Politics for Learning or Learning for Politics?

It is argued that political democracyand citizenship should not be taken as primarygoals within university education. Instead theauthor argues for a notion of ``academicdemocracy' with the overall goal or ethos oflearning together. Moreover it is argued that``learning' then should be understood accordingto ``practical traditions of knowledge', whichmeans that truth is not the ultimate goal. Theultimate goal is practices that lead to thegood of men and women.     

Does Infant-Directed Speech Help Phonetic Learning? A Machine Learning Investigation

A prominent hypothesis holds that by speaking to infants in infant-directed speech (IDS) as opposed to adult-directed speech (ADS), parents help them learn phonetic categories. Specifically, two characteristics of IDS have been claimed to facilitate learning: hyperarticulation, which makes the categories more separable, and variability, which makes the generalization more robust. Here, we test the separability and robustness of vowel category learning on acoustic representations of speech uttered by Japanese adults in ADS, IDS (addressed to 18- to 24-month olds), or read speech (RS). Separability is determined by means of a distance measure computed between the five short vowel categories of Japanese, while robustness is assessed by testing the ability of six different machine learning algorithms trained to classify vowels to generalize on stimuli spoken by a novel speaker in ADS. Using two different speech representations, we find that hyperarticulated speech, in the case of RS, can yield better separability, and that increased between-speaker variability in ADS can yield, for some algorithms, more robust categories. However, these conclusions do not apply to IDS, which turned out to yield neither more separable nor more robust categories compared to ADS inputs. We discuss the usefulness of machine learning algorithms run on real data to test hypotheses about the functional role of IDS.     

Learning To Parse?

A strong claim about human sentence comprehension is that the processing mechanism is fully innate and applies differently to different languages only to the extent that their grammars differ. If so, there is hope for an explanatory project which attributes all parsing strategies to fundamental design characteristics of the parsing device. However, the whole explanatory program is in peril because of the discovery (Cuetos & Mitchell, 1988) that Late Closure is not universal: Spanish, and also Dutch and other languages, favor Early Closure (high attachment) where English favors Late Closure flow attachment). I argue that the universal parser can weather this storm. Exceptions to Late Closure in Spanish and other languages are observed only in one construction (a relative clause attaching into a complex noun phrase [NP]), which is borderline in English too. For other constructions, low attachment is preferred in all languages tested. I propose that what differentiates the complex NP construction is the heaviness of the attachee compared to that of the host configuration. A relative clause is a heavy attachee, and the lower NP alone is small as a host; the relative is therefore better balanced if the whole complex NP is its host. A wide range of facts is accounted for by the principle that a constituent likes to have a sister of its own size. Light constituents will tend to attach low, and heavy ones to attach high, since larger constituents are dominated by higher nodes. A preference for balanced weight is familiar from work on prosodic phrasing. I suggest, therefore, that prosodic processing occurs in parallel with syntactic processing (even in reading) and influences structural ambiguity resolution. Height of attachment ambiguities are resolved by the prosodically motivated same-size-sister constraint. The exceptional behavior of English may be due to its prosodic packaging of a relative pronoun with the adjacent noun, overriding the balance tendency. If this explanation is correct, it is possible that all cross-language variations in parsing preferences are due to cross-language variations in the prosodic component of the competence grammar.     

Learning Łukasiewicz logic

The integration between connectionist learning and logic-based reasoning is a longstanding foundational question in artificial intelligence, cognitive systems, and computer science in general. Research into neural-symbolic integration aims to tackle this challenge, developing approaches bridging the gap between sub-symbolic and symbolic representation and computation. In this line of work the core method has been suggested as a way of translating logic programs into a multilayer perceptron computing least models of the programs. In particular, a variant of the core method for three valued Łukasiewicz logic has proven to be applicable to cognitive modelling among others in the context of Byrne’s suppression task. Building on the underlying formal results and the corresponding computational framework, the present article provides a modified core method suitable for the supervised learning of Łukasiewicz logic (and of a closely-related variant thereof), implements and executes the corresponding supervised learning with the backpropagation algorithm and, finally, constructs a rule extraction method in order to close the neural-symbolic cycle. The resulting system is then evaluated in several empirical test cases, and recommendations for future developments are derived.     

Refocusing on the Learning in “Integration of Faith and Learning"

The purpose of this study was to assess student perceptions of the faith-learning integration process in instructional methods courses taught by a single professor. Thirty-one students were asked by the professor to complete an open-ended questionnaire at the end of their course experience. Results indicated that students in this study described or defined the integration of faith and learning in ways reflective of the content of the courses, which was teaching methods. While not all students said integration of faith and learning occurred in the classes, all students did provide examples of integrative moments. Most students described faith-learning integration in terms of teacher actions rather than student actions. Thus, it appears that these students were describing integration of faith and teaching more so than integration of faith and learning.     

Learning to Neighbor? Service-learning in Context

Service-learning has received a great deal of attention in the management education literature over the past decade, as a method by which students can acquire moral and civic values as well as gain academic knowledge and practice real-world skills. Scholars focus on student and community impact, curricular design, and rationale. However, the educational environment (“context”) in which service-learning occurs has been given less attention, although experienced educators know that the classroom is hardly a vacuum and that students learn a great deal from the non-curricular aspects of their educational experience. Moral values in particular are conveyed by what is not said. Given this, I argue that the contexts in which service-learning takes place are as important as the activity itself. Three perspectives on context will be described and assessed: the “hidden” curriculum, the educational atmosphere, and the university’s orientation towards social responsibility.

Learning to “See” Less Than Nothing: Putting Perceptual Skills to Work for Learning Numerical Structure

How can children's natural perceptuo-motor skills be harnessed for teaching and learning mathematical structure? We address this question in the case of the integers. Existing research suggests that adult mental representations of integers recruit perceptuo-motor functionalities involving symmetry. Building on these findings, we designed a hands-on curriculum that emphasizes symmetry to teach integer concepts to fourth graders. Compared to two control conditions, children who went through the experimental curriculum showed evidence of incorporating symmetry into their mental representations of integers and performed higher on problems beyond the scope of instruction, including negative fractions and algebra-readiness problems. Gains did not come at the expense of basic integer computation skill. This study has direct practical implications, as current integers curricula generally omit symmetry. The research demonstrates an approach to designing instruction that involves identifying perceptuo-motor functionalities underlying numerical cognition and creating learning activities to recruit them.     

Enkrasia or evidentialism? Learning to love mismatch

Philosophical Studies - I formulate a resilient paradox about epistemic rationality, discuss and reject various solutions, and sketch a way out. The paradox exemplifies a tension between a wide...     

Does Providing Prompts During Retrieval Practice Improve Learning?

The purpose of this investigation was to identify ways to prompt retrieval practice to make recall even more effective at producing meaningful learning. In two experiments, subjects read educational texts and practiced retrieval across two periods. During prompted retrieval, subjects were cued to explain and describe concepts from the text, whereas during free recall, subjects recalled as much of the material from the text as they could. A reading control condition was also included. Learning was assessed using both verbatim and higher‐order questions 1 week later. Practicing retrieval improved learning relative to the control on both types of questions; however, whether subjects practiced free or prompted retrieval did not matter for learning. Subjects rated prompted retrieval as less enjoyable and interesting than the other retrieval conditions. Results demonstrate practicing retrieval promoted meaningful learning, and that subjects' initial retrieval success was highest when they used their own retrieval strategies during recall. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Learning under stress: how does it work?

The effects of stress on learning and memory are not always clear: both facilitating and impairing influences are described in the literature. Here we propose a unifying theory, which states that stress will only facilitate learning and memory processes: (i) when stress is experienced in the context and around the time of the event that needs to be remembered, and (ii) when the hormones and transmitters released in response to stress exert their actions on the same circuits as those activated by the situation, that is, when convergence in time and space takes place. The mechanism of action of stress hormones, particularly corticosteroids, can explain how stress within the context of a learning experience induces focused attention and improves memory of relevant information.     

Learning to think in a ‘war zone’

This paper describes an experimental investigation of Winnicott's set situation as described by him in 1941. Three groups of South African infants, 7 to 9 months old, selected from white, black and institutionalized samples were tested three times in the set situation to validate Winnicott's findings and explore new ways of extending the usefulness of the set situation. The study also attempts to explore phantasy in infancy. The results show no significant differences between the black and white infants in the standard presentation, validating Winnicott's observations across different ethnic groups. However, significant differences in the institutionalized group were found, revealing considerable deviations and disturbances. In the second testing, where frustration was introduced, there were, however, significant differences in response to frustration between the black and white infants. Individual examples reveal the uniqueness of the responses to the situation. The situation provides a semi-structured infant observation which can be used as a diagnostic thermometer by professionals in the field of mental health.     

Learning complex sequences: no role for observation?

Two experiments examined performance in a sequence learning task. Participants were trained on a repeating sequence which was presented as a visual display and learning was measured via the increase in reaction time to respond to a new sequence. Some participants made a response to each stimulus while others merely observed the sequence. In Experiment 1 participants responding to the display via a keypress showed learning, but those merely observing did not. Five possible reasons for the failure to find observational learning were considered and the Experiment 2 attempted to resolve these. This second experiment confirmed the findings of Experiment 1 in a non-spatial sequence display using a cover story which encouraged attention to the display but not rule-search strategies. The results are discussed in relation to applied and theoretical aspects of implicit learning. Received: 20 December 1999 / Accepted: 16 March 2000     

Adult Learners’ Informal Learning Experiences in Formal Education Setting

Schools typically ignore an enormous part of students’ learning, i.e. informal learning. Such informal processes include intentional, incidental, and tacit learning and tend to be unnoticed because of their taken-for-granted nature. By conducting in-depth interviews with 15 students, two teachers, and two program coordinators of an adult education program, this study examines informal learning outcomes, processes, and personal informal learning experiences within formal education. The study aimed to reveal the interaction between formal and informal learning as well as the respondents’ experiences in this matter. Respondents report a diverse array of informal learning results. Respondents describe informal learning to occur through self-directed learning projects, daily conversations and experiences, and the program’s informal and hidden curriculum. According to respondents, informal learning has the potential to enrich and complement formal learning. Moreover, the findings point to potential personal, educational, and societal benefits of revealing informal learning within formal education. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Innovations in Family Support: What Are We Learning?

As family support programs develop across the United States through grassroots efforts by families, state demonstration projects, and local initiatives, new opportunities have become available to examine the experiences of families with service delivery systems. In this study, the research team examined key principles of innovative family support and their effects on families with children at high risk for out-of-home placements. The research team used a multi-case study design with indepth participant observation and semi-structured interviews with a purposeful sample of families. The findings on agency implementation and the families' perspectives are described, together with implications for agency change in family support. The findings point to the need for a re-examination of the emerging approaches to family support innovations, including in the context of national policy reform and the agency-based, service delivery system.     

Learning lyrics: To sing or not to sing?

According to common practice and oral tradition, learning verbal materials through song should facilitate word recall. In the present study, we provide evidence against this belief. In Experiment 1, 36 university students, half of them musicians, learned an unfamiliar song in three conditions. In the sung-sung condition, the song to be learned was sung, and the response was sung too. In the sung-spoken condition, the response was spoken. In the divided-spoken condition, the presented lyrics (accompanied by music) and the response were both spoken. Superior word recall in the sung-sung condition was predicted. However, fewer words were recalled when singing than when speaking. Furthermore, the mode of presentation, whether sung or spoken, had no influence on lyric recall, in either short- or long-term recall. In Experiment 2, singing was assessed with and without words. Altogether, the results indicate that the text and the melody of a song have separate representations in memory, making singing a dual task to perform, at least in the first steps of learning. Interestingly, musical training had little impact on performance, suggesting that vocal learning is a basic and widespread skill.     

Lifelong Learning: A Pacification of ‘Know How’

A tendency of previous studies of lifelong learning to focus on learning and learning subjectivities may have led to an underestimation of potential effects in terms of a system of knowledge constitutive processes that operates powerfully to shape our societies. In this paper we explore lifelong learning and practices in the construction of knowledge at the point where a new relationship is being attempted between university courses and workplaces through programmes for learning. Drawing from Foucault and others we argue a strategic relation between discourses of lifelong learning and knowledge practices in such locations. Discourses of lifelong learning appear to support the reaching out of disciplinary practices into the workplace where theoretical knowledge is combined with knowledge derived from work experience, as a new form of knowledge that has use value. Discipline as a modality of power appears reconfigured and multiplied in new power-knowledge constellations which aim to subdue the desire and power of know how. Rather than lifelong learning as learning apparatus and strategy in the promotion of a will to learn as has been suggested elsewhere, we offer an alternative account. Here the promotion of a will to learn articulates with the will to knowledge in part through discourses of lifelong learning. Practices of knowledge constitution support the pacification of know how through its reconfiguration as knowledge that can be codified and mobilized for economic innovation.     

Teachers’ Identity, Self and the Process of Learning

In this paper we try, by drawing on some insights from practical knowledge, to bridge a gap between common conceptions of teaching on the one hand, and of learning on the other. In Western traditions of educational thought and discourse, practical knowledge—i.e. the dynamics of thinking, speaking, acting, and personal writing—is frequently separated from disciplinary knowledge: i.e. the knowledge of academic disciplines. But this separation often fails to recognize an inherent dialectic in teaching and learning. Through fresh explorations of human capacities to act and think, to speak and write, we try to illuminate different aspects of a teacher’s identity, including the teacher’s individuality and the teacher as an agent of an educational institution. The teacher has to present and represent knowledge in education, both as an agent of an institution and as a person. By examining the disclosure and transformation of the self in light of understandings of identity as sameness (i.e. that which doesn’t change with time), or as selfhood (i.e. that which is confronted by successive challenges), we hope to draw some productive conclusions about the teacher’s self-understanding as the source for personal learning in education. We aim to explore the importance of transformation of the teachers’ self for the quality of learning relationships between the teacher and the always Other student.     

Learning from Animals? Examining the Nature of Human Uniqueness

The Psychological Record -