Lecture

How People Learn: Design and Learning Process

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In course

HUM-432: How people learn: Designing Learning Tools I

The students will understand the cognitive and social factors which affect learning - particularly in science and engineering. They will be able to use social research techniques as part of the design process to understand end users. ...

Description

This lecture explores the design and learning process, discussing topics such as observational learning, implicit pattern learning, inquiry learning, and procedural learning. It also covers the functions of the phonological loop and the central executive in working memory.

Instructors (2)

Roland John Tormey

I am a sociologist and learning scientist researching and teaching on engineering education. I'm particularly focused on the roles of emotion and self-regulation in engineering teaching and learning. My profile is accessible here.

Nihat Kotluk

Dr. Kotluk is currently a post-doc at the EPFL. He focuses mainly on emotions in the decision-making process, moral reasoning, and ethics in Engineering Education. He also works on equality and diversity issues. He has an academic background in both STEM and social sciences. Dr. Kotluk has acquired advanced skills in education, inclusive pedagogy, and science teachers' training. He has 14 years of teaching experience and has trained high school students in physics and teachers in pedagogy and research methods, among others. Dr. Kotluk has strong teaching and learning communication skills. He holds a Ph.D. in Educational Science, Curriculum, and Instruction. In his thesis, he studied the perceptions and practices of educators in culturally relevant pedagogy and developed recommendations to put more emphasis on inclusion in pre-service teacher education. With his research, he opened a new discussion in the academic community in Turkey and internationally. In his recent work, he analyzes the educational challenges facing refugee communities and other marginalized groups. In the study, he focused on whether and how teachers implemented the principles of culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies and the challenges teachers faced while trying to implement these principles with Syrian students in Turkey. In his more recent work, he has studied moral emotions, moral reasoning in engineering ethics, and equality and diversity issues in engineering education. His teaching and research interests include emotions in engineering education, culturally responsive STEM education, equity and diversity in education, and multicultural education.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Psychology

Basic psychology: Cognitive psychology

Related concepts (32)

Learning

Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of learning in certain plants. Some learning is immediate, induced by a single event (e.g. being burned by a hot stove), but much skill and knowledge accumulate from repeated experiences. The changes induced by learning often last a lifetime, and it is hard to distinguish learned material that seems to be "lost" from that which cannot be retrieved.

Experiential learning

Experiential learning (ExL) is the process of learning through experience, and is more narrowly defined as "learning through reflection on doing". Hands-on learning can be a form of experiential learning, but does not necessarily involve students reflecting on their product. Experiential learning is distinct from rote or didactic learning, in which the learner plays a comparatively passive role. It is related to, but not synonymous with, other forms of active learning such as action learning, adventure learning, free-choice learning, cooperative learning, service-learning, and situated learning.

Observational learning

Observational learning is learning that occurs through observing the behavior of others. It is a form of social learning which takes various forms, based on various processes. In humans, this form of learning seems to not need reinforcement to occur, but instead, requires a social model such as a parent, sibling, friend, or teacher with surroundings. Particularly in childhood, a model is someone of authority or higher status in an environment.

Memory

Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, it would be impossible for language, relationships, or personal identity to develop. Memory loss is usually described as forgetfulness or amnesia. Memory is often understood as an informational processing system with explicit and implicit functioning that is made up of a sensory processor, short-term (or working) memory, and long-term memory.

Machine learning

Machine learning (ML) is an umbrella term for solving problems for which development of algorithms by human programmers would be cost-prohibitive, and instead the problems are solved by helping machines 'discover' their 'own' algorithms, without needing to be explicitly told what to do by any human-developed algorithms. Recently, generative artificial neural networks have been able to surpass results of many previous approaches.

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