Normalization between stimulus elements in a model of Pavlovian conditioning: Showjumping on an elemental horse

Harris and Livesey. Learning & Behavior, 38, 1-26, (2010) described an elemental model of associative learning that implements a simple learning rule that produces results equivalent to those proposed by Rescorla and Wagner (1972), and additionally modifies in "real time" the strength of the associative connections between elements. The novel feature of this model is that stimulus elements interact by suppressively normalizing one another's activation. Because of the normalization process, element activity is a nonlinear function of sensory input strength, and the shape of the function changes depending on the number and saliences of all stimuli that are present. The model can solve a range of complex discriminations and account for related empirical findings that have been taken as evidence for configural learning processes. Here we evaluate the model's performance against the host of conditioning phenomena that are outlined in the companion article, and we present a freely available computer program for use by other researchers to simulate the model's behavior in a variety of conditioning paradigms.     

Captive students and duelling podia: a collaborative approach to teaching the Frontier in American Literature and Film

In this essay, we explore how the same theories and metaphors’ used historically to describe the frontier, are useful ways of thinking about both team teaching and English studies as an interdisciplinary field. Defining the frontier as both imprecise and liminal encourages the students, as well as the instructors, to work within an open space of all sorts of possibilities and no easily fixed answers. Such an approach illustrates the blurred line between written and visual texts and highlights how long the idea of the frontier has captivated US national consciousness, from early exploration narratives to film and TV.     

Investigating how college students’ task definitions and plans relate to self-regulated learning processing and understanding of a complex science topic

Winne and Hadwin (2008) identified four phases of self-regulated learning (SRL) including defining the task, setting goals and making plans, studying (i.e., learning), and adaptation. The vast majority of SRL research has focused on processing during the third phase, studying. In this study, we developed coding rubrics that allowed us to examine how the results of college students’ processing during phases one and two of Winne and Hadwin’s model, task definitions and plans, affected their SRL processing while learning with a hypermedia learning environment (HLE), and their subsequent academic performance. Our findings showed that, on average, participants gained both factual knowledge and integrated conceptual understanding over the course of learning with the HLE. The quality of participants’ task definitions and plans at pretest, as well as their SRL processing during learning, were related to learning outcomes. On average, participants’ task definitions improved from pretest to posttest. The findings from this study and the associated coding methodologies have implications for educational research and practice.     

Child‐Care Subsidies: Do They Impact the Quality of Care Children Experience?

The federal child‐care subsidy program represents one of the government’s largest investments in early care and education, but little is known about whether it increases low‐income children’s access to higher quality child care. This study used newly available nationally representative data on 4‐year‐old children (N = 750) to investigate whether subsidy receipt elevates child‐care quality. Results indicate that subsidy recipients use higher quality care compared to nonrecipients who use no other publicly funded care, but lower quality care compared to nonrecipients who instead use Head Start or public pre‐k. Findings suggest that subsidies may have the potential to enhance care quality but that parents who use subsidies are not accessing the highest quality care available to low‐income families.     

Enhancing academic work through the synergy between teaching and research

In this paper we explore an approach to academic development that focuses on developing and using research as a means of understanding the complexity of teaching and learning within specific discipline environments. This approach shifts the attention of the academic developer from the enhancement of teaching using traditional methods such as workshops, formal courses, or in‐faculty curriculum and assessment advice, to encouraging and supporting participant research on learning and teaching, and disciplinary‐based research. Focusing on research development gives academics the opportunity to develop their teaching scholarship, prepare publishable work, and cultivate teaching and learning practices that are aligned with their specific discipline environments. We discuss the philosophy of this approach to the enhancement of academic work through the synergy between teaching and research. We illustrate our discussion with some recent examples in which we have used this approach successfully.     

List of Reviewers

Research supervision development often focuses on improving the quality of researcher/student interactions and outcomes. Hence, academic development activity is usually oriented towards the development of individual capacities and practices. More recently, however, the focus has changed to the research enhancement needs of twenty‐first century institutions, recognising them as complex, research‐oriented workplaces. In this paper we present a model of academic development for institutional change which is situated within the framework of complexity theory: we use a case study based on a large‐scale change process to demonstrate our findings. The paper illuminates the position of research‐supervisor education as only one element of a complex system of changes that are necessary to effect sustained improvement in the quality of research and research training.

Le développement de la supervision de recherche se concentre souvent sur l’amélioration de la qualité des interactions entre chercheur et étudiant, ainsi que sur l’amélioration des résultats. Ainsi, les activités de développement pédagogique sont généralement orientées vers le développement de compétences et de pratiques individuelles. Cependant, le centre d’intérêt s’est plus récemment déplacé vers les besoins d’amélioration de la recherche au sein d’institutions du 21e siècle, les reconnaissant du coup comme des lieux de travail complexes, orientés sur la recherche. Dans cet article, nous présentons un modèle du développement pédagogique visant le changement institutionnel, lequel est situé dans le cadre de la théorie de la complexité. De façon à faire la démonstration des résultats, nous faisons appel à une étude de cas qui repose sur un processus de changement à grande échelle. L’article met en lumière le fait que la formation à la supervision de recherche ne constitue qu’un élément au sein d’un système complexe de changements nécessaires à l’amélioration soutenue de la qualité de la recherche et de la formation à la recherche.     

Stichwort: Familie, Peers und (informelle) Bildung im Kindes- und Jugendalter

The importance of non-school educational stimuli which arise in “normal” everyday life (mainly through experience and “learning from life”) and the contribution of such stimuli to the educational development of young people are often underestimated. The educational value of the widely differing casual educational structures in family and peer relationships is often not fully appreciated in educational research until such structures are combined with formal school education. So far, researchers have only just begun to explore the value of informal education and to venture beyond the “traditional” limitation of empirical educational research in Germany to formal, institutionally organised education and competence acquisition processes for pupils. In recent years, attention has not only been directed towards the family as an independent place of education—studies have also focused on real life informal interaction situations in peer relationships and their importance as significant educational factors in the context of unsupervised child daytime activities. The researchers tend to regard the family as a “different type of educational sphere” and peer relationships as social interactions between equals with considerable educational potential, involving social and cultural exchange processes which constitute “everyday education” and which differ in their effects depending on the milieu. In view of the enormous differences in the way in which children and young people are integrated into family and peer-based everyday situations, it is important to point out the high educational significance of family and peer relationships for informal education, and this must always be analysed in relation to the social milieu of the family of origin and the type of school attended by the young people. The existing research initiatives and results are discussed here in relation to various research questions. The varied considerations in relation to the significance and impact of peer relationships and the existing approaches adopted in research serve as a starting point for further suggestions for future research, and these desirable new directions in research are then discussed from a theoretical and methodological perspective.