The application of research-based methods of skill development has enabled people across a variety of different fields to reach extraordinary levels of achievement. Among the various fields where superior achievement might be attained, training individuals to recognize the dignity of others and strive for remarkable accomplishment in humanitarian service would be an area that would greatly affect our society and world. The purpose of this study was to test the applicability of K. Anders Ericsson’s theory of the attainment of expert performance through deliberate practice on those who demonstrate a superior level of achievement in terms of service to others. The project consisted of the study of two participants who were identified as having demonstrated outstanding achievement in serving others. These people participated in a series of retrospective interviews. The study also included data from retrospective interviews with a close friend or relative with long-term familiarity of the participant’s service to others, and with a person identified by the participant as a coach or mentor. Analysis of the interview data demonstrated a reasonable connection between the lives of the expert humanitarians and Ericsson’s framework. The data from both participants related well to Ericsson’s framework particularly in regards to incremental growth, use of strategies, and focused attention. Although both participants used mentors, one did not use the mentor in order to design tasks and set goals but rather to seek feedback and advice. There is reasonable cause to conclude that this model will serve as a valuable tool for educators. Additionally, five practical and one theoretical recommendations are offered to help administrators engage students in incremental growth, including a focus on teaching students to listen attentively to find their cause in life, the promotion of travel as a form of education, and assisting and encouraging students when they want to become active and involved.

The purpose of the present study was to explore the influence of an NCCP coach education module on coaches‟ ongoing learning. Using the theoretical framework of Jarvis (2006) and Moon (2004) to guide the research, this study consisted of three phases: an interview with each of the 10 coaches prior to attending a module to understand their biographies as well as various learning situations they had already experienced; attendance at one of three potential Competition-Development modules, Managing Conflict, Coaching and Leading Effectively, or Psychology of Performance, and an interview with each of the 10 coaches immediately following the module to explore their thoughts, reflections and possible learning within the module; and a third and final interview with each of the 10 coaches three months following the module to explore how they implemented learning from the module, as well as other learning situations that may have occurred within that 3 month timeframe. The findings indicated that the biographies of each of the coaches varied considerably. For example, the coaches‟ athletic experiences ranged from recreational to national level and several of the coaches were still active in sport at a master‟s level. Their formal education levels ranged from high school to completion of a university masters degree, and their ages varied from 21-45. As well, each of the coaches said they learned something from the NCCP coaching module they attended such as a more effective method for communicating with their athletes, strategies to cope better with conflict, and the importance of setting a variety of goals. The findings also indicated that a number of the coaches were open to on-going learning and stated that they would continue to enrol in formal coach education modules.

This study means to research the importance and significance of the social and informal learning opportunities offered at a workplace. With Wenger’s theory about social learning and communities of practice as a starting point, this study will create understanding about how teachers at a school comprehend their opportunities for learning within the teacher community. The study is conducted at an independent school in Sweden, and is based on interviews with eight of the teachers employed at the school. The purpose of the study was to research how employees perceive how their social interactions with their colleagues can create learning, and what obstacles they might face along the way. Our results showed that the teachers at this workplace found that most of the learning that took place in their everyday worklife was performed in an informal and social way with lots of helping each other out and social interactions between the colleagues.

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Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii, 1967. / Bibliography: leaves [100]-105. / vii, 105 l tables

Science and mathematics education in Australian senior secondary years is experiencing declining enrolments, negative student attitudes, a shortage of qualified teachers and a curriculum that lacks relevance to contemporary life (Masters, 2006, Smith, 2003, Tytler, 2007). Such evidence calls for transformation in secondary science and mathematics education and acknowledges that teachers’ professional learning is central to achieving required transformation. Fulton Senior Secondary School is a purpose built school designed to respond to the perceived crisis in teaching and learning of science and mathematics in the final years of schooling. It is also the site in which this qualitative interpretive case study was conducted. The purpose of the research was to investigate the processes and outcomes of teachers’ professional learning in a setting that was designed to promote innovation and reform. The research, conducted over a period of six years, used grounded theory methods to answer questions about what supported and sustained teachers’ learning, and what were the outcomes of this learning for teachers, students and the school. To achieve an authentic account of the teachers’ lived experiences, I positioned myself as an insider-researcher, working intensely and thoughtfully with staff at Fulton over a period of six years. The study revealed the nature of the interactions between contextual conditions, organisational elements and relationships factors that influenced teachers’ professional learning. An explanatory model of professional learning was developed as an outcome of the theorising process. This identified the importance of alignments between: teachers’ capacities, characteristics and sense of personal agency; and specific contextual conditions, organisational elements and relationship factors. Successful alignments were identified as affordances for teachers’ learning and formed the basis of the explanatory model. In essence, the contextual conditions, organisational elements and relationship factors of Fulton provided the architecture of an explanatory model of professional learning. The teachers acted as explorers of this architecture. The research revealed that teachers brought existing beliefs and practices to Fulton, but through incidental and intentional learning, these beliefs and practices were expanded and often changed. Teachers developed deep understanding of many factors associated with effective pedagogy including: learning and learning processes; new science and mathematics content; effective curriculum design; and authentic assessment processes. The teachers were open to challenges and recognised their roles as learners in achieving the vision of the school. Their outcomes varied, but each teacher’s learning influenced both the students and the school as a learning organisation. There was considerable evidence that the investment in teachers as learners was pivotal to achieving the vision of transforming science and mathematics education in the senior secondary years at this school.

Intelligent Agents that operate in dynamic, real-time domains are required to embody complex but controlled behaviours, some of which may not be easily implementable. This thesis investigates the difficulties presented with implementing Intelligent Agents for such environments and makes contributions in the fields of Agent Reasoning, Agent Learning and Agent-Oriented Design in order to overcome some of these difficulties. / The thesis explores the need for incorporating learning into agents. This is done through a comprehensive review of complex application domains where current agent development techniques are insufficient to provide a system of acceptable standard. The theoretical foundations of agent reasoning and learning are reviewed and a critique of reasoning techniques illustrates how humans make decisions. Furthermore, a number of learning and adaptation methods are introduced. The concepts behind Intelligent Agents and the reasons why researchers have recently turned to this technology for implementing complex systems are then reviewed. Overviews of different agent-oriented development paradigms are explored, which include relevant development platforms available for each one. / Previous research on modeling how humans make decisions is investigated, in particular three models are described in detail. A new cognitive, hybrid reasoning model is presented that fuses the three models together to offset the demerits of one model by the merits of another. Due to the additional elements available in the new model, it becomes possible to define how learning can be integrated into the reasoning process. In addition, an abstract framework that implements the reasoning and learning model is defined. This framework hides the complexity of learning and allows for designing agents based on the new reasoning model. / Finally, the thesis contributes the design of an application where learning agents are faced with a rich, real-time environment and are required to work as a teamto achieve a common goal. Detailed algorithmic descriptions of the agent's behaviours as well as a subset of the source code are included in the thesis. The empirical results obtained validate all contributions within the domain of Unreal Tournament. Ultimately, this dissertation demonstrates that if agent reasoning is implemented using a cognitive reasoning model with defined learning goals, an agent can operate effectively in a complex, real-time, collaborative and adversarial environment. / Thesis (PhDComputerSystemsEng)--University of South Australia, 2006.

This thesis examined the processes underlying implicit learning. Six candidate components thought to be involved in implicit learning were identified: task demands, affordances of experimental materials, subjects????? intentions, content of knowledge, form of representation and awareness. A series of 15 experiments are reported that investigated the learning in the invariant digit, invariant clocks, and the artificial grammar task in an attempt to determine the role of these six components. The empirical findings were interpreted as supporting the view that learning under implicit task conditions: i) is interactive and not passive, ii) does not result in the acquisition of a default representation of knowledge, but that any structure remains latent within an experience until appropriate retrieval cues are provided at test, and iii) does not proceed ?????outside????? awareness but that the lack of insight that often accompanies learning is due to poor understanding about the basis of performance. A framework was proposed that demonstrated how this pattern of objective performance and subjective experience arises, through the interaction of the candidate components. This framework is more consistent with a process-oriented view (e.g. Whittlesea & Wright, 1997) than a separate systems account of implicit learning (e.g. Reber, 1989).

1 v. various pagings : ill. ; 27 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Psychology, 1973