https://whdl.nbc.edu/sites/default/files/Kaleidoscope%20Identity%20in%20Motion.pdf

The Development of Thought: Equilibration of Cognitive Structures

Kaleidoscope: Identity in Motion

The World Wide Web has been seen more and more as an effective and above all inexpensive means of delivering courses. In the search for an effective approach for Web learning, a self-reliance learning environment is required. This paper examines the "symbol pad" learning environment in cognitive constructivism. Hence, through XML-based equation technology for mathematical learning, we can provide the learner to arrange their learning sequences and construct their deep thinking and knowledge.

Mathematical education technology based on the theory of cognitive constructivism and concept map

Govemment, industry, enterprises and the community expect the Vocational and Educational Training (VET) system to provide up-to-date educational programs that provide pathways from school-based leaming to the higher education facilities such as universities and to employment opportunities. Refonns in the VET sector over the past ten years have had a significant impact on the work of staff employed in the area. Educators now operate in more competitive markets and face increased demands for higher quality and more relevant training programs from clients. Understanding and keeping up with the changes and working in new and more flexible ways have been major challenges for the VET workforce. The cunent literature review focuses on the effects that the changing expectations have had on the roles and work of VET practitioners and particularly on nurse educators. This review explores the changes in both the health and VET environments, identifying factors that contribute to the challenges 'and baniers that teachers' face. AcademicPractice Bridges. 3 Academic Practice Bridges: Implications for Lecturers when the Complexities of Change meets the Higher Education and Nurse Education Systems Introduction The Australian Govemment has the primary responsibility for public funding of the higher education system, playing a vital role in Australia's intellectual, economic, scientific, cultural and social development (Thomas, 2004). The higher education sector also has an essential role in the creation of the country's human capital by advancing scholarship, cultivating intellect and imagination underpinned by principles of intellectual freedom, inquiry and openness (Thomas, 2004). Additionally, the sector provides jobs for Australians, educates the workforce, creates future leaders and enriches the social and environmental landscape, increasingly playing a key role in the growing knowledge and innovation based economic health of Australia (Mitchell, Chappell, Bateman, & Roy, 2006). As major contributors to a high quality workforce, providers of higher education are critical in enabling Australian commerce and industry to compete effectively in global markets as well as providing training for essential public services such as teaching, policing and nursing (Mitchell et al., 2006). In Australia, a higher education continuum exists comprised of vocational education and training (VET): training provided predominantly by Technical and Fmiher Education (TAFE) facilities, adult and community organisations, and universities (Mitchell, Chappell, Bateman, & Roy, 2006). The Australian Govemment promotes and encourages the development of links between these sectors to provide a seamless education and training system, ultimately creating pathways of higher education by providing skills and knowledge for work through national training packages, whilst continuing to support the facilitation and access to life-long leaming opportunities (Mitchell et al., 2006). For example, fmmal pminership arrangements occur between most universities and T AFE colleges offering students credit for courses studied, thus Academic Practice Bridges. 4 providing articulation from Cettificate· IV and Diploma qualifications gained at TAFE to undergraduate degree qualifications at universities (Mitchell et al., 2006). Moreover, higher education operates within an economic and social context, responding to both of these imperatives if it is to have relevance to modem Australian society and contribute effectively to the knowledge economy (Getmov, 2005). The regulation of the sector acknowledges not only the public benefits for individuals and employers, but also the ways higher education benefits society, making significant contributions through provision of advanced research and learning. Equally critical is the role of higher education in social and cultural development and in fiuthering social values of understanding and tolerance (Getmov, 2005). Providers of higher education services have a major responsibility to instil ethical and moral principles alongside managerial or technical skills, and foster an active and pat1icipatory civic spirit among future graduates (Getmov, 2005). The Govemment's priorities in addressing social and cultural development for higher education are identified in a package of legislated reforms structured around four key policy principles: sustainability (improved govemance and pricing flexibility), quality (improved performance and greater accountability), equity (improved pat1icipation and outcomes for disadvantaged groups) and diversity (funding for research, restructuring and collaboration of institutions) (Thomas, 2004). Moreover, these refmms aim to offer education providers access to funding in order to provide world-class, quality higher education, focusing on quality leaming outcomes where providers operate within the wide education continuum (Thomas, 2004). However, these education refmms were developed in the context of a rapidly changing environment in higher education where competition for resources, new educational oppm1unities and challenges continue to rise (Thomas, 2004). Consequently, the refmms in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector in pat1icular have, over the past ten years, had a significant AcademicPractice Bridges. 5 effect on the work of its' staff who are now required to operate in a more competitive market, and face increasing demands for higher quality and more relevant programs from their various clients (Chappell & Johnston, 2003). VET practitioners are required to extend existing skills and develop new pedagogies in teaching, learning and assessment in order to meet the environmental demands and change where skill shmiages, new technology in industry, work restmcturing, competition between service providers, and the needs of youth and disadvantaged workers are the norm (Mitchell, Chappell, Bateman, & Roy, 2006). In addition, there is a strong public interest in the delivery of quality higher education in essential services such as teaching and nursing. Funding cutbacks from the Commonwealth for teacher and nurse education have resulted in considerable difficulties in supporting professional experience as pat1 of initial teacher preparation, for example, reduced class contact hours and higher staff/student ratios (Chappell & Johnston, 2003). In pat1icular, nursing preparation within higher education sectors faces inherent challenges where public funding cuts potentially impact on the quality and supply of nurse graduates. As a consequence of reduced funding suppm1, the net decline in the number of emolments into nurse education programs translates into less trained staff to supply an ever increasing demand for nurses in Australian public and private hospitals, community and country health services (Elg, Kollberg, Lindmark, & Olsson, 2007). In this challenging environment critical issues for VET practitioners in teaching need to be determined, not only to better infmm and influence VET practice, but also to identify the impact of these demands of change on the experiences of VET practitioners, and their perception of the VET system that suppmis their role. Whilst it is recognised that demands of change affect all VET disciplines servicing a variety of industries, this paper will explore the issues of the changing environment in nurse education in particular, and aims to review the challenges and implications for nurse educators. This report will present infmmation which identifies the drivers Academic Practice Bridges. 6 of change in the VET environment, highlight the changes in the health care and education systems, identify what leamers and industry clients want from VET in terms of teaching and leaming experiences, and review the demands, critical factors and implications for nurse educators. The following section will explain the current context in which the VET sector operates and the changes which they have undergone. The changing VET environment. A review of changes within the Vocational Educational and Training (VET) system by Mitchell et al. (2006) identified environmental factors as having a significant impact on teaching and leaming in the VET sector. However fl major study by Moynagh and Worsley (as cited in Mitchell et al., 2006, p.13) that addressed the future European provision of vocational education and training, identified a different set of factors driving changes creating challenges in VET teaching that ultimately were to impact considerably on VET provision. Factors included technological developments, consumerism, staff shortages, engaging more leamers such as mature-aged and youth, and the increasing competition between providers. These influences are similar to those identified in Australia which included: the changing structures of education, employment and industry; the aggressive spread of the proposition that workers need to add value to work practices' by applying increased knowledge; demands for new technology; and the shift from mass production to market segmentation (Mitchell et al., 2006). As noted above, within the Australian context, research confirms that the agents of change are similar to those identified by Moynagh and Worsley (as cited in Mitchell et al., 2006, p.l3) in Europe. Harris, Simons, and Clayton (2005) asked 131 VET practitioners to identify drivers of change that resulted in issues such as influences outside their place of employment. For example, govemment policy was suggested as having a marked effect on influencing curriculum practices and the provision of training. Another major force was the expectations of industry and the Academic Practice Bridges. 7 community, as well as the nature of ec·onomic I financial suppmis. These three factors were judged to be closely interrelated and influenced one another, with govemment education policy being the prime change agent affecting VET practitioners. Other drivers included increased expectations

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Academic - practice bridges: implications for lecturers when the complexities of change meets the higher education and nurse education systems

E-learning Experiences of Adult Learners from Nigeria: A Narrative Inquiry

We are interested in the autonomous acquisition of repertoires of skills. Language-conditioned reinforcement learning (LC-RL) approaches are great tools in this quest, as they allow to express abstract goals as sets of constraints on the states. However, most LC-RL agents are not autonomous and cannot learn without external instructions and feedback. Besides, their direct language condition cannot account for the goal-directed behavior of pre-verbal infants and strongly limits the expression of behavioral diversity for a given language input. To resolve these issues, we propose a new conceptual approach to language-conditioned RL: the Language-Goal-Behavior architecture (LGB). LGB decouples skill learning and language grounding via an intermediate semantic representation of the world. To showcase the properties of LGB, we present a specific implementation called DECSTR. DECSTR is an intrinsically motivated learning agent endowed with an innate semantic representation describing spatial relations between physical objects. In a first stage (G -> B), it freely explores its environment and targets self-generated semantic configurations. In a second stage (L -> G), it trains a language-conditioned goal generator to generate semantic goals that match the constraints expressed in language-based inputs. We showcase the additional properties of LGB w.r.t. both an end-to-end LC-RL approach and a similar approach leveraging non-semantic, continuous intermediate representations. Intermediate semantic representations help satisfy language commands in a diversity of ways, enable strategy switching after a failure and facilitate language grounding.

The Development of Thought: Equilibration of Cognitive Structures

Citations

Kaleidoscope: Identity in Motion

Mathematical education technology based on the theory of cognitive constructivism and concept map

Academic - practice bridges: implications for lecturers when the complexities of change meets the higher education and nurse education systems

E-learning Experiences of Adult Learners from Nigeria: A Narrative Inquiry

Grounding Language to Autonomously-Acquired Skills via Goal Generation

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