A Transactional Approach to Children's Learning in a Knowledge-Based Society.

The 21st century promises to make very different demands on our children and schools in a knowledge-based society. A slow but dynamic shift has been occurring in the Singapore educational system toward a learning nation and thinking school ethos. In the midst of this change, children will need to acquire a new set of skills. They will need to be able to use a variety of tools to search and sort vast amounts of information, generate new data, analyze them, interpret their meaning, and transform them into something new. Change of this magnitude demands that learning no longer be encapsulated by time, place, and age but become a pervasive activity and attitude that continues throughout life. The main objectives of this paper are to examine the relationships among cognitive modifiability, mediated learning experience, and affective-motivational factors, and to suggest a transactional approach toward learning and instruction to face the challenging demands confronting our children and schools. Some prominent nonintellectual dimensions related to mediation and cognitive processes are described, and examples are depicted that demonstrate various interactive relationships among motivational-affective factors, cognitive processes, and mediated learning experience. Important implications for clinical and educational intervention and for research in our knowledge-based society are also outlined. (Contains 15 references.) (Author/KB) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ERA Conference Sept 4 6 2000. Singapore U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) )8SThis document has been reproduced as eceived from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. A TRANSACTIONAL APPROACH TO CHILDREN'S LEARNING IN A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOCIETY Seok-Hoon Seng National Institute of Education Nanyang Technological University Singapore Abstract PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BYPERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Seok -kikkOC)11Szt. : TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) The 21St century promises to make very different demands on our children and schools in a knowledge-based society. A slow but dynamic shift has been occuring in our Singapore educational system towards a learning nation and thinking school ethos. In the midst of this change, children will need to acquire a new set of skills. They will need to be able to use a variety of tools to search and sort vast amounts of information, generate new data, analyse them, interpret their meaning, and transform them into something new. Change of this magnitude demands that learning is no longer encapsulated by time, place and age but has become a pervasive activity and attitude that continues throughout life. The main objectives of this paper are to examine the relationships among cognitive modifiability, mediated learning experience and affective-motivational factors, and to suggest a transactional approach towards learning and instruction to face the challenging demands fronting our children and schools. Some prominent nonintellective dimensions related to mediation and cognitive processes will be described and examples that demonstrate various interactive relationships among motivational-affective factors, cognitive processes and mediated learning experience will be depicted . Important implications for clinical and educational intervention and for research in our knowledge-based society will be outlined.