Investigative Interviewers

Posted under Education

Whenever there is an allegation of abuse (or other crime) perpetrated against, or in the presence of, a child, the child witness will typically engage in an investigative interview with a professional working in the forensic field. Although investigative interviews may vary in purpose, scope, and content, the common objective of all investigative interviews is to elicit an accurate, complete, and detailed account of the incident in question.

Eliciting an accurate and detailed account of an event (such as abuse) from a child is a complex process that involves several skills and competencies which have been well articulated in the literature. Overall, experts agree that the most critical skill is the ability to maintain the use of non-leading, open-ended questions; such questions elicit elaborate responses but do not dictate or suggest what information is required.
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Task Practice

Posted under Education,Technology

Part-task practice for the automation of some recurrent tasks in form of additional exercises. These are in fact additional exercises for recurrent aspects of learning tasks for which a very high level of automation is required after instruction. These exercises were not required in our multimedia environment, so we did not develop part-task practice tasks.

The learning materials in our multimedia environment are organised into four modules that build upon each other with increasing complexity.
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Just-In-Time Information

Posted under Education,Technology

Just-in-time information is the third component and is prerequisite to the learning and performance of recurrent aspects of learning tasks, meaning that it is relevant to the performance of routine aspects of the learning tasks. In general these are small information units and presented to learners, just-in-time, while working on the learning tasks.

The multimedia learning environment offers help sites, glossaries, and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). We also use software examples and hands on software exercises to promote the necessary technical skills needed to use interactive whiteboards.
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Supportive Information

Posted under Education

The second component is called supportive information. This is (theoretical) information that is supportive to the learning and performance of non-recurrent aspects of learning tasks (e.g. problem solving and reasoning).

Supportive information helps to develop mental models and cognitive strategies. Supportive information is necessary for the non-recurrent aspects in the multimedia environment and is provided in the form of classroom videos and audio files containing the “theory”.
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Learning Tasks

Posted under Education,Technology

The backbone of the model are the learning tasks which are concrete, authentic, and meaningful whole task experiences that confront learners with all aspects of a certain task and deal with all aspects of a professional competency.

In our multimedia environment defined as authentic, whole-task experiences, which include worked examples in the form of case studies, were provided. Learning tasks come in a specific order that is based on the scaffolding principle. For example, learners get a first learning task in which a video of an experienced teacher using the whiteboard in a classroom is shown.
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