Rethinking Learning Research Articles

Case study: adult learning and public health—a foundational training programme in field epidemiology with lessons and opportunities for collaboration

ABSTRACT This article explores the first field epidemiology training programme (FETP) through a case study to understand its approach to learning and education. Field epidemiologists deploy to outbreaks to investigate, control, and prevent future epidemics and pandemics. Since the 1950s, they have learned their trade through FETP. FETP arose at a paradigmatic crossroads, has endured for seventy years, and is now delivered in over ninety countries. COVID-19 has highlighted the urgency for re-thinking learning in the health sector, hence the analysis of this case can inform FETP, public health, and the adult education field. Inductive content analysis of this case using published accounts from the programme designer-leader and participants suggests the programme’s approach to learning reflected Knowles’s andragogical assumptions, Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, and Lave and Wenger’s legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice. Alignment with such influential contributors to the field of adult learning clarifies the programme’s paradigm and explains its endurance. Now, given the lessons of COVID-19, critical learning approaches are needed to enable field epidemiologists to engage issues of culture and power as they investigate epidemics. Recent adult learning theories offer opportunities for adult educators to collaborate with public health programmes. COVID-19 urges that we do not hesitate.

Foreign Language Learning Assessment in the Age of ChatGPT

In the Artificial Intelligence (AI) age now, foreign language learners can get unlimited support on their learning tasks from advanced AI chatbots, primarily the ChatGPT. At the same time, such a language chatbot intensifies the importance of rethinking learning outcome assessment. Traditional assessments that draw on a teach-and-test- approach are of little use and no longer valid for a comprehensive understanding of students’ knowledge and skills that they, by and large, obtain in informal learning settings and contribute to their overall performance. Hence, alternative assessments can reflect more on learners’ actual performance that likely involves AI chatbots and yet goes unnoticed by traditional assessment. This paper discusses alternative assessments regarding their nature, forms, characteristics, advantages, and integration into L2 programs. It establishes a foundational theoretical account for future research that would take place when ChatGPT becomes commonplace in the worldwide L2 contexts. It charts new research territories and passes the torch to second and foreign-language learning assessors to reflect on their teaching situations and reimagine L2 programs in light of the affordances of the ChatGPT, which has made a significant breakthrough in learning and teaching languages.

Re-thinking learning and development and well-being in the policing of rape: Insights from a rapid review of comparable public-service occupations

Abstract Research within Operation Soteria Bluestone (OSB) has highlighted a number of challenges within learning and development for officers who investigate rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO). Moreover, one neglected area has been the relationship between learning and development and officer well-being. This article is based on a rapid review of 3,673 English-language titles that aimed to examine ‘best practice’ learning and development in the RASSO field. Using a combination of electronic and hand-searching methods, 52 titles were identified and subject to a full-text review. Three broad themes were identified and highlight the importance of: (1) considering which specialist knowledge and skills to develop; (2) encouraging active and reflective learners; and (3) measuring the impact of learning and development. The findings suggest there is much to learn from comparable, public-service occupations which can usefully inform and shape the re-design of certain elements of specialist RASSO training.

Distance Learning: Rethinking learning design in higher education during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract During the second semester of the 2019/2020 academic year, due to the regulatory restrictions arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, Bologna University, like many others, was compelled to stop delivering its face-to-face offering and to switch, in a very short time, to the creation of a technological architecture that would enable students to continue their education through teaching via Distance Learning. After illustrating the active teaching model adopted in two courses offered by the University of Bologna Department of Education Studies, this paper addresses future educators by focusing on the main findings from a semi-structured online questionnaire completed by 84 students. The first part of the paper considers a rethinking of educational planning at the time of Covid-19, while the second and final part analyses student perceptions (using the questionnaire’s open questions) of their Distance Learning experience in the initial phases of the pandemic scenario.

Section 6.d Introduction

In preparing programmes and curriculum to develop the designers of the future, educators are continually reminded of the ever-changing world of professional practice. Increasing levels of project complexity, technology uptake, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural practice are providing many opportunities for design educators to develop innovations in the way we design and deliver education experiences.
 In considering the future of Design Education and how students might be prepared for professional practice, the papers in this track explore a range of ideas, from encouraging student engagement, and identifying new professional roles, to proposing frameworks for educators, and provocations for re-thinking learning and teaching designs. Innovation is a common theme in a context of rapid change.
 We begin with Where have all the ideas gone? An anatomy of sketch inhibition among student designers. In this paper, Lisa Thurlow and Peter Ford reflect upon the importance of traditional skills development alongside digital processes. They advocate a greater awareness of digital and manual tools and design-specific research types.

Rethinking Learning in a Digital Age: Outcomes from EDUsummIT 2017

“Rethinking learning in the digital age” was the theme of EDUsummIT 2017, which was held in Borovets, Bulgaria in September, 2017. Approximately 100 policy makers, practitioners and researchers met to discuss key topics in nine Thematic Working Groups. These topics were: (1) education systems in the digital age: the need for alignment; (2) informal learning with technology; (3) professional development for technology-enhanced learning leaders; (4) digital agency to empower equity in the classroom; (5) formative assessment supported by technology; (6) developing creativity in teachers and learners; (7) learning from national policy experiences;(8) upbringing in a digital world: opportunities and possibilities of schooling, and (9) sustainability and scalability of technology integration initiatives. In this special issue we present the scholarly articles that were written after EDUsummIT 2017, based on discussions within the Thematic Working Groups during the meeting itself. We also present the Call to Action that was consolidated from the closing statements of the nine EDUsummIT 2017 Thematic Working Groups.

Generation Alpha: Marketing or Science

Abstract Introduction: The transition from the limited information environment to the extended information world has fundamentally transformed the communication and information-gathering processes. The new learning spheres (non-formal and informal learning, i.e. lifelong learning) require rethinking learning strategies. Purpose: The generation logic and knowledge of different generations can help making the learning process more effective and efficient. It also helps, if we know which generation exists and which one is a “fictious generation”. According to theory of Mannheim and the model of Prensky, we can describe Generation X, Y and Z, but now the name of the next generation is being established. Methods: With the help of traditional desk research, such as literature search, data mining and web search, this article covers the origin of Generation Alpha (Alfa), the possible characteristics attributed to this age group, and tries to discern if this concept is meaningful in terms of the generation paradigm. Conclusions: Overall, it is apparent that while the existence of X, Y, and Z generations is demonstrable, the naming and characterizing the Alfa generation is important for marketing purposes, scientifically there is no evidence for “Generation Alpha”.

Quasi-communities: rethinking learning in formal adult and vocational education

Situated learning theories such as communities of practice provide a rich conceptual framework for analyzing the processes by which newcomers become full participants in the communities they enter. However, some research shows that these concepts have shortcomings for theorizing learning in formal educational settings especially when it comes to adult academic and career preparation. To redress these problems, we propose the conceptual framework of quasi-communities, which retains some of the dimensions of the original concept while abandoning others. We use a case study of the continuing training of mariners as evidence to show how this framework is developed to identify and eventually improve learning in formal adult and vocational education. Our analysis illustrates the variable learning opportunities in these settings that are available or might be developed within this framework.

Does “learning” exist?

The word ‘learning’ has fallen in with a bad crowd: isolated cognitive skills, stockpiled knowledge, achievement by zero-sum competition, arbitrarily standardized measurement, access by aggression, confirmative action private tutoring, high tuition, neoliberal governance, more status than role, and all that correlated with race and class differentials and propagated, as Melville said of showoff intellects, with “the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always in themselves, more or less paltry and base”. To loosen it from its present environment, this paper offers three ways of rethinking learning and social structure: one, learning is ubiquitous and should not be used as a generalizable source of social hierarchy; two, learning is an unnecessary abstraction that exists only by “paltry and base” psychometric manipulations that should not be a source of social hierarchy; and three, ‘learning’ is a contested term that must always report to considerations of how and when it is used and with what intentions and consequences. The third choice might offer relief from the “external arts and entrenchments” that have been disrupting our learning.

Clinical education in nursing: Rethinking learning in practice settings

Clinical education is a time- and resource-intensive aspect of contemporary nursing programs. Despite widespread agreement in the discipline about the centrality of clinical experiences to learning nursing, little is known about if and how current clinical experiences contribute to students' learning and readiness for practice. Before large-scale studies testing specific educational interventionals can be conducted, it is important to understand what currently occurs during clinical experiences. This study, funded by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, examined the nature of contemporary clinical education by describing students' and faculty's experiences at three geographically diverse universities in the United States. Findings suggest that teachers' and students' focus on task completion persists and often overshadows the more complex aspects of learning nursing practice.

Re-Thinking Learning Experience in the Flow of Time through Autoethnography

Re-Thinking Learning Experience in the Flow of Time through Autoethnography

Learning in academia is more than academic learning: action research in academic practice for and with medical academics

Academic learning traditionally involves research, and the production of journal papers, books, etc. ‘Learning in academia’ refers to academics becoming more skilful in what they do. It is what legal or medical clinicians would refer to as continuing professional education (or development) (CPE/D) which, by analogy, invokes the notion of CPE in academic practice. Action research and reflective practice through action learning processes in a graduate programme in higher education are used to promote such learning. Participants are mid‐career medics. Five themes stand out: mapping the terrain to be addressed; creating the required ‘space for learning’; keeping projects confined in scope; assessment and the shift in emphasis from ‘content’ to ‘process’; and, achieving a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Many attributes of threshold concepts are evident, but conceiving of learning as progress along a continuum rather than crossing a singular threshold is favoured. Issues to do with promulgating CPE/D in academia, identity construction, rethinking learning, and universities are briefly addressed.

Towards new understandings of learning disability

This article highlights inherent difficulties in defining learning disability, particularly in South Africa. It traces the evolution of the category from ‘minimal brain damage’ through to the more current ‘learners with special educational needs’ and ‘learners with barriers to learning.’ Different definitions or attempts to describe the phenomenon ‘learning disability’ are reviewed. An overview of the current international research in the field is provided with particular reference to research that attempts to define learning disability. Much of this research is framed within the medical model, which has as its foundation positivism and empiricism. This results in research which is deficit-focused; in other words the focus is on pathology. A second reductionist model fragments the phenomenon of learning disability into discrete units, each of which is researched. It is suggested that, in re-thinking learning disability, the focus shifts away from the deficit, pathology based, reductionist focus currently held across disciplines. The problem inherent in including the notion of ‘discrepancy between potential and performance’ in any definition is discussed, with particular reference to the measurement of ‘potential in South Africa's multicultural and multilingual learner population. The article ends with a proposal that there be a shift in focus to a panoptic view of the child: a view that takes in his strengths and talents. In so doing, the country may be better able to serve this growing population. With the national shift towards inclusive education, there is a renewed focus on learners euphemistically called learners with special educational needs or the more ‘in vogue’ learners with barriers to learning. Yet what we mean when we bandy these terms about, how well we understand these learners, is questionable. The focus of this article is that sub-group of learners that educators and parents think are just not achieving as they should be achieving, despite themselves, that sub-group we identify as having ‘potential’ but not ‘performance’; that sub-group that we just cannot quite explain, we just cannot quite understand; that sub-group for whom support ranges from placement to pills to punishment! This article critically evaluates the current understanding of the phenomenon of learning disability as it is understood in the South African context. It begins with an overview of the international research, with particular reference to the notion of definition. Thereafter, it makes comments on the term as it is used in South Africa. In conclusion, the article proposes the need for an alternative understanding of this group of learners.

"From Endpoints to Repertoires": A Challenge to Art Education

Whether or not we agree with Arthur Danto's (1997) idea of living in the after the end of era, one thing is certain: At the end of the 20th century the concept of art constitutes, more than ever before, an ill-defined category. The understanding of what art is, could be, or should be is guided by the universe of classification rules too vast to allow for an operational definition that would hold to the scrutiny of various social, political, cultural, ethnic, racial, religious, ideological, or aesthetic perspectives. While the notion of art as an open concept has been advocated from the late 1950s when Morris Weitz (1959) warned that the contention that 'art' is amenable to real or any kind of true definition is false (p.435), recent years have stretched the boundaries of this concept even further. This situation clearly poses a challenge to the field of art education. It necessitates re-examination of what art education should be in the after the end of era to account for a variety of pictorial repertoires and visual languages reflecting the open texture of the concept of art. It offers an opportunity to incorporate in art education realms of pictorial representation that have traditionally remained outside its boundaries. It calls for re-evaluation of our understanding of the notion of artistic and ways in which such growth should be encouraged and supported. Re-thinking Learning in Art: Artistic Development as Development in Repertoires of Pictorial Representation The road to a revised understanding of artistic has been outlined by researchers who have argued that there is a non-linear progression in artistic growth (e.g., Darras, 1992; Golomb, 1994; Wolf & Perry, 1988; Wolf, 1994; Pariser, 1997; Kindler & Darras, 1994, 1997, 1998). Wolf & Perry (1988) called for freeing our thinking about in art from a compulsive search for endpoints. They argued that the world of visual imagery is broader than what classical stage models could account for, noting that children are often capable of constructing and using a range of styles in pictorial representation within the time frame of a single stage. Wolf and Perry suggested that at various points in the of graphic symbolization children construct a range of visual languages with which to portray their experience or ideas. (p.31) This point has been well demonstrated by Atkinson (1991) who offered some convincing examples testifying to children's ability to access multiple pictorial systems. Bernard Darras and I have also suggested that in order to look at artistic in a comprehensive way it is necessary to explore not only the analysis of pictorial evidence produced by infants, young children, adolescents and adults, but also to examine the semiotic process that underlies the production of visual imagery (e.g., Darras & Kindler, 1993, 1997; Kindler, 1998; Kindler & Darras, 1994, 1997, 1997a, 1998). We have indicated that emergence of pictorial representation can be traced back to early iconic gestures, often long before first tangible marks are produced. This recognition of aspects of movement as iconic signs, bears serious implications to the discussion of of pictorial representation. It shifts emphasis to the semiotic function of an iconic sign, whether this sign is tangible and permanent or not. It is congruent with the assumption underlying our model that regards what has been referred to as development in art, as a semiotic process mediated by the socio-cultural context in which it unfolds. The understanding of artistic that we have proposed highlights the significance of this context. It exposes the actual and potential influence of culture in guiding choices of pictorial repertoires that are favored, valued, and taught. In the after the end of era, this model is particularly relevant as it considers multiple possible teleologies, purposes, and ambitions that may guide human pictorial behavior. …