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The centre provides an interdisciplinary environment for exploring basic research into human learning - essential for improving current systems of learning and educational technologies and for creating new generations of more effective forms.
Our research addresses fundamental questions about the nature and role of the interactions between:
- Learners
- Knowledgeable intermediaries (such as a teacher, trainer or peer) and
- Technology.
At the core of this learner-system-teacher triangle lies a range of complex, interwoven theoretical issues:
What does a person know? How does the mind work to acquire new knowledge? How does the capacity for learning change over time, from early childhood to maturity? How do people move from being a novice to an expert in a particular domain? [See » modelling the learning process]
What are the fundamental principles and processes of learning? What is the nature and effect of any tutorial interaction in fostering learning and understanding? How do the processes of collaborating with and helping others impact upon learning and learning how to learn? [See» principles of learning and instruction]
Are there fundamentally different types of knowledge? How best can we represent knowledge for the purposes of learning? What is the impact upon the learning process and outcomes if new or multiple forms of representation are used? [See » knowledge representation]
What is the impact of different forms of technology upon the communicative and social interactions involved in learning? How can we better design technology to support or mediate these activities? In what ways can technological innovation encourage new forms of interaction and with what consequences? [See » collaborative learning and communication]
Although we design and work with a range of systems, methods and tools, all of our research is focused on the analysis, in detail, of the moment-to-moment activities of individuals as they go about learning, collaborating, reasoning and problem-solving.
By improving our understanding of these processes, the constraints imposed by the larger context, such as institutional structures and practices, may be better understood. In turn, we can nnnnnnextend our understanding of how to design and evaluate more effective learning environments.
Projects conducted within the Centre examine various aspects of the issues outlined above. An outline of individual project pages is available here.
