This is pretty well the first non-constructivism oriented reading I’ve had in this course so it’s been interesting to see the other side – as far as I can tell, the differences between the behaviourist/cognitivist and constructivist approaches aren’t nearly as vast as is made out and most of them are cosmetic in nature, aside from the emphasis on discovery learning, socially created meaning and a stronger focus on activity.

The behaviourist approach also benefits from having a much more detailed strategy for designing individual classes and activities, with the “9 instructional events” offering a fair amount of structure.

I read this chapter with a particular project in mind, for Instructional Strategies and Authoring we have been given the task of creating a prescriptive learning environment (to complement the democratic one from before) which is meant to draw heavily from the 9 events.

I felt that this could be an appropriate area to focus the “training level” of the Exploring the EDC game on – a pre-game level that teaches users (particularly non-gamers) how to move in and view a 3D environment as well as interact with objects and solve basic puzzles. The instructions that I included at the start of the previous game that I made (a single text based image) weren’t adequate for most of the first-time users who tried it out.

The prescriptive approach/environment seems very much about setting up clear outcomes and providing step by step instructions (with feedback) that allow learners to develop the scaffolding knowledge needed to move to the scenario based activities in the Exploring the EDC game. (Actually, this might need a new name – I think it’s now the CEE)

Here are the pertinent points from the chapter as well as the ideas this triggered and any other general ramblings that come to mind.

“Planning a course of instruction makes use of the principles… :determining what the outcomes of instruction are to be, defining performance objectives and deciding upon a sequence for the topics and lessons that make up the course.”

“During a lesson there is progress from one moment to the next as a set of events acts upon and involves the student. This set of events is what is specifically meant by instruction”

“Whatever the medium, the essential nature of instruction is most clearly characterised as a set of communications”

“The events of instruction are designed to make it possible for learners to proceed from “where they are” to the achievement of the capability identified as the target objective”

“Mostly however, the events of instruction must be deliberately arranged by an instructional designer or teacher”
This seems to be one of the biggest points of difference between the two approaches – one focusses on the activities of the teacher and the other on the learner – but they are both to the same end, learning.

“There is perhaps no better way to avoid the error of talking too much than to keep firmly in mind that communications during a lesson are to facilitate learning and that anything beyond this is mere chatter”

“The purpose of instruction, however it may be done, is to provide support to the processes of learning. It may, therefore, be expected that the kinds of events that constitute instruction should have a fairly precise relation to what is going on within the learner whenever learning is taking place”

“Each of the particular events that make up instruction functions to aid or otherwise support the acquisition and the retention of whatever is being learned. These functions of external events may be derived by consideration of the internal processing that makes up any single act of learning”

This seems to be making the same point in two (slightly wordy) ways, which, funnily enough is one of the key strategies in the instructional events.

Gagne’s approach is heavily tied to cognitive theories about the physical activies undertaken in the brain in the process of learning. This can be broken down (relatively simplistically perhaps) to:

• Stimulation (i.e information/input) is “briefly registered by sensory registers” (e.g you see/hear it)
• “This information is then changed into a form that is recorded in the short-term memory, where prominent features of the initial stimulation are stored”
• These items may be retained by being internally rehearsed
• Meaning is added to the information (semantic encoding) and it is transferred to long-term memory
• “When learner performance is called for, the stored information or skill must be searched for and retrieved”
• “It may then be transformed into action, by way of a response generator”
• “Retrieved information is recalled to working/short-term memory, where it may be combined with other incoming information to form new learned capabilities”
• “Learner performance itself sets in motion a process that depends upon external feedback, involving the familiar process of reinforcement”

From here, we pretty well move into the actual instructional events – just quickly, they are:

1. Gaining attention
2. Informing the learner of the objective
3. Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning
4. Presenting the stimulus material
5. Providing learning guidance
6. Eliciting the performance
7. Providing feedback about performance correctness
8. Assessing the performance
9. Enhancing retention and transfer

I can see here how the constructivists take issue with the vibe of this approach, the language has an overly scientific feeling, as though learners are lab animals, but the principles in themselves seem sound when they are fleshed out.

1. Gaining Attention

“The initial event of gaining attention is one that supports the learning event of reception of the stimuli and the patterns of neural impulses they produce”

“Basic ways of commanding attention involve the use of stimulus change, as is often done in moving display signs or in the rapid cutting of scenes on a television screen. Beyond this, a fundamental and frequently used method of gaining attention is to appeal to the learner’s interests. A teacher may appeal to some particular student’s interests by means of a verbal question such as ‘Wouldn’t you like to know what makes a leaf fall from a tree?’ ”

This made me think about having some kind of video – maybe in fast-forward – of a screen capture of navigating through either the EDC game or maybe through the obstacle course/puzzle section of the training game.  

2.  Informing the learner of the objective

“This… is presumed to set in motion of process of executive control by means of which the learner selects particular strategies appropriate to the learning task and its expected outcome”

“In some manner or other, the learner should know the kind of performance that will be used as an indicator that learning has, in fact, been accomplished”

“What kind of purposeful activity might the learner be engaged in once the multiple objectives of the lesson have been achieved?”

Maybe (as mentioned) there is a final puzzle or series of actions to be achieved before the learner is able to access the EDC game – this of course raises the question of how to make the training level optional. There may be players who don’t need it or who have already completed it. This could be done by offering two initial doors for the player to choose from – however if they are already able to enter a door, they probably don’t need the training. 

3. Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning

“Much of new learning (some might say all) is, after all, the combining of ideas”

“Component ideas (concepts, rules) must be previously learned if the new learning is to be successful.

“The recall of previously learned capabilities may be stimulated by asking a recognition or, better, a recall question”

We could start with a look at navigation in 2D games – maybe even play some examples – Pong for up/down control, Breakout for left/right and move on to something like Pacman for 4 directional. Getting players used to the W,A,S,D controls is an early step – maybe after camera control with the mouse, maybe even before.  The idea of holding keys down to move is important.

Using the mouse to look around – need to get the concept across (not sure how) that it’s just like moving the cursor, only it’s not the cursor that moves, it’s the environment

Different kinds of learning outcomes for this event – by the nature of the capability to be learned

Intellectual skill – Essential for learner to retrieve to working memory prerequisite skills and concepts
Cognitive strategy – Recall task strategies and relevant intellectual skills
Verbal information -  recall familiar well organised bodies of knowledge related to the new learning
Attitude – recall the situation adn the actions involved in personal choice.
Motor skill – recall the executive subroutine and relevant part skills

4. Presenting the stimulus model

“The stimuli to be displayed (or communicated) to the learner are those involved in the performance that reflects the learning.”

“Stimulus presentation often emphasises features that determine selective perception. Thus, information presented in text may contain italics, bold print, underlining or other kinds of physical arrangements designed to facilitate perception of essential features. When pictures or diagrams are employed, important features of the concepts they display may be heavily outlined, circled or pointed to with arrows.”

“Stimulus presentation for the learning of concepts and rules requires the use of a variety of examples”

The variety of examples approach rings particularly true here, it’s useful because it supports transfer of an idea to other contexts.  

“Retention and transfer are also likely to be enhanced by presenting problems stated in words, in diagrams and in combinations of the two over a period of time” What about video? 

More concepts to cover in the game – jump and jump forward.  (Not entirely sure why this was triggered by this “event” but it’s where I wrote it down. Text based or video instruction? (Players walk up to tv units to trigger videos – like in GTA schools)

Different kinds of learning outcomes for this event – by the nature of the capability to be learned

Intellectual skill – Display the statement of the rule or concept, with example giving emphasis to component concepts Cognitive strategy – Describe the task and the strategy, and show what the strategy accomplishes
Verbal information – Display printed or verbal statements, emphasising distinctive features
Attitude – Human model describes the general nature of the choice of personal action to be presented
Motor skill – Display the situation existing at the beginning of the skill performance. Demonstrate executive subroutine

5. Providing learning guidance

This gets into the cognitivist side of things a little more, very much about structuring the information

“…These communications and others like them may be said to have the function of learning guidance. Notice that they do not “tell the learner the answer”; rather, they suggest the line of thought which will presumably lead to the desired “combining” of subordinate concepts and rules to form the new to-be learned rule”

“The amount of learning guidance, that is, the number of questions and the degree to which they provide “direct or indirect prompts” will obviously vary with the kind of capability being learned… If what is to be learned is an arbitrary matter such as the name for an object new to the learner (say a pomegranate), there is obviously no sense in wasting time with indirect hinting or questioning in that hope that somehow the name will be “discovered”. In this case, just telling the student the answer is the correct for of guidance for learning. At the other end of the spectrum, however, are cases where less direct prompting is appropriate because this is a logical way to discover the answer and such discovery may lead to learning that is more permanent than that which results from being told the answer”

“Too much guidance may seem condescending to the quick learner, whereas too little can simply lead to frustration on the part of the slow learner”

Different kinds of learning outcomes for this event – by the nature of the capability to be learned

Intellectual skill – Present varied examples in varied contexts; also give elaborations to furnish clues for retrieval Cognitive strategy – Describe the strategy and give one or more application examples
Verbal information – Elaborate content by relating to larger bodies of knowledge, use mnemonics, images
Motor skill – Continue practice with informative feedback

WASD mnemonic?

6. Eliciting the performance

“We must now ask them to show that they know how to do it. We want them not only to convince us, but to convince themselves as well. Accordingly, the next event is a communication that in effect says “show me” or “do it”. Usually, this first performance following learning will use the same example (that is, the same stimulus material) with which the learners have been interacting all along. ”

7. Providing feedback

“…as a minimum, there should be feedback concerning the correctness or degree of correctness of the learner’s performance”

Forms of feedback in the game – aural, a square (or other object) changes colour, a door opens

8. Assessing performance

“The immediate indication that the desired learning has occurred is provided when the appropriate performance is elicited. This is, in effect, as assessment of learning outcome”

“When one sees the learner exhibit a single performance appropriate to the lesson objective, how does the observer or teacher tell that he or she has made a reliable observation?”

In the puzzle/obstacle course section, needing to repeat several, increasingly complex steps (preferably involving a lava pit  

“How is the teacher to be convinced that the performance exhibited by the learner is valid? This is a matter that requires two different decisions. The first is, does the performance in fact accurately reflect the objective?… The second judgement, which is no easier to make, is whether the performance has occurred under conditions that make the observation free of distortion? As an example, the conditions must be such that the student could not have “memorized the answer” or remembered it from a previous occasion. The teacher much be convinced, in other words, that the observation of performance reveals the learned capability in a genuine manner”

9. Enhancing retention and retrieval

“When information or knowledge is to be recalled, the existence of the meaningful context in which the material has been learned appears to offer the best assurance that the information can be reinstated”

Maybe the training level should use similar decor to the game level? 

“As for the assurance of transfer of learning, it appears that this can best be done by setting some variety of new tasks for the learner – tasks that require the application of what has been learned in situations that differ substantially from those used for the learning itself”

 Or maybe it should use different decor. Have to think about that one. The tasks in the actual Exploring the EDC game will certainly offer the variety.

“Variety and novelty in problem-solving tasks are of particular relevance to the continued development of cognitive strategies. As has previously been mentioned, the strategies used in problem solving need to be developed by the systematic introduction of occasions for problem solving, interspersed with other instructions.”

Interesting to see that constructivism doesn’t have the lock on higher level skill development, particularly in problem solving, that I’ve regularly read about.

Gagne (et al) wraps up by saying:

“In using the events of instruction for lesson planning, it is apparent that they must be organised in a flexible manner, which primary attention to the lesson’s objectives”

So it’s a relatively flexible system after all

One final thought about the game itself, maybe as some kind of reward there could be an art gallery that they could explore 

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.

Robyler, M. D., Edwards, J., & Havriluk, M. A. (1997). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (pp. 54-79). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Ok well this is a slightly more sizable piece of writing, let’s see how I go here.

Again, essentially an overview of differences between behaviourist/cognitivist (here referred to as directed instruction) and constructivist theory and practice.

Chapter begins with a guide to what is to be covered, a nice “advanced organiser” approach which gives the learner a mental framework to hang the new knowledge on.

• Information age means that we are constantly playing catchup and learning to learn is seen by many as a key skill.
• Need to become more effective decision makers.
• Directed Instruction = Behaviourism + Information processing branch of cognitivism
• Constructivism = comes from other branches of cognitivism (mainly a reaction to directed instruction approaches)
• Both theories focus on what Gagne calls “the conditions of learning”

Strengths of Directed Instruction approach

• can allow for individual pacing (students can be busy while teacher supports slower students)
• efficient (skill practice through drills)
• provides foundation skills needed for higher level skills
• instruction is replicable, quality is consistent
• some students like a structured learning environment

Strengths of Constructivist approach

• encourages higher level skills – problem solving, teamwork/collaboration, critical thinking, research
• adds context/relevance as a motivator and to anchor learning to students experiences
• students pushed to figure out what they need to learn to solve problems

Tennyson (1990) claims that about 30% of learning time should be spent on “acquiring knowledge” (e.g. verbal info and procedural knowledge) and 70% spent on the “employment of knowledge” (e.g., contextual skills, cognitive strategies and creative processes)

More about Directed Instruction:

• learning as a sequence of stimulus and response (response is the best indicator that learning has occurred)
• teachers and resources are the stimuli, skills demonstrated are the response
• information processing theory – learning = input variables (info) + processor (attention + short/long term memory) + outputs (responses)
• inputs that receive attention go to short-term memory (stm) for 5-20 secs, then on to long term (ltm) (hopefully)
• teachers shape info to make it more likely to move from stm to ltm, give practice exercises to help it.

Gagne’s events of instruction

1. Gaining attention
2. Informing the learner of the objective
3. Stimulating the recall of prerequisite info
4. Presenting new material
5. Providing learning guidance (cognitivist tools ?)
6. Eliciting performance
7. Providing feedback about correctness
8. Assessing performance
9. Enhancing retention and recall

Gagne’s learning hierarchy – build base skills first needed for more complex ones.

Systematic instructional design / Systems approaches – step by step process for preparing instructional materials

Problems with Directed Instruction approach

• leads to standardised testing => (teaching to the test)
• regimented
• weak support for higher level skills of problem solving etc
• more oriented to individuals, not group work (which is more prevalent in “the real world”)

More about Constructivism

The more I read about Constructivism, the more it annoys me. It’s ill defined, it seems to identify itself largely in terms of what it isn’t (i.e. directed instruction) and while some of it’s ideas are common sense – using real world examples to add motivation to content, using multimedia, developing problem solving and critical reflection skills – they seem fairly easy to apply to other approaches.

I’m also unconvinced about the obsession with collaborative group work (how do you ensure that all members of the group have digested the required knowledge and aren’t just coasting) as it seems oriented to creating happy little worker drones.

Some of the ideas about allowing learners all the time they want to discover things and also letting them learn things in the ways that they think are most suited seem completely divorced from the reality of a classroom. (Particularly in the VET sector).

I can see some use in a collaborative approach that encompasses students from a range of disciplines – for example, putting on a major music festival, with a student from design, p.r, public events, OHS etc I guess.

Anyway, this is what Robyler et al. have to say about it.

• focus on students motivation to learn and relevance to the real world
• activities meaningful to a student’s own experience
• provides scaffolding through supervised collaborative activities

According to Piaget: sometimes they fit new experiences into their existing schemes or patterns of behaviour, a process he called assimilation; sometimes they change their existing schemes to incorporate new experiences, which he called accommodation.

According to Lev Vygotsky: “children begin learning from the world around them, their social world, which is the source of all their concepts, ideas, facts, skills and attitudes”

According to Bruner: Discovery learning is an approach to instruction through which students interact with their environment – by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies or performing experiments

Teachers have found that discovery learning is most successful when students have prerequisite knowledge and undergo some structured experiences

According to Rand Spiro (et al.) :Cognitive Flexibility theory – calls for students to generate not only solutions to new problems but also the prior knowledge needed to solve the problems.

According to CTGV: Inert knowledge is “knowledge that can usually be recalled when people are explicitly asked to do so but is not used spontaneously in problem solving even though it is relevant”

Constructivist approaches:

• Problem oriented activities
• Visual mental models of problems to be solved
• Rich media environments
• Cooperative/collaborative group learning
• Learning through exploration
• Qualitative assessment – student portfolios, teacher narratives of student work habits, performance based assessments in combination with checklists of criteria for judging student performance

Problems with Constructivism:

• “Many teachers are still bound by the constraints of required curricula and they must ensure that their students accomplish existing district objectives as well as newer, more constructivist ones”
• Sometimes instructional activities based on constructivist models are more time-consuming, since they may call for teachers to organise and facilitate group work and to evaluate in authentic ways. By comparison, paper-and-pencil tests are both quicker to develop and easier to administer
• Papert feels that learning activities should be fairly unstructured and open-ended, frequently with no goal in mind other than discovery of “powerful ideas”
• How can one certify skill learning? – Just because a team of med students succeed in an operation, can all of them do it
• Are students able to find their own prior knowledge?
• Can students learn this knowledge in the best way?
• Little evidence that skills learnt this way do actually transfer to real world situations
• Minimal objective evidence to back it up.

Technology Integration Strategies

These are a few of the reasons that the writers offer to make more use of technology in the classroom.

Directed Models

• Self paced drills/tutorials allow lagging students to spend time catching up and make them feel less self-conscious
• Drill and practice help prerequisite skills become more automatic
• Advanced tutorials/resources can be made available to advanced students wishing to skip ahead
• I.T tools such as Word, CAD etc reduce some logistical tools – don’t teach skills in themselves but make production of student work easier
• I.T tools optimise scarce resources – stationery, teachers, simulations of lab experiments

Constructivist Models

• Add motivation
• Support creativity
• Allow for reflection
• Using more visual models of problems and creation of multimedia helps bypass literacy issues in some students
• Enhances cooperative work

Issues to consider in introducing technology to teaching

• Assessment for constructivist activities should be planned to occur over long time-frames
• Assessment should dovetail with the activities
• Flexibility is important – might need to change things as you are going
• Finding a balance between directed and constructivist approaches requires some experimentation.

Parts I’m unsure of

• Constructivists claim use of multimedia etc as relatively unique tool to overcome lack of base skills (eg literacy) but it can be used in any approach
• Simply accepting literacy problems and finding work-arounds feels wrong – literacy is a fundamental skill
• Critical reflection requires the ability to assess data and sources but more importantly the learner needs to care about it in the first place

1. Interactive multimedia makes Behaviourist learning strategies more engaging.

The use of simple online games and quizzes provides positive reinforcement to learners and adds interest to subjects which focus on fact based learning by bringing variety and heightened sensory experiences to repetitive tasks.

Robyler and Havriluk (1997) point out that among the “needs addressed by directed instruction” (their term for the Behaviourist approach) are “making learning paths more efficient… especially for instruction in skills that are prerequisite to higher-level skills” and “performing time-consuming and labor intensive tasks (e.g., skill practice), freeing teacher time for other, more complex student needs”.

This has been demonstrated in a project undertaken in the Learning Medical Terminology subject at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT). A range of vocabulary learning exercises have been turned into simple drill and practice online games, making them more fun and interactive.

Anecdotal evidence from the teacher of the subject indicates that students now learn and retain the words more quickly and complain less about the subject.

This heuristic is useful to me as a learning resource developer at CIT as we are part of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector and many of the initial subjects in our courses require learners to acquire a certain base level of technical subject-specific knowledge. Many of these games can be produced easily by teachers with free or inexpensive software and require minimal technical ability to create and put online.

I chose to write about it as I am a firm believer in the educational possibilities of interactive multimedia, particularly in the form of games and quizzes. Games are a familiar, accessible and engaging medium which can be used in situations ranging from Behaviourist drill and practice exercises to more Constructivist problem based scenarios. There is currently a growing group of educational game producers – known as the Serious Games movement – focusing heavily on the possibilities of the latter.

Learning practitioners wishing to make use of interactive multimedia in the form of games and quizzes should allow themselves adequate time to become familiar with the game/quiz creating software that they wish to use. While most of it is designed with the less technically inclined user in mind (i.e. a wizard based approach), it can often still require the uploading of multiple supporting image and javascript files to your website or learning management system.

References:

Robyler, M. D., Edwards, J., & Havriluk, M. A. (1997). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (pp. 54-79). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Simpson, C., (2005). Medical Terminology – Prefixes and Suffixes. Retrieved 23/7/2007 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTfs4axi1YU

Ertmer, P.A. & Newby, T.J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), 50-72. (abstract)

Oliver, R. & Herrington, J. (2001) Teaching and Learning Online (p.52) Western Australia, Edith Cowan University

This article discusses behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism from an adult learning/training perspective.

Ok, so a few pages in and I’m already really appreciating the attitude towards learning taken by the authors. Their emphasis is squarely on how to take learning theories – behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism – and translate them into concrete practical ideas and exercises for learning.

They’ve made it very clear that they see value in all of the theories and that the role of the instructional designer (I.D) is to understand all of the theories and be able to identify which learning situations they are best suited for. This comes down to the types of learners, the types of teachers presenting the material, the material itself and the context in which it is to be presented.

Understanding the theories allows the I.D to find the strategies and tactics in each for effective learning, know which ones to use, figure out how to integrate them into the learning environment and predict which will be most successful.

It offers a list of 7 questions that can be used to differentiate the theories.

1. How does learning occur?
2. Which factors influence learning?
3. What is the role of memory?
4. How does transfer* occur?
5. What types of learning are best explained by this theory?
6. What basic assumptions/principles of this theory are relevant to instructional design?
7. How should instruction be structured to facilitate learning?

*Transfer refers to the application of learned knowledge in new ways or situations, as well as to how prior learning affects new learning. (e.g. A student learns how to recognise/classify elms trees and then applies the same methods to maple trees)

Two opposing theories on the origin of knowledge – empiricism vs rationalism. Empiricism posits that knowledge comes from sensory input and our experiences, which we mesh together to form more complex associations. Seems reasonable. The learning focus comes in controlling the environment to maximise the occurence of associations.

Rationalism on the other hand says that learners discover what is already in their minds and knowledge is developed by reflection on what they already know in combination with the observations that trigger or reveal this knowledge. (This seems a little harder to grasp imho. The rationalist approach focuses on the best ways to structure new information so it is effectively encoded and sparks recall of related things that are already known. )

Behaviourism – learning (knowledge) takes the form of a response to stimuli (eg teacher holds up a flash card that says 4 + 2 = and the student says 6) – the primary focus is how the association between the stimulus and response is made, strengthed and maintained. Responses followed by reinforcement are more likely to recur in the future.

Behaviourism seems more useful (to me) in fact based situations. (As opposed to analytical / creative ones)

Hey, what do you know, the next question says much the same thing -

“These prescriptions have generally been proven reliable and effective in facilitating learning that includes discriminations (recalling facts), generalisations (defining and illustrating concepts), assocations (applying explanations), and chaining (automatically performing a specified procedure). However it is generally agreed the behavioural principles cannot adequately explain the acquisition of higher level skills or those that require a greater depth of processing (e.g., language development, problem solving, inference generating, critical thinking)(Schunk,1991)”

How Behaviourism is relevant to instructional design:

• An emphasis on producing observable and measurable outcomes in students [behavioural objectives, task analysis, criterion-reference assessment]
• Pre-assessment of students to determine where instruction should begin [learner analysis]
• Emphasis on mastering early steps before progressing to more complex levels of performance [sequencing of instructional presentation, mastery learning]
• use of reinforcement to impact performance [tangible rewards, informative feedback]
• Use of cues, shaping and practice to ensure a strong stimulus-response assocation [simple to complex sequencing of practice, use of prompts]

Stimulus is about something that the learner needs to know – generally as a question or an instruction to complete a task, the response is the answer or the successful completion of the task. Cues can be presented to facilitate the learning needed to create the correct response – examples of the correct answer or way to do something and repetition and reinforcement lead to the correct response being provided without the learner needing to rely on cues.

Cognitivism – this focusses more on more complex cognitive processes such as thinking, problem solving, language, concept formation and information processing.

It seems to be about equipping learners with effective learning strategies to process the information that they are given – as well as factoring in the students own beliefs and thought processes in interpreting/measuring how well they understand the knowledge.

Much more emphasis on connecting prior knowledge (which might not be exactly the same but close) to new knowledge – use of analogy to make new concepts seem familiar more quickly.

Sort of about identifying patterns which could be useful in problem solving by showing the learner what information they need to access to deal with a new situation that may resemble something they already know.

More about how to learn than how to teach.

“Knowledge acquisition is described as a mental activity that entails internal coding and structuring by the learner. The learner is viewed as a very active participant in the learning process” – I have to say here that this strikes me as the way that knowledge is acquired under any system – even behaviourism. This kind of statement assumes that in a behaviourist model (where it is implied that knowledge is simply branded onto the brain through sheer repetition) the learner doesn’t make any effort to apply their own meaning to the instruction/information being imparted and that they don’t relate it to other things that they have learnt. This process may not be built into the learning experience by the teacher but I would be surprised if it didn’t happen in the learner regardless.

Cognitivism, like behaviourism, emphasises the role that environmental conditions play in facilitating learning. Instructional explanations, demonstrations, illustrative examples and matched non-examples are all considered to be instrumental in guiding student learning. Similarly, emphasis is placed on the role of practice with corrective feedback.

Cognitive theories contend that environmental “cues” and instructional components alone cannot account for all the learning that results from an instructional situation. Additional key elements include the way that learners attend to, code, transform, rehearse, store and retrieve information. Learners’ thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and values are also considered to be valuable in the learning process.

Learning results when information is stored in the memory in an organised, meaningful manner. Teachers/designers are responsible for assisting learners in organising that information in some optimal way. Designers use techniques such as advance organisers, analogies, hierarchical relationships and matrices to help learners relate new information to prior knowledge. - This seems to say that the brain is a big filing cabinet and it’s easier to find something when it’s organised alphabetically. If teachers present information in a way that is structured differently to the behaviourist approach of simply dealing with the facts, are they simply presenting more facts or are they facilitating greater understanding? I guess if it is able to create more meaning for the learner, then it will be more memorable.

Transfer in Cognitivism works in the same way as in Behaviourism – “when a learner understands how to apply knowledge in different contexts, then transfer has occurred.”

“Specific instructional or real-world events will trigger particular responses but the learner must believe that the knowledge is useful in a given situation before he will activate it” – This is just a matter of knowing what you know and why it is useful. It’s about being able to create associations with existing knowledge and new input.

Cognitive theories are usually considered more appropriate for explaining complex forms of learning (reasoning, problem-solving, information processing) than are those of a more behavioural perspective.

Two techniques used by both camps in achieving this effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer are simplification and standardisation. That is, knowledge can be analysed, decomposed and simplified into basic building blocks. Knowledge transfer is expedited if irrelevant information is eliminated. Well duh.

Behaviourists would focus on the design of the environment to optimise that transfer while cognitivists would stress efficient processing strategies.

So essentially, cognitivists teach study skills or they present cues that are more psychologically oriented to understanding. (Taking understanding to equal knowledge that a learner can ascribe personal meaning to)

The actions undertaken by the teacher or instructional designer seem to be the same (aside from the emphasis given to creating links to prior knowledge) , it’s mainly the language that has changed. Behaviourism revolves around the teacher, cognitivism revolves around the learner.

Both use feedback – B’s for “reinforcement”, C’s to “guide and support mental connections”.

Both use learner/task analysis – B’s to see what the learner already knows (and thus where to begin) and what “reinforcers should be most effective”. C’s to determine the learners predisposition to learning and how to design the most effective learning experience.

I guess the cognitivist approach in this case seems a more compassionate one however ultimately they both dumb down or ramp up the material depending on the learners capacities.

Techiques in the Cognitivist approach

• Emphasis on the active involvement of the learner in the learning process [learner control, metacognitive training (e.g. self-planning, monitoring and revising techniques)]
• Use of hierarchical analyses to identify and illustrate prerequisite relationships [cognitive task analysis procedures]
• Emphasis on structuring, organising and sequencing information to facilitate optimal processing [use of cognitive strategies such as outlining, summaries, synthesisers, advance organisers]
• Creation of learning environments that allow and encourage students to make connections with previously learned material [ recall of prerequisite skills, use of relevant examples, analogies]

Cognitivism seems to be more about making knowledge more meaningful by helping learners link it to existing knowledge. Learning needs to be more tailored to the learners needs and abilities. Use of analogies and metaphors is one cognitive strategy. Other cognitive strategies include the use of framing, mnemonics, concept mapping, advance organisers and so forth.

If the teacher does the work in shaping the information so that it is more easily absorbed by the learner, the learner still seems like a fairly passive participant in this process, just a better taught one.

Let’s see if the Constructivist approach brings the learner into the process any more.

Constructivism

Knowledge “is a function of how the individual creates meaning from his or her experiences”

I’m not sure that I understand how knowledge can be a function – this implies a process rather than an outcome or something relatively concrete. Knowledge of something can evolve over time as contexts change but ultimately it seems like something that is fixed.

Most cognitive psychologists think of the mind as a reference tool to the real world; constructivists believe that the mind filters input from the world to produce it’s own unique reality.

Is this to suggest that cognitivists take a near solipsistic view of the world and assume that all knowledge is already held in the mind? My understanding of cognitivism from the earlier part of the article suggests nothing of the sort.
The evolution of educational philosophies here seems at best to be that greater attention is paid to the (probably ever-present) ability of the learner to filter received information and process it.

I get the distinct impression that the people putting forward one theory/philosophy tend to misrepresent that which came before in an attempt to make the new seem more enlightened and progressive. (Or it could just be the authors of this article and/or the people that they are referencing).

Of course people apply their own experiences to data that they take in and of course they make links to other similar knowledge that they have in the course of giving it meaning, which is unavoidably personal. Encouraging and stimulating this is a sound method for encouraging learning but it’s hardly been invented in the last 20 years.

Constructivists do not share with cognitivists and behaviourists the belief that knowledge is mind-independent and can be “mapped” onto a learner. Constructivists do not deny the existence of the real world but contend that what we know of the world stems from our own interpretations of our experiences. Humans create meaning as opposed to acquiring it. Since there are many possible meanings to acquire from any experience, we cannot achieve a predetermined “correct”meaning.

Again, I’m not sure that this fairly represents the views of behaviourists or cognitivists at all. Cs and Bs from my reading focus on methods of delivering instruction, not the philosophical vagueries of whether something exists because one person has had a different experience of it to another. A nutritionist sees a banana as a source of potassium, a creationist as evidence of God and a farmer as a source of income but none will deny that it is a piece of fruit. (But maybe this is a difference between meaning and truth/facts – I think meaning shapes a view of truth but can’t change it and just because something thinks something is so, doesn’t mean it is.)

Knowledge emerges in contexts within which it is relevant.

Fair enough.

Constructivists argue that knowledge is situationally determined (Jonassen, 1991a) Just as the learning of new vocabulary words is enhanced by exposure and subsequent interaction with those words in context (as opposed to learning their meanings from a dictionary), likewise it is essential that content knowledge be embedded in the situation in which it is used.

Again, makes a lot of sense
(I wonder if my work in the fact based, highly practically oriented VET sector is colouring my views on these philosophies to a degree. Some of this particularly meta stuff seems interesting but irrelevant at times). This bit is good though.

Just as shades of meaning of given words are constantly changing a learner’s “current” understanding of a word, so too will concepts continually evolve with each new use.

Again, in the VET sector this seems a little overstated. Things seem a little more static here. I see what they mean though.

For this reason, it is critical that learning occur in realistic settings and that the selected learning tasks be relevant to the student’s lived experience.

The goal of instruction is not to ensure that students know particular facts but rather that they elaborate on and interpret information.

This type of learning serves a different purpose to that in a behavioural model.
I’m finding that I’m quoting a lot more from this section of the article as it’s hard to summarise what the constructivists are about. Knowledge seems to be a dirty word though.

Representations of experiences are not formalised or structured into a single piece of declarative knowledge and then stored in the head. The emphasis is not on retrieving intact knowledge but on providing learners with the means to creat novel and situation-specific understandings by “assembling” prior knowledge from diverse sources appropriate to the problem at hand.

Isn’t this just association by another – ridiculously long – name? Taking a range of information that you have processed and added meaning to and applying it in a different situation. (After all, in any theory, you aren’t going to take prior knowledge from inappropriate sources, are you. )

I’m starting to actually appreciate heuristics now – any idea that you can’t express clearly in a handful of words is starting to feel like padding and technocrat-ese.

Constructivists emphasise the flexible use of pre-existing knowledge rather than the recall of pre-packaged schemas

Ok good, so it encourages problem solving – but doesn’t cognitivism
The point seems to be that constructivism offers an approach which is more about context than any system before.

There is no need for the mere acquisition of fixed, abstract, self-contained concepts or details. To be successful, meaningful and lasting, learning must include all three of these crucial factors : activity (practice), concept (knowledge) and culture (context). (Brown et al. 1989)

But I thought that “experiences are not… structured into a single piece of declarative knowledge and then stored in the head”?. And doesn’t the behaviourist and cognitivist approach make use of activity(practice) in reinforcement?
Context seems to be the big revelation of constructivism. (A worthwhile addition to the previous theories but not awe-inspiring).

Something else about the discussion of constructivism so far – I’m yet to see a single concrete example of how this is applied in the learning environment – but I’ll read on now.

Now I consider myself a good progressive lefty but the more I read about the underlying philosophy of constructivism, the more I am reminded of the words of Cartman, E (2001) – “It’s all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy crap”. There’s nothing new here that isn’t simple commonsense and there is a lot of touchy-feely-nobody -can-be-wrong-because-everyones-opinion-is-valid-but-come-assessment-time-this-is-out-the-window bullshit. (I like blogging, there is no way I could say this in an essay)

I’m also thinking of heuristics as I’m going here – my favourite so far is Constructivism is a bunch of tree hugging hippy crap.

Can you tell that it’s late and I”m getting tired – I’m sure that at the heart of the constructivist philosophy are some valuable and useful insights but the language surrounding it is horrendously obtuse, ideologically driven and seemingly irrelevant to the needs of actual learners.

The constructivist position assumes that transfer can be facilitated by involvement in authentic tasks anchored in meaningful contexts.

Yes, the context in which learning occurs adds to the learners ability to bring their other experiences to the fore in creating associations which help them to understand the things that they are being taught. (Oh, shouldn’t say taught, I think the point of constructivism is to remove teachers from the context entirely). This seems to be the only new thing so far.

Ooh, got another one – Hulk inspired this time. Constructivism make Col mad – Col smash.

Ok, this seems to be the crux of it all – the goal of instruction is to accurately portray tasks, not to define the structure of learning required to achieve a task

“introductory knowledge acquisition is better supported by more objectivistic approaches (behavioural and/or cognitive) but suggests a transition to constructivistic approaches as learners acquire more knowledge which provides them with the conceptual power needed to deal with complex and ill-structured problems”

Ok, now we are getting somewhere. It’s more about working at a higher level , not learning about things but learning how to apply the things that you would already know in the course of doing a particular job – say working as an Instructional Designer.

“For example, a typical constructivist’s goal would not be to teach novice I.D. students straight facts about Instructional Design but to prepare students to use ID facts as an ID might use them. As such, performance objectives are not related so much to the content as they are to the processes of construction.”

Ok, so that sheds new light on that other article I was – uh – less flattering about. The Tse-Kian one. Still, the whole emphasis on the use of multimedia there seemed way off track and I stand by that.

“Some of the specific strategies utilised by constructivists include situating tasks in real world contexts, use of cognitive apprenticeships (modeling and coaching a student toward expert performance), presentation of multiple perspectives (collaborative learning to develop and share alternative views), social negotiation (debate, discussion, evidence-giving), use of examples as real “slices of life”, reflective awareness and providing considerable guidance on the use of constructive processes”

The following are several specific assumptions or principles from the constructivist position that have direct relevance for the I.D

• An emphasis on the identification of the context in which the skills will be learned and subsequently applied [anchoring learning in meaningful contexts]
• An emphasis on learner control and the capability of the learner to manipulate information [actively using what is learnt]
• The need for information to be presented in a variety of different ways [revisiting content at different times, in rearranged contexts, for different purposes and from different conceptual perspectives]
• Supporting the use of problem-solving skills that allow learners to go “beyond the information given” [developing pattern-recognition skills, presenting alternative ways of representing problems]
• Assessment focused on the transfer of knowledge and skills [presenting new problems and situations that differ from the conditions of the initial instruction]

Ok,this is all making a lot more sense now. I guess the problem with summing up peoples opinions about a new field that they are quite invested in is that they will tend to couch the discussion in far more ideological and evangelical terms than others.

As one moves along the behaviourist-cognitivist-constructivist continuum, the focus of instruction shifts from teaching to learning, form the passive transfer of facts and routines to the active application of ideas to problems.

Meaning is created by the learner: learning objectives are not pre-specified nor is instruction pre-designed.

Are you sure this isn’t just a high-falutin way for teachers to get out of delivering instruction?
All that said, I think teachers still have a strong responsibility to facilitate this learning by providing adequate and timely support and feedback.

Ah, just like it says here I guess

Here the task of the designer are two-fold: 1) to instruct the student on how to construct meaning, as well as how to effectively monitor, evaluate and update those constructions; and 2) to align and design experiences for the learner so that authentic, relevant contexts can be experienced.

Ok, so in a nutshell – this is probably closer to an actual, usable heuristic – constructivist learning is contextually problem based. It’s all about already having a base level of knowledge and being put in a real world situation with a job to do where you have to work out how to use what you know and how to learn what you don’t know but need to finish it.

Not so hard after all.

Overall then,

What might be most effective for novice learners encountering a complex body of knowledge for the first time, would not be effective, efficient or stimulating for a learner who is more familiar with the content. Typically, one does not teach facts the same way that concepts or problem-solving are taught; likewise one teaches differently depending on the proficiency level of the learners involved.
(Holy crap – just did a quick word count – this weighs in at 3733 so far – no wonder it’s taken a while – I think I need to do this differently. Still, I feel like I’ve learnt a lot from this)

A behavioural approach can effectively facilitate mastery of the content of a profession (knowing what); cognitive strategies are useful in teaching problem-solving tactics where defined facts and rules are applied in unfamiliar situations (knowing how); and constructivist strategies are especially suited to dealing with ill-defined problems through reflection-in-action.

Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place.

Tasks requiring a low level of processing (eg basic paired associations, discriminations, rote memorisation) seem to be facilitated by… a behavioural outlook (eg stimulus-response, contiguity of feedback/response)

Tasks requiring an increased level of processing (eg classifications, rule or procedural executions) … have a stronger cognitive emphasis (eg schematic organisation, analogical reasoning, algorithmic problem solving)

Tasks demanding high levels of processing (eg heuristic problem solving, personal selection and monitoring of cognitive strategies) are frequently best learned with … the constructivist perspective (eg situated learning, cognitive apprenticeships, social negotiation)

The approach of cherry-picking the best strategies from the three, based on the complexity of the task and the knowledge level of the learners is known as “systematic eclecticism”

OK, that’s it.

Great article guys – some of the constructivism stuff drove me nuts but we got there in the end. (Maybe a few small case-studies might have been nice but that’s just me)