Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

While learning is commonly understood as a cognitive process, humans also develop the ability to use our bodies in useful and important ways as well.

We learn how to form sentences and the rules of grammar (for example append “ed” to verb to make it past tense) long before we are taught the rule in school.

Conditioning is the form of highly repetitive behavior it is known to exert powerful influences on the formation of habits in humans and responses to environmental circumstances. For the learning we do in schools, not so much.

Because project-based learning often falls outside of the traditional academic boundaries and because instructors typically exert little control over what is learned and how it is demonstrated,

Teaching often results in “’inert ideas’—that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.” Alfred North Whitehead was right.

One thing I learned during decades in the classroom: Worked examples are effective.

Go into a room filled with students using computers. If you hear only mouse clicks, something is wrong.

1) How do students compare to students in similar courses?
2) What are student’s emerging learning skills?
3) Can students create polished projects?

These seem different (and all valuable) ways to understand student learning.

Grades can be perceived as rewards or punishments; high marks reward those who learned well and punish those who did not. There is evidence this reasoning does not explain what we observe in classroom.

Even the most motivated students value others’ assessment of their work and the degree to which they are able to be critical, creative, and practical with their knowledge.

There seems something disingenuous when we praise billionaires for donating $10,000 to charity. Its like someone with $100,000 donating $1.

Remember when we used to talk about "mash-ups?" Is it just me or did we drop it?

Online courses may be mediated by technology , but it entirely possible that technology is not used as a cognitive tool for the course.

We (both individually and as leaders in organizations) obtain technology systems (often at great expense) because we expect a performance gain. With the technology, we reason, we will be more efficient or more effective. That is no always realized, however.

Seriously... I just saw the Rolling Stones tour being advertised with AARP.

Are They Learning? How Do We Know? https://hackscience.net/2023/11/26/are-they-learning-how-do-we-know/

In 1989, Mark Davis, was motivated to study the decision to use technology or to avoid it because “that performance gains are often obstructed by users' unwillingness to accept and use available systems.”

In a school, different populations and even different individuals within a population may perceive the same technology differently, and those differences will affect individuals’ intentions to use the technology.

Germane cognitive load is available for the learner to think about, strategize about, and come to deeper understanding of the ideas and information in the task. Learning occurs only when germane cognitive load is available and the amount available limits what can be learned.

Consider the example of graphing calculators. Using this technology, one can minimize the extraneous cognitive load of drawing the graph of a sophisticated function, so more cognition can be dedicated to understanding the mathematics. When first encountering a graphing calculator (or when encountering an unfamiliar model), determining how to use the device increases extraneous cognitive load of graphing.