Date

 :

19 November 2009

 Time

 :

12:45pm - 2:00pm

 Venue

 :

Room 101, 1/F., Runme Shaw Bldg. HKU

 Speakers

 :

Prof Michael Jacobson, Professor and Chair of Education, Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney

Description:

The seminar is co- sponsored by CITE and Sciences of Learning SRT, The University of Hong Kong

About the Seminar

This talk will provide an overview of recent research projects I have been involved with in which virtual reality and modeling and visualization technologies have been used as part of research into how students can learn challenging conceptual knowledge and skills. An emerging theme in this research concerns the issue of pedagogical sequences of structure in learning activities. It is argued that most “traditional” instruction and socio-cognitive approaches such as cognitive apprenticeship and guided inquiry start with high structure experiences before introducing students to low structure or open-ended activities. An alternative pedagogical trajectory for learning activities is low-to-high structure. According to advocates of this general sequencing approach, under certain conditions in which learners persist, struggle, and even fail at tasks that have low structure and that are beyond their current abilities may result in short term failure but longer term success in learning. Research exploring this issue involving students learning the physics of electricity with NetLogo agent-based models is reported. Significantly higher learning gains were found for the low-to-high structure treatment group compared to the more “typical” high-to-low structure group. Implications for the pedagogical design of learning activities involving modeling and visualization systems and agent-augmented virtual worlds for education are discussed.
 

About the Speaker

Michael J. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a Professor and Chair of Education in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at The University of Sydney. He is also the Co-director of the Centre for Research on Computer-supported Learning and Cognition (CoCo), the Associate Dean for Information and Knowledge Technologies in the Faculty, and Deputy Director of the new Sydney Institute for Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education.

Michael’s research has focused on the design of learning technologies to foster deep conceptual understanding, conceptual change, and knowledge transfer in challenging conceptual domains. Most recently, his work has explored learning in agent-augmented multi-user virtual environments and with agent-based modeling and visualization tools, as well as cognitive and learning issues related to understanding new scientific perspectives emerging from the study of complex systems. Dr. Jacobson has published extensively in areas related to the learning sciences and technology. 

For more information, please visit:
http://www.cite.hku.hk/news.php?id=326&category=seminar

 Date

 :

15 September 2009

 Time

 :

5:00pm - 6:15pm

 Venue

 :

Room 101, Runme Shaw Bldg. HKU

 Speakers

 :

Professor Niki Davis, University of Canterbury E-Learning Lab    

Description:

About the Seminar

International surveys including the Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey have raised awareness of major challenges due to literacy (including numeracy) in the adult population with evidence that around one in five adults has needs in many countries including the UK, USA and New Zealand. Low levels adult literacy have a direct impact on the economy and reduces life changes for adults and their children. In addition, the Moser Report (1999) declared that: "At the heart of improved quality in delivery and materials must be increased use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to improve basic skills." This seminar provides a case study of one polytechnic institute including nested case studies of good practice in the embedding of e-learning to increase adult literacy and numeracy at foundation levels.
The study produced a rich description of a large urban polytechnic with little distance learning. The rich thick description includes illustrations of senior and middle managers who worked strategically and collaboratively to support the innovation and develop good practice with both e-learning and the embedding literacy and numeracy into foundation and trades courses, while also striving to meet the many needs of minority students.
Five case studies of specific courses describe the trajectory of individual tutors and the development of e-learning within three of the five colleges of the polytechnic. These include mobile learning, a library resource centre for ESOL students and an online numeracy course.
 

About the Speaker

Niki Davis, University of Canterbury Professor of e-Learning, is recognized internationally as a leading expert in information and communication technologies in teacher education. Sought by UNESCO, European Commission, national agencies, companies, scholarly societies and institutions for her expertise; she has over 200 publications including books and scholarly papers. Leadership positions have included Director of Iowa State University Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching in the USA and University of Exeter Telematics Center in the UK; President of the Society of Information Technology in Teacher Education and the UK association for Information Technology in Teacher Education; Chair of educational research for the International Federation of Information Processing; and Editor of academic refereed journals including Information Technology for Teacher Education, and the World Yearbook of Education for 2004. Since her arrival in New Zealand in 2008 Professor Davis has led research in e-learning, including e-learning for adults with needs in literacy and numeracy for the New Zealand Ministry of Education and virtual schooling.

For more information, please visit  http://www.cite.hku.hk/news.php?id=323&category=seminar