Learning Discussion Research Articles

Patterns before recognition: the historical ascendance of an extractive empiricism of forms

This article explores the complex convergence between cybernetics and Gestalt theory and its influence on the concept of pattern recognition. It finds a departure in the analogous ways each discipline extends their core frameworks toward social and anthropological objects. However, this shared ground is not without tensions. In the post-war American context, what is formalizable and realizable in mechanical structures has a certain explanatory authority—even if often misplaced-- concerning perception and human intelligence. Cultural patterns feed into mechanical recognition of patterns, exemplifying “extractive empiricism” or the process of outsourcing experiential processes to mechanical systems. This mode of “proof” is also evident in cybernetic and cognitive psychological strategies toward Gestalt theory, leaving a significant legacy for contemporary machine learning approaches. By examining the early interactions between these rival paradigms, known for their quest for generalization, and disentangling their source status, this inquiry contributes to understanding the broad conceptual possibilities of pattern recognition beyond its narrow confines in engineering perspectives and machine learning discourse.

Pastoral power manifestations within the guidance professionals’ talk on guidance practices

ABSTRACT Young people in the Nordic countries have many options and face obligations to participate in career guidance and counselling (guidance). In Finland, young people are subjected to multiple institutionalized guidance practices especially in educational transition phases. Guidance has various objectives as a public policy, thereby setting a framework for guidance professionals too. By using Foucault’s conceptualization on ‘pastoral’ power, we studied how guidance professionals (‘shepherds’) guide young people (‘the flock’) towards ‘wellbeing’. Our aim was to analyse how pastoral power is manifested in guidance practices by asking what governmental discourses the guidance professionals refer to when talking about guidance and how these discourses are practiced in guidance. Our data comprise Finnish guidance professionals’ interviews (n = 15). As a result, dominant governmental discourses of employability, economic efficiency and lifelong learning were identified. Guidance involved pastoral power and demanded employability and educability for the young. Guidance professionals have a crucial role in implementing governmental discourses into guidance practices. These practices create a narrow perspective for young people and guidance professionals, who are simultaneously the mediators and targets of governmental power.

Good intentions are not enough: A case study uncovering perpetuation of internalized and interpersonal oppression in middle schoolSTEMclassrooms

AbstractScience teachers and educators seek to promote equity and inclusion within their classrooms. Yet, many do not examine how their roles could reproduce oppression that continues to exclude certain groups of students. Centering on how oppression interacts with science teaching and learning, this naturalistic study observed Ms. William and her implementation of two STEM units that integrate science and engineering, to understand power, race, and privilege dynamics in her middle school STEM classrooms. Specifically, we focused on understanding oppression at the interpersonal and internalized level in Ms. William's class. We collected and analyzed video recorded lessons from two different classrooms, two STEM curricula Ms. William had co‐developed, and conducted semi‐structured interviews after she taught her two STEM units. We identified themes of oppression perpetuated in the classroom by employing thematic analysis, which when guided by our theoretical framework enabled us to illuminate the complex relationship between science teaching and maintaining whiteness as the dominant discourse in science learning. Our findings suggest that an active and critical role from science teachers and educators are required; we must reflect deeply on our science curriculum and teaching strategies and identify practices that remains to be oppressive if promoting equity and inclusion is at the forefront of our science teaching.

Context-Focus Reframing for VUCA Era-Themed Texts on Discourse Analysis Assessment

Social values in the VUCA era can be adapted as self-understanding values to survive in various lines. Social categorization is a fundamental process that has important implications for various social phenomena. The role of social categories does not refer to a particular identity. Language learning that applies pragmatic aspects must accommodate assessments that refer to achieving the attitudes needed to face the VUCA era. This research will describe the discourse analysis assessment and observe its implications accurately. This research involved students from Indonesian, English, and Elementary School Teacher Education study programs in the Teacher Training and Education Faculty at Jember University. The results of this research illustrate the application of assessment aspects, namely determining relevant context, determining text implications by comparing social phenomena, conveying understood social values, and abstracting their components in a comment. This research shows that the role of assessment using context-focus reframing is very much needed in learning discourse analysis. Student answers indicate reasoning, accuracy of social values, accuracy of text structure, and argumentation through relevant statements as evaluation to support the comprehensive critical phase of the text after going through the literal and inference phases. In the next stage, perception scores regarding the VUCA era will be obtained based on the texts used as assessment material. This research shows students’ positive response to the assessment through context-focused reframing and character embedding through arguments to show attitudes through the question, “What are the implications for the VUCA era?”.

학교수학에서 무리수 도입으로 인한 담론 변화 분석

This study examined the method of discovering incommensurable quantities, the origin of irrational numbers, and the changes in Greek mathematics resulting from the discovery of these quantities from Sfard's commognitive perspective. In addition, in light of the history of mathematics, this study looked into changes in the discourse of school mathematics due to the introduction of irrational numbers. As a result of the analysis, the discovery of incommensurable quantities in the history of mathematics was an opportunity to change from empirical mathematics to formal and theoretical mathematics, and was an event that brought about changes in various mathematical concepts, proportion theory and roles of mathematical tools. In other words, the discovery of incommensurable magnitude transformed Greek mathematics into an incommensurable discourse. These changes in the history of mathematics appear similarly in the changes in the discourse of school mathematics due to the introduction of irrational numbers. The introduction of irrational numbers into school mathematics resulted in the application of formal definitions of numbers, changed the concepts of number and area, and led to the emergence of narratives that seemed to contradict previous discourses. It is understood that the introduction of irrational numbers has changed the discourse of school mathematics into a discourse that is incommensurable with the previous one. The analysis of this study could be basic data for the design of teaching and learning methods for students facing the task of transitioning to the incommensurable discourse of irrational number learning.

Understanding reform discourses in complex times of change: Positions and practices of early childhood professionals from Victorian kindergarten settings

Australian early childhood education and care [ECEC] has faced a series of change and reform since 2009, including the introduction and later revisions of key curriculum and qualify frameworks, increased qualifications, shifting theoretical knowledge and pedagogies, and challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, early childhood professionals [ECPs] have been confronted with a succession of substantial changes impacting their professional practice. This paper reports on a qualitative, post-structural study identifying workplace and learning discourses as key influences for the reform engagement of eleven ECPs from kindergarten settings in Victoria, Australia. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis [FDA] revealed specific subjective positions and discursive practices among participants. Recommendations are offered to address issues related to the uptake of reform initiatives. It is anticipated that these findings may generate greater opportunities to support our existing, emerging and future generations of ECPs as they lead the transformation of ECEC and transition through complex times of uncertainty.

Discursive constructions of student midwives’ professional identities: A discourse analysis

BackgroundThe construction and performance of professional identity is significant to broader socio-cultural understandings of who ‘professionals’ are and what they do. Importantly, it is also implicated in the development and enactment of policy, regulation, education, and professional practice. Professional identity is linked to self-esteem, self-efficacy, professional value, confidence and success. The salience of this in relation to midwifery practice is highly significant; aspects of autonomy, confidence, competence, responsibility, and accountability are all implicated in the provision of safe and effective care. AimTo explore how student midwives are constructed in the discourses of policy, professionalism, and learning, to provide new perspectives to inform, policy, education, and practice. MethodsAn adapted critical discourse analysis of the United Kingdom (UK) Nursing and Midwifery Council’s 2009 Standards for pre-registration midwifery education, using a three-step process: exploring discourse at the level of (1) discursive practice (2) linguistic features of the text, and (3) social practice. Findings/ DiscussionThe discourses that relate to midwifery education and practice emerge within socio-political and historical contexts. Constructions of identity are articulated through a rule-bound framework which includes competence, confidence and ‘good health and good character’. There is a requirement for midwives to ‘be’ responsible, accountable, autonomous, professional, competent, and confident. Regulatory power is reinforced through medico-legal discourses, with the status of midwifery discursively presented as inferior to medicine. ConclusionAccording to the Standards, midwives must be a lot of things in their role and function. The Standards’ discourses are authoritative, legislative and controlling, creating an ideology about professional status and agency which constructs an ‘imaginary autonomy’; becoming a midwife is more automatic (with the perception of control), than agentic. All of which has significance for the social practice of midwifery. Tweetable abstract‘How are midwives made? Discursive constructions of student midwives’ professional identities: a discourse analysis.

The Effectiveness of Learning Media and Discourse Markers Mastery on Students’ Speaking Skill

Teachers must consider the most efficient use of speaking learning media in order to produce students with enhanced speaking skills through mastery of various discourse markers. This study examines the effectiveness of two speaking learning media, Scrabble Word (SW) and flashcards, among students with varying levels of discourse marker mastery. This quasi-experimental study employed a 2x2 factorial design. During the learning period, 100 students were divided into two groups and given SW or flashcards as instructional media. sampling technique using random sampling. Data was collected using tests of speaking ability and familiarity with various discourse markers. The results demonstrate that the speaking skills of students with varying degrees of DM mastery who use SW learning media are superior to those of students who use flashcard learning media. Students with a high level of discourse mastery and access to SW learning media demonstrated an improvement in their speaking abilities. This is evidenced by the values of Fo = 7.911 and Sig. 0.005<0.05; consequently, SW can be an effective and enjoyable tool for teaching speaking.

텅드럼과 0세반 영아들의 마주침, 그리고 교사의 함께-되기

This study illuminated how encounters with a tongue-drum invited specific memories, stories, relations, and actions from 0-year-old classroom children and their teacher. Paying close attention to the relational pedagogy of ‘becoming-with’, we hoped to understand spacetimematterings of the child-centered, play-centered curriculum, co-created by stakeholders. From April 2022 to February 2023, we generated research data through 12 interviews and frequent informal talks with the teacher, as well as sharing play observational records through SNS, classroom observations, interviewing the director, and collecting relevant documents including parental responses. Simultaneously, researchers also became engaged in mutual entanglement, transecting across and overlapping with one another through continuous rhizomatic movements. We discovered that encounters with a tongue-drum made the infant-toddlers respond with a variety of senses and memories, leading to agential, emergent actions. They sensed specific materiality of the tongue-drum, endowed unique meanings, and responded with various plays, while their teacher marveled at powerful capacities of infant-toddlers and became a co-actor of their co-created curriculum. We suggest that shifts of philosophical perspectives upon the ontology of learners and teachers as well as discourses of play and learning are needed for implementing the play-based, relational pedagogy, along with facilitating learning communities among everyone involved to make differences together.

Feedback as Scaffolded Instruction in the Assessment of L2 Writing Tasks

This study focuses on exploring the relationship between the concept of learner autonomy and foreign language writing feedback. A sample of 4 writing conferences were transcribed in order to carry out spoken discourse analysis based on the Burton (1981) model, which is directly derived from the Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) model. The aim was to linguistically ascertain the instructor’s attempt to stimulate learner autonomy through scaffolding based on the three principles of Little (2000). It was important to also take into cognizance the concomitant discourse that accompanies such an attempt in an effort to compare the findings with those observed in the initial study done on conferences, which involved more holistic feedback on the whole essay. The design also made use of short retrospective self-reports where L2 writers recorded their thoughts and comments directly following the feedback they received in each conference. This study builds on a previous study which demonstrated how writing instructors often mistakenly presuppose that learners have reached their perspective on a writing revision. This happens at a point much earlier than expected when in fact, learners appear to be cognitively engaged at a point much later than when they claim understanding of the revision being made. The present study expands on the original by comparing the quality of discourse observed in the previous study, which involved more holistic feedback on writing, especially when feedback is more focused and limited to one section of writing. Findings suggest that minimizing feedback results in instructor discourse that is more superior as a scaffolding instrument, while learner discourse shows more evidence of metacognitive activity and reflection. Paradoxically, curtailing feedback which facilitates learning and task acquisition during the assessment of writing actually renders it more scaffolded in nature, thus resulting in more positive outcomes for both the instructor and L2 learner. The theoretical and pedagogical implications of this are discussed extensively.

Exploring the Teacher’s Role in Discourse and Social Regulation of Learning: Insights from Collaborative Sessions in High-School Physics Classrooms

Science educators incorporate collaborative engagement in model-based argumentation to meet curricular goals and build students’ capacity for scientific epistemic and social practices. During collaboration, groups encounter various challenges (e.g., lack of task understanding) and engage in social regulation to overcome them. However, little is known about whether and how various contextual factors (e.g., teacher presence, classroom climate, or academic discipline) can influence the nature of students’ collaboration and social regulation. The purpose of our qualitative case study was to examine how one such contextual factor, teacher presence, related to high school students’ discourse interactions and social regulation of learning during a collaborative model-based scientific argumentation task. In one classroom, the teacher was continuously present during groups’ discussions. In the other classroom, the teacher was intermittently present. We found that groups with a continuously present teacher had high on-task engagement that was teacher-led, with the students relying on the teacher for regulation. Groups with intermittent teacher presence had more off-task interactions but also engaged in more dialogic argumentation discourse with each other, initiating and enacting more modes of social regulation of learning than the other groups. These findings suggest that teachers must thoughtfully manage their presence and absence to instruct, model, scaffold, and fade their support for both scientific argumentation and the social regulation skills necessary to productively enact that argumentation, intentionally varying emphasis on one or the other. These findings highlight the importance of future research on teacher presence and other contextual factors that can affect how students collaborate and learn.

Seven Ways of Constructing Knowledge through Cooperative Learning

This article presents seven ways to construct knowledge through cooperative learning. The first part of the article provides a comprehensive examination of how deeply constructivist and cooperative learning discourses are interconnected and have interfaced with each other over the last five decades. The article highlights how the two concepts have influenced each other and how their combination can lead to a more effective learning experience. The second part of the article is devoted to explaining the seven ways of constructing knowledge in cooperative learning settings. Each of the seven ways - interactive, positively interdependent, synergic, synoptic, multicontextual, interferential, and action-based - is discussed in detail, with specific examples provided to illustrate how each approach works in practice. The overall aim of the article is to assist educators and researchers in understanding the various cooperative learning approaches and their potential benefits in constructing knowledge. The article emphasizes the importance of adopting simple cooperative approaches for efficient knowledge construction, and the importance of educators and researchers adapting these approaches to meet the needs of their students.

The Art of Planetary Science: Art as a Tool for Scientific Inquiry and Public Discourse around Space Exploration

Art can be a powerful tool in science engagement efforts to help facilitate learning and public discourse around space and space exploration. The Art of Planetary Science is an annual exhibition combining science and art which aims to help people to connect more meaningfully to science outside of traditional education models. Works solicited from scientists and from the public explore the beauty of the universe, as well as communicate and abstract scientific concepts from an artistic framework. These events offer the public a unique perspective on science and an opportunity to participate in dialogue around how and why we explore space. As an extension of the exhibition, a series of workshops for artists and educators focuses on techniques in creating science-driven art and how it can be used as a tool for scientific inquiry. We will discuss our success with these efforts and the important role that art can play in shaping the evolving narrative of humanity’s relationship to space.

Disrupting learning and evaluation practices in philanthropy from a feminist lens

ABSTRACT Patriarchal, imperialist, and colonial forces have long attempted to delegitimise global South epistemologies and elevate Western modes of thinking, knowing, and therefore being. In particular, within development discourse, the principles and practice of mainstream Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (popularly known as MEL) continue to legitimise these forms of knowledge construction, production, and dissemination. Traditional MEL is based on the assumption that grantees must provide ‘accountability’ to donors and ‘evidence’ to establish value for money based on predefined indicators and logframes. This approach to MEL has worked to erase the voices of girls, women, indigenous people, LGBTQI+, and others from the history of social change and to disconnect activists, collectives, and movements from a deep well of knowledge and learning. A collective reimagining of MEL is needed. Although there have been a number of alternative approaches and frameworks proposed, these remain on the periphery with most funders continuing to require grantees to fulfil multiple regimental reporting requirements to justify being funded. In this article, through a collective conversation, we document our shared learning. We showcase three diverse cases in which we as feminist practitioners and the movements we support are attempting to disrupt oppressive MEL structures, tools, and language, and funder practices as profound acts of resistance.

Unleashing the power of meta-knowledge: Towards cumulative learning in interpreter training

Research on interpreter training has pivoted around the equipment of trainees with skills and competences, whereas scant scholarly attention has been paid to the disciplinary knowledge of interpreting and its power in educational practice. This study defines the disciplinary knowledge of interpreting as a combination of both practical skills and meta-knowledge, with the latter entertaining epistemological power. Using the dimension of Semantics of the Legitimation Code Theory, this article focuses on how the meta-knowledge of interpreting is constructed and transferred among trainee interpreters to obtain epistemological power. The study first unravels how meta-knowledge of interpreting is expressed in training scenarios from a semantics perspective. This is followed by a case study on a memory training session of an undergraduate-level introductory interpreting course at a Conférence Internationale permanente d’Instituts Universitaires de Traducteurs et Interprètes (CIUTI) member institution in China. With discourse analysis as the main approach, teaching and learning discourse in various forms are examined to identify the semantic progression. Quantitative analysis is also performed where necessary to facilitate the discussions. The study’s findings show that the learners achieved cumulative learning through three stages of interactions with academic discourse premised on the intervention of the instructor. Implications for interpreter training as a social practice are also discussed.

Surah Al Mujadalah Translation and Discourse Learning in Higher Education: A Systemic Functional Perspective

The main topic in this study is the system of transitivity and modality translation of Al-Quran Al-Mujadalah, and its relevance to the context of learning in higher education, with the goals of 1) determining the system of transitivity and modality, and 2) knowing the type of process and modalities that dominates and determines the relevance of the research on learning discourse in college. The method employed is a qualitative descriptive theory, which is based on Systemic Functional Linguistics. Documentation and records were used to collect data. The data was analyzed using the clause identification method, and the data were analyzed using the described method. According to the findings, the transitivity system as Al-Mujadalah verses 11 is process materials 4 (67 percent), relational identification process as many as 1 (16 percent), behavioral process 1 (16 percent). The shapes of modalities are probability, obligation, and usuality. The dominant of transitivity is a material process and the dominant modality is an obligation. In the context of higher education, discourse learning is not only about analyzing the text i.e Quran but also about the urgency of the message based on that surah translation.

Good brain, good concentration, good future: a critical multimodal analysis of Thai brain-enhancing lifestyle products advertisements

Abstract Advertisements of Thai brain-enhancing lifestyle products are analyzed in terms of their multimodal entextualization practices illustrating how they use two prominent Thai cultural tropes – discourses of Thai motherhood and of learning in Thailand. Four products were chosen: Brand’s Junior, Brand’s GenU, Peptein, and Altertide, and a lexical and multimodal analysis of their advertisements was conducted. The initial focus was on entextualization and lexical practices: naming, overlexicalization, suppression, repetition, and personalization, noting how the advertisements created relationships between text (“good brain”) and image (the thinking gesture and brain images) that index Thai cultural tropes. This analysis revealed how the products created relationships between consumption of the product and implied benefits through multimodal entextualization practices while invoking the voice of science through faux scientific diagrams, overlexicalization and repetition of images. To triangulate and augment our multimodal analysis, interviews were conducted with the assumed target audience: students, young professionals, and mothers. The interviews augmented the textual findings regarding the presence of Thai cultural tropes around discourses of Thai motherhood and learning. In manipulating relationships between text and image, these products not only take advantage of Thai cultural tropes but also evade consumer protection controls through a stronger use of image than text.

The Teaching of Writing Across the Curriculum in School Years 4-6 in Sweden

This study explored disciplinary writing in grades 4-6 and the potential of writing to learn and learning to write across the curriculum to prepare the pupils for their future writing. Using Ivanič’s discourses of writing as an analytical framework, observation protocols from 104 observers in 374 lessons in 76 Swedish schools were analyzed exploring school writing in the different curriculum subjects. Analysis of the data reveals that in most lessons the teachers required their pupils to write with a single focus on reinforcing learning, enacting three of Ivanič’s seven discourses of writing: thinking and learning discourse, skills discourse, and social practices discourse. Much less frequently overall but commonly in language lessons, teachers required their pupils to write with a dual focus, developing writing proficiency while reinforcing learning. In these cases, all of Ivanič’s discourses were enacted. The results suggest potential for a dual focus on writing to learn and learning to write to further develop the pupils’ writing across the curriculum.

Constructivist Approach to Learning: An Analysis of Pedagogical Models of Social Constructivist Learning Theory

The social constructivist approach is one of the dominant perspective that flourished the learner centered pedagogical model in education. This model of learning aims to imply the learners' autonomy and flexibility in instructional setting. This social constructivist highlights the learners' autonomy, reflective thinking, problem solving, collaborative learning, scaffolding as well as discussion and debates as the major learning principles in education. In the teaching learning discourse, the social constructivist learning model established the critical, problem solving and collaborative learning strategies to enhance the meaningful leaning achievement. And, the intra and interpersonal level of interaction play the crucial role in promoting the meaningful learning for tutoring process. This theory claims that the sign (language), ZPD, MKO and scaffolding are the key variables for the constructivist pedagogical model of learning. In this process, students are in the central place where they play the role of active thinker, co-constructor and active participant in learning process. Another side, teachers are only as the facilitator, guide, and stimulators within the whole instructional process in education.

‘Theologians know best’: Paris-trained crusade preachers as mediators between papal, popular and learned crusading pieties

ABSTRACT The study of the crusades would be transformed if scholars started not with papal letters but with evidence demonstrating how organisers in various periods and regions served as brokers between papal, popular and learned discourses and crusading pieties. Surviving preaching materials suggest that Paris masters promoting various crusades forefronted contemporary reform campaigns targeting usurers, sexual incontinence and heresy. Preachers anticipated or responded to audiences’ concerns about specific elements of crusading, outlining various forms of participation while situating the crusade within a web of familiar or novel devotional practices. Promoters could ignore, (re)interpret and adapt the images and particulars presented in papal letters and often forwarded knowledge of local circumstances and substantial queries to the papal curia, thereby influencing future papal communications. Individual popes reacted in a responsive rather than dictatorial manner in both communication and policy, while papal communications were always subject to local interpretation and negotiated reception and implementation.