CAREER: Flexible Learning Inside and Outside the Classroom

想象一下，一个孩子第一次遇到海狮，得知它是哺乳动物。他们从这次经历中保留和提炼了什么？他们如何利用这些知识来理解未来的例子？在国家科学基金会职业奖的资助下，布拉德利·洛夫博士将开发一个人类学习的一般模型，以说明从例子中学习和直接指导。该模型以自然信息束的形式表示人类知识，这种信息束称为簇。例如，哺乳动物的知识可能由几个集群组成，包括灵长类、四足哺乳动物、海狮和鲸鱼、蝙蝠等。模型学习程序改变了集群，以适应学习者的各种目标。例如，海洋生物学家和渔船船长关于海狮的目标可以有很大的不同，而知识的组织是为了反映这种差异。对本科生和小学生的行为研究将检验该模型的预测。研究和教育的结合在这个职业项目中占据了突出的地位。乐福博士的本科研究课程将以小学生参与的实际实验为中心。例如，实验设计的课堂课程将涉及对这些小学研究的设计进行考虑和批评。本科生将协助实际研究，本科生将参加外展活动，为小学生、教师和家长提供对心理学作为一门科学的理解。这些联合活动的目的都是为了加深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学习科学。

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.