Facilitators Improve the Learning Experience of Visitors to a Science Centre

We studied how interactions with interpretative science centre staff impacts the learning behaviours and engagement levels of visitors who engage with exhibits at Science North (Sudbury, Canada). This study uses the Visitor-Based Learning Framework. The tool consists of seven discrete learning-associated behaviours that visitors show when engaging with exhibits, which are grouped into three categories of engagement: Initiation, Transition, and Breakthrough. These categories reflect increasing levels of engagement and depth of the learning experience. We studied forty-seven Science North exhibits, and 4,835 visitors to analyse the impact of unstructured facilitation in a naturalistic setting. We compared visitor Engagement Levels with and without a facilitator present. We determined that the presence of staff has a statistically significant impact on the percentage of visitors that engage in Breakthrough behaviours. When a facilitator is present, more visitors reach the Breakthrough Level of Engagement (p < 0.001). In the second phase of the study, we explored what facilitators do and say through thematic analysis to uncover common patterns of facilitator actions and comments. Our findings showed that facilitators employed strategies and methods that can be grouped in four categories or Facilitation Dimensions: Comfort, Information, Reflection, and Exhibit Use. These dimensions encompass different strategies and techniques of facilitation, that are used in a variety of situations and sequences. Our study goes beyond anecdotal evidence to show that staff-visitor interactions have a positive impact on visitor engagement with exhibits and therefore, potentially on visitor learning from exhibits. Our findings can be used to inform not only training programs but also managerial decisions and considerations around resource allocation. We suggest that facilitators are a fundamental asset for institutions that prioritize visitor engagement, one that should be given top priority when considering areas for investing.

Types of boredom and other learning activity emotions: A person-centred investigation of inter-individual data

Whether boredom is a unitary construct or if multiple types of boredom exist is a long-standing debate. Recent research has established the existence of boredom types based on frequency observations of boredom by experience sampling. This work tries to expand our understanding of boredom and replicate these previous findings by applying intensity observations of cross-sectional type for four discrete learning activity emotions: boredom, anxiety, hopelessness, and enjoyment. Latent class analysis based on activity emotion scores from 9863 first-year students of a business and economics program results in seven profiles. Five of these profiles allow a linear ordering from low to high control and value scores (the direct antecedents of emotions), low to high positive, and high to low negative emotions. Two profiles differ from this pattern: one ‘high boredom’ profile and one ‘low boredom’ profile. We next compare antecedent relationships of activity emotions at three different levels: inter-individual, inter-class or between classes, and intra-class or within classes. Some of these relationships are invariant for the choice of level of analysis, such as hopelessness. Other relationships, such as boredom, are highly variant: within-class relationships differ from inter-individual relationships. Indeed, our results confirm that boredom is not a unitary construct. The types of boredom found and their implications for educational practice are discussed and shared in this article.

The Differential Influence of Learner Factors and Learning Context on Different Professional Learning Activities

Participation in designated learning opportunities and engagement in workplace learning are very different kinds of professional learning activities: Whereas the former takes place in organised, predefined settings with intended learning objectives, the latter mostly arises as a by-product through everyday experiences at work. Yet, empirical and theoretical models often do not sufficiently differentiate between these two kinds of learning activities. The main goal in the present study is to test whether the two discrete learning activities are indeed facilitated in different ways and by different antecedents. The results of a multi-wave diary study with a sample of 229 German employees show that engagement in workplace learning is not influenced by conscious beliefs connected to learning, which play a central role in most theoretical models explaining participation in designated learning opportunities, underlining the need for an autonomous theory of workplace learning. Furthermore, the current study shows the strong direct, indirect, and moderating influence of organisational learning culture on both kinds of professional learning activities. Possible implications for practitioners to put greater emphasis on organisational factors when designing learning opportunities are discussed.

Relationships among perceived learning, challenge and affect in a clinical context

Background Challenge, sometimes perceived as stress, may be beneficial or detrimental to learning but the circumstances when it may be beneficial are not clear. This study looks at the association of challenge with perceived learning and how this might be influenced by affect, context or the type of learning. Method The participants, medical students in their first years of experiential clinical exposure, rated specified learning episodes (LEs) on the perceived learning (low to high), challenge (low to high) and affect (feeling positive to negative). Such learning episodes were self-identified or identified by course organisers. Correlations, using Kendall’s tau-b test, were conducted to explore the associations among learning, challenge and affect. In the second stage the types of LEs were then thematically classified in order to determine those that were positive for learning and challenging and/or associated with positive affect. Result There were positive correlations between perceived learning and challenge, and between perceived learning and affect for both types of LEs. The circumstances in which challenge (stress) promoted learning were authentic environments, authentic tasks and simulated clinical activities; most requiring a degree of social interaction. Conclusion Challenge and positive affect are beneficial in the perception of discrete learning, but are two separate constructs. Ideally both challenge and affect need to operate alongside authentic supportive clinical activities, that by their nature involve others, to maximise perceived learning.

DISCRETE AND INTEGRATED APPROACH AND THE IMPLICATIONS ON LANGUAGE TEACHING LEARNING MANAGEMENT

This paper describes discrete and integrated approach and the implication on language teaching learning management. Discrete approach emphasizes on the teaching and learning a language discretely, whereas integrated approach emphasizes on the whole language, namely speaking, writing, listening, reading, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. In fact, both are interrelated since discrete learning is the basis for integrated learning. Both should be implemented in the teaching learning process in the classroom so that students are able to use the language well. Therefore, the curriculum or the syllabus, teaching materials, teachers’ qualification, and classroom management should be prepared well.

Mixed-Reality Immersive Environment as an Instructional Tool for Building Educational Leadership Capacity

Technological innovations are changing the way education is delivered. With instructional media evolving at an exponential pace, instructional designers and educators have a variety of options when deciding what tools are best for delivering their instruction. Simulation and virtual environments are a growth area in aviation, defense, crisis management, medicine, and customer service, but the utilization of this technology in the field of educational leadership or in principal preparation programs is very much in an embryonic stage. In this chapter, the authors first provide a summary of the evolution of scenario simulation in the field of educational leadership, and develop ‘learning principles' for evaluating the effectiveness of the simulation in delivering discrete learning outcomes. They then provide a specific example of an innovative educational leadership program that is utilizing a specific virtual environment; introduce TLE TeachLivE™ (TeachLivE) as a method to help prepare future leaders for practice. Finally, they discuss professional avenues to consider while cultivating the advancement of TeachLivE™ as a supplemental method for learning.

Mixed-Reality Immersive Environment as an Instructional Tool for Building Educational Leadership Capacity

Technological innovations are changing the way education is delivered. With instructional media evolving at an exponential pace, instructional designers and educators have a variety of options when deciding what tools are best for delivering their instruction. Simulation and virtual environments are a growth area in aviation, defense, crisis management, medicine, and customer service, but the utilization of this technology in the field of educational leadership or in principal preparation programs is very much in an embryonic stage. In this chapter, the authors first provide a summary of the evolution of scenario simulation in the field of educational leadership, and develop ‘learning principles' for evaluating the effectiveness of the simulation in delivering discrete learning outcomes. They then provide a specific example of an innovative educational leadership program that is utilizing a specific virtual environment; introduce TLE TeachLivE™ (TeachLivE) as a method to help prepare future leaders for practice. Finally, they discuss professional avenues to consider while cultivating the advancement of TeachLivE™ as a supplemental method for learning.

An Innovative Function Mechanism for the Learning Sequencing Specifications

The sequencing specification defines an interoperable method for representing the intended behavior of an authored learning experience such that any Learning Management System (LMS) will sequence discrete learning activities in a consistent way. At present, in the sequencing specifications, the intended Sequencing Strategies is encoded one by one in the XML file, causing the redundancy of sequence data. This paper presents an innovative function mechanism to design learning sequencing. This mechanism adds two categories, a function element and a function-call element, into the IMS Content Package Information Model. The function element is used to design a reusable sequencing component with an interface of parameters, while the function-call element is used to repeatedly call the function element by transferring various actual parameters. This method improves the design environment of the learning sequencing and effectively reduces the redundancy of the learning sequencing in a content package.

Effects of the Adequacy of Learning Strategies in Self-Regulated Learning Settings: A Video-Based Microanalytical Lab Study

So far, the quality of learning strategies has been considered primarily within the framework of the “description paradigm” by investigating the relationship between the use frequency of macrostrategies and achievement. The ADEQUA study is approaching the quality of learning strategic actions in a more finely grained fashion by rating the adequacy of discrete learning strategies at the microanalytical level. Specifically, the study scrutinizes the strategies used by secondary-level students of English as a foreign language while reading an English text in a self-regulated, cooperative learning environment. The strategies they used in overcoming comprehension difficulties were identified and rated on the basis of the students’ videotaped task performance as well as a stimulated recall procedure. In regression models, the adequacy of strategic actions is of major predictive power with considerable effect sizes for students’ achievement. The hypothesis-testing approach adopted here (i.e., to assess the adequacy of every discrete strategy used by means of highly inferential ratings), appears to be promising.