28 Jul 2022
9-10am

Zoom

Seminar Recording (HKU Portal Login Required)

This talk will examine the development of expertise in biomedical cognition. Research will be presented that has found patterns of interlocking, maladaptive oversimplification in medical thinking, along with results related to two kinds of adaptive expertise among physicians, one for routine cases and the other for non-routine cases. The latter expertise was found to be far less common than the former one, despite the frequency with which non-routine cases are encountered (especially with regard to patient treatment-management). Cognitive Flexibility Theory is presented as a longstanding approach to learning and instruction (supported by principled uses of technology) in complex and partly ill-structured domains of knowledge and practice. This approach helps to make necessary complexity more cognitively manageable, fosters the development of adaptive skill in dealing with aspects of ambiguity and novelty in new cases, and accelerates the usable acquisition of case experience to complement real-world training to radically reduce the famous (and somewhat misleading) ten-year rule for the attainment of expertise. The role of Cognitive Flexibility Theory and its experience acceleration elements as an important complement to problem-based learning approaches is emphasized, along with illustrations of how the two approaches can be used to mutually support each other.

Rand J. Spiro is a professor of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University.  Before joining MSU, Professor Spiro was a Distinguished Senior Scholar in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was Professor of Educational Psychology, Psychology, and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.  He has been a Visiting Scientist in Psychology and in Computer Science at Yale University, where his main appointment was in the Yale Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and a Visiting Professor of Education at Harvard University.

Professor Spiro is the co-originator of Cognitive Flexibility Theory, a theory of learning, instruction, and mental representation that identifies patterns of failure in complex conceptual learning and in knowledge application in new situations. With the help of novel uses of technology, the theory supports high-proficiency learning and the development of adaptive performance in ill-structured knowledge domains and realms of real-world application (including practice in the professions, with special emphasis on biomedical learning and cognition, corporate training, teaching, and other domains).  A current research focus is the technology-based acceleration of experience to foster adaptive skill in responding to novel and non-routine situations. 

Poster

Bookings are closed for this event.