Activity theory as a framework for designing constructivist learning environments

The epistemic assumptions of constructive learning are different from those of traditional instruction, so classical methods of needs and task analysis are inappropriate for designing constructivist learning environments (CLEs). This paper argues that activity theory provides an appropriate framework for analyzing needs, tasks, and outcomes for designing CLEs. Activity theory is a socio-cultural, socio-historical lens through which designers can analyze human activity systems. It focuses on the interaction of human activity and consciousness within its relevant environmental context. Since conscious learning emerges from activity (performance), not as a precursor to it, CLEs should attempt to replicate the activity structures, tools and sign systems, socio-cultural rules, and community expectations that performers must accommodate while acting on some object of learning. After explicating assumptions of activity theory and briefly describing the components of CLEs, this paper describes a process for using activity theory as a framework for describing the components of an activity system that can be modeled in CLEs.His current research focuses on designing constructivist learning environments, cognitive tools for learning, knowledge representation methods, problem solving, computer-supported collaborative argumentation, cognitive task analysis, and individual differences and learning.His current research focuses on designing constructivist learning environments, cognitive tools for learning, knowledge representation methods, problem solving, computer-supported collaborative argumentation, cognitive task analysis, and individual differences and learning.Her research interests include activity theory and structural knowledge.     

Self-perceptions of first- and second-grade children with learning disabilities

The present study addressed the question of the effects of developmental positive bias and repeated experiences of failure on the self-perception of mainstreamed first-and second-grade Israeli children with learning disabilities. The self-perceptions of 44 children with learning disabilities and their 36 nondisabled classmates were assessed. In addition, teachers' evaluations and objective measures of cognitive performance and social acceptance were gathered. The children with learning disabilities were found to have a greater positive bias and lower self-perception in the cognitive competence domain than their normally achieving peers. Self-perceptions of peer acceptance among children with learning disabilities are similar to their normally achieving peers' self-perceptions, in spite of their significantly lower sociometric ratings and teacher evaluations in the social domain. These findings are analyzed in the context of the globality-specificity dimension of self-perceptions at the age level studied. The obtained pattern of self-perceptions is discussed in the light of the interrelationships between cognitive deficit and experimental factors among mainstreamed first- and second-grade children.     

Mathematics and learning disabilities

Between 5% and 8% of school-age children have some form of memory or cognitive deficit that interferes with their ability to learn concepts or procedures in one or more mathematical domains. A review of the arithmetical competencies of these children is provided, along with discussion of underlying memory and cognitive deficits and potential neural correlates. The deficits are discussed in terms of three subtypes of mathematics learning disability and in terms of a more general framework for linking research in mathematical cognition to research in learning disabilities.     

Environmental learning in regions: a social capital based approach. The case of Latvia

How do people learn about the environment and behave accordingly? What is the cognitive process at the base of this learning mechanism? The present paper is a pilot work investigating the dynamics of individual environmental knowledge on the basis of social capital theory. Using Tsai and Ghoshal’s findings, a well known framework widely accepted in organizational studies which supports the existence of a relationship between structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of social capital, and between social capital and knowledge exchange, these dynamics are then tested in the context of environmental behaviour studies. The quantitative analysis is carried out by means of a structural equation model based on data collected in the Republic of Latvia. Results support main theoretical hypotheses, but several effects are found to be highly sensitive to control variables (residence place dimensions, ethnic affiliation, age, personal income), leading to hypothesise a strong dependency of environmental learning patterns on the socio-demographic, socio-economic and cognitive context.     

Goodness of fit in the home: its relationship to school behavior and achievement in children with learning disabilities

This study examined whether a "goodness of fit" theoretical model, applied to families with and without children with learning disabilities, would be valuable in understanding the children's performance in school. A home interview was conducted with 63 families with a child with learning disabilities and 53 families with a comparable child without learning disabilities. The mothers were asked to rate how their own child fit into the family's expectations for children. It was found that, for both groups of families, children who were rated as a "poor fit" in the home demonstrated less positive behavior in the classroom and poorer achievement over the elementary school years. There was some evidence that poor fit in the home was even more negatively related to outcomes for children with learning disabilities. Discussion is centered on the importance of this theoretical model for understanding the importance of the home on successful school function.     

Museums as avenues of learning for children: a decade of research

In this review, we focus on the museum activities and strategies that encourage and support children’s learning. In order to provide insight into what is known about children’s learning in museums, we examined study content, methodology and the resultant knowledge from the last decade of research. Because interactivity is increasingly seen as essential in children’s learning experiences in a museum context, we developed a framework that distinguishes between three main interactivity types for facilitating strategies and activities in children’s learning: child–adults/peers; child–technology and child–environment. We identify the most promising strategies and activities for boosting children’s learning as situated in overlapping areas of these interactivity types. Specifically, we identify scaffolding as a key to enhanced museum learning. Our review concludes by highlighting research challenges from the last decade and recommendations for practice and future research on how to design, evaluate and guide theoretically-grounded educational programs for children in museums.     

Fostering literacy learning in supportive contexts.

Young children with learning disabilities typically encounter difficulty with academic tasks requiring intentional effort and effective use of metacognitive skills--qualities that competent readers and writers possess. In response to these difficulties, special educators often modify literacy instruction, isolating the "basic skills" of literacy (such as decoding and penmanship) from meaningful reading and writing activities. Such instruction contributes to impoverished notions of literacy and exacerbates problems of metacognition. The two research programs reported here challenge the conventional literacy instruction provided to many young students with LD. The programs are rooted in developmental and cognitive theory and research, as well as emergent literacy theory. The social nature of learning is emphasized, with a focus on the role of the teacher, the form of discourse, and the role of text in literacy instruction. Results show that children with learning disabilities benefit from strategy instruction occurring within classroom cultures that support collaborative discourse, the flexible application of comprehension strategies, and appropriate, meaningful opportunities for reading and writing.     

A methodology for characterizing computer-based learning environments

This paper presents a methodology for characterizing computer-based learning environments, focusing on the cognitive, pedagogical, and interactive features. The framework for this characterization is explained in relation to the relevant theories and findings in cognitive and instructional research. The methodology is illustrated by a characterization of computer-based learning environments developed by student teachers and professionals. The usability of these environments is analyzed along the dimensions of the framework presented. The results showed that this methodology can systematically and precisely characterize the cognitive, pedagogical, and interactive features of computer-based learning environments. It can be used to predict and explain the success or failure that a given software program promotes for learning particular types of knowledge. The applications of this methodology for the evaluation and design of computer-based learning environments, for instructional research in various instructional contexts, as well as for the study of expertise in the development of computer-based learning environments, are discussed.     

数学学习困难儿童的多媒体教学策略

如何对数学学习困难儿童进行有效干预是很多教育工作者关心的问题。已有研究表明,工作记忆的缺陷是数学学习困难的根本原因。而基于认知负荷理论的教学设计正是针对人的工作记忆容量有限这一特点,利用多媒体来促进意义学习的完成。文章试图以工作记忆为桥梁,结合认知负荷理论,提出几条针对数学学习困难儿童的多媒体教学的干预措施,并指出了将来的研究方向。     

Concerns of families of children with learning disabilities

The purpose of this report is to share the experiences and concerns of a group of parents of children with learning disabilities. Parents of eight different families were interviewed in depth, and seven themes emerged from the interviews. Parents discussed their involvement in their child's education, and their positive and negative experiences with school personnel as well as with seeking other sources of support. They expressed concerns about the social isolation and future well-being of their children with learning disabilities. They indicated many emotional strains from parenting children with learning disabilities, and that there are both positive and negative effects on the families. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.     

Rethinking the nature of online work in asynchronous learning networks

Research on asynchronous learning networks (ALNs) has indicated that there are problems with both the quantity and quality of online interactions that can undermine the aim of inquiry. The goal of this paper is to offer a new way of thinking about these problems in the context of knowledge building, a specific form of collaborative inquiry supported by an ALN. Drawing from interviews with teachers following two teacher education courses that introduced teachers to knowledge building, it is argued that we need to rethink the role and purpose of online work in ALNs—as building a communal learning resource. A framework for doing this is proposed in terms of three notions: collaboration, learning how to learn and idea improvement. The framework is expected to contribute to the literature on knowledge building by providing a new way to distinguish knowledge building from other forms of collaborative inquiry.     

A Framework for Re‐thinking Learning in Science from Recent Cognitive Science Perspectives

Recent accounts by cognitive scientists of factors affecting cognition imply the need to reconsider current dominant conceptual theories about science learning. These new accounts emphasize the role of context, embodied practices, and narrative‐based representation rather than learners’ cognitive constructs. In this paper we analyse data from a longitudinal study of primary school children’s learning to outline a framework based on these contemporary accounts and to delineate key points of difference from conceptual change perspectives. The findings suggest this framework provides strong theoretical and practical insights into how children learn and the key role of representational negotiation in this learning. We argue that the nature and process of conceptual change can be re‐interpreted in terms of the development of students’ representational resources.     

Role of cognitive theory in the study of learning disability in mathematics

Gersten, Jordan, and Flojo (in this issue) provide the beginnings of an essential bridge between basic research on mathematical disabilities (MD) in young children and the application of this research for the early identification and remediation of these forms of learning disability. As they acknowledge, the field of MD is in the early stages of development, and thus recommendations regarding identification measures and remedial techniques must be considered preliminary. I discuss the importance of maintaining a tight link between theoretical and empirical research on children's developing numerical, arithmetical, and mathematical competencies and future research on learning disabilities in mathematics. This link will provide the foundation for transforming experimental procedures into assessment measures, understanding the cognitive strengths and weaknesses of children with these forms of learning disability, and developing remedial approaches based on the pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses for individual children.     

The effects of instructional methods on students' learning outcomes requiring different cognitive abilities: context-aware ubiquitous learning versus traditional instruction

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of the context-aware ubiquitous learning (u-learning) approach versus traditional instruction on students' ability to answer questions that required different cognitive skills, using the framework of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives, including knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis. In this study, 230 third- and fourth-grade students in 8 classes were counterbalanced and assigned to the u-learning approach and traditional instruction for learning different topics in two separate plant-observing activities. The results showed that the students who learned with traditional instruction performed better than those who used the u-learning approach in terms of answering questions that required their cognitive abilities of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis. Moreover, an in-depth analysis of the students' learning behaviors in the u-learning context revealed that most of their learning behaviors recorded in the u-learning system were not significantly related to their cognitive abilities.     

The social construction of learning disabilities

Underpinning the technical gaze that dominates learning disabilities theory and practice is the assumption that learning disabilities are a pathology that resides in the heads of individual students, with the corollary that remedial efforts also focus on what goes on in the heads of students classified as learning disabled. This article begins with a critique of the ideology of individualism that situates individual success and failure in the heads of individuals as a means of introducing an alternative perspective--social constructivism--that locates learning and learning problems in the context of human relations and activity. Extended examples are used to illustrate how the performative aspects of learning disabilities emerge in the context of human relationships. The primary argument developed here is that one cannot be learning disabled on one's own. It takes a complex system of interactions performed in just the right way, at the right time, on the stage we call school to make a learning disability. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the instructional implications of a social constructivist stance.     

Shared learning: the developing practice of integration for children with severe learning difficulties

ABSTRACT

This paper traces the development of partial integration for children with severe learning difficulties as part of their development and preparation for societal integration. It considers the needs of all children for education for citizenship and, as such, the time needed for meaningful attitudinal development in mainstream pupils towards children with disabilities. This, it is suggested, is best achieved through carefully planned, positive shared learning experiences, designed to facilitate interaction and collaborative learning between children with SLD and their mainstream peers. The article considers how in the UK the National Curriculum can contribute to this process.     

Comprehension of humor in children with nonverbal learning disabilities,reading disabilities,and without learning disabilities

The normal development of humor in children has been well documented with a predictable course that is tied to social, cognitive, and linguistic development in children. This study explored humor comprehension in children with nonverbal learning disabilities (NVLD). Children with NVLD were compared with children with reading disabilities and a comparison group of children with no learning disabilities to assess their comprehension of humor. The humor test was composed of a joke and cartoon section. No group differences in humor comprehension were found when the NVLD group was defined as having visual–spatial and visual reasoning deficits. However, when the NVLD group was divided into children with and without social perceptual difficulties as defined by a direct measure of social comprehension, significant group differences were found in the levels of humor comprehension. These results support the association of humor comprehension with social perception and lend tentative support to the hypothesis that children with NVLD may not be a homogenous group. Future study directions include further exploration into the nature of the association between humor comprehension and social perception as well as closer examination of the heterogeneity of NVLD.     

Neurobehavioral factors associated with referral for learning problems in a community sample: evidence for an adaptational model for learning disorders

We evaluated community general education (CGE; n = 178), community special education (CSE; n = 30) and hospital-referred (HR, n = 145) children (ages 7-6 to 11-11) prospectively over a 2-year period. During this period, 17 CGE children were referred for evaluation (community referred; CR). Prior to referral, CR children performed more poorly than community-nonreferred (CNR) children on cognitive ability, academic achievement, attention problems, and information processing. CR group performance was equivalent to that of CSE and HR groups, but HR children showed poorer academic achievement. Referred children performed more poorly on all measures than nonreferred, whether they met formal diagnostic criteria for a learning disorder or not. Learning disorders may be better conceptualized as a context-dependent problem of functional adaptation than as a disability analogous to physical disabilities, raising questions about the validity of using psychometric test scores as the criterion for identification.     

6岁儿童的类别学习能力: 类别表征、注意和分类策略

在实验室条件下对人类的学习进行心理学研究,通常的做法是在一定时间内让被试习得一项新的世界知识,因此类别学习成了主要的任务范式,一直是认知心理学最热点的研究领域之一。首先,梳理了类别学习的认知和神经研究;然后,分析了皮质—纹状体回路与类别学习的关系,进而提出类别学习的神经机制是以基底核为纽带,皮质—纹状体的四条回路为实现途径的理论设想;最后,讨论了如何从学习条件、学习过程和学习结果三方面去探讨类别学习的认知神经机制。     

An optimal learning environment for Rosemary

This article discusses the special education placement and instruction of language-minority children identified as mildly disabled, personified by "Rosemary," in the context of a curriculum guide recently developed in California. The Optimal Learning Environment (OLE) Curriculum Guide: A Resource for Teachers of Spanish-Speaking Children in Learning Handicapped Programs. The guide was written in response to the growing number of such children and to the lack of direction given to special educators in meeting the educational needs of this population. The instructional principles in the guide are based on research with language-minority students and on those with learning disabilities. The guide incorporates existing, promising materials and techniques for use with language-minority populations.