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Animated models explicate the procedure to solve a problem, as well as the rationale behind this procedure. For abstract cognitive processes, animations might be beneficial, especially when a supportive pedagogical agent provides explanations. This article argues that animated models can be an effective instructional method, provided that they are designed in such a way that cognitive capacity is optimally employed. This review proposes three sets of design guidelines based on cognitive load research: The first aims at managing the complexity of subject matter. The second focuses on preventing activities (attributed to poor design) that obstruct learning. The last incites learners to engage in the active and relevant processing of subject matter. Finally, an integrative framework is presented for designing effective animated models.

Example-based learning has been studied from different perspectives. Cognitive research has mainly focused on worked examples, which typically provide students with a written worked-out didactical solution to a problem to study. Social-cognitive research has mostly focused on modeling examples, which provide students the opportunity to observe an adult or a peer model performing the task. The model can behave didactically or naturally, and the observation can take place face to face, on video, as a screen recording of the model's computer screen, or as an animation. This article reviews the contributions of the research on both types of example-based learning on questions such as why example-based learning is effective, for what kinds of tasks and learners it is effective, and how examples should be designed and delivered to students to optimize learning. This will show both the commonalities and the differences in research on example-based learning conducted from both perspectives and might inspire the identification of new research questions.

From the 1950s through the 1990s, the trope of performance was elaborated across a range of academic disciplines, providing a platform for comparing the construction of identities through mimetic embodiment in ritual, work, and everyday life. Today, as animation is being remediated through digital media, both scholars and participants in various types of online communities are beginning to use animation as a trope for human action on/in the world. This essay attempts to bring together the insights of recent scholarship in various disciplines in order to outline a general animation model, first presenting some of the characteristics of animation that allow it to draw connections between social, technological, and psychic structures, and then examining some of the ways that the models of animation and performance interact in contemporary subcultural practices.

The National Science Foundation–sponsored report Fostering Learning in the Networked World called for \"a common, open platform to support communities of developers and learners in ways that enable both to take advantage of advances in the learning sciences.\" We review research on science inquiry learning environments (ILEs) to characterize current platforms. We searched databases and 11 major science and technology journals and identified 30 distinct ILEs investigated in articles published from 2008 onwards. We use research-based inquiry principles to analyze ILE features that support learners, teachers, developers, and researchers. We identify ILEs that are taking advantage of learning sciences research, building on the accomplishments of others, and creating the platforms envisioned in the report. We hope that this review will help teachers, designers, and researchers identify platforms they can customize and enhance rather than starting anew if unnecessary. Enhancing existing platforms combines the efforts of many individuals and, thus, strengthens the field.

Traditionally, studies that explored animal communication have been directed towards the observation of natural interactions between individuals. Over the years, researchers have long championed the use of artificial stimuli in place of natural ones in behavioral experiments to precisely control what the observers get to see or experience. The employment of diverse techniques to stage animal interactions has provided an alternative to observations and intrusive experimental methods. Technological advances now allow researchers to develop realistic computer animations of social partners that mimic behaviors with a high degree of fidelity for morphological and behavioral characteristics of tutors. The increasing use of the computer-generated animations technique reveals a desire to deliver standardized visual stimuli and to limit the variable behavior of demonstrators across experimental sessions. In the following review, we provide an appraisal of the computer-generated animations efficiency to stage animal interactions, and consider experimental studies in which this technique has been employed to simulate social interactions. We also present alternative methods that are used for designing animation models. Our aim is to evaluate the merits of computer-generated animations and how this technique may be more appropriate for certain types of staged interactions when compared to other classically employed approaches. We advocate that computergenerated animations appear to be the most flexible technique to date, and offers better control of visual cues that are presented, thus allowing researchers to program a large variety of stimuli. Finally, we suggest improvements of this technique, and especially how it may be used to study signal design in multimodal systems.

The choreography of pedestrian movement is important to many domains of interest, particularly in the geographical sciences. Agent-based models have become a popular tool for simulating movement, allowing experimentation with scenarios in computer models that might not be amenable to real-world investigation. The fidelity of agent-based movement models is naturally most acute when the models driving their synthetic characters reproduce the geography of their behaviors appropriately: by placing people in the right places, at the right times, doing the right things, in the right contexts. Most simulation environments for moving agent pedestrians, however, rely on simple, abstract physical heuristics to drive synthetic characters and they focus on generating plausible coarse-grained movement patterns, which might not always map to real-world pedestrian behavior. Moreover, existing approaches often produce serious mechanical artifacts in simulation. I contend that agent-based models of pedestrian movement can benefit more fully from a comprehensive infusion of realistic movement behavior and I present the case for, and proven usefulness of, a geographic engine for driving synthetic actors in simulation. Whereas many existing approaches use particle physics, my approach is sourced in theory and observation, modeling lower, medium-, and higher level behavioral geographies for perceiving and sorting objects, route planning and wayfinding, orientation and locomotion, physical steering, mediating interactions, and determining the space and time for scheduling and realizing activities, with the results that the scheme that I present can automatically generate realistic-looking and realistic-behaving synthetic pedestrians for experimentation.

Increasingly, multi-representational educational technologies are being deployed in science classrooms to support science learning and the development of representational competence. Several studies have indicated that students experience significant challenges working with these multi-representational displays and prefer to use only one representation while problem solving. Here, we examine the use of one such display, a multi-representational molecular mechanics animation, by organic chemistry undergraduates in a problem-solving interview. Using both protocol analysis and eye fixation data, our analysis indicates that students rely mainly on two visual-spatial representations in the display and do not make use of two accompanying mathematical representations. Moreover, we explore how eye fixation data complement verbal protocols by providing information about how students allocate their attention to different locations of a multi-representational display with and without concurrent verbal utterances. Our analysis indicates that verbal protocols and eye movement data are highly correlated, suggesting that eye fixations and verbalizations reflect similar cognitive processes in such studies.

The contributions to this special issue document some recent advances of cognitive load theory, and are based on contributions to the Third International Cognitive Load Theory Conference (2009), Heerlen, The Netherlands. The contributions focus on developments in example-based learning, amongst others on the effects of integrating worked examples in cognitive tutoring systems; specify the effects of transience on cognitive load and why segmentation may help counteract these effects in terms of the role of time in working memory load; and discuss the possibilities offered by electroencephalography (EEG) to provide a continuous and objective measure of cognitive load. This article provides a short introduction to the contributions in this issue.

This paper is the first of its type in that it provides an empirical study comparing the two simulation approaches of discrete-event simulation (DES) and system dynamics (SD). Prior comparison work is limited and mostly based on the authors' personal opinions. In the present work, the comparison is based on managers' (executive MBA students) perceptions of two simulation models of the same problem, one in DES and one in SD. The study found that there is no significant difference from the users' point of view between DES and SD in terms of model understanding and model usefulness. Some minor differences were found in terms of complexity and validity of the models, and the model results. The implications of our findings regarding model understanding, model complexity, model validity, model usefulness and model results are discussed.

Students learned about teaching principles with a multimedia program that either did not include a classroom exemplar illustrating how to apply the learned principles to the teaching practice (control group) or included a classroom exemplar in video, animation, or text format. Across two experiments, video and animation groups reported more favorable attitudes towards learning and were better able to apply the learned principles than the control group. Text and control groups did not differ in their learning or attitudes towards learning, suggesting that format is an important factor in determining the effectiveness of classroom exemplars as pedagogical tools for teacher education. Results encourage the use of visual classroom exemplars to promote the application of theory into practice.