This volume takes a multidisciplinary perspective on generalization of knowledge from several fields associated with Cognitive Science, including Cognitive Neuroscience, Computer Science, Education, Linguistics, Developmental Science, and Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. The aim is to derive general principles from triangulation across different disciplines and approaches.
Based on a collection of chapters of leading scholars in the field, the purpose of this book is to intervene in current debates on the scientific foundation of psychological theory, methodology and research practice, and to offer an in-depth, situated and contextual understanding of psychological generalization. This book aims to contribute to a theoretical and methodological vocabulary which includes the subjective dimension of human life in psychological inquiry, and roots processes of generalization in persons’ common, social, cultural and material practices of everyday living. The volume is directed to students, professors, and researchers in psychology as well as to scholars in other branches of the humanities and social science where psychology and especially subjectivity, everyday practice and the development of psychological knowledge is an issue. The volume will be of particular interest to scholars in the field of cultural psychology, critical psychology, psychology of everyday life as well as psychological methodology and qualitative studies of everyday life including the various critical undergraduate, graduate, master, and PhD programs. The book will also be of special interest for scholars working in social psychology, history of psychology, general psychology, theoretical psychology, environmental psychology and political psychology.
The transfer of learning is universally accepted as the ultimate aim of teaching. Facilitating knowledge transfer has perplexed educators and psychologists over time and across theoretical frameworks; it remains a central issue for today's practitioners and theorists. This volume examines the reasons for past failures and offers a reconceptualization of the notion of knowledge transfer, its problems and limitations, as well as its possibilities. Leading scholars outline programs of instruction that have effectively produced transfer at a variety of levels from kindergarten to university. They also explore a broad range of issues related to learning transfer including conceptual development, domain-specific knowledge, learning strategies, communities of learners, and disposition. The work of these contributors epitomizes theory-practice integration and enables the reader to review the reciprocal relation between the two that is so essential to good theorizing and effective teaching.
In the first BACOMET volume different perspectives on issues concerning teacher education in mathematics were presented (B. Christiansen, A. G. Howson and M. Otte, Perspectives on Mathematics Education, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1986). Underlying all of them was the fundamental problem area of the relationships between mathematical knowledge and the teaching and learning processes. The subsequent project BACOMET 2, whose outcomes are presented in this book, continued this work, especially by focusing on the genesis of mathematical knowledge in the classroom. The book developed over the period 1985-9 through several meetings, much discussion and considerable writing and redrafting. Our major concern was to try to analyse what we considered to be the most significant aspects of the relationships in order to enable mathematics educators to be better able to handle the kinds of complex issues facing all mathematics educators as we approach the end of the twentieth century. With access to mathematics education widening all the time, with a multi tude of new materials and resources being available each year, with complex cultural and social interactions creating a fluctuating context of education, with all manner of technology becoming more and more significant, and with both informal education (through media of different kinds) and non formal education (courses of training etc. ) growing apace, the nature of formal mathematical education is increasingly needing analysis.
Includes selected classic and contemporary papers in four areas, this text introduces each field, providing technical background for the non-specialist and explaining the underlying connections across the disciplines.
This indispensable guide combines proven curriculum design with teaching methods that encourage students to learn concepts as well as content and skills for deep understanding across all subject areas.
Neuroscientists investigate the mechanisms of spatial memory. Molecular biologists study the mechanisms of protein synthesis and the myriad mechanisms of gene regulation. Ecologists study nutrient cycling mechanisms and their devastating imbalances in estuaries such as the Chesapeake Bay. In fact, much of biology and its history involves biologists constructing, evaluating, and revising their understanding of mechanisms. With In Search of Mechanisms, Carl F. Craver and Lindley Darden offer both a descriptive and an instructional account of how biologists discover mechanisms. Drawing on examples from across the life sciences and through the centuries, Craver and Darden compile an impressive toolbox of strategies that biologists have used and will use again to reveal the mechanisms that produce, underlie, or maintain the phenomena characteristic of living things. They discuss the questions that figure in the search for mechanisms, characterizing the experimental, observational, and conceptual considerations used to answer them, all the while providing examples from the history of biology to highlight the kinds of evidence and reasoning strategies employed to assess mechanisms. At a deeper level, Craver and Darden pose a systematic view of what biology is, of how biology makes progress, of how biological discoveries are and might be made, and of why knowledge of biological mechanisms is important for the future of the human species.
This text is the inaugural book in Taylor and Francis's GISDATA series, and is derived from the specialist workshop convened under the auspices of the European Science Foundation's GISDATA Scientific Programme. Generalisation is an integrating tool for the analysis and presentation of spatial data. Effective spatial data analysis requires multiple views of the world at various scales with different thematic layers of representation. Generalisation is a key mechanism in this process, as it filters out information which is required for particular scales or layers; hence it is critical to implement full and comprehensive generalisation capabilities in a GIS, something with which few current GIS are equipped.; This book overviews the core and as-yet unresolved issues surrounding the achievement of this goal, and presents various alternatives - both speculative views and practical examples - in the areas of automated generalisation, vis-a-vis problems such as object simplification and placement. At the same time it distinguishes between modelling with generalisation and graphical representation, and adopts a model-building perspective. It also describes artificial intelligence techniques for implementing automated generalised routines, and addresses issues of data quality and production.; The text is organized into six parts: an introduction; generic issue; object-orientated methods and knowledge-based modelling; knowledge acquisition and representation; data quality; and operation and implementation.
In October of 1992 an assembly of researchers in simulation and computer models for instruction convened in Bonas, France, to learn from one another in a non-automated environment. The event was the Advanced Research Workshop entitled The Use of Computer Models for Explication, Analysis, and Experiential Learning. Sponsored by the Scientific Affairs Division of NATO, this workshop brought together 29 leading experts in the field loosely described as instruction and learning in simulation environments. The three-day workshop was organized in a manner to maximize exchange of knowledge, of beliefs, and of issues. The participants came from six countries with experiences to share, with opinions to voice, and with questions to explore. Starting some weeks prior to the workshop, the exchange included presentation of the scientific papers, discussions immediately following each presentation, and informal discussions outside the scheduled meeting times. Naturally, the character and content of the workshop was determined by the backgrounds and interests of the participants. One objective in drawing together these particular specialists was to achieve a congress with coherent diversity, i.e., we sought individuals who could view an emerging area from different perspectives yet had produced work of interest to many. Major topic areas included theories of instruction being developed or tested, use of multiple domain models to enhance understanding, experiential learning environments, modelling diagnostic environments, tools for authoring complex models, and case studies from industry.
