The activity theory for organisations relates to how two different organisational contexts that interact with each other develop and eventually share a common language, culture and environment, in order to reach common goals.
This could be a good framework for how schools engage with the community to provide opportunities they are not able to otherwise provide for students. The community is a part of the learning process and exposes students to authentic learning opportunities.
students observe scientific processes they normally do not experience at school, and then report on what they have observed; in doing so, they develop skills such as asking questions, scientific reading, organising information and planning a presentation
Why are these experiences unique to school? Were they industry or research based? Were they looking at specialized equipment?
For schools, does "out of school learning" mean that students are reaching for things schools cannot provide? Or things they do not provide (choice)?
Studies have also shown that learning is a unified concept; any distinction between formal and informal science learning is artificial
We are not helping students by dismissing background knowledge they possess as a result of learning on their own.
However, students who are not interested in school science often choose to participate in science activities outside school.
Calvin and Hobbes - "we don't talk about dinosaurs in school."
In addition, many practitioners in the field of informal science learning recognise the need to create productive collaborations between informal science education organisations and schools
See Esach (2007) for more context of the "edutainment" aspect of informal learning. Is entertaining content/context more important that the educational context? What should schools accept - or reject - from that position?
leaving students with little room to develop their own approaches to answering the question
See previous note.
The danger is that students might often need coaching on specific skills, which can be very difficult for a teacher to managce in one setting. As a result, many opt for the more recipe-based result.
They require a question or problem that serves to organize and drive activities; and these activities result in a series of artifacts, or products, that culminate in a final product that addresses the driving question.
Everything is working toward answering the driving question. The problem is that schools often dilute those questions or potential solutions to align with "the content" rather than allowing students to explore authentically.
Drawing analogies from everyday learning, researchers argue that knowledge is contextualized; that is, learners construct knowledge by solving complex problems in situations in which they use cognitive tools, multiple sources of information, and other individuals as resources
When we're solving problems out of school, we have several contexts which play into our understanding. Using this idea, we can structure learning experiences in school the same way - to engage students in multiple contexts for learning complex ideas.
Schooled people do better, although they rarely use the supposedly general algorithms taught in school. Instead, they invent new methods specific to the situation at hand.
Even though application is often missing, having formal training in some form of the skill can help general ideas be transferred to new situations.
Yet to be tru-ly skillful outside school, people must develop situation-specific forms of competence.
Having an idea of application helps with transfer. School generally misses the application component (see the previous note).
utside school, actions are intimately connected with objects and events; people often use the objects and events directly in their reasoning, without necessarily using symbols to represent them. School learning, by contrast, is mostly symbol-based; indeed, con-nections to the events and objects symbolized are often lost.
The story is that, "we need theory before we can apply," but much learning can happen through experience, trial & error, and feedback on production.
school is an institution that values thought that proceeds independently, without aid of physical and cognitive tools.
This is a huge gap between school and authentic activity, where if we were actually modelling the behavior of that skill, the tools would be included.
Practice testing and distributed practice received high utility assessments because they benefit learners of different ages and abilities and have been shown to boost students’ performance across many criterion tasks and even in educational contexts
Active practice with the material helps recall.
who believed that parents, caregivers, peers, and the culture at large are responsible for developing higher-order functions.
We can watch adults model things, but we need people to teach us the nuance and context of those behaviors.
this is different than simply copying someone else's behavior.
The inflection point of when something is learned comes in demonstration? Or in spontaneous performance of the behavior?
it is time to actually perform the behavior you observed.
Is this in conflict with the statement earlier of learning with no demonstration of new behaviors?
Retention can be affected by a number of factors, but the ability to pull up information later and act on it
Retrieval practice is a method which can be used to reinforce retention.
The goal of assimilation is to maintain the status quo. By assimilating information, you are keeping your existing knowledge and schemas intact and simply finding a place to store this new information.
This is really good to be aware of because sometimes we stretch really far to keep from having to reevaluate our thinking.
Assimilation and accommodation both work in tandem as part of the learning process.2 Some information is incorporated into our existing schemas through the process of assimilation, while other information leads to the development of new schemas or total transformations of existing ideas through the process of accommodation.
New ideas can be both assimilated and accommodated. It isn't all or nothing.
The process is somewhat subjective, because we tend to modify experience or information to fit in with our pre-existing beliefs
There is no method of objectively looking at something new. We have to practice disassociating the pre-existing understanding we may have from our schemas as we learn new things.
Raising children free from these stereotypes and limitations, she believed, would lead to greater freedom and fewer restrictions of free will
This discredits the dignity and value that comes from being male and female!
When subjected to societal disapproval, people will often feel pressured to alter their behavior or face rejection by those who disapprove of them.
This is one of the problems with postmodern society. Everyone has a different version of truth. Even though postmodern thinking says that "your truth is true," there is ridicule or societal issues when it doesn't align with theirs.
All of these influences add up to how gender schema is formed.
How many of these patterns are subliminal? Or, are they only impactful if they aren't recognized, even if they're prevalent in culture?
Is not worrying about these kinds of text patterns a sign that my schema is already fixed? Or is it insensitive to say that it's not an issue for me and my understanding of gender value?
Gender schema theory was introduced by psychologist Sandra Bem in 1981 and asserted that children learn about male and female roles from the culture in which they live.
All learning is local and defined by our environment, which includes culture.
People are more likely to pay attention to things that fit in with their current schemas.
Is this because it's easier to assimilate than it is to accommodate?
Event schemas are focused on patterns of behavior that should be followed for certain events.
How many event schemas do we possess for learning vs schooling? Would students describe the two similarly or differently? Would they even see a connection?
Punishment does not teach a person how to behave appropriately.
It teaches what not to do (avoidance) but not how to act desirably.
Skinner’s learning theories have been discredited by more current ones that consider higher order and more complex forms of learning.
Conditioning has no bearing on showing understanding of the lessons learned. Can a rat explain why it is shocked vs getting a food pellet? Can it transfer that knowledge to a new situation? Or is conditioning simply forming habits?
Skinner found that when and how often behaviors were reinforced played a role in the speed and strength of acquisition.
Immediately praising or responding can increase the association of the behavior with the response.
negatively reinforcing your behavior (not your child's).
We learn that removing children screaming makes our situation more pleasant. The method of removing that child is the learned behavior.
Respondent behaviors
This seems to counter learned behaviors. There is no reinforcement after this kind of response. How does it fit?
Maybe it fits because operant conditioning is concerned with learning, not necessarily responses?
Skinner was more interested in how the consequences of people's actions influenced their behavior.
Applying motivations after the fact. All behaviors are determined by the response and are learned.
the transmission of information from teacher to learner is essentially the transmission of the response appropriate to a certain stimulus.
We create stimuli specifically to generate a particular response. Knowing something is the demonstration of the response, nothing to do with metacognitive processes.
they focused on objectively observable, quantifiable events and behavior. They argued that since it is not possible to observe objectively or to quantify what occurs in the mind, scientific theories should take into account only observable indicators such as stimulus-response sequences.
Adding empirical evidence to conclusions drawn about human psychology. Cause/effect relationships.
Their methodology was primarily introspective, relying heavily on first-person reports of sensations and the constituents of immediate experiences.
Self-reporting leads to bias in results?
This means that it does not allow for any degree of free will in the individual.
Conditioning is appropriate in some cases - military training, athletics. Does it have a place in schools? If a behavior is conditioned, it is learned, but is that learned response able to push the learner to use it in next contexts?
Are some instances of conditioning more okay because they can be transferred? Or is all conditioning as learning mechanism dubious?
It is more likely that behavior is due to an interaction between nature (biology) and nurture (environment).
Environment and experiences!
The stimuli that have become associated with nicotine were neutral stimuli (NS) before “learning” took place but they became conditioned stimuli (CS), with repeated pairings. They can produce the conditioned response (CR).
We have no bearing toward or away from nicotine on it's own. It's the pairing of nicotine (via the cigarette) and the release of dopamine that our body learns to crave.
and these cues can trigger a feeling of craving
Step 1 of the habit cycle.
the conditioned stimulus acts as a type of signal or cue for the unconditioned stimulus
A stimulus that does not cause a response is paired with a stimulus that does cause a response, linking those to stimuli.
therefore is a natural response which has not been taught
Reflexes, natural responses to stimuli. Blinking in sunlight, yawning when tired, etc.
learning method in which a specific behavior is associated with either a positive or negative consequence.
Skinner.
Instead of feeling anxious and tense in these situations, the child will learn to stay relaxed and calm.
Conditioning is often presented as a way to achieve behaviors automatically. If those behaviors are things like self-regulation and awareness, is that a bad thing?
If we condition students to calm themselves at a sound (like the meditation bowl thing) have they learned self-regulation? Or are they simply responding to a stimulus out of habit?
Am I interested in forming habits which take over in specific situations or forming students who are aware of themselves and then choose the habits they want to develop?
However, if the smell of food were no longer paired with the whistle, eventually the conditioned response (hunger) would disappear.
Is this another method of learning? Or is it the same method - the same mechanism - just in the other direction?
If we remove conditioned stimuli from our schools, would students unlearn those conditioned responses?
the whistle sound would eventually trigger the conditioned response.
This makes it sound like it is an inevitable process. If we are aware of the conditioning, are we able to work against it somehow?
The conditioned stimulus is a previously neutral stimulus that, after becoming associated with the unconditioned stimulus, eventually comes to trigger a conditioned response.
Is this a cue that can be interrupted with a new routine?
Behaviorism assumes that all learning occurs through interactions with the environment and that environment shapes behavior.
There is no self with behaviorism - all learning is due to the environment and the physical responses.
Holland JG. Behaviorism: Part of the problem or part of the solution. J Appl Behav Anal. 1978;11(1):163-74. doi:10.1901/jaba.1978.11-163
This learning process creates a conditioned response through associations between an unconditioned stimulus and a neutral stimulus.
The key is learned association. Conditioning is obviously important, but what role does it have in the context for formal schooling?
Wolpe J, Plaud JJ. Pavlov's contributions to behavior therapy. The obvious and not so obvious. Am Psychol. 1997;52(9):966-72.