Communicating in Education and Training

Abstract

This article maintains that the focus of learning and training at all levels is moving increasingly towards the individual ‐‐ how the individual learns and the influences of his or her environment on learning. It suggests that, among the increasing wealth of research into educational technology, the emphasis needs now to be placed on the learning process and the learning environment. But the learning processes and environments have to be seen as part of an educational scenario which is changing rapidly. Education at all levels, together with training at the adult level, and the resources devoted to these purposes will continue to be under direct challenge. To make learning more effective, the questions of contacts and connections by and with media must be examined and assessed. For effective communication the methods and the processes have to be matched to objectives. The article concludes that the rapidly changing technology of communications is helping to shift the balance from an emphasis on what has been largely a one‐way system of communication to one in which the individual learner is increasingly in control and in which the learning process itself, rather than the teaching system, has become the focus.     

The outcomes and impacts of everyday learning

This article examines the effects of synthesising existing theoretical approaches to understanding the effects of adult learning. The paper focuses on aspects of the findings of a small Australian research project that explored the significance of everyday learning in people’s lives. One key part of the research involved examining and synthesising two key approaches for understanding the effects of adult learning with another, different approach and then applying this to the collected snapshots of six people’s everyday lives. In the paper it is argued that this application of a synthesised framework to the participant’s stories was able to reveal more of the complex and interconnected nature of the effects of the participant’s everyday learning than either of the two original approaches on their own. This research is significant for two key reasons. Firstly, the findings of the research suggest that the effects of adult everyday learning are more complex and further reaching beyond the individual than previously established. Secondly, the work can be seen as a demonstration of the benefits of a synthesised approach to adult learning that seeks inclusivity, breadth and depth in understanding, thus contributing to the growing body of work, and understandings of adult learning.     

Active learning in the process of educational change

The findings reported in this article form part of a wider comparative research project investigating the active learning of teachers and of pupils in the educational practices of eight countries. This article aims to describe what a small rural school in Finland understands by active learning. Data is presented from a qualitative research case study of one school in relation to six aspects: goal setting, task structuring, accessing of information, processing of work and learning, utilizing the outcomes of work and learning, and assessment procedures. On the basis of the data, the transformative learning process of teacher in the changing school culture is presented.     

Situated cognition and learning environments: implications for teachers on- and offline in the new digital media age

John Seely Brown suggested that learning environments should be spaces in which all work is public, is subject to iterative critique by instructors and peers, and in which social interaction is primary. In such spaces, students and teachers engage in a situated cognition approach to teaching and learning where “cognitive accomplishments rely in part on structures and processes outside the individual”. Here we describe a qualitative analysis of a socially situated learning setting that aimed to develop children who can design, analyze, critique, and transform media, subjecting existing social media, their designs, and their peers’ designs to public and iterative critique. In this setting, adult mentors supported children’s self-expression, self-reflection, and skillbuilding through authentic, socially situated reading, writing, and discussion, and media production. Creating and leveraging such spaces is essential for preparing all children for successful experiences in the new knowledge economy in formal and informal educational settings.     

Assessing adult learning preferences using the analytic hierarchy process

This study examined graduate students? preferences among a set of four learning activities commonly employed in adult educational settings. It evaluated the applicability and value of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, AHP, developed by Saaty as a quantitative tool for empirical research in assessing preferences. The four activities suggested by the literature on adult learning are (a) lectures (b) in-class discussion and reflections, (c) group-based projects and (d) individual projects. A secondary focus of the study was on whether the students? perceptions depended upon their innate primary learning style. The results of the study confirm that adult graduate students prefer to learn by discussion and reflection as opposed to lecture and prefer individual to group projects. These findings were independent of learning style as apportioned among the visual, auditory and kinesthetic types. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Key components of learning ecologies: A Delphi assessment

The educational landscape has changed in recent years, requiring reflection about new pedagogical methods and theories. There are three important perspectives as drivers of pedagogical reflection: lifelong and life-wide learning, the idea of learning as a social construct in which internal elements and changing external factors converge, and the recognition of technology as a resource that can promote ubiquitous and expanded learning. Learning ecology has been proposed as a conceptual and empirical framework, but its still emergent nature along with its multidimensionality and complexity require further exploration. The Delphi study we present as part of a broader research project aims to identify the components of learning ecologies. Three panel rounds with international experts were carried out, after which two important dimensions emerged in the structure of learning ecologies. The first is related to intrinsic “learning dispositions,” which is made up of three categories: the subject's ideas about learning, their motivations and expectations. The second dimension, called “learning processes,” comprises four components: relationships, resources, actions and context. The identification of the components of learning ecologies and their influence on formal, non-formal and informal training processes will provide guidance for educational policies and help to better organize training programmes.     

Educating the adult brain: How the neuroscience of learning can inform educational policy

The acquisition of new skills in adulthood can positively affect an individual’s quality of life, including their earning potential. In some cases, such as the learning of literacy in developing countries, it can provide an avenue to escape from poverty. In developed countries, job retraining in adulthood contributes to the flexibility of labour markets. For all adults, learning opportunities increase participation in society and family life. However, the popular view is that adults are less able to learn for an intrinsic reason: their brains are less plastic than in childhood. This article reviews what is currently known from neuroscientific research about how brain plasticity changes with age, with a particular focus on the ability to acquire new skills in adulthood. Anchoring their review in the examples of the adult acquisition of literacy and new motor skills, the authors address five specific questions: (1) Are sensitive periods in brain development relevant to learning complex educational skills like literacy? (2) Can adults become proficient in a new skill? (3) Can everyone learn equally effectively in adulthood? (4) What is the role of the learning environment? (5) Does adult education cost too much? They identify areas where further research is needed and conclude with a summary of principles for enhancing adult learning now established on a neuroscience foundation.     

Shared and personal learning spaces: Challenges for pedagogical design

The development of new tools for collaboration, such as social software, plays a crucial role in leisure time and work activities. The aim of this article is to summarize the research in the field of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). This is done particularly from the perspective of the blurred line between individual (personal) and group-level (shared) learning that the use of the new tools has forced us to re-think. First, individual and group-level perspectives to learning are discussed to make sense of the major notions of how learning is understood in CSCL research. Second, based on this theoretical grounding, it will be further elaborated what this means to the pedagogical design of educational practices utilizing emerging technological landscapes. And third, two different empirical examples will be presented to illustrate the variety of emerging technological landscapes meeting the needs of future learning.     

Adult learning in the context of African‐American women's voluntary organizations‡

The purpose of this research was to examine non‐formal adult education and informal learning within contemporary African‐American women's voluntary organizations. Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 28 women who were members of six different organizations. A semi‐structured interview process was used to elicit their perceptions regarding their (1) involvement in the education of others, (2) learning within the context of performing group membership roles and projects, (3) learning needs, and (4) comparisons of learning in this context with that in more formal educational settings. The findings of the research are discussed in relation to other research on learning in voluntary associations and the workplace. As with other studies of the voluntary association context, respondents did not seem to have given a great deal of prior thought to the nature of their learning within the context, having been more focused on the successful performance of their leadership and service roles than on what is learned from that work. They were none the less able to report numerous examples of how their work helped educate others and how they learned through their experiences. While instances of more systematic non‐formal education (e.g. orientation sessions, lectures and leadership training) were reported, the learning experiences reported more frequently and identified as most valuable seemed to reflect more informal, frequently incidental learning. This significant learning often reflected a perceived change in skills and abilities related to interacting with and working with others toward common goals, or a changing sense of self, in terms of growing self‐confidence and/or sense of connectedness to group members and the community which they sought to serve. Respondents who were quite well educated as a group, nevertheless generally indicated their preferences for the kind of interactive, experiential and situated learning that occurred as an outgrowth of group participation over the more abstract, teacher‐controlled learning they associated with formal education. These findings are discussed in terms of their importance to our understanding of informal learning, particularly that which occurs within the voluntary sector. Exploring this learning in a context specific to African‐American women is also seen as a way of moving beyond the culturally biased sampling often criticized in adult learning research.

     

Facilitating expansive learning in a public sector organization

The aim of this article is to discuss how learning opportunities can be organized to promote expansive learning in work practice. The discussion draws on results from a case study examining local development work and conditions that facilitate processes of expansive learning in a work team within a public sector organization in a Swedish municipality. An interactive research design was used. Data were collected over almost four years through individual and group interviews with 12 workers in a work team and their three managers. In addition data were collected through observations of team meetings. The findings demonstrate that work can be organized as a learning environment to facilitate expansive learning even in a resource-limited public sector organization. Furthermore, patterns of expansive learning were evident in the work team's new work activities and new relationships in the organization. The findings also demonstrate the need to support managers in developing a role to facilitate expansive learning. However, the need for and extent of external support for promoting expansive learning in practice vary in different situations and stages during the development work.     

Getting looped in to the web: characterizing learning processes and educational responses

Through profiling and matching processes, technology provides individuals with information that becomes redundant to their previous beliefs, attitudes and preferences. The emergence of informational redundancies encouraged by some technologies is likely to influence the way knowledge is constructed by individuals in these settings. In this paper, we present a theoretical basis, rooted in cognitivist and socio-constructivist educational psychology, to characterize such knowledge-construction processes in informal settings. Learning processes in these environments are defined as cumulative: on the individual level, the most likely form of learning is through accretion of knowledge into previous schemata; on the social level, these environments foster learning through cumulative talk. We highlight the challenges that this might pose to education systems and suggest possible educational responses.     

Research‐capacity building,professional learning and the social practices of educational research

There have been numerous attempts in the past few years within education research—and social science research more generally—to alter the character of research practice(s). In particular, there has been a systematic effort to address perceived shortcomings in research practice through a series of ‘research‐capacity building’ initiatives, aimed at the restructuring of professional learning. In this article the authors explore empirically the ways in which different modes of professional learning are implicated in the social practices of education research. These considerations lead to the conclusion that the currently dominant approaches to research‐capacity building are based on an underestimation of the difficulties in influencing the professional learning of educational researchers significantly and, thereby, changing the practices of educational research. More realistic expectations of these forms of research‐capacity building, in turn, suggest the need to develop alternative approaches that acknowledge the exigencies of the current social organisation of educational research more fully.     

Towards a more inclusive approach to intervention research: the case of research in learning disabilities

Intervention research in special education tends to rely on comparisons of mean differences to determine instructional strategies that ‘work’ for students with disabilities. This reliance on mean differences obscures individual variation that is always present in educational research. This paper examines the degree to which individual variation is acknowledged in reports of intervention research published in four leading learning disabilities journals over a five-year period. It was found that, although there was considerable variance present in intervention studies published in these journals, this variability was often unacknowledged. This paper concludes with suggestions for how researchers might acknowledge variance in their research.     

Validation of a theory about functions and effects of embedded support devices in distance education learning materials

In this contribution a theoretical model is explored and validated that describes and explains learning based on learning materials where the basic content is enriched with embedded support devices. Embedded support devices (ESD) are elaborations of the basic content of a course, intended to support students learning in a distance educational context. Examples are: questions with feedback, advance organizers and study guidelines. The model represents the interaction of a large set of variables and processes and has been tested using a variety of research studies, each focusing on specific interrelations and/or variables. The research results support the positive impact of embedded support devices in written learning materials on study outcome. Furthermore the results indicate the impact of individual variables, such as prior knowledge and attitude towards computers. These variables influence the way students process the learning materials and/or use the task environment and have an interaction effect on study outcomes.     

Reflexivity,learning identities and adult basic skills in the United Kingdom

This paper reports on the findings of a small qualitative research project that examined the experiences of a group of adult learners attending a basic skills programme in the English Midlands during the late 1990s. It explores patterns of participation on such programmes and illustrates that early life course experiences can shape changing dispositions towards learning and forms of (dis)engagement from formal provision. The concept of reflexivity is used to help describe the differing contributions that structural and agential processes make to this patterning of engagement with learning. Such an approach is posited as a development of the concepts of learning identity and learning career that have recently been used to understand participation in education.     

Contract learning

Contract learning provides an effective way to structure the learning process to address individual educational needs. This learning method has now been applied successfully across a broad range of fields and levels within undergraduate education. In this paper the method is described, and the educational advantages of its use are examined. The role of the faculty member using learning contracts is discussed, and the applicability of the method to various student audiences is suggested. With the contract learning method students become interested and eager, since the learning process can truly be tailored to their individual needs.     

Design,development, and implementation of electronic learning environments for collaborative learning

Developments in society and business, and related changes in higher education and lifelong learning, require educators and educational designers or technologists to rethink education. Examples of such changes are the growing importance of achieving complex learning, the integration of learning and work in education, and the need for improved flexibility with regard to time, place, and individual needs. These changes cannot simply be responded to by adding technological solutions implemented according to existing educational approaches. Instead, an integrated view of e-learning is necessary, characterized by the combination of pedagogical, technical, social, and organizational factors. This two-part special issue elaborates on the different characteristics of integrated e-learning, from design through future topics for research. He would like to give special thanks to Jan Elen and Brent Wilson, who took on the task of reviewing and discussing all of the contributions, both at AECT 2003 in Anaheim and for this issue, and J. Michael Spector, Development Editor of this journal, for his faith in all of us.     

Modes of learning in religious education

This article is a contribution to the discussion of learning processes in religious education (RE) classrooms. Sociocultural theories of learning, understood here as tool-mediated processes, are used in an analysis of three RE classroom conversations. The analysis focuses on the language tools that are used in conversations; how the tools mediate; the dynamics they create between pupils and teachers; and how new language tools are created and enrolled. The following three modes of learning are found: distancing, dynamic and expansive. These modes are collectively enacted by teachers and students in the context of the classroom. The article therefore argues that RE classrooms can best be understood as social practices, rather than sums of individual cognition. Empirically, religion is in the making in RE – in the shape of bits, pieces and processes. In the material, however, RE is an educational practice, not a religious practice.     

Grasping the TLRP nettle: preliminary analysis and some enduring issues surrounding the improvement of learning outcomes

The ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme is the largest ever programme of educational research in the UK. This article reports the purposes, processes, outcomes and issues arising from cross-programme thematic work on the conceptualization of, and research into, ‘enhancing learning outcomes’ which is a key aim of the programme. Early documentation from thirty projects is analysed, especially in relation to a classification of learning outcomes, dominant metaphors of learning, sector differences and evidence of outcomes. Discussion focuses upon persistent issues concerning the assessment of the broad range of outcomes, what leads to them, and how knowledge of these links might be established.