Abstract not found

This paper deals with the general problem whether and, if so, how far the impact of the digitised learning environment on our traditional distance education will change the way in which teachers teach and learners learn. Are the dramatic innovations a menace to established ways of learning and teaching or are they the panacea to overcome some of the difficulties of our system of higher learning and to solve some of our educational problems caused by the big and far-reaching educational paradigm shift? This paper will not deal with technical or technological achievements in the field of information and communication which are, of course, revolutionary and to be acknowledged and admired. Rather, the digital learning environment will be analysed from a pedagogical point of view in order to find out what exactly are the didactic possibilities and opportunities and what are its foreseeable disadvantages.

The shift from behaviorism to cognitivism in educational psychology has placed an increasing responsibility on learners for their own learning, and self-regulated learning has become a

Self-Regulated Learning as a Cross-Curricular Competence Teaching students self-regulatory skills in addition to classical subject-matter knowledge is currently viewed as one of the major goals of education. At the same time, self-regulated learning (SRL) is a vital prerequisite for the successful acquisition of knowledge in school and beyond, and is thus of particular importance with respect to lifelong learning. In view of the difficulties in predicting what young people will need to know as adults, it seems appropriate to assume a dynamic model of continuous acquisition of new knowledge and skills. Self-regulated learning is to be seen as a central element in this dynamic model of knowledge acquisition. Self-regulation of learning means having the ability to develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes which enhance and facilitate future learning and which — abstracted from the original learning context — can be transferred to other learning situations. Embedded in a dynamic model of knowledge acquisition, SRL can be described as a goal-oriented process of active and constructive knowledge acquisition, involving the guided interaction of an individual's cognitive and motivational/emotional resources.

This study concentrates on the dynamic interplay of affect and cognition in school mathematics learning. The aim of the study is to produce a systematic analysis and rich theoretical description of the functioning of affect and cognition in socio-culturally and contextually conditioned mathematics learning situations. The analysis and dynamic description are presented in close connection with the obtained research results of mathematics education and affect. The included meta-analysis or theoretical synthesis of previous research results is developed with respect to important recent conceptualizations of metacognition, self-regulation, and self-systems and to learning models applied in the scientific field of general educational psychology or within the psychological research of mathematics education. Various conceptualizations and models of affect, learning, and self-regulation are integrated in the study into a unified understanding of personal learning processes with affect and mathematics. The basic idea of the study consists of an emphasis laid on dynamic theoretical analyses and illustrations dealing with affect and mathematics learning or performances in the

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 NOMENCLATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 NEEDS ASSESSMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ADMINISTRATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

conducts and communicates nonpartisan research on education issues to serve as an independent resource for those who make, influence, or implement education policy in Texas. A 15-member board of trustees governs the research center, including appointments from the Texas Association of School Boards, Texas Association of School Administrators, and State Board of Education. For additional information about TCER research, please contact:

Students ’ ability to use self-regulatory learning skills is becoming increasingly important with the advent of web-based learning. Online courses delivered through the Web require students to take more ownership over how and when learning takes place, rather than tutors and lecturers making these decisions. This comes at a time when higher education institutions have increasing pressure to develop students ’ life long learning and generic skills from both employers and funding authorities. In this paper we will investigate a conceptual framework for identifying students’ self-regulatory skills and consider a testing instrument to identify students strengths and weaknesses. The instrument can be administered online, from which a full analysis of the results is immediately returned to both student and tutor. From the 77 items used, a subset of these are selected and mapped to the six dimensions defined in the conceptual framework. The conceptual framework and associated questions related to each of the defined dimensions, provides a quick and convenient tool for assessing students’ self-regulatory skills. This mapping can help educators provide assessment and timely feedback to students at a time when there is a pronounced emphasis in higher education to provide skills and competencies that can be transferred to the workplace.

The cognitive skills required for successful academic performance includes self-regulatory functioning, an ability to enact conscious control over thoughts, feelings, and actions. The current studies examined the effects of brief periods of meditation on the academic performance of students at California State University, Northridge. Participants from four different psychology classes (three lower division and one upper division class) randomly received either brief meditation training or rest, followed by a traditional class lecture that ended with a quiz on that same lecture material. Results from the three lower-division classes all indicated that meditation improved quiz performance, but quiz scores in the upper-division class were unchanged following meditation. Our findings show that meditation may be an effective method of improving academic performance. Limitations of the studies and directions for future research are discussed.

Over the past years, metacognition and metacognitive and cognitive strategies, have been a subject of considerable research. This study aims at looking into the cognitive and metacognitive strategies employed by pre-university students through the administration of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich et al. The cognitive and metacognitive strategies scale of this instrument is divided into five sub-scales namely rehearsal, elaboration, organization, critical thinking and meta-cognitive self-regulation. The questionnaire was administered to 524 preuniversity students attending a science programme and the data analyzed using the Rasch Measurement Model. From the model a “Students ’ Learning Strategies Scale” was developed where the five sub-scale was ordered along a linear line in ascending order of the strategies used by the students. The results obtained revealed marked differences in the use of the learning strategies of the pre-university students as compared to the scale plotted by the mean obtained by the studies of Pintrich et al (1991). These results suggest differences in the learners ’ cognitive and metacognitive strategies employed in their learning process.