Tooltip Categories: Site glossary

An associative learning impediment is a type of learning impediment where a learner understands new learning in terms of an association with prior learning/experience in a way which is unhelpful from the perspective of canonical understanding

Read about the typology of learning impediments

the area of philosophy that deals with the nature of things, what exists, the status of things (e.g., real, imaginary), typologies

an ontology refers to a way of understanding what exits in the world (e.g., the distinction between matter and energy; or that matter may be single substances or mixtures; of how species are understood)

an ontology – categorising different kinds of things (cf. typology)

an ontological stance is part of any research paradigm

Read about ontology

Read about paradigms

a type of learning impediment where intended new learning is impeded by a lack of expected prerequisite knowledge

Read about types of learning impediments

Read about deficiency learning impediments

A learning impediment ('learning bug') is some condition or feature that impedes (block/slows) intended learning.

It may be unhelpful to see learning impediments as a flaw in the learner: they are better seen as bugs in the teaching-learning system, often due to a lack of match between the interpretive resources he teacher expects student to have available, and those they actually engage in the learning situation.

Read about the typology of learning impediments

the knowledge necessary to make good sense of an new idea or concept that is to be learnt (for example, it would not be possble to fully understand the new concept 'transition element' unless one already had an 'element concept'

a tautologous argument assumes what it is meant to demonstrate – a tautology can be seen as a logical flaw (although a person may deliberately use tautology for rhetorical purposes)

Read more about tautlogy

refers to the methods of teaching, or the study of teaching methods

Read about 'Pedagogy'

in learning: learning depends upon appropriate conditions

contingency is an event of situation that may happen and have consequences; the term is also sometimes applied to a resource (e.g., budget) put aside to cope with unforeseen events

contingency is an important concept in evolution (e.g. as discussed by S. J. Gould) – the particular species that have evolved to be extant today are the outcome of natural selection acting in the context of myriad chance events

"…new learning is contingent on features of the learner, the learning context and the teaching." (Taber, 2011, p.39)

"Human learning is contingent upon the cognitive resources that are available to any particular individual to interpret (make sense of) information" (Taber, 2011, p.45)

any teaching strategy/approach based on the principles of constructivism as an educational theory

Read more about 'Constructivist pedagogy'

 

a term suggested for teaching which is neither based on the teacher simply telling students everything, or expecting them to work/find everything out fro themselves with minimal teacher input, but where teacher structure and guide student learning but expect students to be actively engaged in thinking things through rther than simply listening/copying notes.

"The aim of constructivist teaching then is not to provide 'direct' instruction, or 'minimal' instruction, but optimum levels of instruction." (Taber, 2011, p.57)

a term that is used for teaching approaches based on the teacher telling students things they are to learn. This is sometimes contrasted with discovery learning (or minimally guided instruction) where students are left to work things out for themselves. Real classrooms seldom match either of these extremes.

strictly this refers to discovery learning or similar approaches where there is minimal input, although often the term is incorrectly used to include all types of teaching through enquiry and constructivist teaching approaches