Cogmaster 2011_EP0

EP0. Learning Sciences Elena Pasquinelli Educa4on, cogni4on, cerveau Cogmaster 2010‐2011

•  A new ﬁeld of research: the science of learning •  Un4l quite recently, cogni4ve science steered clear of educa4on, while the sciences of educa4on tended to ignore cogni4ve science. •  Things have changed over the last few years, and there is now quite a lot of interac4on between the two ﬁelds.

How does neuroscience, and more broadly cogni4ve science, interact with educa4on? What are the themes and the models at work? What are the major models of learning? Behaviorism, gene4c epistemology, cogni4vism, construc4vism, situated approaches in cogni4ve science, conceptual change theory, will be presented and compared. What can philosophy of science teach us about the nature of the applied science at work? What counts as scien4fic evidence in this context? How do we measure the effects of a given factor? How can one account for extra‐cogni4ve (social, poli4cal, historical, ideological) factors affec4ng learning and educa4on? What are some concrete examples of prac4cal applica4ons of experimental and neuro‐imaging methods in such areas as numerical cogni4on and reading skills?

LEARNING SCIENCES

Learning sciences (large view) •  “Learning sciences is an interdisciplinary field that studies teaching and learning. •  Learning scien4sts study learning in a variety of se=ngs, including not only the more formal learning of school classrooms but also the informal learning that takes place at home, on the job, and among peers. •  The goal of the learning sciences is to beTer understand the cogni?ve and social processes that result in the most effec?ve learning, and to use this knowledge to redesign classrooms and other learning environments so that people learn more deeply and more effec?vely. •  The sciences of learning include cogni&ve science, educa&onal psychology, computer science, anthropology, sociology, informa&on sciences, neurosciences, educa&on, design studies, instruc&onal design, and other fields.” (Sawyer, 2009, p. xi)

Learning sciences Research fields Applica4on Objec4ves fields BeTer understanding of Cogni4ve and social Formal, informal, non learning processes processes formal learning Cogni4ve sciences, psychology, Design environments for anthropology, sociology, beTer learning ar4ficial intelligence, neurosciences, educa4onal sciences (economy, philosophy, Promote beTer learning history, design)

OBJECTIVES, METHODS, AND REASONS FOR A SCIENCE OF LEARNING (OR AN APPLIED SCIENCE OF EDUCATION)

Objec4ves •  Objec?ves: –  Understand learning •  Exploit the beTer comprehension of Neutral vision: learning processes made available by a design large pool of sciences, without forge[ng that learning is a social process environments for •  Use diﬀerent methods for evalua4ng learning beTer learning environments and outcomes –  Build the condi4ons for beTer learning –  Promo4ng beTer forms of learning Engaged vision: (adapted to XXI century needs) foster beTer learning

Methods •  « The golden standard of scien4fic •  A general aim of objec4vity and methodology is the experimental design, in of understanding which students are randomly assigned to different learning environments. –  What works •  Many educa4on studies are quasi‐ –  Why it works experimental … they iden4fy two exis4ng Vs. the dominion of intui4on and classrooms that seem to be iden4cal in every tradi4on way, ans use one teaching method in one classroom, a different teching method in another classroom, and analyze which students learn more and beTer. •  … learning scien4sts have drawn on •  Experimental: randomized, ethnography … ethnomethodology and controlled trials conversa4on analysis … and sociocultural •  Quasi‐experimental: anthropology… » •  « Many learning scien4sts study the correla4onal studies moment‐to‐moment processes of learning, •  Longitudinal studies typically by gathering large amonts of •  Qualita4ve observa4ons videotape data, and they use a range of methodoloies … known as interac4on analysis … » •  « … learning scien4sts also study longer term learning … » (Sawyer, 2009, p. 13‐14)

Reason 1. Learning is a pervasive human ac4vity •  “Learning is a basic, adap4ve func4on of humans. Learning is a human basic, adap4ve, More than any other species, people are designed to pervasive func4on. be ﬂexible learners and ac4ve agents in acquiring knowledge and skills. People learn all their life long, •  Much of what people learn occurs without formal instruc4on, but highly systema4c and organized everywhere, in informal se[ngs. informa4on systems—reading, mathema4cs, the But formal se[ngs have been created sciences, literature, and the history of a society— require formal training, usually in schools. Over 4me, too. science, mathema4cs, and history have posed new problems for learning because of their growing volume and increasing complexity. The value of the knowledge taught in school also began to be examined for its applicability to situa4ons outside school. •  Science now oﬀers new concep4ons of the learning process and the development of competent performance. Recent research provides a deep understanding of complex reasoning and performance on problem‐solving tasks and how skill and understanding in key subjects are acquired. This book presents a contemporary account of principles of learning, and this summary provides an overview of the new science of learning.” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. XI)

Reason 2. Societal transforma4ons •  “… the schools we have today were designed around commonsense assump4ons that had never been tested scien4ﬁcally: –  Knowledge is a collec4on of facts about the world and procedures for how to solve problems… –  The goal of schooling is to get these facts and procedures into the student’s From industrial head… society to –  Teachers know these facts and procedures, and their job is to transmit them to students. knowledge society –  Simpler facts and procedures should be learned ﬁrst… –  The way to determine the success of schooling is to tests students to see how many of these facts and procedures they have acquired. •  This tradi4onal vision of schooling is known as instruc4onism (Papert, 2003). Instruc4onism prepares students for the industrialized economy of the early twen4eth century. … In the knowledge economy memoriza4on of facts and procedures is not enough for success. Educated graduates need a deep conceptual understanding of complex concepts, and the ability to work with them crea4vely to generate new ideas, new products, and new knowledge. They need to be able to cri4cally evaluate what they read, to be capable of express themselves clearly, … to learn integrated and usable knowledge, … to take responsibility for their con4nuing, lifelong learning.” (Sawyer, 2009, p. 1‐2)

Reason 3. Accumula4on of knowledge •  “Learning science is now over twenty years old … the scien4ﬁc community has reached a consensus about some of the most important discoveries about learning.” New sciences produce new •  “Beginning in the 1970s a new knowledge, which is meaningful science of learning was born – based for learning and educa4on in research emerging from psychology, computer science, philosophy, sociology, and other scien4ﬁc disciplines. … By the 1990s, aner about twenty years of research learning researchers had reached consensus on … basic facts about learning – a consensus that was published by the United States Research Na4onal Council…” (Sawyer, 2009, p. 2‐3)

3.a Disciplinary knowledge on •  “Un4l quite recently, understanding the mind—and the thinking and learning that the mind makes possible—has mind and brain, on educa4on, on remained an elusive quest, in part because of a lack of technology, … powerful research tools. Today, the world is in the midst of an extraordinary outpouring of scien4fic work on the mind and brain, on the processes of thinking and 3.b Interdisciplinary knowledge learning, on the neural processes that occur during thought and learning, and on the development of (new research field on learning) competence. •  The revolu4on in the study of the mind that has occurred in the last three or four decades has important 3.c Transdisciplinary knowledge implica4ons for educa4on. As we illustrate, a new theory (new applica4ve discipline of of learning is coming into focus that leads to very different approaches to the design of curriculum, educa4on with strong scien4fic teaching, and assessment than those onen found in background on learning) schools today. Equally important, the growth of interdisciplinary inquiries and new kinds of scien4fic collabora4ons have begun to make the path from basic research to educa4onal prac4ce somewhat more visible, if not yet easy to travel. Thirty years ago, educators paid liTle aTen4on to the work of cogni4ve scien4sts, and researchers in the nascent field of cogni4ve science worked far removed from classrooms. Today, cogni4ve researchers are spending more 4me working with teachers, tes4ng and refining their theories in real classrooms where they can see how different se[ngs and classroom interac4ons influence applica4ons of their theories.” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. 3)

Issues •  What is learning? •  Which are the main learning mechanisms? –  For reading? –  For mathema4cs? •  Which is the role of emo4onal states in learning? •  How social interac4ons inﬂuence learning? •  What are the constraints to learning •  Why are certain learning environments beTer than others? •  …?

A BIT OF HISTORY

1. Dissa4sfac4on with behaviorism •  “By the turn of the century, a new school of behaviorism was emerging. In reac4on to the subjec4vity inherent in introspec4on, behaviorists held that the scien4fic study of psychology must restrict itself to the study of observable behaviors and the s4mulus condi4ons that control them. •  Drawing on the empiricist tradi4on, behaviorists conceptualized learning as a process of forming connec4ons between s4muli and responses. Mo4va4on to learn was assumed to be driven primarily by drives, such as hunger, and the availability of external forces, such as rewards and punishments (e.g., Thorndike, 1913; Skinner, 1950).” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. 6‐8) •  “In the mid 1950s, behaviorism was the prevailing orthodoxy in American psychological science. B. F. Skinner and other behaviorists believed that a scien4fic psychology had to be based solely on observed behavior. For the behaviorists, acceptable psychological explana4ons could appeal only to observable environmental s4muli and to the observable responses the s4muli evoked from organisms. Appeals to mysterious, unobservable mental processes were scien4fically inadmissible. There could be no science of the mind –such a no4on was self‐contradictory, behaviorists claimed. On their theory, to teach an animal a new behavior you expose it to appropriate environmental s4muli and reward it when it makes the proper response. In educa4on, behaviorist learning theory emphasized arranging the student’s environment so that s4muli occurred in a way that would ins4ll the desired s4mulus‐response chains. •  Teachers would present lessons in small, manageable pieces (s4muli), ask students to give answers (responses), and then dispense reinforcement (preferably posi4ve rather than nega4ve) un4l their students became condi4oned to give the right answers.” (Bruer, 1993, p. 3) •  A limita4on of early behaviorism stemmed from its focus on observable s4mulus condi4ons and the behaviors associated with those condi4ons. This orienta4on made it difficult to study such phenomena as understanding, reasoning, and thinking—phenomena that are of paramount importance for educa4on..” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. 6‐8)

Behaviorism (J.B. Watson) •  J.B. Watson, 1913: Psychology “Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objec4ve experimental branch of natural science. Its theore4cal goal is as the behaviorist sees it the predic4on and control of behavior. Introspec4on forms • Learning allows no essen4al part of its methods, nor is the scien4fic value of organisms to acquire its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend habits that respond more themselves to interpreta4on in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal or less well to the s4muli response, recognizes no dividing line between man and of their environment brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and •  S4muli and responses complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorists total scheme of inves4ga4on. are closely connected, and can be extracted one from The psychology which I should aTempt to build up would the other take as a star4ng point, first, the observable fact that organisms, man and animal alike, do adjust themselves to their environment by means of hereditary and habit equipments. These adjustments may be very adequate or they may be so inadequate that the organism barely maintains its existence; secondly, that certain s4muli lead the organisms to make the responses. In a system of psychology completely worked out, given the response the s4muli can be predicted; given the s4muli the response can be predicted. Such a set of statements is crass and raw in the extreme, as all such generaliza4ons must be.” (Watson, 1913)

Radical Behaviorism (B. F. Skinner) 1938: The behavior of organisms •  Operant condi4oning: • S4muli in the environment • Response (behavior) on the side of the organism • When a paTern of s4mulus‐response is rewarded (reinforcement), the organism is condi4oned to respond 1. Behavior that is posi4vely reinforced will reoccur; • It is not just elici4ng intermiTent reinforcement is par4cularly eﬀec4ve responses (classic 2. Informa4on should be presented in small amounts condi4oning), but so that responses can be reinforced ("shaping") reinforcing the organism’s 3. Reinforcements will generalize across similar s4muli responses ("s4mulus generaliza4on") producing secondary condi4oning

Behaviorism and educa4on: note the analogies with the new science of learning (and the disanalogies) •  The teaching machine 1. Prac4ce should take the form of ques4on (s4mulus) ‐ answer (response) frames which expose the student to the subject in gradual steps 2. Require that the learner make a response for every frame and receive immediate feedback 3. Try to arrange the diﬃculty of the ques4ons so the response is always correct and hence a posi4ve reinforcement 4. Ensure that good performance in the lesson is paired with secondary reinforcers such as verbal praise, prizes and good grades.

•  Some 4me ago I was called upon to make a study of certain species of birds. Un4l I went to Tortugass I • Ground had never seen these birds alive. When I reached there I found the animals doing certain things: some of the acts seemed to work peculiarly well in such an environment, while others seemed to be unsuited observa4on of to their type of life. I first studied the responses of the group as a whole and later those of individuals. In s4muli and order to understand more thoroughly the rela4on between what was habit and what was hereditary in these responses, I took the young birds and reared them. In this way I was able to study the order of behaviors appearance of hereditary adjustments and their complexity, and later the beginnings of habit forma4on. (learned) •  My efforts in determining the s4muli which called forth such adjustments were crude indeed. Consequently my aTempts to control behavior and to produce responses at will did not meet with much • Laboratory, success. Their food and water, sex and other social rela4ons, light and temperature condi4ons were all controlled beyond control in a field study. I did find it possible to control their reac4ons in a measure by using the nest and egg (or young) as s4muli. It is not necessary in this paper to develop further how such a study experiments should be carried out and how work of this kind must be supplemented by carefully controlled • Prac4cal goal of laboratory experiments. applying •  Had I been called upon to examine the na4ves of some of the Australian tribes, I should have gone about my task in the same way. I should have found the problem more difficult: the types of responses psychological called forth by physical s4muli would have been more varied, and the number of effec4ve s4muli larger. studies to I should have had to determine the social se[ng of their lives in a far more careful way. These savages would be more influenced by the responses of each other than was the case with the birds. educa4on, law, … Furthermore, habits would have been more complex and the influences of past habits upon the present • Problems of responses would have appeared more clearly. Finally, if I had been called upon to work out the psychology of the educated European, my problem would have required several life4mes. applicability •  But in the one I have at my disposal I should have followed the same general line of aTack. In the main, my desire in all such work is to gain an accurate knowledge of adjustments and the s?muli calling them forth. •  My final reason for this is to learn general and par4cular methods by which I may control behavior. •  … If psychology would follow the plan I suggest, the educator, the physician, the jurist and the business man could u4lize our data in a prac4cal way, as soon as we are able, experimentally, to obtain them. Ask any physician or jurist today whether scien4fic psychology plays a prac4cal part in his daily rou4ne and you will hear him deny that the psychology of the laboratories finds a place in his scheme of work. I think the cri4cism is extremely just. One of the earliest condi4ons which made me dissa4sfied with psychology was the feeling that there was no realm of applica4on for the principles which were being worked out in content terms. (Watson, 1913)

What’s missing in the descrip4on of the learning process made by behaviorists? •  Hardwired & sonwired constraints –  Previous knowledge –  Func4onal architecture

2a. Cogni4ve theory of learning •  Construc4vism: “In the 1960s and 1970s, –  Jean Piaget Jean Piaget’s wri4ngs •  Knowledge structures of children are became widely qualita4vely different from adults’ influen4al in America, •  Developmental stages towards logic thought educa4on. Before Piaget, •  Adapta4on to the world: disequilibra4on and most people held the re‐equilibra4on via assimila4on/accomoda4on commonsense belief that processes children have less –  Vygotsky: social construc4on of knowledge knowledge than adults … –  Jérôme Bruner what’s even more •  Adapta4on of Piaget’s epistemology and of important to learning is Vygotsky social construc4vism to educa4on, but that children’s minds without stages contain different –  Seymour Papert knowledge •  Construc4onism: learning by construc4on structures…” (Sawyer, 2009, p. 5)

Construc4vism, social construc4vism and construc4onisms “Piagets theory relates how children become progressively detached from the world of concrete objects and local con4ngencies, gradually becoming able to mentally manipulate symbolic objects within a realm of hypothe4cal worlds. He studied childrens increasing ability to extract rules from empirical regulari4es and to build cogni4ve invariants. He emphasized the importance of such cogni4ve invariants as means of interpre4ng and organizing the world. One could say that Piagets interest was in the assimila4on pole. His theory emphasizes all those things needed to maintain the internal structure and organiza4on of the cogni4ve system. And what Piaget describes par4cularly well is precisely this internal structure and organiza4on of knowledge at diﬀerent levels of development. ” (Ackerman, 2001, p. 7) Seymour Papert of MassachuseTs Ins4tute of Technologies developed a theory of learning based upon Piaget’s construc4vism. Note that Papert worked with Piaget in Geneva in the late 1950’ies and early 1960’ies. In his own words: “Construc-onism—the N word as opposed to the V word— shares contruc-vism’s view of learning as “building knowledge structures” through progressive internaliza-on of ac-ons… It then adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in construc-ng a public en-ty, whether it’s a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe (Papert, 1991, p.1) Stressing the importance of externaliza4ons as a means to augment the unaided mind is not new. Vygotsky has spent his en4re life studying the role of cultural ar4facts—tools, language, people—as a resource for drawing the best out of every person’s cogni4ve poten4al. So have many other researchers in the socio‐construc4vist tradi4on. The diﬀerence, as I see it, lays in 3 things: 1. In the role such external aids are meant to play at higher levels of a person’s development, 2. In the types of external aids, or media, studied (Papert focuses on digital media and computer‐based technologies) and more important, 3. In the type of ini4a4ve the learner takes in the design of her own “objects to think with.” (Ackerman, 2001, p. 5)

2b. Cogni4ve revolu4on •  “In the late 1950s, the complexity of understanding humans and their environments became increasingly apparent, and a new field emerged—cogni?ve science. From its incep4on, cogni4ve science approached learning from a mul4disciplinary perspec4ve that included anthropology, 1956: MIT linguis4cs, philosophy, developmental psychology, computer science, neuroscience, and several symposium branches of psychology .” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. 6‐8) – Birth of cogni4ve science •  “The 1956 MIT symposium and the subsequent cogni4ve revolu4on in psychology were the first steps toward this applied educa4onal science. and of its •  Presenta4ons by Noam Chomsky, George Miller, Herbert Simon, and Allen Newell implied that a objects: science of the mind was not only possible but necessary. There had to be a science of how we perceive, remember, learn, plan, and reason. Par4cipants len the mee4ng convinced that behaviorism was too narrow a theore4cal basis for psychology. •  Problem •  Over the next 16 years, the cogni4ve revolu4on spread and developed into a scien4fic discipline. solving Cogni4ve scien4sts, as the revolu4onaries eventually called themselves, worked to exploit the •  Exper4se similari4es between thinking and informa4on processing. Besides logic, Newell and Simon studied problem solving. … Problem solving … depends on learning facts, skills, and strategies that are unique to the area. As cogni4ve scien4sts say, exper4se in each area requires mastery of a dis4nct knowledge domain. ” (Bruer, 1993, p. 7‐8, 11)

3. The biological revolu4on •  Decade of the brain •  “There is a revolu4on afoot that is bringing brain and • neuroscience • cogni4ve neuroscience cogni4ve science into educa4on and crea4ng new tools to • Neurobiology vastly improve how students learn. Or is there? Expecta4ons • neurogene4cs for educa4onal neuroscience are extremely high, but at this point, it could turn out to be not a revolu4on but just another –  BeTer comprehension of fad, a popular enthusiasm that fades with 4me as the learning mechanisms, iden4fica4on of unreality of exaggerated expecta4ons becomes clear …. mechanisms and neural •  What is needed is not a quick fix from neuroscience, which substrates of learning will not work for educa4on, but the crea4on of a new field –  Neural representa4ons of that integrates neuroscience and other areas of biology and learning (localiza4on, 4ming) cogni4ve science with educa4on … –  BeTer comprehension of •  Crea4ng this field, which some of us call mind, brain, and individual differences educa-on … can transform schools and educa4on in the long term by crea4ng a scien4fic basis for educa4onal prac4ce. ” (Fischer & Immordino‐Yang, 2008, p. xvii)

The biological revolu4on in educa4on • neuroscience •  “There is a revolu4on afoot that is bringing brain and • cogni4ve neuroscience • Neurobiology cogni4ve science into educa4on and crea4ng new tools to • neurogene4cs vastly improve how students learn. Or is there? Expecta4ons for educa4onal neuroscience are extremely high, but at this –  BeTer comprehension of point, it could turn out to be not a revolu4on but just another learning mechanisms, fad, a popular enthusiasm that fades with 4me as the iden4fica4on of mechanisms and neural unreality of exaggerated expecta4ons becomes clear …. substrates of learning •  What is needed is not a quick fix from neuroscience, which –  Neural representa4ons of will not work for educa4on, but the crea4on of a new field learning (localiza4on, that integrates neuroscience and other areas of biology and 4ming) cogni4ve science with educa4on … –  BeTer comprehension of individual differences •  Crea4ng this field, which some of us call mind, brain, and educa-on … can transform schools and educa4on in the long term by crea4ng a scien4fic basis for educa4onal prac4ce. ” (Fischer & Immordino‐Yang, 2008, p. xvii)

Neuroeduca4on •  “Many scien4sts and educators feel that we are advancing toward new ways of connec4ng mind, brain, and educa4on (MBE). This feeling arises, in part, because the disciplines related to the cogni4ve sciences, neurobiology and educa4on have made considerable advances during the last two decades, and scholars in the disciplines are beginning to seek interac4ons with each other … •  One name for this effort is neuroeduca4on ..., which emphasizes the educa4onal focus of the transdisciplinary connec4on. Another is educa4onal neuroscience, where the focus is on neuroscience, to which educa4on connects. We use the name “mind, brain, and educa4on” to encompass both of these focuses and others that bring together cogni4ve science, biology and educa4on. •  On the one side, this emerging field touches on all levels of modern neuroscience: from molecules to genes, from synapses to ar4ficial neural networks, from reflexes to behaviors, from animal studies to human brain imaging… •  On the other side, the term educa4on is as vast as human culture itself.” (BaTro, Fischer, & Léna, 2008, p. 3) •  “… a mature science of learning will involve understanding not only that learning occurs but also understanding how and why it occurs” (Bransford, et al., in Sawyer, 2009, p. 20)

Founda4ons for the new science of learning •  “The new science of learning has arisen from several disciplines. Researchers in developmental psychology have iden?ﬁed social factors that are essen?al for learning. Powerful learning algorithms from machine learning have demonstrated that con?ngencies in the environment are a rich source of informa?on about social cues. Neuroscien?sts have found brain systems involved in social interac?ons and mechanisms for synap?c plas?city that contribute to learning. Classrooms are laboratories for teaching prac?ces.” (Meltzoﬀ, et al., 2009, p. 284)

•  “Research from cogni?ve psychology has increased understanding of the nature of competent performance and the principles of knowledge organiza4on that underlie peoples abili4es to solve problems in a wide variety of areas, including mathema4cs, science, literature, social studies, and history. •  Developmental researchers have shown that young children understand a great deal about basic principles of biology and physical causality, about number, narra4ve, and personal intent, and that these capabili4es make it possible to create innova4ve curricula that introduce important concepts for advanced reasoning at early ages. •  Research on learning and transfer has uncovered important principles for structuring learning experiences that enable people to use what they have learned in new se[ngs. •  Work in social psychology, cogni?ve psychology, and anthropology is making clear that all learning takes place in se[ngs that have par4cular sets of cultural and social norms and expecta4ons and that these se[ngs influence learning and transfer in powerful ways. •  Neuroscience is beginning to provide evidence for many principles of learning that have emerged from laboratory research, and it is showing how learning changes the physical structure of the brain and, with it, the func4onal organiza4on of the brain. •  Collabora?ve studies of the design and evalua?on of learning environments, among cogni4ve and developmental psychologists and educators, are yielding new knowledge about the nature of learning and teaching as it takes place in a variety of se[ngs. In addi4on, researchers are discovering ways to learn from the wisdom of prac4ce" that comes from successful teachers who can share their exper4se. •  Emerging technologies are leading to the development of many new opportuni4es to guide and enhance learning that were unimagined even a few years ago. •  All of these developments in the study of learning have led to an era of new relevance of science to prac4ce. In short, investment in basic research is paying off in prac4cal applica4ons. These developments in understanding of how humans learn have par4cular significance in light of changes in what is expected of the na4ons educa4onal systems.” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. 4)

Structuring the ﬁeld 1991: 1st 1970‐1980: 1987: 2000: Bransford 2002: 2003‐2006: NSF: Interna4onal 2007 2010 AI and Ins4tute for et al (NRC): How Interna4on 6 Learning conference IMBES EARLI educa4on the Learning people learn al Society Centers on Learning SIG 22 conferences Sciences for the sciences/ (ILS, R. learning Journal of 1999 2003 Shank); sciences the learning OECD‐CERI Mind, Ins4tute for sciences Brain Brain Research on Learning (J. program 1 Educa4 S. Brown, J. 1991 2002 on Greeno, D. Decade of OECD‐ (Rome) Kearns) the brain CERI Brain 2005 program (Erice) 2

An example

RECIPES FOR OUR COURSE

Learning beTer •  Focusing on learning in addi?on to teaching : « When children ac4vely par4cipate in construc4ng their own knowledge, they gain a deeper understanding, more generalizable » •  Crea?ng learning environments: « Scaffolding is the help given to the learner that is tailored to that learner’s needs in achieving his or her goals at the moment … effec4ve scaffolding provides prempts and hints that help learners to figure it out on their own. » •  The importance of building on a learner’s previous knowledge : « learning always takes places against a backdrop of exis4ng knowledge. Students don’t enter the classroom as empty vessels, wai4ng to be filled; they enter the classroom with half‐formed ideas and misconcep4ons about how the world works … » (Sawyer, 2009, p. 2‐3) •  The importance of reflec?on. “Students learn beTer when they express their developing knowledge – either through conversa4on or by crea4ng papers, reports, and other ar4facts – and then are provided with opportuni4es to reflec4vely analyze their state of knowledge.” •  « the best learning take place when learners ar4culate their unformed and s4ll developing understanding, and con4nue to ar4culate it throughout the process of learning. » •  « ar4cula4on is more effec4ve if it is scaffolded – channeled so that certain kinds of knowledge are ar4culated, and in a certain form that is likely to result in usful reflec4on. » •  « One of the reasons that ar4cula4on is so helpful to learning is that it makes possible reflec4on or metacogni4on – thinking about the process of learning and thinking about knowledge. » (Sawyer, 2009, p. 12)

with Technology •  « Computers can represent abstract knowledge in concrete forms •  … Allow learners to ar4culate their developing knowledge in a visual and verbal way •  … allow learners to manipulate and revise their developing knowledge •  … Internet‐based networks of learners can share and combine their developing understandings …» (Sawyer, 2009, p. 9)

QUESTIONS

•  WHY should we have a science of learning? •  WHAT’s the role of research for educa4on? •  WHAT have cogni4ve sciences and neuroscience to do with educa4on (and the other way around)? •  HOW can research have an impact upon educa4on (or else)?

Cogmaster 2011_EP0

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