Natural Learning Environment Research Articles

Comparing cross-situational word learning, retention, and generalisation in children with autism and typical development

Word learning is complicated by referential ambiguity – there are often multiple potential targets for a newly-heard word. While typically developing (TD) children can accurately infer word meanings from cross-situational statistics, specific difficulties tracking word-object co-occurrences may contribute to language impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we investigate cross-situational word learning as an integrated system including mapping, retention, and generalisation in both typical development and autism. In Study 1, children with ASD were as accurate at disambiguating the meanings of novel words from statistical correspondences as TD controls matched on receptive vocabulary. In Study 2, both populations spontaneously utilised social and non-social attentional cues to facilitate and accelerate their mapping of word-referent relationships. Across Studies 1 and 2, both groups retrieved and generalised word-referent representations with impressive and comparable accuracy. Although children with ASD performed very similarly to TD children on measures of learning accuracy, they were significantly slower to identify correct referents under both cued and non-cued learning conditions. These findings indicate that mechanisms supporting cross-situational word learning, and the relationships between them, are not qualitatively atypical in language-delayed children with ASD. However, the increased time required to generate correct responses suggests that these mechanisms may be less efficient, potentially impacting learning in natural environments where visual and auditory stimuli are presented rapidly. Our data support claims that word learning in the longer term is driven by the gradual accumulation of word-object associations over multiple learning instances and could potentially inform the development of interventions designed to scaffold word learning.

Developing young children’s empathic perception through digitally mediated interpersonal experience: Principles for a hybrid design of empathy games

AbstractThere is an emerging concern that modern technology‐saturated environments, particularly computer games, are inhibiting the development of children’s empathic behaviour and social skills. We argue that the solution is embedded in the problem when hybrid learning design blends real‐life social interpersonal interactions with digital representations. We present theory‐informed design principles for creating tablet games with a focus on promoting empathic perception—a building block for the ability to see, sense and understand other’s internal states. Based on these principles, the gameEmpathy Worldwas developed and trialled in a naturalistic three‐month study in an early childhood education setting. Children learned to perceive empathy‐worthy cues in various scenes and interacted with the tablet game to further their perspective‐taking and to associate emotions with social contexts. The findings from this study show an increase in the selective tendency of children’s in‐game perception of empathy‐worthy stimuli and enhanced empathic concern. We argue that future design for learning can utilise the strengths of hybrid design for social development at a larger scale: integrating theoretically informed and rigorously tested digital tools in existing educational and social environments.Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topicResearch has examined various developmental benefits of empathy and shown that empathy can be learnt.Digital games can be productive, easy to scale, tools that support learning.Sound design, based on theory‐informed principles, can improve the effectiveness of digital learning games.What this paper addsIt synthesises theories and research evidence of empathy and its development.It shows how empathy‐related theoretical ideas and evidence were translated into hybrid design principles for developing empathy games and embedding them into children’s social learning environment.It illustrates how theory‐ and evidence‐informed design principles were used to create a digital game to enhance empathic learning of young children in a hybrid technology‐mediated environment.It explores and validates the effectiveness of a hybrid design approach by implementing the digital empathy game in children’s natural learning environment and analysing the data by capturing emerging patterns of development stemming from gameplay.Implications for practice and/or policyPre‐schools could enhance children's empathy learning by integrating specially designed empathy games in existing learning environments.Teachers and parents should be informed about how to create game‐mediated hybrid environments that enhance children’s empathy.

Missed opportunities for observation‐based ecology in the Next Generation Science Standards

AbstractObservation‐based ecology (OBE) generates critical knowledge about the health of ecological systems and human impacts on these systems. Systematic observations of organisms and processes from an early age can help children develop ecological knowledge and skills, and deepen their connection to the natural world. Yet recent educational reforms may privilege other scientific and engineering practices (SEPs) over OBE methods. We used lexical analysis of Next Generation Science Standards documents to identify instances of observational methods suggested in the SEPs and ecology‐related performance expectations (PEs). We identify where observations are included and omitted in these documents. Only 16 of the 175 (9%) learning progression descriptions for the SEPs explicitly mention observations. Nine out of 142 (6%) PEs related to ecology require observations. OBE opportunities were particularly scarce in middle and high school years, and missing entirely from PEs for disciplinary core ideas related to ecosystems and human impacts on ecosystems. We consider how these missed opportunities may constrain place‐based learning in natural environments, and reflect on implications for educators, students, and nonhuman others.

Non-native language proficiency may influence the responsiveness of bilingual parents towards young children with autism: A short report.

Although bilingualism is a common worldwide phenomenon, limited research has considered the experiences of children with autism growing up in bilingual environments. Here, we investigated the potential influence of parental bilingualism, and native vs. non-native language use, on responsiveness to children's communication attempts during parent-child interactions where the child had autism. Specifically, we investigated the amount of parent responses to child verbal communication (frequency) and the promptness of these responses (temporal synchrony). Participants were 22 monolingual and 20 bilingual parents and their children with autism aged 2-6 years, recruited from a multicultural, metropolitan city where English is the dominant language. Extending from our previous report on this sample, we identified the frequency and temporal synchrony of parent responses from filmed 10-minute free-play sessions. Monolingual parents were videoed during one free-play session in English. Bilingual parents were videoed during two free-play sessions; one in their native language and one in English. We compared the frequency and temporal synchrony of parental responses across monolingual and bilingual parent groups and, for bilingual parents, across native vs. non-native (English) language interaction samples. Finally, we examined how other measures of bilingual parents' non-native language proficiency were associated with interaction responsiveness measures. When using their native language, bilingual parents demonstrated reduced frequency of responsiveness (even when controlling for opportunities provided by the child) and less temporal synchrony to child communication compared to English-speaking monolingual parents. Bilingual parents were also less frequently responsive (but not less temporally synchronous) during their native- compared to during their non-native (English) language interactions. Moreover, for bilingual parents, more frequent responsiveness to child communication bids when interacting in non-native English was associated with greater assessed English vocabulary knowledge. In this sample, use of non-native English did not appear to adversely affect how often, or how quickly, bilingual parents responded to their children's verbal communication bids. However, nor did we find evidence of a native-language advantage. Rather, during English-language interactions, when these bilingual parents were responsive towards their children, this was on par with rates and timing of responsiveness shown by English-speaking monolinguals. This may partly be explained by bilinguals' non-native language proficiency, and habitual use/personal dominance patterns. These data suggest no definitive drawback of non-native language use for synchronous responsiveness by bilingual parents interacting with young children with autism. However, our data also serve to highlight the complex, multifaceted nature of adult bilingualism, and indicate the need for more research - with large, well-characterised samples - to permit strong conclusions concerning how parental language-use choices may influence children's natural learning environments, including in the context of autism and developmental language impairments.

English

In this study, the process of learning Turkish as a foreign language by watching TV series was analysed. It is a qualitative based study with document analysis, case study and mixed research design. The case study is based on the analysis of data obtained from 44 citizens of the Republic of Kosovo who have learned Turkish by watching TV series. 56.81% of these people do not know Turkish, while 29.54% of them know very little. It was found that after they watched a TV series with content in the target language and subtitles in their native languages for a period of 1 to 2 years, they achieved gains in four language skills at different levels. Accordingly, it was found that reading skill was obtained at B1 level with an average score of 3.02, writing skill at A2 level with an average score of 2.93, speaking skill at B1 level with an average score of 3.07, and listening skill at B1 level with an average score of 3.14. During this period, the TV series were basically watched for entertainment purposes, not for learning. The content of the TV series was in Turkish which is the target language. Subtitles in native languages, such as Albanian or Bosnian were added. After some time, they do not need subtitles in their native languages to understand the TV series. Learning takes place in a natural learning environment, either through acquisition or unconsciously. Language skills are learned in the sequence covered in the literature. The most difficult language skill is writing. Technological tools such as television, smartphone and computer together with some learning styles are also employed. The approach of learning a foreign language by watching TV series is considered to be authentic in terms of learning and teaching style, method, theory, strategy, and so on. In this context, it is recommended that detailed studies and analyses that will contribute to its adaptation to existing systems and better understanding of the system be made. Key words: Learning foreign languages by watching TV series, natural learning environment, teaching Turkish as a foreign language.

Observation of Metacognitive Skills in Natural Environments: A Longitudinal Study With Mixed Methods.

Recent studies pointing to evaluation methods in natural environments suggest that their use in the analysis of metacognitive skills provides more precise information than the use of off-line evaluation methods. In this research, mixed methods are used over one academic year for the evaluation of the metacognitive skills that students of Secondary Education apply to solve physics problems. The objectives of this study are to analyze the use of metacognitive skills in natural environments and to study behavioral patterns of student learning through a longitudinal study. A total of 509 recordings of think-aloud protocols are analyzed through the categorization of the responses (liquefying) and the protocol of Van der Stel and Veenman for the analysis of the quality of metacognitive skills. Fewer conceptual errors and less uncertainty over vocabulary were noted during the academic year. Nevertheless, a degree of ambiguity persisted in the understanding of physics concepts. The metacognitive skills of Orientation and Planning were used more than any others. The technique of graph analysis is also applied, to establish the patterns of behavior of each student throughout the academic year. Different patterns were found, the analysis of which helped to identify academically challenged and at-risk students. The use of mixed observation techniques and graph analysis facilitated information on the pace of learning of each student. Future studies will be directed at proposals for the automation of these evaluation techniques in natural learning environments.

Object-Label-Order Effect When Learning From an Inconsistent Source.

Learning in natural environments is often characterized by a degree of inconsistency from an input. These inconsistencies occur, for example, when learning from more than one source, or when the presence of environmental noise distorts incoming information; as a result, the task faced by the learner becomes ambiguous. In this study, we investigate how learners handle such situations. We focus on the setting where a learner receives and processes a sequence of utterances to master associations between objects and their labels, where the source is inconsistent by design: It uses both "correct" and "incorrect" object-label pairings. We hypothesize that depending on the order of presentation, the result of the learning may be different. To this end, we consider two types of symbolic learning procedures: the Object-Label (OL) and the Label-Object (LO) process. In the OL process, the learner is first exposed to the object, and then the label. In the LO process, this order is reversed. We perform experiments with human subjects, and also construct a computational model that is based on a nonlinear stochastic reinforcement learning algorithm. It is observed experimentally that OL learners are generally better at processing inconsistent input compared to LO learners. We show that the patterns observed in the learning experiments can be reproduced in the simulations if the model includes (a) an ability to regularize the input (and also to do the opposite, i.e., undermatch) and (b) an ability to take account of implicit negative evidence (i.e., interactions among different objects/labels). The model suggests that while both types of learners utilize implicit negative evidence in a similar way, there is a difference in regularization patterns: OL learners regularize the input, whereas LO learners undermatch. As a result, OL learners are able to form a more consistent system of image-utterance associations, despite the ambiguous learning task.

Forming Information Literacy of a Foreign Language Teacher in the Conditions of Digital Era

The modern educational space is characterized by its gradual digitalization and inclusion of electronic educational platforms not only in distance education, but also in online interaction between a teacher and a full-time student. Moreover, students devote more time to learning on their own. In such conditions, teachers spend more time on developing and providing electronic teaching materials, which means changes in the requirements for the teacher’s information literacy. It is getting more important to look for the most effective methods of teaching, the ways of providing information and material. Moreover, it is necessary to create a natural learning environment in the conditions of digitalization, which provides for productive activities, the development of a student’s personality, and cognitive processes. Methodologists try to obtain traditional results from online interaction. Modern universities often use electronic educational platforms where teachers can provide their courses supplementing the classroom work. The success of such teaching combined with computer technologies will largely depend on the teacher’s ability and willingness to use the Internet. This article is devoted to a foreign language teacher’s professiogram in the conditions of digitalization of the educational process and a wide use of electronic educational platforms. We will focus on the teacher’s professional competence, which allows to organize online interaction between teachers and students and to promote e-learning.

Inuit Preservice Teachers: A Lesson in Community Learning

While some current teacher-education programs emphasize community-based learning, Inuit preservice teachers on Baffin Island already operate in a genial and collaborative atmosphere. Within these strong Arctic communities three important conditions frequently emerge in Inuit teacher education programs. First, Inuit preservice teachers tend to use a variety of learning approaches; second, the novice teachers typically create collaborative activities; and third, the Northern teachers tend to emerge from the isolation of classrooms to include more natural learning environments. My hope in this essay, is that Inuit teacher ideas about community-based teacher education, might extend to our Southern odyssey about learning and teaching within a community setting.

Pedagogies of outdoor spaces: an early childhood educator professional learning journey

ABSTRACTThis manuscript presents the findings of a study that explored how teachers’ perceptions of natural play learning environments were transformed through targeted professional learning (PL). Australia’s early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy outlines a responsibility for educators to ensure that outdoor learning spaces provide experiences in both built and natural environments. In response, many ECEC settings are redesigning outdoor spaces to provide for natural and open-ended affordances. Drawing from interview data collected over an 18-month period, this manuscript shares the story of three educators as they participate in targeted PL while engaging with the outdoor space. Findings show that prior to the PL, the educators focused on what they saw as limitations to the space. Engaging in the PL led to changed perceptions for the educators who felt more confident in their understandings of the value and benefits of nature-rich outdoor environments to support young children’s active play.

Translating Evidence-Based Practices to Usable Interventions for Young Children With Autism

Increased numbers of young children identified with autism combine with changing paradigms for service delivery models to create a need to ensure that information is available to facilitate implementation of effective practices in children’s natural learning environments. A recent synthesis that identifies evidence-based practices (EBPs) for children with autism is used as the basis for exploring the degree to which existing literature provides information that meaningfully supports the translation of those practices to usable interventions within the routine services provided by educators. Our review of 113 studies focusing on 13 EBPs for children with autism below the age of 6 revealed inconsistent and incomplete reporting within and across practices. Based on this review, we offer a discussion on how the reporting practices of researchers may facilitate or hinder the generation of usable knowledge needed by implementation science when guiding large-scale adoption and use of interventions.

A Longitudinal Investigation on L2 Korean Syntactic Development and Learner Variables: Evidence from Natural Learning Environment

This longitudinal study analyzed syntactic development (Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency; CAF) of six L2 Korean learners in a natural learning context. The learners recalled the stories of a short animated video through speaking and writing every 3 months, from month 0 to 15. The learners’ responses were analyzed for a series of CAF measures and their cognitive, psychological, and social variables were investigated. The results showed that (i) L2 Korean learners’ speaking and writing in various time periods showed significant differences in spoken and written accuracy, and complexity; (ii) the correlation between spoken and written complexity, spoken and written accuracy, as well as spoken and written fluency were significant, and (iii) the regression analysis showed that learners’ cognitive, social, and psychological variables have significant effect on the L2 Korean syntactic development. The current study reports that L2 Korean learners engaged in self-learning in a natural learning environment without formal instruction made significant syntactic development. (Kyung Hee University)

How do medium naturalness and personality traits shape academic achievement and perceived learning? An experimental study of face-to-face and synchronous e-learning

This controlled experiment examined how academic achievement and cognitive, emotional and social aspects of perceived learning are affected by the level of medium naturalness (face-to-face, one-way and two-way videoconferencing) and by learners’ personality traits (extroversion–introversion and emotional stability–neuroticism). The Media Naturalness Theory explains the degree of medium naturalness by comparing its characteristics to face-to-face communication, considered to be the most natural form of communication. A total of 76 participants were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: face-to-face, one-way and two-way videoconferencing. E-learning conditions were conducted through Zoom videoconferencing, which enables natural and spontaneous communication. Findings shed light on the trade-off involved in media naturalness: one-way videoconferencing, the less natural learning condition, enhanced the cognitive aspect of perceived learning but compromised the emotional and social aspects. Regarding the impact of personality, neurotic students tended to enjoy and succeed more in face-to-face learning, whereas emotionally stable students enjoyed and succeeded in all of the learning conditions. Extroverts tended to enjoy more natural learning environments but had lower achievements in these conditions. In accordance with the ‘poor get richer’ principle, introverts enjoyed environments with a low level of medium naturalness. However, they remained focused and had higher achievements in the face-to-face learning.(Published 13 July 2017)Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2017, 25: 1945 - http://dx.doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v25.1974

CDC Grand Rounds: Adolescence - Preparing for Lifelong Health and Wellness.

Approximately 42 million adolescents aged 10-19 years, representing 13% of the population, resided in the United States in 2014 (1). Adolescence is characterized by rapid and profound physical, intellectual, emotional, and psychological changes (2), as well as development of healthy or risky behaviors that can last a lifetime. Parents have strong influence on their adolescent children's lives, and family-based programs can help parents support healthy adolescent development. Because schools are natural learning environments, implementing and improving school-based policies and programs are strategic ways to reinforce healthy behaviors and educate adolescents about reducing risky behaviors. Health care during adolescence should be tailored to meet the changing developmental needs of the adolescent while providing welcoming, safe, and confidential care. Parents, educators, care providers, public health officials, and communities should collaborate in fostering healthy environments for all adolescents, now and into the future.

Falling into LINE: school strategies for overcoming challenges associated with learning in natural environments (LINE)

ABSTRACTAs the benefits of outdoor learning have become of increasing interest to the education sector, so the importance of understanding and overcoming challenges associated with this pedagogy has gained greater significance. The Natural Connections Demonstration Project recruited primary, secondary, and special schools across south-west England with a view to stimulating and supporting ‘learning in the natural environment’ across the region. This research paper examines qualitative data obtained from case study visits to 12 of these schools. The results from teaching staff interviews and focus groups show that schools face many and varied challenges to embedding outdoor learning, and a raft of strategies are presented for tackling these challenges and integrating learning in the natural environment into much of the current curriculum.

Authentic learning and multifaceted assessment utilizing interprofessional collaborative learning events

ABSTRACTEffective teaching is a balancing act of many preparative tasks and attempts to engage and assess students. Bain (2004) researched qualities and practices of best college teachers and reported that best teachers create a natural critical learning environment where the thinking skills and desired end goals are embedded into authentic learning tasks. This teaching-learning approach facilitates development of critical thinking skills concurrently while learning the critical skills for their discipline. Through implementation of interprofessional learning opportunities and assessment, our objective is to establish authentic experiential learning for producing desired student outcomes of increased role definition and increased interprofessional readiness.

Multimedia vs. Analogue Text: Learning Outcome and the Importance of Short-Term Memory Capacity

The purpose of this study was to investigate the importance of individual differences in short term memory capacity (STM) for learning from film (digitized video) and analogue text in a natural learning environment. The results are based on a survey of 396 students on Bachelor's level (military cadets, teachers college and psychology majors). A short-term memory test battery was developed to measure different types and capacities of several individuals simultaneously in a classroom environment Alpha. Respondents were divided into two groups, one receiving a film presentation and one reading an analogue text (the film narrative). The subject matter was the formation of the Norwegian nation in the tenth and eleventh century (history subject at high school/college level). A knowledge test measuring the total learning outcome as well as details and interconnection (understandings/ context) was developed. In total, the results showed that texts gave the best learning outcome. Both film and text had an increased learning outcome for details and understandings in correlation with increased STM capacity, with the largest increase from low to medium capacity. Progressive capacity (successive) matters more than multicapacity (processing a lot concurrently). Non-verbal intelligence (Raven/RAPM) has an underlying general importance, but less important than the total STM capacity. Different types of capacity are more important than others depending on the presentation form and learning content. Visual sensory memory capacity for learning details in text was one of the types most clearly associated with learning outcome. This was explained by code-switching (representation transformation) during processing of information.

The Impact of Out-of-School Factors on Motivation to Learn English: Self-discrepancies, Beliefs, and Experiences of Self-authenticity

English is today learnt in multitudes of settings worldwide, making it difficult to characterize relationships between motivation and context in generalized terms (Ushioda 2013). In settings where students have extensive encounters with English outside school, a reluctance to invest effort in formal learning has been observed. To investigate ways in which out-of-school encounters impact on motivation, questionnaire data was obtained from 116 upper secondary students in Sweden. Structural equation modelling was used to test a series of hypotheses generated from emerging research into language learners identities, beliefs and self-authenticity appraisals. Results revealed that, compared to reference studies from settings where English lacks similar prominence, the Ideal L2 Self accounted for substantially less of the explained variance on a criterion measure. This can be accounted for by the limited discrepancy between current and ideal L2 selves. Results also indicate that beliefs about the efficacy of learning in natural environments have a negative impact on motivation in school, and that appraisals of self-authenticity may have a similar effect, although methodological challenges make this contention difficult to substantiate.

Listening through voices: Infant statistical word segmentation across multiple speakers.

To learn from their environments, infants must detect structure behind pervasive variation. This presents substantial and largely untested learning challenges in early language acquisition. The current experiments address whether infants can use statistical learning mechanisms to segment words when the speech signal contains acoustic variation produced by changes in speakers' voices. In Experiment 1, 8- and 10-month-old infants listened to a continuous stream of novel words produced by 8 different female voices. The voices alternated frequently, potentially interrupting infants' detection of transitional probability patterns that mark word boundaries. Infants at both ages successfully segmented words in the speech stream. In Experiment 2, 8-month-olds demonstrated the ability to generalize their learning about the speech stream when presented with a new, acoustically distinct voice during testing. However, in Experiments 3 and 4, when the same speech stream was produced by only 2 female voices, infants failed to segment the words. The results of these experiments indicate that low acoustic variation may interfere with infants' efficiency in segmenting words from continuous speech, but that infants successfully use statistical cues to segment words in conditions of high acoustic variation. These findings contribute to our understanding of whether statistical learning mechanisms can scale up to meet the demands of natural learning environments.

Voices From the Field

As school psychologists, educators and parents most often approach us with questions relating to a concern. We have the privilege of serving students in their natural learning environment where skills and behaviors can be observed and analyzed, where interventions can be created and tested, and, hopefully, where a positive change can be made within a student’s school day. However, we must also balance our ideas for intervention with education laws requiring us to determine that an evaluation is necessary or an intervention is appropriate. It is when working with students who are twice exceptional (2e) that we must advocate the most for examining the whole child. Therefore, we have set out to share our experiences as school psychologists and offer reflections on working with and expanding support for the 2e population.