Mediated Learning Experience with Children: Applications Across Contexts - Hardcover

Seng, Alice Seok-Hoon, is Associate-Professor of Psychological Studies at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She has over 28 years' experience in pre-service teacher education and her academic background covers early childhood development, educational research methodologies, and cognitive education. A Fulbright Scholar and a recipient of the East-West Center award, she was the Field Director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation research project on the cognitie and social development of preschoolers in Singapore. She is currently Vice-President (Asia-Pacific) of the International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology. She has given numerous training workshops on mediated learning experience to teachers and parent groups.

Pou, Lucy Kwee-Hoon, obtained her PhD from King's College, University of London. She has worked extensively with children with learning difficulties and pioneered the first learning support center in Singapore to use mediated learning experience as the main approach in intervention work with both children with special needs and those in mainstream shcools. She has been a regional tutor for the School of Education, University of Birmingham (Distance Education) and has also served as Diretor of Curriculum for the largest early childhood care provider in Singapore. Her interest and work in mediated learning experience has led her to actively present training and seminars worldwide. She is currently Director of the Centre for Enhancing Learning Potential in Singapore.

Tan Oon-Seng is Associate Professor of Psychological Studies at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, SIngapore. He was previously Director of the Temasek Cenre for Problem-based Learning, where he won an Innovator Award from the Enterprise Challenge Unit (Prime Minister's Office) for co-pioneering a project on education innovation for the knowledge-based economy. He has co-authored nine books and published numerous papers in areas pertaining to cognition, curriculum development and educational innovation. He is the main co-author of the university text Educational Psychology: A Practioner-Researcher Approach (An Asian Edition). His research interests include, among others, the study of cognitive functioning and mediated learning.

Ideas on the construction of knowledge in children and the role of human interactions are of utmost importance to parents, teachers, and psychologists. The interaction of the minds of the mediator (e.g., the teacher) and the mediatee (i.e. the child learner) is encapsulated in the theory referred to as mediated learning experience (MLE). We present a succinct, synthesized, and updated perspectie of mediated learning based on the works of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Feuerstein, taking into account recent research supporting the diversification and modifiability of intelligence. The probable impact of MLE in the context of educational developments and challenges in the twenty-first century's knowledge-based era is discussed. This chapter provides the basis for parents and practitioners to reflect on their reflect on their facilitating and mediating roles, as well as their roles in the design of future learning environments.