Title: LRSC 500: Cognition, Instruction, Design of Learning Environments Learning and Transfer
1LRSC 500 Cognition, Instruction, Design of
Learning EnvironmentsLearning and Transfer
Part 1
2Overview of Class
- Discuss expert interviews
- Big Ideas in Sociocultural Perspective
- Historical roots in psychology, sociology,
anthropology, philosophy of meaning,
communication - Relationships to activity theory, discourse, and
identity - Orientation to Learning and Transfer
- Overview from Course Website noted six important
ideas and - Several issues and questions.
- The four centers and implications of work on
learning and transfer for the design of
environments. - Focus this class mostly on the learning theory
(associative, cognitive, situative) perspectives
with some attention to social aspects - Implications for design of learning environments
- Will spend last part of todays class exploring
an environment
3Sociocultural Perspective Big Ideas
- Looks at learning as it occurs in a larger
interpersonal system characterized by physical,
social, and cultural properties. - Learning and development are located in the
interactions of individuals with the physical,
social, and cultural worlds. - Learning takes place in an interpersonal system
in which people have identities, engage in
activity, and use language for thinking and
communicating.
4Historical Roots Perspectives in Psych
- Behaviorist the stimulus in the environment. No
attention to the individual - Cognitive How the individual operates on the
environment. - What does it attend to, process, store, etc.
- What strategies does the individual use?
- Ecological Psychology
- Looks at the systems within which an individual
is located. Example from Bronfenbrenners work - Russian Psychology
- Learning is mediated by cultural means,
artifacts, and signs - Community Psychology
- Looks at people within their social worlds
5Russian Psychology
- Originated in Lev Vygotskys work.
- Contemporary of Pavlov
- Vygotsky emphasized that learning was not simply
coming to associate stimulus with response. - Learning was mediated through cultural means,
artifacts, and signs - Cultural means includes people, language
(discourse) - Gave rise to Activity or
- Activity Systems Theory
- Contemporary view Engeström
6Activity TheoryCultural Historical Activity
Theory
7Engeströms Current View of Activity System
Downloaded 9/18/2006 from http//www.edu.helsinki.
fi/activity/pages/chatanddwr/chat/
8Bronfenbrenners Ecological Systems Approach
9Historical Roots Other Disciplines
- Sociology
- Emphasizes behavior of groups and interplay
between the group and the individual - Anthropology
- Emphasis on culture of communities and the ways
of thinking and learning embodied in the culture - Laves (1990) piece Views of the Classroom argues
for expanding beyond the cognitive view to the
social context of the classroom. - Communication
- Emphasis on sending, receiving, interpreting
messages. What is intended? What is understood? - Discourse - a cultural tool. Obviously key in
communication. Spans disciplines.
10Community Psychology
- McMillan (1976) McMillan and Chavis (1986)
- Four elements to community
- Membership
- Influence
- Integration and fulfillment of needs
- Shared emotional connection
- Sense of community is a feeling that members
have of belonging, a feeling that members matter
to one another and to the group, and a shared
faith that members needs will be met through
their commitment to be together. - Gee discusses Discourse Communities
- You have to have the discourse to achieve sense
of community.
11Cognitive and Sociocultural Summary of Basic
Contrasts
- Roots of sociocultural perspective lie within
psychology but connect with foci of other
disciplines (e.g., sociology, anthropology,
semiotics (linguistics/philosophy of meaning)) - At its simplest the distinction between a basic
cognitive approach and a sociocultural one is
between in the head versus the head in the
social, cultural, historical context. - Focus on the learner versus focus on the broader
social, cultural, and situational circumstances - How do Cognitive and Sociocultural relate to four
centers of hpl framework?
12Learning by Doing
- Affordances what are they?
- Small group activity
- Solve a mathematics problem
13Solve the Following Math Problemand Explain Your
Answer
105 - 79
Does the layout matter? How? Are there different
relations that you notice?
14A Second Math Problem to Solve and Explain Your
Answer
102 ?
32 x 15 ?
But this time I am going to give you a tool.
Units, tens and hundreds blocks.
15What does this diagram show?
v15sec
15 sec
v10sec
10 sec
v5sec
5 sec
v0sec
0 sec
16Affordances in Technology-Based Learning
Environments
- Quest Atlantis
- My World
- SimCalc
- ThinkerTools
- Inquiry Island
17Overview Important Observations
- 1. Transfer is difficult to observe in laboratory
or controlled experimental circumstances yet we
can all come up with many everyday examples of
people using what they already know to reason
about new situations. - 2. Differences between everyday sense of transfer
and researchers definitions of transfer. - 3. There are many perspectives on transfer and on
the relationship between learning and transfer. - 4. Motivation, affect, identity influence
learning and transfer as do social processes such
as expectancies. Identity includes concept of
self-as-learner. What influence do these
phenomena have on learning and transfer? Do they
change just the likelihood of it occurring or do
they change the way it occurs? - 5. Scaffolding and feedback on performance are
critical elements of the learning process. - 6. Some individuals demonstrate expert learning
in informal settings (e.g., playgrounds, museums,
street corner games) yet show little evidence of
using this knowledge in formal school
environments. Likewise, what is learned in school
is often not used outside of school. How can we
understand this phenomenon? What are the
alternative views of learning and transfer and
what position do they take on this apparent
"lack" of transfer?
18Learning and Transfer A Generation Activity
- How are learning and transfer related?
- How are adaptive knowledge and flexibility
related to learning and transfer? - If learning is situated - rooted in context -
what transfers and how does it occur? - Why is motivation seen as playing a powerful role
in learning and transfer? - Your Challenge as indicated on the plan for
today (20 min.) - Use the readings for today to generate ideas on
these questions. - Refer to articles to support your ideas.
- Use the articles to pull out these ideas.
- Look at what you pulled out and compare with key
points that we pulled out. - Material in the powerpoint that will synthesize
and summarize.
19Views of Learning and Transfer - 1
- Associationist Key to transfer is the presence
of shared elements. - Cognitive Key to transfer is the ability to
match the relationship from previous learning to
new concepts. - Recap of important ideas from Cognitive
perspective - Situative Key is becoming attuned to features
of the environment that support particular
activities. Invariant features - meaning the
relation for example between depth and
displacement of water. (a principle) - Improved participation in interactive system.
Learning the affordances that are important to
notice in a system. (Greeno, et al.1993) - (Summarized in Dennis and Sternberg)
-
20Recap Learning Transfer Highlights from
Cognitive Perspective
- Features of learning affecting transfer
- Amount kind of initial learning
- Learning with understanding vs. procedural
learning - Well-learned or learned sufficiently to promote
use? - Motivation time - Sufficient practice over
extended period of time - Opportunities to use knowledge
- Feedback and awareness of learning processes
- Role of feedback and form of feedback
- Metacognitive monitoring
- Contexts for learning
- Multiple contexts (Help people see what
principles are general) - Contrasting cases (Make salient critical elements
that are similar or different) - Abstract representations
- Common elements
21Cognitive/Associationist Views of Learning and
Transfer
- Features of learning affecting transfer
- Amount kind of initial learning
- Learning with understanding vs. procedural
learning -gt - Sufficient practice over extended period of time
- Opportunities to use knowledge
- Role of feedback and form of feedback
- Metacognitive monitoring
22Procedures and Understanding Solve and Share
- A Caterer has four sheet cakes to bring to a
party. Based on the number of guests, she decides
to make the portions three-fifths of a cake. How
many portions will this produce? - Solve
- Consider following questions
What kind of problem is this? What procedure
works? Why does the procedure work? What other
way can you get the answer and explain it?
23Learning with Understanding versus Procedural
Learning
- Learning with understanding supports transfer
- More than just learning procedures
- Organized around principles in the domain
- Specific as well as abstract (representations
become schematized over opportunities to notice
important features of the learning situation) - Tension between specific, situated learning and
generalized or abstract learning that is not
connected to prior knowledge and beliefs. - Whats the process of transfer?
-
-
24Whats the Process of Transfer?
- Whats the process?
- Transfer-through-abstraction versus
- Transfer based on overlapping and more concrete
features - Concrete features become more idealized with
multiple instances that systematically fade to
the more stylized. Goldstone and Son (2005) - Knowledge supporting transfer must somehow
account for (rather than overlook) contextual
differences across otherwise similar activities.
(Wagner, 2006) Knowledge-in-pieces - increasingly
come to be able to use the knowledge across a
broader set of circumstances. - Alternative View of Transfer Preparation for
Future Learning.
25Transfer as Preparation for Future Learning
- A cognitive view that takes context into account
to a degree. - Bransford Schwartz, 1999 Schwartz Martin
(2004) - read for next time. - Basic idea Prior knowledge is used in every
learning situation. This is a form of
transferring in what you already know. What
researchers typically look at is transfer out -
what can be applied to a new problem solving
task. - Schwartz argues for a reconceptualization of
transfer out as readiness to benefit from
learning experience/event/ environment. - The issue of transfer should be reconceptualized
to look at how prior learning experiences get
people ready to benefit from the next learning
opportunity. - What do learners bring to the next task from
prior tasks? - Represented in diagram (page 147 of Schwartz
Martin, 2004 - reading for next class).
26Schwartz Martin (2004) Fig. 4
Transfer in helps people learn
Transfer out helps people apply what they learned
PFL can be interpreted as looking at different
affordances of learning treatments A and B for
subsequent learning and application.
27Views of Learning and Transfer - 2
- Situative
- Learner becomes attuned to or sensitive to the
invariant features of the environment that
support certain activities (Greeno, Smith,
Moore, 1993) - engaging an intentionally bound system such that
particular goals can be accomplished (Barab
Roth (2006), pg. 9) - Transfer can occur when individuals begin to see
different contexts as having similar underlying
affordance structures - even in the context of
differing contextual particulars. (Barab Roth
(2006), pg. 11) - Barab Roth provide something of a bridge
between situative and sociocultural, as youll
see next week. - Given these various views on transfer, lets
consider the teaching challenge.
28The Teaching Challenge
- How are adaptive knowledge and flexibility
related to learning and transfer? - An example from teacher education
- What are the conditions of learning that support
adaptive and flexible knowledge? - What are the conditions of instruction that
support adaptive and flexible knowledge?
29Learning to Teach
- Students required to take courses in content,
content pedagogy, development relevant to the
grade level(s) they will be teaching - Students placed in classrooms throughout
preservice education so they can - Observe teachers teaching and students learning
- Lesson planning, scope and sequence
- Create a vision of what they would like their
classrooms to look like - Students have an actual teaching experience
(student teaching) prior to certification - One semester, single placement (specific grade
level, specific school) - Model how to teach in the classroom placement
- Provide feedback on students lesson plan for a
to-be-observed lesson - Include opportunities for student to be observed
and receive feedback on observations during the
student teacher experience - Model how to complete attendance sheets and other
administrative forms, administration of required
assessments, parent conferences - How to establish classroom management norms
30Learning to Teach What to add and why?Comments
from class
Need a mentor during first years of teaching.
Any practice youve done that is close to the
classroom will help. In preservice you do
complete, bloated lesson plans but when you
actually have to teach, having done the extensive
ones you know what you need from them and
streamline them. What would a mentor teacher do,
say, provide? How would that help? Mentor would
affirm adaptations you make can also watch how
you do classroom management - and give you
feedback can give you context specific training
in that school. Mentor can tell you how our
school works knowledge of the learner and the
community. How do you know that someone is
learning how to teach in preservice coursework?
Hard to know until you are actually in the
performance. You cant prepare for everything
isnt that the purpose of student teaching? But
your own classroom is different -- autonomy
still following rules put in place by the
teacher. Suppose you did have autonomy - would we
be better able to determine how well people had
learned to teach? Somewhat. Why do we have
classes if you learn how to teach in your first
year? Is a semester sufficient time to learn all
these things? Is going from student teaching to
your first year of teaching a case of transfer?
Vertical transfer - building on prior
experiences attempting to apply theory you are
given. Not necessarily something you can apply.
What other supports for learning to teach might
there be? Peer interaction and evaluation of
teaching practices. Community within methods
course. I suggested what would happen if you had
a lot of video cases to look at, analyze,
critique. Making what the teacher is doing
visible to the teacher candidate.
31Design of Learning Environments to Support
Learning and Transfer
- Exploration of an inquiry environment for science
- WISE http//www.wise.berkeley.edu
- How is it designed?
- What kind of learning does it support and how
does it support it? - What will users learn that will transfer?
- Specific Project to explore Design an energy
efficient house for the desert. - Share with us your ideas on the questions.
- How does WISE deal with the 4 HPL centers
(knowledge, learner, assessment, community)