Purpose: Aims to assess whether a university can become a true learning organization. Design/methodology/approach: Focuses on the need for, and challenges of, transforming universities into true learning organizations. Findings: Observes that few of the underlying values that serve as the underpinnings of the learning organizations are actually…

Purpose: This paper aims to provide a literature synthesis of the learning organization and discuss several pertinent theoretical concepts on the subject. Design/methodology/approach: A range of works mainly from 1990-2004, which aim at providing a variety of perspectives on the learning organization, have been analyzed and discussed based on its…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to focus on the role of networks in organizations as a critical aspect of knowledge management and learning processes. Design/methodology/approach: The article has built on an established technique, namely SNA, by shifting from individuals to identities and then to abstractions. Findings: By making the…

Extinction of operantly conditioned responses, which provides a measure of the ability to adapt to changes in the reinforcement value of stimuli, has been linked to orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in human and non-human animals. This article examines the feasibility of using extinction as a measure of the development of OFC function in preschool-age…

Experiment 1 examined the time course of orthographic learning among Grade 3 children. A single encounter with a novel orthographic string was sufficient to produce reliable recall of orthographic detail. Moreover, newly acquired orthographic information was retained 1 month later. These data support the logistic learning functions featured in…

Education cannot mean that the young are the product of the activities of their teachers. At the same time, we do not speak of education if students would simply learn something irrespective of the activities of their teachers. In this paper we focus on the question: How is education possible? Our aim is to contribute to a social theory of…

In many cognitive domains, learning is more effective when exemplars are distributed over a number of sessions than when they are all presented within one session. The present study investigated this "distributed learning effect" with respect to English-speaking children's acquisition of a complex grammatical construction. Forty-eight children…

Although prior research clearly shows that toddlers have difficulty learning from video, the basis for their difficulty is unknown. In the 2 current experiments, the effect of social feedback on 2-year-olds' use of information from video was assessed. Children who were told "face to face" where to find a hidden toy typically found it, but children…

The effect of irregular English orthography (spelling) on foundation literacy, and in particular on alphabetic decoding, is discussed within the context of the orthographic depth hypothesis. A method for circumventing the retarding effects of traditional English orthography, based on the support provided for Chinese pupils learning their…

Over the past decade, the "scholarship of teaching and learning" has attracted increasing attention in higher education. Some see it as a new way of thinking about teaching in the context of evidence about student learning; others approach it through more formal and structured inquiry into student learning that involves peer review and critique…

To demonstrate how Newton's first law of motion applies to students' everyday lives, the author developed a learning cycle series of activities on inertia. The discrepant event at the heart of these activities is sure to elicit wide-eyed stares and puzzled looks from students, but also promote critical thinking and help bring an abstract concept…

There is considerable evidence that in rats, the insular cortex (IC) and amygdala are involved in the learning and memory of aversively motivated tasks. The present experiments examined the effects of 8-Br-cAMP, an analog of cAMP, and oxotremorine, a muscarinic agonist, infused into the IC after inhibitory avoidance (IA) training and during the…

Synapses formed by the olfactory nerve (ON) provide the source of excitatory synaptic input onto mitral cells (MC) in the olfactory bulb. These synapses, which relay odor-specific inputs, are confined to the distally tufted single primary dendrites of MCs, the first stage of central olfactory processing. Beta-adrenergic modulation of electrical…

The neurotransmitter norepinephrine (NE) has been shown to modulate cerebellar-dependent learning and memory. Lesions of the nucleus locus coeruleus or systemic blockade of noradrenergic receptors has been shown to delay the acquisition of several cerebellar-dependent learning tasks. To date, no studies have shown a direct involvement of…

We examined the relationship between stress hormone (cortisol) release and acquisition and consolidation of conditioned fear learning in healthy adults. Participants underwent acquisition of differential fear conditioning, and consolidation was assessed in a 24-h delayed extinction test. The acquisition phase was immediately followed by an 11-min…