Approaches to learning

Reinforcement of this trend towards reflection in professional development can be found in the introduction of the EPOSTL into the European discourse and educational policy initiatives on foreign language teacher preparation and learning (Newby et al., 2007). Developed by the European Council on Modern Languages (ECML) in response to the search for practice and reflection-driven innovative approaches to foreign language teaching and learning, the EPOSTL is one of several practical guides serving the English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching and learning community. Recognition of its value to teacher development and effective practice has meant a surge in its application internationally. Newby (2012b) equates the EPOSTL with seven categories of good practice in teacher preparation that include: promoting teacher autonomy, fostering a reflective mode, reinforcing the rationales and approaches to learning and teaching, making the scope and aims of teacher education transparent, rendering the competences explicit, facilitating self- assessment and promoting coherence in classroom practice.

Research focusing on approaches to learning has over the years been conducted among university students. The approach to learning paradigm (Biggs, 1987, Martin & Säljö, 1976) is one of the most widely used frameworks for understanding student learning in higher edu- cation. The conception of approaches to learning is based upon the original research of Martin & Säljö (1976), who identified individual differences in approaches to learning based on qual- itative analysis of student learning. Researchers such as (Biggs, 1987; Entwistle, McCune & Trait, 2006; Entwistle, 1996; Martin & Säljö 1976) are amongst the first researchers to strate- gise the students approach to learning, the quality of their learning outcomes and their prior experiences. Several studies (Abedina, Jaafarb, Husainc, & Abdullahd, 2013) continuously provide constant evidence that individual differences in how students approach learning exist such as deep, strategic and surface (Gadelrab, 2011; Teixeira, Gomes, & Borges, 2013; Ven- katesh, Croteau, & Rabah, 2014). It is pointed out that in order to obtain high-quality learning outcome (Buckley, Pitt, Norton & Owens, 2010), lecturers require to understand student learning, specifically how students adjust their learning tasks, their aims and strategies, and how these influence the quality of their learning outcomes (Martin & Säljö, 1976). Entwistle, (2000) is of an opinion that students approach to learning and studying is the manner in which students think and believe that learning involves and how they go about with everyday aca- demic tasks or the way they carry out their studying. He argues that student learning, studying and level of understanding is influenced by teaching, assessment and the teaching environ- ment (Entwistle, 2000). Student approach to learning was then divided into three categories deep, surface and strategic approaches to learning, which bring learning process and assess- ment procedures into a major role (Biggs, 1994; Martin & Säljö, 1976; Entwistle, 2000; Entwistle, et al., 2006).

Biggs (2001) defined learning approaches as the learning processes that emerge from students’ perceptions of the academic task, and influenced by their personal characteristics. Inside the 3P (Presage-process-product) Model (2001, 2005) Biggs (1989, 1990) determine two learning approaches: 1) surface approach, that students are motivated instrumentally, pragmatically or extrinsically, and their main purpose is to meet the course requirements with the least effort. Thus, learning becomes a balancing act between avoiding failure and not working too hard and; 2) deep approach, that students are intrinsic motivation to understand and to enjoy learning. Thus, they adopt strategies that are most likely to help them satisfy their curiosity and their search for inherent meaning in the task. In recent decades there has some research on approaches to learning (Sander, De la Fuente, Martínez-Vicente & Zapata, 2012). One line of research seeks to establish the rela- tionship between learning approaches and academic achievement.

The evidence, therefore, over many years of research indicates the presence of a strong correlation between conceptions of learning and approaches to learning, with students at the lower level end of the conceptions of learning tending towards a surface approach, and those at the higher level end tending to a deep approach. These results provided proof that there is indeed a link between these concepts of learning and the quality of student learning outcomes. From the existing literature and the outlined study it would appear that a relationship does exist between a student’s conceptions of learning and his/her learning outcomes and learning ability. The importance of making both learners and teachers aware of the conceptions of learning cannot be underestimated (Watkins, 2001). It is not difficult then to understand how a student who comes to ‘own’ the knowledge through engaging with it personally and for its own sake, might be able to include what he/she has learnt into everyday life (Hodgeson, 1997).

Emotions are embedded in the particular situation that causes them. In language classrooms, they might result from interactions with the teacher, peers or specific learning materials, or a students’ own feelings could initiate an emotional response (Sansone and Thoman, 2005; Scherer, 2005; Hascher, 2008). Emotions can also result in particular motivational behaviours from students: to continue trying to solve a particular learning task, or to stop trying because of a negative emotion (Scherer, 2005). The intensity of the feelings being experienced, and this intensity variation might explain individual appraisals and students’ subsequent actions (Scherer, 2005; Hascher, 2007, 2008). Barret et al. (2007: 376) state that ‘‘…an adequate account of emotion experience requires more than a specification of cause; it also requires a description of content (i.e., of what is felt)…’’. Although no clear conclusions have been reached regarding the shaping effects of emotional intensity and frequency in learning (Hascher, 2007), negative and positive emotions have been found to enhance not only learning processes but also learners’ development (Imai, 2010).

Teachers need to be aware of what is happening (or has happened) in a learning activity. This information may help intervene in case something goes wrong, to provide formative assessment, or to evaluate what is going on. Awareness can be provided during and after the end of the activities. The evaluation showed that GLUEPS-AR allowed the pre-service teacher to be aware of the students’ actions at the web space during and after the end of the activities, and of the students’ performance in the physical space after the activities had finished. The pre-service teacher answered 5, “Agree”, in a 1-6 scale, to assertions regarding whether he considered that the system allowed him to be aware dur- ing the activities about what students were doing in vir- tual spaces, and after the end of the activities about what students were doing in physical and virtual spaces; also, in the interview, he explained that “when activities are being performed in web sites, yes [I am aware], because, using the teacher’s view, I manage directly all the groups, and […] while everybody is creating question 2, I am able to enter in every group and see question 1 from the teacher view […]” [Int 1]. The wiki created with the help of GLUEPS-AR acted as a kind of control-panel, since it compiled the resources created in different spaces (e.g., he asserted “[…] access the wiki again, and it allowed me to see if they had uploaded all the pictures […], this even after finishing the activity, when the children were resting […]. While they are working in the web space and after the end of the activities in physical spaces it is easier to control them” [Int 1]; in addition, it was observed that “The pre-service teacher is uploading the maps in the tablets’ gallery and taking pictures of the paper sketch-maps, uploading them too. This way, everything is automatically integrated in the wiki” [Obs 3 – Session 2]). Nevertheless, although the wiki and GLUEPS

Students gave a wide variety of answers for being motivated to learn English. Many of the answers had to do with more future educational opportunities, travel abroad and the possibilities of getting a better job. Students also stated that interactive class activities with their friend was a good experience. Finally, enjoying another culture through music and movies was mentioned. On the other hand, 23% of the students were not motivated to learn. This group came from classes where there was lack of order and focus. The interview questions and written responses indicate several common answers as to why students were not motivted. One is bad behavior in a class and the second is that “tools” for teaching and learning such as computers or projectors were not available.

experiences and practices in the implementation of democratic principles (thesis 2). Applying the sociology of absences, we can identify a series of exclusions pro-‐ duced by the capitalistic hegemony and now re-‐emerging from the failure of the representative system. The search for these absences leads to the identification of alternatives – then absences, now emergences (Santos 2008, 29–33). This exercise must start from reconsidering those social transitions that led to the strength of the representative form of democracy and find the alternatives that were not taken into account back then. Most of the absences generated by capitalism are valid and now find fertile ground to flourish. For instance, during the industrial revolution the division between capital and labour aggregated people around the workers parties. Without the intention to question the historical importance of this social fraction and its consequences we now have to consider what alternatives have been silenced because they were considered less urgent than workers’ needs at that time. If, in the industrial revolution, there was an urgency and the appropriate sensi-‐ bility for nature and climate change – as we experience them today – alternative parties would have emerged based on the idea of sharing the Earth; the same goes for human rights, intercultural dialogue and so on. It is possible to imagine that different party ideologies would create different forms of implementing represen-‐ tative forms of democracy. The essential difference of the collective identity and ideology from other party ideologies would have probably produced alternative forms of democratic dominance, including of related party structures. The hege-‐ mony of the representative model has created the hegemony of hierarchical party structures and the marginalisation of participatory practices. The awareness that this is not the only possible form of (representative) democracy and the evidence of its limits force us to look beyond representation per se. It includes a search and radicalisation of the alternatives emerging and the imagination of the combination of those alternatives for the establishment of something that does not yet exist but is felt as possible by the simple potential of its existence. Political parties should be aware that the combination of representation and participation is a potential for their development and a form to re-‐engage their electorate.

Personal self-regulation may be considered to be a presage variable of the university student, very important for understanding and predicting later behaviors during teaching-learning processes, whether these behaviors are motivational, strategic or affective. The evidence to date reveals the value of personal self-regulation in accounting for how stress is dealt with while learning (De la Fuente & Cardelle- Elawar, 2011), and in predicting self-regulated learning (Phan, 2006, 2008) and performance (De la Fuente et al., 2008). The cumulative evidence appears to pre- sent us with an essential, personal macro-construct, having a meta-motivational and meta-affective nature (Bandura, 1997). This construct can be benefi cial if taken into account in the development of broad-spectrum university programs that seek to optimize students’ personal development – addressing problems such as health, values education, coping with academic stress, and character education – and that likewise seek to optimize the learning process – by addressing motivational, cognitive and af- fective strategies.

Gil-Rodriguez, E.P.; Garreta, M., Planella, J.; Almirall, M.; Sabaté, Ll. (2006). Usability for all: Towards Improving the e-Learning Experience for Visually Impaired Users. Computers Helping People with Special Needs, Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 4061, 1313- 1317. DOI: 10.1007/11788713_189

The research that puts an end to this monograph focuses on the quality and as- sessment of oral production in English through online communication in the business environment. The author has previously carried out many research works in the business area as an in-company teacher and teacher-coordinator in several multinationals and other companies of Spain. She discovered that business environments mainly require oral communication and that this competence is the one most difficulty produced with quality and evaluated when promotions or projects are proposed. Here, Pomposo highlights the importance of verbal communication in the business world, since the only purpose of every business is to achieve its goal, but with a minimum of quality to cause a good impression. This is the reason why she does a thorough analysis on the factors involved in oral communication: morphosyntax, semantics, and prosody. In addition, she distinguishes the two perspectives from which oral communication must be measured: formal and functional. Finally, she also indicates that the objective of a qualified communication is not always fulfilled, especially if the means of communi- cation is a technological tool.

transcorreguts des de la seva creació, el centre ha assolit uns indicadors que posen de manifest que ha acomplert la seva missió amb escreix. El Comitè Científic Internacional (ISC) que assessora el centre —format per experts en aquest àmbit de coneixement— ha expressat en el seu darrer informe que l’eLC es troba entre els centres de recerca més destacats del món en aquesta temàtica: «eLC is breaking ground in terms of Spanish universities and, given our knowledge of other universities, could be argued to be in the top 10% of such groups worldwide» (ISC, 18/06/13).

Esto nos lleva a otra oposición entre la comunicación no literaria y la literaria: mientras que la primera se rige por el principio minimax, o principio de relevancia óptima, según el cual tendemos a alcanzar la máxima eficacia comu- nicativa con el menor coste posible (en cuanto a dificultad de procesamiento), la segunda se rige, según la autora, por el principio de relevancia máxima, que consiste en un esfuerzo por parte del lector por captar el mayor número posible de efectos aun a costa de una mayor inversión de tiempo y de procesamiento. El traductor debe no sólo buscar estos efectos activamente como lector, sino reproducirlos en el texto meta, no por un prurito de fidelidad, sino para que el lector meta pueda establecer con su texto el mismo tipo de relación activa que el lector del original. Todo esto configura una situación que podría resumirse, parafraseando a la autora, en los siguientes términos: el traductor intenta recrear no un significado que se pueda someter a la dicotomía verdadero / falso, sino un estado cognitivo al cual sólo se puede llegar a través de las implicaturas débiles, que cumplen la función de pistas comunicativas; recrear dichas pistas, que vienen a constituir el estilo, en el texto meta provocará un mayor esfuerzo de procesamiento en el lector meta, quien, no obstante eso, se regirá por el principio de máxima relevancia e intentará captar los efectos deseados por la recompensa que ello supone. Ésta, por supues- to, es una visión idealizada tanto del traductor como del lector, pero sirve de punto de referen- cia de lo que podría ser la comunicación litera- ria con textos traducidos.

it is often seen as an application of the theory to language teaching. Despite this perception, there are some differences, particularly Terrell's view that some degree of conscious grammar study can be beneficial. The syllabus focuses on activities which Terrell sees as promoting subconscious language acquisition. He divides these activities into four main areas: content activities, such as learning a new subject in the target language; activities which focus on personalizing language, such as students sharing their favorite music; games and problem- solving activities (Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Mejía, 2008; Krashen & Terrell, 1983).

I have to go over my notes again, I go over them sometimes, not like after each lecture and stuff, so it’s like very important because I seem to forget like the small definitions and stuff. And the way they all apply, and … I sometimes just forget

In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film, Babel, a wealthy American couple travels to Morocco, leaving their Mexican nanny and children at home. Peering from the windows of their air- conditioned tour bus, the wife suddenly slumps. Minutes before, two young Berber boys take aim at the bus with a rifle given to them to protect their goats from jackals. They want to see how far their bullet will go. Iñárritu’s focus on the Berbers (who have survived in North Africa since the seventh century B.C. by fiercely resisting various invaders including the Arabs) draws his audience’s attention to the plight of the world’s indigenous peoples. Like other indigenous peoples, these boys have been denied access to education which is depicted in the film by the sharp contrasts in dress, language, and living conditions between the Berbers and the Arab-speaking Moroccan authorities who pronoun to the global media that the shooting is surely the work of terrorists. The rifle, acquired by the Berber family from a wealthy Japanese big-game hunter, becomes a symbol of how First World peoples exploit the resources of indigenous peoples through hunting, tourism, mining, logging, or oil extraction, while poverty draws indigenous peoples into participation in the economic and environmental exploitation of their own cultures and resources.

The explosion in the quantity of information in the world enabled the creation of the Big Data paradigm in order to handle and analyze data of complex systems. This paradigm also has allowed to researchers to make more accurate models that mimics the behavior of such systems. The tools to face the Big Data problem as MapReduce, are based on the divide and conquer programming technique and, therefore, MapReduce makes use of the superposition property as in a linear non- complex systems [121]. Taking this into account, we can see that Big Data is not a complex system, but a tool to model them. In the other hand, the full model selection problem is composed by all the possible models that can be built given the considered methods and, as was stated earlier, the search space of the FMS problem is almost infinite. With the given definition of complex systems, it can be seen that the FMS problem can be considered as a complex system, because the output of the system cannot be calculated adding the outputs of each one of its components (selection of learning algorithm, hyper-parameter optimization, feature selection and selection of data-preparation techniques). In summary, an infinite search space of a complex system with a high computational cost to explore each possible solution, makes of the FMS problem in high volume datasets a hard problem and a complex system.

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coding theory it can be shown that the entropy of a distribution provides the lower bound on the average length of any possible encoding of a uniquely decodable code fro which one symbol goes into one symbol. When the distribution is uniform we will need the maximal number of bits, i.e., one cannot compress the data. In the case of concept class C with VC dimension d, we see that one when m ≤ d all possible dichotomies are realized and thus one will need m bits (as there are 2 m dichotomies) for representing all the outcomes of the sample. However, when m >> d only a small fraction of the 2 m dichotomies can be realized, therefore the distribution of outcomes is highly non-uniform and thus one would need much less bits for coding the outcomes of the sample. The technical results which follow are therefore a formal way of expressing in a rigorous manner this simple truth — If it is possible to compress, then it is possible to learn. The crucial point is that learnability is a direct consequence of the ”phase transition” (from exponential to polynomial) in the growth of the number of dichotomies realized by the concept class.