On critical thinking and content knowledge: a critique of the assumptions of cognitive load theory

How critical thinking is understood has a logical impact on pedagogy and curriculum design in a critical thinking education. If critical thinking is seen as a complex mix of knowledge, skills and dispositions that can be articulated and made an object of study in themselves, then there is scope for intentional and explicit targeting of such things. If, however, critical thinking is seen as a general skill more or less impermeable to pedagogical influence and best realised through the development of content knowledge, then an explicit focus on developing thinking skills is misplaced and potentially distracting. The latter view is that of cognitive load theory (CLT), a theoretical framing of thinking and learning that has gained traction in education including with practitioners. This paper will explore some of the assumptions of CLT and show that they are either (1) in error, (2) vaguely or confusingly expressed and/or (3) irrelevant to the conclusions drawn within the theory which are often themselves errors of inference. Moreover, I point out that important educational research that weakens the claims of CLT is often not engaged with or addressed.

Kuasa Ideologi Organisasi Keagamaan dalam Novel Adam Hawa dan Tuhan Izinkan Aku Menjadi Pelacur Karya Muhidin M Dahlan Serta Relevansinya pada Bahan Ajar Mata Kuliah Kritik Sastra

The Power of Religious Organization Ideology in Adam Hawa and Tuhan Izinkan Aku Menjadi Pelacur Novels Written by Muhidin M Dahlan With The Relevancy in Literary Criticisim Course Teaching Materials ABSTRAKTujuan penelitian ini untuk mendeskripsikan hegemoni ideologi organisasi keagamaan dalam novel Adam Hawa dan Tuhan Izinkan Aku Menjadi Pelacur karya Muhidin M Dahlan (Gus Muh). Hasil identifikasi ini memiliki relevansi dengan Capaian Pembelajaran Mata Kuliah (CPMK) Kritik Sastra. Penelitian ini berjenis kualitatif dengan pendekatan sosiologi sastra. Analisis menggunakan analisis isi. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa hegemoni ideologi dalam organisasi keluarga dan keagamaan berbentuk patriarki dan materialisme. Oleh karena itu, kedua novel berpotensi sebagai bahan ajar mata kuliah Kritik Sastra pada kompetensi keterampilan umum dan khusus.Kata kunci: Hegemoni, Sastra, Pendidikan ABSTRACTThis research aims to describe ideological hegemony in Adam Hawa and Tuhan Izinkan Aku Menjadi Pelacur written by Muhidin M Dahlan (Gus Muh). The result of the study has relevance with the learning outcomes of the literary criticism course. This research is qualitative with sociology literature approach. Content analysis is used in the analysis. The result of the research shows that the ideological hegemony in family and religious organization are in forms of patriarchy and materialism. It means that these novels are potential in teaching materials for literary criticism course on both specific and general skill competences.Keywords: Hegemony, Literature, Education

Statistical learning occurs during practice while high-order rule learning during rest period

Knowing when the brain learns is crucial for both the comprehension of memory formation and consolidation, and for developing new training and neurorehabilitation strategies in healthy and patient populations. Recently, a rapid form of offline learning developing during short rest periods has been shown to account for most of procedural learning, leading to the hypothesis that the brain mainly learns during rest between practice periods. Nonetheless, procedural learning has several subcomponents not disentangled in previous studies investigating learning dynamics, such as acquiring the statistical regularities of the task, or else the high-order rules that regulate its organization. Here, we analyzed 506 behavioral sessions of implicit visuomotor deterministic and probabilistic sequence learning tasks, allowing the distinction between general skill learning, statistical learning and high-order rule learning. Our results show that the temporal dynamics of apparently simultaneous learning processes differ. While general skill and high-order rule learning are acquired offline, statistical learning is evidenced online. These findings open new avenues on the short-scale temporal dynamics of learning and memory consolidation and reveal a fundamental distinction between statistical and high-order rule learning, the former benefiting from online evidence accumulation and the latter requiring short rest periods for rapid consolidation.

The longer the better? General skill but not probabilistic learning improves with the duration of short rest periods

Memory consolidation has mainly been investigated for extended periods, from hours to days. Recent studies suggest that memory consolidation can also occur within shorter periods, from minutes to seconds. Our study aimed at determining (1) whether short rest periods lead to improvements in implicit probabilistic sequence learning and (2) whether length of rest duration influences such offline improvements. Participants performed an implicit probabilistic sequence learning task throughout 45 blocks. Between blocks, participants were allowed to rest and then to continue the task in their pace. The overall reaction times (general skill learning) shortened from pre- to post-rest periods, and this improvement was increased for longer rest durations. However, probabilistic sequences knowledge decreased in these periods, and this decrement was not related to the length of rest duration. These results suggest that (1) general skill learning but not probabilistic sequence knowledge benefits from short rest periods and, possibly, from memory consolidation, (2) ultra-fast offline improvements in general skills, but not forgetting in probabilistic sequence knowledge, are time-dependent. Overall, our findings highlight that ultra-fast consolidation differently affects distinct cognitive processes.

Project Management With High-Performance Work Teams

One of the factors that positively affect the objectives of a project is the performance level of the human talent that executes it. From the human point of view, a project can be defined as the action of a group of people focused towards achieving an outcome. This research work seeks to establish the general skills that a person who is part of a work high-performance team must have, that allow him or her to positively influence collective performance. A general skill describes the behavior and abilities of an individual, regardless of the degree of complexity that frames a job. This study was carried out with the support of 149 project managers from the Colombian software industry.

The Effects of Skill Regimes and Family Policies on the Gender Employment Gap

Drawing on the literature of gendering varieties of capitalism, this study empirically tests whether skill regimes moderate the association between family policy and the gender employment gap. Using the Luxembourg Income Study for fifteen countries with multilevel analysis and various gender employment indicators, this study finds that general skill regimes are associated with a smaller gender employment gap in full-time jobs, high-skilled jobs, and in the private sector. The effects of parental leave vary significantly by skill regimes, suggesting that patterns of gender employment gap associated with parental leave differ by types of skill regimes.

Is there more room to improve? The lifespan trajectory of procedural learning and its relationship to the between- and within-group differences in average response times

Characterizing the developmental trajectories of cognitive functions such as learning, memory and decision making across the lifespan faces fundamental challenges. Cognitive functions typically encompass several processes that can be differentially affected by age. Methodological issues also arise when comparisons are made across age groups that differ in basic performance measures, such as in average response times (RTs). Here we focus on procedural learning – a fundamental cognitive function that underlies the acquisition of cognitive, social, and motor skills – and demonstrate how disentangling subprocesses of learning and controlling for differences in average RTs can reveal different developmental trajectories across the human lifespan. Two hundred-seventy participants aged between 7 and 85 years performed a probabilistic sequence learning task that enabled us to separately measure two processes of procedural learning, namely general skill learning and statistical learning. Using raw RT measures, in between-group comparisons, we found a U-shaped trajectory with children and older adults exhibiting greater general skill learning compared to adolescents and younger adults. However, when we controlled for differences in average RTs (either by using ratio scores or focusing on a subsample of participants with similar average speed), only children (but not older adults) demonstrated superior general skill learning consistently across analyses. Testing the relationship between average RTs and general skill learning within age groups shed light on further age-related differences, suggesting that general skill learning measures are more affected by average speed in some age groups. Consistent with previous studies of learning probabilistic regularities, statistical learning showed a gradual decline across the lifespan, and learning performance seemed to be independent of average speed, regardless of the age group. Overall, our results suggest that children are superior learners in various aspects of procedural learning, including both general skill and statistical learning. Our study also highlights the importance to test, and control for, the effect of average speed on other RT measures of cognitive functions, which can fundamentally affect the interpretation of group differences in developmental, aging and clinical psychology and neuroscience studies.

Yabancı Dil Olarak Türkçe Öğrenenlerin Duygusal Algı Becerilerinin Değerlendirilmesi / Assessment of Emotional Literacy Levels of Students Learning Turkish as a Foreign Language

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>The aim of this research is to determine the level of emotional literacy skills of learners who learn Turkish as a foreign language and to examine them according to various variables. For this purpose, emotional literacy general and subscale skills levels of the students learning Turkish as a foreign language have been determined. It was investigated whether the emotional literacy skills of the students who learned Turkish as a foreign language showed a statistically significant difference according to the variables of sex, nationality and Turkish Language acquisition level. After this process, students who learned Turkish as a foreign language were interviewed and their views on emotional literacy were taken and interpreted. As a result of the research, it was determined that the general skill levels of emotional literacy of the students who learned Turkish as a foreign language were in the medium level. It has been determined that students who learn Turkish as a foreign language have difficulties in expressing their feelings and understanding the expressed emotions. And also it has been determined that they are weak in terms of vocabulary. It has been achieved that students who learn Turkish as a foreign language thinking emotional literacy skills are necessary for language teaching.</p><p><strong><br /></strong></p><p><strong>Öz</strong></p><p>Bu araştırmanın amacı, yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğrenen öğrencilerin duygusal algı (duygusal okuryazarlık) becerisi düzeylerinin belirlenmesi ve çeşitli değişkenlere göre incelenmesidir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğrenen öğrencilerin duygusal okuryazarlık becerisi genel ve alt boyut beceri düzeyleri belirlenmiş ve bu düzeyler arasında cinsiyet, uyruk ve Türkçe öğrenim seviyesi değişkenlerine göre istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir farklılığın olup olmadığı incelenmiştir. Bu işlemin ardından yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğrenen öğrencilerle görüşme yapılmış ve duygusal okuryazarlık becerisine ilişkin görüşleri alınmış ve yorumlanmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğrenen öğrencilerin duygusal okuryazarlık becerisi genel düzeylerinin orta seviyede olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğrenen öğrencilerin duygularını ifade etmekte ve ifade edilen duyguları anlamakta zorlandıkları, özellikle de bu konuda kelime bilgisi yönünden zayıf oldukları saptanmıştır. Yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğrenen öğrencilerin duygusal okuryazarlık becerilerini dil öğretiminde gerekli gördüğü sonucuna da ulaşılmıştır.</p>

Designing an Extensible Wire Navigation Simulation Platform

Orthopaedic resident training has been, and continues to be, in a state of flux. Initially, there were limits placed on the number of hours a resident could work in a week [1]. Later, residency programs were required to provide laboratory-based training in basic surgical skill for first year residents [2]. Now there is a push towards a competency-based training program that graduates residents who demonstrate their acquisition of adequate surgical skills [3]. With each of these shifts in the training model, programs and institutions have looked increasingly to simulation-based training to ease the way. Simulation offers opportunities to train surgeons quickly, provide essential feedback to foster improvement, and assess skill acquisition. With the broad swath of requirements to satisfy in orthopaedic surgical skills training, a simulation platform must support an array of training capabilities for resident practice and performance assessment. Wire navigation is a central skill in orthopaedics that has a broad variety of applications. In this task, surgeons must use 2D intra-operative fluoroscopic images to visualize the 3D anatomy of a patient and place a wire along a specified path through bone. In some situations, placing the wire is the final task; in others the wire serves as a guide for subsequently placed cannulated implants. Regardless of the situation, the placement of the wire in the bone directly influences the surgical result for the patient. We previously presented the design of a wire navigation surgical simulator dedicated specifically to hip wire navigation [4]. Our experience with the dozens of surgeons and residents who have used the simulator suggest that they find the general skill of guiding a wire to be relatively abstract. They are more drawn to practicing specific surgeries rather than the general skill. To address this need, we have modified the simulator to present new surgical procedures, while still exercising the underlying skill of wire navigation. We also learned that the task of directing the fluoroscope in order to acquire appropriate view angles for making surgical decisions is integral to surgical wire navigation, so we extended the simulator to include this important aspect of surgical skill.