Preface Part 1: Overview 1. Student-Centered Learning Environments: Foundations, Assumptions and Design Susan Land, The Pennsylvania State University Michael Hannafin, University of Georgia Kevin Oliver, North Carolina State University Part 2: Theoretical Perspectives for Learning Environments 2. From Practice Fields to Communities of Practice Sasha Barab, Arizona State University Thomas Duffy, Indiana University 3. Designing Model-Based Learning Environments to Support Mental Models for Learning Pablo Pirnay-Dummer Dirk Ifenthaler Norbert M. Seel Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Germany 4. Conceptual Change David Jonassen Matthew Easter University of Missouri 5. Argumentation and Student-Centered Learning Environments E. Michael Nussbaum, University of Nevada-Las Vegas 6. Theory and Practice of Case-Based Learning Aids Janet L. Kolodner, Georgia Institute of Technology Brian Dorn, University of Hartford Jakita Owensby Thomas, Spelman College Mark Guzdial, Georgia Institute of Technology 7. Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning in Student-Centered Learning Environments Roger Azevedo Reza F. Behnagh Melissa Duffy Jason M. Harley Gregory Trevors McGill University 8. Embodied Cognition and Learning Environment Design John B. Black Ayelet Segal Jonathan Vitale Cameron Fadjo Teacher's College of Colombia University 9. Everyday expertise: Learning within and across formal and informal settings Heather Toomey Zimmerman, The Pennsylvania State University Phillip Bell, University of Washington 10. Activity Theory in the Learning Technologies Ben DeVane, University of Florida Kurt Squire, University of Wisconsin-Madison 11. Learning Communities: Theoretical Foundations for Making Connections Janette R. Hill, University of Georgia 12. What is a community of practice and how can we support it? Christopher Hoadley, New York University Part 3: Theoretical Perspective for Investigating Learning Environments 13. Learning Environments as Emergent Phenomena: Theoretical and Methodological Implications of Complexity Michael Jacobson, University of Sydney Manu Kapur, Nanyang Technological University Author Index Subject Index

Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments

Film tourism – Evolution, progress and prospects

and general in order to be able to be performed on a wide variety of new inputs. The inputs may be an inventory of notes based upon key, style, et cetera. (Pressing’s cognitive model calls this the “referent.”) My taxonomy is a way of making those inputs clear. 184 Since improvisation (and composition) is fundamentally cognitive and motor selection, then this presupposes a set of things from which to select. One can only select if there are options, choices. Now, it seems that whether a person (agent) is aware (conscious or cognizant of the options (all or even some)), one may always post facto reconstruct the set of choices which were available or present to the agent at the time of selection. By this I mean the set of choices that were available to the agent from an objective point of view. This set has little to do with the actual, individual conscious states of the agent; however, it does involve many specific conditions of the agent and the agent’s environment. For example, a musician S may say that “it never occurred to me to play that B-flat after the A,” even though objectively that choice was available to S. Sometimes, however, we describe others, and even ourselves, as just doing something—no other options presented themselves to consciousness. So, “selection” may seem like an inappropriate term or concept for what is going on in improvisation. It may, however, seem more accurate in composition. When humans perform actions in quick succession, consciously it does not seem like a choice or decision is being made for each separate action. In fact, in some cases it may be difficult to individuate the rapid succession of actions into discrete units. It seems to be a unitary flow of movements. These are half-intentional actions. Beside the (SCI) case, examples of this kind of phenomenon are playing sports, talking, and just mundane actions like walking to the market. From a phenomenological perspective, in some moments the choice or decision aspect can be discerned, while other moments “feel” automatic. Consequently, it is in these seemingly automatic moments that selection may be an erroneous description. But there are several pieces of evidence that suggest that in both cases similar or the same processes are realized. First, it would be impossible to account for talent and skill if some sense of choice or selection or decision was not involved. Indeed, psychologists and others 185 indicate that some people are better than others (usually in some specific domain of behavior) in their speed of thinking, choosing, and moving in situations that require rapidity. In other words, if we cannot attribute responsibility to selection or choice, even in an attenuated sense, training and effort would be diminished or demolished. Why would one train if one could not control the automatic thinking or moving? What would be our understanding of talent and expertise? Second, there is reductio ad absurdam argument that can be given here, analogous to the one Thomas Nagel presents in the classic “Moral Luck” article. One could argue that artistic agents are never responsible for anything they do; they have no agency because all novel thoughts impinge. Humans do not cause their thoughts and selection. My only response is that creativity is still a mystery, and we are not yet epistemically entitled to run this argument to the point of absurdity. Furthermore, cognitive science has informed us that even in these moments sub-conscious motor and kinetic programs or mechanisms are running. Some of these were delineated for improvisation above. This is one reason why a phenomenology needs to be appended to cognitive models and the like. One should also be interested in what is present to the consciousness of the agent, and what is consciously occurring while playing (if anything), not only the underlying processes posited by a cognitive theory, nor what could be going on as argued for in a philosophical theory. David Sudnow is perhaps the best example of a phenomenological approach to improvising. By introspecting on his improvised piano playing and his learning how to play 62 For example, see Sian Beilock, Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Getting It Right When You Have To (New York: Free Press, 2010). 63 Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck” in Mortal Questions, Canto Classics Series (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 24-38. 64 David Sudnow, Ways of the Hand: The Organization of Improvised Conduct (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), and David Sudnow, Ways of the Hand: A Rewritten Account, foreword by Hubert L. Dreyfus (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001). 186 paino and improvise, Sudnow gives excellent descriptions of the process and actions. One of the most important insights he gives is that selection in jazz piano improvisation is in large part about fingering and the way one’s hands and fingers move across the keys. I can attest that the same is true for stringed instruments, like guitar. Often, when I improvise, my attention is on finger patterns that I know work (with embellishments) over certain “changes.” How strongly the phenomenology of playing an instrument comes to play in thinking about creativity and improvisation in particular comes to the fore in this extraordinary account of a conversation with the famous, brilliant pianist Bill Evans. ... I [Gene Lees] kidded him [Bill Evans] about his rocking a finger on a key on a long note at the end of a phrase. After all, the hammer has already left the string: one has no further physical contact with the sound. ‘Don’t you know the piano has no vibrato?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ Bill responded, ‘but trying for it affects what comes before it in the phrase.’ Evans reveals that there are motor selections that do not enter into the perceivable product (in this case sounds) but yet affect properties of that product. Not all selections will be perceivable in the final product (e.g., performance, recording). One should also be aware that selection may be coerced in both a literal and metaphorical sense. External factors such as authorities may constrain what artists do, thereby eliminating or reducing choices. I may only have the resources to learn one instrument. If I only know how to play saxophone, I am not going to pick up a trumpet. At any given time t, the agent (improviser, player, performer) has twelve pitches available in the range physically determined by the instrument. This range is vague because 65 Gene Lees, “The Poet Bill Evans,” in Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now, ed. Robert, Gottlieb (New York: Pantheon, 1996), 424. 187 given certain techniques, which some musicians are able to do and others not, and physical enhancements to instruments, the range can be extended, both to the top and bottom of the frequency or pitch range. But it would wrong to suppose that this complete selection options set is fully available every time, in every context to an improviser. What decreases the possibilities of the selection options group are the constraints that are given and/or accepted by the player, the genre, context, et cetera. Now, the agent may at any point deviate from these constraints (intentionally or otherwise), but she may not deviate from the complete selection options group, unless she changes instrument or technique. The idealized selection options group is coextensive with the set of all physically realizable pitches and all possible durations. This set may be expressed in many ways. For instance, one could simply give the Hertz (Hz) cycles (frequency) of the pitch indexed to a timed duration, such as eight seconds or two seconds. Obviously, this is an infinite set, because the duration of a produced pitch could be infinitely long, and the sound waves, although severely limited by human audibility capacity (even non-human animal audibility) could be infinitely low or high, although there are frequencies which we cease to call sounds. Practically, in Western music theory, the accepted range of pitches is the human audition range (called audio or sonic), 66 I am assuming the agent is using the Western Equal Temperament (ET) tempered system. On the drawbacks of the exclusive use of the ET system that was more or less codified in the eighteenth century, see Ross W. Duffin, How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007). Scholars have identified at least 150 different temperament tuning systems in Western art music. Of course, ET does not apply to many non-Western music systems. The locus classicus is J. Murray Barbour, Tuning and Temperament: A Historical Survey, Dover Books on Music Series (n.d., n.p., 1951; reprint ed., New York: Dover, 2004). 188 which is approximately from 20 50 Hz (the lowest pipe organ sounds) to 20,000 30,000 Hz; while the accepted range of durations caps out at 128 notes. Selection is the process of choosing an output. The output may be physically realized or produced sound, or a notation for a realizable sound, or both. A single selection is actually an array of various factors as explicated in Pressing’s cognitive model. In using the term “choosing,” or “choice,” again I make no commitment to a theory of free will. This theory and taxonomy may remain neutral. If free will is false, then the selection process will be a product of some set of causal laws. Those causal laws will still have to operate within the taxonomy. Moreover, ideally a selection may be viewed as a choice of each discrete unit with relevant arrays, even though phenomenologically one may not be aware of all of the arrays. A musical phrase or lick may be played wherein the agent chose to play the lick as a whole. The entire phrase, then, which may consist of several pitches of different durations, dynamics, rhythms, and attacks, is the unit of selection—not each discrete pitch et cetera. Following are the selection options sets for musical sound generation (

The metaphysics of improvisation

“Transportation into a narrative world” is a state of immersion into a story (Green & Brock, 2000). Transportation entails imagery, emotional response, and attentional focus. Two studies investigated whether transportation was affected by the medium of story presentation, especially when the narrative was experienced for a second time (e.g., watching the movie version of a previously read story). Study 1 (N = 88) showed that people who read a novel before viewing the film version were more transported into the film compared to nonreaders. In Study 2 (N = 71) participants came to the lab on two separate occasions to either read a passage or watch a movie clip. Reading followed by watching provided the greatest transportation. Furthermore, high need for cognition individuals were more transported when reading, whereas low need for cognition individuals were more transported when watching a narrative.

Transportation Across Media: Repeated Exposure to Print and Film

The emotional state of being moved, though frequently referred to in both classical rhetoric and current language use, is far from established as a well-defined psychological construct. In a series of three studies, we investigated eliciting scenarios, emotional ingredients, appraisal patterns, feeling qualities, and the affective signature of being moved and related emotional states. The great majority of the eliciting scenarios can be assigned to significant relationship and critical life events (especially death, birth, marriage, separation, and reunion). Sadness and joy turned out to be the two preeminent emotions involved in episodes of being moved. Both the sad and the joyful variants of being moved showed a coactivation of positive and negative affect and can thus be ranked among the mixed emotions. Moreover, being moved, while featuring only low-to-mid arousal levels, was experienced as an emotional state of high intensity; this applied to responses to fictional artworks no less than to own-life and other real, but media-represented, events. The most distinctive findings regarding cognitive appraisal dimensions were very low ratings for causation of the event by oneself and for having the power to change its outcome, along with very high ratings for appraisals of compatibility with social norms and self-ideals. Putting together the characteristics identified and discussed throughout the three studies, the paper ends with a sketch of a psychological construct of being moved.

/pdf/towards-a-psychological-construct-of-being-moved-4in4hekch9.pdf

Towards a Psychological Construct of Being Moved

The movie theater has always been a place where people come together to share powerful emotional experiences, from the fear generated by horror films and the anxiety induced by thrillers to the laughter elicited by screwball comedies and the tears precipitated by melodramas. Indeed, the dependability of movies to provide such experiences lies at the center of the medium's appeal and power. Yet cinema's ability to influence, even manipulate, the emotions of the spectator is one of the least-explored topics in film theory today. In Passionate Views, thirteen internationally recognized scholars of film studies, philosophy, and psychology explore the emotional appeal of the cinema. Employing a novel cognitive perspective, the volume investigates the relationship between genre and emotion; explores how film narrative, music, and cinematic techniques such as the close-up are used to elicit emotion; and examines the spectator's identification with and response to film characters. An impressive range of films and topics is brought together by Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith, including: the success of Stella Dallas and An Affair to Remember as tearjerkers; the power of Night of the Living Dead to inspire fear and disgust; the sublime evoked in The Passion of Joan of Arc, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and The Children of Paradise; the emotional basis of film comedy as seen in When Harry Met Sally; the use of cinematic cues in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Local Hero to arouse emotions; the relationship between narrative flow and emotion in Once Upon a Time in the West and E.T.; the emotive use of music in The Elephant Man and A Clockwork Orange; Stranger than Paradise's sense of timing; desire and resolution in Casablanca; audience identification with the main characters in Groundhog Day and The Crying Game; portrayal of perversity in The Silence of the Lambs, Flaming Creatures, and Shivers; and empathy elicited through closeups of actors' faces in Yankee Doodle Dandy and Blade Runner. Passionate Views offers a new approach to our understanding of film and will be of interest to anyone fascinated by the emotional power of motion pictures and their relationship to the central concerns of our lives, as well as by the techniques filmmakers use to move an audience.

Passionate views : film, cognition, and emotion

Part I. Developing the Approach: 1. An invitation to feel 2. The emotion system and nonprototypical emotions 3. The mood-cue approach to filmic emotion 4. Other cognitivisms Part II. Analyzing Emotional Appeals in Film: 5. 'Couldn't you read between those pitiful lines?': feeling for Stella Dallas 6. Strike-ing out: the partial success of early Eisenstein's emotional appeal 7. Lyricism and unevenness: emotional transitions in Renoir's A Day in the Country and The Lower Depths 8. Emotion work: The Joy Luck Club and the limits of the emotion system 9. 'I was misinformed': nostalgia and uncertainty in Casablanca Part III. Afterword: 10. An invitation to interpret Appendix: the neurological basis of psychoanalytic film theory: Metz's emotional debt to Freud the biologist Notes Index.

https://assets.cambridge.org/0521817587/sample/0521817587WS.pdf

Film Structure and the Emotion System

When the new medium of CD-ROMs emerged, industry figures and critics alike proclaimed their virtually unlimited potential. Adapting material from well-established media like television and film, CD-ROMs have quickly transformed genres such as science fiction and horror. At the same time, the realities of actual CD-ROMs often fall short of their utopian visions. On a Silver Platter marks a "coming of age" for CD-ROMs as a commercially and aesthetically significant medium demanding critical attention. Greg Smith brings together media scholars such as Lisa Cartwright, Henry Jenkins, Janet Murray, and Scott Bukatman to analyze how CD-ROMs offer alternatives to familiar places-to museums, to cities, and especially to classrooms. Examining specific CD-ROM titles, including, Sim City, Civilization, and Phantasmagoria, the contributors argue that CD-ROMs are complex texts worthy of close consideration, both for how they have changed our understanding of space and genre, and for how they will impact the development of future media. By examining particular CD-ROM texts and contexts, On a Silver Platter probes this new medium for insight and understanding into the current state of multimedia and into the future of technology.

On a Silver Platter: CD-ROMs and the Promises of a New Technology

In 1938 United Artists released Blockade (produced by Walter Wanger, directed by William Dieterle), considered by the press of that day to be "the first fiction film to deal at all seriously with the Spanish Civil War."' Hollywood generally avoided directly dealing with this struggle while it was ongoing (1936-1939), principally because of the potential to offend either the Loyalist or Franco supporters.2 But offend Blockade did. Blockade managed to outrage simultaneously both pro-Loyalist and pro-Franco camps, providing ammunition for those who favored American interventionism and those who opposed it. Twelve countries banned the film, and groups in many U.S. cities denounced, picketed, and censored it. Hollywood war pictures usually confined themselves to earlier, safer wars (as in Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930), but a war in which the winning side was still uncertain was riskier to portray.3 Blockade was an influential early attempt to depict a controversial current war in a Hollywood sound film. Blockade's handling and its subsequent treatment in the marketplace provided a test case for Hollywood and its financiers in how to deal with politically controversial contemporary issues.4 Many industry figures watched Blockade for cues on how the box office would respond to political content. A front-page Variety article endorsed Blockade as "the key to the opening up of a vast source of screen material. Upon its success financially revolves the plans of several of the major studios heretofore hesitant about tackling stories which treat subjects of international economic and political controversy. "5 If Blockade could successfully negotiate domestic and foreign barriers, the article suggests, other studios would be encouraged to experiment with nontraditional Hollywood themes. In fact, Blockade screenwriter and Hollywood Ten member John Howard Lawson suggested that the furor over Blockade is no less than "the beginning of the drive against meaningful content in motion pictures which culminated in the Washington hearings before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947."6 In light of the uproar over Blockade's "controversial" and "meaningful" content, one would justifiably expect to see evidence of

Blocking "Blockade": Partisan Protest, Popular Debate, and Encapsulated Texts

Instead of a traditional book-review section focusing on particular academic works on comics, Cinema Journal asked Greg M. Smith to moderate a more informal conversation among scholars about the current state of comics scholarship, its successes, its challenges, and promising directions for future work. Smith invited Thomas Andrae, Scott Bukatman, and Thomas LaMarre to participate and started the conversation with general questions: What works of comics scholarship do you find useful? Why these works? Andrae responded with an annotated list of his favorites, which provided a springboard for the rest of the discussion.

Greg M. Smith

Papers

Passionate views : film, cognition, and emotion

Film Structure and the Emotion System

On a Silver Platter: CD-ROMs and the Promises of a New Technology

Blocking "Blockade": Partisan Protest, Popular Debate, and Encapsulated Texts

Surveying the World of Contemporary Comics Scholarship: A Conversation