'pedagogy'
Schwier, R.A. and Misanchuk, E.R. (1993). Interactive Multimedia Instruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Chapter 9, pp.155-192.
This is a fairly wordy section on a quite specific aspect of the process of designing interactive multimedia so I’m just going to scan for salient quotes. (I’m a little tired 
“Given the capability of multimedia systems to house massive quantities of information and to construct complex delivery systems, it seems reasonable to encourage the development of instructional systems which contain mre than a single cognitive orientation. In this way, the designer can impose consistency between the cognitive orientation and different learning tasks, and also capitalise on the possibility of designing instruction which is compatible with learning styles and preferences”
I won’t quote it but there’s a pretty good summation of the differences between the behaviourist, cognitivist and constructivist philosophies and approaches in this chapter.
They then move on to look at options for specifying content.
“Many projects will result in a glut of information you need to organise. In fact, one can argue that instructional design is largely the process of organising rather than creating, opportunities for learning”
The Content Outline is a suggested approach, consisting of a set of objectives for the course, the content necessary to achieve them and the treatment that the the content might be given. (How it is presented)
From here, Design specifications are quite useful – simple things to ensure consistency across the multimedia product- These might be broken into technical standards, instructional formats and aesthetic considerations.
Technical standards could look at issues like:
- Writing style
- Screen format (eg a single idea to a screen of text)
- Grammar (eg no contractions to be used)
- Numbering
- Layout restrictions
- Abbreviations
Instructional formats could consider:
- Strategy (e.g scenarios with background reading)
- Menu Organisation (advanced organisers)
- Length of segments (time allocated to activities)
- Reading level
- Test-like events
- feedback
Aesthetic considerations:
- Screen text (font + size)
- Color
- Computer vs video
- music
- illustrations
- visual cues
From here, Misanchuk & Schwier see the next step as setting up the framework for the content.
This takes five forms.
Core instruction: introductory segments (what’s to come, objectives) + core instruction (the primary content) + summary segments (reinforcing key points)
Complementary instruction: help segments (rephrasing or embellishing core instruction) + remedial segments (filling in scaffolding knowledge that should already be there) + additional information (enriching but not essential extra info). (Complementary instruction shouldn’t appear by default but should be easily accessible if it is needed)
Management elements: quizzes, games, scenarios which offer feedback (or assessment)
Navigation elements: easy access to all sections of content, global escape route, “you are here” type maps
Interactive elements: immediacy of response, non-sequential access of information, adaptability, feedback, options, bi-directionality and interruptability (pause and escape options and context sensitive help)
“For interaction to be dynamic, it is necessary to build content for the varied directions the instruction may follow.This means developing a great deal of content which any particular learner may never see.”
From here, Schwier and Misanchuk move on to the matter of allowing learners to practice their new knowledge in the multimedia environment. They outline some generalised principles for this:
- practice during instruction should be varied, not constant
- as familiarity with the learning task increases, so should the difficulty of practice increase
- learners should be weaned from prompts as their facility with knowledge or skills increases
- use practice often during the early stages of learning and gradually lengthen the space between practice sessions on a particular topic as instruction progresses
- for some types of learning, practice should progress from accuracy to speed to automaticity
- review segments can be used successfully in place of questions
- feedback should identify the successful and the unsuccessful features of the interaction and describe why incorrect responses or omissions are insufficient
- learners can benefit from memory or organisational strategies to make information more meaningful
- practice events should require learners to use information and discover and derive new relationships in information
- practice should be designed to motivate learners
Learner control:
There are a range of areas that learners might control in a multimedia product:
- which content they access
- the method it is presented in
- whether they access supplementary material
- the order they access the content
- how much practice they undertake
- level of difficulty of exercises undertaken
They finish up the chapter by looking at some different studies on what happens when learners use multimedia products in groups – some show that retention is the same for singles as pairs but drops off with 3 or more in the group while other studies don’t. (But the 2 vs 3+ thing seems to make a certain amount of sense – hard to cram three people around a screen for one thing)
September 8th, 2007
Graham, C., Cagiltay, K., Lim, B-R., Craner, J., & Duffy, T. M. (2001). Seven principles of effective teaching: A practical lens for evaluating online courses. The Technology Source Archives at the University of North Carolina: http://technologysource.org/article/seven_principles_of_effective_teaching/
This is one of the best guides to practical, across the board strategies for better online teaching I’ve ever seen.
It’s simple, doesn’t get bogged down in which philosophical approach beats which and offers clear guidelines for online best practice.
It’s based on a larger report available from http://crlt.indiana.edu/publications/crlt00-13.pdf
These are the key principles:
1. Instructors should provide clear guidelines for interaction with students.
Establish policies describing the types of communication that should take place over different channels (e.g. send your technical support questions to FLS)
Set clear standards for instructors timelines for responding to messages (e.g. I will respond to emails on Tuesday and Friday afternoons)
2. Well designed discussion assignments facilitate meaningful cooperation among students
- Learners should be required to participate (and their grade should depend on participation)
- Discussion groups should remain small
- Discussions should be focussed on a task
- Tasks should always result in a product
- Tasks should engage learners in the content
- Learners should receive feedback on their discussions
- Evaluation should be based on the quality of the postings (not length or number)
- Instructors should post expectations for discussions
3. Students should present course projects
“Students presented case study solutions via the class website. The other students critiqued the solution and made further comments about the case. After all students had responded, the case presenter updated and reposted his or her solution, including new insights or conclusions gained from classmates. Only at the end of all the presentations did the instructor provide an overall reaction to the cases and specifically comment about issues the class identified or failed to identify. In this way, students learned from one another as well as from the instructor”
4. Instructors need to provide two types of feedback: information feedback and acknowledgement feedback.
Acknowledgement feedback is simply a response that an assignment (or whatever) has been received.
As the semester gets busier and time is scarcer, this often drops off – maybe having a simple template to copy/paste or even an automated system might be helpful here.
Information feedback is a fuller response to submitted content – “when constraints increase during the semester’s busiest times, instructors can still give prompt feedback on discussion assignments by responding to the class as a whole instead of to each individual student. In this way, instructors can address patterns and trends in the discussion without being overwhelmed by the amount of feedback to be given”
5. Online courses need deadlines
“Regularly distributed deadlines encourage students to spend time on tasks and help students with busy schedules avoid procrastination. They also provide a context for regular contact with the instructor and peers”
My personal experience makes me wonder if it might be useful to break assignment tasks down into a number of small milestone chunks with set deadlines – although these could be optional to avoid overloading the teacher – Perhaps the milestones could serve to provide learners with an indication of how long a part might take and whether they are on track or need to put in more time.
(Maybe this is something that learners should be able to do on their own but my personal experience is that I often forget about the breaking the task down into smaller parts/actions until afterwards)
Maybe some kind of personal tick box checklist
6. Challenging tasks, sample cases and praise for high quality work communicate high expectations
This is essentially about applying more relevant, more authentic, context oriented activities which offer higher levels of challenge.
It’s also about providing examples of past student work, “along with comments explaining why the examples are good”
7.Allowing students to choose project topics incorporates diverse views into online courses
“The instructor allowed students to research their own area of interest, instead of assigning particular issues… Instructors can provide guidelines to help students select topics relevant to the course while still allowing students to share their unique perspectives”
This seems largely about motivation but also about creating a more democratic learning environment.
August 16th, 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
When trying to communicate new concepts to learners, it can often be helpful to represent these concepts as visual models or explain them through activities which give the concept a more tangible form.
Many elements of current Constructivist education theory centre around “procedures and operations for representing and reasoning about information” (Greeno, Collins & Resnick 1996). The use of non-verbal and non-textual representations of complex problems and concepts, often facilitated by visualisation tools made possible by advanced computer graphics (Driscoll 2002), is regarded by many as an effective way of presenting information as well as providing alternatives to learners with literacy problems. (Robyler 1997)
My team at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), Flexible Learning Solutions (FLS), has been using modeling techniques to explain the practice of blogging and commenting to less tech-savvy CIT teachers.
In the course of a hands on, non-computer based workshop, participants are given a standard sheet of paper, a pen and a number of post-it notes. They write a “blog” post on the sheet of paper and stick it to a wall and then view “blog” posts from the other participants by roaming around the room. Using their post-it notes, they are able to attach comments to each others posts and also to each others comments.
This simple activity illustrates very effectively the reflective and collaborative nature of blogging and the value of feedback provided through the comments, all in an environment which removes the daunting aspects of the technology from the experience.
This is a useful heuristic as it highlights the fact that it is possibly to present new information to learners that is shaped in a way that allows you to emphasise that which is important and isolate it from less familiar factors that learners can find alienating.
Implementing this heuristic is really just a matter of examining the course content and looking for non-verbal means of expressing it. As mentioned, the ongoing evolution of software (particularly free and open-source software) and the boom in social-web tools offer any number of options but an effective model can just as easily take the form of a paper based simulation.
References:
Robyler, M. D., Edwards, J., & Havriluk, M. A. (1997). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (pp. 54-79). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Driscoll, M.P. (2002). How People Learn (and What Technology Might Have To Do with It). ERIC Digest. ED470032
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)
Greeno, J. G., Collins, A. M., & Resnick, L. B. (1996). Cognition and learning. In D. C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 15-46). New York: Macmillan.
May 3rd, 2007
Presenting information to learners in a way that reflects the situations and cultures in which they will use it makes the information more relevant to them and easier to recall.
Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989) strongly emphasise the idea that concepts exist in a particular context which helps to shape the concept into useful knowledge. Presenting this information in a form related to its use in the real world, ideally in a form which requires the learner to act as though they are also in that context (i.e. As a mathematician or historian) adds important layers of additional cultural meaning to the information being shared.
This allows the learner to form associations between the new information and their existing knowledge which according to cognitive theory makes it easier to store in and retrieve from long-term memory (Robyler, Edwards & Havriluk 2007).
I recently worked on a project with a teacher at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) focusing on a competency called Practice within legal and ethical parameters. This teaches nurses about legal and ethical issues within nursing practice, the law and their responsibilities. In the past, it had been taught essentially as a list of laws and policies that nurses needed to be aware of.
We created a detailed case study simulation in which nurses make decisions based on developments in a particular patient’s case, consultation with colleagues and other available information.
This added hospital and nursing culture issues to the learning and allowed nurses to connect more personally with the course content.
As someone working in a Vocational Education and Training institution, the richness and relevance of information is of the highest importance as knowledge developed by learners is designed almost exclusively for practical use in specific settings. Finding new ways to contextualise even the simplest foundation skills and to make teachers aware of the importance of this therefore is crucial.
Practitioners wishing to enhance meaning with context might consider:
-
Using more collaborative problem based projects (Ertmer & Newby 1993)
-
Build skills through sequential exercises (Driscoll 2002)
-
Look for a balance between experiential learning, guided mentoring and collective reflection (Dede 2005)
References:
Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, Jan/Feb, 32-42.
Colvin, Clark, R. & Mayer, R. E. (2007). Using rich media wisely. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (pp. 311-322). Upper Saddle Creek, NJ: Pearson Education.
Dede, C. (2005). Planning for neomillennial learning styles. Educause Quarterly, 28(1).
Driscoll, M.P. (2002). How People Learn (and What Technology Might Have To Do with It). ERIC Digest. ED470032
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.
Robyler, M. D., Edwards, J., & Havriluk, M. A. (1997). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (pp. 54-79). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
May 3rd, 2007
Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, Jan/Feb, 32-42.
I’m not sure whether these articles are making more sense to me now because I’m getting a stronger grasp on the underlying theories or if it’s just that they are better written. Probably a bit of both.
Brown, Collins and Duguid present their ideas about why content is more meaningful to learners when it is put into context in an easily understandable way, using plenty of examples as well as some very effective analogies. Their approach seems much more anchored in chalkface experience and constantly focusses on educational practice in schools, rather that making lofty prognostications about what approaches might be beneficial for learners.
Key points:
“Many methods of didactic education assume a separation between knowing and doing, treating knowledge as an integral, self-sufficient substance, theoretically independent of the situations in which it is learned and used.”
We should “embed learning in activity and make deliberate use of the social and physical context”
Learning vocabulary with a dictionary and a few example (but out of context) sentences is different to the way words are learnt in day to day life – through use in normal conversation and reading. “Experienced readers implicitly understand that words are situated. They, therefore, ask for the rest of the sentence or the context before committing themselves to an interpretation of a word”
“All knowledge is, we believe, like language. It’s constituent parts index the world and so are intextricably a product of the activity and situations in whch they are produced”
“A concept, like the meaning of a word, is always under construction”
“It may be more useful to consider conceptual knowledge as, in some ways, similar to a set of tools. Tools share several significant features with knowledge – They can only be fully understood with use and using them entails both changing the users view of the world and adopting the belief system in which they are used.”
“People who use tools actively rather than just acquire them, by contrast, build an increasingly rich implicit understanding of the world in which they use the tools and of the tools themselves. The understanding, both of the world and of the tool, continually changes as a result of their interaction”
“Learning how to use a tool involves far more than can be accounted for in any set of explicit rules. The occasions and conditions for use arise directly out of the context of activities of each community that uses the tool, framed by the way members of that community see the world… Thus carpenters and cabinet makers use chisels differently”
“Activity, concept and culture are interdependent. No one can be totally understood without the other two. Learning must involve all three”
“(Students) need to be exposed to the use of a domain’s conceptual tools in authentic activity – to teachers acting as practitioners and using these tools in wrestling with the problems of the world. Such activity can tease out the way a mathematician or historian looks at the world and solves emergent problems. (But maths is a tool used in different ways by different practitioners – eg mathematician vs statistician vs engineer – how do you apply context there – perhaps by looking at the content being covered and seeing who it is most applicable to?)
“Activity also provides experience, which is plainly important for subsequent action”
“Knowledge… indexes the situation in which it arises and is used. The embedding circumstances efficiently provide essential parts of its structure and meaning”
“By beginning with a task embedded in a familiar activity, it shows the students the legitimacy of their implicit knowledge and its availability as scaffolding in apparently unfamiliar tasks”
“By allowing students to generate their own solution paths, it helps make them conscious, creative members of the culture of problem-solving mathematicians. And, in enculturating though this activity, they acquire some of the cultures tools – a shared vocabulary and the means to discuss, reflect upon, evaluate and validate community procedures in a collaborative process”
“Collaboration also leads to the articulation of strategies, which can then be discussed and reflected on. This, in turn, fosters generalising, grounding in the students situated understanding”
“… teachers or coaches promote learning, firstly by making explicit their tacit knowledge or by modelling their strategies for students in authentic activity. Then, teachers and colleagues support student’s attempts at doing the task. And finally they empower the students to continue independently”
“An intriguing role in learning is played by ‘legitimate peripheral participation’, where people who are not taking part directly in a particular activity learn a great deal from their legitimate position on the periphery”
“This peripheral participation is particularly important for people entering the culture. They need to observe how practitioners at various levels behave and talk to get a sense of how expertise is manifest in conversation and other activities”
“Collective problem solving: Groups are not just a convenient way to accumulate the individual knowledge of their members. They give rise synergistically to insights and solutions that would not come about without them”
“Displaying multiple roles: Successful execution of most individual tasks requires students to understand the many different roles needed for carrying out any cognitive task. Getting one person to be able to play all the roles entailed by authentic activity and to reflect productively upon his or her performance is one of the monumental tasks of education. The group, however, permits different roles to be displayed and engenders reflective narratives and discussions about the aptness of those roles” – Is it enough for people to be able to discuss the tasks that someone else undertook in a group task for them to understand what is really involved without having done it?
“Groups can be efficient in drawing out, confronting and discussing both misconceptions and ineffective strategies”
Overall, a lot of interesting ideas here – it got a little more abstract as it continued and the concepts got more advanced but most of it makes sense.
April 25th, 2007
Driscoll, M.P. (2002). How People Learn (and What Technology Might Have To Do with It). ERIC Digest. ED470032
This is one of the best articles I’ve come across so far (and one of the shortest, which might help
Driscoll provides a simple and effective overview of factors that influence learning and examines the ways in which technology can be used in each case. My comments appear in blue italics
Learning occurs in context:
- learners attempt to make sense of something new and unfamiliar by drawing upon their prior understandings and experiences
- offering new knowledge in some kind of context makes it easier for learners to apply appropriate prior knowledge
- real world contexts are generally the most widely shared and add relevance to content
- problem solving in the form of games, puzzles and simulations can be made engaging using multimedia technology
- adding complexity makes them challenging and even more engaging
- building skills through sequential exercises allows learners to transfer new knowledge to newer problems
Learning is active:
- Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand. (Chinese proverb)
- “When students become active participants in the knowledge construction process, the focus of learning shifts from covering the curriculum to working with ideas (Scarmadalia, 2002)”
- Technology tools provide “the means through which individuals engage and manipulate both resources and their own ideas (Hannafin, Land & Oliver 1999)” As opposed to pen and paper? Actually, computer tools would still be easier and more effective here, you’re right
- Other technology tools help to represent knowledge and facilitate communication – e.g. visualisation tools
- Simulations can enable learners to model complex ideas
Learning is social:
- Students benefit from hearing perspectives other than their own in group work. Importance of peer opinion - Just today the Beyond Blue foundation (for depression) was talking about teaching teens the skills to help depressed friends.
- Students may bring different strengths to a complex and lengthy activity
- Learning, then, amounts to increasing participation in and contribution to the practices of a social community
- Concepts such as knowledge building, apprenticeship, and mentoring become paramount, as learners are conceived to be under the tutelage of more experienced peers or instructors.
- A social view of learning focusses attention on making connections among students within a school and between students in the school and the broader community. What about quieter students though – shy ones and less literate ones?
- Students can use software to collaborate “by creating ‘notes’ to express their ideas or integrate outside information about a topic. Then they read and respond to the notes of others, all of which builds a communal database producing shared knowledge about the topic or problem” Like something between a blog and a wiki? More like a blog really
- This can provide opportunities for students to “improve their understanding and become more personally involved in explaining scientific phenomena”
Learning is reflective:
- “Learning is facilitated when students get feedback about their thinking whether that feedback comes from within, a teacher or a peer” Emphasis on source of feedback comes back to the material being taught to an extent
- “Then provided the opportunity for revision, students can achieve at higher levels and reach deeper understandings”
- “Many… technology examples… facilitate discussion in the dialogue that they promote among learners. Where dialogue or discussion is not inherent in the tool, teachers bear the responsibility of initiating and guiding it”
My general observations:
Driscoll has succeeded in helping me to get some key concepts of collaborative work – the usefulness of feedback from all sources mainly – that had been eluding me.
My personal feeling is still that group work is rarely shared evenly and can often cover up for learners who don’t understand everything by allowing them to emphasise their strengths in other parts of the project.
What about the use of competition in collaborative work /projects? Could be a motivator for some (possibly a turn off for others though)
Providing a structure for reflection (much like the one listed in my previous post here ) is important – and sadly I think that so is making it an assessable part of the work with clearly stated guidelines and expectations.
Great article though Marcy Driscoll, thanks heaps
April 22nd, 2007
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)
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.
- How does learning occur?
- Which factors influence learning?
- What is the role of memory?
- How does transfer* occur?
- What types of learning are best explained by this theory?
- What basic assumptions/principles of this theory are relevant to instructional design?
- 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)
March 23rd, 2007
