68,943 research outputs found
Information technology as boundary object for transformational learning
Collaborative work is considered as a way to improve productivity and value generation in
construction. However, recent research demonstrates that socio-cognitive factors related to fragmentation of specialized knowledge may hinder team performance. New methods based on theories of practice are emerging in Computer Supported Collaborative Work and organisational learning to break these knowledge boundaries,
facilitating knowledge sharing and the generation of new knowledge through transformational learning. According to these theories, objects used in professional practice play a key role in mediating interactions. Rules and methods related to these practices are also embedded in these objects. Therefore changing collaborative
patterns demand reconfiguring objects that are at the boundary between specialized practices, namely boundary objects. This research is unique in presenting an IT strategy in which technology is used as a boundary object to facilitate transformational learning in collaborative design work
CoachAI: A Conversational Agent Assisted Health Coaching Platform
Poor lifestyle represents a health risk factor and is the leading cause of
morbidity and chronic conditions. The impact of poor lifestyle can be
significantly altered by individual behavior change. Although the current shift
in healthcare towards a long lasting modifiable behavior, however, with
increasing caregiver workload and individuals' continuous needs of care, there
is a need to ease caregiver's work while ensuring continuous interaction with
users. This paper describes the design and validation of CoachAI, a
conversational agent assisted health coaching system to support health
intervention delivery to individuals and groups. CoachAI instantiates a text
based healthcare chatbot system that bridges the remote human coach and the
users. This research provides three main contributions to the preventive
healthcare and healthy lifestyle promotion: (1) it presents the conversational
agent to aid the caregiver; (2) it aims to decrease caregiver's workload and
enhance care given to users, by handling (automating) repetitive caregiver
tasks; and (3) it presents a domain independent mobile health conversational
agent for health intervention delivery. We will discuss our approach and
analyze the results of a one month validation study on physical activity,
healthy diet and stress management
Hypotheses, evidence and relationships: The HypER approach for representing scientific knowledge claims
Biological knowledge is increasingly represented as a collection of (entity-relationship-entity) triplets. These are queried, mined, appended to papers, and published. However, this representation ignores the argumentation contained within a paper and the relationships between hypotheses, claims and evidence put forth in the article. In this paper, we propose an alternate view of the research article as a network of 'hypotheses and evidence'. Our knowledge representation focuses on scientific discourse as a rhetorical activity, which leads to a different direction in the development of tools and processes for modeling this discourse. We propose to extract knowledge from the article to allow the construction of a system where a specific scientific claim is connected, through trails of meaningful relationships, to experimental evidence. We discuss some current efforts and future plans in this area
Socialising Epistemic Cognition
We draw on recent accounts of social epistemology to present a novel account of epistemic cognition that is ‘socialised’. In developing this account we foreground the: normative and pragmatic nature of knowledge claims; functional role that ‘to know’ plays when agents say they ‘know x’; the social context in which such claims occur at a macro level, including disciplinary and cultural context; and the communicative context in which such claims occur, the ways in which individuals and small groups express and construct (or co-construct) their knowledge claims. We frame prior research in terms of this new approach to provide an exemplification of its application. Practical implications for research and learning contexts are highlighted, suggesting a re-focussing of analysis on the collective level, and the ways knowledge-standards emerge from group-activity, as a communicative property of that activity
Design approaches in technology enhanced learning
Design is a critical to the successful development of any interactive learning environment (ILE). Moreover, in technology enhanced learning (TEL), the design process requires input from many diverse areas of expertise. As such, anyone undertaking tool development is required to directly address the design challenge from multiple perspectives. We provide a motivation and rationale for design approaches for learning technologies that draws upon Simon's seminal proposition of Design Science (Simon, 1969). We then review the application of Design Experiments (Brown, 1992) and Design Patterns (Alexander et al., 1977) and argue that a patterns approach has the potential to address many of the critical challenges faced by learning technologists
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Interactive task design: Metachat and the whole learner
In this chapter the focus is on conversations about language between adult learners online, in synchronous and asynchronous postings. Socio-affective and social-semiotic perspectives are used, thus distancing the work somewhat from cognitive ways of looking at tasks. Because adults come to the task with diverse knowledge of both L2 and L1, the expectation is that metalinguistic interaction will enable them to swap expert and novice roles with each other within the constantly changing dynamics of the classroom. This if shown to be the case would advance an educational agenda favouring learner-directedness. Secondly, as metalinguistic conversations develop in directions that the learners feel like following, a greater degree of contingency can arise. This is considered in this paper as motivational for adults, and also as progressive, following van Lier (1996: 180) for whom in a contingent conversation "the agenda is shared by all participants and educational reality may be transformed". However, in seeking to satisfy his condition of contingency, the problem of designing tasks for greater spontaneity proves difficult. Therefore this study provide an ethnographic account of metalinguistic conversations by learners engaged in an online task, Simuligne, designed to address this difficulty. After studying data from the project forums, chat rooms and emails, we introduce a new perspective on the function of these conversations, which holds pointers for task design
Teaching, learning and technology: An e-route to deep learning?
This is the author's pdf version of an article published in Research into Education.This paper details a research project that considered the extent to which e-learning is congruent with the notion of inculcating and maintaining deep approaches to learning within HE. Also, to explore what actions may be taken to engender and or maintain a deep approach when using e-learning as the central androgogy as knowing what (is possible) and how (it may be achieved) provides a fuller picture. Whilst this paper is designed to help inform practice and professional judgement it is not purporting to provide absolute answers. Whilst I have attempted to provide an honest account of my findings, truth and reality are social constructions (Pring 2000). The research was based upon methodical triangulation and involved thirty-eight undergraduate students who are undertaking study through e-learning and five academic members of staff who utilise e-learning in their programmes. As such, the project was small scale and how much may be inferred as applicable to other groups and other contexts may be contested, as those sampled for this research have their own unique paradigms and perceptions. Finally, it is always worth remembering that effective teaching and learning is contextual (Pring 2000). The research revealed that deep approaches to learning are situational (Biggs 2003) and e-learning can authentically lead to a student adopting and maintaining a deep approach. There are several factors that increase the likelihood of a student adopting this desired approach. These include; where students perceive the programme to be of high quality (Parker 2004), they have feelings of competence and confidence in their ability to study and interact with the technology and others. In addition, students require appropriate, reliable access to technology, associated systems and individualised planned support (Salmon 2004). Further to this deep approaches are more likely to be adopted where programmes are built on a constructivist androgogy, constructive alignment is achieved, interaction at several levels and a steady or systematic style of learning are encouraged (Hwang and Wang 2004). Critically study programmes should have authentic assessment in which deep approaches are intrinsic to their completion. To effectively support students in achieving a deep approach to learning, when employing e-learning, staff require knowledge and skill in three areas: teaching and learning, technology, and subject content (Good 2001). They also require support from leaders at cultural, strategic and structural levels (Elloumi 2004)
An exactly solvable quantum-lattice model with a tunable degree of nonlocality
An array of N subsequent Laguerre polynomials is interpreted as an
eigenvector of a non-Hermitian tridiagonal Hamiltonian with real spectrum
or, better said, of an exactly solvable N-site-lattice cryptohermitian
Hamiltonian whose spectrum is known as equal to the set of zeros of the N-th
Laguerre polynomial. The two key problems (viz., the one of the ambiguity and
the one of the closed-form construction of all of the eligible inner products
which make Hermitian in the respective {\em ad hoc} Hilbert spaces) are
discussed. Then, for illustration, the first four simplest, parametric
definitions of inner products with and are explicitly
displayed. In mathematical terms these alternative inner products may be
perceived as alternative Hermitian conjugations of the initial N-plet of
Laguerre polynomials. In physical terms the parameter may be interpreted as
a measure of the "smearing of the lattice coordinates" in the model.Comment: 35 p
Beyond foreign language writing instruction: The need for literacy pedagogy
The situation we have found ourselves in after 1989 has all the signs of a literacy crisis. As academic teachers, we find the academic literacy skills of many our students below our expectations. Yet, we must not exclude such students, but admit them and find new ways to educate them, taking example from American institutions of higher education which faced a similar literacy crisis in the 1970s. We must provide literacy instruction for those students who lack the traditionally expected literacy skills. My point is that tertiary-level students in Poland should be offered such assistance as long as our goal is university education not only for the elite. For our democracy to thrive, its foundations need to be broadened, which means increasing the number of citizens with critical thinking/literacy skills. By organizing conferences like this one, we can build bridgeheads from which to launch not just writing instruction but literacy instruction in our tertiary education. The key point is understanding what is involved in the transition from being a teacher of the standard academic language to being a teacher of literacy
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