The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the lives of people all over the world. In particular, an unprecedented educational crisis has occurred due to the circumstances of physical distancing and remote learning. This article focuses specifically on the meaningful learning experiences in the everyday lives of adolescents during the pandemic. 72 meaningful learning experiences were identified from 11 participants who recorded their specific learning experiences for a week by a means of a journal recorded (...) by themselves. A content analysis was undertaken in order to identify the ecology of the different learning experiences. The results show a prevalence of personal and conceptual learning, a presence of both formal and specifically informal, everyday activities among the meaningful learning experiences detected, the importance of peers, teacher and “learning experiences while alone,” and the use of digital technologies as learning resources; they also reveal the assistance of others in the learning process. The main contribution of this study illustrates how students in everyday life during pandemics are involved in a whole range of different activities both at school and at home. (shrink)

By employing binary committee choice problems, this paper investigates how varying or eliminating feedback about payoffs affects: subjects’ learning about the underlying relationship between their nominal voting weights and their expected payoffs in weighted voting games; the transfer of acquired learning from one committee choice problem to a similar but different problem. In the experiment, subjects choose to join one of two committees and obtain a payoff stochastically determined by a voting theory. We found that: subjects learned to (...) choose the committee that generates a higher expected payoff even without feedback about the payoffs they received; there was statistically significant evidence of “meaningful learning” only for the treatment with no payoff-related feedback. This finding calls for re-thinking existing models of learning to incorporate some type of introspection. (shrink)

This paper explores how meaningful learning in management education can occur when we keep our focus on classroom activities and strategies that fosterconceptual conflict, variation in instructional approaches, and accountability from both instructors and students for the learning process. To that end, we offer the DNA of learning metaphor. This metaphor makes explicit effective pedagogical practices and encourages instructors to take a more challenging and possibly transformative approach to their course design and classroom experiences.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 212 Seiten: 199-217.

Table of contents -- Knowledge -- Ambition -- Success -- Regret -- Forgiveness -- Truth -- Prejudice -- Superiority -- Inequality -- Freedom -- Duty -- Identity.

ABSTRACTThe rapid expansion of primary education in Ethiopia has enabled most children to attend primary education—or at least to start schooling. This expansion, however, is largely “symbolic” rat...

Within the field of human‐computer interaction, the study of the interaction between people and computers has revealed many phenomena. For example, highly interactive devices, such as the Apple Macintosh, are often easier to learn and use than keyboard‐based devices such as Unix. Similarly, consistent interfaces are easier to learn and use than inconsistent ones. This article describes an integrated cognitive model designed to exhibit a range of these phenomena while learning task‐action mappings: action sequences for achieving simple goals, such (...) as opening a file in a word processor. The model, called TAL, is of a user who is familiar with the basic operations of a keyboard and mouse, but unfamiliar with the particular menu structures, words, and actions required to use the device. The model is constructed in Soar and employs a single set of architectural mechanisms. It exhibits behavior that captures human preference for consistent, interactive, and meaningful task‐action mappings. (shrink)

Within the field of human‐computer interaction, the study of the interaction between people and computers has revealed many phenomena. For example, highly interactive devices, such as the Apple Macintosh, are often easier to learn and use than keyboard‐based devices such as Unix. Similarly, consistent interfaces are easier to learn and use than inconsistent ones. This article describes an integrated cognitive model designed to exhibit a range of these phenomena while learning task‐action mappings: action sequences for achieving simple goals, such (...) as opening a file in a word processor. The model, called TAL, is of a user who is familiar with the basic operations of a keyboard and mouse, but unfamiliar with the particular menu structures, words, and actions required to use the device. The model is constructed in Soar and employs a single set of architectural mechanisms. It exhibits behavior that captures human preference for consistent, interactive, and meaningful task‐action mappings. (shrink)

I discuss a learning outcome of the Western Carolina University, Department of Philosophy and Religion, which focuses on a student’s development and pursuit of a meaningful, thriving, well-lived life, as a corrective to the poverty of existential reflection in the academy. We achieve this Socratic goal via a targeted series of assignments throughout the student’s education, a required pro-seminar on the topic of human flourishing, and other elective courses. The self-reflective, narrative assignments are designed to help students develop (...) their own tentative position on a flourishing life, consider whether and how they are pursuing that vision, and articulate meaningful ways to integrate potential vocations with a fulfilling existence. Students are introduced to these questions in introductory classes; take a pro-seminar analyzing various positions on ‘the good life’ drawn from numerous philosophical, religious, and literary texts, with a research paper assignment critically evaluating one position of their choice ; and, in their final year, revisit their earlier ‘meaning assignments,’ examining retrospectively their academic career and personal development, and prospectively their postbaccalaureate life and career. I conclude with some suggestions for programs keen to incorporate a similar outcome into their own curriculum. (shrink)

What makes a life meaningful and how do we know when our lives have meaning? This paper provides an answer to these questions drawing on the experience of grief. Grief, I argue, is a unique kind of personally and epistemically transformative experience. The experience of grief provides a subject with new insight into what-it-is-like to experience a transformative loss. But not only does one learn what-it-is-like to be personally transformed by loss in the way that one is, in the (...) dynamic process of grieving one often gains retrospective access to facts about the meaningfulness and value that even the most seemingly mundane aspects of their day-to-day lives have had all along. These are facts that can go underappreciated and even unrecognized until the source of that meaning is lost. I propose an explanation for why these facts aren’t more easily known through a simple process like introspection or reflection, and instead require an experience as disorienting as loss. I end by discussing what the epistemic account suggests about a theory of life’s meaningfulness. (shrink)

Using a framework of conceptual and practical tools ( Grossman et al., 2000 ), this study explores ways in which a social studies methods course affected beginning teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical approaches for meaningful social studies instruction in elementary grades. Participants included 75 preservice teachers who completed open-ended questionnaires before and after the course, and again one year later as student teachers. Three participants were observed teaching social studies lessons during student teaching to determine how the methods course impacted (...) their nascent instructional practices. The study adds to our understanding about “what sticks” in teacher education and offers insights to researchers and to teacher educators who aim to equip future teachers for “powerful and purposeful” ( NCSS, 2009 ) social studies instruction. (shrink)