bottomley, Steven; Chandler, David; Morgan, Eleanor; Helmerhorst, Erik

2006-01-01

A new computer-based molecular visualization tool has been developed for teaching, and learning, molecular structure. This java-based jmol Amalgamated Molecular Visualization Learning Environment (jAMVLE) is platform-independent, integrated, and interactive. It has an overall graphical user interface that is intuitive and easy to use. The…

Learning to Cook: Production Learning Environment in Kitchens

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

James, Susan

2006-01-01

Learning in workplaces is neither ad hoc nor informal. Such labels are a misnomer and do not do justice to the highly-structured nature and complexity of many workplaces where learning takes place. This article discusses the organisational and structural framework developed from a three-year doctoral study into how apprentice chefs construct their…

Testing Two Path Models to Explore Relationships between Students' Experiences of the Teaching-Learning Environment, Approaches to Learning and Academic Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karagiannopoulou, Evangelia; Milienos, Fotios S.

2015-01-01

The study explores the relationships between students' experiences of the teaching-learning environment and their approaches to learning, and the effects of these variables on academic achievement. Two three-stage models were tested with structural equation modelling techniques. The "Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students"…

Associations between the Classroom Learning Environment and Student Engagement in Learning 2: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harbaugh, Allen G.; Cavanagh, Robert F.

2012-01-01

This report is about the second of two phases in an investigation into associations between student engagement in classroom learning and the classroom-learning environment. Whereas the first phase utilized Rasch modelling (Cavanagh, 2012), this report uses latent variable modelling to explore the data. The investigations in both phases of this…

Investigation of learning environment for arithmetic word problems by problem posing as sentence integration in Indonesian language

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hasanah, N.; Hayashi, Y.; Hirashima, T.

2017-02-01

Arithmetic word problems remain one of the most difficult area of teaching mathematics. Learning by problem posing has been suggested as an effective way to improve students’ understanding. However, the practice in usual classroom is difficult due to extra time needed for assessment and giving feedback to students’ posed problems. To address this issue, we have developed a tablet PC software named Monsakun for learning by posing arithmetic word problems based on Triplet Structure Model. It uses the mechanism of sentence-integration, an efficient implementation of problem-posing that enables agent-assessment of posed problems. The learning environment has been used in actual Japanese elementary school classrooms and the effectiveness has been confirmed in previous researches. In this study, ten Indonesian elementary school students living in Japan participated in a learning session of problem posing using Monsakun in Indonesian language. We analyzed their learning activities and show that students were able to interact with the structure of simple word problem using this learning environment. The results of data analysis and questionnaire suggested that the use of Monsakun provides a way of creating an interactive and fun environment for learning by problem posing for Indonesian elementary school students.

Embellishing Problem-Solving Examples with Deep Structure Information Facilitates Transfer

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Hee Seung; Betts, Shawn; Anderson, John R.

2017-01-01

Appreciation of problem structure is critical to successful learning. Two experiments investigated effective ways of communicating problem structure in a computer-based learning environment and tested whether verbal instruction is necessary to specify solution steps, when deep structure is already embellished by instructional examples.…

Structure Learning in Bayesian Sensorimotor Integration

PubMed Central

Genewein, Tim; Hez, Eduard; Razzaghpanah, Zeynab; Braun, Daniel A.

2015-01-01

Previous studies have shown that sensorimotor processing can often be described by Bayesian learning, in particular the integration of prior and feedback information depending on its degree of reliability. Here we test the hypothesis that the integration process itself can be tuned to the statistical structure of the environment. We exposed human participants to a reaching task in a three-dimensional virtual reality environment where we could displace the visual feedback of their hand position in a two dimensional plane. When introducing statistical structure between the two dimensions of the displacement, we found that over the course of several days participants adapted their feedback integration process in order to exploit this structure for performance improvement. In control experiments we found that this adaptation process critically depended on performance feedback and could not be induced by verbal instructions. Our results suggest that structural learning is an important meta-learning component of Bayesian sensorimotor integration. PMID:26305797

Changing Paradigms Managed Learning Environments and Web 2.0

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Craig, Emory M.

2007-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how emerging technologies and Web 2.0 services are transforming the structure of the web and their potential impact on managed learning environments (MLS) and learning content management systems (LCMS). Design/methodology/approach: Innovative Web 2.0 applications are reviewed in the paper to…

Structural Relationships of Environments, Individuals, and Learning Outcomes in Korean Online University Settings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lim, Keol; Kang, Minseok; Park, Sung Youl

2016-01-01

This study examines relationships of instructional environments, learner traits, and learning outcomes in the context of an online university course in Korea which has an advanced information technology background and rich e-learning experiences. However, the educational heritage of the country adheres to directive instruction with little…

The Design of Immersive English Learning Environment Using Augmented Reality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Kuo-Chen; Chen, Cheng-Ting; Cheng, Shein-Yung; Tsai, Chung-Wei

2016-01-01

The study uses augmented reality (AR) technology to integrate virtual objects into the real learning environment for language learning. The English AR classroom is constructed using the system prototyping method and evaluated by semi-structured in-depth interviews. According to the flow theory by Csikszenmihalyi in 1975 along with the immersive…

Collaborative Blended Learning Writing Environment: Effects on EFL Students' Writing Apprehension and Writing Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Challob, Ala'a Ismael; Bakar, Nadzrah Abu; Latif, Hafizah

2016-01-01

This study examined the effects of collaborative blended learning writing environment on students' writing apprehension and writing performance as perceived by a selected group of EFL students enrolled in one of the international schools in Malaysia. Qualitative case study method was employed using semi-structured interview, learning diaries and…

Model of Distributed Learning Objects Repository for a Heterogenic Internet Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaczmarek, Jerzy; Landowska, Agnieszka

2006-01-01

In this article, an extension of the existing structure of learning objects is described. The solution addresses the problem of the access and discovery of educational resources in the distributed Internet environment. An overview of e-learning standards, reference models, and problems with educational resources delivery is presented. The paper…

The Mantis Project.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Palopoli, Maria L.

1998-01-01

Explains an integrated insect unit in which students learn about the characteristics, life cycle, and environment of an organism; learn about specific body structures; and make inferences about the body structure and behaviors of the insects. (DDR)

Influence of Learning Styles on Social Structures in Online Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cela, Karina; Sicilia, Miguel-Ángel; Sánchez-Alonso, Salvador

2016-01-01

In e-learning settings, the interactions of students with one another, with the course content and with the instructors generate a considerable amount of information that may be useful for understanding how people learn online. The objective of the present research was to use social network analysis to explore the social structure of an e-learning…

The Impact of Control Belief and Learning Disorientation on Cognitive Load: The Mediating Effect of Academic Emotions in Two Types of Hypermedia Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sunawan; Xiong, Junmei

2017-01-01

The present study tested the influence of control belief, learning disorientation, and academic emotions on cognitive load in two types of concept-map structures within hypermedia learning environment. Four hundred and eighty-five students were randomly assigned to two groups: 245 students in the hierarchical group and 240 students in the…

Influence of Psychosocial Classroom Environment on Students' Motivation and Self-Regulation in Science Learning: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Velayutham, Sunitadevi; Aldridge, Jill M.

2013-01-01

The primary aim of this study was two-fold: 1) to identify salient psychosocial features of the classroom environment that influence students' motivation and self-regulation in science learning; and 2) to examine the effect of the motivational constructs of learning goal orientation, science task value and self-efficacy in science learning on…

Perception of and satisfaction with the clinical learning environment among nursing students.

PubMed

D'Souza, Melba Sheila; Karkada, Subrahmanya Nairy; Parahoo, Kader; Venkatesaperumal, Ramesh

2015-06-01

Clinical nursing education provides baccalaureate nursing students an opportunity to combine cognitive, psychomotor, and affective skills in the Middle East. The aim of the paper is to assess the satisfaction with and effectiveness of the clinical learning environment among nursing students in Oman. A cross-sectional descriptive design was used. A convenience sample consisting of 310 undergraduate nursing students was selected in a public school of nursing in Oman. Ethical approval was obtained from the Research and Ethics Committee, College of Nursing in 2011. A standardized, structured, validated and reliable Clinical Learning Environment Supervision Teacher Evaluation instrument was used. Informed consent was obtained from all the students. Data was analyzed with ANOVA and structural equation modeling. Satisfaction with the clinical learning environment (CLE) sub-dimensions was highly significant and had a positive relationship with the total clinical learning environment. In the path model 35% of its total variance of satisfaction with CLE is accounted by leadership style, clinical nurse commitment (variance=28%), and patient relationships (R(2)=27%). Higher age, GPA and completion of a number of clinical courses were significant in the satisfaction with the CLE among these students. Nurse educators can improvise clinical learning placements focusing on leadership style, premises of learning and nursing care, nurse teacher, and supervision while integrating student, teacher and environmental factors. Hence the clinical learning environment is integral to students' learning and valuable in providing educational experiences. The CLE model provides information to nurse educators regarding best clinical practices for improving the CLE for BSN students. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Global Channels of Evidence for Learning and Assessment in Complex Game Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Brian C.; Erlandson, Benjamin; Denham, Andre

2011-01-01

In this paper, we take a designer's look at how the activities and data of learning and assessment can be structured in immersive virtual game environments called Massively Multi-Player Online Games (MMOG). In doing so, we examine the channels of evidence through which learning and assessment activities are derived in MMOGs, offering examples of…

Self-Directed Learning Readiness, Internet Self-Efficacy and Preferences towards Constructivist Internet-Based Learning Environments among Higher-Aged Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chu, R. J-C.; Tsai, C-C.

2009-01-01

This article examines several research questions to establish a theory model for explaining factors that influence adult learners' preferences for constructivist Internet-based learning environments (CILE). Data were gathered from 541 individual participants enrolled in adult education institutes in Taiwan for structural equation modelling (SEM)…

Creating an Optimal Language Learning Environment: A Focus on Family and Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheng, Li-Rong Lilly

2009-01-01

Understanding the family systems and structures of our diverse populations is one of the most important tasks of professionals in education. Children learn from their family, school, and community. They learn from their experiences by observing, talking, and interacting with their environment. Parents play a pivotal role in the education of their…

The Medical School Learning Environment Survey: An Examination of Its Factor Structure and Relationship to Student Performance and Satisfaction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rusticus, Shayna; Worthington, Anne; Wilson, Derek; Joughin, Karen

2014-01-01

The Medical School Learning Environment Survey (MSLES) was used with a sample of 311 undergraduate medical students in British Columbia, Canada, to assess the seven scales of Medical Breadth of Interest, Personal Breadth of Interest, Emotional Climate, Flexibility, Meaningful Learning Experience, Organization, Nurturance and Student-Student…

Student Perceptions of the Cell Biology Laboratory Learning Environment in Four Undergraduate Science Courses in Spain

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Juan, Joaquin; Pérez-Cañaveras, Rosa M.; Segovia, Yolanda; Girela, Jose Luis; Martínez-Ruiz, Noemi; Romero-Rameta, Alejandro; Gómez-Torres, Maria José; Vizcaya-Moreno, M. Flores

2016-01-01

Cell biology is an academic discipline that organises and coordinates the learning of the structure, function and molecular composition of cells in some undergraduate biomedical programs. Besides course content and teaching methodologies, the laboratory environment is considered a key element in the teaching of and learning of cell biology. The…

Does responsibility drive learning? Lessons from intern rotations in general practice.

PubMed

Cantillon, Peter; Macdermott, Maeve

2008-01-01

The intern (or pre-registration) year has been criticised in the past for its emphasis on service delivery at the expense of educational achievement. It is hoped that new approaches to early postgraduate training such as the foundation programmes in the UK, will make clinical education more structured and effective. Intern placements in non-traditional settings such as general practice have been shown in the past to improve the quality of learning. Little is known however about which features of the general practice learning environment contribute most to the perception of improved learning. This aim of this study was to examine the learning environment in general practice from the perspective of interns, (the learners), to determine the factors that contribute most to motivating effective learning in a general practice setting. This study used a qualitative case study approach to explore the effects of two different learning environments, (general practice and hospital) on learner motivation amongst a small group of interns. We found that the biggest difference between the hospital and general practice learning environments was the increased individual responsibility for patient care experienced by interns in general practice. Greater responsibility was associated with greater motivation for learning. Increased intern responsibility for patient care does appear to motivate learning. More work needs to be done on providing interns in hospital posts with greater patient responsibility within an effective supervisory structure.

Participatory Culture as a Model for How New Media Technologies Can Change Public Schools. WCER Working Paper No. 2016-7

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Halverson, Rich; Kallio, Julie; Hackett, Sarah; Halverson, Erica

2016-01-01

Students who have mastered the ability to create their own learning environments have an advantage over students who rely on traditional environments to structure their learning. Students who understand how to use new tools for school learning typically do not pick up these skills at school--they learn from the habits of parents and peers who work…

Learning New Grammatical Structures in Task-Based Language Learning: The Effects of Recasts and Prompts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van de Guchte, Marrit; Braaksma, Martine; Rijlaarsdam, Gert; Bimmel, Peter

2015-01-01

In the present study, we examine the effects of prompts and recasts on the acquisition of two new and different grammar structures in a task-based learning environment. Sixty-four 14-year-old 9th grade students (low intermediate) learning German as a foreign language were randomly assigned to three conditions: two experimental groups (one…

The Role of Goal Structure in Undergraduates' Use of Self-Regulatory Processes in Two Hypermedia Learning Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moos, Daniel C.; Azevedo, Roger

2006-01-01

We collected think-aloud and posttest data from 60 undergraduates to examine whether they used different proportions of self-regulated learning (SRL) variables in two related learning tasks about science topics while using a hypermedia environment. We also manipulated the goal structure of the two hypermedia learning tasks to explore whether the…

Designing Science Learning in the First Years of Schooling. An intervention study with sequenced learning material on the topic of `floating and sinking'

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leuchter, Miriam; Saalbach, Henrik; Hardy, Ilonca

2014-07-01

Research on learning and instruction of science has shown that learning environments applied in preschool and primary school rarely makes use of structured learning materials in problem-based environments although these are decisive quality features for promoting conceptual change and scientific reasoning within early science learning. We thus developed and implemented a science learning environment for children in the first years of schooling which contains structured learning materials with the goal of supporting conceptual change concerning the understanding of the floating and sinking of objects and fostering students' scientific reasoning skills. In the present implementation study, we aim to provide a best-practice example of early science learning. The study was conducted with a sample of 15 classes of the first years of schooling and a total of 244 children. Tests were constructed to measure children's conceptual understanding before and after the implementation. Our results reveal a decrease in children's misconceptions from pretest to posttest. After the curriculum, the children were able to produce significantly more correct predictions about the sinking or floating of objects than before the curriculum and also relative to a control group. Moreover, due to the intervention, the explanations given for their predictions implied a more elaborated concept of material kinds. All in all, a well-structured curriculum promoting comparison and scientific reasoning by means of inquiry learning was shown to support children's conceptual change.

The Value of Writing-to-Learn when Using Question Prompts to Support Web-Based Learning in Ill-Structured Domains

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Papadopoulos, Pantelis M.; Demetriadis, Stavros N.; Stamelos, Ioannis G.; Tsoukalas, Ioannis A.

2011-01-01

This study investigates the effectiveness of two variants of a prompting strategy that guides students to focus on important issues when learning in an ill-structured domain. Students in three groups studied individually Software Project Management (SPM) cases for a week, using a web-based learning environment designed especially for this purpose.…

Learning Molecular Structures in a Tangible Augmented Reality Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Asai, Kikuo; Takase, Norio

2011-01-01

This article presents the characteristics of using a tangible table top environment produced by augmented reality (AR), aimed at improving the environment in which learners observe three-dimensional molecular structures. The authors perform two evaluation experiments. A performance test for a user interface demonstrates that learners with a…

[Social learning as an uncertainty-reduction strategy: an adaptationist approach].

PubMed

Nakanishi, Daisuke; Kameda, Tatsuya; Shinada, Mizuho

2003-04-01

Social learning is an effective mechanism to reduce uncertainty about environmental knowledge, helping individuals adopt an adaptive behavior in the environment at small cost. Although this is evident for learning about temporally stable targets (e.g., acquiring avoidance of toxic foods culturally), the functional value of social learning in a temporally unstable environment is less clear; knowledge acquired by social learning may be outdated. This paper addressed adaptive values of social learning in a non-stationary environment empirically. When individual learning about the non-stationary environment is costly, a hawk-dove-game-like equilibrium is expected to emerge in the population, where members who engage in costly individual learning and members who skip the information search and free-ride on other members' search efforts coexist at a stable ratio. Such a "producer-scrounger" structure should qualify effectiveness of social/cultural learning severely, especially "conformity bias" when using social information (Boyd & Richerson, 1985). We tested these predictions by an experiment implementing a non-stationary uncertain environment in a laboratory. The results supported our thesis. Implications of these findings and some future directions were discussed.

How Can Innovative Learning Environments Promote the Diffusion of Innovation?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Osborne, Mark

2016-01-01

Schools implementing innovative learning environments (ILEs) face many challenges, including the need to discard previously cherished practices and behaviours, adjust mindsets, and invent successful new ways of operating. Leaders can support these processes by implementing structures that: i) support ongoing, distributed, participatory innovation;…

The Development of a Comprehensive and Coherent Theory of Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Illeris, Knud

2015-01-01

This article is an account of how the author developed a comprehensive understanding of human learning over a period of almost 50 years. The learning theory includes the structure of learning, different types of learning, barriers of learning as well as how individual dispositions, age, the learning environment and general social and societal…

Modularization and Structured Markup for Learning Content in an Academic Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schluep, Samuel; Bettoni, Marco; Schar, Sissel Guttormsen

2006-01-01

This article aims to present a flexible component model for modular, web-based learning content, and a simple structured markup schema for the separation of content and presentation. The article will also contain an overview of the dynamic Learning Content Management System (dLCMS) project, which implements these concepts. Content authors are a…

Structured Kernel Subspace Learning for Autonomous Robot Navigation.

PubMed

Kim, Eunwoo; Choi, Sungjoon; Oh, Songhwai

2018-02-14

This paper considers two important problems for autonomous robot navigation in a dynamic environment, where the goal is to predict pedestrian motion and control a robot with the prediction for safe navigation. While there are several methods for predicting the motion of a pedestrian and controlling a robot to avoid incoming pedestrians, it is still difficult to safely navigate in a dynamic environment due to challenges, such as the varying quality and complexity of training data with unwanted noises. This paper addresses these challenges simultaneously by proposing a robust kernel subspace learning algorithm based on the recent advances in nuclear-norm and l 1 -norm minimization. We model the motion of a pedestrian and the robot controller using Gaussian processes. The proposed method efficiently approximates a kernel matrix used in Gaussian process regression by learning low-rank structured matrix (with symmetric positive semi-definiteness) to find an orthogonal basis, which eliminates the effects of erroneous and inconsistent data. Based on structured kernel subspace learning, we propose a robust motion model and motion controller for safe navigation in dynamic environments. We evaluate the proposed robust kernel learning in various tasks, including regression, motion prediction, and motion control problems, and demonstrate that the proposed learning-based systems are robust against outliers and outperform existing regression and navigation methods.

A Comparison and Contrast in Alternative Learning versus Traditional Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simmons, Mia A.

2013-01-01

Preparation for today's influenced technology professional world starts with structure of primary and secondary educational learning environments. The student learning platforms should be aligned in some ways to professional working platforms. This quantitative correlational ex post facto study compared the effectiveness of learning modalities in…

Employing a Structured Interface to Advance Primary Students' Communicative Competence in a Text-Based Computer Mediated Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chiu, Chiung-Hui; Wu, Chiu-Yi; Hsieh, Sheng-Jieh; Cheng, Hsiao-Wei; Huang, Chung-Kai

2013-01-01

This study investigated whether a structured communication interface fosters primary students' communicative competence in a synchronous typewritten computer-mediated collaborative learning environment. The structured interface provided a set of predetermined utterance patterns for elementary students to use or imitate to develop communicative…

Learning the Basics with Calculus

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stroup, Walter M.

2005-01-01

A critical issue related to the use of simulation environments in school-based learning is the relationship between the use of these environments and the structure of traditional curricula. Teachers are often caught in the bind of attempting to address significantly raised standards for what all students should know, yet receiving very little…

The Influence of Need-Supportive Teacher Behavior on the Motivation of Students with Congenital Deafblindness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haakma, Ineke; Janssen, Marleen; Minnaert, Alexander

2017-01-01

Introduction: Research has indicated that need-supportive learning environments positively influence students' motivation. According to self-determination theory, a need-supportive learning environment is one in which teachers provide structure, autonomy support, and involvement, and thereby support their students' psychological needs for…

Narrative-Based Interactive Learning Environments from Modelling Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yearwood, John; Stranieri, Andrew

2007-01-01

Narrative and story telling has a long history of use in structuring, organising and communicating human experience. This paper describes a narrative based interactive intelligent learning environment which aims to elucidate practical reasoning using interactive emergent narratives that can be used in training novices in decision making. Its…

How the Learning Path and the Very Structure of a Multifloored Environment Influence Human Spatial Memory

PubMed Central

Dollé, Laurent; Droulez, Jacques; Bennequin, Daniel; Berthoz, Alain; Thibault, Guillaume

2015-01-01

Few studies have explored how humans memorize landmarks in complex multifloored buildings. They have observed that participants memorize an environment either by floors or by vertical columns, influenced by the learning path. However, the influence of the building’s actual structure is not yet known. In order to investigate this influence, we conducted an experiment using an object-in-place protocol in a cylindrical building to contrast with previous experiments which used rectilinear environments. Two groups of 15 participants were taken on a tour with a first person perspective through a virtual cylindrical three-floored building. They followed either a route discovering floors one at a time, or a route discovering columns (by simulated lifts across floors). They then underwent a series of trials, in which they viewed a camera movement reproducing either a segment of the learning path (familiar trials), or performing a shortcut relative to the learning trajectory (novel trials). We observed that regardless of the learning path, participants better memorized the building by floors, and only participants who had discovered the building by columns also memorized it by columns. This expands on previous results obtained in a rectilinear building, where the learning path favoured the memory of its horizontal and vertical layout. Taken together, these results suggest that both learning mode and an environment’s structure influence the spatial memory of complex multifloored buildings. PMID:26770288

Virtual reality training improves students' knowledge structures of medical concepts.

PubMed

Stevens, Susan M; Goldsmith, Timothy E; Summers, Kenneth L; Sherstyuk, Andrei; Kihmm, Kathleen; Holten, James R; Davis, Christopher; Speitel, Daniel; Maris, Christina; Stewart, Randall; Wilks, David; Saland, Linda; Wax, Diane; Panaiotis; Saiki, Stanley; Alverson, Dale; Caudell, Thomas P

2005-01-01

Virtual environments can provide training that is difficult to achieve under normal circumstances. Medical students can work on high-risk cases in a realistic, time-critical environment, where students practice skills in a cognitively demanding and emotionally compelling situation. Research from cognitive science has shown that as students acquire domain expertise, their semantic organization of core domain concepts become more similar to those of an expert's. In the current study, we hypothesized that students' knowledge structures would become more expert-like as a result of their diagnosing and treating a patient experiencing a hematoma within a virtual environment. Forty-eight medical students diagnosed and treated a hematoma case within a fully immersed virtual environment. Student's semantic organization of 25 case-related concepts was assessed prior to and after training. Students' knowledge structures became more integrated and similar to an expert knowledge structure of the concepts as a result of the learning experience. The methods used here for eliciting, representing, and evaluating knowledge structures offer a sensitive and objective means for evaluating student learning in virtual environments and medical simulations.

A graph-based evolutionary algorithm: Genetic Network Programming (GNP) and its extension using reinforcement learning.

PubMed

Mabu, Shingo; Hirasawa, Kotaro; Hu, Jinglu

2007-01-01

This paper proposes a graph-based evolutionary algorithm called Genetic Network Programming (GNP). Our goal is to develop GNP, which can deal with dynamic environments efficiently and effectively, based on the distinguished expression ability of the graph (network) structure. The characteristics of GNP are as follows. 1) GNP programs are composed of a number of nodes which execute simple judgment/processing, and these nodes are connected by directed links to each other. 2) The graph structure enables GNP to re-use nodes, thus the structure can be very compact. 3) The node transition of GNP is executed according to its node connections without any terminal nodes, thus the past history of the node transition affects the current node to be used and this characteristic works as an implicit memory function. These structural characteristics are useful for dealing with dynamic environments. Furthermore, we propose an extended algorithm, "GNP with Reinforcement Learning (GNPRL)" which combines evolution and reinforcement learning in order to create effective graph structures and obtain better results in dynamic environments. In this paper, we applied GNP to the problem of determining agents' behavior to evaluate its effectiveness. Tileworld was used as the simulation environment. The results show some advantages for GNP over conventional methods.

A Slovenian version of the "clinical learning environment, supervision and nurse teacher scale (Cles+T)" and its comparison with the Croatian version.

PubMed

Žvanut, Boštjan; Lovrić, Robert; Kolnik, Tamara Štemberger; Šavle, Majda; Pucer, Patrik

2018-05-01

Nursing clinical learning environments are particularly important for the achievement of good practice in clinical training of student nurses, and thus, for the nursing competence development. Hence, it is important to have an instrument consisting of reliable and valid criteria for assessing the clinical learning environment, applicable in different contexts, and translated in the respondents mother tongue. The goal of the present research was to test the reliability and validity of the Slovenian version of the "Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and Nurse Teacher evaluation scale", and to compare it with the Croatian version. The data was collected between 10 March and 10 June 2015 at four Slovenian institutions, where nursing BSc study programmes are performed. The final sample consisted of 232 students (response rate 68.8%): 81.9% were females and 18.1% males, average age was 23. The translated instrument in Slovenian language resulted as reliable and valid, it reflects the expected five factors of the original version despite some minor problems in the factor structure and in test-retest. The most important difference between the Slovenian and Croatian version is in the factor structure regarding the implementation of roles in clinical learning environment. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Students using visual thinking to learn science in a Web-based environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plough, Jean Margaret

United States students' science test scores are low, especially in problem solving, and traditional science instruction could be improved. Consequently, visual thinking, constructing science structures, and problem solving in a web-based environment may be valuable strategies for improving science learning. This ethnographic study examined the science learning of fifteen fourth grade students in an after school computer club involving diverse students at an inner city school. The investigation was done from the perspective of the students, and it described the processes of visual thinking, web page construction, and problem solving in a web-based environment. The study utilized informal group interviews, field notes, Visual Learning Logs, and student web pages, and incorporated a Standards-Based Rubric which evaluated students' performance on eight science and technology standards. The Visual Learning Logs were drawings done on the computer to represent science concepts related to the Food Chain. Students used the internet to search for information on a plant or animal of their choice. Next, students used this internet information, with the information from their Visual Learning Logs, to make web pages on their plant or animal. Later, students linked their web pages to form Science Structures. Finally, students linked their Science Structures with the structures of other students, and used these linked structures as models for solving problems. Further, during informal group interviews, students answered questions about visual thinking, problem solving, and science concepts. The results of this study showed clearly that (1) making visual representations helped students understand science knowledge, (2) making links between web pages helped students construct Science Knowledge Structures, and (3) students themselves said that visual thinking helped them learn science. In addition, this study found that when using Visual Learning Logs, the main overall ideas of the science concepts were usually represented accurately. Further, looking for information on the internet may cause new problems in learning. Likewise, being absent, starting late, and/or dropping out all may negatively influence students' proficiency on the standards. Finally, the way Science Structures are constructed and linked may provide insights into the way individual students think and process information.

Identifying clinical learning needs using structured group feedback: first year evaluation of pre-registration nursing and midwifery degree programmes.

PubMed

Frazer, Kate; Connolly, Michael; Naughton, Corina; Kow, Veronica

2014-07-01

Facilitating and supporting clinical learning for student nurses and midwives are essential within their practice environments. Clinical placements provide unique opportunities in preparation for future roles. Understanding the experiences of first year student nurses and midwives following clinical exposures and examining the clinical facilitators and barriers can assist in maintaining and developing clinical supports. The study used a structured group feedback approach with a convenience sample of 223 first year nursing and midwifery students in one Irish university in April 2011 to ascertain feedback on the clinical aspects of their degree programme. Approximately 200 students participated in the process. Two key clinical issues were identified by students: facilitating clinical learning and learning experiences and needs. Positive learning environments, supportive staff and increased opportunities for reflection were important issues for first year students. The role of supportive mentoring staff in clinical practice is essential to enhance student learning. Students value reflection in practice and require more opportunities to engage during placements. More collaborative approaches are required to ensure evolving and adapting practice environments can accommodate student learning. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Python Environment for Bayesian Learning: Inferring the Structure of Bayesian Networks from Knowledge and Data

PubMed Central

Shah, Abhik; Woolf, Peter

2009-01-01

Summary In this paper, we introduce pebl, a Python library and application for learning Bayesian network structure from data and prior knowledge that provides features unmatched by alternative software packages: the ability to use interventional data, flexible specification of structural priors, modeling with hidden variables and exploitation of parallel processing. PMID:20161541

Enculturation to Musical Pitch Structure in Young Children: Evidence from Behavioral and Electrophysiological Methods

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corrigall, Kathleen A.; Trainor, Laurel J.

2014-01-01

Children learn the structure of the music of their culture similarly to how they learn the language to which they are exposed in their daily environment. Furthermore, as with language, children acquire this musical knowledge without formal instruction. Two critical aspects of musical pitch structure in Western tonal music are key membership…

Algorithm Visualization System for Teaching Spatial Data Algorithms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nikander, Jussi; Helminen, Juha; Korhonen, Ari

2010-01-01

TRAKLA2 is a web-based learning environment for data structures and algorithms. The system delivers automatically assessed algorithm simulation exercises that are solved using a graphical user interface. In this work, we introduce a novel learning environment for spatial data algorithms, SDA-TRAKLA2, which has been implemented on top of the…

Understanding Player Activity in a Game-Based Virtual Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyer, David Matthew

2011-01-01

This study examines player activity in a game-based virtual learning environment as a means toward evaluating instructional and game design. By determining the goals embedded in project development and the availability and structure of in-game activities, the first part of this research highlights opportunities for players to engage with learning…

Examining the Effect of Problem Type in a Synchronous Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kapur, Manu; Kinzer, Charles K.

2007-01-01

This study investigated the effect of well- vs. ill-structured problem types on: (a) group interactional activity, (b) evolution of group participation inequities, (c) group discussion quality, and (d) group performance in a synchronous, computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. Participants were 60 11th-grade science students…

Putting "Structure within the Space": Spatially Un/Responsive Pedagogic Practices in Open-Plan Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saltmarsh, Sue; Chapman, Amy; Campbell, Matthew; Drew, Christopher

2015-01-01

Non-traditional open-plan schools and classrooms are currently enjoying a resurgence in Australia, with proponents arguing for the necessity of educational spaces that more readily accommodate the needs of twenty-first century learners. However, these learning environments can pose considerable pedagogic challenges for teachers who must balance…

Cultivating Early Trajectories of Participation: A Blended Learning Environment for Business German

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neville, David O.

2016-01-01

The essay forwards suggestions for developing a blended learning environment to insert genre-based language for specific purposes (LSP) subject matter into the undergraduate second language development curriculum. Specifically, the essay will highlight: (1) the development of an overarching narrative for structuring the LSP subject matter; (2) the…

Motor-Skill Learning in an Insect Inspired Neuro-Computational Control System

PubMed Central

Arena, Eleonora; Arena, Paolo; Strauss, Roland; Patané, Luca

2017-01-01

In nature, insects show impressive adaptation and learning capabilities. The proposed computational model takes inspiration from specific structures of the insect brain: after proposing key hypotheses on the direct involvement of the mushroom bodies (MBs) and on their neural organization, we developed a new architecture for motor learning to be applied in insect-like walking robots. The proposed model is a nonlinear control system based on spiking neurons. MBs are modeled as a nonlinear recurrent spiking neural network (SNN) with novel characteristics, able to memorize time evolutions of key parameters of the neural motor controller, so that existing motor primitives can be improved. The adopted control scheme enables the structure to efficiently cope with goal-oriented behavioral motor tasks. Here, a six-legged structure, showing a steady-state exponentially stable locomotion pattern, is exposed to the need of learning new motor skills: moving through the environment, the structure is able to modulate motor commands and implements an obstacle climbing procedure. Experimental results on a simulated hexapod robot are reported; they are obtained in a dynamic simulation environment and the robot mimicks the structures of Drosophila melanogaster. PMID:28337138

Internal and External Scripts in Computer-Supported Collaborative Inquiry Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kollar, Ingo; Fischer, Frank; Slotta, James D.

2007-01-01

We investigated how differently structured external scripts interact with learners' internal scripts with respect to individual knowledge acquisition in a Web-based collaborative inquiry learning environment. Ninety students from two secondary schools participated. Two versions of an external collaboration script (high vs. low structured)…

Nursing students' perceptions of factors influencing their learning environment in a clinical skills laboratory: A qualitative study.

PubMed

Haraldseid, Cecilie; Friberg, Febe; Aase, Karina

2015-09-01

The mastery of clinical skills learning is required to become a trained nurse. Due to limited opportunities for clinical skills training in clinical practice, undergraduate training at clinical skills laboratories (CSLs) is an essential part of nursing education. In a sociocultural learning perspective learning is situated in an environment. Growing student cohorts, rapid introduction of technology-based teaching methods and a shift from a teaching- to a learning-centered education all influence the environment of the students. These changes also affect CSLs and therefore compel nursing faculties to adapt to the changing learning environment. This study aimed to explore students' perceptions of their learning environment in a clinical skills laboratory, and to increase the knowledge base for improving CSL learning conditions identifying the most important environmental factors according to the students. An exploratory qualitative methodology was used. Nineteen second-year students enrolled in an undergraduate nursing program in Norway participated in the study. They took the same clinical skills course. Eight were part-time students (group A) and 11 were full-time students (group B). Focus group interviews and content analysis were conducted to capture the students' perception of the CSL learning environment. The study documents students' experience of the physical (facilities, material equipment, learning tools, standard procedures), psychosocial (expectations, feedback, relations) and organizational (faculty resources, course structure) factors that affect the CSL learning environment. Creating an authentic environment, facilitating motivation, and providing resources for multiple methods and repetitions within clinical skills training are all important for improving CSL learning environments from the student perspective. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Supporting cognitive engagement in a learning-by-doing learning environment: Case studies of participant engagement and social configurations in Kitchen Science Investigators

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gardner, Christina M.

Learning-by-doing learning environments support a wealth of physical engagement in activities. However, there is also a lot of variability in what participants learn in each enactment of these types of environments. Therefore, it is not always clear how participants are learning in these environments. In order to design technologies to support learning in these environments, we must have a greater understanding of how participants engage in learning activities, their goals for their engagement, and the types of help they need to cognitively engage in learning activities. To gain a greater understanding of participant engagement and factors and circumstances that promote and inhibit engagement, this dissertation explores and answers several questions: What are the types of interactions and experiences that promote and /or inhibit learning and engagement in learning-by-doing learning environments? What are the types of configurations that afford or inhibit these interactions and experiences in learning-by-doing learning environments? I explore answers to these questions through the context of two enactments of Kitchen Science Investigators (KSI), a learning-by-doing learning environment where middle-school aged children learn science through cooking from customizing recipes to their own taste and texture preferences. In small groups, they investigate effects of ingredients through the design of cooking and science experiments, through which they experience and learn about chemical, biological, and physical science phenomena and concepts (Clegg, Gardner, Williams, & Kolodner, 2006). The research reported in this dissertation sheds light on the different ways participant engagement promotes and/or inhibits cognitive engagement in by learning-by-doing learning environments through two case studies. It also provides detailed descriptions of the circumstances (social, material, and physical configurations) that promote and/or inhibit participant engagement in these learning environments through cross-case analyses of these cases. Finally, it offers suggestions about structuring activities, selecting materials and resources, and designing facilitation and software-realized scaffolding in the design of these types of learning environments. These design implications focus on affording participant engagement in science content and practices learning. Overall, the case studies, cross-case analyses, and empirically-based design implications begin to bridge the gap between theory and practice in the design and implementation of these learning environments. This is demonstrated by providing detailed and explanatory examples and factors that affect how participants take up the affordances of the learning opportunities designed into these learning environments.

Machine learning for autonomous crystal structure identification.

PubMed

Reinhart, Wesley F; Long, Andrew W; Howard, Michael P; Ferguson, Andrew L; Panagiotopoulos, Athanassios Z

2017-07-21

We present a machine learning technique to discover and distinguish relevant ordered structures from molecular simulation snapshots or particle tracking data. Unlike other popular methods for structural identification, our technique requires no a priori description of the target structures. Instead, we use nonlinear manifold learning to infer structural relationships between particles according to the topology of their local environment. This graph-based approach yields unbiased structural information which allows us to quantify the crystalline character of particles near defects, grain boundaries, and interfaces. We demonstrate the method by classifying particles in a simulation of colloidal crystallization, and show that our method identifies structural features that are missed by standard techniques.

Implicit Statistical Learning in Real-World Environments Leads to Ecologically Rational Decision Making.

PubMed

Perkovic, Sonja; Orquin, Jacob Lund

2018-01-01

Ecological rationality results from matching decision strategies to appropriate environmental structures, but how does the matching happen? We propose that people learn the statistical structure of the environment through observation and use this learned structure to guide ecologically rational behavior. We tested this hypothesis in the context of organic foods. In Study 1, we found that products from healthful food categories are more likely to be organic than products from nonhealthful food categories. In Study 2, we found that consumers' perceptions of the healthfulness and prevalence of organic products in many food categories are accurate. Finally, in Study 3, we found that people perceive organic products as more healthful than nonorganic products when the statistical structure justifies this inference. Our findings suggest that people believe organic foods are more healthful than nonorganic foods and use an organic-food cue to guide their behavior because organic foods are, on average, 30% more healthful.

Using Jigsaw-Style Spectroscopy Problem-Solving to Elucidate Molecular Structure through Online Cooperative Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winschel, Grace A.; Everett, Renata K.; Coppola, Brian P.; Shultz, Ginger V.

2015-01-01

Cooperative learning was employed as an instructional approach to facilitate student development of spectroscopy problem solving skills. An interactive online environment was used as a framework to structure weekly discussions around spectroscopy problems outside of class. Weekly discussions consisted of modified jigsaw-style problem solving…

Structuring a Clinical Learning Environment for a Hybrid-PBL Dental Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

MacNeil, M. A. J.; Walton, Joanne N.; Clark, D. Christopher; Tobias, David L.; Harrison, Rosamund L.

1998-01-01

Describes the evolution and implementation of a joint medical-dental problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum at the University of British Columbia's medical and dental schools, featuring development of an integrated care clinic. Issues in structuring the new curriculum are discussed, including management of the clinic's group practices, affective…

Influence of Psychosocial Classroom Environment on Students' Motivation and Self-Regulation in Science Learning: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Velayutham, Sunitadevi; Aldridge, Jill M.

2013-04-01

The primary aim of this study was two-fold: 1) to identify salient psychosocial features of the classroom environment that influence students' motivation and self-regulation in science learning; and 2) to examine the effect of the motivational constructs of learning goal orientation, science task value and self-efficacy in science learning on students' self-regulation in science classrooms. Data collected from 1360 science students in grades 8, 9 and 10 in five public schools in Perth, Western Australia were utilized to validate the questionnaires and to investigate the hypothesized relationships. Structural Equation Modeling analysis suggested that student cohesiveness, investigation and task orientation were the most influential predictors of student motivation and self-regulation in science learning. In addition, learning goal orientation, task value and self-efficacy significantly influenced students' self-regulation in science. The findings offer potential opportunities for educators to plan and implement effective pedagogical strategies aimed at increasing students' motivation and self-regulation in science learning.

Statistical Learning Is Related to Early Literacy-Related Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spencer, Mercedes; Kaschak, Michael P.; Jones, John L.; Lonigan, Christopher J.

2015-01-01

It has been demonstrated that statistical learning, or the ability to use statistical information to learn the structure of one's environment, plays a role in young children's acquisition of linguistic knowledge. Although most research on statistical learning has focused on language acquisition processes, such as the segmentation of words from…

Using Analytics to Transform a Problem-Based Case Library: An Educational Design Research Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schmidt, Matthew; Tawfik, Andrew A.

2018-01-01

This article describes the iterative design, development, and evaluation of a case-based learning environment focusing on an ill-structured sales management problem. We discuss our processes and situate them within the broader framework of educational design research. The learning environment evolved over the course of three design phases. A…

Research on Webbed Connectivity in a Web-Based Learning Environment: Online Social Work Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Noble, Dorinda; Russell, Amy Catherine

2013-01-01

This paper describes the preliminary data and analysis of how students in an online MSW program perceive their experiences, interactions, and responses to learning structure, material, and technology in the Web environment. The student perceptions, which have been used to refine the online program, highlight how important it is to students to feel…

Education for Sustainability Using a Campus Eco-Garden as a Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheang, Chi Chiu; So, Wing-Mui Winnie; Zhan, Ying; Tsoi, Kwok Ho

2017-01-01

Purpose: This paper aims to explore stakeholder perspectives of the role of a campus eco-garden in education for sustainability (EfS). It will combine the perspectives to highlight a powerful learning environment (PLE) for university students to realize the concept of EfS. Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted to…

Investigating the Relationships among Students' Self-Efficacy Beliefs, Their Perceptions of Classroom Learning Environment, Gender, and Chemistry Achievement through Structural Equation Modeling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boz, Yezdan; Yerdelen-Damar, Sevda; Aydemir, Nurdane; Aydemir, Murat

2016-01-01

Background: Investigating factors contributing to chemistry achievement is important since it enables us to make more concrete instructional decisions related to improving students' chemistry achievement. Purpose: This study aimed to investigate how students' perceptions of learning environment, self-efficacy and gender are related to chemistry…

Student Perceptions of Classroom Learning Environments: Development of the ClassMaps Survey

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doll, Beth; Spies, Robert A.; LeClair, Courtney M.; Kurien, Sarah A.; Foley, Brett P.

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to describe the means, variability, internal consistency reliability, and structural validity evidence of the ClassMaps Survey, a measure of student perceptions of classroom learning environments. The ClassMaps Survey is a 55-item student rating scale of eight important classroom characteristics. The survey provides a…

Designing a Structured and Interactive Learning Environment Based on GIS for Secondary Geography Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Suxia; Zhu, Xuan

2008-01-01

Geographic information systems (GIS) are computer-based tools for geographic data analysis and spatial visualization. They have become one of the information and communications technologies for education at all levels. This article reviews the current status of GIS in schools, analyzes the requirements of a GIS-based learning environment from…

Evaluation of Deep Learning Representations of Spatial Storm Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gagne, D. J., II; Haupt, S. E.; Nychka, D. W.

2017-12-01

The spatial structure of a severe thunderstorm and its surrounding environment provide useful information about the potential for severe weather hazards, including tornadoes, hail, and high winds. Statistics computed over the area of a storm or from the pre-storm environment can provide descriptive information but fail to capture structural information. Because the storm environment is a complex, high-dimensional space, identifying methods to encode important spatial storm information in a low-dimensional form should aid analysis and prediction of storms by statistical and machine learning models. Principal component analysis (PCA), a more traditional approach, transforms high-dimensional data into a set of linearly uncorrelated, orthogonal components ordered by the amount of variance explained by each component. The burgeoning field of deep learning offers two potential approaches to this problem. Convolutional Neural Networks are a supervised learning method for transforming spatial data into a hierarchical set of feature maps that correspond with relevant combinations of spatial structures in the data. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are an unsupervised deep learning model that uses two neural networks trained against each other to produce encoded representations of spatial data. These different spatial encoding methods were evaluated on the prediction of severe hail for a large set of storm patches extracted from the NCAR convection-allowing ensemble. Each storm patch contains information about storm structure and the near-storm environment. Logistic regression and random forest models were trained using the PCA and GAN encodings of the storm data and were compared against the predictions from a convolutional neural network. All methods showed skill over climatology at predicting the probability of severe hail. However, the verification scores among the methods were very similar and the predictions were highly correlated. Further evaluations are being performed to determine how the choice of input variables affects the results.

Learning Styles in the e-Learning Environment: The Approaches and Research on Longitudinal Changes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doulik, Pavel; Skoda, Jiri; Simonova, Ivana

2017-01-01

The paper focuses on the field of learning styles in e-learning. The study is structured in two main parts: (1) a brief overview of traditional approaches to learning styles is presented and their role in the process of instruction is set; this part results in the reflection of current state, when learning styles are considered within e-learning;…

Lifelong Learning in Finland: The Extent to Which Vocational Education and Training Policy Is Nurturing Lifelong Learning in Finland. CEDEFOP Panorama Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nyyssola, Kari; Hamalainen, Kimmo

The extent to which vocational education and training policy is nurturing lifelong learning in Finland was examined. The analysis focused on the following issues: the political and structural framework of education in Finland; mechanisms supporting lifelong learning; and pedagogical solutions and learning environments facilitating lifelong…

Quality of Life of Higher Education Students with Learning Disability Studying Online

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lambert, David C.; Dryer, Rachel

2018-01-01

This study examined how learning challenges encountered within online learning environments affected the quality of life of students with learning disability. A qualitative content analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with eight students (mean[subscript age] = 33.75 years; SD = 8.15), revealed that learning challenges had consequences…

Nursing student perceptions of community in online learning.

PubMed

Gallagher-Lepak, Susan; Reilly, Janet; Killion, Cheryl M

2009-01-01

Nursing faculty need to understand the unique aspects of online learning environments and develop new pedagogies for teaching in the virtual classroom. The concept of community is important in online learning and a strong sense of community can enhance student engagement and improve learning outcomes in online courses. Student perceptions of community in online learning environments were explored in this study. Five focus group sessions were held and online nursing students were asked to give examples of experiences related to sense of community. Fifteen major themes emerged: class structure, required participation, teamwork, technology, becoming, commonalities, disconnects, mutual exchange, online etiquette, informal discussions, aloneness, trepidation, unknowns, nonverbal communication and anonymity. Themes sorted into the categories of structural, processual and emotional factors. Theme descriptions show how sense of community can be enhanced and/or diminished in online courses. This study adds depth and detail to the limited body of research on sense of community in distance education in nursing courses.

Evaluation of ambiguous associations in the amygdala by learning the structure of the environment.

PubMed

Madarasz, Tamas J; Diaz-Mataix, Lorenzo; Akhand, Omar; Ycu, Edgar A; LeDoux, Joseph E; Johansen, Joshua P

2016-07-01

Recognizing predictive relationships is critical for survival, but an understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms remains elusive. In particular, it is unclear how the brain distinguishes predictive relationships from spurious ones when evidence about a relationship is ambiguous, or how it computes predictions given such uncertainty. To better understand this process, we introduced ambiguity into an associative learning task by presenting aversive outcomes both in the presence and in the absence of a predictive cue. Electrophysiological and optogenetic approaches revealed that amygdala neurons directly regulated and tracked the effects of ambiguity on learning. Contrary to established accounts of associative learning, however, interference from competing associations was not required to assess an ambiguous cue-outcome contingency. Instead, animals' behavior was explained by a normative account that evaluates different models of the environment's statistical structure. These findings suggest an alternative view of amygdala circuits in resolving ambiguity during aversive learning.

Hippocampal Replay Captures the Unique Topological Structure of a Novel Environment

PubMed Central

Wu, Xiaojing

2014-01-01

Hippocampal place-cell replay has been proposed as a fundamental mechanism of learning and memory, which might support navigational learning and planning. An important hypothesis of relevance to these proposed functions is that the information encoded in replay should reflect the topological structure of experienced environments; that is, which places in the environment are connected with which others. Here we report several attributes of replay observed in rats exploring a novel forked environment that support the hypothesis. First, we observed that overlapping replays depicting divergent trajectories through the fork recruited the same population of cells with the same firing rates to represent the common portion of the trajectories. Second, replay tended to be directional and to flip the represented direction at the fork. Third, replay-associated sharp-wave–ripple events in the local field potential exhibited substructure that mapped onto the maze topology. Thus, the spatial complexity of our recording environment was accurately captured by replay: the underlying neuronal activities reflected the bifurcating shape, and both directionality and associated ripple structure reflected the segmentation of the maze. Finally, we observed that replays occurred rapidly after small numbers of experiences. Our results suggest that hippocampal replay captures learned information about environmental topology to support a role in navigation. PMID:24806672

Does Inquiry Based Learning Affect Students' Beliefs and Attitudes towards Mathematics?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McGregor, Darren

2014-01-01

Ill-structured tasks presented in an inquiry learning environment have the potential to affect students' beliefs and attitudes towards mathematics. This empirical research followed a Design Experiment approach to explore how aspects of using ill-structured tasks may have affected students' beliefs and attitudes. Results showed this task type and…

Influence of Structure and Interaction on Student Achievement and Satisfaction in Web-Based Distance Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Hye-Jung; Rha, Ilju

2009-01-01

This study examines the influence of instructional design and management style on student achievement and satisfaction in a web-based distance learning environment. From the literature review, two major instructional design and management styles in web-based distance education were conceptualized as structure and interpersonal interaction. To…

[Learning about social determinants of health through chronicles, using a virtual learning environment].

PubMed

Restrepo-Palacio, Sonia; Amaya-Guio, Jairo

2016-01-01

To describe the contributions of a pedagogical strategy based on the construction of chronicles, using a Virtual Learning Environment for training medical students from Universidad de La Sabana on social determinants of health. Descriptive study with a qualitative approach. Design and implementation of a Virtual Learning Environment based on the ADDIE instructional model. A Virtual Learning Environment was implemented with an instructional design based on the five phases of the ADDIE model, on the grounds of meaningful learning and social constructivism, and through the narration of chronicles or life stories as a pedagogical strategy. During the course, the structural determinants and intermediaries were addressed, and nine chronicles were produced by working groups made up of four or five students, who demonstrated meaningful learning from real life stories, presented a coherent sequence, and kept a thread; 82% of these students incorporated in their contents most of the social determinants of health, emphasizing on the concepts of equity or inequity, equality or inequality, justice or injustice and social cohesion. A Virtual Learning Environment, based on an appropriate instructional design, allows to facilitate learning of social determinants of health through a constructivist pedagogical approach by analyzing chronicles or life stories created by ninth-semester students of medicine from Universidad de La Sabana.

The Quality Imperative: A State Guide to Achieving the Promise of Extended Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Princiotta, Daniel; Fortune, Ayeola

2009-01-01

Extended learning opportunities (ELOs) provide safe, structured learning environments for students outside the traditional school day. ELOs include afterschool and summer learning programs as well as before-school, evening, and weekend programs. ELOs come in many forms and can include tutoring, volunteering, academic support, community service,…

Negotiating Energy Dynamics through Embodied Action in a Materially Structured Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scherr, Rachel E.; Close, Hunter G.; Close, Eleanor W.; Flood, Virginia J.; McKagan, Sarah B.; Robertson, Amy D.; Seeley, Lane; Wittmann, Michael C.; Vokos, Stamatis

2013-01-01

We provide evidence that a learning activity called Energy Theater engages learners with key conceptual issues in the learning of energy, including disambiguating matter flow and energy flow and theorizing mechanisms for energy transformation. A participationist theory of learning, in which learning is indicated by changes in speech and behavior,…

Culture and Commitment: The Key to the Creation of an Action Learning Organization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hind, Matthew; Koenigsberger, John

2007-01-01

This article examines the introduction and practice of action learning into a highly volatile, commercial environment. During nine years of action learning projects, the impact on individuals, the action learning sets into which they were formed, the organization and its structure and the organizational culture were evaluated. The article…

An e-Learning System for Extracting Text Comprehension and Learning Style Characteristics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Samarakou, Maria; Tsaganou, Grammatiki; Papadakis, Andreas

2018-01-01

Technology-mediated learning is very actively and widely researched, with numerous e-learning environments designed for different educational purposes developed during the past few decades. Still, their organization and texts are not structured according to any theory of educational comprehension. Modern education is even more flexible and, thus,…

Dimensionality and construct validity of an instrument designed to measure the metacognitive orientation of science classroom learning environments.

PubMed

Thomas, Gregory P

2004-01-01

The purpose of this study was to establish the factorial construct validity and dimensionality of the Metacognitive Orientation Learning Environment Scale-Science (MOLES-S) which was designed to measure the metacognitive orientation of science classroom learning environments. The metacognitive orientation of a science classroom learning environment is the extent to which psychosocial conditions that are known to enhance students' metacognition are evident within that classroom. The development of items comprising this scale was based on a theoretical understanding of metacognition, learning environments and the development of previous learning environments instruments. Four possible hypothesized structure models, each consistent with the literature, were reviewed and their merits were compared on the basis of empirical data drawn from two populations of 1026 and 1223 Hong Kong secondary school students using confirmatory factor analysis procedures. The scale was calibrated using the Rasch rating scale model using data from the 1223 student sample. The results suggest that there is strong evidence to support the factorial construct validity of the MOLES-S but that, on the basis of the Rasch analysis, there are still suggestions for further refinement and improvement of the MOLES-S.

How do general practice residents use social networking sites in asynchronous distance learning?

PubMed

Maisonneuve, Hubert; Chambe, Juliette; Lorenzo, Mathieu; Pelaccia, Thierry

2015-09-21

Blended learning environments - involving both face-to-face and remote interactions - make it easier to adapt learning programs to constraints such as residents' location and low teacher-student ratio. Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook®, while not originally intended to be used as learning environments, may be adapted for the distance-learning part of training programs. The purpose of our study was to explore the use of SNS for asynchronous distance learning in a blended learning environment as well as its influence on learners' face-to-face interactions. We conducted a qualitative study and carried out semi-structured interviews. We performed purposeful sampling for maximal variation to include eight general practice residents in 2(nd) and 3(rd) year training. A thematic analysis was performed. The social integration of SNS facilitates the engagement of users in their learning tasks. This may also stimulate students' interactions and group cohesion when members meet up in person. Most of the general practice residents who work in the blended learning environment we studied had a positive appraisal on their use of SNS. In particular, we report a positive impact on their engagement in learning and their participation in discussions during face-to-face instruction. Further studies are needed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of SNS in blended learning environments and the appropriation of SNS by teachers.

Cooperative Learning as a Tool To Teach Vertebrate Anatomy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koprowski, John L.; Perigo, Nan

2000-01-01

Describes a method for teaching biology that includes more investigative exercises that foster an environment for cooperative learning in introductory laboratories that focus on vertebrates. Fosters collaborative learning by facilitating interaction between students as they become experts on their representative vertebrate structures. (SAH)

Clinical learning environment and supervision: experiences of Norwegian nursing students - a questionnaire survey.

PubMed

Skaalvik, Mari Wolff; Normann, Hans Ketil; Henriksen, Nils

2011-08-01

To measure nursing students' experiences and satisfaction with their clinical learning environments. The primary interest was to compare the results between students with respect to clinical practice in nursing homes and hospital wards. Clinical learning environments are important for the learning processes of nursing students and for preferences for future workplaces. Working with older people is the least preferred area of practice among nursing students in Norway. A cross-sectional design. A validated questionnaire was distributed to all nursing students from five non-randomly selected university colleges in Norway. A total of 511 nursing students completed a Norwegian version of the questionnaire, Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and Nurse Teacher (CLES+T) evaluation scale in 2009. Data including descriptive statistics were analysed using the Statistical Program for the Social Sciences. Factor structure was analysed by principal component analysis. Differences across sub-groups were tested with chi-square tests and Mann-Whitney U test for categorical variables and t-tests for continuous variables. Ordinal logistic regression analysis of perceptions of the ward as a good learning environment was performed with supervisory relationships and institutional contexts as independent variables, controlling for age, sex and study year. The participating nursing students with clinical placements in nursing homes assessed their clinical learning environment significantly more negatively than those with hospital placements on nearby all sub-dimensions. The evidence found in this study indicates that measures should be taken to strengthen nursing homes as learning environments for nursing students. To recruit more graduated nurses to work in nursing homes, actions to improve the learning environment are needed. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Dental students' and staff perceptions of the impact of learning environment disruption on their learning and teaching experiences.

PubMed

The, A J M; Adam, L; Meldrum, A; Brunton, P

2017-10-06

This project is a qualitative investigation into student and staff experiences of the effect of a major building redevelopment on their Dental School learning and teaching environments. Currently, there is little research exploring the impact of disruptions to the learning environment on students' learning and staff teaching experiences. Data were collected in 2016 using an online survey, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with students and staff. Data were analysed using a general inductive approach. Four broad themes emerged as follows: (i) students valued having a space for personal and collaborative work within the Dental School; (ii) both staff and students positioned staff contributions to learning experiences above the role of the physical learning environment; (iii) the majority of staff and students not feel that the physical environment limited their clinical training; and (iv) staff and students were able to adapt to the impact of building redevelopment through resilience and organisation. Results of this research have informed the provision of collegial spaces at the School, both as the building redevelopment continues, and in planning for the completed building. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Structuring an Adult Learning Environment. Part IV: Establishing an Environment for Problem Solving.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frankel, Alan; Brennan, James

Through the years, many researchers have advanced theories of problem solving. Probably the best definition of problem solving to apply to adult learning programs is Wallas' (1926) four-stage theory. The stages are (1) a preparation, (2) an incubation period, (3) a moment of illumination, and (4) final application or verification of the solution.…

Education on an Island: Oklahoma Correctional Educators' Views of Internal Teacher Traits and Successful Learning Environments on Incarcerated Adult Students in an Institutional Setting

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ely, Jeana Dawn

2011-01-01

Scope and method of study. This inquiry, using survey and interview techniques, demonstrated both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. In this study, effective teacher traits related to successful classroom structure in the correctional environment for adult students with a wide variety of issues, problems and learning difficulties…

Effects of Instructional Support within Constructivist Learning Environments for Elementary School Students' Understanding of "Floating and Sinking"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hardy, Ilonca; Jonen, Angela; Moller, Komelia; Stern, Elsbeth

2006-01-01

In a repeated measures design (pretest, posttest, 1-year follow-up) with 161 3rd-grade students, the authors compared 2 curricula on floating and sinking within constructivist learning environments, varying in instructional support. The 2 curricula differed in the sequencing of content and the teacher's cognitively structuring statements. At the…

Growing Community: The Impact of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program on the Social and Learning Environment in Primary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Block, Karen; Gibbs, Lisa; Staiger, Petra K.; Gold, Lisa; Johnson, Britt; Macfarlane, Susie; Long, Caroline; Townsend, Mardie

2012-01-01

This article presents results from a mixed-method evaluation of a structured cooking and gardening program in Australian primary schools, focusing on program impacts on the social and learning environment of the school. In particular, we address the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program objective of providing a pleasurable experience that has…

The Development, Validation and Use of the Rural and Remote Teaching, Working, Living and Learning Environment Survey (RRTWLLES)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dorman, Jeffrey; Kennedy, Joy; Young, Janelle

2015-01-01

Research in rural and remote schools and communities of Queensland resulted in the development and validation of the Rural and Remote Teaching, Working, Living and Learning Environment Survey (RRTWLLES). Samples of 252 teachers and 191 community members were used to validate the structure of this questionnaire. It was developed within the standard…

Inclusion of Immersive Virtual Learning Environments and Visual Control Systems to Support the Learning of Students with Asperger Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lorenzo, Gonzalo; Pomares, Jorge; Lledo, Asuncion

2013-01-01

This paper presents the use of immersive virtual reality systems in the educational intervention with Asperger students. The starting points of this study are features of these students' cognitive style that requires an explicit teaching style supported by visual aids and highly structured environments. The proposed immersive virtual reality…

Structural Relationships among Self-Regulated Learning, Learning Flow, Satisfaction, and Learning Persistence in Cyber Universities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Joo, Young Ju; Joung, Sunyoung; Kim, Jiyeon

2014-01-01

Learning persistence in a cyber-learning environment is not only an index determining the success or failure of individual learners but also a source of important information to establish the management direction of educational programs in an organization. Accordingly, learners need to be motivated to continue to grow in order to ensure both…

Safety in numbers 3: Authenticity, Building knowledge & skills and Competency development & assessment: the ABC of safe medication dosage calculation problem-solving pedagogy.

PubMed

Weeks, Keith W; Meriel Hutton, B; Coben, Diana; Clochesy, John M; Pontin, David

2013-03-01

When designing learning and assessment environments it is essential to articulate the underpinning education philosophy, theory, model and learning style support mechanisms that inform their structure and content. We elaborate on original PhD research that articulates the design rationale of authentic medication dosage calculation problem-solving (MDC-PS) learning and diagnostic assessment environments. These environments embody the principles of authenticity, building knowledge and skills and competency assessment and are designed to support development of competence and bridging of the theory-practice gap. Authentic learning and diagnostic assessment environments capture the features and expert practices that are located in real world practice cultures and recreate them in authentic virtual clinical environments. We explore how this provides students with a safe virtual authentic environment to actively experience, practice and undertake MDC-PS learning and assessment activities. We argue that this is integral to the construction and diagnostic assessment of schemata validity (mental constructions and frameworks that are an individual's internal representation of their world), bridging of the theory-practice gap and cognitive and functional competence development. We illustrate these principles through the underpinning pedagogical design of two online virtual authentic learning and diagnostic assessment environments (safeMedicate and eDose™). Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Listening through Voices: Infant Statistical Word Segmentation across Multiple Speakers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graf Estes, Katharine; Lew-Williams, Casey

2015-01-01

To learn from their environments, infants must detect structure behind pervasive variation. This presents substantial and largely untested learning challenges in early language acquisition. The current experiments address whether infants can use statistical learning mechanisms to segment words when the speech signal contains acoustic variation…

Authenticity in Learning for the Twenty-First Century: Bridging the Formal and the Informal

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hung, David; Lee, Shu-Shing; Lim, Kenneth Y. T.

2012-01-01

The paper attempts to bridge informal and formal learning by leveraging on affordance structures associated with informal environments to help learners develop social, cognitive, and metacognitive dispositions that can be applied to learning in classrooms. Most studies focus on either learning in formal or informal contexts, but this study seeks…

MOOC & B-Learning: Students' Barriers and Satisfaction in Formal and Non-Formal Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gutiérrez-Santiuste, Elba; Gámiz-Sánchez, Vanesa-M.; Gutiérrez-Pérez, Jose

2015-01-01

The study presents a comparative analysis of two virtual learning formats: one non-formal through a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and the other formal through b-learning. We compare the communication barriers and the satisfaction perceived by the students (N = 249) by developing a qualitative analysis using semi-structured questionnaires and…

Supporting Independent Learning Environments: An Analysis of Structures and Roles of Language Learning Advisers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mozzon-McPherson, Marina

2007-01-01

This article examines the contribution of language learning advisers to the creation of synergy in specific learning spaces and considers advisers' roles in relation to the development of successful learner self-management (LSM). Starting with an historical overview of the evolution of the self-access centre at the University of Hull, the article…

Role of Individual Learning Pathways in Non-Threatening Teaching and Learning Environment Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Makarova, Elena A.

2014-01-01

The paper covers a diverse range of topics, the areas of interest for this particular paper include (a) knowledge structures and mental models, (b) problem solving processes, (c) metacognition, (d) skill acquisition, (e) individual learning styles, and (f) transfer of learning. The following brief synopsis of the paper serves to illustrate the…

The Learner Characteristics, Features of Desktop 3D Virtual Reality Environments, and College Chemistry Instruction: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Merchant, Zahira; Goetz, Ernest T.; Keeney-Kennicutt, Wendy; Kwok, Oi-man; Cifuentes, Lauren; Davis, Trina J.

2012-01-01

We examined a model of the impact of a 3D desktop virtual reality environment on the learner characteristics (i.e. perceptual and psychological variables) that can enhance chemistry-related learning achievements in an introductory college chemistry class. The relationships between the 3D virtual reality features and the chemistry learning test as…

Devising a Structural Equation Model of Relationships between Preservice Teachers' Time and Study Environment Management, Effort Regulation, Self-Efficacy, Control of Learning Beliefs, and Metacognitive Self-Regulation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sen, Senol; Yilmaz, Ayhan

2016-01-01

The objective of this study is to analyze the relationship between preservice teachers' time and study environment management, effort regulation, self-efficacy beliefs, control of learning beliefs and metacognitive self-regulation. This study also investigates the direct and indirect effects of metacognitive self-regulation on time and study…

Project LEO Studies of Science Learning Environments and Outcomes, 1968-1981.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matthews, Charles; And Others

Presented is a summary of the 1977-80 Project LEO studies, which focused on science teaching strategies and learning outcomes for disruptive elementary school children and on more refined application of the "student-structured learning in science" (SSLS) teacher behavioral pattern in secondary school science classrooms. Included within…

Soaring to New Heights with Learning Orientated Companies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gardiner, Penny

1999-01-01

A study of two engineering firms attempting to implement a learning orientation found they were most like learning organizations in terms of empowerment and organizational structure. They were least like them in regard to participative policy making and information sharing about the external environment. Poor communication and lack of trust were…

Business Simulation Games: Effective Teaching Tools or Window Dressing?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tanner, John R.; Stewart, Geoffrey; Totaro, Michael W.; Hargrave, Melissa

2012-01-01

Business simulations serve as learning platforms that stimulate the "gaming" interest of students, that provide a structured learning environment, and that should help manage the time resources of faculty. Simulations appear to provide a context where students feel learning can take place. However, faculty perception of simulation…

Analyzing Student Inquiry Data Using Process Discovery and Sequence Classification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Emond, Bruno; Buffett, Scott

2015-01-01

This paper reports on results of applying process discovery mining and sequence classification mining techniques to a data set of semi-structured learning activities. The main research objective is to advance educational data mining to model and support self-regulated learning in heterogeneous environments of learning content, activities, and…

Nursing students' satisfaction of the clinical learning environment: a research study.

PubMed

Papastavrou, Evridiki; Dimitriadou, Maria; Tsangari, Haritini; Andreou, Christos

2016-01-01

The acquisition of quality clinical experience within a supportive and pedagogically adjusted clinical learning environment is a significant concern for educational institutions. The quality of clinical learning usually reflects the quality of the curriculum structure. The assessment of the clinical settings as learning environment is a significant concern within the contemporary nursing education. The nursing students' satisfaction is considered as an important factor of such assessment, contributing to any potential reforms in order to optimize the learning activities and achievements within clinical settings. The aim of the study was to investigate nursing students' satisfaction of the clinical settings as learning environments. A quantitative descriptive, correlational design was used. A sample of 463 undergraduate nursing students from the three universities in Cyprus were participated. Data were collected using the Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and Nurse Teacher (CLES + T). Nursing students were highly satisfied with the clinical learning environment and their satisfaction has been positively related to all clinical learning environment constructs namely the pedagogical atmosphere, the Ward Manager's leadership style, the premises of Nursing in the ward, the supervisory relationship (mentor) and the role of the Nurse Teacher (p < 0.001). Students who had a named mentor reported more satisfied with the supervisory relationship. The frequency of meetings among the students and the mentors increased the students' satisfaction with the clinical learning environment. It was also revealed that 1st year students were found to be more satisfied than the students in other years. The supervisory relationship was evaluated by the students as the most influential factor in their satisfaction with the clinical learning environment. Student's acceptance within the nursing team and a well-documented individual nursing care is also related with students' satisfaction. The pedagogical atmosphere is considered pivotal, with reference to students' learning activities and competent development within the clinical setting. Therefore, satisfaction could be used as an important contributing factor towards the development of clinical learning environments in order to satisfy the needs and expectations of students. The value of the development of an organized mentorship system is illustrated in the study.

When global structure "Explains Away" local grammar: a Bayesian account of rule-induction in tone sequences.

PubMed

Dawson, Colin; Gerken, Louann

2011-09-01

While many constraints on learning must be relatively experience-independent, past experience provides a rich source of guidance for subsequent learning. Discovering structure in some domain can inform a learner's future hypotheses about that domain. If a general property accounts for particular sub-patterns, a rational learner should not stipulate separate explanations for each detail without additional evidence, as the general structure has "explained away" the original evidence. In a grammar-learning experiment using tone sequences, manipulating learners' prior exposure to a tone environment affects their sensitivity to the grammar-defining feature, in this case consecutive repeated tones. Grammar-learning performance is worse if context melodies are "smooth" -- when small intervals occur more than large ones -- as Smoothness is a general property accounting for a high rate of repetition. We present an idealized Bayesian model as a "best case" benchmark for learning repetition grammars. When context melodies are Smooth, the model places greater weight on the small-interval constraint, and does not learn the repetition rule as well as when context melodies are not Smooth, paralleling the human learners. These findings support an account of abstract grammar-induction in which learners rationally assess the statistical evidence for underlying structure based on a generative model of the environment. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Learning Environment Counts: Longitudinal Qualitative Analysis of Study Strategies Adopted by First-Year Medical Students in a Competency-Based Educational Program.

PubMed

Bierer, S Beth; Dannefer, Elaine F

2016-11-01

The move toward competency-based education will require medical schools and postgraduate training programs to restructure learning environments to motivate trainees to take personal ownership for learning. This qualitative study explores how medical students select and implement study strategies while enrolled in a unique, nontraditional program that emphasizes reflection on performance and competence rather than relying on high-stakes examinations or grades to motivate students to learn and excel. Fourteen first-year medical students volunteered to participate in three, 45-minute interviews (42 overall) scheduled three months apart during 2013-2014. Two medical educators used structured interview guides to solicit students' previous assessment experiences, preferred learning strategies, and performance monitoring processes. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Participants confirmed accuracy of transcripts. Researchers independently read transcripts and met regularly to discuss transcripts and judge when themes achieved saturation. Medical students can adopt an assessment for learning mind-set with faculty guidance and implement appropriate study strategies for mastery-learning demands. Though students developed new strategies at different rates during the year, they all eventually identified study and performance monitoring strategies to meet learning needs. Students who had diverse learning experiences in college embraced mastery-based study strategies sooner than peers after recognizing that the learning environment did not reward performance-based strategies. Medical students can take ownership for their learning and implement specific strategies to regulate behavior when learning environments contain building blocks emphasized in self-determination theory. Findings should generalize to educational programs seeking strategies to design learning environments that promote self-regulated learning.

Learning classifier systems for single and multiple mobile robots in unstructured environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bay, John S.

1995-12-01

The learning classifier system (LCS) is a learning production system that generates behavioral rules via an underlying discovery mechanism. The LCS architecture operates similarly to a blackboard architecture; i.e., by posted-message communications. But in the LCS, the message board is wiped clean at every time interval, thereby requiring no persistent shared resource. In this paper, we adapt the LCS to the problem of mobile robot navigation in completely unstructured environments. We consider the model of the robot itself, including its sensor and actuator structures, to be part of this environment, in addition to the world-model that includes a goal and obstacles at unknown locations. This requires a robot to learn its own I/O characteristics in addition to solving its navigation problem, but results in a learning controller that is equally applicable, unaltered, in robots with a wide variety of kinematic structures and sensing capabilities. We show the effectiveness of this LCS-based controller through both simulation and experimental trials with a small robot. We then propose a new architecture, the Distributed Learning Classifier System (DLCS), which generalizes the message-passing behavior of the LCS from internal messages within a single agent to broadcast massages among multiple agents. This communications mode requires little bandwidth and is easily implemented with inexpensive, off-the-shelf hardware. The DLCS is shown to have potential application as a learning controller for multiple intelligent agents.

Negotiating energy dynamics through embodied action in a materially structured environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scherr, Rachel E.; Close, Hunter G.; Close, Eleanor W.; Flood, Virginia J.; McKagan, Sarah B.; Robertson, Amy D.; Seeley, Lane; Wittmann, Michael C.; Vokos, Stamatis

2013-12-01

We provide evidence that a learning activity called Energy Theater engages learners with key conceptual issues in the learning of energy, including disambiguating matter flow and energy flow and theorizing mechanisms for energy transformation. A participationist theory of learning, in which learning is indicated by changes in speech and behavior, supports ethnographic analysis of learners’ embodied interactions with each other and the material setting. We conduct detailed analysis to build plausible causal links between specific features of Energy Theater and the conceptual engagement that we observe. Disambiguation of matter and energy appears to be promoted especially by the material structure of the Energy Theater environment, in which energy is represented by participants, while objects are represented by areas demarcated by loops of rope. Theorizing mechanisms of energy transformation is promoted especially by Energy Theater’s embodied action, which necessitates modeling the time ordering of energy transformations.

A collaboration among health sciences schools to enhance faculty development in teaching.

PubMed

Sicat, Brigitte L; O'Kane Kreutzer, Kathy; Gary, Judy; Ivey, Carole K; Marlowe, Elizabeth P; Pellegrini, Joan M; Shuford, Veronica P; Simons, Dianne F

2014-06-17

Those involved in providing faculty development may be among only a few individuals for whom faculty development is an interest and priority within their work setting. Furthermore, funding to support faculty development is limited. In 2010, an interprofessional, self-formed, faculty learning community on faculty development in teaching was established to promote collaboration on faculty development initiatives that have transference to faculty members across disciplines and to share expertise and resources for wider impact. The organic structure and processes of the faculty learning community created an environment that has not only resulted in an increased offering of faculty development opportunities and resources across the health science campus, but has created a rich environment that combines the knowledge, innovation, and experience to promote collaborative efforts that benefit all. The background, structure, processes, successes, and lessons learned of the interprofessional faculty learning community on faculty development in teaching are described.

Learning to choose: Cognitive aging and strategy selection learning in decision making.

PubMed

Mata, Rui; von Helversen, Bettina; Rieskamp, Jörg

2010-06-01

Decision makers often have to learn from experience. In these situations, people must use the available feedback to select the appropriate decision strategy. How does the ability to select decision strategies on the basis of experience change with age? We examined younger and older adults' strategy selection learning in a probabilistic inference task using a computational model of strategy selection learning. Older adults showed poorer decision performance compared with younger adults. In particular, older adults performed poorly in an environment favoring the use of a more cognitively demanding strategy. The results suggest that the impact of cognitive aging on strategy selection learning depends on the structure of the decision environment. (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved

Reinforcement learning algorithms for robotic navigation in dynamic environments.

PubMed

Yen, Gary G; Hickey, Travis W

2004-04-01

The purpose of this study was to examine improvements to reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms in order to successfully interact within dynamic environments. The scope of the research was that of RL algorithms as applied to robotic navigation. Proposed improvements include: addition of a forgetting mechanism, use of feature based state inputs, and hierarchical structuring of an RL agent. Simulations were performed to evaluate the individual merits and flaws of each proposal, to compare proposed methods to prior established methods, and to compare proposed methods to theoretically optimal solutions. Incorporation of a forgetting mechanism did considerably improve the learning times of RL agents in a dynamic environment. However, direct implementation of a feature-based RL agent did not result in any performance enhancements, as pure feature-based navigation results in a lack of positional awareness, and the inability of the agent to determine the location of the goal state. Inclusion of a hierarchical structure in an RL agent resulted in significantly improved performance, specifically when one layer of the hierarchy included a feature-based agent for obstacle avoidance, and a standard RL agent for global navigation. In summary, the inclusion of a forgetting mechanism, and the use of a hierarchically structured RL agent offer substantially increased performance when compared to traditional RL agents navigating in a dynamic environment.

Learning challenges of nursing students in clinical environments: A qualitative study in Iran

PubMed Central

Baraz, Shahram; Memarian, Robabeh; Vanaki, Zohreh

2015-01-01

Background: Clinical learning environment is a complex social entity. This environment is effective on the learning process of nursing students in the clinical area. However, learning in clinical environment has several benefits, but it can be challenging, unpredictable, stressful, and constantly changing. In attention to clinical experiences and factors contributing to the learning of these experiences can waste a great deal of time and energy, impose heavy financial burden on educational systems, cause mental, familial and educational problems for students, and compromise the quality of patient care. Therefore, this study was carried out with the goal of determining the learning challenges of nursing students in clinical environments in Iran. Materials and Methods: In this qualitative study carried out in 2012–2013, 18 undergraduate nursing students were selected by using purposive sampling method from the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery of Tehran and Shahid Beheshti Universities. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. The content analysis method was used to determine relevant themes. Results: Two themes were derived from the data analysis, which represented the students’ clinical learning challenges. These two themes included insufficient qualification of nursing instructors and unsupportive learning environment. Conclusions: Identification of the students’ clinical learning challenges and actions to remove or modify them will create more learning opportunities for the students, improve the achievement of educational goals, provide training to nursing students with the needed competencies to meet the complex demands of caring and for application of theories in practice, and improve the quality of healthcare services. PMID:26430679

Virtual to Reality: Teaching Mathematics and Aerospace Concepts to Undergraduates Using Unmanned Aerial Systems and Flight Simulation Software

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aji, Chadia Affane; Khan, M. Javed

2015-01-01

Student engagement is an essential element for learning. Active learning has been consistently shown to increase student engagement and hence learning. Hands-on activities are one of the many active learning approaches. These activities vary from structured laboratory experiments on one end of the spectrum to virtual gaming environments and to for…

Teacher and learner: Supervised and unsupervised learning in communities.

PubMed

Shafto, Michael G; Seifert, Colleen M

2015-01-01

How far can teaching methods go to enhance learning? Optimal methods of teaching have been considered in research on supervised and unsupervised learning. Locally optimal methods are usually hybrids of teaching and self-directed approaches. The costs and benefits of specific methods have been shown to depend on the structure of the learning task, the learners, the teachers, and the environment.

External and internal factors influencing self-directed online learning of physiotherapy undergraduate students in Sweden: a qualitative study.

PubMed

Hammarlund, Catharina Sjödahl; Nilsson, Maria H; Gummesson, Christina

2015-01-01

Online courses have become common in health sciences education. This learning environment can be designed using different approaches to support student learning. To further develop online environment, it is important to understand how students perceive working and learning online. The aim of this study is to identify aspects influencing students' learning processes and their adaptation to self-directed learning online. Thirty-four physiotherapy students with a mean age of 25 years (range, 21 to 34 years) participated. Qualitative content analysis and triangulation was used when investigating the students' self-reflections, written during a five week self-directed, problem-oriented online course. Two categories emerged: 'the influence of the structured framework' and 'communication and interaction with teachers and peers.' The learning processes were influenced by external factors, e.g., a clear structure including a transparent alignment of assignments and assessment. Important challenges to over-come were primarily internal factors, e.g., low self-efficacy, difficulties to plan the work effectively and adapting to a new environment. The analyses reflected important perspectives targeting areas which enable further course development. The influences of external and internal factors on learning strategies and self-efficacy are important aspects to consider when designing online courses. Factors such as pedagogical design, clarity of purpose, goals, and guidelines were important as well as continuous opportunities for communication and collaboration. Further studies are needed to understand and scaffold the motivational factors among students with low self-efficacy.

Full Spectrum Operations: An Analysis of Course Content at the Command and General Staff College

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-05-01

Dynamics of Military Revolutions 1300-2050. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Kolb , David A. Experiential Learning : Experience as the... experiential learning provides latitude for the student or instructor to deviate from the structured lesson plan and pursue alternate avenues to...their contribution. The cognitive learning environment of CGSC is best understood by reviewing the adult learning model and the experiential learning

Enabling Student Learning. Systems and Strategies. Staff and Educational Development Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wisker, Gina, Ed.; Brown, Sally, Ed.

The 16 chapters of this book explore, from a British perspective, a range of strategies, both institutional and individual, developed to foster an environment conducive to learning for university students. Section 1 concentrates on systems and structures to assist student learning while Section 2 offers applications at both the undergraduate and…

Using Design-Based Research to Develop Meaningful Online Discussions in Undergraduate Field Experience Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Carol; Hill, Laurie; Lock, Jennifer; Altowairiki, Noha; Ostrowski, Chris; da Rosa dos Santos, Luciano; Liu, Yang

2017-01-01

From a design perspective, the intentionality of students to engage in surface or deep learning is often experienced through prescribed activities and learning tasks. Educators understand that meaningful learning can be furthered through the structural and organizational design of the online environment that motivates the student towards task…

Learning about Ecological Systems by Constructing Qualitative Models with DynaLearn

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leiba, Moshe; Zuzovsky, Ruth; Mioduser, David; Benayahu, Yehuda; Nachmias, Rafi

2012-01-01

A qualitative model of a system is an abstraction that captures ordinal knowledge and predicts the set of qualitatively possible behaviours of the system, given a qualitative description of its structure and initial state. This paper examines an innovative approach to science education using an interactive learning environment that supports…

Efficacy of a Meiosis Learning Module Developed for the Virtual Cell Animation Collection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goff, Eric E.; Reindl, Katie M.; Johnson, Christina; McClean, Phillip; Offerdahl, Erika G.; Schroeder, Noah L.; White, Alan R.

2017-01-01

Recent reports calling for change in undergraduate biology education have resulted in the redesign of many introductory biology courses. Reports on one common change to course structure, the active-learning environment, have placed an emphasis on student preparation, noting that the positive outcomes of active learning in the classroom depend…

Examining Culturally Structured Learning Environments with Different Types of Music-Linked Movement Opportunity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cole, Juanita M.; Boykin, A. Wade

2008-01-01

This study describes two experiments that extended earlier work on the Afrocultural theme Movement Expression. The impact of various learning conditions characterized by different types of music-linked movement on story recall performance was examined. African American children were randomly assigned to a learning condition, presented a story, and…

Cooperation enhanced by indirect reciprocity in spatial prisoner's dilemma games for social P2P systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tian, Lin-Lin; Li, Ming-Chu; Wang, Zhen

2016-11-01

With the growing interest in social Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications, relationships of individuals are further exploited to improve the performances of reputation systems. It is an on-going challenge to investigate how spatial reciprocity aids indirect reciprocity in sustaining cooperation in practical P2P environments. This paper describes the construction of an extended prisoner's dilemma game on square lattice networks with three strategies, i.e., defection, unconditional cooperation, and reciprocal cooperation. Reciprocators discriminate partners according to their reputations based on image scoring, where mistakes in judgment of reputations may occur. The independent structures of interaction and learning neighborhood are discussed, with respect to the situation in which learning environments differ from interaction networks. The simulation results have indicated that the incentive mechanism enhances cooperation better in structured peers than among a well-mixed population. Given the realistic condition of inaccurate reputation scores, defection is still successfully held down when the players interact and learn within the unified neighborhoods. Extensive simulations have further confirmed the positive impact of spatial structure on cooperation with different sizes of lattice neighborhoods. And similar conclusions can also be drawn on regular random networks and scale-free networks. Moreover, for the separated structures of the neighborhoods, the interaction network has a critical effect on the evolution dynamics of cooperation and learning environments only have weaker impacts on the process. Our findings further provide some insights concerning the evolution of collective behaviors in social systems.

Social and structural housing conditions influence the development of a depressive-like phenotype in the learned helplessness paradigm in male mice.

PubMed

Chourbaji, Sabine; Zacher, Christiane; Sanchis-Segura, Carles; Spanagel, Rainer; Gass, Peter

2005-10-14

Structural and social factors are known to play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of depression. Since animal models of depression are a major tool to gain insights into the mechanisms involved in the pathophysiology of this disease it is important not only to exploit but also to be aware of factors that may affect these models. As housing represents a fundamental external factor, which is controversially debated to affect the animals' emotionality, this study aimed to investigate the impact of different social and structural housing conditions on the development of a depressive-like syndrome in the learned helplessness paradigm. Group housing in an impoverished environment led to an increased vulnerability in the learned helplessness paradigm. Groups that were housed enriched, however, were less helpless. Furthermore impoverished conditions did not increase the vulnerability in single housed animals. Regarding emotionality in the animals, basal anxiety was reduced and the exploration was enhanced by group housing and enriched environment. These results suggest that housing conditions significantly influence the outcome of learned helplessness studies.

Structured learning and self-reflection: strategies to decrease anxiety in the psychiatric mental health clinical nursing experience.

PubMed

Ganzer, Christine Anne; Zauderer, Cheryl

2013-01-01

The purpose of this qualitative study was to test a teaching-learning strategy to help nursing students decrease stress and anxiety that may be brought about by the psychiatric mental health clinical experience. Undergraduate nursing students are known to experience affective stress prior to their first psychiatric mental health clinical practicum. A stressful learning environment can affect the success of the student's clinical performance. Thirty nursing students participated in this study. A structured preclinical workshop combined with self-reflection provided insight into students' perceptions of the psychiatric mental health clinical experience. Overall, students reported that participating in the teaching-learning strategy and self-reflection helped mitigate Combining structured learning with self-reflection is a useful tool for helping nursing students increase self-awareness and ease anxiety that may interfere with learning.

Unpacking socio-economic risks for reading and academic self-concept in primary school: Differential effects and the role of the preschool home learning environment.

PubMed

Crampton, Alexandria; Hall, James

2017-09-01

Uncertainty remains concerning how children's reading and academic self-concept are related and how these are differentially affected by social disadvantage and home learning environments. To contrast the impacts of early socio-economic risks and preschool home learning environments upon British children's reading abilities and academic self-concept between 7 and 10 years. n = 3,172 British children aged 3-10 years and their families. A secondary analysis of the nationally representative UK EPPE database. Multilevel structural equation modelling calculated the direct, indirect, and total impacts of early socio-economic risks (0-3 years) and preschool home learning environments (3-5 years) upon children's reading ability and academic self-concept between 7 and 10 years. Early socio-economic risk had different effects upon children's reading ability and academic self-concept. Early socio-economic risks affected children's reading at ages 7 and 10 both directly and indirectly via effects upon preschool home learning environments. By contrast, early socio-economic risks had only indirect effects upon children's academic self-concept via less stimulating home learning environments in the preschool period and by limiting reading abilities early on in primary school. Although the impacts of early socio-economic risks are larger and more easily observed upon reading than upon academic self-concept, they can impact both by making it less likely that children will experience enriching home learning environments during the preschool period. This has implications for social policymakers, early educators, and interventionists. Intervening early and improving preschool home learning environments can do more than raise children's reading abilities; secondary benefits may also be achievable upon children's self-concept. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

Learning Predictive Statistics: Strategies and Brain Mechanisms.

PubMed

Wang, Rui; Shen, Yuan; Tino, Peter; Welchman, Andrew E; Kourtzi, Zoe

2017-08-30

When immersed in a new environment, we are challenged to decipher initially incomprehensible streams of sensory information. However, quite rapidly, the brain finds structure and meaning in these incoming signals, helping us to predict and prepare ourselves for future actions. This skill relies on extracting the statistics of event streams in the environment that contain regularities of variable complexity from simple repetitive patterns to complex probabilistic combinations. Here, we test the brain mechanisms that mediate our ability to adapt to the environment's statistics and predict upcoming events. By combining behavioral training and multisession fMRI in human participants (male and female), we track the corticostriatal mechanisms that mediate learning of temporal sequences as they change in structure complexity. We show that learning of predictive structures relates to individual decision strategy; that is, selecting the most probable outcome in a given context (maximizing) versus matching the exact sequence statistics. These strategies engage distinct human brain regions: maximizing engages dorsolateral prefrontal, cingulate, sensory-motor regions, and basal ganglia (dorsal caudate, putamen), whereas matching engages occipitotemporal regions (including the hippocampus) and basal ganglia (ventral caudate). Our findings provide evidence for distinct corticostriatal mechanisms that facilitate our ability to extract behaviorally relevant statistics to make predictions. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Making predictions about future events relies on interpreting streams of information that may initially appear incomprehensible. Past work has studied how humans identify repetitive patterns and associative pairings. However, the natural environment contains regularities that vary in complexity from simple repetition to complex probabilistic combinations. Here, we combine behavior and multisession fMRI to track the brain mechanisms that mediate our ability to adapt to changes in the environment's statistics. We provide evidence for an alternate route for learning complex temporal statistics: extracting the most probable outcome in a given context is implemented by interactions between executive and motor corticostriatal mechanisms compared with visual corticostriatal circuits (including hippocampal cortex) that support learning of the exact temporal statistics. Copyright © 2017 Wang et al.

Enhancing the strategic management of practice learning through the introduction of the role of Learning Environment Manager.

PubMed

Congdon, Graham; Baker, Tracey; Cheesman, Amanda

2013-03-01

This paper describes a process evaluation project designed to enhance the strategic management of practice learning within a large Hospital in the North of England. The aim of the project was to introduce the role of the Learning Environment Manager with dedicated responsibility for practice learning of undergraduate student nurses within the Hospital's 49 practice-settings. Whilst aspects of this role were already evident in several of these settings, the project sought to locate and standardise responsibilities related to the organisation and management of learning and teaching in practice explicitly within the existing staffing structure of each practice-setting. Focus group interviews were used to explore significant aspects of the project with key stakeholder groups comprising Learning Environment Managers, the Hospital Clinical Educator, Hospital Department Managers, Ward Managers, Mentors, University Link Lecturers and undergraduate Student Nurses. Interview data were analysed using thematic content analysis. The findings of the project suggest that the Learning Environment Manager role affords providers of practice learning with a robust approach to establish organisation-wide benchmarks that standardise the strategic management of practice learning in collaboration with partner Universities. The role incorporated many operational activities previously undertaken by the Hospital Clinical Educator, thus enabling the Hospital Clinical Educator to make a more strategic contribution to the on-going quality monitoring and enhancement of practice learning across the Hospital. The Learning Environment Manager role was found to provide mentors with high levels of support which in turn helped to promote consistent, positive and holistic practice learning experiences for undergraduate student nurses across the Hospital. Importantly, the role offers a potent catalyst for nurses in practice to regain responsibility for practice learning and re-establish the value of practice teaching. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Promoting Learner Reflection: Issues and Difficulties Emerging from a Three-Year Study

DTIC Science & Technology

2002-12-01

and learning environments: Roles, structures, and implications for design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 43(2), 53-69. Clift... technology . No. 7. Amsterdam: Elsevier Schon, D (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in...Situated learning and the culture of learning . Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42. Brown, J., & Duguid, P., (1993). Stolen Knowledge. Educational

Science, School Science, and School: Looking at Science Learning in Classrooms from the Perspective of Basil Bernstein's Theory of the Structure of Pedagogic Discourse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Campbell, Ralph Ian

This analytic paper asks one question: How does Basil Bernstein's concept of the structure of pedagogic discourse (SPD) contribute to our understanding of the role of teacher-student interactions in science learning in the classroom? Applying Bernstein's theory of the SPD to an analysis of current research in science education explores the structure of Bernstein's theory as a tool for understanding the challenges and questions related to current concerns about classroom science learning. This analysis applies Bernstein's theory of the SPD as a heuristic through a secondary reading of selected research from the past fifteen years and prompts further consideration of Bernstein's ideas. This leads to a reevaluation of the categories of regulative discourse (RD) and instructional discourse (ID) as structures that frame learning environments and the dynamics of student-teacher interactions, which determine learning outcomes. The SPD becomes a simple but flexible heuristic, offering a useful deconstruction of teaching and learning dynamics in three different classroom environments. Understanding the framing interactions of RD and ID provides perspectives on the balance of agency and expectation, suggesting some causal explanations for the student learning outcomes described by the authors. On one hand, forms of open inquiry and student-driven instruction may lack the structure to ensure the appropriation of desired forms of scientific thinking. On the other hand, well-designed pathways towards the understanding of fundamental concepts in science may lack the forms of more open-ended inquiry that develop transferable understanding. Important ideas emerge about the complex dynamics of learning communities, the materials of learning, and the dynamic role of the teacher as facilitator and expert. Simultaneously, the SPD as a flexible heuristic proves ambiguous, prompting a reevaluation of Bernstein's organization of RD and ID. The hierarchical structure of pedagogic discourse becomes a problematic distinction. Regulative discourse is often more instructional and instructional discourse more instrumental in shaping roles and relationships within the learning community. This analysis suggests an agenda for future classroom research and the education of teachers, capitalizing on the SPD as heuristic and reevaluating the ways that social dynamics and structures for domain-specific learning interact in the realization of classroom learning.

College Students' Perceptions of Personal Learning Environments through the Lens of Digital Tools, Processes and Spaces

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dabbagh, Nada; Fake, Helen

2017-01-01

A review of the literature reveals there is a gap in the research regarding how students currently perceive PLEs and how they structure their PLEs to support their learning goals. The purpose of this study was to establish an understanding of college students' perceptions of PLEs and what digital tools are currently being used to structure PLEs in…

A phenomenological research study: Perspectives of student learning through small group work between undergraduate nursing students and educators.

PubMed

Wong, Florence Mei Fung

2018-06-18

Small group work is an effective teaching-learning approach in nursing education to enhance students' learning in theoretical knowledge and skill development. Despite its potential advantageous effects on learning, little is known about its actual effects on students' learning from students' and educators' perspectives. To understand students' learning through small group work from the perspectives of students and educators. A qualitative study with focus group interviews was carried out. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were performed with 13 undergraduate nursing students and 10 educators. Four main themes, "initiative learning", "empowerment of interactive group dynamics", "factors for creating effective learning environment", and "barriers influencing students' learning", were derived regarding students' learning in small group work based on the perspectives of the participants. The results showed the importance of learning attitudes of students in individual and group learning. Factors for creating an effective learning environment, including preference for forming groups, effective group size, and adequacy of discussion, facilitate students' learning with the enhancement of learning engagement in small group work. The identified barriers, such as "excessive group work", "conflicts", and "passive team members" can reduce students' motivation and enjoyment of learning. Small group work is recognized as an effective teaching method for knowledge enhancement and skill development in nursing education. All identified themes are important to understand the initiatives of students and group learning, factors influencing an effective learning environment, and barriers hindering students' learning. Nurse educators should pay more attention to the factors that influence an effective learning environment and reduce students' commitment and group dynamics. Moreover, students may need further support to reduce barriers that impede students' learning motivation and enjoyment. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Developing Infant Creates a Curriculum for Statistical Learning.

PubMed

Smith, Linda B; Jayaraman, Swapnaa; Clerkin, Elizabeth; Yu, Chen

2018-04-01

New efforts are using head cameras and eye-trackers worn by infants to capture everyday visual environments from the point of view of the infant learner. From this vantage point, the training sets for statistical learning develop as the sensorimotor abilities of the infant develop, yielding a series of ordered datasets for visual learning that differ in content and structure between timepoints but are highly selective at each timepoint. These changing environments may constitute a developmentally ordered curriculum that optimizes learning across many domains. Future advances in computational models will be necessary to connect the developmentally changing content and statistics of infant experience to the internal machinery that does the learning. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Embodied niche construction in the hominin lineage: semiotic structure and sustained attention in human embodied cognition

PubMed Central

Stutz, Aaron J.

2014-01-01

Human evolution unfolded through a rather distinctive, dynamically constructed ecological niche. The human niche is not only generally terrestrial in habitat, while being flexibly and extensively heterotrophic in food-web connections. It is also defined by semiotically structured and structuring embodied cognitive interfaces, connecting the individual organism with the wider environment. The embodied dimensions of niche-population co-evolution have long involved semiotic system construction, which I hypothesize to be an evolutionarily primitive aspect of learning and higher-level cognitive integration and attention in the great apes and humans alike. A clearly pre-linguistic form of semiotic cognitive structuration is suggested to involve recursively learned and constructed object icons. Higher-level cognitive iconic representation of visually, auditorily, or haptically perceived extrasomatic objects would be learned and evoked through indexical connections to proprioceptive and affective somatic states. Thus, private cognitive signs would be defined, not only by their learned and perceived extrasomatic referents, but also by their associations to iconically represented somatic states. This evolutionary modification of animal associative learning is suggested to be adaptive in ecological niches occupied by long-lived, large-bodied ape species, facilitating memory construction and recall in highly varied foraging and social contexts, while sustaining selective attention during goal-directed behavioral sequences. The embodied niche construction (ENC) hypothesis of human evolution posits that in the early hominin lineage, natural selection further modified the ancestral ape semiotic adaptations, favoring the recursive structuration of concise iconic narratives of embodied interaction with the environment. PMID:25136323

Embodied niche construction in the hominin lineage: semiotic structure and sustained attention in human embodied cognition.

PubMed

Stutz, Aaron J

2014-01-01

Human evolution unfolded through a rather distinctive, dynamically constructed ecological niche. The human niche is not only generally terrestrial in habitat, while being flexibly and extensively heterotrophic in food-web connections. It is also defined by semiotically structured and structuring embodied cognitive interfaces, connecting the individual organism with the wider environment. The embodied dimensions of niche-population co-evolution have long involved semiotic system construction, which I hypothesize to be an evolutionarily primitive aspect of learning and higher-level cognitive integration and attention in the great apes and humans alike. A clearly pre-linguistic form of semiotic cognitive structuration is suggested to involve recursively learned and constructed object icons. Higher-level cognitive iconic representation of visually, auditorily, or haptically perceived extrasomatic objects would be learned and evoked through indexical connections to proprioceptive and affective somatic states. Thus, private cognitive signs would be defined, not only by their learned and perceived extrasomatic referents, but also by their associations to iconically represented somatic states. This evolutionary modification of animal associative learning is suggested to be adaptive in ecological niches occupied by long-lived, large-bodied ape species, facilitating memory construction and recall in highly varied foraging and social contexts, while sustaining selective attention during goal-directed behavioral sequences. The embodied niche construction (ENC) hypothesis of human evolution posits that in the early hominin lineage, natural selection further modified the ancestral ape semiotic adaptations, favoring the recursive structuration of concise iconic narratives of embodied interaction with the environment.

The Effect of Scaffolding Students' Context-Generating Cognitive Activity in Technology-Enhanced Case-Based Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Demetriadis, S. N.; Papadopoulos, P. M.; Stamelos, I. G.; Fischer, F.

2008-01-01

This study investigates the hypothesis that students' learning and problem-solving performance in ill-structured domains can be improved, if elaborative question prompts are used to activate students' context-generating cognitive processes, during case study. Two groups of students used a web-based learning environment to criss-cross and study…

Measuring the Impact of Haptic Feedback Using the SOLO Taxonomy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minogue, James; Jones, Gail

2009-01-01

The application of Biggs' and Collis' Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes taxonomy in the evaluation of student learning about cell membrane transport via a computer-based learning environment is described in this study. Pre-test-post-test comparisons of student outcome data (n = 80) were made across two groups of randomly assigned students:…

Teachers' Perceptions of the Learning Environment and Their Knowledge Base in a Training Program for Novice University Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johannes, Christine; Fendler, Jan; Seidel, Tina

2013-01-01

Despite the complexity of teaching, learning to teach in universities is often "learning by doing". To provide novice university teachers with pedagogic teaching knowledge and to help them develop specific teaching objectives, we created a structured, video-based, one-year training program. In focusing on the core features of…

Assessing the Effectiveness of New Mexico's K-3 plus Summer Learning Initiative

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cann, Damon; Karakaplan, Mustafa; Lubke, Margaret; Rowland, Cyndi

2014-01-01

Students' basic reading and math skills can decline significantly during the summer months. Most attribute this to the prolonged period during which young students are outside of a structured learning environment (Cooper et al 1996). While summer learning loss occurs among all income groups, the effects are more pronounced for those from…

A Methodology for Assessing Learning in Complex and Ill-Structured Task Domains

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spector, J. Michael

2006-01-01

New information and communications technologies and research in cognitive science have led to new ways to think about and implement learning environments. Among these new approaches to instruction and new methods to support learning and performance is an interest in and emphasis on complex subject matter (e.g., complex and dynamic systems…

Maximize a Team-Based Learning Gallery Walk Experience: Herding Cats Is Easier than You Think

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rodenbaugh, David W.

2015-01-01

Team-based learning (TBL) is an instructional strategy that promotes small group learning and peer instruction in a large class environment. TBL is structured to include the following steps: 1) student preparation, e.g., reading/reviewing course lectures, and 2) readiness assurance testing. Preparation and foundational knowledge is assessed on an…

Formative Assessment in Complex Problem-Solving Domains: The Emerging Role of Assessment Technologies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bhagat, Kaushal Kumar; Spector, J. Michael

2017-01-01

Much of the focus on learning technologies has been on structuring innovative learning experiences and on managing distance and hybrid learning environments. This article focuses on the use of technology as an important formative assessment and feedback tool. The rationale for this focus is based on prior research findings that suggest that timely…

Shaping and Being Shaped by Environments for Learning Science. Continuities with the Space and Democratic Vision of a Century Ago

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cavicchi, Elizabeth

2017-07-01

Environments of learning often remain unnoticed and unacknowledged. This study follows a student and myself as we became aware of our local environment at MIT and welcomed that environment as a vibrant contributor to our learning. We met this environment in part through its educational heritage in two centennial anniversaries: John Dewey's 1916 work Democracy and Education and MIT's 1916 move from Boston to the Cambridge campus designed by architect William Welles Bosworth. Dewey argued that for learning to arise through constructive, active engagement among students, the environment must be structured to accommodate investigation. In designing an environment conducive to practical and inventive studies, Bosworth created organic classical forms harboring the illusion of symmetry, while actually departing from it. Students and I are made open to the effects of this environment through the research pedagogy of "critical exploration in the classroom," which informs my practice of listening and responding, and teaching while researching; it lays fertile grounds for the involvement of one student and myself with our environment. Through viewing the moon and sky by eye, telescope, airplane, and astrolabe, the student developed as an observer. She became connected with the larger universe, and critical of formalisms that encage mind and space. Applying Euclid's geometry to the architecture outdoors, the student noticed and questioned classical features in Bosworth's buildings. By encountering these buildings while accompanied by their current restorer, we came to see means by which their structure and design promote human interaction and environmental sustainability as intrinsic to education. The student responded creatively to Bosworth's buildings through photography, learning view-camera, and darkroom techniques. In Dewey's view, democracy entails rejecting dualisms endemic in academic culture since the Greek classical era. Dewey regarded experimental science, where learners are investigators, as a means of engaging the world without invoking dualism. Although Dewey's theory is seldom practiced, our investigations cohered with Deweyan practice. We experienced the environment with its centennial philosophy and architecture as educational agency supportive of investigation that continues to evolve across personal and collective history.

Infant Statistical Learning

PubMed Central

Saffran, Jenny R.; Kirkham, Natasha Z.

2017-01-01

Perception involves making sense of a dynamic, multimodal environment. In the absence of mechanisms capable of exploiting the statistical patterns in the natural world, infants would face an insurmountable computational problem. Infant statistical learning mechanisms facilitate the detection of structure. These abilities allow the infant to compute across elements in their environmental input, extracting patterns for further processing and subsequent learning. In this selective review, we summarize findings that show that statistical learning is both a broad and flexible mechanism (supporting learning from different modalities across many different content areas) and input specific (shifting computations depending on the type of input and goal of learning). We suggest that statistical learning not only provides a framework for studying language development and object knowledge in constrained laboratory settings, but also allows researchers to tackle real-world problems, such as multilingualism, the role of ever-changing learning environments, and differential developmental trajectories. PMID:28793812

Measuring motivation and volition of nursing students in nontraditional learning environments.

PubMed

Nagelsmith, Laurie; Bryer, Jason; Yan, Zheng

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to identify the best fitting model to represent interrelationships between motivation, volition, and academic success for adult nursing students learning in nontraditional environments. Participants (N=297) completed a survey that incorporated two measures: the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and the academic volitional strategies inventory (AVSI) as well as demographic information. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used for data analysis. In phase 1, EFA resulted in factors that generally aligned with previous theoretical factors as defined by the psychometrics used. In Phase 2 of the analysis, CFA validated the use of predefined factor structures. In Phase 3, SEM analysis revealed that motivation has a larger effect on grade point average (GPA; beta = .28, p < .01) than volition (beta = .15, p < .05). The covariance between motivation and volition (r = .42, p < .01) was also found to be significant. These results suggest that there is a significant relationship among motivation, volition, and academic success for adult learners studying in nontraditional learning environments. These findings are consistent with and elaborate the relationship between motivation and volition with a population and setting underrepresented in the research.

Nursing students' perceptions of hospital learning environments--an Australian perspective.

PubMed

Chan, Dominic S

2004-01-01

Clinical education is a vital component in the curricula of pre-registration nursing courses and provides student nurses with the opportunity to combine cognitive, psychomotor, and affective skills. Various studies have suggested that not all practice settings are able to provide nursing students with a positive learning environment. In order to maximize nursing students' clinical learning outcomes, there is a need to examine the clinical learning environment. The purpose of this study was to assess pre-registration nursing students' perceptions of hospital learning environments during clinical field placement. Quantitative and qualitative methodology was used. One hundred and eight students provided quantitative data through completion of the survey instrument, the Clinical Learning Environment Inventory (Actual and Preferred forms). Each form is a 5-point Likert-type questionnaire, made up of 35 items consisted of 5 scales with 7 items per scale. Qualitative data, obtained through semi-structured interview of 21 students from the same cohort, were used to explain and support the quantitative findings. There were significant differences between students' actual and preferred perceptions of the clinical learning environments. Generally students preferred a more positive and favourable clinical environment than they perceived as being actually present. Since participants consisted of nursing students from just one university nursing school in South Australia, the findings may not be representative of all nursing students in general with respect to their clinical placement. However, the value of this study lies in the resulting implication for nursing education and future research. A better understanding of what constitutes quality clinical education from the students' perspective would be valuable in providing better educational experiences.

An instrument to characterize the environment for residents' evidence-based medicine learning and practice.

PubMed

Mi, Misa; Moseley, James L; Green, Michael L

2012-02-01

Many residency programs offer training in evidence-based medicine (EBM). However, these curricula often fail to achieve optimal learning outcomes, perhaps because they neglect various contextual factors in the learning environment. We developed and validated an instrument to characterize the environment for EBM learning and practice in residency programs. An EBM Environment Scale was developed following scale development principles. A survey was administered to residents across six programs in primary care specialties at four medical centers. Internal consistency reliability was analyzed with Cronbach's coefficient alpha. Validity was assessed by comparing predetermined subscales with the survey's internal structure as assessed via factor analysis. Scores were also compared for subgroups based on residency program affiliation and residency characteristics. Out of 262 eligible residents, 124 completed the survey (response rate 47%). The overall mean score was 3.89 (standard deviation=0.56). The initial reliability analysis of the 48-item scale had a high reliability coefficient (Cronbach α=.94). Factor analysis and further item analysis resulted in a shorter 36-item scale with a satisfactory reliability coefficient (Cronbach α=.86). Scores were higher for residents with prior EBM training in medical school (4.14 versus 3.62) and in residency (4.25 versus 3.69). If further testing confirms its properties, the EBM Environment Scale may be used to understand the influence of the learning environment on the effectiveness of EBM training. Additionally, it may detect changes in the EBM learning environment in response to programmatic or institutional interventions.

Assessing students' readiness towards e-learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rahim, Nasrudin Md; Yusoff, Siti Hawa Mohd; Latif, Shahida Abd

2014-07-01

The usage of e-Learning methodology has become a new attraction for potential students as shown by some higher learning institutions in Malaysia. As such, Universiti Selangor (Unisel) should be ready to embark on e-Learning teaching and learning in the near future. The purpose of the study is to gauge the readiness of Unisel's students in e-Learning environment. A sample of 110 students was chosen to participate in this study which was conducted in January 2013. This sample consisted of students from various levels of study that are foundation, diploma and degree program. Using a structured questionnaire, respondents were assessed on their basic Internet skills, access to technology required for e-Learning and their attitude towards characteristics of successful e-Learning student based on study habits, abilities, motivation and time management behaviour. The result showed that respondents did have access to technology that are required for e-Learning environment, and respondents were knowledgeable regarding the basic Internet skills. The finding also showed that respondents' attitude did meet all characteristics of successful e-Learning student. Further analysis showed that there is no significant relationshipeither among gender, level of study or faculty with those characteristics. As a conclusion, the study shows that current Unisel's students are ready to participate in e-Learning environment if the institution decided to embark on e-Learning methodology.

External and internal factors influencing self-directed online learning of physiotherapy undergraduate students in Sweden: a qualitative study

PubMed Central

Hammarlund, Catharina Sjödahl; Nilsson, Maria H.; Gummesson, Christina

2015-01-01

Purpose: Online courses have become common in health sciences education. This learning environment can be designed using different approaches to support student learning. To further develop online environment, it is important to understand how students perceive working and learning online. The aim of this study is to identify aspects influencing students’ learning processes and their adaptation to self-directed learning online. Methods: Thirty-four physiotherapy students with a mean age of 25 years (range, 21 to 34 years) participated. Qualitative content analysis and triangulation was used when investigating the students’ self-reflections, written during a five week self-directed, problem-oriented online course. Results: Two categories emerged: ‘the influence of the structured framework’ and ‘communication and interaction with teachers and peers.’ The learning processes were influenced by external factors, e.g., a clear structure including a transparent alignment of assignments and assessment. Important challenges to over-come were primarily internal factors, e.g., low self-efficacy, difficulties to plan the work effectively and adapting to a new environment. Conclusion: The analyses reflected important perspectives targeting areas which enable further course development. The influences of external and internal factors on learning strategies and self-efficacy are important aspects to consider when designing online courses. Factors such as pedagogical design, clarity of purpose, goals, and guidelines were important as well as continuous opportunities for communication and collaboration. Further studies are needed to understand and scaffold the motivational factors among students with low self-efficacy. PMID:26101401

Statistical Learning is Related to Early Literacy-Related Skills

PubMed Central

Spencer, Mercedes; Kaschak, Michael P.; Jones, John L.; Lonigan, Christopher J.

2015-01-01

It has been demonstrated that statistical learning, or the ability to use statistical information to learn the structure of one’s environment, plays a role in young children’s acquisition of linguistic knowledge. Although most research on statistical learning has focused on language acquisition processes, such as the segmentation of words from fluent speech and the learning of syntactic structure, some recent studies have explored the extent to which individual differences in statistical learning are related to literacy-relevant knowledge and skills. The present study extends on this literature by investigating the relations between two measures of statistical learning and multiple measures of skills that are critical to the development of literacy—oral language, vocabulary knowledge, and phonological processing—within a single model. Our sample included a total of 553 typically developing children from prekindergarten through second grade. Structural equation modeling revealed that statistical learning accounted for a unique portion of the variance in these literacy-related skills. Practical implications for instruction and assessment are discussed. PMID:26478658

Relationships between High School Chemistry Students' Perceptions of a Constructivist Learning Environment and their STEM Career Expectations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wild, Andrew

2015-09-01

Considerable attention has been devoted to factors affecting the persistence of women and historically underrepresented ethnic groups in their science education trajectories. The literature has focused more on structural factors that affect longitudinal outcomes rather than classroom experiences. This exploratory survey study described relationships among high school chemistry students' perceptions of a constructivist learning environment (CLE) and STEM career expectations. The sample included 693 students from 7 public high schools within the San Francisco Bay Area. Students' perceptions of a CLE predicted their expectations of entering a science career, but not engineering, computer, health, or mathematics-related careers. When all groups of students perceived the learning environment as more constructivist, they were more likely to expect science careers.

Amp: A modular approach to machine learning in atomistic simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khorshidi, Alireza; Peterson, Andrew A.

2016-10-01

Electronic structure calculations, such as those employing Kohn-Sham density functional theory or ab initio wavefunction theories, have allowed for atomistic-level understandings of a wide variety of phenomena and properties of matter at small scales. However, the computational cost of electronic structure methods drastically increases with length and time scales, which makes these methods difficult for long time-scale molecular dynamics simulations or large-sized systems. Machine-learning techniques can provide accurate potentials that can match the quality of electronic structure calculations, provided sufficient training data. These potentials can then be used to rapidly simulate large and long time-scale phenomena at similar quality to the parent electronic structure approach. Machine-learning potentials usually take a bias-free mathematical form and can be readily developed for a wide variety of systems. Electronic structure calculations have favorable properties-namely that they are noiseless and targeted training data can be produced on-demand-that make them particularly well-suited for machine learning. This paper discusses our modular approach to atomistic machine learning through the development of the open-source Atomistic Machine-learning Package (Amp), which allows for representations of both the total and atom-centered potential energy surface, in both periodic and non-periodic systems. Potentials developed through the atom-centered approach are simultaneously applicable for systems with various sizes. Interpolation can be enhanced by introducing custom descriptors of the local environment. We demonstrate this in the current work for Gaussian-type, bispectrum, and Zernike-type descriptors. Amp has an intuitive and modular structure with an interface through the python scripting language yet has parallelizable fortran components for demanding tasks; it is designed to integrate closely with the widely used Atomic Simulation Environment (ASE), which makes it compatible with a wide variety of commercial and open-source electronic structure codes. We finally demonstrate that the neural network model inside Amp can accurately interpolate electronic structure energies as well as forces of thousands of multi-species atomic systems.

Student Engagement in a Structured Problem-Based Approach to Learning: A First-Year Electronic Engineering Study Module on Heat Transfer

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Montero, E.; Gonzalez, M. J.

2009-01-01

Problem-based learning has been at the core of significant developments in engineering education in recent years. This term refers to any learning environment in which the problem drives the learning, because it is posed in such a way that students realize they need to acquire new knowledge before the problem can be solved. This paper presents the…

Virtual Environments Supporting Learning and Communication in Special Needs Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cobb, Sue V. G.

2007-01-01

Virtual reality (VR) describes a set of technologies that allow users to explore and experience 3-dimensional computer-generated "worlds" or "environments." These virtual environments can contain representations of real or imaginary objects on a small or large scale (from modeling of molecular structures to buildings, streets, and scenery of a…

Predictors for Chinese Students' Management of Study Environment in Online Groupwork

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Du, Jianxia

2016-01-01

Management of the study environment is crucial to the learning process, and this management in an online class setting is even more challenging. This study investigates models of environmental structuring in online groupwork in China, as reported by 307 graduate students in 80 groups. At the group level, environment management was positively…

``GodMode is his video game name'': situating learning and identity in structures of social practice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bricker, Leah A.; Bell, Philip

2012-12-01

In this paper, we report on the structural nexus of one youth's gaming practices across contexts and over time. We utilize data from an ethnography of youth science and technology learning, as well as expertise development, across settings and developmental time. We use Ole Dreier's theory of persons to understand how this youth is able to develop considerable gaming expertise. Additionally, we explicate the learning practices embedded in the structural nexus of this youth's gaming and we examine associated issues of learning and identity. We problematize the lack of continuity between his formal schooling experiences and the structural nexus of his gaming practices as situated in a variety of other contexts and we reflect on the implications for the design of STEM gaming experiences in formal school environments.

Conditioning Factors of an Organizational Learning Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rebelo, Teresa Manuela; Gomes, Adelino Duarte

2011-01-01

Purpose: The aim of this study is to assess the relationship between some variables (organizational structure, organizational dimension and age, human resource characteristics, the external environment, strategy and quality) and organizational learning culture and evaluate the way they interact with this kind of culture.…

Thinking Style Diversity and Collaborative Design Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Volpentesta, Antonio P.; Ammirato, Salvatore; Sofo, Francesco

The paper explores the impact of structured learning experiences that were designed to challenge students’ ways of thinking and promote creativity. The aim was to develop the ability of students, coming from different engineering disciplines and characterized by particular thinking style profiles, to collaboratively work on a project-based learning experience in an educational environment. Three project-based learning experiences were structured using critical thinking methods to stimulate creativity. Pre and post-survey data using a specially modified thinking style inventory for 202 design students indicated a thinking style profile of preferences with a focus on exploring and questioning. Statistically significant results showed students successfully developed empathy and openness to multiple perspectives.

Can Dialectical Behavior Therapy Be Learned in Highly Structured Learning Environments? Results from a Randomized Controlled Dissemination Trial

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dimeff, Linda A.; Woodcock, Eric A.; Harned, Melanie S.; Beadnell, Blair

2011-01-01

This study evaluated the efficacy of methods of training community mental health providers (N=132) in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) distress tolerance skills, including (a) Linehan's (1993a) Skills Training Manual for Borderline Personality Disorder (Manual), (b) a multimedia e-Learning course covering the same content (e-DBT), and (c) a…

Influence of Problem-Based Learning Strategy on Enhancing Student's Industrial Oriented Competences Learned: An Action Research on Learning Weblog Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chung, Pansy; Yeh, Ron Chuen; Chen, Yi-Cheng

2016-01-01

In order to respond to the ever-changing global economic environment, the technological and vocational education system in Taiwan needs to be dramatically reformed to the changing needs of the domestic industrial structure. Integrating practical talents with practical industrial experiences and competences can help avoid discrepancy and close the…

The Conceptual Structure of IMS Learning Design Does Not Impede Its Use for Authoring

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Derntl, M.; Neumann, S.; Griffiths, D.; Oberhuemer, P.

2012-01-01

IMS Learning Design (LD) is the only available interoperability specification in the area of technology enhanced learning that allows the definition and orchestration of complex activity flows and resource environments in a multirole setting. IMS LD has been available since 2003, and yet it has not been widely adopted either by practitioners or by…

Cooperative Learning and Second Language Acquisition in First-Year Composition: Opportunities for Authentic Communication among English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mason, Katherine

2006-01-01

In an environment, in which English is a second or other language for every student, fear and anxiety affect students' learning and engagement. Yet, in spite of these concerns, students welcomed the chance to practice their spoken English in cooperative structures while learning about and engaging in their composing processes. English language…

Metaverse Utilization in the EFL Classroom - A Study. Second Life (Register Trademark) as Part of an Institution's Curriculum

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Imaoka, Yukimi; Amaki, Yuki; Yagi, Kenji; Fuller, Chris; Madden, Anthony

2012-01-01

Starting on April 2010, the Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages integrated the Metaverse application known as Second Life into the core curriculum for 840 new enrollments. As of April 2011, we enrolled an additional 760 students. This course, the Hybrid English Learning Program, is commonly referred to by the acronym: HELP. By taking the advantages of learning in immersive 3D environments, we aim to meet two objectives, 1) namely to enable students to remember and properly use learned phrases and expressions, and 2) using Second Life(R) as a tool to enhance the meaning and practicality of what is being learned. ,Although there have been several online English learning programs or services here in Japan, this endeavor represents the first time Metaverse technology has been utilized as part of a core curriculum; a curriculum structured upon classroom learning and interaction within the Metaverse. This paper endeavors to explain the following: the planning and development of HELP, the class structure, and the results of a questionnaire which measured whether using such an approach would reduce student timidity and assist student to gain more confidence in speaking English in different social environments.

Using enterprise architecture to analyse how organisational structure impact motivation and learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Närman, Pia; Johnson, Pontus; Gingnell, Liv

2016-06-01

When technology, environment, or strategies change, organisations need to adjust their structures accordingly. These structural changes do not always enhance the organisational performance as intended partly because organisational developers do not understand the consequences of structural changes in performance. This article presents a model-based analysis framework for quantitative analysis of the effect of organisational structure on organisation performance in terms of employee motivation and learning. The model is based on Mintzberg's work on organisational structure. The quantitative analysis is formalised using the Object Constraint Language (OCL) and the Unified Modelling Language (UML) and implemented in an enterprise architecture tool.

A Teaching Model for Truss Structures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bigoni, Davide; Dal Corso, Francesco; Misseroni, Diego; Tommasini, Mirko

2012-01-01

A classroom demonstration model has been designed, machined and successfully tested in different learning environments to facilitate understanding of the mechanics of truss structures, in which struts are subject to purely axial load and deformation. Gaining confidence with these structures is crucial for the development of lattice models, which…

Evidence-Based Teaching in Higher Education: Application to Counselor Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malott, Krista M.; Hall, K. Hridaya; Sheely-Moore, Angela; Krell, Megan M.; Cardaciotto, LeeAnn

2014-01-01

The authors examined best practices in university-level teaching, as premised on the evidence-based teaching (EBT) literature found in fields external to counselor education. Findings were reported in relation to 3 areas: developing an effective learning environment, structuring intentional learning experiences, and assessing teaching…

How clinical medical students perceive others to influence their self-regulated learning.

PubMed

Berkhout, Joris J; Helmich, Esther; Teunissen, Pim W; van der Vleuten, Cees P M; Jaarsma, A Debbie C

2017-03-01

Undergraduate medical students are prone to struggle with learning in clinical environments. One of the reasons may be that they are expected to self-regulate their learning, which often turns out to be difficult. Students' self-regulated learning is an interactive process between person and context, making a supportive context imperative. From a socio-cultural perspective, learning takes place in social practice, and therefore teachers and other hospital staff present are vital for students' self-regulated learning in a given context. Therefore, in this study we were interested in how others in a clinical environment influence clinical students' self-regulated learning. We conducted a qualitative study borrowing methods from grounded theory methodology, using semi-structured interviews facilitated by the visual Pictor technique. Fourteen medical students were purposively sampled based on age, gender, experience and current clerkship to ensure maximum variety in the data. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and were, together with the Pictor charts, analysed iteratively, using constant comparison and open, axial and interpretive coding. Others could influence students' self-regulated learning through role clarification, goal setting, learning opportunities, self-reflection and coping with emotions. We found large differences in students' self-regulated learning and their perceptions of the roles of peers, supervisors and other hospital staff. Novice students require others, mainly residents and peers, to actively help them to navigate and understand their new learning environment. Experienced students who feel settled in a clinical environment are less susceptible to the influence of others and are better able to use others to their advantage. Undergraduate medical students' self-regulated learning requires context-specific support. This is especially important for more novice students learning in a clinical environment. Their learning is influenced most heavily by peers and residents. Supporting novice students' self-regulated learning may be improved by better equipping residents and peers for this role. © 2016 The Authors. Medical Education Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and The Association for the Study of Medical Education.

Protected block time for teaching and learning in a postgraduate family practice residency program

PubMed Central

Jung, Piera; Kennedy, Maggie; Winder, Mary J.

2012-01-01

Abstract Objective To explore the elements necessary for a high-quality educational experience in a family practice residency program with respect to scheduling, learning environment, and approaches to teaching and learning. Design An interpretative, qualitative study using a generative-inquiry approach. Setting The Nanaimo Site of the University of British Columbia Family Practice Residency Program. Participants Fifteen physician instructors and 16 first- and second-year residents. Methods Data were gathered from 2 qualitative focus group interviews with residents; 2 qualitative focus group interviews with physician instructors; and structured and semistructured observation of 2 in-class seminars, with a focus on residents’ engagement with the class. Results were analyzed and categorized into themes independently and collectively by the researchers. Main findings Protected block time for teaching and learning at the Nanaimo Site has been effective in fostering a learning environment that supports collegial relationships and in-depth instruction. Residents and physician instructors benefit from the week-long academic schedule and the opportunity to teach and learn collaboratively. Participants specifically value the connections among learning environment, collegiality, relationships, reflective learning, and the teaching and learning process. Conclusion These findings suggest that strategic planning and scheduling of teaching and learning sessions in residency programs are important to promoting a comprehensive educational experience. PMID:22700741

Sampling over Nonuniform Distributions: A Neural Efficiency Account of the Primacy Effect in Statistical Learning.

PubMed

Karuza, Elisabeth A; Li, Ping; Weiss, Daniel J; Bulgarelli, Federica; Zinszer, Benjamin D; Aslin, Richard N

2016-10-01

Successful knowledge acquisition requires a cognitive system that is both sensitive to statistical information and able to distinguish among multiple structures (i.e., to detect pattern shifts and form distinct representations). Extensive behavioral evidence has highlighted the importance of cues to structural change, demonstrating how, without them, learners fail to detect pattern shifts and are biased in favor of early experience. Here, we seek a neural account of the mechanism underpinning this primacy effect in learning. During fMRI scanning, adult participants were presented with two artificial languages: a familiar language (L1) on which they had been pretrained followed by a novel language (L2). The languages were composed of the same syllable inventory organized according to unique statistical structures. In the absence of cues to the transition between languages, posttest familiarity judgments revealed that learners on average more accurately segmented words from the familiar language compared with the novel one. Univariate activation and functional connectivity analyses showed that participants with the strongest learning of L1 had decreased recruitment of fronto-subcortical and posterior parietal regions, in addition to a dissociation between downstream regions and early auditory cortex. Participants with a strong new language learning capacity (i.e., higher L2 scores) showed the opposite trend. Thus, we suggest that a bias toward neural efficiency, particularly as manifested by decreased sampling from the environment, accounts for the primacy effect in learning. Potential implications of this hypothesis are discussed, including the possibility that "inefficient" learning systems may be more sensitive to structural changes in a dynamic environment.

Education and training column: the learning collaborative.

PubMed

MacDonald-Wilson, Kim L; Nemec, Patricia B

2015-03-01

This column describes the key components of a learning collaborative, with examples from the experience of 1 organization. A learning collaborative is a method for management, learning, and improvement of products or processes, and is a useful approach to implementation of a new service design or approach. This description draws from published material on learning collaboratives and the authors' experiences. The learning collaborative approach offers an effective method to improve service provider skills, provide support, and structure environments to result in lasting change for people using behavioral health services. This approach is consistent with psychiatric rehabilitation principles and practices, and serves to increase the overall capacity of the mental health system by structuring a process for discovering and sharing knowledge and expertise across provider agencies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Designing a model for critical thinking development in AJA University of Medical Sciences.

PubMed

Mafakheri Laleh, Mahyar; Mohammadimehr, Mojgan; Zargar Balaye Jame, Sanaz

2016-10-01

In the new concept of medical education, creativity development is an important goal. The aim of this research was to identify a model for developing critical thinking among students with the special focus on learning environment and learning style. This applied and cross-sectional study was conducted among all students studying in undergraduate and professional doctorate programs in Fall Semester 2013-2014 in AJA University of Medical Sciences (N=777). The sample consisted of 257 students selected based on the proportional stratified random sampling method. To collect data, three questionnaires including Critical Thinking, Perception of Learning Environment and Learning Style were employed. The data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation statistical test, and one-sample t-test. The Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used to test the research model. SPSS software, version 14 and the LISREL software were used for data analysis. The results showed that students had significantly assessed the teaching-learning environment and two components of "perception of teachers" and "perception of emotional-psychological climate" at the desirable level (p<0.05). Also learning style and two components of "the study method" and "motivation for studying" were considered significantly desirable (p<0.05). The level of critical thinking among students in terms of components of "commitment", "creativity" and "cognitive maturity" was at the relatively desirable level (p<0.05). In addition, perception of the learning environment can impact the critical thinking through learning style. One of the factors which can significantly impact the quality improvement of the teaching and learning process in AJA University of Medical Sciences is to develop critical thinking among learners. This issue requires providing the proper situation for teaching and learning critical thinking in the educational environment.

Designing a model for critical thinking development in AJA University of Medical Sciences

PubMed Central

MAFAKHERI LALEH, MAHYAR; MOHAMMADIMEHR, MOJGAN; ZARGAR BALAYE JAME, SANAZ

2016-01-01

Introduction: In the new concept of medical education, creativity development is an important goal. The aim of this research was to identify a model for developing critical thinking among students with the special focus on learning environment and learning style. Methods: This applied and cross-sectional study was conducted among all students studying in undergraduate and professional doctorate programs in Fall Semester 2013-2014 in AJA University of Medical Sciences (N=777). The sample consisted of 257 students selected based on the proportional stratified random sampling method. To collect data, three questionnaires including Critical Thinking, Perception of Learning Environment and Learning Style were employed. The data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation statistical test, and one-sample t-test. The Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used to test the research model. SPSS software, version 14 and the LISREL software were used for data analysis. Results: The results showed that students had significantly assessed the teaching-learning environment and two components of "perception of teachers" and "perception of emotional-psychological climate" at the desirable level (p<0.05). Also learning style and two components of "the study method" and "motivation for studying" were considered significantly desirable (p<0.05). The level of critical thinking among students in terms of components of "commitment", "creativity" and "cognitive maturity" was at the relatively desirable level (p<0.05). In addition, perception of the learning environment can impact the critical thinking through learning style. Conclusion: One of the factors which can significantly impact the quality improvement of the teaching and learning process in AJA University of Medical Sciences is to develop critical thinking among learners. This issue requires providing the proper situation for teaching and learning critical thinking in the educational environment. PMID:27795968

TELMA: Technology-enhanced learning environment for minimally invasive surgery.

PubMed

Sánchez-González, Patricia; Burgos, Daniel; Oropesa, Ignacio; Romero, Vicente; Albacete, Antonio; Sánchez-Peralta, Luisa F; Noguera, José F; Sánchez-Margallo, Francisco M; Gómez, Enrique J

2013-06-01

Cognitive skills training for minimally invasive surgery has traditionally relied upon diverse tools, such as seminars or lectures. Web technologies for e-learning have been adopted to provide ubiquitous training and serve as structured repositories for the vast amount of laparoscopic video sources available. However, these technologies fail to offer such features as formative and summative evaluation, guided learning, or collaborative interaction between users. The "TELMA" environment is presented as a new technology-enhanced learning platform that increases the user's experience using a four-pillared architecture: (1) an authoring tool for the creation of didactic contents; (2) a learning content and knowledge management system that incorporates a modular and scalable system to capture, catalogue, search, and retrieve multimedia content; (3) an evaluation module that provides learning feedback to users; and (4) a professional network for collaborative learning between users. Face validation of the environment and the authoring tool are presented. Face validation of TELMA reveals the positive perception of surgeons regarding the implementation of TELMA and their willingness to use it as a cognitive skills training tool. Preliminary validation data also reflect the importance of providing an easy-to-use, functional authoring tool to create didactic content. The TELMA environment is currently installed and used at the Jesús Usón Minimally Invasive Surgery Centre and several other Spanish hospitals. Face validation results ascertain the acceptance and usefulness of this new minimally invasive surgery training environment. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Constructive Use of Authoritative Sources in Science Meaning-making

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yeo, Jennifer; Chee Tan, Seng

2010-09-01

Researchers are skeptical about the role of authoritative sources of information in a constructivist learning environment for fear of usurping students' critical thinking. Taking a social semiotics perspective in this study, authoritative sources are regarded as inscriptions of cultural artifacts, and science learning involves meaning-making of these cultural artifacts. In studying the meaning-making process of a group of students doing problem-based learning (PBL), our findings show that authoritative sources played an important role in deepening and expanding students' scientific knowledge. We also found that constructive use of authoritative sources involves interpretation of meaning in context. This structural coupling of authoritative sources and context for meaningful sense-making has to be taken into consideration in the design of learning environment.

Student Pedagogical Teams: Students as Course Consultants Engaged in Process of Teaching and Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hayward, Lorna; Ventura, Susan; Schuldt, Hilary; Donlan, Pamela

2018-01-01

Faculty engage in "pedagogical solitude," in which they plan, teach, and assess their work alone. To optimize teaching environments and learning outcomes, students can serve as "student pedagogical teams" (SPT) and provide feedback on instructor performance, course structure, and content. Using self-determination theory, this…

Infants Segment Continuous Events Using Transitional Probabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stahl, Aimee E.; Romberg, Alexa R.; Roseberry, Sarah; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathryn

2014-01-01

Throughout their 1st year, infants adeptly detect statistical structure in their environment. However, little is known about whether statistical learning is a primary mechanism for event segmentation. This study directly tests whether statistical learning alone is sufficient to segment continuous events. Twenty-eight 7- to 9-month-old infants…

ALES: An Innovative Argument-Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abbas, Safia; Sawamura, Hajime

2010-01-01

This paper presents the development of an Argument-Learning System (ALES). The idea is based on the AIF (argumentation interchange format) ontology using "Walton theory". ALES uses different mining techniques to manage a highly structured arguments repository. This repository was designed, developed and implemented by the authors. The aim is to…

A Group Intelligence-Based Asynchronous Argumentation Learning-Assistance Platform

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Chenn-Jung; Chang, Shun-Chih; Chen, Heng-Ming; Tseng, Jhe-Hao; Chien, Sheng-Yuan

2016-01-01

Structured argumentation support environments have been built and used in scientific discourse in the literature. However, to the best our knowledge, there is no research work in the literature examining whether student's knowledge has grown during learning activities with asynchronous argumentation. In this work, an intelligent computer-supported…

Produsage in a/synchronous learner-led e-learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kazmer, Michelle M.

2011-04-01

Creating a successful produsage environment for a required course taught via e-learning requires analyzing various factors: the learning context, learner-led education in required classes, the structure of the class, and reflections and evaluations of each semester's iteration of the course. Taking a produsage perspective, this paper analyzes the long-term development of a required graduate-level course in information organization. The course is examined closely to show how its materials, assignments, technology, instruction, and culture contribute to a learner-led produsage environment and lasting knowledge creation. The analysis leads to implications for course design and working with learners to create knowledge that may be applied in multiple settings.

Fundamental concepts of problem-based learning for the new facilitator.

PubMed Central

Kanter, S L

1998-01-01

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a powerful small group learning tool that should be part of the armamentarium of every serious educator. Classic PBL uses ill-structured problems to simulate the conditions that occur in the real environment. Students play an active role and use an iterative process of seeking new information based on identified learning issues, restructuring the information in light of the new knowledge, gathering additional information, and so forth. Faculty play a facilitatory role, not a traditional instructional role, by posing metacognitive questions to students. These questions serve to assist in organizing, generalizing, and evaluating knowledge; to probe for supporting evidence; to explore faulty reasoning; to stimulate discussion of attitudes; and to develop self-directed learning and self-assessment skills. Professional librarians play significant roles in the PBL environment extending from traditional service provider to resource person to educator. Students and faculty usually find the learning experience productive and enjoyable. PMID:9681175

Exploratory factor analysis of the Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and Nurse Teacher Scale (CLES+T).

PubMed

Watson, Paul Barry; Seaton, Philippa; Sims, Deborah; Jamieson, Isabel; Mountier, Jane; Whittle, Rose; Saarikoski, Mikko

2014-01-01

The Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and Nurse Teacher (CLES+T) scale measures student nurses' perceptions of clinical learning environments. This study evaluates the construct validity and internal reliability of the CLES+T in hospital settings in New Zealand. Comparisons are made between New Zealand and Finnish data. The CLES+T scale was completed by 416 Bachelor of Nursing students following hospital clinical placements between October 2008 and December 2009. Construct validity and internal reliability were assessed using exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha. Exploratory factor analysis supports 4 factors. Cronbach's alpha ranged from .82 to .93. All items except 1 loaded on the same factors found in unpublished Finnish data. The first factor combined 2 previous components from the published Finnish component analysis and was renamed: connecting with, and learning in, communities of clinical practice. The remaining 3 factors (Nurse teacher, Supervisory relationship, and Leadership style of the manager) corresponded to previous components and their conceptualizations. The CLES+T has good internal reliability and a consistent factor structure across samples. The consistency across international samples supports faculties and hospitals using the CLES+T to benchmark the quality of clinical learning environments provided to students.

The Structural Consequences of Big Data-Driven Education.

PubMed

Zeide, Elana

2017-06-01

Educators and commenters who evaluate big data-driven learning environments focus on specific questions: whether automated education platforms improve learning outcomes, invade student privacy, and promote equality. This article puts aside separate unresolved-and perhaps unresolvable-issues regarding the concrete effects of specific technologies. It instead examines how big data-driven tools alter the structure of schools' pedagogical decision-making, and, in doing so, change fundamental aspects of America's education enterprise. Technological mediation and data-driven decision-making have a particularly significant impact in learning environments because the education process primarily consists of dynamic information exchange. In this overview, I highlight three significant structural shifts that accompany school reliance on data-driven instructional platforms that perform core school functions: teaching, assessment, and credentialing. First, virtual learning environments create information technology infrastructures featuring constant data collection, continuous algorithmic assessment, and possibly infinite record retention. This undermines the traditional intellectual privacy and safety of classrooms. Second, these systems displace pedagogical decision-making from educators serving public interests to private, often for-profit, technology providers. They constrain teachers' academic autonomy, obscure student evaluation, and reduce parents' and students' ability to participate or challenge education decision-making. Third, big data-driven tools define what "counts" as education by mapping the concepts, creating the content, determining the metrics, and setting desired learning outcomes of instruction. These shifts cede important decision-making to private entities without public scrutiny or pedagogical examination. In contrast to the public and heated debates that accompany textbook choices, schools often adopt education technologies ad hoc. Given education's crucial impact on individual and collective success, educators and policymakers must consider the implications of data-driven education proactively and explicitly.

Grounding statistical learning in context: The effects of learning and retrieval contexts on cross-situational word learning.

PubMed

Chen, Chi-Hsin; Yu, Chen

2017-06-01

Natural language environments usually provide structured contexts for learning. This study examined the effects of semantically themed contexts-in both learning and retrieval phases-on statistical word learning. Results from 2 experiments consistently showed that participants had higher performance in semantically themed learning contexts. In contrast, themed retrieval contexts did not affect performance. Our work suggests that word learners are sensitive to statistical regularities not just at the level of individual word-object co-occurrences but also at another level containing a whole network of associations among objects and their properties.

Learning higher-order generalizations through free play: Evidence from 2- and 3-year-old children.

PubMed

Sim, Zi L; Xu, Fei

2017-04-01

Constructivist views of cognitive development often converge on 2 key points: (a) the child's goal is to build large conceptual structures for understanding the world, and (b) the child plays an active role in developing these structures. While previous research has demonstrated that young children show a precocious capacity for concept and theory building when they are provided with helpful data within training settings, and that they explore their environment in ways that may promote learning, it remains an open question whether young children are able to build larger conceptual structures using self-generated evidence, a form of active learning. In the current study, we examined whether children can learn high-order generalizations (which form the basis for larger conceptual structures) through free play, and whether they can do so as effectively as when provided with relevant data. Results with 2- and 3-year-old children over 4 experiments indicate robust learning through free play, and generalization performance was comparable between free play and didactic conditions. Therefore, young children's self-directed learning supports the development of higher-order generalizations, laying the foundation for building larger conceptual structures and intuitive theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Facilitating peer based learning through summative assessment - An adaptation of the Objective Structured Clinical Assessment tool for the blended learning environment.

PubMed

Wikander, Lolita; Bouchoucha, Stéphane L

2018-01-01

Adapting a course from face to face to blended delivery necessitates that assessments are modified accordingly. In Australia the Objective Structured Clinical Assessment tool, as a derivative from the Objective Structured Clinical Examination, has been used in the face-to-face delivery mode as a formative or summative assessment tool in medicine and nursing since 1990. The Objective Structured Clinical Assessment has been used at Charles Darwin University to assess nursing students' simulated clinical skills prior to the commencement of their clinical placements since 2008. Although the majority of the course is delivered online, students attend a one-week intensive clinical simulation block yearly, prior to attending clinical placements. Initially, the Objective Structured Clinical Assessment was introduced as a lecturer assessed summative assessment, over time it was adapted to better suit the blended learning environment. The modification of the tool from an academic to peer assessed assessment tool, was based on the empirical literature, student feedback and a cross-sectional, qualitative study exploring academics' perceptions of the Objective Structured Clinical Assessment (Bouchoucha et al., 2013a, b). This paper presents an overview of the process leading to the successful adaptation of the Objective Structured Clinical Assessment to suit the requirements of a preregistration nursing course delivered through blended learning. This is significant as many universities are moving their curriculum to fully online or blended delivery, yet little attention has been paid to adapting the assessment of simulated clinical skills. The aim is to identify the benefits and drawbacks of using the peer assessed Objective Structured Clinical Assessment and share recommendations for successful implementation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The diversity issue revisited: international students in clinical environment.

PubMed

Pitkäjärvi, Marianne; Eriksson, Elina; Pitkälä, Kaisu

2012-01-01

Background. Globalization within higher education leads to an increase in cultural and linguistic diversity in student populations. The purpose of this study was to explore culturally diverse health care students' experiences in clinical environment in Finland, and to compare them with those of native Finnish students' participating in the same program. Method. A cross-sectional survey was performed at 10 polytechnic faculties of health care in Finland. 283 respondents (148 international and 95 Finnish students) responded to items concerning clinical rotation. The survey included items grouped as dimensions: (1) welcoming clinical environment, (2) unsupportive clinical environment, (3) approach to cultural diversity, (4) communication, and (5) structural arrangements. Results. International students felt as welcome on their placements as Finnish students. Concerning structural arrangements set up to facilitate preceptorship and approach to cultural diversity in the learning environment, the two groups' opinions were similar. However, international students were more likely than Finnish students to experience their clinical learning environment as unsupportive (P < 0.001). In addition, their experiences of communication with the staff was poorer than that of their Finnish peers' (P = 0.04). Conclusions. Awareness of strategies that enhance understanding, acceptance, and appreciation of cultural and linguistic diversity in any health care setting are needed.

Soil-pipe interaction modeling for pipe behavior prediction with super learning based methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shi, Fang; Peng, Xiang; Liu, Huan; Hu, Yafei; Liu, Zheng; Li, Eric

2018-03-01

Underground pipelines are subject to severe distress from the surrounding expansive soil. To investigate the structural response of water mains to varying soil movements, field data, including pipe wall strains in situ soil water content, soil pressure and temperature, was collected. The research on monitoring data analysis has been reported, but the relationship between soil properties and pipe deformation has not been well-interpreted. To characterize the relationship between soil property and pipe deformation, this paper presents a super learning based approach combining feature selection algorithms to predict the water mains structural behavior in different soil environments. Furthermore, automatic variable selection method, e.i. recursive feature elimination algorithm, were used to identify the critical predictors contributing to the pipe deformations. To investigate the adaptability of super learning to different predictive models, this research employed super learning based methods to three different datasets. The predictive performance was evaluated by R-squared, root-mean-square error and mean absolute error. Based on the prediction performance evaluation, the superiority of super learning was validated and demonstrated by predicting three types of pipe deformations accurately. In addition, a comprehensive understand of the water mains working environments becomes possible.

A full XML-based approach to creating hypermedia learning modules in web-based environments: application to a pathology course.

PubMed

Staccini, Pascal; Dufour, Jean -Charles; Joubert, Michel; Michiels, Jean -François; Fieschi, Marius

2003-01-01

Nowadays, web-based learning services are a key topic in the pedagogical and learning strategies of universities. While organisational and teaching requirements of the learning environment are being evaluated, technical specifications are emerging, enabling educators to build advanced "units of learning". Changes, however, take a long time and cost-effective solutions have to be found to involve our institutions in such actions. In this paper, we present a model of the components of a course. We detail the method followed to implement this model in hypermedia modules with a viewer that can be played on line or from a CD-ROM. The XML technology has been used to implement all the data structures and a client-side architecture has been designed to build a course viewer. Standards of description of content (such as Dublin Core and DocBook) have been integrated into the data structures. This tool has been populated with data from a pathology course and supports other medical contents. The choice of the architecture and the usefulness of the programming tools are discussed. The means of migrating towards a server-side application are presented.

Sounds and meanings working together: Word learning as a collaborative effort

PubMed Central

Saffran, Jenny

2014-01-01

Over the past several decades, researchers have discovered a great deal of information about the processes underlying language acquisition. From as early as they can be studied, infants are sensitive to the nuances of native-language sound structure. Similarly, infants are attuned to the visual and conceptual structure of their environments starting in the early postnatal period. Months later, they become adept at putting these two arenas of experience together, mapping sounds to meanings. How might learning sounds influence learning meanings, and vice versa? In this paper, I will describe several recent lines of research suggesting that knowledge concerning the sound structure of language facilitates subsequent mapping of sounds to meanings. I will also discuss recent findings suggesting that from its beginnings, the lexicon incorporates relationships amongst the sounds and meanings of newly learned words. PMID:25202163

Temporal structure of motor variability is dynamically regulated and predicts motor learning ability.

PubMed

Wu, Howard G; Miyamoto, Yohsuke R; Gonzalez Castro, Luis Nicolas; Ölveczky, Bence P; Smith, Maurice A

2014-02-01

Individual differences in motor learning ability are widely acknowledged, yet little is known about the factors that underlie them. Here we explore whether movement-to-movement variability in motor output, a ubiquitous if often unwanted characteristic of motor performance, predicts motor learning ability. Surprisingly, we found that higher levels of task-relevant motor variability predicted faster learning both across individuals and across tasks in two different paradigms, one relying on reward-based learning to shape specific arm movement trajectories and the other relying on error-based learning to adapt movements in novel physical environments. We proceeded to show that training can reshape the temporal structure of motor variability, aligning it with the trained task to improve learning. These results provide experimental support for the importance of action exploration, a key idea from reinforcement learning theory, showing that motor variability facilitates motor learning in humans and that our nervous systems actively regulate it to improve learning.

Temporal structure of motor variability is dynamically regulated and predicts motor learning ability

PubMed Central

Wu, Howard G; Miyamoto, Yohsuke R; Castro, Luis Nicolas Gonzalez; Ölveczky, Bence P; Smith, Maurice A

2015-01-01

Individual differences in motor learning ability are widely acknowledged, yet little is known about the factors that underlie them. Here we explore whether movement-to-movement variability in motor output, a ubiquitous if often unwanted characteristic of motor performance, predicts motor learning ability. Surprisingly, we found that higher levels of task-relevant motor variability predicted faster learning both across individuals and across tasks in two different paradigms, one relying on reward-based learning to shape specific arm movement trajectories and the other relying on error-based learning to adapt movements in novel physical environments. We proceeded to show that training can reshape the temporal structure of motor variability, aligning it with the trained task to improve learning. These results provide experimental support for the importance of action exploration, a key idea from reinforcement learning theory, showing that motor variability facilitates motor learning in humans and that our nervous systems actively regulate it to improve learning. PMID:24413700

An Application of Latent Variable Structural Equation Modeling for Experimental Research in Educational Technology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Hyeon Woo

2011-01-01

As the technology-enriched learning environments and theoretical constructs involved in instructional design become more sophisticated and complex, a need arises for equally sophisticated analytic methods to research these environments, theories, and models. Thus, this paper illustrates a comprehensive approach for analyzing data arising from…

Building Emotional Literacy: Groundwork to Early Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Figueroa-Sanchez, Magali

2008-01-01

Part of social and emotional development is a child's emotional literacy. Numerous strategies exist for the development of children's emotional and social development, and for their emotional readiness for school. Teachers might arrange a classroom environment that is not overly structured or regimented. The environment should reflect who the…

The Classroom Environment and Students' Reports of Avoidance Strategies in Mathematics: A Multimethod Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Julianne C.; Midgley, Carol; Meyer, Debra K.; Gheen, Margaret; Anderman, Eric M.; Kang, Yongjin; Patrick, Helen

2002-01-01

The relation between learning environment (perceptions of classroom goal structure and teachers' instructional discourse) and students' reported use of avoidance strategies (self-handicapping, avoidance of help seeking) and preference to avoid novelty in mathematics was examined. High incidence of motivational support was uniquely characteristic…

LYDIAN: An Extensible Educational Animation Environment for Distributed Algorithms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koldehofe, Boris; Papatriantafilou, Marina; Tsigas, Philippas

2006-01-01

LYDIAN is an environment to support the teaching and learning of distributed algorithms. It provides a collection of distributed algorithms as well as continuous animations. Users can combine algorithms and animations with arbitrary network structures defining the interconnection and behavior of the distributed algorithm. Further, it facilitates…

Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Students--Radically or Invisibly at Risk.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Piernik, Thomas E.

1992-01-01

New research and structures of higher education must be explored to create positive learning environments for gay, lesbian, and bisexual students, whose needs may be different from those of traditional students. This requires attention to college and classroom environment, curriculum, and services, including campus activities, career and personal…

Efficacy of navigation may be influenced by retrosplenial cortex-mediated learning of landmark stability.

PubMed

Auger, Stephen D; Zeidman, Peter; Maguire, Eleanor A

2017-09-01

Human beings differ considerably in their ability to orient and navigate within the environment, but it has been difficult to determine specific causes of these individual differences. Permanent, stable landmarks are thought to be crucial for building a mental representation of an environment. Poor, compared to good, navigators have been shown to have difficulty identifying permanent landmarks, with a concomitant reduction in functional MRI (fMRI) activity in the retrosplenial cortex. However, a clear association between navigation ability and the learning of permanent landmarks has not been established. Here we tested for such a link. We had participants learn a virtual reality environment by repeatedly moving through it during fMRI scanning. The environment contained landmarks of which participants had no prior experience, some of which remained fixed in their locations while others changed position each time they were seen. After the fMRI learning phase, we divided participants into good and poor navigators based on their ability to find their way in the environment. The groups were closely matched on a range of cognitive and structural brain measures. Examination of the learning phase during scanning revealed that, while good and poor navigators learned to recognise the environment's landmarks at a similar rate, poor navigators were impaired at registering whether landmarks were stable or transient, and this was associated with reduced engagement of the retrosplenial cortex. Moreover, a mediation analysis showed that there was a significant effect of landmark permanence learning on navigation performance mediated through retrosplenial cortex activity. We conclude that a diminished ability to process landmark permanence may be a contributory factor to sub-optimal navigation, and could be related to the level of retrosplenial cortex engagement. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Characterizing Learning Environments Capable of Nurturing Generic Capabilities in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kember, David; Leung, Doris Y. P.; Ma, Rosa S. F.

2007-01-01

There has been wide recognition that today's graduates need the type of generic capabilities necessary for lifelong learning. However, the mechanism by which universities can develop these generic skills is not clearly established. This study aimed to investigate the mechanism for their development. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to…

The Effectiveness of Instruction-Oriented Hypertext Systems Compared to Direct Instruction in E-Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barhoumi, Chokri; Rossi, Pier Giuseppe

2013-01-01

The use of hypertext systems for learning and teaching complex and ill-structured domain of knowledge has been attracting attention in design of instruction. In this context, an experimental research has been conducted to explore the effectiveness of instructional design oriented hypertext systems. Cognitive flexibility hypertext theory is…

The Effect of Centralization and Cohesion on the Social Construction of Knowledge in Discussion Forums

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tirado, Ramón; Hernando, Ángel; Aguaded, José Ignacio

2015-01-01

Interactive relationships in online learning communities can influence the process and quality of knowledge building. The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the relationships between network structures and social knowledge building in an asynchronous writing environment through discussion forums in a learning management system. The…

The Effect of Centralization and Cohesion on the Social Construction of Knowledge in Discussion Forums

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tirado, Ramon; Hernando, Angel; Aguaded, Jose Ignacio

2012-01-01

Interactive relationships in online learning communities can influence the process and quality of knowledge building. The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the relationships between network structures and social knowledge building in an asynchronous writing environment through discussion forums in a learning management system. The…

Enhancing Grammatical Structures in Web-Based Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zilio, Leonardo; Wilkens, Rodrigo; Fairon, Cédrick

2017-01-01

Presentation of raw text to language learners is not enough to ensure learning. Thus, we present the Smart and Immersive Language Learning Environment (SMILLE), a system that uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) for enhancing grammatical information in texts chosen by a given user. The enhancements, carried out by means of text highlighting, are…

The "Living" Case: Structuring Storytelling to Increase Student Interest, Interaction, and Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fawcett, Stanley E; Fawcett, Amydee M.

2011-01-01

Storytelling has always been a powerful form of teaching and continues to be a compelling way to build and communicate theory. Storytelling brings learning to life, helping students grasp the intricacies and nuances of today's challenging decision-making environment. One form of classroom storytelling involves the use of guest speakers. Carefully…

Reliability and Factor Structure of the Attitude toward Tutoring Agent Scale (ATTAS)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adcock, Amy B.; Van Eck, Richard N.

2005-01-01

Pedagogical agents are gaining acceptance as effective learning tools (Baylor & Ryu, 2003; Moreno, Mayer, Spires & Lester 2001; Moreno, 2004). The increase in the use of agents highlights the need for standardized measurements for evaluating user performance in these environments. While learning gains are a primary variable of interest in such…

Students' Use of Self-Regulatory Tool and Critical Inquiry in Online Discussions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bai, Hua

2012-01-01

Facilitating students' critical thinking in asynchronous discussions is important in online learning environments. Since students need to be self-regulated in online learning, the instructors are expected to scaffold students by providing structure and guidance. This paper discusses critical inquiry in two groups of students' online discussions.…

Frontiers of Crystallography: A Project-Based Research-Led Learning Exercise

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Chick C.; Parkin, Andrew; Thomas, Lynne H.

2012-01-01

A highly interactive research-led learning session for chemistry undergraduates is described, which aims to lead students to an awareness of the applications of crystallography technique through a mentored hands-on crystal structure solution and refinement session. The research-based environment is inherent throughout the 4.5 h program and is…

The Potential of Crossword Puzzles in Aiding English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Merkel, Warren

2016-01-01

In an academic environment, teachers utilize crossword puzzles to help students learn or remember terminology. Outside the classroom, typically in daily newspapers, crosswords aid in vocabulary development, used as a learning tool, a leisure activity, or both. However, both the content and the grid structure of the crosswords in these two…

BIOPS Interactive: An e-Learning Platform Focused on Protein Structure and DNA

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pontelli, Enrico; Pinto, Jorge; Qin, Xiaoxiao; He, Jing; Bevan, David; MacCuish, Norah; MacCuish, John; Chapman, Mitch; Moreland, David

2009-01-01

One of the difficulties in teaching basic molecular biology concepts to the students with little biological background is the lack of hands-on exercises that combines the challenges of the concepts with visualization and immediate feedback. BIOPS Interactive is a web-based interactive learning environment for molecular biology that complements…

Not Your Mother's View: The Dynamics of Toddler Visual Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Linda B.; Yu, Chen; Pereira, Alfredo F.

2011-01-01

Human toddlers learn about objects through second-by-second, minute-by-minute sensory-motor interactions. In an effort to understand how toddlers' bodily actions structure the visual learning environment, mini-video cameras were placed low on the foreheads of toddlers, and for comparison also on the foreheads of their parents, as they jointly…

Elements of Problem-Based Learning: Suggestions for Implementation in the Asynchronous Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Erik

2010-01-01

Problem-based learning, or PBL, is a student-centered instructional approach that is derived from constructivist epistemology. It is based upon ill-structured real-world problems with the goal of strengthening and developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills in learners. Initially utilized in medical schools to strengthen diagnostic…

Modeling Achievement in Mathematics: The Role of Learner and Learning Environment Characteristics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nasser-Abu Alhija, Fadia; Amasha, Marcel

2012-01-01

This study examined a structural model of mathematics achievement among Druze 8th graders in Israel. The model integrates 2 psychosocial theories: goal theory and social learning theory. Variables in the model included gender, father's and mother's education, classroom mastery and performance goal orientation, mathematics self-efficacy and…

A neural learning classifier system with self-adaptive constructivism for mobile robot control.

PubMed

Hurst, Jacob; Bull, Larry

2006-01-01

For artificial entities to achieve true autonomy and display complex lifelike behavior, they will need to exploit appropriate adaptable learning algorithms. In this context adaptability implies flexibility guided by the environment at any given time and an open-ended ability to learn appropriate behaviors. This article examines the use of constructivism-inspired mechanisms within a neural learning classifier system architecture that exploits parameter self-adaptation as an approach to realize such behavior. The system uses a rule structure in which each rule is represented by an artificial neural network. It is shown that appropriate internal rule complexity emerges during learning at a rate controlled by the learner and that the structure indicates underlying features of the task. Results are presented in simulated mazes before moving to a mobile robot platform.

Measuring the anaesthesia clinical learning environment at the department level is feasible and reliable.

PubMed

Castanelli, D J; Smith, N A

2017-05-01

The learning environment describes the context and culture in which trainees learn. In order to establish the feasibility and reliability of measuring the anaesthetic learning environment in individual departments we implemented a previously developed instrument in hospitals across New South Wales. We distributed the instrument to trainees from 25 anaesthesia departments and supplied summarized results to individual departments. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to assess internal structure validity and generalizability theory was used to calculate reliability. The number of trainees required for acceptable precision in results was determined using the standard error of measurement. We received 172 responses (59% response rate). Suitable internal structure validity was confirmed. Measured reliability was acceptable (G-coefficient 0.69) with nine trainees per department. Eight trainees were required for a 95% confidence interval of plus or minus 0.25 in the mean total score. Eight trainees as assessors also allow a 95% confidence interval of approximately plus or minus 0.3 in the subscale mean scores. Results for individual departments varied, with scores below the expected level recorded on individual subscales, particularly the 'teaching' subscale. Our results confirm that, using this instrument, individual departments can obtain acceptable precision in results with achievable trainee numbers. Additionally, with the exception of departments with few trainees, implementation proved feasible across a training region. Repeated use would allow departments or accrediting bodies to monitor their individual learning environment and the impact of changes such as the introduction of new curricular elements, or local initiatives to improve trainee experience. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Journal of Anaesthesia. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com

The New School-Based Learning (SBL) to Work-Based Learning (WBL) Transition Module: A Practical Implementation in the Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) System in Bahrain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alseddiqi, M.; Mishra, R.; Pislaru, C.

2012-05-01

This paper diagnoses the implementation of a new engineering course entitled 'school-based learning (SBL) to work-based learning (WBL) transition module' in the Bahrain Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) learning environment. The module was designed to incorporate an innovative education and training approach with a variety of learning activities that are included in various learning case studies. Each case study was based on with learning objectives coupled with desired learning outcomes. The TVE students should meet the desired outcomes after the completion of the learning activities and assessments. To help with the implementation phase of the new module, the authors developed guidelines for each case study. The guidelines incorporated learning activities to be delivered in an integrated learning environment. The skills to be transferred were related to cognitive, affective, and technical proficiencies. The guidelines included structured instructions to help students during the learning process. In addition, technology was introduced to improve learning effectiveness and flexibility. The guidelines include learning indicators for each learning activity and were based on their interrelation with competencies to be achieved with respect to modern industrial requirements. Each learning indicator was then correlated against the type of learning environment, teaching and learning styles, examples of mode of delivery, and assessment strategy. Also, the learning activities were supported by technological features such as discussion forums for social perception and engagement and immediate feedback exercises for self-motivation. Through the developed module, TVE teachers can effectively manage the teaching and learning process as well as the assessment strategy to satisfy students' individual requirements and enable them to meet workplace requirements.

Learning environment and emotional well-being: A qualitative study of undergraduate nursing students.

PubMed

Tharani, Ambreen; Husain, Yusra; Warwick, Ian

2017-12-01

Students can experience multiple stressors during their academic life which have an impact on their emotional health and academic progress. This study sought to explore students' understanding of and factors affecting their emotional well-being in an undergraduate nursing programme at a private nursing institution in Karachi, Pakistan. In this qualitative study, data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews using a self-designed guide from 16 participants in total, drawn from various years of the selected undergraduate programme. Participants noted that the quality of the 'learning environment' was a key influence on their emotional well-being. They highlighted faculty role and teaching approaches, academic expectations and availability of learning resources as important factors that affected their emotional well-being as well as their academic performance. Institutional support was also deemed important. Factors associated with a 'hidden curriculum' were found to be a threat to students' emerging sense of professionalism. Suggestions are given as to how the learning environment in the nursing programme under study can be improved to take into account students' emotional well-being. Emphasis needs to be laid on developing supportive faculty role to provide conducive learning environment and professional development of students. Efforts to develop stress-free academic environment with supportive institutional policies need to be considered. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Construction of a 3-D anatomical model for teaching temporal lobectomy.

PubMed

de Ribaupierre, Sandrine; Wilson, Timothy D

2012-06-01

Although we live and work in 3 dimensional space, most of the anatomical teaching during medical school is done on 2-D (books, TV and computer screens, etc). 3-D spatial abilities are essential for a surgeon but teaching spatial skills in a non-threatening and safe educational environment is a much more difficult pedagogical task. Currently, initial anatomical knowledge formation or specific surgical anatomy techniques, are taught either in the OR itself, or in cadaveric labs; which means that the trainee has only limited exposure. 3-D computer models incorporated into virtual learning environments may provide an intermediate and key step in a blended learning approach for spatially challenging anatomical knowledge formation. Specific anatomical structures and their spatial orientation can be further clinically contextualized through demonstrations of surgical procedures in the 3-D digital environments. Recordings of digital models enable learner reviews, taking as much time as they want, stopping the demonstration, and/or exploring the model to understand the anatomical relation of each structure. We present here how a temporal lobectomy virtual model has been developed to aid residents and fellows conceptualization of the anatomical relationships between different cerebral structures during that procedure. We suggest in comparison to cadaveric dissection, such virtual models represent a cost effective pedagogical methodology providing excellent support for anatomical learning and surgical technique training. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Visualizing vascular structures in virtual environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wischgoll, Thomas

2013-01-01

In order to learn more about the cause of coronary heart diseases and develop diagnostic tools, the extraction and visualization of vascular structures from volumetric scans for further analysis is an important step. By determining a geometric representation of the vasculature, the geometry can be inspected and additional quantitative data calculated and incorporated into the visualization of the vasculature. To provide a more user-friendly visualization tool, virtual environment paradigms can be utilized. This paper describes techniques for interactive rendering of large-scale vascular structures within virtual environments. This can be applied to almost any virtual environment configuration, such as CAVE-type displays. Specifically, the tools presented in this paper were tested on a Barco I-Space and a large 62x108 inch passive projection screen with a Kinect sensor for user tracking.

Deconstructing Constructivism: Modeling Causal Relationships Among Constructivist Learning Environment Factors and Student Outcomes in Introductory Chemistry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Komperda, Regis

The purpose of this dissertation is to test a model of relationships among factors characterizing aspects of a student-centered constructivist learning environment and student outcomes of satisfaction and academic achievement in introductory undergraduate chemistry courses. Constructivism was chosen as the theoretical foundation for this research because of its widespread use in chemical education research and practice. In a constructivist learning environment the role of the teacher shifts from delivering content towards facilitating active student engagement in activities that encourage individual knowledge construction through discussion and application of content. Constructivist approaches to teaching introductory chemistry courses have been adopted by some instructors as a way to improve student outcomes, but little research has been done on the causal relationships among particular aspects of the learning environment and student outcomes. This makes it difficult for classroom teachers to know which aspects of a constructivist teaching approach are critical to adopt and which may be modified to better suit a particular learning environment while still improving student outcomes. To investigate a model of these relationships, a survey designed to measure student perceptions of three factors characterizing a constructivist learning environment in online courses was adapted for use in face-to-face chemistry courses. These three factors, teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence, were measured using a slightly modified version of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) instrument. The student outcomes investigated in this research were satisfaction and academic achievement, as measured by standardized American Chemical Society (ACS) exam scores and course grades. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to statistically model relationships among the three presence factors and student outcome variables for 391 students enrolled in six sections of a general chemistry course taught by four instructors at a single university using a common textbook. The quantitative analysis of student data was supported by investigating the instructor's approach to teaching using instructor responses to a modified version of the Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI), semi-structured interview questions, and information available in the course syllabus. The results of the SEM analysis indicate that incoming math ability, as measured by ACT math scores, has the largest effect on student academic achievement in introductory chemistry courses. Of the three presence factors, cognitive presence has the largest direct effect on academic achievement and student satisfaction. Teaching presence has a direct effect on satisfaction similar in size to the effect of cognitive presence. The relationship between social presence and student outcomes is found to be relatively small. Given the role that both teaching and social presence play in influencing cognitive presence, these results suggest that classroom teachers should emphasize the development of a learning environment with a large degree of cognitive presence where students take ownership of their own learning process. This type of learning environment can be supported by specific instructor behaviors such as facilitating discussions and implementing group work focused on collaboration and developing shared understandings.

Health science students and their learning environment: a comparison of perceptions of on-site, remote-site, and traditional classroom students.

PubMed

Elison-Bowers, P; Snelson, Chareen; Casa de Calvo, Mario; Thompson, Heather

2008-02-05

This study compared the responses of on-site, remote-site, and traditional classroom students on measures of student/teacher interaction, course structure, physical learning environment, and overall course enjoyment/satisfaction. The sample population consisted of students taking undergraduate courses in medical terminology at two western colleges. The survey instrument was derived from Thomerson's questionnaire, which included closed- and open-ended questions assessing perceptions of students toward their courses. Controlling for grade expectations, results revealed no significant differences among the on-site, remote-site, and traditional classroom students in any of the four cluster domains. However, a nonsignificant (and continuing) trend suggested that students preferred the traditional classroom environment. When results were controlled for age, significant differences emerged between traditional and nontraditional students on measures of student/teacher interaction, physical learning environment, and overall enjoyment/satisfaction, as nontraditional students exhibited higher scores. Students' responses to open-ended questions indicated they enjoyed the convenience of online instruction, but reported finding frustration with technology itself.

Clinical learning environment and supervision plus nurse teacher (CLES+T) scale: testing the psychometric characteristics of the Italian version.

PubMed

Tomietto, Marco; Saiani, Luisa; Palese, Alvisa; Cunico, Laura; Cicolini, Giancarlo; Watson, Paul; Saarikoski, Mikko

2012-01-01

A clinical learning environment is an "interactive network of forces within the clinical setting that influence the students' learning outcomes". International research indicates the Clinical Learning Environment and Supervision plus Nurse Teacher scale (CLES+T) as the gold standard to assess a good clinical learning environment. This study aims to evaluate the psychometric proprieties of CLES+T Italian version. 875 students attending the Bachelor in Nursing in 3 Universities in Italy participated in the study. Cronbach's alpha, item to total correlations, skewness and kurtosis were calculated; factor analysis was performed using Principal Axis Factoring and an oblique rotation method. Results showed a Cronbach's alpha of 0.95 of the scale and ranging from 0.80 to 0.96 among factors; all items verified item to total correlation and answers' variability criteria. Factor analysis showed a 7-factors model as explaining more than 67% of the variance, the higher variance was explained by the "pedagogical atmosphere" factor (37.61%). The nurse teacher factor in the Italian model is split into 3 sub-factors: theory-practice integration, cooperation with ward staff and relationship with mentor and student. These results enable an international debate concerning the theoretical structure of CLES+T and provide a reliable and valid tool for the comparison of supervisory models in guiding nursing students' clinical learning.

Evolution of individual versus social learning on social networks

PubMed Central

Tamura, Kohei; Kobayashi, Yutaka; Ihara, Yasuo

2015-01-01

A number of studies have investigated the roles played by individual and social learning in cultural phenomena and the relative advantages of the two learning strategies in variable environments. Because social learning involves the acquisition of behaviours from others, its utility depends on the availability of ‘cultural models’ exhibiting adaptive behaviours. This indicates that social networks play an essential role in the evolution of learning. However, possible effects of social structure on the evolution of learning have not been fully explored. Here, we develop a mathematical model to explore the evolutionary dynamics of learning strategies on social networks. We first derive the condition under which social learners (SLs) are selectively favoured over individual learners in a broad range of social network. We then obtain an analytical approximation of the long-term average frequency of SLs in homogeneous networks, from which we specify the condition, in terms of three relatedness measures, for social structure to facilitate the long-term evolution of social learning. Finally, we evaluate our approximation by Monte Carlo simulations in complete graphs, regular random graphs and scale-free networks. We formally show that whether social structure favours the evolution of social learning is determined by the relative magnitudes of two effects of social structure: localization in competition, by which competition between learning strategies is evaded, and localization in cultural transmission, which slows down the spread of adaptive traits. In addition, our estimates of the relatedness measures suggest that social structure disfavours the evolution of social learning when selection is weak. PMID:25631568

Evolution of individual versus social learning on social networks.

PubMed

Tamura, Kohei; Kobayashi, Yutaka; Ihara, Yasuo

2015-03-06

A number of studies have investigated the roles played by individual and social learning in cultural phenomena and the relative advantages of the two learning strategies in variable environments. Because social learning involves the acquisition of behaviours from others, its utility depends on the availability of 'cultural models' exhibiting adaptive behaviours. This indicates that social networks play an essential role in the evolution of learning. However, possible effects of social structure on the evolution of learning have not been fully explored. Here, we develop a mathematical model to explore the evolutionary dynamics of learning strategies on social networks. We first derive the condition under which social learners (SLs) are selectively favoured over individual learners in a broad range of social network. We then obtain an analytical approximation of the long-term average frequency of SLs in homogeneous networks, from which we specify the condition, in terms of three relatedness measures, for social structure to facilitate the long-term evolution of social learning. Finally, we evaluate our approximation by Monte Carlo simulations in complete graphs, regular random graphs and scale-free networks. We formally show that whether social structure favours the evolution of social learning is determined by the relative magnitudes of two effects of social structure: localization in competition, by which competition between learning strategies is evaded, and localization in cultural transmission, which slows down the spread of adaptive traits. In addition, our estimates of the relatedness measures suggest that social structure disfavours the evolution of social learning when selection is weak. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Developing Educational Programs: Overcoming the Hidden Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Giroux, Henry A.

1978-01-01

What students learn in school is determined more by the hidden curriculum of rigid classroom structures and power relationships than formal curriculum. A less alienating classroom environment must replace these traditional structures, such as tracking, grading, and student powerlessness, if education is really to be reformed. (SJL)

Organizational Collaboration in Liberal Arts Colleges: Examining Structure, Culture, and Agency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salguero, Claudia F.

2009-01-01

Compelling evidence suggests that collaborative practices may enable higher education institutions to respond more effectively to changes in the external environment and implement more readily innovations in teaching and learning. However, historical practices, cultural values, and structural characteristics of higher education institutions are…

What predicts successful literacy acquisition in a second language?

PubMed Central

Frost, Ram; Siegelman, Noam; Narkiss, Alona; Afek, Liron

2013-01-01

We examined whether success (or failure) in assimilating the structure of a second language could be predicted by general statistical learning abilities that are non-linguistic in nature. We employed a visual statistical learning (VSL) task, monitoring our participants’ implicit learning of the transitional probabilities of visual shapes. A pretest revealed that performance in the VSL task is not correlated with abilities related to a general G factor or working memory. We found that native speakers of English who picked up the implicit statistical structure embedded in the continuous stream of shapes, on average, better assimilated the Semitic structure of Hebrew words. Our findings thus suggest that languages and their writing systems are characterized by idiosyncratic correlations of form and meaning, and these are picked up in the process of literacy acquisition, as they are picked up in any other type of learning, for the purpose of making sense of the environment. PMID:23698615

How Young Children Learn to Program with Sensor, Action, and Logic Blocks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wyeth, Peta

2008-01-01

Electronic Blocks are a new programming environment designed specifically for children aged between 3 and 8 years. These physical, stackable blocks include sensor blocks, action blocks, and logic blocks. By connecting these blocks, children can program a wide variety of structures that interact with one another and the environment. Electronic…

Types of Homeschool Environments and Need Support for Children's Achievement Motivation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bell, Debra A.; Kaplan, Avi; Thurman, S. Kenneth

2016-01-01

Working within a self-determination theory (SDT) framework, this study used cluster analysis to examine the naturally occurring types of homeschool-learning environments parents (N = 457) have created. Measures of support for student autonomy, mastery goal structure, and use of conditional regard were adapted for a homeschool context and used as…

"I Tolerate Technology--I Don't Embrace It": Instructor Surprise and Sensemaking in a Technology-Rich Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fairchild, Jennifer L.; Meiners, Eric B.; Violette, Jayne L.

2016-01-01

Assuming a dialectical approach to technology and pedagogy, this study explores sensemaking processes for instructors teaching in a technologically enhanced college classroom environment. Through a series of semi-structured individual and group interviews, seven instructors provided narrative accounts of the problems encountered with progressive…

Improving Transfer of Learning: Relationship to Methods of Using Business Simulation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayer, Brad W.; Dale, Kathleen M.; Fraccastoro, Katherine A.; Moss, Gisele

2011-01-01

This study investigates whether the processes associated with the use of business simulations can be structured to improve transfer of learning from the classroom environment to the workplace.The answer to this question is explored by investigating teaching methods used to introduce the simulation, the amount of time students spend on decisions,…

Self-Regulation during E-Learning: Using Behavioural Evidence from Navigation Log Files

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jeske, D.; Backhaus, J.; Stamov Roßnagel, C.

2014-01-01

The current paper examined the relationship between perceived characteristics of the learning environment in an e-module in relation to test performance among a group of e-learners. Using structural equation modelling, the relationship between these variables is further explored in terms of the proposed double mediation as outlined by Ning and…

Do Individual Differences in Children's Curiosity Relate to Their Inquiry-Based Learning?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Schijndel, Tessa J. P.; Jansen, Brenda R. J.; Raijmakers, Maartje E. J.

2018-01-01

This study investigates how individual differences in 7- to 9-year-olds' curiosity relate to the inquiry-learning process and outcomes in environments differing in structure. The focus on curiosity as individual differences variable was motivated by the importance of curiosity in science education, and uncertainty being central to both the…

Opportunities for Inquiry Science in Montessori Classrooms: Learning from a Culture of Interest, Communication, and Explanation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rinke, Carol R.; Gimbel, Steven J.; Haskell, Sophie

2013-01-01

Although classroom inquiry is the primary pedagogy of science education, it has often been difficult to implement within conventional classroom cultures. This study turned to the alternatively structured Montessori learning environment to better understand the ways in which it fosters the essential elements of classroom inquiry, as defined by…

The Role of Work-Related Learning in the Identity Transformation of Canadian Workers with Low Literacy Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taylor, Maurice C.; Trumpower, David L.; Purse, Edward R.

2015-01-01

Workplaces are settings where power, knowledge and self are brought together in a complex social environment which includes various forms of struggle related to identity, agency, socio-cultural norms, political structures and functional practices. The purpose of this article is to uncover how formal and informal work-related learning processes…

Routines Are the Foundation of Classroom Management

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lester, Robin Rawlings; Allanson, Patricia Bolton; Notar, Charles E.

2017-01-01

Classroom management is the key to learning. Routines are the foundation of classroom management. Students require structure in their lives. Routines provide that in all of their life from the time they awake until the time they go to bed. Routines in a school and in the classroom provide the environment for learning to take place. The paper is…

Design of a Motivational Scaffold for the Malaysian e-Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alias, Nor Aziah

2012-01-01

With a structure that provides control and choice over time, place, and pace, e-learning has emerged as a viable mode for working adults who wish to upgrade their knowledge. However, such flexibility provides leeway for these adults to procrastinate and for their motivation to dwindle. After all, many adults, especially Malaysian adults, are used…

Invariant Spatial Context Is Learned but Not Retrieved in Gaze-Contingent Tunnel-View Search

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zang, Xuelian; Jia, Lina; Müller, Hermann J.; Shi, Zhuanghua

2015-01-01

Our visual brain is remarkable in extracting invariant properties from the noisy environment, guiding selection of where to look and what to identify. However, how the brain achieves this is still poorly understood. Here we explore interactions of local context and global structure in the long-term learning and retrieval of invariant display…

Establishing an Institutional Framework for an E-learning Implementation--Experiences from the University of Rijeka, Croatia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zuvic-Butorac, Marta; Nebic, Zoran; Nemcanin, Damir; Mikac, Tonci; Lucin, Pero

2011-01-01

Faced with the need of transforming the university structure, processes, and programs according to the Bologna reform, and in order to become more flexible and more responsive to the environment, the University of Rijeka management decided to enable e-learning implementation as an institutional, strategically planned operation. The manuscript…

Experience of Technical Disciplines Remote Training at the St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glukhikh, Vladimir Nikolaevich; Norina, Natalia Vladimirovna

2016-01-01

This paper reveals the main trends and characteristics of the use of multimedia means in distance learning of technical subjects at graduate schools; analyses the peculiarities of presentation and perception of information in multimedia environment; and studies genre and topic structure of multimedia means used for distance learning. The author…

Learning Protein Structure with Peers in an AR-Enhanced Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Yu-Chien

2013-01-01

Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive system that allows users to interact with virtual objects and the real world at the same time. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore how AR, as a new visualization tool, that can demonstrate spatial relationships by representing three dimensional objects and animations, facilitates students to…

Identifying Affordances of 3D Printed Tangible Models for Understanding Core Biological Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davenport, Jodi L.; Silberglitt, Matt; Boxerman, Jonathan; Olson, Arthur

2014-01-01

3D models derived from actual molecular structures have the potential to transform student learning in biology. We share findings related to our research questions: 1) what types of interactions with a protein folding kit promote specific learning objectives?, and 2) what features of the instructional environment (e.g., peer interactions, teacher…

Reframing the Principle of Specialisation in Legitimation Code Theory: A Blended Learning Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Owusu-Agyeman, Yaw; Larbi-Siaw, Otu

2017-01-01

This study argues that in developing a robust framework for students in a blended learning environment, Structural Alignment (SA) becomes the third principle of specialisation in addition to Epistemic Relation (ER) and Social Relation (SR). We provide an extended code: (ER+/-, SR+/-, SA+/-) that present strong classification and framing to the…

Modeling To Enhance Critical Thinking and Decision Making Skills Development in the Instructional Process: The Social Studies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peters, Richard

Students must be actively involved in the process of learning for it to have personal meaning and importance in their lives. Teachers must also become critical thinkers, creative individuals, and decision makers in order to create more challenging learning environments. Teachers need to blend structure and spontaneity into meaningful learning…

Adaptive Semantic and Social Web-based learning and assessment environment for the STEM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Babaie, Hassan; Atchison, Chris; Sunderraman, Rajshekhar

2014-05-01

We are building a cloud- and Semantic Web-based personalized, adaptive learning environment for the STEM fields that integrates and leverages Social Web technologies to allow instructors and authors of learning material to collaborate in semi-automatic development and update of their common domain and task ontologies and building their learning resources. The semi-automatic ontology learning and development minimize issues related to the design and maintenance of domain ontologies by knowledge engineers who do not have any knowledge of the domain. The social web component of the personal adaptive system will allow individual and group learners to interact with each other and discuss their own learning experience and understanding of course material, and resolve issues related to their class assignments. The adaptive system will be capable of representing key knowledge concepts in different ways and difficulty levels based on learners' differences, and lead to different understanding of the same STEM content by different learners. It will adapt specific pedagogical strategies to individual learners based on their characteristics, cognition, and preferences, allow authors to assemble remotely accessed learning material into courses, and provide facilities for instructors to assess (in real time) the perception of students of course material, monitor their progress in the learning process, and generate timely feedback based on their understanding or misconceptions. The system applies a set of ontologies that structure the learning process, with multiple user friendly Web interfaces. These include the learning ontology (models learning objects, educational resources, and learning goal); context ontology (supports adaptive strategy by detecting student situation), domain ontology (structures concepts and context), learner ontology (models student profile, preferences, and behavior), task ontologies, technological ontology (defines devices and places that surround the student), pedagogy ontology, and learner ontology (defines time constraint, comment, profile).

How Does the Neighborhood "Come through the Door?" Concentrated Disadvantage, Residential Instability, and the Home Environment for Preschoolers.

PubMed

May, Emily M; Azar, Sandra T; Matthews, Stephen A

2018-03-01

Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with heightened risk for poor school readiness and health outcomes in early childhood, and the home environment is thought to be a primary mechanism by which neighborhood context impacts preschoolers. This study examined the effects of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage and neighborhood residential instability on the home physical environment and home learning environment for preschoolers in economically disadvantaged families (N = 187). Using structural equation modeling, mothers' perceived neighborhood disorder and depressive symptoms were examined as mechanisms by which neighborhood context "comes through the door." Mothers' neighborhood social embeddedness was also explored as a protective factor. Results showed that concentrated disadvantage was negatively associated with the quality of the home physical environment, and residential instability was negatively associated with the quality of the home learning environment. Concentrated disadvantage had an indirect effect on the home learning environment through mothers' perceived neighborhood disorder and depressive symptoms. The effects of concentrated disadvantage on the home environment were buffered by mothers' neighborhood social embeddedness. Study findings advance understanding of socioeconomic- and place-based disparities in developmental outcomes and identify potential targets for interventions aimed at lessening effects of neighborhood disadvantage on families with young children. © Society for Community Research and Action 2018.

Language Delays and Child Depressive Symptoms: the Role of Early Stimulation in the Home.

PubMed

Herman, Keith C; Cohen, Daniel; Owens, Sarah; Latimore, Tracey; Reinke, Wendy M; Burrell, Lori; McFarlane, Elizabeth; Duggan, Anne

2016-07-01

The present study investigated the role of early stimulation in the home and child language delays in the emergence of depressive symptoms. Data were from a longitudinal study of at-risk children in Hawaii (n = 587). Low learning stimulation in the home at age 3 and language delays in first grade both significantly increased risk for child depressive symptoms in third grade. Structural equation modeling supported the hypothesized path models from home learning environment at age 3 to depressive symptoms in third grade controlling for a host of correlated constructs (maternal depression, child temperament, and child internalizing symptoms). Total language skills in the first grade mediated the effect of home learning environment on depressive symptoms. The study and findings fit well with a nurturing environment perspective. Implications for understanding the etiology of child depression and for designing interventions and prevention strategies are discussed.

Developing learning environments which support early algebraic reasoning: a case from a New Zealand primary classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hunter, Jodie

2014-12-01

Current reforms in mathematics education advocate the development of mathematical learning communities in which students have opportunities to engage in mathematical discourse and classroom practices which underlie algebraic reasoning. This article specifically addresses the pedagogical actions teachers take which structure student engagement in dialogical discourse and activity which facilitates early algebraic reasoning. Using videotaped recordings of classroom observations, the teacher and researcher collaboratively examined the classroom practices and modified the participatory practices to develop a learning environment which supported early algebraic reasoning. Facilitating change in the classroom environment was a lengthy process which required consistent and ongoing attention initially to the social norms and then to the socio-mathematical norms. Specific pedagogical actions such as the use of specifically designed tasks, materials and representations and a constant press for justification and generalisation were required to support students to link their numerical understandings to algebraic reasoning.

Managerial Problems in the Use of Educational Technology in Primary Education Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hosgorur, Vural

2013-01-01

Rapid progress in science and technology also changes understanding, wishes and expectations, processes, operations and organisational structures. Such developments positively affect the structure of educational systems as well as learning-teaching activities in instructional environments. The problem of this research is to define managerial…

Improving health care quality and safety: the role of collective learning.

PubMed

Singer, Sara J; Benzer, Justin K; Hamdan, Sami U

2015-01-01

Despite decades of effort to improve quality and safety in health care, this goal feels increasingly elusive. Successful examples of improvement are infrequently replicated. This scoping review synthesizes 76 empirical or conceptual studies (out of 1208 originally screened) addressing learning in quality or safety improvement, that were published in selected health care and management journals between January 2000 and December 2014 to deepen understanding of the role that collective learning plays in quality and safety improvement. We categorize learning activities using a theoretical model that shows how leadership and environmental factors support collective learning processes and practices, and in turn team and organizational improvement outcomes. By focusing on quality and safety improvement, our review elaborates the premise of learning theory that leadership, environment, and processes combine to create conditions that promote learning. Specifically, we found that learning for quality and safety improvement includes experimentation (including deliberate experimentation, improvisation, learning from failures, exploration, and exploitation), internal and external knowledge acquisition, performance monitoring and comparison, and training. Supportive learning environments are characterized by team characteristics like psychological safety, appreciation of differences, openness to new ideas social motivation, and team autonomy; team contextual factors including learning resources like time for reflection, access to knowledge, organizational capabilities; incentives; and organizational culture, strategy, and structure; and external environmental factors including institutional pressures, environmental dynamism and competitiveness and learning collaboratives. Lastly learning in the context of quality and safety improvement requires leadership that reinforces learning through actions and behaviors that affect people, such as coaching and trust building, and through influencing contextual factors, including providing resources, developing culture, and taking strategic actions that support improvement. Our review highlights the importance of leadership in both promoting a supportive learning environment and implementing learning processes.

Improving health care quality and safety: the role of collective learning

PubMed Central

Singer, Sara J; Benzer, Justin K; Hamdan, Sami U

2015-01-01

Despite decades of effort to improve quality and safety in health care, this goal feels increasingly elusive. Successful examples of improvement are infrequently replicated. This scoping review synthesizes 76 empirical or conceptual studies (out of 1208 originally screened) addressing learning in quality or safety improvement, that were published in selected health care and management journals between January 2000 and December 2014 to deepen understanding of the role that collective learning plays in quality and safety improvement. We categorize learning activities using a theoretical model that shows how leadership and environmental factors support collective learning processes and practices, and in turn team and organizational improvement outcomes. By focusing on quality and safety improvement, our review elaborates the premise of learning theory that leadership, environment, and processes combine to create conditions that promote learning. Specifically, we found that learning for quality and safety improvement includes experimentation (including deliberate experimentation, improvisation, learning from failures, exploration, and exploitation), internal and external knowledge acquisition, performance monitoring and comparison, and training. Supportive learning environments are characterized by team characteristics like psychological safety, appreciation of differences, openness to new ideas social motivation, and team autonomy; team contextual factors including learning resources like time for reflection, access to knowledge, organizational capabilities; incentives; and organizational culture, strategy, and structure; and external environmental factors including institutional pressures, environmental dynamism and competitiveness and learning collaboratives. Lastly learning in the context of quality and safety improvement requires leadership that reinforces learning through actions and behaviors that affect people, such as coaching and trust building, and through influencing contextual factors, including providing resources, developing culture, and taking strategic actions that support improvement. Our review highlights the importance of leadership in both promoting a supportive learning environment and implementing learning processes. PMID:29355197

The effect of degree of immersion upon learning performance in virtual reality simulations for medical education.

PubMed

Gutiérrez, Fátima; Pierce, Jennifer; Vergara, Víctor M; Coulter, Robert; Saland, Linda; Caudell, Thomas P; Goldsmith, Timothy E; Alverson, Dale C

2007-01-01

Simulations are being used in education and training to enhance understanding, improve performance, and assess competence. However, it is important to measure the performance of these simulations as learning and training tools. This study examined and compared knowledge acquisition using a knowledge structure design. The subjects were first-year medical students at The University of New Mexico School of Medicine. One group used a fully immersed virtual reality (VR) environment using a head mounted display (HMD) and another group used a partially immersed (computer screen) VR environment. The study aims were to determine whether there were significant differences between the two groups as measured by changes in knowledge structure before and after the VR simulation experience. The results showed that both groups benefited from the VR simulation training as measured by the significant increased similarity to the expert knowledge network after the training experience. However, the immersed group showed a significantly higher gain than the partially immersed group. This study demonstrated a positive effect of VR simulation on learning as reflected by improvements in knowledge structure but an enhanced effect of full-immersion using a HMD vs. a screen-based VR system.

Vibration control of building structures using self-organizing and self-learning neural networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Madan, Alok

2005-11-01

Past research in artificial intelligence establishes that artificial neural networks (ANN) are effective and efficient computational processors for performing a variety of tasks including pattern recognition, classification, associative recall, combinatorial problem solving, adaptive control, multi-sensor data fusion, noise filtering and data compression, modelling and forecasting. The paper presents a potentially feasible approach for training ANN in active control of earthquake-induced vibrations in building structures without the aid of teacher signals (i.e. target control forces). A counter-propagation neural network is trained to output the control forces that are required to reduce the structural vibrations in the absence of any feedback on the correctness of the output control forces (i.e. without any information on the errors in output activations of the network). The present study shows that, in principle, the counter-propagation network (CPN) can learn from the control environment to compute the required control forces without the supervision of a teacher (unsupervised learning). Simulated case studies are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing the unsupervised learning approach in ANN for effective vibration control of structures under the influence of earthquake ground motions. The proposed learning methodology obviates the need for developing a mathematical model of structural dynamics or training a separate neural network to emulate the structural response for implementation in practice.

Learning about causes from people and about people as causes: probabilistic models and social causal reasoning.

PubMed

Buchsbaum, Daphna; Seiver, Elizabeth; Bridgers, Sophie; Gopnik, Alison

2012-01-01

A major challenge children face is uncovering the causal structure of the world around them. Previous research on children's causal inference has demonstrated their ability to learn about causal relationships in the physical environment using probabilistic evidence. However, children must also learn about causal relationships in the social environment, including discovering the causes of other people's behavior, and understanding the causal relationships between others' goal-directed actions and the outcomes of those actions. In this chapter, we argue that social reasoning and causal reasoning are deeply linked, both in the real world and in children's minds. Children use both types of information together and in fact reason about both physical and social causation in fundamentally similar ways. We suggest that children jointly construct and update causal theories about their social and physical environment and that this process is best captured by probabilistic models of cognition. We first present studies showing that adults are able to jointly infer causal structure and human action structure from videos of unsegmented human motion. Next, we describe how children use social information to make inferences about physical causes. We show that the pedagogical nature of a demonstrator influences children's choices of which actions to imitate from within a causal sequence and that this social information interacts with statistical causal evidence. We then discuss how children combine evidence from an informant's testimony and expressed confidence with evidence from their own causal observations to infer the efficacy of different potential causes. We also discuss how children use these same causal observations to make inferences about the knowledge state of the social informant. Finally, we suggest that psychological causation and attribution are part of the same causal system as physical causation. We present evidence that just as children use covariation between physical causes and their effects to learn physical causal relationships, they also use covaration between people's actions and the environment to make inferences about the causes of human behavior.

Metacognitive components in smart learning environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sumadyo, M.; Santoso, H. B.; Sensuse, D. I.

2018-03-01

Metacognitive ability in digital-based learning process helps students in achieving learning goals. So that digital-based learning environment should make the metacognitive component as a facility that must be equipped. Smart Learning Environment is the concept of a learning environment that certainly has more advanced components than just a digital learning environment. This study examines the metacognitive component of the smart learning environment to support the learning process. A review of the metacognitive literature was conducted to examine the components involved in metacognitive learning strategies. Review is also conducted on the results of study smart learning environment, ranging from design to context in building smart learning. Metacognitive learning strategies certainly require the support of adaptable, responsive and personalize learning environments in accordance with the principles of smart learning. The current study proposed the role of metacognitive component in smart learning environment, which is useful as the basis of research in building environment in smart learning.

Focusing on learning through constructive alignment with task-oriented portfolio assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cain, A.; Grundy, J.; Woodward, C. J.

2018-07-01

Approaches to learning have been shown to have a significant impact on student success in technical units. This paper reports on an action research study that applied the principles of constructive alignment to improve student learning outcomes in programming units. The proposed model uses frequent formative feedback to engage students with unit material, and encourage them to adopt deep approaches to learning. Our results provide a set of guiding principles and a structured teaching approach that focuses students on meeting unit learning objectives, the goal of constructive alignment. The results are demonstrated via descriptions of the resulting teaching and learning environment, student results, and staff and student reflections.

Effects of structured versus non-structured learning on achievement and attitudes of fifth graders in a public aquarium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kafka, Merryl Audrey

The investigator analyzed the main effect of a structured-learning experience in an informal setting, as well as interactions between the students' learning-style variations toward the element of structure and the imposed instructional conditions. The subjects consisted of 170 students enrolled in two public schools located in Brooklyn, New York. The students were predominantly a White multi-ethnic population consisting of 118 Caucasians, 25 Hispanics, 24 Asians, and 3 African-Americans. Three randomly assigned classes (n = 81) were provided trip sheets, which directed students on how to learn new information with written questions and directives. Three randomly assigned non-structured classes (n = 89) experienced the same exhibit in a free-form manner. Science-based criterion-referenced pre- and posttests were administered, in addition to Learning Style Inventories (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1996) and a modified Semantic Differential Scale (Pizzo, 1981), which was used to measure attitudinal levels. The non-structured group had access to similar content information in the form of exhibit graphics, but apparently they chose not to read it as carefully or engage in the information-seeking process as intensely as the students equipped with trip sheets. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated that a structured-learning experience produced significantly higher science-achievement test scores than in a non-structured-learning experience (p = .0001). In addition, there was no single learning-style variation (preference, aversion, or no preference) to structure that produced significantly higher gains than another. Furthermore, attitudinal scores were not significantly different between structured and non-structured groups, as well as among homogeneous subsets of students with learning-style variations that matched, mismatched, or indicated no-preferenced positions on the element of structure. Hence, a moderate amount of structure resulted in academic gains without diminishing attitudinal scores. The fact that students' learning-style variations for sociological, design, and perceptual preferences were simultaneously accommodated in this setting may have contributed to the overall positive effects of this structure-based intervention. The diversified teaching resources of the exhibit and the sense of self-empowerment in a student-directed environment may have elevated students' attitudes regardless of their learning-style need for structure. The students' acceptance of a trip sheet that promoted the understanding of science concepts may have contributed to academic success.

Concept Mapping Assessment of Media Assisted Learning in Interdisciplinary Science Education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schaal, Steffen; Bogner, Franz X.; Girwidz, Raimund

2010-05-01

Acquisition of conceptual knowledge is a central aim in science education. In this study we monitored an interdisciplinary hypermedia assisted learning unit on hibernation and thermodynamics based on cooperative learning. We used concept mapping for the assessment, applying a pre-test/post-test design. In our study, 106 9th graders cooperated by working in pairs ( n = 53) for six lessons. As an interdisciplinary learning activity in such complex knowledge domains has to combine many different aspects, we focused on long-term knowledge. Learners working cooperatively in dyads constructed computer-supported concept maps which were analysed by specific software. The data analysis encompassed structural aspects of the knowledge corresponding to a target reference map. After the learning unit, the results showed the acquisition of higher-order domain-specific knowledge structures which indicates successful interdisciplinary learning through the hypermedia learning environment. The benefit of using a computer-assisted concept mapping assessment for research in science education, and in science classrooms is considered.

Development of a Hypermedia Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning Environment

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-06-01

Bower, Clark, Lesgold & Winzenz, 1969; Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971; Tulving & Donaldson, 1972; Mandler, Pearlstone , & Koopmans, 1967). Foreign...1984). Cognitive scientists have long been interested in how knowledge structures of lexical items are acquired and stored in memory ( Tulving ...1969; Tulving & Dondalson, 1972) and from discourse (Swinney, 1979; Kintsch, 1988; Kaye, Sternberg, & Fonseca, 1987) have an effect on the learning of

Application of an Online Interactive Simulation Tool to Teach Engineering Concepts Using 3D Spatial Structures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Brett D.; Setareh, Mehdi; Polys, Nicholas F.; Bacim, Felipe

2014-01-01

Simulations can be powerful learning tools that allow students to explore and understand concepts in ways that are not possible in typical classroom settings. However, research is lacking as to how to use simulations most effectively in different types of learning environments. To address this need, we designed a study to examine the impact of…

The Adoption of Blended E-Learning Technology in Vietnam Using a Revision of the Technology Acceptance Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tran, Khanh Ngo Nhu

2016-01-01

This study examines factors that determine the attitudes of learners toward a blended e-learning system (BELS) using data collected by questionnaire from a sample of 396 students involved in a BELS environment in Vietnam. A theoretical model is derived from previous studies and is analyzed and developed using structural equation modeling…

Theoretically Grounded Guidelines for Assessing Learning Progress: Cognitive Changes in Ill-Structured Complex Problem-Solving Contexts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Min Kyu

2012-01-01

It is generally accepted that the cognitive development for a wide range of students can be improved through adaptive instruction-learning environments optimized to suit individual needs (e.g., Cronbach, Am Psychol 12:671-684, 1957; Lee and Park, in Handbook of research for educational communications and technology, Taylor & Francis Group,…

NetEnquiry--A Competitive Mobile Learning Approach for the Banking Sector

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beutner, Marc; Teine, Matthias; Gebbe, Marcel; Fortmann, Lara Melissa

2016-01-01

Initial and further education in the banking sector is becoming more and more important due to the fact that the regulations and the complexity in world of work and an international banking scene is increasing. In this article we provide the structures of and information on NetEnquiry, an innovative mobile learning environment in this field,…

How Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills Influenced One Suburban District's Transition to 1:1 Student Technology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dillon, Paula A.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine administrator, student, and teacher perceptions of organizational structures, systems, and supports implemented to aid technology integration, and the potential for that technology integration to achieve 21st century skill acquisition and deeper learning in a 1:1 environment. The Diffusion of Innovation…

"I Am a Starbucks Worker … My Life No Longer Belongs to Me:" The Performance of Estrangement as a Learning Tool

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keenan, John; Evans, Adrienne

2014-01-01

In this paper, we explore the use of "estrangement" autoethnography as a means to encourage student autonomy and enhance learning. We include a case study of a structured activity requiring estrangement in consumer spaces to challenge student perspectives of normal environments. Our students welcomed the activity as one which changed…

A Study on the Rare Factors Exploration of Learning Effectiveness by Using Fuzzy Data Mining

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Chen-Tung; Chang, Kai-Yi

2017-01-01

The phenomenon of low fertility has been negatively impacted on the social structure of the educational environment in Taiwan. To increase the learning effectiveness of students became the most important issue for the Universities in Taiwan. Due to the subjective judgment of evaluators and the attributes of influenced factors are always fuzzy, it…

The Effect of Agent-Based Lectures on Student Learning and Conceptual Change in an Online Inquiry-Based Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Ju-Yu

2013-01-01

Cognitive load theorists claim that problem-centered instruction is not an effective instruction because it is not compatible with human cognitive structure. They argue that the nature of problem-centered instruction tends to over-load learner working memory capacity. That is why many problem-centered practices fail. To better support students and…

Use of Weblogs to Enhance Group Learning and Design Creativity amongst Students at a Thai University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Auttawutikul, Siwanit; Wiwitkunkasem, Kasemrut; Smith, Duncan R.

2014-01-01

This study reports on the introduction of weblogs as a part of the teaching environment for Thai students to facilitate group learning and enhance creativity. Assessment of progress was through formal creative thought testing, as well as a questionnaire with both structured and open questions. Results showed a significant improvement in assessed…

Do we face a fourth paradigm shift in medicine--algorithms in education?

PubMed

Eitel, F; Kanz, K G; Hortig, E; Tesche, A

2000-08-01

Medicine has evolved toward rationalization since the Enlightenment, favouring quantitative measures. Now, a paradigm shift toward control through formalization can be observed in health care whose structures and processes are subjected to increasing standardization. However, educational reforms and curricula do not yet adequately respond to this shift. The aim of this article is to describe innovative approaches in medical education for adapting to these changes. The study design is a descriptive case report relying on a literature review and on a reform project's evaluation. Concept mapping is used to graphically represent relationships among concepts, i.e. defined terms from educational literature. Definitions of 'concept map', 'guideline' and 'algorithm' are presented. A prototypical algorithm for organizational decision making in the project's instructional design is shown. Evaluation results of intrinsic learning motivation are demonstrated: intrinsic learning motivation depends upon students' perception of their competence exhibiting path coefficients varying from 0.42 to 0.51. Perception of competence varies with the type of learning environment. An innovative educational format, called 'evidence-based learning (EBL)' is deduced from these findings and described here. Effects of formalization consist of structuring decision making about implementation of different learning environments or about minimizing variance in teaching or learning. Unintended effects of formalization such as implementation problems and bureaucracy are discussed. Formalized tools for designing medical education are available. Specific instructional designs influence students' learning motivation. Concept maps are suitable for controlling educational quality, thus enabling the paradigm shift in medical education.

High-School Chemistry Students' Performance and Gender Differences in a Computerized Molecular Modeling Learning Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barnea, Nitza; Dori, Yehudit J.

1999-12-01

Computerized molecular modeling (CMM) contributes to the development of visualization skills via vivid animation of three dimensional representations. Its power to illustrate and explore phenomena in chemistry teaching stems from the convenience and simplicity of building molecules of any size and color in a number of presentation styles. A new CMM-based learning environment for teaching and learning chemistry in Israeli high schools has been designed and implemented. Three tenth grade experimental classes used this discovery CMM approach, while two other classes, who studied the same topic in the customary approach, served as a control group. We investigated the effects of using molecular modeling on students' spatial ability, understanding of new concepts related to geometric and symbolic representations and students' perception of the model concept. Each variable was examined for gender differences. Students of the experimental group performed better than control group students in all three performance aspects. Experimental group students scored higher than the control group students in the achievement test on structure and bonding. Students' spatial ability improved in both groups, but students from the experimental group scored higher. For the average students in the two groups the improvement in all three spatial ability sub-tests —paper folding, card rotation, and cube comparison—was significantly higher for the experimental group. Experimental group students gained better insight into the model concept than the control group and could explain more phenomena with the aid of a variety of models. Hence, CMM helps in particular to improve the examined cognitive aspects of the average student population. In most of the achievement and spatial ability tests no significant differences between the genders were found, but in some aspects of model perception and verbal argumentation differences still exist. Experimental group females improved their model perception more than the control group females in understanding ways to create models and in the role of models as mental structures and prediction tools. Teachers' and students' feedback on the CMM learning environment was found to be positive, as it helped them understand concepts in molecular geometry and bonding. The results of this study suggest that teaching/learning of topics in chemistry that are related to three dimensional structures can be improved by using a discovery approach in a computerized learning environment.

The learning environment in professional doctorate and postgraduate dental education: a qualitative study.

PubMed

Subramanian, J; Thomson, W M

2017-11-01

Currently, there is a lack of studies focusing on professional doctoral students' and graduates' perceptions of their learning environment, in particular, using a qualitative approach to elicit in-depth information. This article aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge by systematically exploring, critically analysing and getting a deeper understanding of professional doctorate dental students' and graduates' insights into effective and ineffective clinical and physical learning environment characteristics. The study included a total of 20 participants. Participants included 16 final-year Doctor of Clinical Dentistry (DClinDent) students and four dental specialists (graduates of the DClinDent programme). Semi-structured, individual interviews were used. Participants were asked to reflect upon and describe in detail their effective and ineffective learning environment experiences. The critical incident technique was used to guide the data collection. Data were analysed using a general inductive qualitative approach. Learning environment characteristics which participants associated with effective learning included the following: sufficient opportunities for comprehensive treatment planning; introduction to a number of patient treatment philosophies; a sufficient number of complex cases; clinically oriented research and assignment topics; a focus on clinical training in the programme generally; a research topic of a realistic depth and breadth, suitable for their 'specialist training' degree; and a well-resourced and updated physical infrastructure. On the other hand, most participants indicated that the absence of an adequate number of clinical cases, an overemphasis on research (as opposed to clinical practice) in the DClinDent programme and an 'outdated' physical infrastructure in the dental school clinics could hamper effective clinical learning. These findings contribute to the meaningful advancement of the literature on learning environment strategies through the exploration of (and in-depth qualitative insights into) what facilitated effective learning by New Zealand professional doctorate candidates and graduates. These findings provide a starting point for reflection by international academic directors, educational developers, curriculum planners, programme managers and clinical teachers in respect of the further development of the learning environment. Although the findings from this study may not be directly transferable to all international contexts, they have the potential to contribute to the further development of theory in this area. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Learning and exploration in action-perception loops.

PubMed

Little, Daniel Y; Sommer, Friedrich T

2013-01-01

Discovering the structure underlying observed data is a recurring problem in machine learning with important applications in neuroscience. It is also a primary function of the brain. When data can be actively collected in the context of a closed action-perception loop, behavior becomes a critical determinant of learning efficiency. Psychologists studying exploration and curiosity in humans and animals have long argued that learning itself is a primary motivator of behavior. However, the theoretical basis of learning-driven behavior is not well understood. Previous computational studies of behavior have largely focused on the control problem of maximizing acquisition of rewards and have treated learning the structure of data as a secondary objective. Here, we study exploration in the absence of external reward feedback. Instead, we take the quality of an agent's learned internal model to be the primary objective. In a simple probabilistic framework, we derive a Bayesian estimate for the amount of information about the environment an agent can expect to receive by taking an action, a measure we term the predicted information gain (PIG). We develop exploration strategies that approximately maximize PIG. One strategy based on value-iteration consistently learns faster than previously developed reward-free exploration strategies across a diverse range of environments. Psychologists believe the evolutionary advantage of learning-driven exploration lies in the generalized utility of an accurate internal model. Consistent with this hypothesis, we demonstrate that agents which learn more efficiently during exploration are later better able to accomplish a range of goal-directed tasks. We will conclude by discussing how our work elucidates the explorative behaviors of animals and humans, its relationship to other computational models of behavior, and its potential application to experimental design, such as in closed-loop neurophysiology studies.

Evaluation of ambiguous associations in the amygdala by learning the structure of the environment

PubMed Central

Madarasz, Tamas J.; Diaz-Mataix, Lorenzo; Akhand, Omar; Ycu, Edgar A.; LeDoux, Joseph E.; Johansen, Joshua P.

2017-01-01

Recognizing predictive relationships is critical for survival, but an understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms remains elusive. In particular it is unclear how the brain distinguishes predictive relationships from spurious ones when evidence about a relationship is ambiguous, or how it computes predictions given such uncertainty. To better understand this process we introduced ambiguity into an associative learning task by presenting aversive outcomes both in the presence and absence of a predictive cue. Electrophysiological and optogenetic approaches revealed that amygdala neurons directly regulate and track the effects of ambiguity on learning. Contrary to established accounts of associative learning however, interference from competing associations was not required to assess an ambiguous cue-outcome contingency. Instead, animals’ behavior was explained by a normative account that evaluates different models of the environment’s statistical structure. These findings suggest an alternative view on the role of amygdala circuits in resolving ambiguity during aversive learning. PMID:27214568

A Dialogic Action Perspective on Open Collective Inquiry in Online Forums

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jung, Yusun

2012-01-01

In today's networked environment, online forums emerge as a popular form of social structures that have greater opportunities for learning in various organizational contexts. A plethora of studies have investigated the phenomenon to identify antecedent of its success, such as individual characteristics and organizational structure. However,…

Orbiter lessons learned: A guide to future vehicle development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Greenberg, Harry Stan

1993-01-01

Topics addressed are: (1) wind persistence loads methodology; (2) emphasize supportability in design of reusable vehicles; (3) design for robustness; (4) improved aerodynamic environment prediction methods for complex vehicles; (5) automated integration of aerothermal, manufacturing, and structures analysis; (6) continued electronic documentation of structural design and analysis; and (7) landing gear rollout load simulations.

The new and improved learning community at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine resembles that at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

PubMed

Stewart, Rosalyn W; Barker, Allison R; Shochet, Robert B; Wright, Scott M

2007-05-01

In July 2005, a learning community was created at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) to foster camaraderie, networking, advising, mentoring, professionalism, clinical skills, and scholarship--The Colleges. The cultural and structural changes that emerged with the creation of this program have resulted in JHUSOM bearing a resemblance to J. K. Rowling's fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This manuscript will describe the similarities between these two revered schools, and highlight the innovations and improvements made to JHUSOM's learning environment. The intense, stressful, and lengthy professional training required to achieve competency in the practice of medicine and in the practice of witchcraft (albeit fictional) have meaningful parallels. The supportive learning environment at these two schools should afford the next generation of graduates to have an even more enriching experience than those who have come before them.

A safe place with space for learning: Experiences from an interprofessional training ward.

PubMed

Hallin, Karin; Kiessling, Anna

2016-01-01

Interprofessional learning in a real ward context effectively increases collaborative and professional competence among students. However, less is known on the processes behind this. The aim of this study was to explore medical, nurse, physiotherapy, and occupational therapy students' perspectives on the process of their own learning at an interprofessional training ward (IPTW). We performed a qualitative content analysis on free-text answers of 333 student questionnaires from the years 2004 to 2011. Two main themes emerged: first, students found that the IPTW provided an enriching learning environment--a safe place with space. It included authentic and relevant patients, well-composed and functioning student teams, competent and supportive supervisors, and adjusted ward structures to support learning. Second, they developed an awareness of their own development with faith in the future--from chaos to clarity. It included personal, professional, and interprofessional development towards a comprehensive view of practice and a faith in their ability to work as professionals in the future. Our findings are discussed with a social constructivist perspective. This study suggests that when an IPTW provides a supportive and permissive learning environment with possibilities to interact with one another--a safe place with space--it enables students to move from insecurity to faith in their abilities--from chaos to clarity. However, if the learning environment is impaired, the students' development could be halted.

Decoding the future from past experience: learning shapes predictions in early visual cortex.

PubMed

Luft, Caroline D B; Meeson, Alan; Welchman, Andrew E; Kourtzi, Zoe

2015-05-01

Learning the structure of the environment is critical for interpreting the current scene and predicting upcoming events. However, the brain mechanisms that support our ability to translate knowledge about scene statistics to sensory predictions remain largely unknown. Here we provide evidence that learning of temporal regularities shapes representations in early visual cortex that relate to our ability to predict sensory events. We tested the participants' ability to predict the orientation of a test stimulus after exposure to sequences of leftward- or rightward-oriented gratings. Using fMRI decoding, we identified brain patterns related to the observers' visual predictions rather than stimulus-driven activity. Decoding of predicted orientations following structured sequences was enhanced after training, while decoding of cued orientations following exposure to random sequences did not change. These predictive representations appear to be driven by the same large-scale neural populations that encode actual stimulus orientation and to be specific to the learned sequence structure. Thus our findings provide evidence that learning temporal structures supports our ability to predict future events by reactivating selective sensory representations as early as in primary visual cortex. Copyright © 2015 the American Physiological Society.

Enriched environment ameliorates depression-induced cognitive deficits and restores abnormal hippocampal synaptic plasticity.

PubMed

Mahati, K; Bhagya, V; Christofer, T; Sneha, A; Shankaranarayana Rao, B S

2016-10-01

Severe depression compromises structural and functional integrity of the brain and results in impaired learning and memory, maladaptive synaptic plasticity as well as degenerative changes in the hippocampus and amygdala. The precise mechanisms underlying cognitive dysfunctions in depression remain largely unknown. On the other hand, enriched environment (EE) offers beneficial effects on cognitive functions, synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus. However, the effect of EE on endogenous depression associated cognitive dysfunction has not been explored. Accordingly, we have attempted to address this issue by investigating behavioural, structural and synaptic plasticity mechanisms in an animal model of endogenous depression after exposure to enriched environment. Our results demonstrate that depression is associated with impaired spatial learning and enhanced anxiety-like behaviour which is correlated with hypotrophy of the dentate gyrus and amygdalar hypertrophy. We also observed a gross reduction in the hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP). We report a complete behavioural recovery with reduced indices of anhedonia and behavioural despair, reduced anxiety-like behaviour and improved spatial learning along with a complete restoration of dentate gyrus and amygdalar volumes in depressive rats subjected to EE. Enrichment also facilitated CA3-Schaffer collateral LTP. Our study convincingly proves that depression-induces learning deficits and impairs hippocampal synaptic plasticity. It also highlights the role of environmental stimuli in restoring depression-induced cognitive deficits which might prove vital in outlining more effective strategies to treat major depressive disorders. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Health Science Students and Their Learning Environment: A Comparison of Perceptions of On-Site, Remote-Site, and Traditional Classroom Students

PubMed Central

Elison-Bowers, P.; Snelson, Chareen; Casa de Calvo, Mario; Thompson, Heather

2008-01-01

This study compared the responses of on-site, remote-site, and traditional classroom students on measures of student/teacher interaction, course structure, physical learning environment, and overall course enjoyment/satisfaction. The sample population consisted of students taking undergraduate courses in medical terminology at two western colleges. The survey instrument was derived from Thomerson's questionnaire, which included closed- and open-ended questions assessing perceptions of students toward their courses. Controlling for grade expectations, results revealed no significant differences among the on-site, remote-site, and traditional classroom students in any of the four cluster domains. However, a nonsignificant (and continuing) trend suggested that students preferred the traditional classroom environment. When results were controlled for age, significant differences emerged between traditional and nontraditional students on measures of student/teacher interaction, physical learning environment, and overall enjoyment/satisfaction, as nontraditional students exhibited higher scores. Students' responses to open-ended questions indicated they enjoyed the convenience of online instruction, but reported finding frustration with technology itself. PMID:18311326

Beyond adaptive-critic creative learning for intelligent mobile robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liao, Xiaoqun; Cao, Ming; Hall, Ernest L.

2001-10-01

Intelligent industrial and mobile robots may be considered proven technology in structured environments. Teach programming and supervised learning methods permit solutions to a variety of applications. However, we believe that to extend the operation of these machines to more unstructured environments requires a new learning method. Both unsupervised learning and reinforcement learning are potential candidates for these new tasks. The adaptive critic method has been shown to provide useful approximations or even optimal control policies to non-linear systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of new learning methods that goes beyond the adaptive critic method for unstructured environments. The adaptive critic is a form of reinforcement learning. A critic element provides only high level grading corrections to a cognition module that controls the action module. In the proposed system the critic's grades are modeled and forecasted, so that an anticipated set of sub-grades are available to the cognition model. The forecasting grades are interpolated and are available on the time scale needed by the action model. The success of the system is highly dependent on the accuracy of the forecasted grades and adaptability of the action module. Examples from the guidance of a mobile robot are provided to illustrate the method for simple line following and for the more complex navigation and control in an unstructured environment. The theory presented that is beyond the adaptive critic may be called creative theory. Creative theory is a form of learning that models the highest level of human learning - imagination. The application of the creative theory appears to not only be to mobile robots but also to many other forms of human endeavor such as educational learning and business forecasting. Reinforcement learning such as the adaptive critic may be applied to known problems to aid in the discovery of their solutions. The significance of creative theory is that it permits the discovery of the unknown problems, ones that are not yet recognized but may be critical to survival or success.

Negotiation, Embeddedness, and Non-Threatening Learning Environments as Themes of Science and Language Convergence for English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ardasheva, Yuliya; Norton-Meier, Lori; Hand, Brian

2015-01-01

In this review, we explore the notion of teaching science to English language learners (ELLs) as a balancing act between simultaneously focusing on language and content development, on the one hand, and between structuring instruction and focusing on student learning processes, on the other hand. This exploration is conducted through the lens of a…

Effects of Role Division, Interaction, and Shared Mental Model on Team Performance in Project-Based Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jo, Il-Hyun

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitive mechanism of project-based learning teams of college students on the basis of the Shared Mental Model (SMM) theory. The study participants were 237 female college students in Korea organized into 51 project teams. To test the study hypotheses, a structural equation modeling was employed.…

Interprofessional learning at work: what spatial theory can tell us about workplace learning in an acute care ward.

PubMed

Gregory, Linda Rosemary; Hopwood, Nick; Boud, David

2014-05-01

It is widely recognized that every workplace potentially provides a rich source of learning. Studies focusing on health care contexts have shown that social interaction within and between professions is crucial in enabling professionals to learn through work, address problems and cope with challenges of clinical practice. While hospital environments are beginning to be understood in spatial terms, the links between space and interprofessional learning at work have not been explored. This paper draws on Lefebvre's tri-partite theoretical framework of perceived, conceived and lived space to enrich understandings of interprofessional learning on an acute care ward in an Australian teaching hospital. Qualitative analysis was undertaken using data from observations of Registered Nurses at work and semi-structured interviews linked to observed events. The paper focuses on a ward round, the medical workroom and the Registrar's room, comparing and contrasting the intended (conceived), practiced (perceived) and pedagogically experienced (lived) spatial dimensions. The paper concludes that spatial theory has much to offer understandings of interprofessional learning in work, and the features of work environments and daily practices that produce spaces that enable or constrain learning.

Quality of the Preschool and Home Environment as a Context of Children's Language Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Umek, Ljubica Marjanovic; Kranjc, Simona; Fekonja, Urska; Bajc, Katja

2006-01-01

Studies in the area of developmental psychology--especially those carried out in the past thirty years--show that preschool quality, both at the structural and process levels, in combination with the quality of the family environment influences various areas of children's development and learning. The goal of this study is to determine the effect…

Appraisal of the dental school learning environment: the students' view.

PubMed

Henzi, David; Davis, Elaine; Jasinevicius, Roma; Hendricson, William; Cintron, Laura; Isaacs, Marcia

2005-10-01

The majority of studies examining dental school curriculum have addressed organization, structure, and content issues from the perspectives of administrators, faculty, practitioners/alumni, and professional organizations. However, few studies have focused on students' opinions of dental school. The purpose of this study was to determine students' perceptions of the learning environment, intellectual climate, and teacher-student relationships in dental school. This report describes how the "dental version" of the Medical Student Learning Environment Survey (MSLES) was used to identify students' perceptions of their dental education. Freshman and junior dental students' perceptions were measured with the Dental Student Learning Environment Survey (DSLES), which evaluates learning environment, intellectual climate, and relationships among students and teachers in seven areas: flexibility, student-to-student interaction, emotional climate, supportiveness, meaningful experience, organization, and breadth of interest. The DSLES was mailed to twenty-three dental schools in North America with eighteen of the schools distributing the inventory. A total of 619 dental students responded. Results were differentiated between freshman and junior dental students. Both freshman and junior students provided the highest (most positive) ratings for the DSLES subscales of "breadth of interest" (interest in dentistry and outside interests are encouraged) and "meaningful learning experience" (significance of courses to dentistry). Freshman students provided the lowest (least positive) ratings for "emotional climate" (students' responses to the way their courses were conducted and stress levels), and junior students provided the least positive ratings for "faculty supportiveness" (extent of faculty support and encouragement provided to students). The DSLES identified students' perceptions of their educational experience and localized areas for improvement. By addressing these areas of concern, faculty can increase student satisfaction with their dental education.

Educational Innovations in Academic Medicine and Environmental Trends

PubMed Central

Irby, David M; Wilkerson, LuAnn

2003-01-01

Fifteen educational innovations in academic medicine are described in relation to 5 environmental trends. The first trend, demands for increased clinical productivity, has diminished the learning environment, necessitating new organizational structures to support teaching, such as academies of medical educators, mission-based management, and faculty development. The second trend is multidisciplinary approaches to science and education. This is stimulating the growth of multidisciplinary curricular design and oversight along with integrated curricular structures. Third, the science of learning advocates the use of case-based, active learning methods; learning communities such as societies and colleges; and instructional technology. Fourth, shifting views of health and disease are encouraging the addition of new content in the curriculum. In response, theme committees are weaving content across the curriculum, new courses are being inserted into curricula, and community-based education is providing learning experiences outside of academic medical centers. Fifth, calls for accountability are leading to new forms of performance assessment using objective structured clinical exams, clinical examination exercises, simulators, and comprehensive assessment programs. These innovations are transforming medical education. PMID:12795736

Learning Temporal Statistics for Sensory Predictions in Aging.

PubMed

Luft, Caroline Di Bernardi; Baker, Rosalind; Goldstone, Aimee; Zhang, Yang; Kourtzi, Zoe

2016-03-01

Predicting future events based on previous knowledge about the environment is critical for successful everyday interactions. Here, we ask which brain regions support our ability to predict the future based on implicit knowledge about the past in young and older age. Combining behavioral and fMRI measurements, we test whether training on structured temporal sequences improves the ability to predict upcoming sensory events; we then compare brain regions involved in learning predictive structures between young and older adults. Our behavioral results demonstrate that exposure to temporal sequences without feedback facilitates the ability of young and older adults to predict the orientation of an upcoming stimulus. Our fMRI results provide evidence for the involvement of corticostriatal regions in learning predictive structures in both young and older learners. In particular, we showed learning-dependent fMRI responses for structured sequences in frontoparietal regions and the striatum (putamen) for young adults. However, for older adults, learning-dependent activations were observed mainly in subcortical (putamen, thalamus) regions but were weaker in frontoparietal regions. Significant correlations of learning-dependent behavioral and fMRI changes in these regions suggest a strong link between brain activations and behavioral improvement rather than general overactivation. Thus, our findings suggest that predicting future events based on knowledge of temporal statistics engages brain regions involved in implicit learning in both young and older adults.

Neural networks involved in learning lexical-semantic and syntactic information in a second language.

PubMed

Mueller, Jutta L; Rueschemeyer, Shirley-Ann; Ono, Kentaro; Sugiura, Motoaki; Sadato, Norihiro; Nakamura, Akinori

2014-01-01

The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural correlates of language acquisition in a realistic learning environment. Japanese native speakers were trained in a miniature version of German prior to fMRI scanning. During scanning they listened to (1) familiar sentences, (2) sentences including a novel sentence structure, and (3) sentences containing a novel word while visual context provided referential information. Learning-related decreases of brain activation over time were found in a mainly left-hemispheric network comprising classical frontal and temporal language areas as well as parietal and subcortical regions and were largely overlapping for novel words and the novel sentence structure in initial stages of learning. Differences occurred at later stages of learning during which content-specific activation patterns in prefrontal, parietal and temporal cortices emerged. The results are taken as evidence for a domain-general network supporting the initial stages of language learning which dynamically adapts as learners become proficient.

The learner's perspective in GP teaching practices with multi-level learners: a qualitative study.

PubMed

Thomson, Jennifer S; Anderson, Katrina; Haesler, Emily; Barnard, Amanda; Glasgow, Nicholas

2014-03-19

Medical students, junior hospital doctors on rotation and general practice (GP) registrars are undertaking their training in clinical general practices in increasing numbers in Australia. Some practices have four levels of learner. This study aimed to explore how multi-level teaching (also called vertical integration of GP education and training) is occurring in clinical general practice and the impact of such teaching on the learner. A qualitative research methodology was used with face-to-face, semi-structured interviews of medical students, junior hospital doctors, GP registrars and GP teachers in eight training practices in the region that taught all levels of learners. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Qualitative analysis was conducted using thematic analysis techniques aided by the use of the software package N-Vivo 9. Primary themes were identified and categorised by the co-investigators. 52 interviews were completed and analysed. Themes were identified relating to both the practice learning environment and teaching methods used.A practice environment where there is a strong teaching culture, enjoyment of learning, and flexible learning methods, as well as learning spaces and organised teaching arrangements, all contribute to positive learning from a learners' perspective.Learners identified a number of innovative teaching methods and viewed them as positive. These included multi-level learner group tutorials in the practice, being taught by a team of teachers, including GP registrars and other health professionals, and access to a supernumerary GP supervisor (also termed "GP consultant teacher"). Other teaching methods that were viewed positively were parallel consulting, informal learning and rural hospital context integrated learning. Vertical integration of GP education and training generally impacted positively on all levels of learner. This research has provided further evidence about the learning culture, structures and teaching processes that have a positive impact on learners in the clinical general practice setting where there are multiple levels of learners. It has also identified some innovative teaching methods that will need further examination. The findings reinforce the importance of the environment for learning and learner centred approaches and will be important for training organisations developing vertically integrated practices and in their training of GP teachers.

The learner’s perspective in GP teaching practices with multi-level learners: a qualitative study

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Medical students, junior hospital doctors on rotation and general practice (GP) registrars are undertaking their training in clinical general practices in increasing numbers in Australia. Some practices have four levels of learner. This study aimed to explore how multi-level teaching (also called vertical integration of GP education and training) is occurring in clinical general practice and the impact of such teaching on the learner. Methods A qualitative research methodology was used with face-to-face, semi-structured interviews of medical students, junior hospital doctors, GP registrars and GP teachers in eight training practices in the region that taught all levels of learners. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Qualitative analysis was conducted using thematic analysis techniques aided by the use of the software package N-Vivo 9. Primary themes were identified and categorised by the co-investigators. Results 52 interviews were completed and analysed. Themes were identified relating to both the practice learning environment and teaching methods used. A practice environment where there is a strong teaching culture, enjoyment of learning, and flexible learning methods, as well as learning spaces and organised teaching arrangements, all contribute to positive learning from a learners’ perspective. Learners identified a number of innovative teaching methods and viewed them as positive. These included multi-level learner group tutorials in the practice, being taught by a team of teachers, including GP registrars and other health professionals, and access to a supernumerary GP supervisor (also termed “GP consultant teacher”). Other teaching methods that were viewed positively were parallel consulting, informal learning and rural hospital context integrated learning. Conclusions Vertical integration of GP education and training generally impacted positively on all levels of learner. This research has provided further evidence about the learning culture, structures and teaching processes that have a positive impact on learners in the clinical general practice setting where there are multiple levels of learners. It has also identified some innovative teaching methods that will need further examination. The findings reinforce the importance of the environment for learning and learner centred approaches and will be important for training organisations developing vertically integrated practices and in their training of GP teachers. PMID:24645670

Effects of congruence between preferred and perceived learning environments in nursing education in Taiwan: a cross-sectional study.

PubMed

Yeh, Ting-Kuang; Huang, Hsiu-Mei; Chan, Wing P; Chang, Chun-Yen

2016-05-20

To investigate the effects of congruence between preferred and perceived learning environments on learning outcomes of nursing students. A nursing course at a university in central Taiwan. 124 Taiwanese nursing students enrolled in a 13-week problem-based Fundamental Nursing curriculum. Students' preferred learning environment, perceptions about the learning environment and learning outcomes (knowledge, self-efficacy and attitudes) were assessed. On the basis of test scores measuring their preferred and perceived learning environments, students were assigned to one of two groups: a 'preferred environment aligned with perceived learning environment' group and a 'preferred environment discordant with perceived learning environment' group. Learning outcomes were analysed by group. Most participants preferred learning in a classroom environment that combined problem-based and lecture-based instruction. However, a mismatch of problem-based instruction with students' perceptions occurred. Learning outcomes were significantly better when students' perceptions of their instructional activities were congruent with their preferred learning environment. As problem-based learning becomes a focus of educational reform in nursing, teachers need to be aware of students' preferences and perceptions of the learning environment. Teachers may also need to improve the match between an individual student's perception and a teacher's intention in the learning environment, and between the student's preferred and actual perceptions of the learning environment. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

Building a learning organisation in a child and adolescent mental health service.

PubMed

Birleson, P

1998-01-01

In recent business literature, the model of the learning organisation has been proposed as a solution to the problem of continually changing environments and increasing consumer expectations of maximum quality and value for money. The model seems highly appropriate for health services, which are staffed by educated professional staff who must become more adaptive and concerned with improving consumer outcomes. This case study describes how the principles of learning organisations have been applied to the design of a new structure and the creation of a learning culture within a mental health service for children and adolescents.

Vocal learning in the functionally referential food grunts of chimpanzees.

PubMed

Watson, Stuart K; Townsend, Simon W; Schel, Anne M; Wilke, Claudia; Wallace, Emma K; Cheng, Leveda; West, Victoria; Slocombe, Katie E

2015-02-16

One standout feature of human language is our ability to reference external objects and events with socially learned symbols, or words. Exploring the phylogenetic origins of this capacity is therefore key to a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of language. While non-human primates can produce vocalizations that refer to external objects in the environment, it is generally accepted that their acoustic structure is fixed and a product of arousal states. Indeed, it has been argued that the apparent lack of flexible control over the structure of referential vocalizations represents a key discontinuity with language. Here, we demonstrate vocal learning in the acoustic structure of referential food grunts in captive chimpanzees. We found that, following the integration of two groups of adult chimpanzees, the acoustic structure of referential food grunts produced for a specific food converged over 3 years. Acoustic convergence arose independently of preference for the food, and social network analyses indicated this only occurred after strong affiliative relationships were established between the original subgroups. We argue that these data represent the first evidence of non-human animals actively modifying and socially learning the structure of a meaningful referential vocalization from conspecifics. Our findings indicate that primate referential call structure is not simply determined by arousal and that the socially learned nature of referential words in humans likely has ancient evolutionary origins. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lifelong learning: Established concepts and evolving values.

PubMed

Talati, Jamsheer Jehangir

2014-03-01

To summarise the concepts critical for understanding the content and value of lifelong learning (LL). Ideas generated by personal experience were combined with those of philosophers, social scientists, educational institutions, governments and UNESCO, to facilitate an understanding of the importance of the basic concepts of LL. Autopoietic, continuous, self-determined, informal, vicarious, biographical, lifelong reflexive learning, from and for society, when supported by self-chosen formal courses, can build capacities and portable skills that allow useful responses to challenges and society's new structures of governance. The need for LL is driven by challenges. LL flows continuously in pursuit of one agenda, which could either be citizenship, as is conventional, or as this article proposes, health. LL cannot be wholly centred on vocation. Continuous medical education and continuous professional development, important in their own right, cannot supply all that is needed. LL aids society with its learning, and it requires an awareness of the environment and structures of society. It is heavily vicarious, draws on formal learning and relies for effectiveness on reflection, self-assessment and personal shaping of views of the world from different perspectives. Health is critical to rational thought and peace, and determines society's capacity to govern itself, and improve its health. LL should be reshaped to focus on health not citizenship. Therefore, embedding learning in society and environment is critical. Each urologist must develop an understanding of the numerous concepts in LL, of which 'biographicisation' is the seed that will promote innovative strategies.

Lifelong learning: Established concepts and evolving values

PubMed Central

Talati, Jamsheer Jehangir

2014-01-01

Objective To summarise the concepts critical for understanding the content and value of lifelong learning (LL). Methods Ideas generated by personal experience were combined with those of philosophers, social scientists, educational institutions, governments and UNESCO, to facilitate an understanding of the importance of the basic concepts of LL. Results Autopoietic, continuous, self-determined, informal, vicarious, biographical, lifelong reflexive learning, from and for society, when supported by self-chosen formal courses, can build capacities and portable skills that allow useful responses to challenges and society’s new structures of governance. The need for LL is driven by challenges. LL flows continuously in pursuit of one agenda, which could either be citizenship, as is conventional, or as this article proposes, health. LL cannot be wholly centred on vocation. Continuous medical education and continuous professional development, important in their own right, cannot supply all that is needed. LL aids society with its learning, and it requires an awareness of the environment and structures of society. It is heavily vicarious, draws on formal learning and relies for effectiveness on reflection, self-assessment and personal shaping of views of the world from different perspectives. Conclusion Health is critical to rational thought and peace, and determines society’s capacity to govern itself, and improve its health. LL should be reshaped to focus on health not citizenship. Therefore, embedding learning in society and environment is critical. Each urologist must develop an understanding of the numerous concepts in LL, of which ‘biographicisation’ is the seed that will promote innovative strategies. PMID:26019932

Learning for intelligent mobile robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hall, Ernest L.; Liao, Xiaoqun; Alhaj Ali, Souma M.

2003-10-01

Unlike intelligent industrial robots which often work in a structured factory setting, intelligent mobile robots must often operate in an unstructured environment cluttered with obstacles and with many possible action paths. However, such machines have many potential applications in medicine, defense, industry and even the home that make their study important. Sensors such as vision are needed. However, in many applications some form of learning is also required. The purpose of this paper is to present a discussion of recent technical advances in learning for intelligent mobile robots. During the past 20 years, the use of intelligent industrial robots that are equipped not only with motion control systems but also with sensors such as cameras, laser scanners, or tactile sensors that permit adaptation to a changing environment has increased dramatically. However, relatively little has been done concerning learning. Adaptive and robust control permits one to achieve point to point and controlled path operation in a changing environment. This problem can be solved with a learning control. In the unstructured environment, the terrain and consequently the load on the robot"s motors are constantly changing. Learning the parameters of a proportional, integral and derivative controller (PID) and artificial neural network provides an adaptive and robust control. Learning may also be used for path following. Simulations that include learning may be conducted to see if a robot can learn its way through a cluttered array of obstacles. If a situation is performed repetitively, then learning can also be used in the actual application. To reach an even higher degree of autonomous operation, a new level of learning is required. Recently learning theories such as the adaptive critic have been proposed. In this type of learning a critic provides a grade to the controller of an action module such as a robot. The creative control process is used that is "beyond the adaptive critic." A mathematical model of the creative control process is presented that illustrates the use for mobile robots. Examples from a variety of intelligent mobile robot applications are also presented. The significance of this work is in providing a greater understanding of the applications of learning to mobile robots that could lead to many applications.

Effects of congruence between preferred and perceived learning environments in nursing education in Taiwan: a cross-sectional study

PubMed Central

Yeh, Ting-Kuang; Huang, Hsiu-Mei; Chan, Wing P; Chang, Chun-Yen

2016-01-01

Objective To investigate the effects of congruence between preferred and perceived learning environments on learning outcomes of nursing students. Setting A nursing course at a university in central Taiwan. Participants 124 Taiwanese nursing students enrolled in a 13-week problem-based Fundamental Nursing curriculum. Design and methods Students' preferred learning environment, perceptions about the learning environment and learning outcomes (knowledge, self-efficacy and attitudes) were assessed. On the basis of test scores measuring their preferred and perceived learning environments, students were assigned to one of two groups: a ‘preferred environment aligned with perceived learning environment’ group and a ‘preferred environment discordant with perceived learning environment’ group. Learning outcomes were analysed by group. Outcome measures Most participants preferred learning in a classroom environment that combined problem-based and lecture-based instruction. However, a mismatch of problem-based instruction with students' perceptions occurred. Learning outcomes were significantly better when students' perceptions of their instructional activities were congruent with their preferred learning environment. Conclusions As problem-based learning becomes a focus of educational reform in nursing, teachers need to be aware of students' preferences and perceptions of the learning environment. Teachers may also need to improve the match between an individual student's perception and a teacher's intention in the learning environment, and between the student's preferred and actual perceptions of the learning environment. PMID:27207620

Science Learning Outcomes in Alignment with Learning Environment Preferences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chang, Chun-Yen; Hsiao, Chien-Hua; Chang, Yueh-Hsia

2011-04-01

This study investigated students' learning environment preferences and compared the relative effectiveness of instructional approaches on students' learning outcomes in achievement and attitude among 10th grade earth science classes in Taiwan. Data collection instruments include the Earth Science Classroom Learning Environment Inventory and Earth Science Learning Outcomes Inventory. The results showed that most students preferred learning in a classroom environment where student-centered and teacher-centered instructional approaches coexisted over a teacher-centered learning environment. A multivariate analysis of covariance also revealed that the STBIM students' cognitive achievement and attitude toward earth science were enhanced when the learning environment was congruent with their learning environment preference.

Towards Detection of Learner Misconceptions in a Medical Learning Environment: A Subgroup Discovery Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poitras, Eric G.; Doleck, Tenzin; Lajoie, Susanne P.

2018-01-01

Ill-structured problems, by definition, have multiple paths to a solution and are multifaceted making automated assessment and feedback a difficult challenge. Diagnostic reasoning about medical cases meet the criteria of ill-structured problem solving since there are multiple solution paths. The goal of this study was to develop an adaptive…

Simulation-Visualization and Self-Assessment Modules' Capabilities in Structural Analysis Course Including Survey Analysis Results

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kadiam, Subhash Chandra Bose S. V.; Mohammed, Ahmed Ali; Nguyen, Duc T.

2010-01-01

In this paper, we describe an approach to analyze 2D truss/Frame/Beam structures under Flash-based environment. Stiffness Matrix Method (SMM) module was developed as part of ongoing projects on a broad topic "Students' Learning Improvements in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Related Areas" at Old Dominion…

Developing an Environment for Exploring Distributed Operations: A Wargaming Example

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-05-01

a basis for performance standards. At the same time, the design tried to provide an acceptable mix of structured versus free - play activity in...participants’ free - play discussion and collaboration during Counteraction. Scripting allowed the research team to embed potential problems or measurement...Learned - Structured Exercises ......................................................................... 24 Scripted and Free - Play Wargaming Phases

Constructivist-Visual Mind Map Teaching Approach and the Quality of Students' Cognitive Structures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dhindsa, Harkirat S.; Makarimi-Kasim; Anderson, O. Roger

2011-01-01

This study compared the effects of a constructivist-visual mind map teaching approach (CMA) and of a traditional teaching approach (TTA) on (a) the quality and richness of students' knowledge structures and (b) TTA and CMA students' perceptions of the extent that a constructivist learning environment (CLE) was created in their classes. The sample…

We Are Familia.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Almendariz, Abe Lujan; Villarreal, Micha; Rodriquez, Roy C.

2001-01-01

Describes the family-based administrative structure of the Alicia Chacon International School, a magnet elementary school in El Paso, Texas. Students are motivated to learn within the school's family environment through involvement in cultural activities, multilingual instruction, and family participation. (PKP)

Managing clinical failure: a complex adaptive system perspective.

PubMed

Matthews, Jean I; Thomas, Paul T

2007-01-01

The purpose of this article is to explore the knowledge capture process at the clinical level. It aims to identify factors that enable or constrain learning. The study applies complex adaptive system thinking principles to reconcile learning within the NHS. The paper uses a qualitative exploratory study with an interpretative methodological stance set in a secondary care NHS Trust. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with healthcare practitioners and managers involved at both strategic and operational risk management processes. A network structure is revealed that exhibits the communication and interdependent working practices to support knowledge capture and adaptive learning. Collaborative multidisciplinary communities, whose values reflect local priorities and promote open dialogue and reflection, are featured. The main concern is that the characteristics of bureaucracy; rational-legal authority, a rule-based culture, hierarchical lines of communication and a centralised governance focus, are hindering clinical learning by generating barriers. Locally emergent collaborative processes are a key strategic resource to capture knowledge, potentially fostering an environment that could learn from failure and translate lessons between contexts. What must be addressed is that reporting mechanisms serve not only the governance objectives, but also supplement learning by highlighting the potential lessons in context. Managers must nurture a collaborative infrastructure using networks in a co-evolutionary manner. Their role is not to direct and design processes but to influence, support and create effective knowledge capture. Although the study only investigated one site the findings and conclusions may well translate to other trusts--such as the risk of not enabling a learning environment at clinical levels.

Linking national contexts with intellectual capital: a comparison between Spain and Morocco.

PubMed

Cegarra-Navarro, Juan-Gabriel; Sánchez-Polo, Maria Teresa

2010-05-01

The 'national environment', which includes belief and value systems, shapes the way individuals, groups and organisations perceive the world around them and determines how they react to ongoing changes. This paper analyses the role of different context's effects on intellectual capital by means of an empirical investigation of 112 Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the Spanish and Moroccan telecommunication industries. Within the investigation, repeated ANOVA were used, which were validated by factor analysis. Results support that Spanish SMEs are more positively associated with higher levels of human, structural and relational capital. The meaningful differences are clearly found in the 'structural capital'. Our findings open avenues for further research to explore how governments can facilitate learning and unlearning environments in SME communities. These findings have important implications for general intellectual capital theories, as they suggest that there is no guarantee that intellectual capital theories developed within the cultural context of one particular country can be applied in another with good effect. National contexts provide the environment for learning, which in turn may have the effect of adequately improving intellectual capital.

How do we facilitate international clinical placements for nursing students: A cross-sectional exploration of the structure, aims and objectives of placements.

PubMed

Browne, Caroline A; Fetherston, Catherine M

2018-07-01

International clinical placements provide undergraduate students with a unique and complex clinical learning environment, to explore cultural awareness, experience different health care settings and achieve clinical competencies. Higher education institutions need to consider how to structure these placements to ensure appropriate and achievable aims and learning outcomes. In this study we described the structure, aims and learning outcomes associated with international clinical placement opportunities currently undertaken by Australian undergraduate nursing students in the Asia region. Forty eight percent (n = 18) of the institutions invited responded. Eight institutions met the inclusion criteria, one of which offered three placements in the region, resulting in 10 international placements for which data were provided. An online survey tool was used to collect data during August and September 2015 on international clinical placements conducted by the participating universities. Descriptive data on type and numbers of placements is presented, along with results from the content analysis conducted to explore data from open ended questions on learning aims and outcomes. One hundred students undertook 10 International Clinical Placements offered in the Asian region by eight universities. Variations across placements were found in the length of placement, the number of students participating, facilitator to student ratios and assessment techniques used. Five categories related to the aims of the programs were identified: 'becoming culturally aware through immersion', 'working with the community to promote health', 'understanding the role of nursing within the health care setting', 'translating theory into professional clinical practice', and 'developing relationships in international learning environments'. Four categories related to learning outcomes were identified: 'understanding healthcare and determinants of health', 'managing challenges', 'understanding the role of culture within healthcare' and 'demonstrating professional knowledge, skills and behaviour'. International clinical placements in the Asia region appear to vary greatly from one education institution to the next with no clear consensus from either this study's findings or the literature on which structure, support and assessments lead to greater student learning. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Influences of Learning Environment Characteristics on Student Learning During Authentic Science Inquiry in an Introductory Physical Geology Course

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miller, H. R.; Sell, K. S.; Herbert, B. E.

2004-12-01

Shifts in learning goals in introductory earth science courses to greater emphasis on critical thinking and the nature of science has led to the adoption of new pedagogical techniques, including inquiry-based learning (IBL). IBL is thought to support understanding of the nature of science and foster development of scientific reasoning and critical thinking skills by modeling authentic science inquiry. Implementation of new pedagogical techniques do not occur without influence, instruction and learning occurs in a complex learning environment, referring to the social, physical, mental, and pedagogical contexts. This study characterized the impact of an IBL module verses a traditionally structured laboratory exercise in an introductory physical geology class at Texas A&M University. Student activities in this study included manipulation of large-scale data sets, use of multiple representations, and exposure to ill-constrained problems common to the Texas Gulf Coast system. Formative assessment data collected included an initial survey of self efficacy, student demographics, content knowledge and a pre-mental model expression. Summative data collected included a post-test, post-mental model expression, final laboratory report, and a post-survey on student attitudes toward the module. Mental model expressions and final reports were scored according to a validated rubric instrument (Cronbrach alpha: 0.84-0.98). Nine lab sections were randomized into experimental and control groups. Experimental groups were taught using IBL pedagogical techniques, while the control groups were taught using traditional laboratory "workbook" techniques. Preliminary assessment based on rubric scores for pre-tests using Student's t-test (N ˜ 140) indicated that the experimental and control groups were not significantly different (ρ > 0.05), therefore, the learning environment likely impacted student's ability to succeed. A non-supportive learning environment, including student attitudes, teaching assistant attitudes, the lack of scaffolded learning, limited pedagogical content knowledge, and departmental oversight, which were all encountered during this study, can have an affect on the students' attitudes and achievements during the course. Data collected showed an overall improvement in content knowledge (38% increase); while performance effort clearly declined as seen through post-mental model expressions (a decline in performance by 24.8%) and percentage of assignments turned in (39% of all students turned in the required final report). A non-supportive learning environment was also seen through student comments on the final survey, "I think that all the TA's and the professor have forgotten that we are an intro class". A non-supportive environment clearly does not encourage critical thinking and completion of work. This pilot study showed that the complex learning environment can play a significant role in student learning. It also illustrates the need for future studies in IBL with supportive learning environments in order for students to achieve academic excellence and develop scientific reasoning and critical thinking skills.

How do medical educators design a curriculum that facilitates student learning about professionalism?

PubMed

Langendyk, Vicki; Mason, Glenn; Wang, Shaoyu

2016-02-04

This study analyses the ways in which curriculum reform facilitated student learning about professionalism. Design-based research provided the structure for an iterative approach to curriculum change which we undertook over a 3 year period. The learning environment of the Personal and Professional Development Theme (PPD) was analysed through the sociocultural lens of Activity Theory. Lave and Wenger's and Mezirow's learning theories informed curriculum reform to support student development of a patient-centred and critically reflective professional identity. The renewed pedagogical outcomes were aligned with curriculum content, learning and teaching processes and assessment, and intense staff education was undertaken. We analysed qualitative data from tutor interviews and free-response student surveys to evaluate the impact of curriculum reform. Students' and tutors' reflections on learning in PPD converged on two principle themes--'Developing a philosophy of medicine' and 'Becoming an ethical doctor'--which corresponded to the overarching PPD theme aims of communicative learning. Students and tutors emphasised the importance of the unique learning environment of PPD tutorials for nurturing personal development and the positive impact of the renewed assessment programme on learning. A theory-led approach to curriculum reform resulted in student engagement in the PPD curriculum and facilitated a change in student perspective about the epistemological foundation of medicine.

Influences of Sociocultural Factors Within the Clinical Learning Environment on Students' Perceptions of Learning: An Integrative Review.

PubMed

Jessee, Mary Ann

A persistent deficit in new graduate nurses' clinical reasoning skill exists. Clinical reasoning is best learned in the sociocultural clinical learning environment (CLE), yet many CLEs fail to engage nursing students in the cognitive work of nursing that promotes development of clinical reasoning. Despite two decades of recommendations to improve CLEs based on students' perceptions of learning, widespread improvement remains elusive. The aim of this review was to synthesize what is known about the influence of sociocultural factors in the acute-care CLE on prelicensure nursing students' perceptions of learning, for the purpose of identifying factors that when modified may promote improvement of clinical reasoning skill. The integrative review methodology was used to synthesize and identify gaps in evidence on students' perceptions of learning in the acute-care CLE. Global commonalities exist in the impact of the sociocultural CLE on students' perceptions of learning, including overall sociocultural atmosphere, membership in the health care team, supervisory relationships, peer relationships, and clinical education structure. This review provides evidence that modification of CLE factors and examination of their influence on measurable learning outcomes such as clinical reasoning are the necessary next steps to facilitate improvement of new graduate nurses' clinical reasoning skill. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Effects of Peer Teaching on the University Students' Achievements in Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor Domains and Game Performances in Volleyball Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mirzeoglu, Ayse Dilsad

2014-01-01

This study is related to one of the teaching models, peer teaching which is used in physical education courses. The fundamental feature of peer teaching is defined "to structure a learning environment in which some students assume and carry out many of the key operations of instruction to assist other students in the learning process".…

A New Concept Map Model for E-Learning Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dattolo, Antonina; Luccio, Flaminia L.

Web-based education enables learners and teachers to access a wide quantity of continuously updated educational sources. In order to support the learning process, a system has to provide some fundamental features, such as simple mechanisms for the identification of the collection of “interesting” documents, adequate structures for storing, organizing and visualizing these documents, and appropriate mechanisms for creating personalized adaptive paths and views for learners.

Enacting Conceptual Metaphor through Blending: Learning activities embodying the substance metaphor for energy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Close, Hunter G.; Scherr, Rachel E.

2015-04-01

We demonstrate that a particular blended learning space is especially productive in developing understanding of energy transfers and transformations. In this blended space, naturally occurring learner interactions like body movement, gesture, and metaphorical speech are blended with a conceptual metaphor of energy as a substance in a class of activities called Energy Theater. We illustrate several mechanisms by which the blended aspect of the learning environment promotes productive intellectual engagement with key conceptual issues in the learning of energy, including distinguishing among energy processes, disambiguating matter and energy, identifying energy transfer, and representing energy as a conserved quantity. Conceptual advancement appears to be promoted especially by the symbolic material and social structure of the Energy Theater environment, in which energy is represented by participants and objects are represented by areas demarcated by loops of rope, and by Energy Theater's embodied action, including body locomotion, gesture, and coordination of speech with symbolic spaces in the Energy Theater arena. Our conclusions are (1) that specific conceptual metaphors can be leveraged to benefit science instruction via the blending of an abstract space of ideas with multiple modes of concrete human action, and (2) that participants' structured improvisation plays an important role in leveraging the blend for their intellectual development.

Working Memory & Augmented Reality's Trajectory: A Literature Review of AR in Education, Online Learning, Workforce Training, and Working Memory Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Squires, David R.

2017-01-01

The structure of the literature review features the current trajectory of Augmented Reality in the field including the current literature detailing how Augmented Reality has been applied in educational environments; how Augmented Reality has been applied in training environments; how Augmented Reality has been used to measure cognition and the…

Enrichment of the educational environment with information and communication technologies: state of art at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Kaunas University of Medicine.

PubMed

Butrimiene, Edita; Stankeviciene, Nida

2008-01-01

Both traditional and new educational environments, the latter enriched with information and communication technologies, coexist in today's university. The goal of this article is to present the concept of educational environment enriched with information and communication technologies, to reveal the main features of such environment, and to present the results of certain investigation on the application of information technologies in teaching/learning processes at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Kaunas University of Medicine. The discussion object of this paper is the educational environment enriched with information and communication technologies. In designing the environments of this type, positive aspects of traditional teaching models are being developed by integrating them into the new educational environment. The concept of educational environment enriched with information and communication technologies is reviewed in the first part of this paper. The structure and main features of educational environments enriched with information and communication technologies are highlighted in the second part. The results of the study on the application of information technologies in teaching/learning processes at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Kaunas University of Medicine are presented in the third part.

Online neural monitoring of statistical learning

PubMed Central

Batterink, Laura J.; Paller, Ken A.

2017-01-01

The extraction of patterns in the environment plays a critical role in many types of human learning, from motor skills to language acquisition. This process is known as statistical learning. Here we propose that statistical learning has two dissociable components: (1) perceptual binding of individual stimulus units into integrated composites and (2) storing those integrated representations for later use. Statistical learning is typically assessed using post-learning tasks, such that the two components are conflated. Our goal was to characterize the online perceptual component of statistical learning. Participants were exposed to a structured stream of repeating trisyllabic nonsense words and a random syllable stream. Online learning was indexed by an EEG-based measure that quantified neural entrainment at the frequency of the repeating words relative to that of individual syllables. Statistical learning was subsequently assessed using conventional measures in an explicit rating task and a reaction-time task. In the structured stream, neural entrainment to trisyllabic words was higher than in the random stream, increased as a function of exposure to track the progression of learning, and predicted performance on the RT task. These results demonstrate that monitoring this critical component of learning via rhythmic EEG entrainment reveals a gradual acquisition of knowledge whereby novel stimulus sequences are transformed into familiar composites. This online perceptual transformation is a critical component of learning. PMID:28324696

Effects of coaching supervision, mentoring supervision and abusive supervision on talent development among trainee doctors in public hospitals: moderating role of clinical learning environment.

PubMed

Subramaniam, Anusuiya; Silong, Abu Daud; Uli, Jegak; Ismail, Ismi Arif

2015-08-13

Effective talent development requires robust supervision. However, the effects of supervisory styles (coaching, mentoring and abusive supervision) on talent development and the moderating effects of clinical learning environment in the relationship between supervisory styles and talent development among public hospital trainee doctors have not been thoroughly researched. In this study, we aim to achieve the following, (1) identify the extent to which supervisory styles (coaching, mentoring and abusive supervision) can facilitate talent development among trainee doctors in public hospital and (2) examine whether coaching, mentoring and abusive supervision are moderated by clinical learning environment in predicting talent development among trainee doctors in public hospital. A questionnaire-based critical survey was conducted among trainee doctors undergoing housemanship at six public hospitals in the Klang Valley, Malaysia. Prior permission was obtained from the Ministry of Health Malaysia to conduct the research in the identified public hospitals. The survey yielded 355 responses. The results were analysed using SPSS 20.0 and SEM with AMOS 20.0. The findings of this research indicate that coaching and mentoring supervision are positively associated with talent development, and that there is no significant relationship between abusive supervision and talent development. The findings also support the moderating role of clinical learning environment on the relationships between coaching supervision-talent development, mentoring supervision-talent development and abusive supervision-talent development among public hospital trainee doctors. Overall, the proposed model indicates a 26 % variance in talent development. This study provides an improved understanding on the role of the supervisory styles (coaching and mentoring supervision) on facilitating talent development among public hospital trainee doctors. Furthermore, this study extends the literature to better understand the effects of supervisory styles on trainee doctors' talent development are contigent on the trainee doctors' clinical learning environment. In summary, supervisors are stakeholders with the responsibility of facilitating learning conditions that hold sufficient structure and support to optimise the trainee doctors learning.

Permaculture in higher education: Teaching sustainability through action learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Battisti, Bryce Thomas

This is a case study of the use of Action Learning (AL) theory to teach and confer degrees in Permaculture and other forms of sustainability at the newly formed Gaia University International (GUI). In Chapter Two I argue that GUI, as an institution of higher learning, is organized to provide support for learning. The goal of the university structure is to provide students, called Associates, with a vehicle for accumulation of credit towards a bachelor's degree. This organizational structure is necessary, but insufficient for AL because Associates need more than an organization to provide and coordinate their degree programs. In other words, just because the network of university structures are organized in ways that make AL possible and convenient, it does not necessarily follow that Action Learning will occur for any individual Associate. The support structures within GUI's degrees are discussed in Chapter Three. To a greater or lesser degree GUI provides support for personal learning among Associates as advisors and advisees with the goal of helping Associates complete and document the outcomes of world-change projects. The support structures are necessary, but not sufficient for AL because the personal learning process occurring for each Associate requires transformative reflection. Additionally, because Associates' attrition rate is very high, many Associates do not remain enrolled in GUI long enough to benefit from the support structures. At the simplest organizational level I discuss the reflection process conducted in the patterned interactions of assigned learning groups called Guilds (Chapter Four). These groups of Associates work to provide each other with the best possible environment for personal learning through reflection. As its Associates experience transformative reflection, GUI is able to help elevate the quality of world-change efforts in the Permaculture community. Provided the organizational and support structures are in place, this reflection process is both necessary and sufficient for AL. By this I mean that if transformative reflection is occurring in Guild meetings, and is supported by a system of advisors, reviewers and support people within a university organized to give credit for Action Learning, then Action Learning will occur for individual Associates.

A Deweyan Perspective on Higher Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hill, Patrick J.

1984-01-01

It is suggested that John Dewey would today emphasize the structuring of learning environments rather than the individual interaction of a teacher and a student, as he did in the 1931 Rollins College conference on progressivism in higher education. (MSE)

Synergistic Knowledge Development in Interdisciplinary Teams

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Broussard, Shorna R.; La Lopa, Joseph Mick; Ross-Davis, Amy

2007-01-01

Problem solving, interpersonal skills, information literacy, and critical and independent thinking are essential qualities that employers seek, yet many undergraduates lack. We structured an interdisciplinary classroom and experiential learning environment where students from three undergraduate courses (Hospitality and Tourism Management,…

Toward a critical approach to the study of learning environments in science classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lorsbach, Anthony; Tobin, Kenneth

1995-03-01

Traditional learning environment research in science classrooms has been built on survey methods meant to measure students' and teachers' perceptions of variables used to define the learning environment. This research has led mainly to descriptions of learning environments. We argue that learning environment research should play a transformative role in science classrooms; that learning environment research should take into account contemporary post-positivist ways of thinking about learning and teaching to assist students and teachers to construct a more emancipatory learning environment. In particular, we argue that a critical perspective could lead to research playing a larger role in the transformation of science classroom learning environments. This argument is supplemented with an example from a middle school science classroom.

Exploring ward nurses' perceptions of continuing education in clinical settings.

PubMed

Govranos, Melissa; Newton, Jennifer M

2014-04-01

Health care systems demand that nurses are flexible skilful workers who maintain currency and competency in order to deliver safe effective patient centered care. Nurses must continually build best practice into their care and acquire lifelong learning. Often this learning is acquired within the work environment and is facilitated by the clinical nurse educator. Understanding clinical nurses' values and needs of continuing education is necessary to ensure appropriate education service delivery and thus enhance patient care. To explore clinical ward-based nurses' values and perceptions towards continuing education and what factors impact on continuing education in the ward. A case study approach was utilized. A major teaching hospital in Melbourne, Australia. A range of clinical nursing staff (n=23). Four focus groups and six semi-structured individual interviews were undertaken. Focus group interviews explored participants' values and perceptions on continuing education through a values clarification tool. Thematic analysis of interviews was undertaken to identify themes and cluster data. Three central themes: 'culture and attitudes', 'what is learning?' and 'being there-being seen', emerged reflecting staffs' values and perceptions of education and learning in the workplace. Multiple factors influence ward nurses' ability and motivation to incorporate lifelong learning into their practice. Despite variance in nurses' values and perceptions of CE in clinical environments, CE was perceived as important. Nurses yearned for changes to facilitate lifelong learning and cultivate a learning culture. Clinical nurse educators need to be cognizant of adult learners' characteristics such as values, beliefs, needs and potential barriers, to effectively facilitate support in a challenging and complex learning environment. Organizational support is essential so ward managers in conjunction with educational departments can promote and sustain continuing education, lifelong learning and a culture conducive to learning. © 2013.

Learning to explore the structure of kinematic objects in a virtual environment

PubMed Central

Buckmann, Marcus; Gaschler, Robert; Höfer, Sebastian; Loeben, Dennis; Frensch, Peter A.; Brock, Oliver

2015-01-01

The current study tested the quantity and quality of human exploration learning in a virtual environment. Given the everyday experience of humans with physical object exploration, we document substantial practice gains in the time, force, and number of actions needed to classify the structure of virtual chains, marking the joints as revolute, prismatic, or rigid. In line with current work on skill acquisition, participants could generalize the new and efficient psychomotor patterns of object exploration to novel objects. On the one hand, practice gains in exploration performance could be captured by a negative exponential practice function. On the other hand, they could be linked to strategies and strategy change. After quantifying how much was learned in object exploration and identifying the time course of practice-related gains in exploration efficiency (speed), we identified what was learned. First, we identified strategy components that were associated with efficient (fast) exploration performance: sequential processing, simultaneous use of both hands, low use of pulling rather than pushing, and low use of force. Only the latter was beneficial irrespective of the characteristics of the other strategy components. Second, we therefore characterized efficient exploration behavior by strategies that simultaneously take into account the abovementioned strategy components. We observed that participants maintained a high level of flexibility, sampling from a pool of exploration strategies trading the level of psycho-motoric challenges with exploration speed. We discuss the findings pursuing the aim of advancing intelligent object exploration by combining analytic (object exploration in humans) and synthetic work (object exploration in robots) in the same virtual environment. PMID:25904878

An Examination through Conjoint Analysis of the Preferences of Students Concerning Online Learning Environments According to Their Learning Styles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Daghan, Gökhan; Akkoyunlu, Buket

2012-01-01

This study examines learning styles of students receiving education via online learning environments, and their preferences concerning the online learning environment. Maggie McVay Lynch Learning Style Inventory was used to determine learning styles of the students. The preferences of students concerning online learning environments were detected…

Learning anatomy via mobile augmented reality: Effects on achievement and cognitive load.

PubMed

Küçük, Sevda; Kapakin, Samet; Göktaş, Yüksel

2016-10-01

Augmented reality (AR), a new generation of technology, has attracted the attention of educators in recent years. In this study, a MagicBook was developed for a neuroanatomy topic by using mobile augmented reality (mAR) technology. This technology integrates virtual learning objects into the real world and allow users to interact with the environment using mobile devices. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of learning anatomy via mAR on medical students' academic achievement and cognitive load. The mixed method was applied in the study. The random sample consisted of 70 second-year undergraduate medical students: 34 in an experimental group and 36 in a control group. Academic achievement test and cognitive load scale were used as data collection tool. A one-way MANOVA test was used for analysis. The experimental group, which used mAR applications, reported higher achievement and lower cognitive load. The use of mAR applications in anatomy education contributed to the formation of an effective and productive learning environment. Student cognitive load decreased as abstract information became concrete in printed books via multimedia materials in mAR applications. Additionally, students were able to access the materials in the MagicBook anytime and anywhere they wanted. The mobile learning approach helped students learn better by exerting less cognitive effort. Moreover, the sensory experience and real time interaction with environment may provide learning satisfaction and enable students to structure their knowledge to complete the learning tasks. Anat Sci Educ 9: 411-421. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.

Recognition and characterization of unstructured environmental sounds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chu, Selina

2011-12-01

Environmental sounds are what we hear everyday, or more generally sounds that surround us ambient or background audio. Humans utilize both vision and hearing to respond to their surroundings, a capability still quite limited in machine processing. The first step toward achieving multimodal input applications is the ability to process unstructured audio and recognize audio scenes (or environments). Such ability would have applications in content analysis and mining of multimedia data or improving robustness in context aware applications through multi-modality, such as in assistive robotics, surveillances, or mobile device-based services. The goal of this thesis is on the characterization of unstructured environmental sounds for understanding and predicting the context surrounding of an agent or device. Most research on audio recognition has focused primarily on speech and music. Less attention has been paid to the challenges and opportunities for using audio to characterize unstructured audio. My research focuses on investigating challenging issues in characterizing unstructured environmental audio and to develop novel algorithms for modeling the variations of the environment. The first step in building a recognition system for unstructured auditory environment was to investigate on techniques and audio features for working with such audio data. We begin by performing a study that explore suitable features and the feasibility of designing an automatic environment recognition system using audio information. In my initial investigation to explore the feasibility of designing an automatic environment recognition system using audio information, I have found that traditional recognition and feature extraction for audio were not suitable for environmental sound, as they lack any type of structures, unlike those of speech and music which contain formantic and harmonic structures, thus dispelling the notion that traditional speech and music recognition techniques can simply be used for realistic environmental sound. Natural unstructured environment sounds contain a large variety of sounds, which are in fact noise-like and are not effectively modeled by Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) or other commonly-used audio features, e.g. energy, zero-crossing, etc. Due to the lack of appropriate features that is suitable for environmental audio and to achieve a more effective representation, I proposed a specialized feature extraction algorithm for environmental sounds that utilizes the matching pursuit (MP) algorithm to learn the inherent structure of each type of sounds, which we called MP-features. MP-features have shown to capture and represent sounds from different sources and different ranges, where frequency domain features (e.g., MFCCs) fail and can be advantageous when combining with MFCCs to improve the overall performance. The third component leads to our investigation on modeling and detecting the background audio. One of the goals of this research is to characterize an environment. Since many events would blend into the background, I wanted to look for a way to achieve a general model for any particular environment. Once we have an idea of the background, it will enable us to identify foreground events even if we havent seen these events before. Therefore, the next step is to investigate into learning the audio background model for each environment type, despite the occurrences of different foreground events. In this work, I presented a framework for robust audio background modeling, which includes learning the models for prediction, data knowledge and persistent characteristics of the environment. This approach has the ability to model the background and detect foreground events as well as the ability to verify whether the predicted background is indeed the background or a foreground event that protracts for a longer period of time. In this work, I also investigated the use of a semi-supervised learning technique to exploit and label new unlabeled audio data. The final components of my thesis will involve investigating on learning sound structures for generalization and applying the proposed ideas to context aware applications. The inherent nature of environmental sound is noisy and contains relatively large amounts of overlapping events between different environments. Environmental sounds contain large variances even within a single environment type, and frequently, there are no divisible or clear boundaries between some types. Traditional methods of classification are generally not robust enough to handle classes with overlaps. This audio, hence, requires representation by complex models. Using deep learning architecture provides a way to obtain a generative model-based method for classification. Specifically, I considered the use of Deep Belief Networks (DBNs) to model environmental audio and investigate its applicability with noisy data to improve robustness and generalization. A framework was proposed using composite-DBNs to discover high-level representations and to learn a hierarchical structure for different acoustic environments in a data-driven fashion. Experimental results on real data sets demonstrate its effectiveness over traditional methods with over 90% accuracy on recognition for a high number of environmental sound types.

Dutch care innovation units in elderly care: A qualitative study into students' perspectives and workplace conditions for learning.

PubMed

Snoeren, Miranda; Volbeda, Patricia; Niessen, Theo J H; Abma, Tineke A

2016-03-01

To promote workplace learning for staff as well as students, a partnership was formed between a residential care organisation for older people and several nursing faculties in the Netherlands. This partnership took the form of two care innovation units; wards where qualified staff, students and nurse teachers collaborate to integrate care, education, innovation and research. In this article, the care innovation units as learning environments are studied from a student perspective to deepen understandings concerning the conditions that facilitate learning. A secondary analysis of focus groups, held with 216 nursing students over a period of five years, revealed that students are satisfied about the units' learning potential, which is formed by various inter-related and self-reinforcing affordances: co-constructive learning and working, challenging situations and activities, being given responsibility and independence, and supportive and recognisable learning structures. Time constraints had a negative impact on the units' learning potential. It is concluded that the learning potential of the care innovation units was enhanced by realising certain conditions, like learning structures and activities. The learning potential was also influenced, however, by the non-controllable and dynamic interaction of various elements within the context. Suggestions for practice and further research are offered. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Differences in sociocultural environment perceptions associated with gender in science classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jegede, Olugbemiro J.; Akinsola Okebukola, Peter

An amount-of-learning outcome variable has been attributed to the environment in which teaching and learning are conducted. Studies carried out so far have, however, not focused on the sociocultural aspect of the classroom environment, which has been theorized to have potential influence on students' learning. The intent of this study was to examine the influence of five aspects of the sociocultural environment in science classes with particular reference to how these are perceived by boys and girls. The 30-item Socio-Cultural Environment Scale (SCES) developed by Jegede and Okebukola (1988) was used to collect data from 707 Nigerian secondary school students in Classes Four and Five (Grades 10 and 11, respectively). Authoritarianism, goal structure, African worldview, societal expectation, and sacredness of science were the five subscales studied. Sex differences were recorded in the societal expectation subscale. Most of the female subjects are of the opinion that society has a negative or low regard for their ability to do science and this has an effect on their motivation to undertake science-based careers. The reverse is true for boys. This perception is in agreement with the literature on sex differences in science education and highlights the social pressure that brings about subject preferences. The implications of these findings for science teaching and further research are highlighted.

The lived experiences of operating theatre scrub nurses learning technical scrub skills 'I'm doing this right, aren't I? Am I doing this right?'

PubMed

Radford, Eleanor J; Fotis, Theo

2018-01-01

Operating theatre scrub nurses (OTSNs) are not required to have undertaken a secondary or specialist post-registration theatre qualification to work in the operating theatre (OT) setting in the UK. From the systematic review there is only very limited literature or research in how technical scrub skills are acquired. This study explores the lived experiences of OTSNs learning technical scrub skills. The study employed the qualitative methodology of interpretative phenomenological analysis. Data was collected from six participating OTSNs using semi-structured interviews. Four superordinate themes emerged: How technical scrub skills are established, Gatekeepers, How the learner feels whilst learning and, Reflections of the experienced scrub nurse. The study found that the experiences of OTSNs learning technical scrub skills are varied and a variety of teaching and learning methods are utilised. These experiences were influenced by the team, mentor and surgeon within the OT environment. Lived experiences were also influenced by organisational structure and service pressures within the NHS.

Multi-View Multi-Instance Learning Based on Joint Sparse Representation and Multi-View Dictionary Learning.

PubMed

Li, Bing; Yuan, Chunfeng; Xiong, Weihua; Hu, Weiming; Peng, Houwen; Ding, Xinmiao; Maybank, Steve

2017-12-01

In multi-instance learning (MIL), the relations among instances in a bag convey important contextual information in many applications. Previous studies on MIL either ignore such relations or simply model them with a fixed graph structure so that the overall performance inevitably degrades in complex environments. To address this problem, this paper proposes a novel multi-view multi-instance learning algorithm (MIL) that combines multiple context structures in a bag into a unified framework. The novel aspects are: (i) we propose a sparse -graph model that can generate different graphs with different parameters to represent various context relations in a bag, (ii) we propose a multi-view joint sparse representation that integrates these graphs into a unified framework for bag classification, and (iii) we propose a multi-view dictionary learning algorithm to obtain a multi-view graph dictionary that considers cues from all views simultaneously to improve the discrimination of the MIL. Experiments and analyses in many practical applications prove the effectiveness of the M IL.

Harlequin-Inspired Story-Based Learning: An Educational Innovation for Pediatric Nursing Communication.

PubMed

Shaw, Alison; Lind, Candace; Ewashen, Carol

2017-05-01

Effective communication with patients and families is essential for quality care in the pediatric environment. Despite this, the current structure and content of undergraduate nursing education often contributes to novice RNs feeling unprepared to manage complex pediatric communication situations. By merging the characteristics of the Harlequin persona with the structure of story-based learning, undergraduate students can be introduced to increasingly advanced pediatric communication scenarios in the classroom. Although story-based learning encourages students to identify and address the contextual and emotional elements of a story, the Harlequin encourages educators to challenge assumptions and upset the status quo. Nursing students can develop advanced communication abilities and learn to identify and cope with the emotions and complexities inherent in pediatric practice and communication. Harlequin-inspired story-based learning can enable nurse educators to create interesting, realistic, and challenging pediatric nursing stories designed to push students outside their comfort zones and enhance their advanced pediatric communication abilities. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(5):300-303.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.

Pre-Service English Teachers in Blended Learning Environment in Respect to Their Learning Approaches

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yilmaz, M. Betul; Orhan, Feza

2010-01-01

Blended learning environment (BLE) is increasingly used in the world, especially in university degrees and it is based on integrating web-based learning and face-to-face (FTF) learning environments. Besides integrating different learning environments, BLE also addresses to students with different learning approaches. The "learning…

Teachers' and postgraduate nursing students' experience of the educational environment in Iran: A qualitative Research.

PubMed

Hajihosseini, Fatemeh; Tafreshi, Mansoureh Zagheri; Hosseini, Meimanat; Baghestani, Ahmad Reza

2017-08-01

The learning environment has a significant role in determining nursing students' academic achievements and course satisfaction. Creating a proper educational environment is therefore necessary for improving the quality of teaching and learning, and for delivering competent graduates to society. The present study was conducted to explore teachers' and postgraduate nursing students' experience of the educational environment in Iran. This qualitative study uses an inductive approach and conventional content analysis. Data were collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews with seven PhD students, seven faculty members (directors) and two focus groups comprising of fourteen master's students in total, selected from three major universities in Tehran, Iran. Seven subcategories were extracted from the data, including the organizational context, interactive climate, teachers' competency, student appreciation, research centeredness, educational guidance and professionalism. The educational environment of postgraduate nursing programs in Iran encompasses different dimensions that can serve as both key points for educational environment evaluators and as guidelines for officials at different levels, to modify the weaknesses and improve the strengths of the system.

Teachers’ and postgraduate nursing students’ experience of the educational environment in Iran: A qualitative Research

PubMed Central

Hajihosseini, Fatemeh; Tafreshi, Mansoureh Zagheri; Hosseini, Meimanat; Baghestani, Ahmad Reza

2017-01-01

Background The learning environment has a significant role in determining nursing students’ academic achievements and course satisfaction. Creating a proper educational environment is therefore necessary for improving the quality of teaching and learning, and for delivering competent graduates to society. Objective The present study was conducted to explore teachers’ and postgraduate nursing students’ experience of the educational environment in Iran. Methods This qualitative study uses an inductive approach and conventional content analysis. Data were collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews with seven PhD students, seven faculty members (directors) and two focus groups comprising of fourteen master’s students in total, selected from three major universities in Tehran, Iran. Results Seven subcategories were extracted from the data, including the organizational context, interactive climate, teachers’ competency, student appreciation, research centeredness, educational guidance and professionalism. Conclusion The educational environment of postgraduate nursing programs in Iran encompasses different dimensions that can serve as both key points for educational environment evaluators and as guidelines for officials at different levels, to modify the weaknesses and improve the strengths of the system. PMID:28979741

Cultural entrainment of motor skill development: Learning to write hiragana in Japanese primary school

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Abstract The aim of the present study was to examine how the social norms shared in a classroom environment influence the development of movement dynamics of handwriting of children who participate in the environment. To look into this issue, the following aspects of the entire period of classroom learning of hiragana letters in Japanese 1st graders who had just entered primary school were studied: First, the structure of classroom events and the specific types of interaction and learning within such environment were described. Second, in the experiment involving 6‐year‐old children who participated in the class, writing movements of children and their changes over the period of hiragana education were analyzed for each stroke composing letters. It was found that writing movement of children became differentiated in a manner specific to the different types of stroke endings, to which children were systematically encouraged to attend in the classroom. The results provide a detailed description of the process of how dynamics of fine motor movement of children is modulated by the social norms of a populated, classroom environment in a non‐Latin alphabet writing system. PMID:28608521

Cultural entrainment of motor skill development: Learning to write hiragana in Japanese primary school.

PubMed

Nonaka, Tetsushi

2017-09-01

The aim of the present study was to examine how the social norms shared in a classroom environment influence the development of movement dynamics of handwriting of children who participate in the environment. To look into this issue, the following aspects of the entire period of classroom learning of hiragana letters in Japanese 1st graders who had just entered primary school were studied: First, the structure of classroom events and the specific types of interaction and learning within such environment were described. Second, in the experiment involving 6-year-old children who participated in the class, writing movements of children and their changes over the period of hiragana education were analyzed for each stroke composing letters. It was found that writing movement of children became differentiated in a manner specific to the different types of stroke endings, to which children were systematically encouraged to attend in the classroom. The results provide a detailed description of the process of how dynamics of fine motor movement of children is modulated by the social norms of a populated, classroom environment in a non-Latin alphabet writing system. © 2017 The Authors. Developmental Psychobiology Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Free-energy and the brain

PubMed Central

Friston, Karl J.; Stephan, Klaas E.

2009-01-01

If one formulates Helmholtz’s ideas about perception in terms of modern-day theories one arrives at a model of perceptual inference and learning that can explain a remarkable range of neurobiological facts. Using constructs from statistical physics it can be shown that the problems of inferring what cause our sensory input and learning causal regularities in the sensorium can be resolved using exactly the same principles. Furthermore, inference and learning can proceed in a biologically plausible fashion. The ensuing scheme rests on Empirical Bayes and hierarchical models of how sensory information is generated. The use of hierarchical models enables the brain to construct prior expectations in a dynamic and context-sensitive fashion. This scheme provides a principled way to understand many aspects of the brain’s organisation and responses. In this paper, we suggest that these perceptual processes are just one emergent property of systems that conform to a free-energy principle. The free-energy considered here represents a bound on the surprise inherent in any exchange with the environment, under expectations encoded by its state or configuration. A system can minimise free-energy by changing its configuration to change the way it samples the environment, or to change its expectations. These changes correspond to action and perception respectively and lead to an adaptive exchange with the environment that is characteristic of biological systems. This treatment implies that the system’s state and structure encode an implicit and probabilistic model of the environment. We will look at models entailed by the brain and how minimisation of free-energy can explain its dynamics and structure. PMID:19325932

The learning environment in remediation: a review.

PubMed

Cleland, Jennifer; Cilliers, Francois; van Schalkwyk, Susan

2018-02-01

The focus of this concise article is how best to support students to achieve success at medical school. Our aim is not to provide a guide to remediating under-performance in medical students. This, in our view, implies an approach that fundamentally is about quick fixes for addressing individual student deficits, such as intensive coaching of clinical skills to help a student scrape through a resit examination. Instead, we believe that student success is not solely the result of individual factors but rather relies on a complex range of factors, including the provision of a supportive environment. We drew on our knowledge of a wide range of literature related to remediation and other medical education structures and functions. Our aim was to take a different perspective on the different dimensions of 'remediation' - the structural, curricular, ideological and individual - to consider how best to provide a supportive environment for all learners to progress towards the required outcomes. Medical students are becoming increasingly diverse and medical curricula must create learning environments that support all students to thrive. Effective remediation should not be about intensive 'teaching to test' after examination failure. Rather, both the context and the individual have a role to play in ensuring the selection, teaching, assessment and feedback practices support the learning journeys of individuals. We provide guidance for faculty member development and engaging with students to help achieve this goal. Effective remediation should not be about intensive 'teaching to test' after examination failure. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and The Association for the Study of Medical Education.

Adults with Autism Tend to Undermine the Hidden Environmental Structure: Evidence from a Visual Associative Learning Task.

PubMed

Sapey-Triomphe, Laurie-Anne; Sonié, Sandrine; Hénaff, Marie-Anne; Mattout, Jérémie; Schmitz, Christina

2018-04-13

The learning-style theory of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (Qian, Lipkin, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 5:77, 2011) states that ASD individuals differ from neurotypics in the way they learn and store information about the environment and its structure. ASD would rather adopt a lookup-table strategy (LUT: memorizing each experience), while neurotypics would favor an interpolation style (INT: extracting regularities to generalize). In a series of visual behavioral tasks, we tested this hypothesis in 20 neurotypical and 20 ASD adults. ASD participants had difficulties using the INT style when instructions were hidden but not when instructions were revealed. Rather than an inability to use rules, ASD would be characterized by a disinclination to generalize and infer such rules.

In the Background

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garibay, Pat

2007-01-01

Educators and administrators are looking for new ways to boost student performance and eliminate barriers to learning. When working to improve the classroom environment, facility managers typically target the physical structure, temperature controls, humidity levels and ventilation. Many heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) consultants…

Hooks and Shifts: A Dialectical Study of Mediated Discovery

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abrahamson, Dor; Trninic, Dragan; Gutierrez, Jose F.; Huth, Jacob; Lee, Rosa G.

2011-01-01

Radical constructivists advocate discovery-based pedagogical regimes that enable students to incrementally and continuously adapt their cognitive structures to the instrumented cultural environment. Some sociocultural theorists, however, maintain that learning implies discontinuity in conceptual development, because novices must appropriate expert…

Safe, High-Performance, Sustainable Precast School Design

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Finsen, Peter I.

2011-01-01

School design utilizing integrated architectural and structural precast and prestressed concrete components has gained greater acceptance recently for numerous reasons, including increasingly sophisticated owners and improved learning environments based on material benefits such as: sustainability, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, storm…

Cognitive Tutoring based on Intelligent Decision Support in the PENTHA Instructional Design Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

dall'Acqua, Luisa

2010-06-01

The research finality of this paper is how to support Authors to develop rule driven—subject oriented, adaptable course content, meta-rules—representing the disciplinary epistemology, model of teaching, Learning Path structure, and assessment parameters—for intelligent Tutoring actions in a personalized, adaptive e-Learning environment. The focus is to instruct the student to be a decision manager for himself, able to recognize the elements of a problem, select the necessary information with the perspective of factual choices. In particular, our research intends to provide some fundamental guidelines for the definition of didactical rules and logical relations, that Authors should provide to a cognitive Tutoring system through the use of an Instructional Design method (PENTHA Model) which proposes an educational environment, able to: increase productivity and operability, create conditions for a cooperative dialogue, developing participatory research activities of knowledge, observations and discoveries, customizing the learning design in a complex and holistic vision of the learning / teaching processes.

Reinforcement learning or active inference?

PubMed

Friston, Karl J; Daunizeau, Jean; Kiebel, Stefan J

2009-07-29

This paper questions the need for reinforcement learning or control theory when optimising behaviour. We show that it is fairly simple to teach an agent complicated and adaptive behaviours using a free-energy formulation of perception. In this formulation, agents adjust their internal states and sampling of the environment to minimize their free-energy. Such agents learn causal structure in the environment and sample it in an adaptive and self-supervised fashion. This results in behavioural policies that reproduce those optimised by reinforcement learning and dynamic programming. Critically, we do not need to invoke the notion of reward, value or utility. We illustrate these points by solving a benchmark problem in dynamic programming; namely the mountain-car problem, using active perception or inference under the free-energy principle. The ensuing proof-of-concept may be important because the free-energy formulation furnishes a unified account of both action and perception and may speak to a reappraisal of the role of dopamine in the brain.

Opportunities for Inquiry Science in Montessori Classrooms: Learning from a Culture of Interest, Communication, and Explanation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rinke, Carol R.; Gimbel, Steven J.; Haskell, Sophie

2013-08-01

Although classroom inquiry is the primary pedagogy of science education, it has often been difficult to implement within conventional classroom cultures. This study turned to the alternatively structured Montessori learning environment to better understand the ways in which it fosters the essential elements of classroom inquiry, as defined by prominent policy documents. Specifically, we examined the opportunities present in Montessori classrooms for students to develop an interest in the natural world, generate explanations in science, and communicate about science. Using ethnographic research methods in four Montessori classrooms at the primary and elementary levels, this research captured a range of scientific learning opportunities. The study found that the Montessori learning environment provided opportunities for students to develop enduring interests in scientific topics and communicate about science in various ways. The data also indicated that explanation was largely teacher-driven in the Montessori classroom culture. This study offers lessons for both conventional and Montessori classrooms and suggests further research that bridges educational contexts.

Self- directed learning barriers in a virtual environment: a qualitative study.

PubMed

Kohan, Noushin; Soltani Arabshahi, Kamran; Mojtahedzadeh, Rita; Abbaszadeh, Abbas; Rakhshani, Tayebeh; Emami, Amirhousein

2017-07-01

There is a growing trend in online education courses in higher education institutes. Previous studies have shown that high levels of self-direction are essential for successful online learning. The present study aims to investigate challenges of and barriers to self-directed virtual-learning among postgraduate students of medical sciences. 23 postgraduate virtual students of medical sciences in Iran, collected through maximum variation purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews, served as the sample of this study. The collected data were analyzed using the inductive content analysis method. Three themes and six sub-themes were identified as barriers to self-directed learning in virtual education, including cognitive barriers (information overload and lack of focus on learning or mind wondering), communication barriers (inadequate coping skills and inadequate writing skills) and educational environment barriers (heavy workload and role ambiguity). By the importance of self-direction in online education, the present study results can be used by virtual education planners in the review and design of courses, so as to adequately equip students, obviate barriers to self-directed virtual education, and ultimately train highly self-directed learners in online medical education.

Moodle 2.0: Shifting from a Learning Toolkit to a Open Learning Platform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alier, Marc; Casañ, María José; Piguillem, Jordi

Learning Management Systems (LMS) have reached a plateau of maturity in features, application to teaching practices and wide adoption by learning institutions. But the Web 2.0 carries new kinds of tools, services and ways of using the web; personally and socially. Some educators and learners have started to advocate for a new approach to frame one's learning sources, from the LMS course space towards Personal Learning Environments (PLE). But PLE's are characterized by its absence of structure, just what is provided by open standards and mashup techniques. Based on 5 years of participative observation research, this article explains the changes in architecture performed on the second version of Moodle, why did these changes happen and what should be the next steps so Moodle can shift from being a learning tool to a true open learning platform.

A Cybernetic Design Methodology for 'Intelligent' Online Learning Support

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Quinton, Stephen R.

The World Wide Web (WWW) provides learners and knowledge workers convenient access to vast stores of information, so much that present methods for refinement of a query or search result are inadequate - there is far too much potentially useful material. The problem often encountered is that users usually do not recognise what may be useful until they have progressed some way through the discovery, learning, and knowledge acquisition process. Additional support is needed to structure and identify potentially relevant information, and to provide constructive feedback. In short, support for learning is needed. The learning envisioned here is not simply the capacity to recall facts or to recognise objects. The focus is on learning that results in the construction of knowledge. Although most online learning platforms are efficient at delivering information, most do not provide tools that support learning as envisaged in this chapter. It is conceivable that Web-based learning environments can incorporate software systems that assist learners to form new associations between concepts and synthesise information to create new knowledge. This chapter details the rationale and theory behind a research study that aims to evolve Web-based learning environments into 'intelligent thinking' systems that respond to natural language human input. Rather than functioning simply as a means of delivering information, it is argued that online learning solutions will 1 day interact directly with students to support their conceptual thinking and cognitive development.

Progressions of Qualitative Models as a Foundation for Intelligent Learning Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-05-01

knowledge form is that in addition to being efficient and powerul knowledge structures for studeiis to possess, they are also efficient and powerful ...reason "on their feet" about circuit behavibr, and is potentially a very powerful instructional task. Conventionally, however, troubleshooting is preceded...also be applied to a light bulb. 4. Kowledge differentiation -- The student learns about the differences &1 r 41 between two concepts. For instance

Medical students' professional identity development from being actors in an objective structured teaching exercise.

PubMed

De Grasset, Jehanne; Audetat, Marie-Claude; Bajwa, Nadia; Jastrow, Nicole; Richard-Lepouriel, Hélène; Nendaz, Mathieu; Junod Perron, Noelle

2018-04-22

Medical students develop professional identity through structured activities and impromptu interactions in various settings. We explored if contributing to an Objective Structured Teaching Exercise (OSTE) influenced students' professional identity development. University clinical faculty members participated in a faculty development program on clinical supervision. Medical students who participated in OSTEs as simulated residents were interviewed in focus groups about what they learnt from the experience and how the experience influenced their vision of learning and teaching. Transcripts were analyzed using the Goldie's personality and social structure perspective model. Twenty-five medical students out of 32 students involved in OSTEs participated. On an institutional level, students developed a feeling of belonging to the institution. At an interactional level, students realized they could influence the teaching interaction by actively seeking or giving feedback. On the personal level, students realized that errors could become sources of learning and felt better prepared to receive faculty feedback. Taking part in OSTEs as a simulated resident has a positive impact on students' vision regarding the institution as a learning environment and their own role by actively seeking or giving feedback. OSTEs support their professional identity development regarding learning and teaching while sustaining faculty development.

Environmental stress-corrosion cracking of fiberglass: lessons learned from failures in the chemical industry.

PubMed

Myers, T J; Kytömaa, H K; Smith, T R

2007-04-11

Fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) composite materials are often used to construct tanks, piping, scrubbers, beams, grating, and other components for use in corrosive environments. While FRP typically offers superior and cost effective corrosion resistance relative to other construction materials, the glass fibers traditionally used to provide the structural strength of the FRP can be susceptible to attack by the corrosive environment. The structural integrity of traditional FRP components in corrosive environments is usually dependent on the integrity of a corrosion-resistant barrier, such as a resin-rich layer containing corrosion resistant glass fibers. Without adequate protection, FRP components can fail under loads well below their design by an environmental stress-corrosion cracking (ESCC) mechanism when simultaneously exposed to mechanical stress and a corrosive chemical environment. Failure of these components can result in significant releases of hazardous substances into plants and the environment. In this paper, we present two case studies where fiberglass components failed due to ESCC at small chemical manufacturing facilities. As is often typical, the small chemical manufacturing facilities relied largely on FRP component suppliers to determine materials appropriate for the specific process environment and to repair damaged in-service components. We discuss the lessons learned from these incidents and precautions companies should take when interfacing with suppliers and other parties during the specification, design, construction, and repair of FRP components in order to prevent similar failures and chemical releases from occurring in the future.

Sensory grammars for sensor networks

PubMed Central

Aloimonos, Yiannis

2009-01-01

One of the major goals of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments is to interpret human activity sensed by a variety of sensors. In order to develop useful technologies and a subsequent industry around smart environments, we need to proceed in a principled manner. This paper suggests that human activity can be expressed in a language. This is a special language with its own phonemes, its own morphemes (words) and its own syntax and it can be learned using machine learning techniques applied to gargantuan amounts of data collected by sensor networks. Developing such languages will create bridges between Ambient Intelligence and other disciplines. It will also provide a hierarchical structure that can lead to a successful industry. PMID:21897837

Structuring learning environments: Lessons from the organization of post-literacy programs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Easton, Peter A.

1989-12-01

New conceptual and historical work on the nature of literacy and information on several bellwether post-literacy efforts in developing countries furnish a basis for diagnosing some of the deficiencies in current approaches to post-literacy programming. The key issue is the design of a `literate environment'. Heretofore attention has been concentrated too exclusively on the reading materials and continuing education side of the problem, and insufficient attention has been given to the more critical and difficult aspect: ensuring adequate opportunities for the application of new literate skills. The availability of these functional opportunities is closely related to the possibilities for accumulation and reinvestment of economic surplus in the environment, and to the way in which the related activities are organized. Literacy programs can unite skills relevant to management of local resources with strategies of cultural, political or religious revitalization that mobilize people to use their human resources. They therefore continue to offer an attractive means of initiating a reinvestment spiral from limited initial capital. To realize these potentials at the post-literacy stage, however, requires planning post-literacy before literacy, broadening programs to address primary school leavers as well, and paying greatly increased attention to the economic and social structure of the learning environment.

Integrating Learning, Problem Solving, and Engagement in Narrative-Centered Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rowe, Jonathan P.; Shores, Lucy R.; Mott, Bradford W.; Lester, James C.

2011-01-01

A key promise of narrative-centered learning environments is the ability to make learning engaging. However, there is concern that learning and engagement may be at odds in these game-based learning environments. This view suggests that, on the one hand, students interacting with a game-based learning environment may be engaged but unlikely to…

Strengthening of competence planning truss through instructional media development details

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Handayani, Sri; Nurcahyono, M. Hadi

2017-03-01

Competency-Based Learning is a model of learning in which the planning, implementation, and assessment refers to the mastery of competencies. Learning in lectures conducted in the framework for comprehensively realizing student competency. Competence means the orientation of the learning activities in the classroom must be given to the students to be more active learning, active search for information themselves and explore alone or with friends in learning activities in pairs or in groups, learn to use a variety of learning resources and printed materials, electronic media, as well as environment. Analysis of learning wooden structure known weakness in the understanding of the truss detail. Hence the need for the development of media that can provide a clear picture of what the structure of the wooden horses and connection details. Development of instructional media consisted of three phases of activity, namely planning, production and assessment. Learning Media planning should be tailored to the needs and conditions necessary to provide reinforcement to the mastery of competencies, through the table material needs. The production process of learning media is done by using hardware (hardware) and software (software) to support the creation of a medium of learning. Assessment of the media poduk yan include feasibility studies, namely by subject matter experts, media experts, while testing was done according to the student's perception of the product. The results of the analysis of the materials for the instructional aspects of the results obtained 100% (very good) and media analysis for the design aspects of the media expressed very good with a percentage of 88.93%. While the analysis of student perceptions expressed very good with a percentage of 84.84%. Media Learning Truss Details feasible and can be used in the implementation of learning wooden structure to provide capacity-building in planning truss

Factors Influencing Learning Environments in an Integrated Experiential Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koci, Peter

The research conducted for this dissertation examined the learning environment of a specific high school program that delivered the explicit curriculum through an integrated experiential manner, which utilized field and outdoor experiences. The program ran over one semester (five months) and it integrated the grade 10 British Columbian curriculum in five subjects. A mixed methods approach was employed to identify the students' perceptions and provide richer descriptions of their experiences related to their unique learning environment. Quantitative instruments were used to assess changes in students' perspectives of their learning environment, as well as other supporting factors including students' mindfulness, and behaviours towards the environment. Qualitative data collection included observations, open-ended questions, and impromptu interviews with the teacher. The qualitative data describe the factors and processes that influenced the learning environment and give a richer, deeper interpretation which complements the quantitative findings. The research results showed positive scores on all the quantitative measures conducted, and the qualitative data provided further insight into descriptions of learning environment constructs that the students perceived as most important. A major finding was that the group cohesion measure was perceived by students as the most important attribute of their preferred learning environment. A flow chart was developed to help the researcher conceptualize how the learning environment, learning process, and outcomes relate to one another in the studied program. This research attempts to explain through the consideration of this case study: how learning environments can influence behavioural change and how an interconnectedness among several factors in the learning process is influenced by the type of learning environment facilitated. Considerably more research is needed in this area to understand fully the complexity learning environments and how they influence learning and behaviour. Keywords: learning environments; integrated experiential programs; environmental education.

Toward a Unified Sub-symbolic Computational Theory of Cognition

PubMed Central

Butz, Martin V.

2016-01-01

This paper proposes how various disciplinary theories of cognition may be combined into a unifying, sub-symbolic, computational theory of cognition. The following theories are considered for integration: psychological theories, including the theory of event coding, event segmentation theory, the theory of anticipatory behavioral control, and concept development; artificial intelligence and machine learning theories, including reinforcement learning and generative artificial neural networks; and theories from theoretical and computational neuroscience, including predictive coding and free energy-based inference. In the light of such a potential unification, it is discussed how abstract cognitive, conceptualized knowledge and understanding may be learned from actively gathered sensorimotor experiences. The unification rests on the free energy-based inference principle, which essentially implies that the brain builds a predictive, generative model of its environment. Neural activity-oriented inference causes the continuous adaptation of the currently active predictive encodings. Neural structure-oriented inference causes the longer term adaptation of the developing generative model as a whole. Finally, active inference strives for maintaining internal homeostasis, causing goal-directed motor behavior. To learn abstract, hierarchical encodings, however, it is proposed that free energy-based inference needs to be enhanced with structural priors, which bias cognitive development toward the formation of particular, behaviorally suitable encoding structures. As a result, it is hypothesized how abstract concepts can develop from, and thus how they are structured by and grounded in, sensorimotor experiences. Moreover, it is sketched-out how symbol-like thought can be generated by a temporarily active set of predictive encodings, which constitute a distributed neural attractor in the form of an interactive free-energy minimum. The activated, interactive network attractor essentially characterizes the semantics of a concept or a concept composition, such as an actual or imagined situation in our environment. Temporal successions of attractors then encode unfolding semantics, which may be generated by a behavioral or mental interaction with an actual or imagined situation in our environment. Implications, further predictions, possible verification, and falsifications, as well as potential enhancements into a fully spelled-out unified theory of cognition are discussed at the end of the paper. PMID:27445895

Exploring the opinions of registered nurses working in a clinical transfusion environment on the contribution of e-learning to personal learning and clinical practice: results of a small scale educational research study.

PubMed

Cottrell, Susan; Donaldson, Jayne H

2013-05-01

To explore the opinions of registered nurses on the Learnbloodtransfusion Module 1: Safe Transfusion Practice e-learning programme to meeting personal learning styles and learning needs. A qualitative research methodology was applied based on the principles of phenomenology. Adopting a convenience sampling plan supported the recruitment of participants who had successfully completed the e-learning course. Thematic analysis from the semi-structured interviews identified common emerging themes through application of Colaizzis framework. Seven participants of total sample population (89) volunteered to participate in the study. Five themes emerged which included learning preferences, interactive learning, course design, patient safety and future learning needs. Findings positively show the e-learning programme captures the learning styles and needs of learners. In particular, learning styles of a reflector, theorist and activist as well as a visual learner can actively engage in the online learning experience. In an attempt to bridge the knowledge practice gap, further opinions are offered on the course design and the application of knowledge to practice following completion of the course. The findings of the small scale research study have shown that the e-learning course does meet the diverse learning styles and needs of nurses working in a clinical transfusion environment. However, technology alone is not sufficient and a blended approach to learning must be adopted to meet bridging the theory practice gap supporting the integration of knowledge to clinical practice. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Biologically Plausible Architecture of the Striatum to Solve Context-Dependent Reinforcement Learning Tasks.

PubMed

Shivkumar, Sabyasachi; Muralidharan, Vignesh; Chakravarthy, V Srinivasa

2017-01-01

Basal ganglia circuit is an important subcortical system of the brain thought to be responsible for reward-based learning. Striatum, the largest nucleus of the basal ganglia, serves as an input port that maps cortical information. Microanatomical studies show that the striatum is a mosaic of specialized input-output structures called striosomes and regions of the surrounding matrix called the matrisomes. We have developed a computational model of the striatum using layered self-organizing maps to capture the center-surround structure seen experimentally and explain its functional significance. We believe that these structural components could build representations of state and action spaces in different environments. The striatum model is then integrated with other components of basal ganglia, making it capable of solving reinforcement learning tasks. We have proposed a biologically plausible mechanism of action-based learning where the striosome biases the matrisome activity toward a preferred action. Several studies indicate that the striatum is critical in solving context dependent problems. We build on this hypothesis and the proposed model exploits the modularity of the striatum to efficiently solve such tasks.

A Biologically Plausible Architecture of the Striatum to Solve Context-Dependent Reinforcement Learning Tasks

PubMed Central

Shivkumar, Sabyasachi; Muralidharan, Vignesh; Chakravarthy, V. Srinivasa

2017-01-01

Basal ganglia circuit is an important subcortical system of the brain thought to be responsible for reward-based learning. Striatum, the largest nucleus of the basal ganglia, serves as an input port that maps cortical information. Microanatomical studies show that the striatum is a mosaic of specialized input-output structures called striosomes and regions of the surrounding matrix called the matrisomes. We have developed a computational model of the striatum using layered self-organizing maps to capture the center-surround structure seen experimentally and explain its functional significance. We believe that these structural components could build representations of state and action spaces in different environments. The striatum model is then integrated with other components of basal ganglia, making it capable of solving reinforcement learning tasks. We have proposed a biologically plausible mechanism of action-based learning where the striosome biases the matrisome activity toward a preferred action. Several studies indicate that the striatum is critical in solving context dependent problems. We build on this hypothesis and the proposed model exploits the modularity of the striatum to efficiently solve such tasks. PMID:28680395

Research progress of microbial corrosion of reinforced concrete structure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Shengli; Li, Dawang; Jiang, Nan; Wang, Dongwei

2011-04-01

Microbial corrosion of reinforce concrete structure is a new branch of learning. This branch deals with civil engineering , environment engineering, biology, chemistry, materials science and so on and is a interdisciplinary area. Research progress of the causes, research methods and contents of microbial corrosion of reinforced concrete structure is described. The research in the field is just beginning and concerted effort is needed to go further into the mechanism of reinforce concrete structure and assess the security and natural life of reinforce concrete structure under the special condition and put forward the protective methods.

Hypermedia in Vocational Learning: A Hypermedia Learning Environment for Training Management Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Konradt, Udo

2004-01-01

A learning environment is defined as an arrangement of issues, methods, techniques, and media in a given domain. Besides temporal and spatial features a learning environment considers the social situation in which learning takes place. In (hypermedia) learning environments the concept of exploration and the active role of the learner is…

Using Wikis as a Support and Assessment Tool in Collaborative Digital Game-Based Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Samur, Yavuz

2011-01-01

In computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments, there are many researches done on collaborative learning activities; however, in game-based learning environments, more research and literature on collaborative learning activities are required. Actually, both game-based learning environments and wikis enable us to use new chances…

Assessing culturally sensitive factors in the learning environment of science classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fisher, Darrell L.; Waldrip, Bruce G.

1997-03-01

As schools are becoming increasingly diverse in their scope and clientele, any examination of the interaction of culturally sensitive factors of students' learning environments with learning science assumes critical importance. The purpose of this exploratory study was to develop an instrument to assess learning environment factors that are culturally sensitive, to provide initial validation information on the instrument and to examine associations between students' perceptions of their learning environments and their attitudes towards science and achievement of enquiry skills. A measure of these factors of science student's learning environment, namely the Cultural Learning Environment Questionnaire (CLEQ), was developed from past learning environment instruments and influenced by Hofstede's four dimensions of culture (Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism, and Masculinity/Femininity). The reliability and discriminant validity for each scale were obtained and associations between learning environment, attitude to science and enquiry skills achievement were found.

Information on Pests in Schools and Their Control

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Pests such as insects, rodents, fungi, and weeds can affect the school environment and the people who work and learn there. These pests can cause human health problems, and structural and plant damage. Know what pests you face before deciding on control.

Launching Confident Numerate Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wade, Peter; Gervasoni, Ann; McQuade, Catharine; Smith, Catherine

2013-01-01

This paper explores how a secondary school in western Sydney used educational research as an impetus to change its mathematical education culture over a three year period. Key changes occurred in four areas: leadership; pedagogy; structures for teaching and learning; and mathematical environments. These included increased professional…

CLEANing the Reward: Counterfactual Actions to Remove Exploratory Action Noise in Multiagent Learning

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

HolmesParker, Chris; Taylor, Mathew E.; Tumer, Kagan; Agogino, Adrian

2014-01-01

Learning in multiagent systems can be slow because agents must learn both how to behave in a complex environment and how to account for the actions of other agents. The inability of an agent to distinguish between the true environmental dynamics and those caused by the stochastic exploratory actions of other agents creates noise in each agent's reward signal. This learning noise can have unforeseen and often undesirable effects on the resultant system performance. We define such noise as exploratory action noise, demonstrate the critical impact it can have on the learning process in multiagent settings, and introduce a reward structure to effectively remove such noise from each agent's reward signal. In particular, we introduce Coordinated Learning without Exploratory Action Noise (CLEAN) rewards and empirically demonstrate their benefits

Little AI: Playing a constructivist robot

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Georgeon, Olivier L.

Little AI is a pedagogical game aimed at presenting the founding concepts of constructivist learning and developmental Artificial Intelligence. It primarily targets students in computer science and cognitive science but it can also interest the general public curious about these topics. It requires no particular scientific background; even children can find it entertaining. Professors can use it as a pedagogical resource in class or in online courses. The player presses buttons to control a simulated "baby robot". The player cannot see the robot and its environment, and initially ignores the effects of the commands. The only information received by the player is feedback from the player's commands. The player must learn, at the same time, the functioning of the robot's body and the structure of the environment from patterns in the stream of commands and feedback. We argue that this situation is analogous to how infants engage in early-stage developmental learning (e.g., Piaget (1937), [1]).

Do emergency medicine residents and faculty have similar learning styles when assessed with the Kolb learning style assessment tool?

PubMed

Fredette, Jenna; O'Brien, Corinne; Poole, Christy; Nomura, Jason

2015-04-01

Experiential learning theory and the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (Kolb LSI) have influenced educators worldwide for decades. Knowledge of learning styles can create efficient learning environments, increase information retention, and improve learner satisfaction. Learning styles have been examined in medicine previously, but not specifically with Emergency Medicine (EM) residents and attendings. Using the Kolb LSI, the learning styles of Emergency Medicine residents and attendings were assessed. The findings showed that the majority of EM residents and attendings shared the accommodating learning style. This result was different than prior studies that found the majority of medical professionals had a converging learning style and other studies that found attendings often have different learning styles than residents. The issue of learning styles among emergency medical residents and attendings is important because learning style knowledge may have an impact on how a residency program structures curriculum and how EM residents are successfully, efficiently, and creatively educated.

A partnered approach for structured observation to assess the environment of a neighborhood with high diabetes rates.

PubMed

Kleinman, Lawrence C; Lutz, David; Plumb, Ellen J; Barkley, Pearl; Nazario, Hector R; Ramos, Michelle A; Horowitz, Carol R

2011-01-01

The Communities IMPACT Diabetes Center uses partnered methods to address diabetes-related conditions among African Americans and Latinos in East Harlem, New York. To describe a novel, partnered approach that integrates simultaneous structured observation by community and academic partners with "on-the-spot" resolution of differences to collect baseline data regarding the built and food environments in a two census tract area of East Harlem and present select findings. We designed an environmental assessment to explore characteristics of the environment related to walking and eating. We paired community and academic partners to assess each block, resolve any differences, and report results. Nearly one year later, we surveyed the data collectors and analyzed responses using standard qualitative methods. Key themes included connection to and characteristics of the community; interactions with partners; surprises and learning, and aspects of data collection. All but the first were common to academic and community partners. Relationships between partners were generally amiable. Both community-"I think it was very helpful, we made sure neither of us made mistakes, and helped each other when we could"-and academic-"I really enjoyed it . . . I learned a lot about the areas I surveyed"-partners were complimentary. Community partners' strengths included local knowledge of the community, whereas academic partners' focus on adherence to the specifications was critical. Structured observation identified many sidewalks in disrepair or obstructed, few benches, and highly variable times allocated for pedestrians to cross at cross walks. The partnered data collection was both successful and formative, building additional relationships and further capacity for ongoing partnership. Community partners saw their community in a new way, seeing, "little things that are important but people don't pay attention to." Structured observations added to our understanding of how an environment may contribute to diabetes.

How do medical educators design a curriculum that facilitates student learning about professionalism?

PubMed Central

Mason, Glenn; Wang, Shaoyu

2016-01-01

Objectives This study analyses the ways in which curriculum reform facilitated student learning about professionalism. Methods Design-based research provided the structure for an iterative approach to curriculum change which we undertook over a 3 year period. The learning environment of the Personal and Professional Development Theme (PPD) was analysed through the sociocultural lens of Activity Theory. Lave and Wenger’s and Mezirow’s learning theories informed curriculum reform to support student development of a patient-centred and critically reflective professional identity. The renewed pedagogical outcomes were aligned with curriculum content, learning and teaching processes and assessment, and intense staff education was undertaken. We analysed qualitative data from tutor interviews and free-response student surveys to evaluate the impact of curriculum reform. Results Students’ and tutors’ reflections on learning in PPD converged on two principle themes - ‘Developing a philosophy of medicine’ and ‘Becoming an ethical doctor’- which corresponded to the overarching PPD theme aims of communicative learning. Students and tutors emphasised the importance of the unique learning environment of PPD tutorials for nurturing personal development and the positive impact of the renewed assessment programme on learning. Conclusions A theory-led approach to curriculum reform resulted in student engagement in the PPD curriculum and facilitated a change in student perspective about the epistemological foundation of medicine. PMID:26845777

Efficacy of a Meiosis Learning Module Developed for the Virtual Cell Animation Collection

PubMed Central

Goff, Eric E.; Reindl, Katie M.; Johnson, Christina; McClean, Phillip; Offerdahl, Erika G.; Schroeder, Noah L.; White, Alan R.

2017-01-01

Recent reports calling for change in undergraduate biology education have resulted in the redesign of many introductory biology courses. Reports on one common change to course structure, the active-learning environment, have placed an emphasis on student preparation, noting that the positive outcomes of active learning in the classroom depend greatly on how well the student prepares before class. As a possible preparatory resource, we test the efficacy of a learning module developed for the Virtual Cell Animation Collection. This module presents the concepts of meiosis in an interactive, dynamic environment that has previously been shown to facilitate learning in introductory biology students. Participants (n = 534) were enrolled in an introductory biology course and were presented the concepts of meiosis in one of two treatments: the interactive-learning module or a traditional lecture session. Analysis of student achievement shows that students who viewed the learning module as their only means of conceptual presentation scored significantly higher (d = 0.40, p < 0.001) than students who only attended a traditional lecture on the topic. Our results show the animation-based learning module effectively conveyed meiosis conceptual understanding, which suggests that it may facilitate student learning outside the classroom. Moreover, these results have implications for instructors seeking to expand their arsenal of tools for “flipping” undergraduate biology courses. PMID:28188282

Understanding the optimal learning environment in palliative care.

PubMed

Connell, Shirley E; Yates, Patsy; Barrett, Linda

2011-07-01

The learning experiences of student nurses undertaking clinical placement are reported widely, however little is known about the learning experiences of health professionals undertaking continuing professional development (CPD) in a clinical setting, especially in palliative care. The aim of this study, which was conducted as part of the national evaluation of a professional development program involving clinical attachments with palliative care services (The Program of Experience in the Palliative Approach [PEPA]), was to explore factors influencing the learning experiences of participants over time. Thirteen semi-structured, one-to-one telephone interviews were conducted with five participants throughout their PEPA experience. The analysis was informed by the traditions of adult, social and psychological learning theories and relevant literature. The participants' learning was enhanced by engaging interactively with host site staff and patients, and by the validation of their personal and professional life experiences together with the reciprocation of their knowledge with host site staff. Self-directed learning strategies maximised the participants' learning outcomes. Inclusion in team activities aided the participants to feel accepted within the host site. Personal interactions with host site staff and patients shaped this social/cultural environment of the host site. Optimal learning was promoted when participants were actively engaged, felt accepted and supported by, and experienced positive interpersonal interactions with, the host site staff. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Differential effects of the classroom on African American and non-African American's mathematics achievement.

PubMed

Schenke, Katerina; Nguyen, Tutrang; Watts, Tyler W; Sarama, Julie H; Clements, Douglas H

2017-08-01

We examined whether African American students differentially responded to dimensions of the observed classroom-learning environment compared with non-African American students. Further, we examined whether these dimensions of the classroom mediated treatment effects of a preschool mathematics intervention targeted at students from low-income families. Three observed dimensions of the classroom (teacher expectations and developmental appropriateness; teacher confidence and enthusiasm; and support for mathematical discourse) were evaluated in a sample of 1,238 preschool students in 101 classrooms. Using multigroup multilevel mediation where African American students were compared to non-African American students, we found that teachers in the intervention condition had higher ratings on the observed dimensions of the classroom compared with teachers in the control condition. Further, ratings on teacher expectations and developmental appropriateness had larger associations with the achievement of African American students than for non-African Americans. Findings suggest that students within the same classroom may react differently to that learning environment and that classroom learning environments could be structured in ways that are beneficial for students who need the most support.

Can Student Nurse Critical Thinking Be Predicted from Perceptions of Structural Empowerment within the Undergraduate, Pre-Licensure Learning Environment?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caswell-Moore, Shelley P.

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to test a model using Rosabeth Kanter's theory (1977; 1993) of structural empowerment to determine if this model can predict student nurses' level of critical thinking. Major goals of nursing education are to cultivate graduates who can think critically with a keen sense of clinical judgment, and who can perform…

KFC Server: interactive forecasting of protein interaction hot spots.

PubMed

Darnell, Steven J; LeGault, Laura; Mitchell, Julie C

2008-07-01

The KFC Server is a web-based implementation of the KFC (Knowledge-based FADE and Contacts) model-a machine learning approach for the prediction of binding hot spots, or the subset of residues that account for most of a protein interface's; binding free energy. The server facilitates the automated analysis of a user submitted protein-protein or protein-DNA interface and the visualization of its hot spot predictions. For each residue in the interface, the KFC Server characterizes its local structural environment, compares that environment to the environments of experimentally determined hot spots and predicts if the interface residue is a hot spot. After the computational analysis, the user can visualize the results using an interactive job viewer able to quickly highlight predicted hot spots and surrounding structural features within the protein structure. The KFC Server is accessible at http://kfc.mitchell-lab.org.

KFC Server: interactive forecasting of protein interaction hot spots

PubMed Central

Darnell, Steven J.; LeGault, Laura; Mitchell, Julie C.

2008-01-01

The KFC Server is a web-based implementation of the KFC (Knowledge-based FADE and Contacts) model—a machine learning approach for the prediction of binding hot spots, or the subset of residues that account for most of a protein interface's; binding free energy. The server facilitates the automated analysis of a user submitted protein–protein or protein–DNA interface and the visualization of its hot spot predictions. For each residue in the interface, the KFC Server characterizes its local structural environment, compares that environment to the environments of experimentally determined hot spots and predicts if the interface residue is a hot spot. After the computational analysis, the user can visualize the results using an interactive job viewer able to quickly highlight predicted hot spots and surrounding structural features within the protein structure. The KFC Server is accessible at http://kfc.mitchell-lab.org. PMID:18539611

Online neural monitoring of statistical learning.

PubMed

Batterink, Laura J; Paller, Ken A

2017-05-01

The extraction of patterns in the environment plays a critical role in many types of human learning, from motor skills to language acquisition. This process is known as statistical learning. Here we propose that statistical learning has two dissociable components: (1) perceptual binding of individual stimulus units into integrated composites and (2) storing those integrated representations for later use. Statistical learning is typically assessed using post-learning tasks, such that the two components are conflated. Our goal was to characterize the online perceptual component of statistical learning. Participants were exposed to a structured stream of repeating trisyllabic nonsense words and a random syllable stream. Online learning was indexed by an EEG-based measure that quantified neural entrainment at the frequency of the repeating words relative to that of individual syllables. Statistical learning was subsequently assessed using conventional measures in an explicit rating task and a reaction-time task. In the structured stream, neural entrainment to trisyllabic words was higher than in the random stream, increased as a function of exposure to track the progression of learning, and predicted performance on the reaction time (RT) task. These results demonstrate that monitoring this critical component of learning via rhythmic EEG entrainment reveals a gradual acquisition of knowledge whereby novel stimulus sequences are transformed into familiar composites. This online perceptual transformation is a critical component of learning. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Relationship between learning environment characteristics and academic engagement.

PubMed

Opdenakker, Marie-Christine; Minnaert, Alexander

2011-08-01

The relationship between learning environment characteristics and academic engagement of 777 Grade 6 children located in 41 learning environments was explored. Questionnaires were used to tap learning environment perceptions of children, their academic engagement, and their ethnic-cultural background. The basis of the learning environment questionnaire was the International System for Teacher Observation and Feedback (ISTOF). Factor analysis indicated three factors: the teacher as a helpful and good instructor (having good instructional skills, clear instruction), the teacher as promoter of active learning and differentiation, and the teacher as manager and organizer of classroom activities. Multilevel analysis indicated that about 12% of the differences in engagement between children was related to the learning environment. All the mentioned learning environment characteristics mattered, but the teacher as a helpful, good instructor was most important followed by the teacher as promoter of active learning and differentiation.

Nigerian Physiotherapy Clinical Students' Perception of Their Learning Environment Measured by the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure Inventory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Odole, Adesola C.; Oyewole, Olufemi O.; Ogunmola, Oluwasolape T.

2014-01-01

The identification of the learning environment and the understanding of how students learn will help teacher to facilitate learning and plan a curriculum to achieve the learning outcomes. The purpose of this study was to investigate undergraduate physiotherapy clinical students' perception of University of Ibadan's learning environment. Using the…

Boosted ARTMAP: modifications to fuzzy ARTMAP motivated by boosting theory.

PubMed

Verzi, Stephen J; Heileman, Gregory L; Georgiopoulos, Michael

2006-05-01

In this paper, several modifications to the Fuzzy ARTMAP neural network architecture are proposed for conducting classification in complex, possibly noisy, environments. The goal of these modifications is to improve upon the generalization performance of Fuzzy ART-based neural networks, such as Fuzzy ARTMAP, in these situations. One of the major difficulties of employing Fuzzy ARTMAP on such learning problems involves over-fitting of the training data. Structural risk minimization is a machine-learning framework that addresses the issue of over-fitting by providing a backbone for analysis as well as an impetus for the design of better learning algorithms. The theory of structural risk minimization reveals a trade-off between training error and classifier complexity in reducing generalization error, which will be exploited in the learning algorithms proposed in this paper. Boosted ART extends Fuzzy ART by allowing the spatial extent of each cluster formed to be adjusted independently. Boosted ARTMAP generalizes upon Fuzzy ARTMAP by allowing non-zero training error in an effort to reduce the hypothesis complexity and hence improve overall generalization performance. Although Boosted ARTMAP is strictly speaking not a boosting algorithm, the changes it encompasses were motivated by the goals that one strives to achieve when employing boosting. Boosted ARTMAP is an on-line learner, it does not require excessive parameter tuning to operate, and it reduces precisely to Fuzzy ARTMAP for particular parameter values. Another architecture described in this paper is Structural Boosted ARTMAP, which uses both Boosted ART and Boosted ARTMAP to perform structural risk minimization learning. Structural Boosted ARTMAP will allow comparison of the capabilities of off-line versus on-line learning as well as empirical risk minimization versus structural risk minimization using Fuzzy ARTMAP-based neural network architectures. Both empirical and theoretical results are presented to enhance the understanding of these architectures.

Learning in professionally 'distant' contexts: opportunities and challenges.

PubMed

Mausz, Justin; Tavares, Walter

2017-08-01

The changing nature of healthcare education and delivery is such that clinicians will increasingly find themselves practicing in contexts that are physically and/or conceptually different from the settings in which they were trained, a practice that conflicts on some level with socio-cultural theories of learning that emphasize learning in context. Our objective was therefore to explore learning in 'professionally distant' contexts. Using paramedic education, where portions of training occur in hospital settings despite preparing students for out-of-hospital work, fifty-three informants (11 current students, 13 recent graduates, 16 paramedic program faculty and 13 program coordinators/directors) took part in five semi-structured focus groups. Participants reflected on the value and role of hospital placements in paramedic student development. All sessions were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. In this context six educational advantages and two challenges were identified when using professionally distant learning environments. Learning could still be associated with features such as (a) engagement through "authenticity", (b) technical skill development, (c) interpersonal skill development, (d) psychological resilience, (e) healthcare system knowledge and (f) scaffolding. Variability in learning and misalignment with learning goals were identified as potential threats. Learning environments that are professionally distant from eventual practice settings may prove meaningful by providing learners with foundational and preparatory learning experiences for competencies that may be transferrable. This suggests that where learning occurs may be less important than how the experience contributes to the learner's development and the meaning or value he/she derives from it.

Making time for learning-oriented leadership in multidisciplinary hospital management groups.

PubMed

Singer, Sara J; Hayes, Jennifer E; Gray, Garry C; Kiang, Mathew V

2015-01-01

Although the clinical requirements of health care delivery imply the need for interdisciplinary management teams to work together to promote frontline learning, such interdisciplinary, learning-oriented leadership is atypical. We designed this study to identify behaviors enabling groups of diverse managers to perform as learning-oriented leadership teams on behalf of quality and safety. We randomly selected 12 of 24 intact groups of hospital managers from one hospital to participate in a Safety Leadership Team Training program. We collected primary data from March 2008 to February 2010 including pre- and post-staff surveys, multiple interviews, observations, and archival data from management groups. We examined the level and trend in frontline perceptions of managers' learning-oriented leadership following the intervention and ability of management groups to achieve objectives on targeted improvement projects. Among the 12 intervention groups, we identified higher- and lower-performing intervention groups and behaviors that enabled higher performers to work together more successfully. Management groups that achieved more of their performance goals and whose staff perceived more and greater improvement in their learning-oriented leadership after participation in Safety Leadership Team Training invested in structures that created learning capacity and conscientiously practiced prescribed learning-oriented management and problem-solving behaviors. They made the time to do these things because they envisioned the benefits of learning, valued the opportunity to learn, and maintained an environment of mutual respect and psychological safety within their group. Learning in management groups requires vision of what learning can accomplish; will to explore, practice, and build learning capacity; and mutual respect that sustains a learning environment.

How People Learn in an Asynchronous Online Learning Environment: The Relationships between Graduate Students' Learning Strategies and Learning Satisfaction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Choi, Beomkyu

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between learners' learning strategies and learning satisfaction in an asynchronous online learning environment. In an attempt to shed some light on how people learn in an online learning environment, one hundred and sixteen graduate students who were taking online learning courses…

Nonparametric Online Learning Control for Soft Continuum Robot: An Enabling Technique for Effective Endoscopic Navigation

PubMed Central

Lee, Kit-Hang; Fu, Denny K.C.; Leong, Martin C.W.; Chow, Marco; Fu, Hing-Choi; Althoefer, Kaspar; Sze, Kam Yim; Yeung, Chung-Kwong

2017-01-01

Abstract Bioinspired robotic structures comprising soft actuation units have attracted increasing research interest. Taking advantage of its inherent compliance, soft robots can assure safe interaction with external environments, provided that precise and effective manipulation could be achieved. Endoscopy is a typical application. However, previous model-based control approaches often require simplified geometric assumptions on the soft manipulator, but which could be very inaccurate in the presence of unmodeled external interaction forces. In this study, we propose a generic control framework based on nonparametric and online, as well as local, training to learn the inverse model directly, without prior knowledge of the robot's structural parameters. Detailed experimental evaluation was conducted on a soft robot prototype with control redundancy, performing trajectory tracking in dynamically constrained environments. Advanced element formulation of finite element analysis is employed to initialize the control policy, hence eliminating the need for random exploration in the robot's workspace. The proposed control framework enabled a soft fluid-driven continuum robot to follow a 3D trajectory precisely, even under dynamic external disturbance. Such enhanced control accuracy and adaptability would facilitate effective endoscopic navigation in complex and changing environments. PMID:29251567

Nonparametric Online Learning Control for Soft Continuum Robot: An Enabling Technique for Effective Endoscopic Navigation.

PubMed

Lee, Kit-Hang; Fu, Denny K C; Leong, Martin C W; Chow, Marco; Fu, Hing-Choi; Althoefer, Kaspar; Sze, Kam Yim; Yeung, Chung-Kwong; Kwok, Ka-Wai

2017-12-01

Bioinspired robotic structures comprising soft actuation units have attracted increasing research interest. Taking advantage of its inherent compliance, soft robots can assure safe interaction with external environments, provided that precise and effective manipulation could be achieved. Endoscopy is a typical application. However, previous model-based control approaches often require simplified geometric assumptions on the soft manipulator, but which could be very inaccurate in the presence of unmodeled external interaction forces. In this study, we propose a generic control framework based on nonparametric and online, as well as local, training to learn the inverse model directly, without prior knowledge of the robot's structural parameters. Detailed experimental evaluation was conducted on a soft robot prototype with control redundancy, performing trajectory tracking in dynamically constrained environments. Advanced element formulation of finite element analysis is employed to initialize the control policy, hence eliminating the need for random exploration in the robot's workspace. The proposed control framework enabled a soft fluid-driven continuum robot to follow a 3D trajectory precisely, even under dynamic external disturbance. Such enhanced control accuracy and adaptability would facilitate effective endoscopic navigation in complex and changing environments.

How evolution learns to generalise: Using the principles of learning theory to understand the evolution of developmental organisation.

PubMed

Kouvaris, Kostas; Clune, Jeff; Kounios, Loizos; Brede, Markus; Watson, Richard A

2017-04-01

One of the most intriguing questions in evolution is how organisms exhibit suitable phenotypic variation to rapidly adapt in novel selective environments. Such variability is crucial for evolvability, but poorly understood. In particular, how can natural selection favour developmental organisations that facilitate adaptive evolution in previously unseen environments? Such a capacity suggests foresight that is incompatible with the short-sighted concept of natural selection. A potential resolution is provided by the idea that evolution may discover and exploit information not only about the particular phenotypes selected in the past, but their underlying structural regularities: new phenotypes, with the same underlying regularities, but novel particulars, may then be useful in new environments. If true, we still need to understand the conditions in which natural selection will discover such deep regularities rather than exploiting 'quick fixes' (i.e., fixes that provide adaptive phenotypes in the short term, but limit future evolvability). Here we argue that the ability of evolution to discover such regularities is formally analogous to learning principles, familiar in humans and machines, that enable generalisation from past experience. Conversely, natural selection that fails to enhance evolvability is directly analogous to the learning problem of over-fitting and the subsequent failure to generalise. We support the conclusion that evolving systems and learning systems are different instantiations of the same algorithmic principles by showing that existing results from the learning domain can be transferred to the evolution domain. Specifically, we show that conditions that alleviate over-fitting in learning systems successfully predict which biological conditions (e.g., environmental variation, regularity, noise or a pressure for developmental simplicity) enhance evolvability. This equivalence provides access to a well-developed theoretical framework from learning theory that enables a characterisation of the general conditions for the evolution of evolvability.

Scaffolding in Connectivist Mobile Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ozan, Ozlem

2013-01-01

Social networks and mobile technologies are transforming learning ecology. In this changing learning environment, we find a variety of new learner needs. The aim of this study is to investigate how to provide scaffolding to the learners in connectivist mobile learning environment: (1) to learn in a networked environment; (2) to manage their…

Online Resource-Based Learning Environment: Case Studies in Primary Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

So, Winnie Wing Mui; Ching, Fiona Ngai Ying

2012-01-01

This paper discusses the creation of learning environments with online resources by three primary school teachers for pupil's learning of science-related topics with reference to the resource-based e-learning environments (RBeLEs) framework. Teachers' choice of contexts, resources, tools, and scaffolds in designing the learning environments are…

The Predicaments of Language Learners in Traditional Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shafie, Latisha Asmaak; Mansor, Mahani

2009-01-01

Some public universities in developing countries have traditional language learning environments such as classrooms with only blackboards and furniture which do not provide conducive learning environments. These traditional environments are unable to cater for digital learners who need to learn with learning technologies. In order to create…

Experiential Learning and Learning Environments: The Case of Active Listening Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huerta-Wong, Juan Enrique; Schoech, Richard

2010-01-01

Social work education research frequently has suggested an interaction between teaching techniques and learning environments. However, this interaction has never been tested. This study compared virtual and face-to-face learning environments and included active listening concepts to test whether the effectiveness of learning environments depends…

Evoked prior learning experience and approach to learning as predictors of academic achievement.

PubMed

Trigwell, Keith; Ashwin, Paul; Millan, Elena S

2013-09-01

In separate studies and research from different perspectives, five factors are found to be among those related to higher quality outcomes of student learning (academic achievement). Those factors are higher self-efficacy, deeper approaches to learning, higher quality teaching, students' perceptions that their workload is appropriate, and greater learning motivation. University learning improvement strategies have been built on these research results. To investigate how students' evoked prior experience, perceptions of their learning environment, and their approaches to learning collectively contribute to academic achievement. This is the first study to investigate motivation and self-efficacy in the same educational context as conceptions of learning, approaches to learning and perceptions of the learning environment. Undergraduate students (773) from the full range of disciplines were part of a group of over 2,300 students who volunteered to complete a survey of their learning experience. On completing their degrees 6 and 18 months later, their academic achievement was matched with their learning experience survey data. A 77-item questionnaire was used to gather students' self-report of their evoked prior experience (self-efficacy, learning motivation, and conceptions of learning), perceptions of learning context (teaching quality and appropriate workload), and approaches to learning (deep and surface). Academic achievement was measured using the English honours degree classification system. Analyses were conducted using correlational and multi-variable (structural equation modelling) methods. The results from the correlation methods confirmed those found in numerous earlier studies. The results from the multi-variable analyses indicated that surface approach to learning was the strongest predictor of academic achievement, with self-efficacy and motivation also found to be directly related. In contrast to the correlation results, a deep approach to learning was not related to academic achievement, and teaching quality and conceptions of learning were only indirectly related to achievement. Research aimed at understanding how students experience their learning environment and how that experience relates to the quality of their learning needs to be conducted using a wider range of variables and more sophisticated analytical methods. In this study of one context, some of the relations found in earlier bivariate studies, and on which learning intervention strategies have been built, are not confirmed when more holistic teaching-learning contexts are analysed using multi-variable methods. © 2012 The British Psychological Society.

Values Transmission: Some Issues and an Idea.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shannon, Gary J.; Selinger, Alphonse D.

1980-01-01

The teaching of moral values should involve the building of considerable structure that can easily be integrated into the existing curriculum. This program would contain seven components: personalizing the environment, building community feeling, cooperative learning, developing awareness, encouraging self-respect and respect for others, and…

The Role of the Constructivist Learning Theory and Collaborative Learning Environment on Wiki Classroom, and the Relationship between Them

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alzahrani, Ibraheem; Woollard, John

2013-01-01

This paper seeks to discover the relationship between both the social constructivist learning theory and the collaborative learning environment. This relationship can be identified by giving an example of the learning environment. Due to wiki characteristics, Wiki technology is one of the most famous learning environments that can show the…

Model-based Utility Functions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hibbard, Bill

2012-05-01

Orseau and Ring, as well as Dewey, have recently described problems, including self-delusion, with the behavior of agents using various definitions of utility functions. An agent's utility function is defined in terms of the agent's history of interactions with its environment. This paper argues, via two examples, that the behavior problems can be avoided by formulating the utility function in two steps: 1) inferring a model of the environment from interactions, and 2) computing utility as a function of the environment model. Basing a utility function on a model that the agent must learn implies that the utility function must initially be expressed in terms of specifications to be matched to structures in the learned model. These specifications constitute prior assumptions about the environment so this approach will not work with arbitrary environments. But the approach should work for agents designed by humans to act in the physical world. The paper also addresses the issue of self-modifying agents and shows that if provided with the possibility to modify their utility functions agents will not choose to do so, under some usual assumptions.

Practice education learning environments: the mismatch between perceived and preferred expectations of undergraduate health science students.

PubMed

Brown, Ted; Williams, Brett; McKenna, Lisa; Palermo, Claire; McCall, Louise; Roller, Louis; Hewitt, Lesley; Molloy, Liz; Baird, Marilyn; Aldabah, Ligal

2011-11-01

Practical hands-on learning opportunities are viewed as a vital component of the education of health science students, but there is a critical shortage of fieldwork placement experiences. It is therefore important that these clinical learning environments are well suited to students' perceptions and expectations. To investigate how undergraduate students enrolled in health-related education programs view their clinical learning environments and specifically to compare students' perception of their 'actual' clinical learning environment to that of their 'preferred/ideal' clinical learning environment. The Clinical Learning Environment Inventory (CLEI) was used to collect data from 548 undergraduate students (55% response rate) enrolled in all year levels of paramedics, midwifery, radiography and medical imaging, occupational therapy, pharmacy, nutrition and dietetics, physiotherapy and social work at Monash University via convenience sampling. Students were asked to rate their perception of the clinical learning environment at the completion of their placements using the CLEI. Satisfaction of the students enrolled in the health-related disciplines was closely linked with the five constructs measured by the CLEI: Personalization, Student Involvement, Task Orientation, Innovation, and Individualization. Significant differences were found between the student's perception of their 'actual' clinical learning environment and their 'ideal' clinical learning environment. The study highlights the importance of a supportive clinical learning environment that places emphasis on effective two-way communication. A thorough understanding of students' perceptions of their clinical learning environments is essential. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Merging Social Networking Environments and Formal Learning Environments to Support and Facilitate Interprofessional Instruction

PubMed Central

King, Sharla; Greidanus, Elaine; Carbonaro, Michael; Drummond, Jane; Patterson, Steven

2009-01-01

This study describes the redesign of an interprofessional team development course for health science students. A theoretical model is hypothesized as a framework for the redesign process, consisting of two themes: 1) the increasing trend among post-secondary students to participate in social networking (e.g., Facebook, Second Life) and 2) the need for healthcare educators to provide interprofessional training that results in effective communities of practice and better patient care. The redesign focused on increasing the relevance of the course through the integration of custom-designed technology to facilitate social networking during their interprofessional education. Results suggest that students in an educationally structured social networking environment can be guided to join learning communities quickly and access course materials. More research and implementation work is required to effectively develop interprofessional health sciences communities in a combined face-to-face and on-line social networking context. PMID:20165519

Using Cross-Sectional Imaging to Convey Organ Relationships: An Integrated Learning Environment for Students of Gross Anatomy

PubMed Central

Forman, Bruce H.; Eccles, Randy; Piggins, Judith; Raila, Wayne; Estey, Greg; Barnett, G. Octo

1990-01-01

We have developed a visually oriented, computer-controlled learning environment designed for use by students of gross anatomy. The goals of this module are to reinforce the concepts of organ relationships and topography by using computed axial tomographic (CAT) images accessed from a videodisc integrated with color graphics and to introduce students to cross-sectional radiographic anatomy. We chose to build the program around CAT scan images because they not only provide excellent structural detail but also offer an anatomic orientation (transverse) that complements that used in the dissection laboratory (basically a layer-by-layer, anterior-to-posterior, or coronal approach). Our system, built using a Microsoft Windows-386 based authoring environment which we designed and implemented, integrates text, video images, and graphics into a single screen display. The program allows both user browsing of information, facilitated by hypertext links, and didactic sessions including mini-quizzes for self-assessment.

Merging social networking environments and formal learning environments to support and facilitate interprofessional instruction.

PubMed

King, Sharla; Greidanus, Elaine; Carbonaro, Michael; Drummond, Jane; Patterson, Steven

2009-04-28

This study describes the redesign of an interprofessional team development course for health science students. A theoretical model is hypothesized as a framework for the redesign process, consisting of two themes: 1) the increasing trend among post-secondary students to participate in social networking (e.g., Facebook, Second Life) and 2) the need for healthcare educators to provide interprofessional training that results in effective communities of practice and better patient care. The redesign focused on increasing the relevance of the course through the integration of custom-designed technology to facilitate social networking during their interprofessional education. Results suggest that students in an educationally structured social networking environment can be guided to join learning communities quickly and access course materials. More research and implementation work is required to effectively develop interprofessional health sciences communities in a combined face-to-face and on-line social networking context.

Hippocampal Structure Predicts Statistical Learning and Associative Inference Abilities during Development.

PubMed

Schlichting, Margaret L; Guarino, Katharine F; Schapiro, Anna C; Turk-Browne, Nicholas B; Preston, Alison R

2017-01-01

Despite the importance of learning and remembering across the lifespan, little is known about how the episodic memory system develops to support the extraction of associative structure from the environment. Here, we relate individual differences in volumes along the hippocampal long axis to performance on statistical learning and associative inference tasks-both of which require encoding associations that span multiple episodes-in a developmental sample ranging from ages 6 to 30 years. Relating age to volume, we found dissociable patterns across the hippocampal long axis, with opposite nonlinear volume changes in the head and body. These structural differences were paralleled by performance gains across the age range on both tasks, suggesting improvements in the cross-episode binding ability from childhood to adulthood. Controlling for age, we also found that smaller hippocampal heads were associated with superior behavioral performance on both tasks, consistent with this region's hypothesized role in forming generalized codes spanning events. Collectively, these results highlight the importance of examining hippocampal development as a function of position along the hippocampal axis and suggest that the hippocampal head is particularly important in encoding associative structure across development.

Learning to classify wakes from local sensory information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alsalman, Mohamad; Colvert, Brendan; Kanso, Eva; Kanso Team

2017-11-01

Aquatic organisms exhibit remarkable abilities to sense local flow signals contained in their fluid environment and to surmise the origins of these flows. For example, fish can discern the information contained in various flow structures and utilize this information for obstacle avoidance and prey tracking. Flow structures created by flapping and swimming bodies are well characterized in the fluid dynamics literature; however, such characterization relies on classical methods that use an external observer to reconstruct global flow fields. The reconstructed flows, or wakes, are then classified according to the unsteady vortex patterns. Here, we propose a new approach for wake identification: we classify the wakes resulting from a flapping airfoil by applying machine learning algorithms to local flow information. In particular, we simulate the wakes of an oscillating airfoil in an incoming flow, extract the downstream vorticity information, and train a classifier to learn the different flow structures and classify new ones. This data-driven approach provides a promising framework for underwater navigation and detection in application to autonomous bio-inspired vehicles.

Applying a Framework for Student Modeling in Exploratory Learning Environments: Comparing Data Representation Granularity to Handle Environment Complexity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fratamico, Lauren; Conati, Cristina; Kardan, Samad; Roll, Ido

2017-01-01

Interactive simulations can facilitate inquiry learning. However, similarly to other Exploratory Learning Environments, students may not always learn effectively in these unstructured environments. Thus, providing adaptive support has great potential to help improve student learning with these rich activities. Providing adaptive support requires a…

A Simultaneous Mobile E-Learning Environment and Application

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karal, Hasan; Bahcekapili, Ekrem; Yildiz, Adil

2010-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to design a mobile learning environment that enables the use of a teleconference application used in simultaneous e-learning with mobile devices and to evaluate this mobile learning environment based on students' views. With the mobile learning environment developed in the study, the students are able to follow…

Using Scenarios to Design Complex Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Jong, Ton; Weinberger, Armin; Girault, Isabelle; Kluge, Anders; Lazonder, Ard W.; Pedaste, Margus; Ludvigsen, Sten; Ney, Muriel; Wasson, Barbara; Wichmann, Astrid; Geraedts, Caspar; Giemza, Adam; Hovardas, Tasos; Julien, Rachel; van Joolingen, Wouter R.; Lejeune, Anne; Manoli, Constantinos C.; Matteman, Yuri; Sarapuu, Tago; Verkade, Alex; Vold, Vibeke; Zacharia, Zacharias C.

2012-01-01

Science Created by You (SCY) learning environments are computer-based environments in which students learn about science topics in the context of addressing a socio-scientific problem. Along their way to a solution for this problem students produce many types of intermediate products or learning objects. SCY learning environments center the entire…

Learning Environments Designed According to Learning Styles and Its Effects on Mathematics Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Özerem, Aysen; Akkoyunlu, Buket

2015-01-01

Problem Statement: While designing a learning environment it is vital to think about learner characteristics (learning styles, approaches, motivation, interests… etc.) in order to promote effective learning. The learning environment and learning process should be designed not to enable students to learn in the same manner and at the same level,…

Instruments evaluating the quality of the clinical learning environment in nursing education: A systematic review of psychometric properties.

PubMed

Mansutti, Irene; Saiani, Luisa; Grassetti, Luca; Palese, Alvisa

2017-03-01

The clinical learning environment is fundamental to nursing education paths, capable of affecting learning processes and outcomes. Several instruments have been developed in nursing education, aimed at evaluating the quality of the clinical learning environments; however, no systematic review of the psychometric properties and methodological quality of these studies has been performed to date. The aims of the study were: 1) to identify validated instruments evaluating the clinical learning environments in nursing education; 2) to evaluate critically the methodological quality of the psychometric property estimation used; and 3) to compare psychometric properties across the instruments available. A systematic review of the literature (using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines) and an evaluation of the methodological quality of psychometric properties (using the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments guidelines). The Medline and CINAHL databases were searched. Eligible studies were those that satisfied the following criteria: a) validation studies of instruments evaluating the quality of clinical learning environments; b) in nursing education; c) published in English or Italian; d) before April 2016. The included studies were evaluated for the methodological quality of the psychometric properties measured and then compared in terms of both the psychometric properties and the methodological quality of the processes used. The search strategy yielded a total of 26 studies and eight clinical learning environment evaluation instruments. A variety of psychometric properties have been estimated for each instrument, with differing qualities in the methodology used. Concept and construct validity were poorly assessed in terms of their significance and rarely judged by the target population (nursing students). Some properties were rarely considered (e.g., reliability, measurement error, criterion validity), whereas others were frequently estimated, but using different coefficients and statistical analyses (e.g., internal consistency, structural validity), thus rendering comparison across instruments difficult. Moreover, the methodological quality adopted in the property assessments was poor or fair in most studies, compromising the goodness of the psychometric values estimated. Clinical learning placements represent the key strategies in educating the future nursing workforce: instruments evaluating the quality of the settings, as well as their capacity to promote significant learning, are strongly recommended. Studies estimating psychometric properties, using an increased quality of research methodologies are needed in order to support nursing educators in the process of clinical placements accreditation and quality improvement. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Web-Based Learning Environment Based on Students’ Needs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamzah, N.; Ariffin, A.; Hamid, H.

2017-08-01

Traditional learning needs to be improved since it does not involve active learning among students. Therefore, in the twenty-first century, the development of internet technology in the learning environment has become the main needs of each student. One of the learning environments to meet the needs of the teaching and learning process is a web-based learning environment. This study aims to identify the characteristics of a web-based learning environment that supports students’ learning needs. The study involved 542 students from fifteen faculties in a public higher education institution in Malaysia. A quantitative method was used to collect the data via a questionnaire survey by randomly. The findings indicate that the characteristics of a web-based learning environment that support students’ needs in the process of learning are online discussion forum, lecture notes, assignments, portfolio, and chat. In conclusion, the students overwhelmingly agreed that online discussion forum is the highest requirement because the tool can provide a space for students and teachers to share knowledge and experiences related to teaching and learning.

Space Vehicle Terrestrial Environment Design Requirements Guidelines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Dale L.; Keller, Vernon W.; Vaughan, William W.

2006-01-01

The terrestrial environment is an important driver of space vehicle structural, control, and thermal system design. NASA is currently in the process of producing an update to an earlier Terrestrial Environment Guidelines for Aerospace Vehicle Design and Development Handbook. This paper addresses the contents of this updated handbook, with special emphasis on new material being included in the areas of atmospheric thermodynamic models, wind dynamics, atmospheric composition, atmospheric electricity, cloud phenomena, atmospheric extremes, and sea state. In addition, the respective engineering design elements are discussed relative to terrestrial environment inputs that require consideration. Specific lessons learned that have contributed to the advancements made in the application and awareness of terrestrial environment inputs for aerospace engineering applications are presented.

The supplemental instruction program: Student perceptions of the learning environment and impact on student academic achievement in college science at California State University, San Marcos

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hizer, Suzanne Elizabeth

Higher education in science has been criticized and calls to increase student learning and persistence to degree has been recognized as a national problem by the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council, and the National Academy of Sciences. One mode of academic assistance that may directly address this issue is the implementation of Supplemental Instruction (SI) in science courses. SI is a specific model of academic assistance designed to help students in historically difficult science classes master course content, thus increasing their academic achievement and retention. This study assessed the SI program at California State University, San Marcos, in supported science courses. Specifically, academic achievement based on final course grades were compared between SI participating and nonparticipating students, multiple affective factors were measured at the beginning and end of the semester, and students' perceptions of the classroom and SI session learning environments recorded. Overall, students who attended five or more SI sessions achieved higher final course grades. Students who chose to participate in SI had higher initial levels of responsibility and anxiety. Additionally, SI participants experienced a reduction in anxiety over the semester whereas nonparticipants experienced an increase in anxiety from beginning to the end of the semester. The learning environment of SI embodies higher levels of constructivist principles of active learning such as cooperation, cohesiveness, innovation, and personalization---with one exception for the physics course, which is a based on problem-based learning. Structural equation modeling of variables indicates that high self-efficacy at the end of the semester is directly related to high final course grades; this is mediated by cohesion in the classroom and the cooperation evidenced in SI sessions. These findings are elaborated by student descriptions of what happened in SI sessions and discussed given the theoretical frameworks of Bandura's concept of self-efficacy and learning environment activities that embody constructivist principles.

Validation of learning style measures: implications for medical education practice.

PubMed

Chapman, Dane M; Calhoun, Judith G

2006-06-01

It is unclear which learners would most benefit from the more individualised, student-structured, interactive approaches characteristic of problem-based and computer-assisted learning. The validity of learning style measures is uncertain, and there is no unifying learning style construct identified to predict such learners. This study was conducted to validate learning style constructs and to identify the learners most likely to benefit from problem-based and computer-assisted curricula. Using a cross-sectional design, 3 established learning style inventories were administered to 97 post-Year 2 medical students. Cognitive personality was measured by the Group Embedded Figures Test, information processing by the Learning Styles Inventory, and instructional preference by the Learning Preference Inventory. The 11 subscales from the 3 inventories were factor-analysed to identify common learning constructs and to verify construct validity. Concurrent validity was determined by intercorrelations of the 11 subscales. A total of 94 pre-clinical medical students completed all 3 inventories. Five meaningful learning style constructs were derived from the 11 subscales: student- versus teacher-structured learning; concrete versus abstract learning; passive versus active learning; individual versus group learning, and field-dependence versus field-independence. The concurrent validity of 10 of 11 subscales was supported by correlation analysis. Medical students most likely to thrive in a problem-based or computer-assisted learning environment would be expected to score highly on abstract, active and individual learning constructs and would be more field-independent. Learning style measures were validated in a medical student population and learning constructs were established for identifying learners who would most likely benefit from a problem-based or computer-assisted curriculum.

Spatial education: improving conservation delivery through space-structured decision making

USGS Publications Warehouse

Moore, Clinton T.; Shaffer, Terry L.; Gannon, Jill J.

2013-01-01

Adaptive management is a form of structured decision making designed to guide management of natural resource systems when their behaviors are uncertain. Where decision making can be replicated across units of a landscape, learning can be accelerated, and biological processes can be understood in a larger spatial context. Broad-based partnerships among land management agencies, exemplified by Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (conservation partnerships created through the U.S. Department of the Interior), are potentially ideal environments for implementing spatially structured adaptive management programs.

A Reinforcement-Based Learning Paradigm Increases Anatomical Learning and Retention—A Neuroeducation Study

PubMed Central

Anderson, Sarah J.; Hecker, Kent G.; Krigolson, Olave E.; Jamniczky, Heather A.

2018-01-01

In anatomy education, a key hurdle to engaging in higher-level discussion in the classroom is recognizing and understanding the extensive terminology used to identify and describe anatomical structures. Given the time-limited classroom environment, seeking methods to impart this foundational knowledge to students in an efficient manner is essential. Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) methods incorporate pre-class exercises (typically online) meant to establish foundational knowledge in novice learners so subsequent instructor-led sessions can focus on deeper, more complex concepts. Determining how best do we design and assess pre-class exercises requires a detailed examination of learning and retention in an applied educational context. Here we used electroencephalography (EEG) as a quantitative dependent variable to track learning and examine the efficacy of JiTT activities to teach anatomy. Specifically, we examined changes in the amplitude of the N250 and reward positivity event-related brain potential (ERP) components alongside behavioral performance as novice students participated in a series of computerized reinforcement-based learning modules to teach neuroanatomical structures. We found that as students learned to identify anatomical structures, the amplitude of the N250 increased and reward positivity amplitude decreased in response to positive feedback. Both on a retention and transfer exercise when learners successfully remembered and translated their knowledge to novel images, the amplitude of the reward positivity remained decreased compared to early learning. Our findings suggest ERPs can be used as a tool to track learning, retention, and transfer of knowledge and that employing the reinforcement learning paradigm is an effective educational approach for developing anatomical expertise. PMID:29467638

A Reinforcement-Based Learning Paradigm Increases Anatomical Learning and Retention-A Neuroeducation Study.

PubMed

Anderson, Sarah J; Hecker, Kent G; Krigolson, Olave E; Jamniczky, Heather A

2018-01-01

In anatomy education, a key hurdle to engaging in higher-level discussion in the classroom is recognizing and understanding the extensive terminology used to identify and describe anatomical structures. Given the time-limited classroom environment, seeking methods to impart this foundational knowledge to students in an efficient manner is essential. Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) methods incorporate pre-class exercises (typically online) meant to establish foundational knowledge in novice learners so subsequent instructor-led sessions can focus on deeper, more complex concepts. Determining how best do we design and assess pre-class exercises requires a detailed examination of learning and retention in an applied educational context. Here we used electroencephalography (EEG) as a quantitative dependent variable to track learning and examine the efficacy of JiTT activities to teach anatomy. Specifically, we examined changes in the amplitude of the N250 and reward positivity event-related brain potential (ERP) components alongside behavioral performance as novice students participated in a series of computerized reinforcement-based learning modules to teach neuroanatomical structures. We found that as students learned to identify anatomical structures, the amplitude of the N250 increased and reward positivity amplitude decreased in response to positive feedback. Both on a retention and transfer exercise when learners successfully remembered and translated their knowledge to novel images, the amplitude of the reward positivity remained decreased compared to early learning. Our findings suggest ERPs can be used as a tool to track learning, retention, and transfer of knowledge and that employing the reinforcement learning paradigm is an effective educational approach for developing anatomical expertise.

Distributing vs. Blocking Learning Questions in a Web-Based Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kapp, Felix; Proske, Antje; Narciss, Susanne; Körndle, Hermann

2015-01-01

Effective studying in web-based learning environments (web-LEs) requires cognitive engagement and demands learners to regulate their learning activities. One way to support learners in web-LEs is to provide interactive learning questions within the learning environment. Even though research on learning questions has a long tradition, there are…

Learning with Collaborative Inquiry: A Science Learning Environment for Secondary Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sun, Daner; Looi, Chee-Kit; Xie, Wenting

2017-01-01

When inquiry-based learning is designed for a collaborative context, the interactions that arise in the learning environment can become fairly complex. While the learning effectiveness of such learning environments has been reported in the literature, there have been fewer studies on the students' learning processes. To address this, the article…

Learning in a u-Museum: Developing a Context-Aware Ubiquitous Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Chia-Chen; Huang, Tien-Chi

2012-01-01

Context-awareness techniques can support learners in learning without time or location constraints by using mobile devices and associated learning activities in a real learning environment. Enrichment of context-aware technologies has enabled students to learn in an environment that integrates learning resources from both the real world and the…

Design of a web portal for interdisciplinary image retrieval from multiple online image resources.

PubMed

Kammerer, F J; Frankewitsch, T; Prokosch, H-U

2009-01-01

Images play an important role in medicine. Finding the desired images within the multitude of online image databases is a time-consuming and frustrating process. Existing websites do not meet all the requirements for an ideal learning environment for medical students. This work intends to establish a new web portal providing a centralized access point to a selected number of online image databases. A back-end system locates images on given websites and extracts relevant metadata. The images are indexed using UMLS and the MetaMap system provided by the US National Library of Medicine. Specially developed functions allow to create individual navigation structures. The front-end system suits the specific needs of medical students. A navigation structure consisting of several medical fields, university curricula and the ICD-10 was created. The images may be accessed via the given navigation structure or using different search functions. Cross-references are provided by the semantic relations of the UMLS. Over 25,000 images were identified and indexed. A pilot evaluation among medical students showed good first results concerning the acceptance of the developed navigation structures and search features. The integration of the images from different sources into the UMLS semantic network offers a quick and an easy-to-use learning environment.

Assessing the Impact of Student Learning Style Preferences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davis, Stacey M.; Franklin, Scott V.

2004-09-01

Students express a wide range of preferences for learning environments. We are trying to measure the manifestation of learning styles in various learning environments. In particular, we are interested in performance in an environment that disagrees with the expressed learning style preference, paying close attention to social (group vs. individual) and auditory (those who prefer to learn by listening) environments. These are particularly relevant to activity-based curricula which typically emphasize group-work and de-emphasize lectures. Our methods include multiple-choice assessments, individual student interviews, and a study in which we attempt to isolate the learning environment.

Building Critical Community in Middle School Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dowdy, Josh; Dore, Elizabeth

2017-01-01

Research pertaining to institutions of public education reveals that curricular structures often function to produce and reproduce systemic inequalities. The following personal statement outlines a middle school teacher's attempt to address social reproduction in public education. By situating issues of inequity within a local context of…

A Case for Underground Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oklahoma State Dept. of Education, Oklahoma City.

The underground school offers several advantages. Preliminary studies in Oklahoma have shown that these schools perform exceptionally well as learning environments. The lack of noise and distractions helps teachers keep the attention of their students. Underground structures can protect people against a broad range of natural and man-made…

Pedagogical Practices and Students' Experiences in Eritrean Higher Education Institutions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsegay, Samson Maekele; Zegergish, Mulgeta Zemuy; Ashraf, Muhammad Azeem

2018-01-01

Using semi-structured interview and review of documents, this study analyzes the pedagogical practices and students' experiences in Eritrean Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The study indicated that pedagogical practices are affected by instructors' pedagogical skills and perceptions, and the teaching-learning environment. Moreover, the…

20 CFR 638.514 - Residential support services.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 3 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false Residential support services. 638.514 Section... support services. The center operator shall provide for residential support services structured as an... social environment, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, designed to enhance learning and personal...

Kern Community College District Information Technology Plan.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kern Community Coll. District, Bakersfield, CA.

The Information Technology Plan as set forth in this document provides the organizational structure, assignment of duties, infrastructure, and philosophic environment that should permit the Kern Community College District to proceed in an orderly manner in developing information technology to enhance student learning, serve the faculty, and…

20 CFR 638.514 - Residential support services.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 3 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Residential support services. 638.514 Section... support services. The center operator shall provide for residential support services structured as an... social environment, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, designed to enhance learning and personal...

Construction of a Digital Learning Environment Based on Cloud Computing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ding, Jihong; Xiong, Caiping; Liu, Huazhong

2015-01-01

Constructing the digital learning environment for ubiquitous learning and asynchronous distributed learning has opened up immense amounts of concrete research. However, current digital learning environments do not fully fulfill the expectations on supporting interactive group learning, shared understanding and social construction of knowledge.…

A Well Designed School Environment Facilitates Brain Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chan, Tak Cheung; Petrie, Garth

2000-01-01

Examines how school design facilitates learning by complementing how the brain learns. How the brain learns is discussed and how an artistic environment, spaciousness in the learning areas, color and lighting, and optimal thermal and acoustical environments aid student learning. School design suggestions conclude the article. (GR)

Interpersonal social responsibility model of service learning: A longitudinal study.

PubMed

Lahav, Orit; Daniely, Noa; Yalon-Chamovitz, Shira

2018-01-01

Service-learning (SL) is commonly used in Occupational Therapy (OT) programs worldwide as a community placement educational strategy. However, most SL models are not clearly defined in terms of both methodology and learning outcomes. This longitudinal study explores a structured model of Service-Learning (Interpersonal Social Responsibility-Service Learning: ISR-SL) aimed towards the development of professional identity among OT students. Based on OT students experiences from the end of the course through later stages as mature students and professionals. A qualitative research design was used to explore the perceptions and experiences of 150 first, second, and third-year OT students and graduates who have participated in ISR-SL during their first academic year. Our findings suggest that the structured, long-term relationship with a person with a disability in the natural environment, which is the core of the ISR-SL, allowed students to develop a professional identity based on seeing the person as a whole and recognizing his/her centrality in the therapeutic relationship. This study suggests ISR-SL as future direction or next step for implementing SL in OT and other healthcare disciplines programs.

Leading organisational learning in health care.

PubMed

Carroll, J S; Edmondson, A C

2002-03-01

As healthcare organisations seek to enhance safety and quality in a changing environment, organisational learning practices can help to improve existing skills and knowledge and provide opportunities to discover better ways of working together. Leadership at executive, middle management, and local levels is needed to create a sense of shared purpose. This shared vision should help to build effective relationships, facilitate connections between action and reflection, and strengthen the desirable elements of the healthcare culture while modifying outdated assumptions, procedures, and structures.

Students' perception of the learning environment in a distributed medical programme.

PubMed

Veerapen, Kiran; McAleer, Sean

2010-09-24

The learning environment of a medical school has a significant impact on students' achievements and learning outcomes. The importance of equitable learning environments across programme sites is implicit in distributed undergraduate medical programmes being developed and implemented. To study the learning environment and its equity across two classes and three geographically separate sites of a distributed medical programme at the University of British Columbia Medical School that commenced in 2004. The validated Dundee Ready Educational Environment Survey was sent to all students in their 2nd and 3rd year (classes graduating in 2009 and 2008) of the programme. The domains of the learning environment surveyed were: students' perceptions of learning, students' perceptions of teachers, students' academic self-perceptions, students' perceptions of the atmosphere, and students' social self-perceptions. Mean scores, frequency distribution of responses, and inter- and intrasite differences were calculated. The perception of the global learning environment at all sites was more positive than negative. It was characterised by a strongly positive perception of teachers. The work load and emphasis on factual learning were perceived negatively. Intersite differences within domains of the learning environment were more evident in the pioneer class (2008) of the programme. Intersite differences consistent across classes were largely related to on-site support for students. Shared strengths and weaknesses in the learning environment at UBC sites were evident in areas that were managed by the parent institution, such as the attributes of shared faculty and curriculum. A greater divergence in the perception of the learning environment was found in domains dependent on local arrangements and social factors that are less amenable to central regulation. This study underlines the need for ongoing comparative evaluation of the learning environment at the distributed sites and interaction between leaders of these sites.

Examining the impact of the Guided Constructivist teaching method on students' misconceptions about concepts of Newtonian physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ibrahim, Hyatt Abdelhaleem

The effect of Guided Constructivism (Interactivity-Based Learning Environment) and Traditional Expository instructional methods on students' misconceptions about concepts of Newtonian Physics was investigated. Four groups of 79 of University of Central Florida students enrolled in Physics 2048 participated in the study. A quasi-experimental design of nonrandomized, nonequivalent control and experimental groups was employed. The experimental group was exposed to the Guided Constructivist teaching method, while the control group was taught using the Traditional Expository teaching approach. The data collection instruments included the Force Concept Inventory Test (FCI), the Mechanics Baseline Test (MBT), and the Maryland Physics Expectation Survey (MPEX). The Guided Constructivist group had significantly higher means than the Traditional Expository group on the criterion variables of: (1) conceptions of Newtonian Physics, (2) achievement in Newtonian Physics, and (3) beliefs about the content of Physics knowledge, beliefs about the role of Mathematics in learning Physics, and overall beliefs about learning/teaching/appropriate roles of learners and teachers/nature of Physics. Further, significant relationships were found between (1) achievement, conceptual structures, beliefs about the content of Physics knowledge, and beliefs about the role of Mathematics in learning Physics; (2) changes in misconceptions about the physical phenomena, and changes in beliefs about the content of Physics knowledge. No statistically significant difference was found between the two teaching methods on achievement of males and females. These findings suggest that differences in conceptual learning due to the nature of the teaching method used exist. Furthermore, greater conceptual learning is fostered when teachers use interactivity-based teaching strategies to train students to link everyday experience in the real physical world to formal school concepts. The moderate effect size and power of the study suggest that the effect may not be subtle, but reliable. Physics teachers can use these results to inform their decisions about structuring learning environment when conceptual learning is important.

Concrete Condition Assessment Using Impact-Echo Method and Extreme Learning Machines

PubMed Central

Zhang, Jing-Kui; Yan, Weizhong; Cui, De-Mi

2016-01-01

The impact-echo (IE) method is a popular non-destructive testing (NDT) technique widely used for measuring the thickness of plate-like structures and for detecting certain defects inside concrete elements or structures. However, the IE method is not effective for full condition assessment (i.e., defect detection, defect diagnosis, defect sizing and location), because the simple frequency spectrum analysis involved in the existing IE method is not sufficient to capture the IE signal patterns associated with different conditions. In this paper, we attempt to enhance the IE technique and enable it for full condition assessment of concrete elements by introducing advanced machine learning techniques for performing comprehensive analysis and pattern recognition of IE signals. Specifically, we use wavelet decomposition for extracting signatures or features out of the raw IE signals and apply extreme learning machine, one of the recently developed machine learning techniques, as classification models for full condition assessment. To validate the capabilities of the proposed method, we build a number of specimens with various types, sizes, and locations of defects and perform IE testing on these specimens in a lab environment. Based on analysis of the collected IE signals using the proposed machine learning based IE method, we demonstrate that the proposed method is effective in performing full condition assessment of concrete elements or structures. PMID:27023563

Comparing two methods of education (virtual versus traditional) on learning of Iranian dental students: a post-test only design study.

PubMed

Moazami, Fariborz; Bahrampour, Ehsan; Azar, Mohammad Reza; Jahedi, Farzad; Moattari, Marzieh

2014-03-05

The importance of using technologies such as e-learning in different disciplines is discussed in the literature. Researchers have measured the effectiveness of e-learning in a number of fields.Considering the lack of research on the effectiveness of online learning in dental education particularly in Iran, the advantages of these learning methods and the positive university atmosphere regarding the use of online learning. This study, therefore, aims to compare the effects of two methods of teaching (virtual versus traditional) on student learning. This post-test only design study approached 40, fifth year dental students of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. From this group, 35 students agreed to participate. These students were randomly allocated into two groups, experimental (virtual learning) and comparison (traditional learning). To ensure similarity between groups, we compared GPAs of all participants by the Mann-Whitney U test (P > 0.05). The experimental group received a virtual learning environment courseware package specifically designed for this study, whereas the control group received the same module structured in a traditional lecture form. The virtual learning environment consisted of online and offline materials. Two identical valid, reliable post-tests that consisted of 40 multiple choice questions (MCQs) and 4 essay questions were administered immediately (15 min) after the last session and two months later to assess for knowledge retention. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 20. A comparison of the mean knowledge score of both groups showed that virtual learning was more effective than traditional learning (effect size = 0.69). The newly designed virtual learning package is feasible and will result in more effective learning in comparison with lecture-based training. However further studies are needed to generalize the findings of this study.

Work-based learning in health care environments.

PubMed

Spouse, J

2001-03-01

In reviewing contemporary literature and theories about work-based learning, this paper explores recent trends promoting life-long learning. In the process the paper reviews and discusses some implications of implementing recent policies and fostering le arning in health care practice settings. Recent Government policies designed to provide quality health care services and to improve staffing levels in the nursing workforce, have emphasized the importance of life-long learning whilst learning-on-the-job and the need to recognize and credit experiential learning. Such calls include negotiation of personal development plans tailored to individual educational need and context-sensitive learning activities. To be implemented effectively, this policy cann ot be seen as a cheap option but requires considerable financial resourcing for preparation of staff and the conduct of such activities. Successful work-based learning requires investment in staff at all levels as well as changes to staffing structures in organizations and trusts; changes designed to free people up to work and learn collaboratively. Creating an organizational environment where learning is prized depends upon a climate of trust; a climate where investigation and speculation are fostered and where time is protected for engaging in discussions about practice. Such a change may be radical for many health care organizations and may require a review of current policies and practices ensuring that they include education at all levels. The nature of such education also requires reconceptualizing. In the past, learning in practice settings was seen as formal lecturing or demonstration, and relied upon behaviourist principles of learning. Contemporary thinking suggests effective learning in work-settings is multi-faceted and draws on previously acquired formal knowledge, contextualizes it and moulds it according to situations at hand. Thinking about work-based learning in this way raises questions about how such learning can be supported and facilitated.

Self- directed learning barriers in a virtual environment: a qualitative study

PubMed Central

KOHAN, NOUSHIN; SOLTANI ARABSHAHI, KAMRAN; MOJTAHEDZADEH, RITA; ABBASZADEH, ABBAS; RAKHSHANI, TAYEBEH; EMAMI, AMIRHOUSEIN

2017-01-01

Introduction: There is a growing trend in online education courses in higher education institutes. Previous studies have shown that high levels of self-direction are essential for successful online learning. The present study aims to investigate challenges of and barriers to self-directed virtual-learning among postgraduate students of medical sciences. Method: 23 postgraduate virtual students of medical sciences in Iran, collected through maximum variation purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews, served as the sample of this study. The collected data were analyzed using the inductive content analysis method. Results: Three themes and six sub-themes were identified as barriers to self-directed learning in virtual education, including cognitive barriers (information overload and lack of focus on learning or mind wondering), communication barriers (inadequate coping skills and inadequate writing skills) and educational environment barriers (heavy workload and role ambiguity). Conclusion: By the importance of self-direction in online education, the present study results can be used by virtual education planners in the review and design of courses, so as to adequately equip students, obviate barriers to self-directed virtual education, and ultimately train highly self-directed learners in online medical education. PMID:28761885

Endoscopic skull base training using 3D printed models with pre-existing pathology.

PubMed

Narayanan, Vairavan; Narayanan, Prepageran; Rajagopalan, Raman; Karuppiah, Ravindran; Rahman, Zainal Ariff Abdul; Wormald, Peter-John; Van Hasselt, Charles Andrew; Waran, Vicknes

2015-03-01

Endoscopic base of skull surgery has been growing in acceptance in the recent past due to improvements in visualisation and micro instrumentation as well as the surgical maturing of early endoscopic skull base practitioners. Unfortunately, these demanding procedures have a steep learning curve. A physical simulation that is able to reproduce the complex anatomy of the anterior skull base provides very useful means of learning the necessary skills in a safe and effective environment. This paper aims to assess the ease of learning endoscopic skull base exposure and drilling techniques using an anatomically accurate physical model with a pre-existing pathology (i.e., basilar invagination) created from actual patient data. Five models of a patient with platy-basia and basilar invagination were created from the original MRI and CT imaging data of a patient. The models were used as part of a training workshop for ENT surgeons with varying degrees of experience in endoscopic base of skull surgery, from trainees to experienced consultants. The surgeons were given a list of key steps to achieve in exposing and drilling the skull base using the simulation model. They were then asked to list the level of difficulty of learning these steps using the model. The participants found the models suitable for learning registration, navigation and skull base drilling techniques. All participants also found the deep structures to be accurately represented spatially as confirmed by the navigation system. These models allow structured simulation to be conducted in a workshop environment where surgeons and trainees can practice to perform complex procedures in a controlled fashion under the supervision of experts.

Personal Learning Environments: A Solution for Self-Directed Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haworth, Ryan

2016-01-01

In this paper I discuss "personal learning environments" and their diverse benefits, uses, and implications for life-long learning. Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are Web 2.0 and social media technologies that enable individual learners the ability to manage their own learning. Self-directed learning is explored as a foundation…

Ubiquitous Learning Environments in Higher Education: A Scoping Literature Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Virtanen, Mari Aulikki; Haavisto, Elina; Liikanen, Eeva; Kääriäinen, Maria

2018-01-01

Ubiquitous learning and the use of ubiquitous learning environments heralds a new era in higher education. Ubiquitous learning environments enhance context-aware and seamless learning experiences available from any location at any time. They support smooth interaction between authentic and digital learning resources and provide personalized…

Co-Regulation of Learning in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Environments: A Discussion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chan, Carol K. K.

2012-01-01

This discussion paper for this special issue examines co-regulation of learning in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments extending research on self-regulated learning in computer-based environments. The discussion employs a socio-cognitive perspective focusing on social and collective views of learning to examine how…

Trajectories of the home learning environment across the first 5 years: associations with children's vocabulary and literacy skills at prekindergarten.

PubMed

Rodriguez, Eileen T; Tamis-LeMonda, Catherine S

2011-01-01

Children's home learning environments were examined in a low-income sample of 1,852 children and families when children were 15, 25, 37, and 63 months. During home visits, children's participation in literacy activities, the quality of mothers' engagements with their children, and the availability of learning materials were assessed, yielding a total learning environment score at each age. At 63 months, children's vocabulary and literacy skills were assessed. Six learning environment trajectories were identified, including environments that were consistently low, environments that were consistently high, and environments characterized by varying patterns of change. The skills of children at the extremes of learning environment trajectories differed by more than 1 SD and the timing of learning experiences related to specific emerging skills. © 2011 The Authors. Child Development © 2011 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

The Interplay of Perceptions of the Learning Environment, Personality and Learning Strategies: A Study amongst International Business Studies Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nijhuis, Jan; Segers, Mien; Gijselaers, Wim

2007-01-01

Previous research on students' learning strategies has examined the relationships between either perceptions of the learning environment or personality and learning strategies. The focus of this study was on the joint relationships between the students' perceptions of the learning environment, their personality, and the learning strategies they…

Nurse teacher candidates learned to use social media during the international teacher training course.

PubMed

Salminen, Leena; Gustafsson, Marja-Liisa; Vilén, Liisa; Fuster, Pilar; Istomina, Natalja; Papastavrou, Evridiki

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to describe the nurse teacher candidates' learning outcomes and experiences in social media during the international nurse teacher training course, Empowering learning environments in nursing education, Intensive Program (EleneIP). The pre-post research design was used. The data was collected before and after the course, with the questionnaire consisting of structured and open questions. Altogether, 24 nurse teacher candidates from four different European countries participated in the course and this study. The results showed that the knowledge of using social media applications increased during the course from 5.2 (range 1-9) to 8.1 (range 4-10), and their skills increased from 4.5 (range 1-8) to 7.6 (range 4-10).The main topics learnt during the course were divided in two categories: subjects of the course and teaching and learning methods. The students' experiences concerning the EleneIP course were positive in both categories. The international group created during EleneIP course also allowed the students to achieve another important aim, learning from a collaborative group the importance and possibilities of different learning environments, considering the cultural and social characteristics of each country participating in it. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The utility and impact of information communication technology (ICT) for pre-registration nurse education: A narrative synthesis systematic review.

PubMed

Webb, Lucy; Clough, Jonathan; O'Reilly, Declan; Wilmott, Danita; Witham, Gary

2017-01-01

To evaluate and summarise the utility and impact of information communication technology (ICT) in enhancing student performance and the learning environment in pre-registration nursing. A systematic review of empirical research across a range of themes in ICT health-related education. Science Direct, Cinahl, AMED, MEDLINE, PubMed, ASSIA, OVID and OVID SP (2008-2014). Further date parameters were imposed by theme. Evidence was reviewed by narrative synthesis, adopting Caldwell's appraisal framework and CASP for qualitative methods. Selection and inclusion was grounded in the PICOS structure, with language requirements (English), and further parameters were guided by theme appropriateness. Fifty studies were selected for review across six domains: reusable learning objects, media, audience response systems, e-portfolios, computer-based assessment and faculty adoption of e-learning. Educational ICT was found to be non-inferior to traditional teaching, while offering benefits to teaching and learning efficiency. Where support is in place, ICT improves the learning environment for staff and students, but human and environmental barriers need to be addressed. This review illuminates more advantages for ICT in nurse training than previously. The key advantage of flexibility is supported, though with little evidence for effect on depth of learning. Crown Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effects of team-based learning techniques on nursing students' perception of the psycho-social climate of the classroom.

PubMed

Koohestani, Hamid Reza; Baghcheghi, Nayereh

2016-01-01

Background: Team-based learning is a structured type of cooperative learning that is becoming increasingly more popular in nursing education. This study compares levels of nursing students' perception of the psychosocial climate of the classroom between conventional lecture group and team-based learning group. Methods: In a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design 38 nursing students of second year participated. One half of the 16 sessions of cardiovascular disease nursing course sessions was taught by lectures and the second half with team-based learning. The modified college and university classroom environment inventory (CUCEI) was used to measure the perception of classroom environment. This was completed after the final lecture and TBL sessions. Results: Results revealed a significant difference in the mean scores of psycho-social climate for the TBL method (Mean (SD): 179.8(8.27)) versus the mean score for the lecture method (Mean (SD): 154.213.44)). Also, the results showed significant differences between the two groups in the innovation (p<0.001), student cohesiveness (p=0.01), cooperation (p<0.001) and equity (p= 0.03) sub-scales scores (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study provides evidence that team-based learning does have a positive effect on nursing students' perceptions of their psycho-social climate of the classroom.

Functional brain networks for learning predictive statistics.

PubMed

Giorgio, Joseph; Karlaftis, Vasilis M; Wang, Rui; Shen, Yuan; Tino, Peter; Welchman, Andrew; Kourtzi, Zoe

2017-08-18

Making predictions about future events relies on interpreting streams of information that may initially appear incomprehensible. This skill relies on extracting regular patterns in space and time by mere exposure to the environment (i.e., without explicit feedback). Yet, we know little about the functional brain networks that mediate this type of statistical learning. Here, we test whether changes in the processing and connectivity of functional brain networks due to training relate to our ability to learn temporal regularities. By combining behavioral training and functional brain connectivity analysis, we demonstrate that individuals adapt to the environment's statistics as they change over time from simple repetition to probabilistic combinations. Further, we show that individual learning of temporal structures relates to decision strategy. Our fMRI results demonstrate that learning-dependent changes in fMRI activation within and functional connectivity between brain networks relate to individual variability in strategy. In particular, extracting the exact sequence statistics (i.e., matching) relates to changes in brain networks known to be involved in memory and stimulus-response associations, while selecting the most probable outcomes in a given context (i.e., maximizing) relates to changes in frontal and striatal networks. Thus, our findings provide evidence that dissociable brain networks mediate individual ability in learning behaviorally-relevant statistics. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Evaluating and Implementing Learning Environments: A United Kingdom Experience.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ingraham, Bruce; Watson, Barbara; McDowell, Liz; Brockett, Adrian; Fitzpatrick, Simon

2002-01-01

Reports on ongoing work at five universities in northeastern England that have been evaluating and implementing online learning environments known as virtual learning environments (VLEs) or managed learning environments (MLEs). Discusses do-it-yourself versus commercial systems; transferability; Web-based versus client-server; integration with…

Group Modeling in Social Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stankov, Slavomir; Glavinic, Vlado; Krpan, Divna

2012-01-01

Students' collaboration while learning could provide better learning environments. Collaboration assumes social interactions which occur in student groups. Social theories emphasize positive influence of such interactions on learning. In order to create an appropriate learning environment that enables social interactions, it is important to…

The clinical learning environment in nursing education: a concept analysis.

PubMed

Flott, Elizabeth A; Linden, Lois

2016-03-01

The aim of this study was to report an analysis of the clinical learning environment concept. Nursing students are evaluated in clinical learning environments where skills and knowledge are applied to patient care. These environments affect achievement of learning outcomes, and have an impact on preparation for practice and student satisfaction with the nursing profession. Providing clarity of this concept for nursing education will assist in identifying antecedents, attributes and consequences affecting student transition to practice. The clinical learning environment was investigated using Walker and Avant's concept analysis method. A literature search was conducted using WorldCat, MEDLINE and CINAHL databases using the keywords clinical learning environment, clinical environment and clinical education. Articles reviewed were written in English and published in peer-reviewed journals between 1995-2014. All data were analysed for recurring themes and terms to determine possible antecedents, attributes and consequences of this concept. The clinical learning environment contains four attribute characteristics affecting student learning experiences. These include: (1) the physical space; (2) psychosocial and interaction factors; (3) the organizational culture and (4) teaching and learning components. These attributes often determine achievement of learning outcomes and student self-confidence. With better understanding of attributes comprising the clinical learning environment, nursing education programmes and healthcare agencies can collaborate to create meaningful clinical experiences and enhance student preparation for the professional nurse role. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Learning strategies and general cognitive ability as predictors of gender- specific academic achievement

PubMed Central

Ruffing, Stephanie; Wach, F. -Sophie; Spinath, Frank M.; Brünken, Roland; Karbach, Julia

2015-01-01

Recent research has revealed that learning behavior is associated with academic achievement at the college level, but the impact of specific learning strategies on academic success as well as gender differences therein are still not clear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in the incremental contribution of learning strategies over general cognitive ability in the prediction of academic achievement. The relationship between these variables was examined by correlation analyses. A set of t-tests was used to test for gender differences in learning strategies, whereas structural equation modeling as well as multi-group analyses were applied to investigate the incremental contribution of learning strategies for male and female students’ academic performance. The sample consisted of 461 students (mean age = 21.2 years, SD = 3.2). Correlation analyses revealed that general cognitive ability as well as the learning strategies effort, attention, and learning environment were positively correlated with academic achievement. Gender differences were found in the reported application of many learning strategies. Importantly, the prediction of achievement in structural equation modeling revealed that only effort explained incremental variance (10%) over general cognitive ability. Results of multi-group analyses showed no gender differences in this prediction model. This finding provides further knowledge regarding gender differences in learning research and the specific role of learning strategies for academic achievement. The incremental assessment of learning strategy use as well as gender-differences in their predictive value contributes to the understanding and improvement of successful academic development. PMID:26347698

Learning strategies and general cognitive ability as predictors of gender- specific academic achievement.

PubMed

Ruffing, Stephanie; Wach, F-Sophie; Spinath, Frank M; Brünken, Roland; Karbach, Julia

2015-01-01

Recent research has revealed that learning behavior is associated with academic achievement at the college level, but the impact of specific learning strategies on academic success as well as gender differences therein are still not clear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in the incremental contribution of learning strategies over general cognitive ability in the prediction of academic achievement. The relationship between these variables was examined by correlation analyses. A set of t-tests was used to test for gender differences in learning strategies, whereas structural equation modeling as well as multi-group analyses were applied to investigate the incremental contribution of learning strategies for male and female students' academic performance. The sample consisted of 461 students (mean age = 21.2 years, SD = 3.2). Correlation analyses revealed that general cognitive ability as well as the learning strategies effort, attention, and learning environment were positively correlated with academic achievement. Gender differences were found in the reported application of many learning strategies. Importantly, the prediction of achievement in structural equation modeling revealed that only effort explained incremental variance (10%) over general cognitive ability. Results of multi-group analyses showed no gender differences in this prediction model. This finding provides further knowledge regarding gender differences in learning research and the specific role of learning strategies for academic achievement. The incremental assessment of learning strategy use as well as gender-differences in their predictive value contributes to the understanding and improvement of successful academic development.

Development of a structured undergraduate research experience: Framework and implications.

PubMed

Brown, Anne M; Lewis, Stephanie N; Bevan, David R

2016-09-10

Participating in undergraduate research can be a pivotal experience for students in life science disciplines. Development of critical thinking skills, in addition to conveying scientific ideas in oral and written formats, is essential to ensuring that students develop a greater understanding of basic scientific knowledge and the research process. Modernizing the current life sciences research environment to accommodate the growing demand by students for experiential learning is needed. By developing and implementing a structured, theory-based approach to undergraduate research in the life sciences, specifically biochemistry, it has been successfully shown that more students can be provided with a high-quality, high-impact research experience. The structure of this approach allowed students to develop novel, independent projects in a computational molecular modeling lab. Students engaged in an experience in which career goals, problem-solving skills, time management skills, and independence in a research lab were developed. After experiencing this approach to undergraduate research, students reported feeling challenged to think critically and prepared for future career paths. The approach allowed for a progressive learning environment where more undergraduate students could participate in publishable research. Future areas for development include implementation in a bench-top lab and extension to disciplines beyond biochemistry. In this study, it has been shown that utilizing the structured approach to undergraduate research could allow for more students to experience undergraduate research and develop into more confident, independent life scientists well prepared for graduate schools and professional research environments. © 2016 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 44(5):463-474, 2016. © 2016 The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Educational environment and approaches to learning of undergraduate nursing students in an Indonesian school of nursing.

PubMed

Rochmawati, Erna; Rahayu, Gandes Retno; Kumara, Amitya

2014-11-01

The aims of this study were to assess students' perceptions of their educational environment and approaches to learning, and determine if perceptions of learning environment associates with approaches to learning. A survey was conducted to collect data from a regional private university in Indonesia. A total of 232 nursing students completed two questionnaires that measured their perceptions of educational environment and approaches to learning. The measurement was based on Dundee Ready Education Environment Measurement (DREEM) and Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST). Five learning environments dimensions and three learning approaches dimensions from two measures were measured. The overall score of DREEM was 131.03/200 (SD 17.04), it was in the range considered to be favourable. The overall score is different significantly between years of study (p value = 0.01). This study indicated that the majority of undergraduate nursing students' adopt strategic approach (n = 139. 59.9%). The finding showed that perceived educational environment significantly associated with approaches to learning. This study implicated the need to maintain conducive learning environment. There is also a need to improve the management of learning activities that reflect the use of student-centered learning. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Performance Evaluation of an Online Argumentation Learning Assistance Agent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Chenn-Jung; Wang, Yu-Wu; Huang, Tz-Hau; Chen, Ying-Chen; Chen, Heng-Ming; Chang, Shun-Chih

2011-01-01

Recent research indicated that students' ability to construct evidence-based explanations in classrooms through scientific inquiry is critical to successful science education. Structured argumentation support environments have been built and used in scientific discourse in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, no research work in the…

Mod Genius

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grayson, Jennifer

2010-01-01

This article discusses how Watkinson School head John Bracker was able to accomplish the school's plan of having a new science building that would meet all of their needs: innovative building that offers a range of eco-friendly features, an inspiring learning environment, and even better, the right price. Bracker contemplates on a structure that…

Use of Computer Assisted Instruction for Teaching Mathematics to the Disadvantaged.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gipson, Joella

The instructional needs of culturally disadvantaged students must be differentiated from the needs of slow learners and from the needs of mentally retarded children. The characteristics of a disadvantaged student's family structure, home environment, and neighborhood all affect his learning potential. The special needs of disadvantaged students…

Strategies to Affect Student Awareness of Natural and Social Environments in Outdoor Education: A Resource Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peters, Richard O.

Several instructional strategies have been developed and employed to affect student awareness of natural and social environmental settings. Three instructional strategy orientations have been structured for affecting student conceptual learning and values acquisition-clarification: affective, cognitive, and affective-cognitive. Outdoor education…