Natural Pedagogy Research Articles

Children's Selective Teaching and Informing: A Meta-Analysis.

Empirical studies on selective teaching and informing indicate that children may vary what they teach depending on whom they are teaching, taking into account how helpful the information is for a given audience. The current meta-analysis quantifies the effect of selective informing and teaching in 2-7-year-olds by examining the relationship between the helpfulness of the information and the frequency of information transmission. Through a systematic search that yielded 1483 results, 28 studies (104 effect sizes, N=2716) met the inclusion criteria. Using robust variance estimation, we found a medium average effect, Hedges' g=0.578, 95% CI (0.331, 0.825), suggesting that children selectively share information based on its perceived helpfulness to the listener. Moderator analyses revealed that age and communicative context were significant factors. Children were more informative in their communication when asked to teach compared to other nonpedagogical prompts. This finding supports and extends natural pedagogy theory-young children not only interpret pedagogical information differently than information acquired through other means, but they are more selective in their informing when teaching. Additionally, we observed a key developmental progression at age 4. Four- to 7-year-olds, but not 2-3-year-olds, selectively shared information that was most helpful for a given learner. This coincides with the development of false-belief understanding, which undergoes significant development at around age 4. Taken together, the present synthesis suggests that young children actively engage in selective social learning from both sides, that of beneficiaries and benefactors of valuable information.

The foundation of trust and its connection to leadership, charisma attributions, self-efficacy, and motivation

ABSTRACT Teachers, managers, and commanders – figures whose very role includes leadership elements -often enjoy trust that does not necessarily stem from the ‘here and now’ dynamics, but is rather based on early evolutionary sources. This claim is empirically supported by studies conducted in the fields of leadership, epistemic trust, and natural pedagogy. The purpose of the present study is to shed light on the signaling process that characterizes leaders’ influence, and to empirically examine the most influential signals from the followers’ perspective. The study examines signals that trigger the trust which is inherent in humans, and expressed by: 1. charisma attributions; 2. self-efficacy beliefs; and 3. changing patterns of motivation – from personal instrumental motivation to more collective and normative forms of motivation. Using a computerized maze experiment that included 120 subjects, hypotheses concerning trust-inducing signals were tested. The main hypothesis was that the group presented with these signals will perform better than the group that performed the same tasks in the experiment without the presentation of these signals. The findings indicate that, as expected, the signals discussed were positively correlated with all three dependent variables. The evolutionary processes underlying the findings of the presented experiment are broadly discussed.

Toward Teachable Autotelic Agents

Autonomous discovery and direct instruction are two distinct sources of learning in children but education sciences demonstrate that mixed approaches such as assisted discovery or guided play result in improved skill acquisition. In the field of Artificial Intelligence, these extremes respectively map to autonomous agents learning from their own signals and interactive learning agents fully taught by their teachers. In between should stand teachable autotelic agents (TAA): agents that learn from both internal and teaching signals to benefit from the higher efficiency of assisted discovery. Designing such agents will enable real-world non-expert users to orient the learning trajectories of agents towards their expectations. More fundamentally, this may also be a key step to build agents with human-level intelligence. This paper presents a roadmap towards the design of teachable autonomous agents. Building on developmental psychology and education sciences, we start by identifying key features enabling assisted discovery processes in child-tutor interactions. This leads to the production of a checklist of features that future TAA will need to demonstrate. The checklist allows us to precisely pinpoint the various limitations of current reinforcement learning agents and to identify the promising first steps towards TAA. It also shows the way forward by highlighting key research directions towards the design or autonomous agents that can be taught by ordinary people via natural pedagogy.

Shared Knowledge in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

According to the Theory of Natural Pedagogy, object-directed emotion may provide different information depending on the context: in a communicative context, the information conveys culturally shared knowledge regarding the emotional valence of an object and is generalizable to other individuals, whereas, in a non-communicative context, information is interpreted as a subjective disposition of the person expressing the emotion, i.e., personal preference. We hypothesized that this genericity bias, already present in infants, may be a feature of human communication and, thus, present at all ages. We further questioned the effects of robotic ostensive cues. To explore these possibilities, we presented object-directed emotions in communicative and non-communicative contexts under two conditions: adult participants (N = 193) were split into those who underwent the human-demonstrator condition and those who underwent the robot-demonstrator condition, i.e., a human actor or a robot displayed object-directed emotions, respectively. Questionnaires further assessed the participants’ attachment style and mentalization ability. The results showed that (1) Natural Pedagogy Theory applies to humans across the lifespan; (2) Shared knowledge depends on the contexts (communicative vs. non-communicative) and who is sharing the information (human or robot); and (3) robotic ostensive cues trigger participants’ attention, conversely, in their absence, participants do not turn the robot into a communicative partner by not assigning it a communicative intention due to a difficulty in reading the robot’s mind. Taken together, our findings indicate that robotic ostensive cues may ease the human-robot interaction (HRI), which is also biased by the human attachment style. The study has been preregistered in Open Science Framework, OSF on September 9, 2021 (Registration DOI https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/9TWY8).

NATURE-BASED EDUCATION IN THE LIGHT OF MONTESSORI PHILOSOPHY: MEANING, PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES

The subject of the article is the role of nature in learning as an essential part of the Montessori Philosophy in early childhood education. This article highlights the use of nature-based activities within Montessori’s pedagogical perspective for including content about the natural world in early childhood settings. In this paper, it is aimed to increase the awareness of learning through nature on child development and to disseminate nature-based practices used in line with the Montessori approach in preschools. Firstly, the role of nature as an educational tool is described, followed by an understanding of nature pedagogy and its educational value according to Maria Montessori. Additionally, the article reviews the implementation of nature-based learning activities as an integral part of the educational work in Montessori schools. In this educational stream, nature-related work stands as the main methodical means for early childhood education and supporting the development of children. Nature in itself serves as a kind of special resonance and restorative effect that can help children understand the world and impart meaning to their lives. Subsequently, recommendations for nature-based practices that can be applied in preschools were presented in light of the Montessori philosophy.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0094/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Nature-based learning in urban international settings

Clair Watson gives us insight into a number of various urban settings across the globe who have adopted different types of nature pedagogy. Clair has worked with nurseries, schools, government entities and NGO's to raise the standards of early years provision internationally. She is an advocate of nature play and connecting children with nature, especially for urban based children.

Elephants are Gray: Linguistic Sensitivity and the Use of Generic Utterances in Pedagogical and Nonpedagogical Contexts.

Prior research indicates that humans adapt their language depending on context. This linguistic sensitivity has been suggested to indicate a natural pedagogy shared by all humans. This sensitivity has, however, only been demonstrated with English‐speaking samples thus far. In two studies, we followed the experimental procedure of the original study to replicate their findings with German‐speaking samples. With Study 2 conducted in the diglossic environment of the German‐speaking part of Switzerland, we were additionally able to provide a first test for whether this sensitivity is restricted to the language spoken in formal educational settings or occurs also in everyday language. Across both studies, we found a more frequent use of generic utterances in the pedagogical context than in the nonpedagogical context, both in Germany (Study 1) and in Switzerland (Study 2). These results and the strong effect sizes provide clear support for a natural pedagogy.

Anthropocentricity as a Principle of Translation: Faust by K. A. Ivanov

The tragedy’s translation is studied as a result of more than 38 years of work by the last gymnasium headmaster in Tsarskoye Selo, the man of “Faust’s culture”. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that each translation of a tragedy allows one to grasp into new cultural meanings and influences poetic practices and translator’s representation, as well as understanding of Christianity. The problem of the research is to identify the multifunctional concept of “anthropocentricity” on specifics of Ivanov’s translation in cultural-historical, confessional and linguistic aspects. The translation was published in 2006, but there isn’t any research on it in the academic field yet. The essence of the scientific hypothesis is that the principle of Ivanov’s translation is anthropocentricity. Ivanov avoided dogmatic dependence on the terminological system and believed that the term was losing its metaphorical energy. He gave no nomination for the concept, explaining it in an empirical sense. According to Ivanov, it is real events that are the basis for interpretations and conclusions. Comprehension of one’s own experience is an unconditional characteristic of anthropocentrism. The translator also offered a kind of retrospective exhibition, recalled like-minded people, amateurs and connoisseurs of Goethe. They encoded values that are connected in the mind of the translator with the name of Goethe and his characters. The unity of anthroponyms acquiring cultural meanings forms Ivanov’s anthropocentric code. In this article, an integrative interdisciplinary method is used, which has an epistemological capacity. The author of the article came to the following conclusions. Ivanov did not raise the issue of expedience of establishing several translations for one poetical work. A good translation is possible only in the context of a great literary tradition, the predecessors’ experience. Poetic “inner men” complement each other by the rules of palimpsest. The fold participates in the poetic events, such as: the image’s creation, the selection of intonations, that determined the uniqueness and autobiographical subtext of the translation. The translation of the Ivanov’s tragedy is perceived as a manifestation of educational intentions. Ivanov assumed that there is a natural pedagogy of the classical example in Goethe’s work and included this in his project of public education. The translation carries obvious time features: the prewar and revolutionary eras. External chaotic life events were contrasted with internal regeneration of the previous cultural discipline. Ivanov was looking for analogues of the work, such as style, themes in Russian literature.

Ethnography and Bush Kinder Research: A Review of the Literature

Bush kindergarten programmes (known as bush kinders), where preschool children learn in, about and with nature, are proliferating in Australian early childhood education. This scoping review reports on, and analyses, the research literature pertaining to how ethnography has been applied to the bush kinder context. We included studies conducted in related contexts, such as forest schools, and other programmes that focus on nature pedagogy, as these contexts assist us to better understand bush kinders. The findings from our literature review illustrate and confirm that empirical research in bush kinder settings is in its early stages. Consequently, bush kinders present opportunities for piloting research methodologies. After a review of the research literature, it was found that ethnography as a research methodology is valuable to understand teacher pedagogy, young children’s learning, the implications of researcher positionality, the context and the place of bush kinders in early childhood education and care.

O educador governante e a formação social do indivíduo em Emílio ou Da Educação

Neste artigo analisa-se o lugar do educador no contexto da pedagogia rousseauniana e tem-se como objeto de investigação a obra Emílio ou Da Educação (1762). Os objetivos propostos são a caracterização da pedagogia natural e a caracterização do papel do educador governante no processo de formação moral e política do indivíduo. Adotou-se, como método de pesquisa, a hermenêutica aplicada aos estudos bibliográficos, que além da obra supracitada, amparou-se também em livros de comentadores do filósofo Rousseau. Como resultados da discussão, observou-se que o pensador genebrino propôs uma pedagogia inovadora para seu tempo, na medida em que revoluciona a relação entre educador e educando e entre educação e sociedade, vínculos estes que são evidenciados em nossas análises. Inaugurador da chamada pedagogia natural, o filósofo alvitra uma reaproximação entre a educação e a condição natural de liberdade do educando e a formação moral e política para vida na sociedade democrática, mediada pelo educador governante.

Dogs\u2019 insensitivity to scaffolding behaviour in an A-not-B task provides support for the theory of natural pedagogy

Executive function plays a critical role in regulating behaviour. Behaviour which directs attention towards the correct solution leads to increased executive function performance in children, but it is unknown how other animals respond to such scaffolding behaviour. Dogs were presented with an A-not-B detour task. After learning to go through gap A to obtain the reward, the barrier was reversed, and the dogs had to inhibit their learned response and enter through gap B on the opposite side. Failure to do so is known as the perseveration error. In test trials, dogs taking part in one of two scaffolding conditions, a pointing condition, where the experimenter pointed to the new gap, and a demonstration condition, where the experimenter demonstrated the new route, were no less likely to commit the perseveration error than dogs in a control condition with no scaffolding behaviour. Dogs’ lack of responsiveness to scaffolding behaviour provides little support for suggestions that simple social learning mechanisms explains scaffolding behaviour in humans. Instead, our results suggest that the theory of natural pedagogy extends to the development of executive function in humans. This suggests that human children’s predisposition to interpret ostensive-communicative cues as informative may be an innate, species-specific adaptation.

The evolutionary origins of natural pedagogy: Rhesus monkeys show sustained attention following nonsocial cues versus social communicative signals

The natural pedagogy hypothesis proposes that human infants preferentially attend to communicative signals from others, facilitating rapid cultural learning. In this view, sensitivity to such signals is a uniquely human adaptation and as such nonhuman animals should not produce or utilize these communicative signals. We test these evolutionary predictions by examining sensitivity to communicative cues in 206 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) using an expectancy looking time task modeled on prior work with infants. Monkeys observed a human actor who either made eye contact and vocalized to the monkey (social cue), or waved a fruit in front of her face and produced a tapping sound (nonsocial cue). The actor then either looked at an object (referential look) or looked toward empty space (look away). We found that, unlike human infants in analogous situations, rhesus monkeys looked longer at events following nonsocial cues, regardless of the demonstrator's subsequent looking behavior. Moreover younger and older monkeys showed similar patterns of responses across development. These results provide support for the natural pedagogy hypothesis, while also highlighting evolutionary changes in human sensitivity to communicative signals.

Action selection in imitation: Why dowe still need the teleological stance? Commentary on 'The teleological stance: Past, present, and future' by Juvrud and Gredeback.

The teleological stance and natural pedagogy are integrated as a system for representing the teleological structure of novel events, including causally opaque ones. In this sense, the teleological stance allows children to build a goal hierarchy, based on which they become able to select the actions to perform.

Sail training: using acculturation to activate a socio-cultural or natural pedagogy

ABSTRACT Sail training is a non-formal residential educational experience manifesting in personal and social outcomes, contributing to participant well-being and character formation and development. The origins of modern-day sail training are found in the age of sail’s culture and traditions, proposed here as a socio-cultural experience in a vessel-bound cultural community. This paper reports an ethnographic case study of a 117-h sail training voyage as participants, entering this novel and challenging socio-cultural setting, experienced acculturation activating an earlier and more familiar process for social learning, a natural pedagogy for social bonding. The findings are explored further with approaches to informal and non-formal education.

Ostension affects infant learning more than attention

A recent controversy in infants’ social learning has revolved around whether ostensive cues have an effect beyond simply grabbing infants’ attention: natural pedagogy theory vs. attention modulation theory. However, since previous research only focused on gaze-following behaviors, it has failed to determine whether attention-grabbing versus ostensive cues might affect infants’ learning at different levels. To explore this possibility, we conducted a critical test with 9-month-old infants (N=140) in which gaze-following behavior was discriminated from referential learning about a target object (object processing and object preference). Here we report that although both attentional cues (shivering, a beep, and mouth-moving beep) and ostensive cues (infant-directed speech) affected infants’ gaze-following, only ostensive cues facilitated their referential object learning. These findings provide new evidence that ostensive cues play a distinct role in infant learning, supporting natural pedagogy theory.

Natural Pedagogy in Second Language Learning and Teaching

This article introduces the concept of natural pedagogy (NP) as a tool for envisioning and enacting second language learning and teaching. Currently popular in the social and cognitive sciences, NP theory holds that much adaptive human behavior is too complex and nontransparent to learn via observation, imitation, and trial‐and‐error alone: Something extra is needed. NP employs humans’ remarkable “hyperprosocial” capacities/tools for interaction (e.g., gesture, gaze, facial expression, body movement, language) to effect teaching‐based learning. NP’s appearance in the hominin lineage likely predated humans; it is probably therefore the original form of teaching‐based learning. A much more recent invention—the classroom—is often portrayed as separated from the rest of the world in order to enable teaching‐based learning. Yet the interactional tools of NP occur pervasively in classrooms as well, making classrooms in this sense substantially continuous with the rest of the world. In both cases, according to the argument developed here, our evolved communicative toolkit underlies teaching‐based learning. This article is primarily conceptual in nature, representing a new departure in the TESOL field.

Nature Pedagogy: Education for sustainability

Recognizing the valuable role nature plays in our human development as well as our responsibility toward the earth is critically important when considering how to transform education for the betterment of the individual and society.

Nature and social work pedagogy: How U.S. social work educators are integrating issues of the natural environment into their teaching

ABSTRACTThe article presents a study of how U.S. social work educators are including discussion, exercises, readings, and other pedagogical approaches to the natural environment into their classrooms. The findings are part of a larger, naturalistic study that gathered data using a semi-structured interview format. The three major themes that emerged were human behavior theory, ecological and environmental justice, and environmental sustainability. The participants are introducing issues of the natural environment using varied pedagogical techniques including readings, in-class discussions and exercises, service learning, assignments, including written and practical work, research, self-awareness exercises, and class facilitation. Questions for further investigation of social work and the natural environment are included.

Perceptions That Early Learning Teachers Have About Outdoor Play and Nature

This study explored voices of early learning teachers engaged in discussions in an online outdoor play and nature pedagogy course. Three core questions were investigated that focused on early learning teachers’ perceptions and practices of children’s access to quality outdoor play and nature experiences. The results support previous research that indicated that teachers’ perceptions, experiences, values, knowledge, and attitudes influence children’s outdoor play experiences. The findings suggest the need to increase access to professional learning that contributes to early learning teachers enhancing their confidence, awareness, and intentional programming, which results in shifting attitudes to fully embrace outdoor play and pedagogy.

Demystifying infant vocal imitation: The roles of mouth looking and speaker's gaze.

Vocal imitation plays a fundamental role in human language acquisition from infancy. Little is known, however, about how infants imitate other's sounds. We focused on three factors: (a) whether infants receive information from upright faces, (b) the infant's observation of the speaker's mouth and (c) the speaker directing their gaze towards the infant. We recorded the eye movements of 6-month-olds who participated in experiments watching videos of a speaker producing vowel sounds. We found that an infants' tendency to vocally imitate such videos increased as a function of (a) seeing upright rather than inverted faces, (b) their increased looking towards the speaker's mouth and (c) whether the speaker directed their gaze towards, rather than away from infants. These latter findings are consistent with theories of motor resonance and natural pedagogy respectively. New light has been shed on the cues and underlying mechanisms linking infant speech perception and production.