Alternative Learning Model Research Articles

PEMBELAJARAN BERBASIS STUDENT-CENTERED LEARNING PADA MATERI PENDIDIKAN AGAMA ISLAM

A professional teacher - the one who does not only master the subject, but also be competent in selecting certain model – is really needed to carry out the teaching and learning process. One of the alternative learning models that may activate students is Student-Centered Learning (SCL). This model provides students with the opportunity to actively participate independently in his learning, be responsible and initiate to his learning needs.

Automatic Classification of Unstructured Blog Text

Automatic classification of blog entries is generally treated as a semi-supervised machine learning task, in which the blog entries are automatically assigned to one of a set of pre-defined classes based on the features extracted from their textual content. This paper attempts automatic classification of unstructured blog entries by following pre-processing steps like tokenization, stop-word elimination and stemming; statistical techniques for feature set extraction, and feature set enhancement using semantic resources followed by modeling using two alternative machine learning models—the na?ve Bayesian model and the artificial neural network model. Empirical evaluations indicate that this multi-step classification approach has resulted in good overall classification accuracy over unstructured blog text datasets with both machine learning model alternatives. However, the na?ve Bayesian classification model clearly out-performs the ANN based classification model when a smaller feature-set is available which is usually the case when a blog topic is recent and the number of training datasets available is restricted.

A Comparative Evaluation of Alternative Blended Learning Models Used for Teaching Academic English (EAP/ESAP) to Students of Computer Sciences

This paper describes the use of a number of alternative blended learning models based on a mixture of traditional face-to-face classes with some elements of e-learning in the course of “English for Academic Purposes” (EAP) and “English for Specific Academic Purposes” (ESAP) taught to junior and senior undergraduate students of computer sciences in the undergraduate program of Business Informatics and Software Engineering over a period of time from 2009 to 2012 at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRU HSE), Moscow, Russia. The following educational platforms for the implementation of blended learning models were chosen - Wiki (pbworks and wetpaint – -2009), sites and services Google (“BI HSE IELTS Class” 2009– 2010) and a proprietary all university learning management system (LMS - HSE LMS eFront – 2011-2012). The purpose of this study was to investigate the learning and pedagogical opportunities provided by each blended learning environment. The learners’ attitude to bended learning environments and the problematic areas associated with academic skills development were detected by conducting a survey at the end of each EAP course. When working with senior years (ESAP) a number of Web 2 technologies were used and the most efficient ones were highlighted. The research outcome showed that despite some problems, students were satisfied with the pedagogical approach used and their academic achievements became significantly better due to online support.

Practice What You Teach: Facilitating Anarchism In and Out of the Classroom

Abstract: In recent years, human geographers have criticized the increasing corporatization, commodification, and objectification of knowledge production, and have looked to critical pedagogical frameworks that seek to counteract these forces. Anarchism, as a body of theories and practices, has a long history of engagement with radical pedagogical experimentation. Anarchism and geography have much to contribute to one another: anarchism, through its support for creative, non‐coercive, practical learning spaces, and geography, for its critical examination of the spaces of education. In this paper, I evaluate the prospects for anarchist‐geographic pedagogies theoretically, as well as through my own experiences teaching and learning about anarchism over the past decade in a liberal arts, higher education US environment. I argue for a combined critical anarchist‐geographic pedagogical approach that appreciates the challenges of building alternative learning models within existing neoliberalizing institutions, provides the necessary tools for finding uniquely situated opportunities for educational change, and emplaces a grounded, liberating, student‐led critical pedagogy.

Curriculum learning designs: Teaching health assessment skills for advanced nursing practitioners through sustainable flexible learning

Innovative curriculum designs are vital for effective learning in contemporary nursing education where traditional modes of delivery are not adequate to meet the learning needs of postgraduate students. This instance of postgraduate teaching in a distributed learning environment offered the opportunity to design a flexible learning model for teaching advanced clinical skills. To present a sustainable model for flexible learning that enables specialist nurses to gain postgraduate qualifications without on-campus class attendance by teaching and assessing clinical health care skills in an authentic workplace setting. An action research methodology was used to gather evidence and report on the process of curriculum development of a core unit, Comprehensive Health Assessment (CHA), within 13 different postgraduate speciality courses. Qualitative data was collected from 27 teaching academics, 21 clinical specialist staff, and 7 hospital managers via interviews, focus groups and journal reflections. Evaluations from the initial iteration of CHA from 36 students were obtained. Data was analyzed to develop and evaluate the curriculum design of CHA. The key factors indicated by participants in the curriculum design process were coordination and structuring of teaching and assessment; integration of content development; working with technologies, balancing specialities and core knowledge; and managing induction and expectations. A set of recommendations emerged as a result of the action research process. These included: a constructive alignment approach to curriculum design; the production of a facilitator's guide that specifies expectations and unit information for academic and clinical education staff; an agreed template for content authors; and the inclusion of synchronous communication for real-time online tutoring. The highlight of the project was that it built curriculum design capabilities of clinicians and students which can sustain this alternative model of online learning.

Automatic Bootstrapping and Tracking of Object Contours

A new fully automatic object tracking and segmentation framework is proposed. The framework consists of a motion-based bootstrapping algorithm concurrent to a shape-based active contour. The shape-based active contour uses finite shape memory that is automatically and continuously built from both the bootstrap process and the active-contour object tracker. A scheme is proposed to ensure that the finite shape memory is continuously updated but forgets unnecessary information. Two new ways of automatically extracting shape information from image data given a region of interest are also proposed. Results demonstrate that the bootstrapping stage provides important motion and shape information to the object tracker. This information is found to be essential for good (fully automatic) initialization of the active contour. Further results also demonstrate convergence properties of the content of the finite shape memory and similar object tracking performance in comparison with an object tracker with unlimited shape memory. Tests with an active contour using a fixed-shape prior also demonstrate superior performance for the proposed bootstrapped finite-shape-memory framework and similar performance when compared with a recently proposed active contour that uses an alternative online learning model.

Saccade adaptation improves in response to a gradually introduced stimulus perturbation

A major goal in the study of motor learning is to improve the extent to which subjects adapt their movements in response to errors. Recent attention has focused on the gradual-adaptation paradigm, in which an adaptive stimulus is introduced incrementally, rather than all at once as in conventional adaptation paradigms. However, there is disagreement – even among studies involving the same sensorimotor-learning task – as to the robustness of this approach. In particular, although all studies confirm that retention of learning is improved, not all agree that exposure to a gradual-adaptation paradigm can improve the extent of adaptation that takes place. Also, the paradigm has not previously been studied with saccadic eye movements, which are unique in that they typically lack online error feedback during each movement. To determine the effectiveness of gradual adaptation in this system, we compared saccadic adaptation performed with gradual and conventional adaptation paradigms. We find evidence consistent with more robust adaptation – in the sense of greater extent of adaptation as well as greater retention of learning (larger aftereffects) – in response to a gradual adaptation stimulus. The results suggest the need to develop alternative models of motor learning, as current error-based modeling efforts are unable to account for the increased extent of adaptation when subjects are only exposed to the full adaptive stimulus for a brief time.

Internalization and Participation as Metaphors of Strategic Reading Development

Many studies of comprehension strategies instruction rely on an internalization metaphor of strategy learning. In this view, strategies eventually enter students' heads after repeated interactions with teachers who introduce strategies and control how they are used. In this article, the author discusses the limitations of the internalization view and proposes an alternative model of strategy learning. It is argued that learning to read strategically is really a process of learning to participate in textual interactions using the language and procedures of strategic readers. The author lays out specific components of strategy learning consistent with this participation view, including: coming to view reading as a strategic process; mastering the procedures and dialogue of strategic reading; and considering the possibility for resistance of the strategic reading identity. He describes key issues made evident by the participation metaphor that teachers should address as they continue to teach comprehension strategies.

A Template For Analyzing Costs Associated With Educational Delivery Modes

The purpose of this research was to develop, test, and apply a framework for determining cost of alternative educational course delivery modes. This study reviews and analyzes the costs associated with traditional education and compares it to those costs associated with video conference and online distance education at a single institution. The intended result of this study was to assist leaders in higher education in gaining a better understanding of the costs associated with three different delivery modes for undergraduate courses. Leaders should request and apply cost (and effectiveness) information when making decisions about the course delivery modes best suited to serve their academic communities. Whether the emergence of distance education spells the end of traditional campuses, as some maintain, or whether learning by distance represents, instead, a particularly powerful addition to a growing array of delivery options for higher education, the fact remains that distance education is already having a very real impact on higher education. Distance education through technology has created alternative models of teaching and learning, new job descriptions for faculty, and new types of providers of higher education. But many questions remain about the costs (and the effectiveness) of these delivery methods.

Closing the Gap: Flexible and Dynamic Design Education to Better Prepare Digital Media Design Students for Professional Practice

The dynamic and fast changing nature of digital media presents many challenges for design professionals as well as for design educators. Managing the increasing complexity of technology is one of them. Surprisingly, the digital media design industry's switch to multidisciplinary collaborative teamwork as a response to the increasing complexity of technology has been rarely anticipated by higher digital media design education perhaps because subject 'silos' make collaboration more difficult. Major research into the employability of graduates from design disciplines in the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia revealed that employers are concerned about the preparedness of undergraduate digital media design students when entering the profession. The research highlighted the lack of professional skills and soft skills such as verbal communication of ideas and teamwork. Clearly it is time to respond to the widening gap between professional practice and design education. Currently under development and testing at an Australian university is a new learning and teaching model, referred to as the POOL Model. This new model is a multidisciplinary system of interdependent collaboration and expertise exchange across university, industry and community sectors. The Pool Model is based on existing resources and implemented as an integral part of the curriculum at undergraduate level in order to prepare students for collaborative multidisciplinary practice and meaningful careers in industry. This paper describes the development and implementation of an alternative learning and teaching model. The rational for the development of the model is described and its evaluation through the application of accepted research principles and methodologies.

Learning to Learn Causal Models

Learning to understand a single causal system can be an achievement, but humans must learn about multiple causal systems over the course of a lifetime. We present a hierarchical Bayesian framework that helps to explain how learning about several causal systems can accelerate learning about systems that are subsequently encountered. Given experience with a set of objects, our framework learns a causal model for each object and a causal schema that captures commonalities among these causal models. The schema organizes the objects into categories and specifies the causal powers and characteristic features of these categories and the characteristic causal interactions between categories. A schema of this kind allows causal models for subsequent objects to be rapidly learned, and we explore this accelerated learning in four experiments. Our results confirm that humans learn rapidly about the causal powers of novel objects, and we show that our framework accounts better for our data than alternative models of causal learning.

Investigating the impact of observation errors on the statistical performance of network-based diffusion analysis

Experiments in captivity have provided evidence for social learning, but it remains challenging to demonstrate social learning in the wild. Recently, we developed network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA; 2009) as a new approach to inferring social learning from observational data. NBDA fits alternative models of asocial and social learning to the diffusion of a behavior through time, where the potential for social learning is related to a social network. Here, we investigate the performance of NBDA in relation to variation in group size, network heterogeneity, observer sampling errors, and duration of trait diffusion. We find that observation errors, when severe enough, can lead to increased Type I error rates in detecting social learning. However, elevated Type I error rates can be prevented by coding the observed times of trait acquisition into larger time units. Collectively, our results provide further guidance to applying NBDA and demonstrate that the method is more robust to sampling error than initially expected. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://lb.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Learning Pelvic Examination with Professional Patients

Performing pelvic examination is a vital skill to learn during gynecological and obstetrical training. It's a difficult maneuver to master as there is very little to see and more to feel and interpret. In addition, learning PE in usual clinical set-up has been found to induce lot of stress and anxiety among both the patients and the students. Students fear of hurting the patients and being judged inept, whereas patients feel embarrassed having to expose their most intimate body parts for learning purpose. This hampers effective learning. Learning PE on sedated women before surgery or on mannequins has been practiced as alternative learning models. But, they have been found to miss out on teaching the communication skills, which are as important as the palpation skills. However, there exists another model of learning PE--the professional patients, who are specially trained to act as patients and also guide the students on how to make a proper PE. They provide stress-free environment for the students to learn PE and at the same time, provide immediate feedback on each of their maneuvers. They form a complete learning model and help students to see patients as partner and not just a person seeking help.

Replicability and cross-gender invariance of a two-dimensional model of antisociality in male and female college students

A confirmatory factor analysis of indicators from the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles-Layperson Edition (PICTS-L), Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) scale, and Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) Antisocial Features (ANT) scale was used to test the replicability and cross-gender invariance of a two-dimensional (proactive, reactive) model of antisociality. Employing a sample of 478 male and female students, the two-dimensional model was contrasted with a one-factor general deviance model and a two-factor social learning model (criminal thinking, antisocial behavior). Fit statistics indicated that the two-dimensional model achieved a significantly better fit than the alternative general deviance and social learning models. The results of a two-group confirmatory factor analysis of 208 male college students and 270 female college students revealed that the two-factor model was invariant across gender.

Imperfect Knowledge and the Pitfalls of Optimal Control Monetary Policy

This paper examines the robustness characteristics of optimal control policies derived under the assumption of rational expectations to alternative models of expectations formation and uncertainty about the natural rates of interest and unemployment. We assume that agents have imperfect knowledge about the precise structure of the economy and form expectations using a forecasting model that they continuously update based on incoming data. We also allow for central bank uncertainty regarding the natural rates of interest and unemployment. We find that the optimal control policy derived under the assumption of perfect knowledge about the structure of the economy can perform poorly when knowledge is imperfect. These problems are exacerbated by natural rate uncertainty, even when the central bank's estimates of natural rates are efficient. We show that the optimal control approach can be made more robust to the presence of imperfect knowledge by deemphasizing the stabilization of real economic activity and interest rates relative to inflation in the central bank loss function. That is, robustness to the presence of imperfect knowledge about the economy provides an incentive to employ a "conservative" central banker. We then examine two types of simple monetary policy rules from the literature that have been found to be robust to model misspecification in other contexts. We find that these policies are robust to the alternative models of learning that we study and natural rate uncertainty and outperform the optimal control policy and generally perform as well as the robust optimal control policy that places less weight on stabilizing economic activity and interest rates.

Students and Refugees Together: Towards a Model of Practice Learning as Service Provision

Between 2001 and 2003, 14 assessed placements were provided for social work students through students creating a ‘virtual’ agency offering a service to refugees and asylum seekers. Drawing on research in progress regarding a unique project in South West England, this paper explores an inclusive model that creates a context for students to integrate theory and practice at the cutting edge of professional practice. The START project is a service to refugees and asylum seekers, a group that experience acute social exclusion and media‐induced hostility, provided for two years entirely by students as part of their professional course requirements. Holistic, needs‐led assessment, cultural sensitivity and advocacy by students allow families and unaccompanied minors to access otherwise inaccessible resources. In the current context of changing arrangements for practice assessment, emphasis on multi‐disciplinary learning and service user involvement, this offers an alternative to the ‘apprenticeship’ model for students in developing a secure professional identity. Student learning is framed as contribution rather than burden in the organisational and employment arena and service‐user outcomes have been dramatic. The focus of this paper is on the educational impact from the perspectives of students and practice teachers and an alternative model of practice learning.

Physiotherapy Internship: An Alternative Collaborative Learning Model

Purpose: The purposes of this article are to (1) present a descriptive qualitative field report of a collaborative learning internship of four students assigned to two clinical instructors (CIs) (4:2 ratio) in the area of cardiorespiratory physiotherapy practice and (2) provide recommendations to CIs and universities based on this field study. Summary of Key Points: From the perspective of the students, the main advantages of this collaborative internship included increased peer support, knowledge sharing, problem solving, and a comfortable learning environment. The CIs found advantages to include more instructor peer support, increased student collaboration with assessment and treatment planning, and more opportunity for group discussion. The main disadvantages from the perspectives of both the students and the CIs were accommodating various learning styles and personalities and having less 1:1 time with the CIs. Conclusion: This collaborative learning model did not impede the quality of student education or patient care and was shown to be an educational experience appropriate for implementation in student internships. Given the positive outcomes and the recommendations provided, this 4:2 collaborative learning internship could be implemented to help meet the growing demands of increased enrolment and “hard-to-find” internships and to foster stronger supervisory skills for clinicians.

Physiotherapy Internship: An Alternative Collaborative Learning Model

Physiotherapy Internship: An Alternative Collaborative Learning Model

Communities of practice: an alternative learning model for knowledge creation

Communities of practice: an alternative learning model for knowledge creation

An actor‐network critique of community in higher education: implications for networked learning

The article provides an actor‐network critique of ideas on community that are influential in higher education and draws implications for networked learning theory and practice. Networked learning is examined as an educational movement which contains alternative models of learning but which offers to create a sense of virtual community within the structures of mass higher education. Benedict Anderson’s work is drawn upon to understand the notion of community and to examine ‘the nation’ as a prototypical community. Aspects of actor‐network theory are discussed and illustrated, from which a critique of the idea of community in higher education is developed.