Handling Complexity in Learning Environments


Book Description

Offers an analysis of complexity in learning environments from a cognitive perspective. This book makes specific suggestions for educational practice on complexity. It discusses theoretical accounts and empirical findings about learning, the learner, and learning environments.




Ten Steps to Complex Learning


Book Description

Ten Steps to Complex Learning presents a path from an educational problem to a solution in a way that students, practitioners, and researchers can understand and easily use. Students in the field of instructional design can use this book to broaden their knowledge of the design of training programs for complex learning. Practitioners can use this book as a reference guide to support their design of courses, curricula, or environments for complex learning. Now fully revised to incorporate the most current research in the field, this third edition of Ten Steps to Complex Learning includes many references to recent research as well as two new chapters. One new chapter deals with the training of 21st-century skills in educational programs based on the Ten Steps. The other deals with the design of assessment programs that are fully aligned with the Ten Steps. In the closing chapter, new directions for the further development of the Ten Steps are discussed.




Handling Complexity in Learning Environments


Book Description

What do we mean when we say that "learning environments are increasingly complex"? What do we know about the cognitive processing that occurs during complex learning? How can we provide effective instructional support for students who must learn and apply complex knowledge? These questions, and related issues, have fascinated educators and educational researchers for many years and are they are the focus of this book. As a tribute to Joost Lowyck, professor educational technology at the K.U. Leuven, eminent scholars from around the globe have contributed to a far reaching analysis of complexity in learning environments from a cognitive perspective. The chapter authors summarize what we know now about complexity and make specific suggestions for educational practice and for future research on complexity. The different contributions in the several chapters discuss theoretical accounts and empirical findings about learning, the learner, and learning environments. Wide-ranging topics include current descriptions of our cognitive architecture, new contributions to cognitive load theory, research and evaluation design considerations, motivation to learn, the influence of prior knowledge, the use of simulations and multimedia, alternative instructional methods and interventions, studies of the classroom context for complex learning and mental model-building.




Visual Language for Designers


Book Description

Within every picture is a hidden language that conveys a message, whether it is intended or not. This language is based on the ways people perceive and process visual information. By understanding visual language as the interface between a graphic and a viewer, designers and illustrators can learn to inform with accuracy and power. In a time of unprecedented competition for audience attention and with an increasing demand for complex graphics, Visual Language for Designers explains how to achieve quick and effective communications. New in paperback, this book presents ways to design for the strengths of our innate mental capacities and to compensate for our cognitive limitations. Visual Language for Designers includes: —How to organize graphics for quick perception —How to direct the eyes to essential information —How to use visual shorthand for efficient communication —How to make abstract ideas concrete —How to best express visual complexity —How to charge a graphic with energy and emotion




Synergic Integration of Formal and Informal E-Learning Environments for Adult Lifelong Learners


Book Description

Recently, there has been an increased understanding that learning occurs outside of the traditional classroom setting, particularly for adult lifelong learners. This perspective has enhanced an attentive design in the underlying technological architecture that is required for the integration of formal and informal learning environments. Synergic Integration of Formal and Informal E-Learning Environments for Adult Lifelong Learners presents a collection of issues and research from adult education professionals who define, develop, implement, and evaluate the integration of formal and informal eLearning environments for adult lifelong learners. Academics, teachers, administrators, and learning technologists will benefit from this publication’s unique approach to discussing and analyzing the challenges of introducing and implementing learning technologies for adult lifelong learners.




Avoiding Simplicity, Confronting Complexity


Book Description

Researchers from all over the world are fascinated by the question on how to design powerful learning environments and how to effectively integrate computers in instruction. Members of the special interest groups 'Instructional Design' and 'Learning and Instruction with Computers’ of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction belong to this group of fascinated researchers. By presenting their research on these questions in this book, these researchers provide empirically based answers, finetune previously suggested solutions, and raise new questions and research paths. The contributions each try to deal with the actual complexity of learning environments, while avoiding naïve simplicity. The book presents an up-to-date overview of current research by experienced researchers from well-known research centers. This book is intended for an audience of educational researchers, instructional designers, and all those fascinated by questions with respect to the design of learning environments and the use of technology.




The European Higher Education Area


Book Description

Bridging the gap between higher education research and policy making was always a challenge, but the recent calls for more evidence-based policies have opened a window of unprecedented opportunity for researchers to bring more contributions to shaping the future of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Encouraged by the success of the 2011 first edition, Romania and Armenia have organised a 2nd edition of the Future of Higher Education – Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference (FOHE-BPRC) in November 2014, with the support of the Italian Presidency of the European Union and as part of the official EHEA agenda. Reuniting over 170 researchers from more than 30 countries, the event was a forum to debate the trends and challenges faced by higher education today and look at the future of European cooperation in higher education. The research volumes offer unique insights regarding the state of affairs of European higher education and research, as well as forward-looking policy proposals. More than 50 articles focus on essential themes in higher education: Internationalization of higher education; Financing and governance; Excellence and the diversification of missions; Teaching, learning and student engagement; Equity and the social dimension of higher education; Education, research and innovation; Quality assurance, The impacts of the Bologna Process on the EHEA and beyond and Evidence-based policies in higher education. "The Bologna process was launched at a time of great optimism about the future of the European project – to which, of course, the reform of higher education across the continent has made a major contribution. Today, for the present, that optimism has faded as economic troubles have accumulated in the Euro-zone, political tensions have been increased on issues such as immigration and armed conflict has broken out in Ukraine. There is clearly a risk that, against this troubled background, the Bologna process itself may falter. There are already signs that it has been downgraded in some countries with evidence of political withdrawal. All the more reason for the voice of higher education researchers to be heard. Since the first conference they have established themselves as powerful stakeholders in the development of the EHEA, who are helping to maintain the momentum of the Bologna process. Their pivotal role has been strengthened by the second Bucharest conference." Peter Scott, Institute of Education, London (General Rapporteur of the FOHE-BPRC first edition)







Development of Professional Expertise


Book Description

Professionals such as medical doctors, aeroplane pilots, lawyers, and technical specialists find that some of their peers have reached high levels of achievement that are difficult to measure objectively. In order to understand to what extent it is possible to learn from these expert performers for the purpose of helping others improve their performance, we first need to reproduce and measure this performance. This book is designed to provide the first comprehensive overview of research on the acquisition and training of professional performance as measured by objective methods rather than by subjective ratings by supervisors. In this collection of articles, the world's foremost experts discuss methods for assessing the experts' knowledge and review our knowledge on how we can measure professional performance and design training environments that permit beginning and experienced professionals to develop and maintain their high levels of performance, using examples from a wide range of professional domains.




Handbook of Individual Differences in Reading


Book Description

The central unifying theme of this state-of-the-art contribution to research on literacy is its rethinking and reconceptualization of individual differences in reading. Previous research, focused on cognitive components of reading, signaled the need for ongoing work to identify relevant individual differences in reading, to determine the relationship(s) of individual differences to reading development, and to account for interactions among individual differences. Addressing developments in each of these areas, this volume also describes affective individual differences, and the environments in which individual differences in reading may emerge, operate, interact, and change. The scant comprehensive accounting of individual differences in reading is reflected in the nature of reading instruction programs today, the outcomes that are expected from successful teaching and learning, and the manner in which reading development is assessed. An important contribution of this volume is to provide prima facie evidence of the benefits of broad conceptualization of the ways in which readers differ. The Handbook of Individual Differences in Reading moves the field forward by encompassing cognitive, non-cognitive, contextual, and methodological concerns. Its breadth of coverage serves as both a useful summary of the current state of knowledge and a guide for future work in this area.