New Conceptions of Thinking: From Ontology to Education

The articles in this special issue were analyzed in terms of their stance on the nature of knowledge (i.e., its source and location) and the perspective on conceptual change addressed. The analysis supported the argument that efforts to bridge the cognitive and sociocultural orientations toward conceptual change are either unnecessary or unachievable. Specifically, there are those theorists and researchers who do not give credence to the existence of concepts for the one or the collective, and those who do not see sociocultural influences as needed for concept formation or reformation. Attempts to bridge these two positions seem doomed to failure. Conversely, it is argued that the frameworks and models espoused by many researchers, including those contributing to this issue, cannot exist without recognition of the thoughts and reflection of the mind or without consideration of the sociocultural influences that exist in the world outside the mind.     

Competency-based models of learning for engineers: a comparison

One of the goals of higher professional education is to develop generic student competencies across a variety of disciplines that play a crucial role in education and that provide wider opportunities for graduates in finding good jobs and more chance of promotion. In this article a list of generic competencies developed in Russian universities is compared with a similar list developed by a consortium of Russian and European universities (project TUNING-RUSSIA). Then there is a second comparison with a list of competencies taken from the CDIO Syllabus. This comparison indicates the degree of similarity among the lists and the possible convergence among universities all over the world. The results are taken from a survey carried out among Russian employers, academics, and graduates. The survey asked to rate each listed competence by its importance and the degree of achieving goals in the process of the education.     

Integrative Geragogy: Part 1: Theory and Practice of a Basic Model

ABSTRACT

Geragogy as a part of gerontology seems to be established in aging societies. Also, geragogy as a form of education for elderly people, learning in the third age, is nowadays an integrated part of agogy. On the other hand, the increase in the number of people of the fourth age, the oldest of the old, handicapped elderly people in nursing homes, is hardly considered in the geragogical discussion. Integrative geragogy in the field of care facilities is given only marginal consideration. In this article we want to present integrative geragogy as a basic part of educational gerontology. We present it as interacting closely with therapeutic education and social work, dealing especially with potentials of the oldest of the old and mentally handicapped elderly people. An outline of the international discussion and the history of geragogy in Germany shows the state-of-the-art in geragogy today. A specific theory and praxeology of integrative geragogy is also presented.     

Towards an American Jewish Education

My function is to analyze a survey of adult Jewish education and to present briefly some of my own views on the subject. The survey was planned and conducted under the direction of the National Advisory Council on Adult Jewish Education of the American Association for Jewish Education. The Advisory Council includes the directors or representatives of a number of important religious and lay national Jewish agencies which sponsor adult Jewish education. The responses to the questionnaires were analyzed and the Survey Report was written by Rabbi Samuel I. Cohen.     

Investigating the Modality and Redundancy Effects for Learners with Persistent Pain

Two experiments were conducted to investigate how individuals with persistent pain would respond to instructional materials designed to promote the modality and redundancy effects. It was predicted that persistent pain would reduce the positive impact of narrated text due to reduced working memory capacity. One hundred thirty-seven full-time teachers from six schools in Australia participated in the study. Pain and pain-free participants were identified and matched through a demographics questionnaire before being randomly assigned to selected instructional formats. In both experiments, participants viewed system-paced multimedia presentations depicting how lightning works. In Experiment 1, it was found that for pain-free participants, illustrations plus narrated text led to significantly higher learning outcomes than illustrations plus written text (a modality effect). However, for pain participants, no advantage was found for the illustrations plus narrated text format. In Experiment 2, it was found that for pain-free participants, illustrations plus narrated text led to significantly higher learning outcomes than illustrations plus narrated text plus identical written text (a redundancy effect). For pain participants, a reverse effect was found, suggesting that the replicated written text format was not redundant but beneficial for these individuals. Furthermore, despite low scores on standardized pain measures, individuals with persistent pain achieved significantly lower learning outcomes than pain-free participants in both experiments. It was concluded that clinically low levels of pain could significantly interfere with information retention and transference. For individuals with persistent pain, the use of narrated explanatory text could be a disadvantage due to its transitory nature.