Joanna K. Garner

What Predicts Skill in Lecture Note Taking

Despite the importance of good lecture notes to test performance, very little is known about the cognitive processes that underlie effective lecture note taking. The primary purpose of the 2 studies reported (a pilot study and Study 1) was to investigate 3 processes hypothesized to be significantly related to quality of notes: transcription fluency, verbal working memory, and the ability to identify main ideas. A 2nd purpose was to replicate the findings from previous research that notes and verbal working memory were significantly related to test performance. Results indicated that transcription fluency was the only predictor of quality of notes and that quality of notes was the only significant predictor of test performance. The findings on transcription fluency extend those of the childrens writing literature to indicate that transcription fluency is related to a variety of writing outcomes and suggest that interventions directed at transcription fluency may enhance lecture note taking.

Conceptualizing the Relations Between Executive Functions and Self-Regulated Learning

An interdisciplinary approach to comparing constructs can inform theoretical and applied perspectives. In this study, the author considered executive functions and self-regulated learning to clarify mutual conceptual relations. College students (N = 108) completed the Executive Function Index (M. Spinella, 2005) and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (P. R. Pintrich, D. A. F. Smith, T. Garcia, & W. J. McKeachie, 1991) Analyses revealed points of overlap and separation. The executive functions of planning, impulse control, and motivational drive were significant predictors of cognitive strategy use, metacognitive strategy use, and academic effort regulation. Attributional and affective components of self-regulated learning failed to correlate with executive functions. Overall, results suggested an overlapping relation rather than a hierarchical relation between the construct clusters.

Challenges in Supporting Self-Regulation in Distance Education Environments

This article considers the application of selected components of self-regulated learning (SRL; Zimmerman 2000) to student-content interaction in online learning and distance education (DE). In particular we discuss how, when interacting with electronically enhanced text, students must carefully employ self-regulated learning strategies that include planning, goal setting, self-monitoring processes, and calibration judgments. Because the student is often learning independently in DE courses, and because of the potential for non-linear navigation through online learning materials, we argue that the careful deployment of SRL skills is especially critical for successful outcomes. Consequently we discuss examples of how the demands of student-content interactions put students with self-regulation difficulties at risk of failure. We highlight research on learners who have poor SRL skills, inadequate calibration capabilities, and low executive functions in order to highlight areas of particular difficulty and areas in which support might be most beneficial. We conclude with the recognition that while support strategies can be derived from the research literature, there is a great need for research that addresses questions about student-content interaction in DE course settings specifically, and pertains to the increasingly diverse group of learners who take these courses.

Reading and Integrated Literacy Strategies (RAILS): An Integrated Approach to Early Reading

The goal of this project was to develop and test the efficacy of a research-based early reading program that provided integrated reading instruction in kindergarten through 2nd grade. The Reading and Integrated Literacy Strategies (RAILS) program provided integrated instruction in word reading, vocabulary development, and comprehension to students in regular and self-contained special education classes in 2 schools serving low-income populations. Teachers provided explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle, phonemic analysis, word reading, vocabulary development, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. Classes were organized so students received 2 periods of reading instruction daily, a longer morning period of instruction and a shorter afternoon review of instruction. The students in the RAILS program had significantly higher performance on standardized reading and language achievement tests, as well as on individually administered tests of phonemic awareness and reading fluency. The implications for research-based instructional practice that integrates instruction in word reading, vocabulary, and comprehension are discussed.

A complex dynamic systems perspective on identity and its development: The dynamic systems model of role identity.

Current prominent models of identity face challenges in bridging across divergent perspectives and apparent dichotomies such as personal or social-collective, conscious or unconscious, and epigenetic or discursive-relational, and affording pursuit of research questions that allows integrative answers. This article presents a coherent theoretical perspective on the integrative nature of identity and its developmental mechanisms. Adopting the contextual social role as a primary unit of analysis, the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) conceptualizes role identity as a Complex Dynamic System (CDS) anchored in action that comprises the actor’s ontological and epistemological beliefs, purpose and goals, self-perceptions and self-definitions, and perceived action possibilities in the role. These system components are conceptualized as interdependent, and identity development is viewed as emergent, continuous, nonlinear, contextualized, and given to influences from within and without the system. The role identity itself constitutes an element within a multilevel hierarchy, which at the unit of analysis of the individual reflects a CDS of the multiple roles that constitute the person’s psychosocial identity. Identity development involves the formation and restructuring of relations within and among role identities through intra- and interpersonal processes that are mediated by sociocognitive and cultural means, and framed by the context as well as by implicit dispositions. The DSMRI provides a framework to conceptualize and investigate the nature of the identity system, its development, and the relationship between identity development and psychological functioning at different units of-analysis, across different developmental stages and contexts, and using quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

Museums as Contexts for Transformative Experiences and Identity Development

ABSTRACT Museum educators and exhibition planners commonly anticipate and leverage visitors’ background, beliefs and goals to promote meaningful experience and learning. In this article, we propose that such visitor characteristics are themselves worthy targets of design with potentially desirable effects on visitors’ experience and identity change. We describe a conceptual continuum that extends the goals of visitors’ learning to transformative experiences and identity exploration. From the continuum we derive three exhibit design principles: re-framing informational content as powerful, self-relevant ideas; as a visitor, re-seeing the environment and one’s role and action choices within it; and, as a visitor, re-enacting new ways of conceiving of one’s role and capabilities. We present strategies that map onto each principle and brief examples to illustrate the approach.

PowerPoint in the Psychology Classroom: lessons from multimedia learning research

Teaching in higher education often involves giving a lecture that is accompanied by PowerPoint slides. It is common practice for slides to adhere closely to PowerPoints defaults, but these and other similar designs violate principles of multimedia learning. In this article, the psychological theories that apply to slide comprehension processes are described, with an explanation as to how ‘common-practice’ slides do not incorporate recommendations that arise from them. The authors identify ways in which an alternative structure, called the Assertion-Evidence (A-E) slide structure, better embodies these principles. They present introductory steps for instructors who are interested in redesigning their slides. Figures are used to illustrate both common-practice and A-E slide structures.

Teacher Identity and Motivation: The Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity

In this chapter, we describe the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI)—a conceptual model that integrates understandings from multiple perspectives on identity and motivation. By using the DSMRI we capture the rich, complex, dynamic, and contextualized nature of teacher identity, while anchoring it in established identity and motivational constructs. The model highlights the central roles of knowledge and emotion in teacher identity and motivation; emphasizes the interdependence of identity elements, and hence the irreducibility of the teacher identity to its components; illustrates the continuous emergence of identity content, structure, and process of formation; and portrays the non-linear and non-deterministic nature of identity change as afforded and constrained by cultural means as well as individual-dispositional characteristics.

The Symbolic Dynamics of Visual Attention During Learning: Exploring the Application of Orbital Decomposition

Despite an upswing of interest in learning dynamics, and theoretical models that endorse particular sequences of learning behaviors, learning scientists lack the analytical tools necessary for investigating attention-related manifestations of learning processes as they unfold over time. One candidate technique is orbital decomposition (OD). OD is an example of symbolic dynamics, a class of analyses that quantify patterns in strings of nominal data. Originating in chaos theory, OD provides an index of the systematicity of recurring sequences in a time series. Products include entropy values which reveal the degree to which sequences are random or comprised of recurring patterns. As an illustration of its potential utility, this chapter includes a study in which OD is used in conjunction with symbol sequence figures and statistical tests to investigate how variations in visual attention sequences manifest within episodes ofself-regulated learning (SRL). Incorporating OD into the analysis of individuals’ learning episodes reveals significant, nonlinear relationships between entropy and the proportions of time spent viewing particular learning materials, and significant variations that are contingent on global task strategies such as note-taking. After considering findings in terms of the questions they raise about the dynamics involved in SRL processes, this chapter concludes with a summary of steps that can be followed to support the conceptualization of learning related phemonena as exemplars of complex dynamic systems.

A complex dynamic systems perspective on teacher learning and identity formation: an instrumental case

ABSTRACT Scholars have called for new conceptualisations of teachers’ learning that capture the complex, contextualised, and dynamic nature of professional growth. In this article, we describe the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) that portrays teacher learning as inseparable from the complex and dynamic processes by which teachers form their professional identities. The model depicts theoretical and procedural learning about teaching as integrated with other ontological and epistemological beliefs, self-perceptions and self-definitions, purpose and goals in teaching, and perceived action possibilities that constitute the teacher’s professional role identity. After describing the DSMRI, we demonstrate its application with an instrumental case of a science teacher who participated in a professional development (PD) institute designed to foster learning and motivation for implementing student-centred, inquiry-based instruction. DSMRI-guided analysis of pre-, mid-, and post-institute interviews highlighted the role of pre-PD role identities of learner and teacher in the teacher’s PD experiences, which, in turn, fostered both new alignments and new tensions in the teacher’s role identity that promoted an overall change towards a more student-centred teacher role identity. The article demonstrates the utility of the DSMRI for conceptualising teachers’ learning as contextualised and dynamic identity formation processes.