CAREER: Flexible Learning Inside and Outside the Classroom

想象一下，一个孩子第一次遇到海狮，并知道它是一种哺乳动物。他们从这段经历中保留和抽象了什么？他们如何利用这些知识来理解未来的例子？在美国国家科学基金会职业奖的资助下，Bradley Love博士将开发一个人类学习的通用模型，以解释从实例和直接指导中学习。该模型以自然信息束（称为聚类）的形式表示人类知识。例如，关于哺乳动物的知识可能包含几个集群，包括灵长类动物、四足哺乳动物、海狮和鲸鱼、蝙蝠等等。模型的学习过程改变聚类以适应学习者的不同目标。例如，海洋生物学家和渔船船长关于海狮的目标可能完全不同，而知识的组织是为了反映这种差异。涉及本科生和小学生的行为研究将检验该模型的预测。在这个CAREER项目中，研究和教育的整合是突出的。Love博士的本科研究课程将以涉及小学生的实际实验为中心。例如，实验设计的课堂课程将涉及考虑和批评这些小学研究的设计。本科生将协助实际研究，本科生将参与外展活动，以使小学生，教师和家长了解心理学作为一门科学。这些综合活动都旨在增进我们对人类学习的理解，提高课堂学习的有效性，并教育本科生和整个社会关于学习的科学。

Imagine a child who encounters a sea lion for the first time and learns that it is a mammal. What do they retain and abstract from this experience? How do they use this knowledge to make sense of future examples? With the funding of an NSF CAREER Award, Dr. Bradley Love will develop a general model of human learning to account for learning from examples and direct instruction. The model represents human knowledge in terms of natural bundles of information, referred to as clusters. For instance knowledge of mammals might consist of several clusters to include primates, four-legged mammals, sea lions and whales, bats, and so on. The models learning procedures alter clusters to suit learners' variety of goals. For instance the goals with respect to sea lions of a marine biologist and fishing-vessel captain can be quite different and knowledge is organized to reflect such differences. Behavioral studies involving undergraduate and primary school students will test the model's predictions.The integration of research and education figures prominently in this CAREER project. Dr. Love's undergraduate research courses will center on the actual experiments that involve primary school students. For instance classroom lessons in experimental design will involve considering and critiquing the designs of these primary school studies. Undergraduates will assist in the actual research and undergraduate students will participate in outreach activities to provide primary school students, teachers, and parents with an understanding of psychology as a science. These combined activities are all aimed to advance our understanding of human learning, increase the effectiveness of classroom learning, and educate undergraduates and the community at large about the science of learning.