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Analysis of Instructional Strategies.
In the field of instructional design it can be seen that there are two fundamental approaches – the prescriptive and the democratic. These tend to align fairly closely with the contrasting educational philosophies of behaviourism/cognitivism and constructivism respectively.
As education attempts to address a broad spectrum of knowledge, organisational and learner needs, there can be no single perfect approach – in some instances a prescriptive strategy such as lecturing is the most appropriate and in others, a more democratic strategy such as scenario based learning is more effective. Whichever approach is taken however, it is possible to enhance the learning experience with the use of technology. In this paper I will examine the different approaches, identify useful strategies and offer some suggestions as to the implementation of technology in providing a better teaching and learning experience.
In the prescriptive approach, “information is concocted and delivered to the learner.”(Schwier & Misanchuk, 1993, p.19). The underlying behaviourist philosophy is that knowledge exists in the world in the form of facts and that this knowledge can be transferred directly to the learners brain through exposure to it from a teacher. (Robyler & Havriluk, 1997). This can be enriched with cognitivist strategies such as advance-organising or matrices which make the information/knowledge more digestible. (Bednar, Cunningham, Duffy & Perry, 1995)
The prescriptive approach is therefore considered quite teacher-centric and is generally also quite rigidly structured. “There are usually specific objectives the learner is expected to learn and in most cases learning is evaluated in accordance with the specified objectives.”(Schwier & Misanchuk 1993, p.20). Learners are often required to individually demonstrate adequate knowledge of one facet of the subject before they are allowed to progress to the next. New information is presented to the learners, they practice using it (which reinforces the information), their understanding of it is assessed and they move on.
In areas which focus on foundation knowledge and skills, such as Vocational Education and Training or learning a musical instrument, this can be a practical approach. Each new skill or piece of information adds meaning to the next and makes them easier to process and retain.
When learners have developed this foundation or scaffolding knowledge, the limitations of the prescriptive approach become more apparent. Higher level problem solving, analytical, collaborative and cognitive skills that enable the learners to think more creatively and transfer knowledge from one situation to another aren’t highly emphasised in this approach. This is when a more democratic approach might be considered.
The democratic approach has its roots in constructivist philosophy, which takes the position that knowledge must come from within and as a result of the right activities in the right context (Jonassen, Peck & Wilson, 1999). While undertaking these activities, the learner accesses the information necessary to achieve them which creates meaning. A process of reflection on the activities, the information, past experience and external feedback leads to knowledge.
Learner control, therefore, lies at the heart of the democratic approach. Schwier and Misanchuk (1993) make the point that “democratic environments permit the learner to influence what is learned, or how it is learned, or at least the order in which it is learned” (p. 23). This sense of ownership of the process can enhance a learner’s motivation as it feels more relevant to their needs.
The use of relevant and authentic activity, often in the form of problem or scenario based learning, encourages the learner to identify and find the information they need to perform a task. This shifts the role of the teacher to a more supportive one, acting as a guide and offering supplementary resources.
This is where it becomes apparent that the democratic approach is best employed when there is a foundation level of existing knowledge. According to Schwier and Misanchuk (1993) “Supplementary instruction either reinforces what has already been taught or it attaches new instruction to what has been taught… the difference is that supplementary instruction is voluntarily undertaken; the locus of decision-making rests with the learner.”(p. 24) This need for foundation knowledge brings us back to the prescriptive approach.
Lectures are probably the most obvious example of a prescriptive learning strategy. “In a tertiary context, a lecture has come to be understood as a public presentation by a teacher to a large group of students. In its most common form… a teacher speaks without any changes of activity for the whole allotted time.”(TEDI, 2006)
Lectures aren’t highly regarded for “stimulating active learning and higher order thinking” (TEDI, 2001) however in combination with tutorials and other learning strategies, they can still be beneficial. One of the primary reasons that lectures are used by organisations is the simple economic efficiency of teaching large numbers of learners at one time.
In my work for the Flexible Learning Solutions team at CIT (Canberra Institute of Technology), we will sometimes give lectures on new developments in educational technology to educators as part of broader e-learning events. I’ve also provided technological advice to teachers in the department of Communications, Media and Music who run a single weekly Mass Media Studies lecture to students from a range of subjects.
When considered in its own right, a lecture is a highly prescriptive learning activity as the information is delivered in a particularly structured manner. The learner has to attend a specific location at a specific time and the flow of information is largely one way.
It is nonetheless possible to use technology to enhance lectures. At the simplest level, the lecturer could provide paper handouts with relevant diagrams and space for learner notes which would allow them to spend more time focused on the material being presented and less time trying to copy it down. (TEDI 2001)
A lecturer could incorporate multimedia presentations, anything from an overhead projector to PowerPoint to video for more “stimulating and entertaining delivery” (TEDI 2001). Audio and video samples are used in the Mass Media Studies lectures at CIT to illustrate concepts being discussed.
Social Web technology could radically reshape the structure of a lecture by making a wiki available for students to create collective notes during a lecture, accessed from a wireless network with their laptop computers or mobile devices in a lecture theatre. This could even be displayed on a screen in the theatre. (There would be a number of practical issues of distraction and moderation of content to deal with in this instance however.)
The issue of learners being prescribed to attend a set space at a set time could be avoided if the lecture was made available either synchronously as a web conference or asynchronously in the form of a podcast or vodcast.
A final option – although not a likely or practical one – would be for all seats in a lecture theatre to be equipped with voting buttons of some description – allowing the lecturer to ask a question and have a graphical display of learner responses appear instantly.
Interestingly, most of these options would shift the lecture from the prescriptive domain towards the democratic in one way or another by making the learners more active participants.
Scenario based learning is a strategy in the democratic approach that is primarily focussed on learners being active participants. It gives the learner a large degree of control over the decisions they make and the information resources they choose to access in the process of undertaking activities based on authentic tasks and problems in the area being studied.
Brown and Voltz (2005) describe scenarios as “usually provided by a story, role play, or simulation, within which the activity plays a pivotal role in helping the students to contextualise content”. Learners are presented with a problem or task in the context of a fictional story which is relevant to the field of study. They are given access to useful information resources and collaboratively or individually find appropriate solutions.
The scenario may be structured so that it comprises a series of increasingly complex activities that build on each other as the learner develops their knowledge.
I supported the implementation of such a scenario based approach in my work at CIT while working with a teacher in the Nursing department on a competency called Practice within legal and ethical parameters. This teaches nurses about some of the legal and ethical issues within nursing practice, the law and their responsibilities. In the past, it had been taught in a fairly prescriptive manner as a list of laws and policies that nurses needed to be aware of.
Together we created a detailed scenario in which nurses make decisions based on developments in a particular patient’s case, consultation with colleagues and other available information.
As the nurse progresses through the story, ethical and legal complications arise with the patient which highlight content in areas including negligence, euthanasia and patient consent. This adds relevant hospital and nursing culture issues to the learning and allows nurses to connect more personally with the course content, which to that point was considered fairly dry by the nursing students and teachers.
While scenario based learning is structured by the story, it is democratic in approach in that learners are able to choose the information they access and their knowledge is informed by the socially constructed meanings they develop by working collaboratively to solve the problems.
The potential of technology in enhancing scenarios is of interest to me as I have a broader fascination with game based learning and the role of engaging stories to provide motivation and develop authentic and relevant contexts is highly pertinent.
There are a range of accessible software packages and web platforms now available that make the creation of immersive 3D environments easy and affordable. In the game creation sphere, FPS Creator and The 3D GameMaker (both from www.thegamecreators.com) are but two. There are also of course the increasingly popular Massively Multiplayer Online Game platforms such as Second Life, Croquet and Multiverse, which all offer opportunities to create spaces for learners to play out scenarios, access information and communicate with each other and the broader online community.
I’m aware that the use of whiz-bang technology in scenario/game based learning doesn’t guarantee “”cognitive realism” to the real-life task” (Agostinho, Meek & Herrington, 2005, p.231) but the wealth of research on games in learning suggests it doesn’t hurt. (Prensky, 2001)
As we can see, there is no single approach for all learning contexts – it’s important to look at the content, the learners and the context in the process of designing instruction and choose the most appropriate one.
Agostinho, S., Meek, J., & Herrington, J. (2005). Design methodology for the implementation and evaluation of a scenario-based online learning environment, Journal of Interactive Learning Research. 16(3), 229-242.
Schwier, R.A. and Misanchuk, E.R. (1993). Interactive Multimedia Instruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Chapter 2, pp.19-33.
Robyler, M. D., Edwards, J., & Havriluk, M. A. (1997). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (pp. 54-79). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Bednar, A. K., Cunningham, D., Duffy T. M. & Perry J. D. (1995). Theory into Practice: How do we Link? In G. J. Anglin (Ed), Instructional Technology: Past, present and future. Englewood, Co: Libraries Unlimited, pp 100-112.
Jonassen, D. H., Peck K. L. & Wilson, B. G. (1999). Learning With Technology: A Constructivist Perspective. New Jersey: Merril. pp 2-11.
TEDI (2006.) Teaching and learning glossary Retrieved August 14, 2007 from Teaching and Educational Development Institute website: http://www.tedi.uq.edu.au/teaching/toolbox/glossary.html#lectures
TEDI (2001) Teaching and assessment in large classes Retrieved August 14, 2007 from Teaching and Educational Development Institute website:http://www.tedi.uq.edu.au/largeclasses/pdfs/LitReview_3_Teach&Assess.pdf
Brown A.R., & Voltz B.D. (2005) Elements of Effective e-Learning Design, Retrieved August 14, 2007 International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/217/300
Prenksy, M. (2001a). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5).
August 21st, 2007
Theory into Practice: How do we Link?
Bednar, A. K., Cunningham, D., Duffy T. M. & Perry J. D. (1995). Theory into Practice: How do we Link? In G. J. Anglin (Ed), Instructional Technology: Past, present and future. Englewood, Co: Libraries Unlimited, pp 100-112.
This reading was as difficult and painful as the last one was enjoyable and enlightening.
While there are a handful of interesting ideas for actually applying the constructivist approach in a practical manner, it largely comes across as a blend of evangelising and lecturing.
Its language is convoluted and highly academic and rather than back up the ideas with analogies or examples, it just keeps plowing on in its own jargonistic way. The position that there can only be one approach and that attempting to cherry-pick the best ideas from a behaviourist/directed method and a constructivist one really wears after a while.
These are the points of interest that I garnered from the thing:
“Objectivism is a view of the nature of knowledge and what it means to know something. In this view, the mind is an instantiation of a computer, manipulating symbols in the same way (or analogously, at least) as a computer”
“Knowledge, therefore, is some entity existing independent of the mind of individuals and is transferred “inside”… thus this school of thought believes that the external world is mind independent (i.e., the same for everyone) and we can say things about it that are objectively, absolutely and unconditionally true or false.”
“Consistent with this view of knowledge, the goal of instruction, from both the behavioural and cognitive information processing perspectives, is to communicate or transfer knowledge to learners in the most efficient, effective manner possible… thus the transfer of knowledge is most efficient if the excess baggage of irrelevant content and context can be eliminated” This strikes me as putting words into the mouths of the behaviourists and cognitivists
“Behaviourist applications will focus on the design of learning environments that optimise knowledge transfer, while cognitive information processing stresses efficient processing strategies” I would have assumed that part of efficient processing would be helping learners to connect new info with prior knowledge and experiences
“Learning is a constructive process in which the learner is building an internal representation of knowledge, a personal interpretation of experience. Consistent with this view of knowledge, learning must be situated in a rich context, reflective of real world contexts, for this constructive process to occur and transfer to environments beyond the school or training classroom. Learning through cognitive apprenticeship, reflecting the collaboration of real world problem solving and using the tools available in problem solving situations are key.”
“The constructivist view is different. Since the learner must construct an understanding or viewpoint, the content cannot be pre-specified. Indeed, while a core knowledge domain may be specified, the student is encouraged to search for other relevant knowledge domains that may be relevant to the issue”
“The constructivist view turns toward a consideration of what real people in a particular knowledge domain and real life typically do” This I have some trouble with – imagine someone turning up for their first day of work in a new job – the boss explains to them step by step how certain things are done, there is no “figure it out for yourself in your own time, just remember that we are a cafe/hairdresser/etc and you can find information on Google”. (I know this is an oversimplification)
“The most important goal is to portray tasks, not to define the structure of learning required to achieve a task”
“Constructivists do not have learning and performance objectives that are internal to the content domain (e.g., apply the principle) but rather we search for authentic tasks and let the more specific objectives emerge and be realised as they are appropriate to the individual learner in solving the real world task”
“What is central, in our view, is the development of learning environments that encourage construction of understanding from multiple perspectives. “Effective” sequencing of the information or rigorous external control of instructional events simply precludes that constructive activity”
“For example, it is inappropriate to control or focus the attention of the learner in a manner distinct from a real-world context”
“An essential concept in the constructivist view is that the information cannot be remembered as independent, abstract entities” This strikes me as overly absolutist
“We believe… that the learning of content must be embedded in the use of that content”
“The constructivist view emphasises that students should learn to construct multiple perspectives on an issue”
“A central strategy for achieving these perspectives is to create a collaborative learning environment. Note that while cooperative learning has a long history, the focus in that literature has been on the behavioural principles of learning that can be realised in the group environment. We wish to emphasise instead the use of collaboration to develop and share alternative views”
“With a constructive view of knowledge, the goal is to improve the ability to use the content domain in authentic tasks (Brown, Collins & Duguid 1989a). Instruction is the act of providing students with these tasks and providing them with the tools needed to develop the skills of constructing an informed response and for evaluating alternative responses.”
“One possible type of student evaluation activity would ask learners to address a problem in the field of content and then defend their decisions. Another might ask the learners to reflect on their own learning and document the process through which they have constructed their view of the content… Two elements seem to be important: that the perspectives that students develop in the content area are effective in working in that area and that the students can defend their judgments
The second element, the ability to explain and defend decisions, is related to the development of metacognitive skills, thinking about thinking. Reflexive awareness of one’s own thinking implies monitoring both the development of the structure of knowledge being studied and the process of constructing that knowledge representation”
This kind of activity – while useful – doesn’t seem relevant to the areas that the students are going to be developing skills in – how often will a hairdresser need to write a reflection about their work? This could well make them question and strongly resist this kind of assessment – with the argument that they’ve already demonstrated their knowledge by doing the authentic tasks.
In essence, this is all constructivism-rah-rah-rah but it feels like it comes from people dealing with education far more on a theoretical level than a practical one. The repeated assertions that it’s unthinkable to mix styles/approaches and that this is the only way to go strikes me more as the arguments of the freshly converted.
I’m not saying that elements of the approach aren’t highly valuable but there is no magic formula for all situations and that’s the message I feel this reading is selling.
August 15th, 2007
Assumptions about Learning
Jonassen, D. H., Peck K. L. & Wilson, B. G. (1999). Learning With Technology: A Constructivist Perspective. New Jersey: Merril. pp 2-11.
This is the first thing I’ve read that has given me any kind of real appreciation of the philosophy and theory underpinning Constructivism.
Until now it has all seem far too vague and airy-fairy but this introductory chapter to what seems like a very interesting book is able to clearly explain the learning concepts at the heart of this educational philosophy.
Here are some of the essential points made and some of my thoughts in response to them:
“We learn from experiencing phenomena (objects, events, activities, processes), interpreting those experiences based on what we know, reasoning about them and reflecting on the experiences and the reasoning. Jerome Bruner (1990) called this process meaning making”
“Constructivists believe that knowledge is constructed, not transmitted. Individuals make sense of their world and everything with which they come in contact by constructing their own representations or models of their experiences”
“We believe that teaching is a process of helping learners to construct their own meaning from the experiences they have by providing these experiences and guiding the meaning-making process”
“Knowledge construction results from activity, so knowledge is embedded in activity” Do all facts need “meaning” to be remembered or to make sense – I’ve never stuck a knife in a powerpoint but I know it’s bad. (How do I know this?) What if the urgency with which information is passed on affects our learning of it? – This would be much more about teaching than learning per se.
“Knowledge is anchored in and indexed by the context in which the learning activity occurs… Information about the context is part of the knowledge that is constructed by the learner in order to explain or make sense of the phenomenon” – does this give the learner too much credit? does the learner always do this – or always want to do this? Might they see it as too much work?
Relevant activity enhances information – but is it just another form of info?
Is it just like saying it twice but better (repetition) – reframing/contextualising – like making food easier to digest by pre-chewing it.
Motivation is still of vital importance
“The knowledge that a learner constructs consists of not only the ideas (content) but also knowledge about the context in which it was acquired, what the learner was doing in that environment and what the knower intended to get from that environment” This defines knowledge as a set of unique combined elements
“So the more directly and interactively we experience things, the more knowledge about it we are likely to construct”
“What we really understand about skills and knowledge is the application of them. When we learn how to use a skill, we store that use as a story, which is a primary medium of conversation and meaning making among humans (Schank 1986). ”
Oh, so how do something in WebCT – I guess I have more of a visual physical conception of it – is that a story?
This part is about both relevance and transferance.
“Meaning is in the mind of the knower”. We can share parts of our reality “by socially negotiating shared meanings. That is, we converse with others and agree on the relative importance and meanings for things.”
Everyone’s knowledge is different but if one apprentice chef burns their hand on a pot, it’s very much the same as if another one does
“Therefore, there are multiple perspectives on the world. Since no two people can possibly have the same set of experiences and perceptions of those experiences, each of us constructs our own knowledge, which in turn affects the perceptions of the experiences that we have and those we share”
“Making meaning is prompted by a problem (GAMES?), question, confusion, dissonance (a need or desire to know) and so involves personal ownership of that problem… Meaning making often starts with a problem, a question, a discrepant and inexplicable event, a curiosity, wonderment, puzzlement (Duffy and Cunningham 1996), a perturbation (Maturana and Varela 1992), expectations violations (Schank 1986), cognitive dissonance, or a disequilibrium. We can memorize ideas that others tell use but to actively seek to make meaning about phenomena involves the desire to make sense of things”
My model for the Constructivist approach:
{Context (Information + relevance) Activity} + (Past experiences) => meaning + reflection => knowledge
“Knowledge-building requires articulation, expression or representation of what is learned… For usable knowledge to be constructed, learners need to think about what they did and articulate what it meant. Usually that articulation process is verbal, but learners can construct a variety of visual or auditory representations of their experiences or understandings”
Reflection offers evidence => assessment items
“Meaning may also be shared with others, so meaning making can also result from conversation… Social constructivists believe that meaning making is a process of negotiation among the participants through dialogues or conversations.”
“So meaning making and thinking are distributed throughout our tools, culture and community. As we interact with others in knowledge-building communities, our knowledge and beliefs about the world are influenced by that community and their beliefs and values”
“Just as the cognitive properties of individuals vary, the cognitive attributes and accomplishments of communities also vary, depending on differences in the social organisation of the groups (i.e., the ways in which members distribute cognitive responsibilities) (Hutchins 1991)”. Collective wisdom/shared knowledge depends on how smart the members of the group are.
“Learning can also be conceived of as changes in our relation to the culture(s) to which we are connected (Duffy and Cunningham 1996). As we spend more time in a club, we become more influenced by its beliefs and culture, because the group’s knowledge is distributed among the participants (Saloman 1993)” If this is the case, where does new knowledge, innovation and ideas come from – if everyone becomes like everyone else?
“Within any knowledge-building community, share ideas are accepted and agreed upon. That is, meaning is reflected in the social beliefs that exist at any point in time. If individual ideas are discrepant from community standards, they are not regarded as viable unless new evidence supporting their viability is provided” Oh, that’s where it comes from 
So something is only right as long as enough people believe it and no viable alternatives are proven
“Assessing the viability of anyone’s knowledge involves many criteria” Checks and balances system of knowledge in the group
“In order to engage different types of thinking, we must rethink the ways that we teach and the ways that we use technology in our teaching”
“When learning about things in natural contexts, humans interact with their environment and manipulate the objects in that environment, observing the effects of their interventions and constructing their own interpretations of the phenomena and the results of the manipulation”
Doing gives meaning but it only goes so far.
“Through formal and informal apprenticeships in communities of play and work, learners develop skills and knowledge that they then share with other members of those communities with whom they learned and practiced those skills”
Someone generally shows them what to do and the rules of the game. This reminds me of the paper about experienced people mentoring newbies in MMORPGS at http://users.bigpond.com/colsim/edugames/simpson3/annotate.html#Steinkuehler
“Real learning requires active learners ; people engaged by a meaningful task (not just pressing the space bar to continue) in which they manipulate objects and the environment in which they are working and then observe the results of their manipulations ” Games – but then again, why use a game when reality is available? Well, because it’s not always there or affordable or easily repeatable
“Activity is necessary but not sufficient for meaningful learning. Learners must reflect on their activity and observations to learn the lessons that their activity has to teach… By reflecting on on the puzzling experience, learners integrate their new experiences with their prior knowledge about the world, or they establish goals for what they need to learn in order to make sense out of what they observe… The active and constructive parts of the meaningmaking process are symbiotic. They both rely on the other for meaning making to occur.”
“When learners are actively and willfully trying to achieve a cognitive goal (Scardamalia and Bereiter 1993/94), they think and learn more because they are fulfilling an intention… Technologies need to engage learners in articulating what their learning goals are in any learning situation, and then support them. Technology based learning systems should require learners to articulate what they are doing, the decisions they make, the strategies they use and the answers that they found” And WHY they are doing something. This reminds me of Bronwyn Hegarty’s critical reflection model. Can problem based learning be prescriptive as well as democratic (levels of direction/guidance)
“A great deal of recent research has shown that learning tasks that are situated in some meaningful real-world task or simulated in some case-based or problem-based learning environment are not only better understood but also are more consistently transferred to new situations… we need to teach knowledge and skills in real-life, useful contexts and provide new and different contexts for learners to practice using those ideas” – ok but then we should point out the base, underlying ideas.
“And we need to engage students in solving complex and ill-structured problems as well as simple problems (Jonassen 1997) - like levels/progress in games.
“Humans naturally work in learning and knowledge-building communities, exploiting each others’ skills and appropriating each other’s knowledge”
“Often, educators will promote collaborative methods of learning, only to resort to independent assessment of learning… We cannot forget that most learners are strategic enough to know “what counts” in classrooms, so if they are evaluated individually, collaborative instruction may fail because students realize that group outcomes are not important” This strikes me as a VERY valid point – perhaps collaborative approaches need collaborative assessment to validate the process
Some very interesting explanations of the underlying philosophies of Constructivism here – I think I got more out of this than I have from anything else I’ve read to date.
There was one more interesting point made in the extract about collaboration that seems worth mentioning:
“Collaboration most often requires conversation among participants. Learners working in groups must socially negotiate a common understanding of the task and the methods they will use to accomplish it… When learners become part of knowledge-building communities both in class and outside of school, they learn that there are multiple ways of viewing the world and multiple solutions to most of life’s problems. “
August 14th, 2007
Multimedia Instruction Environments (pdf, 580K)
Schwier, R.A. and Misanchuk, E.R. (1993). Interactive Multimedia Instruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Chapter 2, pp.19-33.
While there are some interesting ideas in this chapter of the book about different approaches (prescriptive vs democratic) to the use of multimedia in education, for the most part this came across as something of a historical curiosity.
The rise of the Internet and the social web (which were at the time of writing, in fairness, respectively in their infancy and a mere twinkle in the eye) have rendered much of this discussion irrelevant.
However, because I’m meant to glean some wisdom from this and I have a big assessment on the differences between prescriptive and democratic approaches to education, I’ll press on.
Main points:
“Romiszowski (1986), discussing the function of control in self-instructional media, organizes a schemata of systems for individualizing instruction. He identifies three characteristic positions: prescriptive, democratic and cybernetic”
“Instructor preferences and learner characteristics… impose structure on instructional decisions”
PRESCRIPTIVE
“A prescriptive multimedia environment… prescribes what the learner is to learn. Instruction is concocted and delivered to the learner”
“There are usually specific objectives the learner is expected to achieve, and in most cases learning is evaluated in accordance with the specified objectives” (such as competencies in a VET context but surely there is an element of this is ALL assessment?)
“Access to content is structured”
“Learners are either granted or denied access to areas of instruction based on their progress in the instruction or they are advised which paths would be most profitable.”
“The focus of this environment is the achievement of specified, externally defined goals”
“A popular breakdown of prescriptive instruction designs includes drill and practice, tutorials, most games and some simulations”
“Drill and practice usually takes the form of a string of question-answer-feedback sequences. The purpose is usually to review previously learned material in a test-like environment rather than learn new material” (Reinforcing learning – this doesn’t seem like a bad thing)
“For drill and practice, multimedia instruction can be used to increase the types, amounts and layers of stimuli and feedback presented”
“Tutorials are used to teach new information. Information is usually presented, learners are given opportunities to practice using the information and learning is reinforced.
For example, a typical tutorial environment will have an introduction (including motivational set), organizing material (e.g. advance organizers, objectives, topics), novel content, embedded practice and interaction (e.g. adjunct questions, exercises, activities), feedback, review and evaluation.”
“In mediated tutorial instruction, our challenge is often to provide a rich, vicarious experience which approximates genuine human interaction” (reasonably achieved in the Web age with computer mediated communication)
“…tutorials constrict learner control over instruction. This is desirable in many instructional settings but highly undesirable in others” (making the incredibly insightful point that different learning approaches are needed in different situations)
“Games are usually directed at a specific goal and involve some measure of competition. Simulations provide an abstraction or simplification of reality – some level of mimicry, in which the learner encounters circumstances and tries to respond to them. Instructional gams are rule-based, focused on specific goals or outcomes, usually divorced from reality and based on competition among players or against the system.
Instructional simulations, by contrast, typically use rules to define the parameters of interaction within a model of reality and play ultimately results in one of several available conclusions. Which conclusion is reached by a player is determined by choices and decisions made during instruction. Close approximation of the dynamics of reality is desired and the learner becomes a part of the system rather than a competitor against it.” (Interesting take on games vs simulations – some merit to it although I think it’s simplistic)
Many simulations and games may not emphasize prescriptive instruction, the primary purpose of many games and simulations is entertainment or vicarious experience, with learning as a convenient by-product. (This may be true in some instances but a lot of research has gone into edugames since this was written. It also misses online gaming and the key element of interaction with others)
DEMOCRATIC:
“Democratic environments shift the control of instruction to the user… Democratic environments permit the learner to influence what is learned, or how it is learned, or at least the order in which it is learned” (This talk of learner-centredness reminds me of the approach of constructivists in defining constructivism by trying to belittle the behaviourist/directed learning methods. It seems bigger on rhetoric than solid examples)
Instructors or instructional designers do not impose structured instruction. The democratic environment either supports prescribed instruction or it exists without reference to prescribed instruction .(Um, so which one is it – how can it be different if it is the same?)
“The difference is in intent and control. Learner controlled instruction would supplement prescribed instruction in this case, not substitute for it. The learner chooses to use it or reject it. For other democratic resources, the emphasis shifts from constructing and controlling instructional events to providing easy access to instructional support. These types of multimedia learning resources emphasize navigation, motivation and access and would likely downplay objectives and evaluation” (Reminds me a little of problem based learning – learners first need to work out what they need to know to solve the problem. As far as providing easy access goes, this seems to describe hyperlinks. Moving away from objectives and evaluation sounds better in theory than practice – the StageStruck game offers next to no guidance (certainly none in exiting it) and I found it frustrating. )
Supplementary instruction “assumes primary instruction exists elsewhere. Supplementary instruction either reinforces what has already been taught or it attaches new instruction to what has been taught…the difference is that supplementary instruction is voluntarily undertaken; the locus of decision-making rests with the learner” (As far as I can see, the defining characteristic of democratic learning environments is that learners can choose to ignore all the material presented to them – and doesn’t the notion of supplementary resources just seem like the World Wide Web)
(So to sum up what seems to be the authors point:)
To us, instructionality is defined by intentionality and simply allowing a learner to “graze” informational resources (databases) does not necessarily lead to instruction (Now aside from the horrible mangling of language in that sentence, the point seems to be that a prescriptive, focused approach is better)
“Most well designed learning resources provide multiple avenues of access to material” (this I’m happy to agree with – but an avenue is still a path)
From here the datedness of this chapter becomes abundantly clear as it delves into current developments in multimedia – with respect they do touch on “Nelsonian Hypermedia”, which appears to be a forerunner to html hypertext as we know it today but after 15 years it seems a little less amazing than it did back then.
CYBERNETIC ENVIRONMENTS:
The authors make another interesting point in this section – that a lot of computer based designed relies too heavily on the “book metaphor”. “In other words, we think of interactive treatments in terms of chapters, tables of contents, pages, headings and subheadings” (This can be seen today in a lot of web design – particular web 1.0 )
“By contrast, human thought is a robust metaphor for interactive treatments. Conceptual environments, cognitive mapping and logic approaches may gain high status in the metaphoric pecking order” (definitely an interesting thought – not sure how well this has been realised yet though)
The chapter goes on to look at A.I options for designing interactive educational multimedia and the challenges this offers but again, the rise of computer mediated communication tools and the social web seem to render this a bit of a dead end.
August 7th, 2007
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