Reflection on Learning Objects

Learning Object Reflection

According to Wikipedia.com, a learning object is “a collection of content items, practice items, and assessment items that are combined based on a single learning objective…Learning objects offer a new conceptualization of the learning process: rather than the traditional ‘several hour chunk,’ they provide smaller, self-contained , re-usable units of learning.”

According to Koppi (2004), “there are many definitions of learning objects…Reusability seems integral to the concept…although it is conceivable that some learning materials or activities are so contextual that they are only used once.” He continues, “(t)he more inherently contextual an object is, the less reusable it may be.”

Articulation is also an important concept for learning objects. Koppi (2004) states that “articulation is something that the teacher does with the object by placing it into a context.” Learning object need not necessarily communicate with one another.

Merrill (1999) describes learning object as “containers consisting of slots including: name, portrayal, and description. The name contains one or more symbols or terms that reference the knowledge. The portrayal is one or more multimedia objects (text, audio, video, graphic, animation) that will show or represent the knowledge object to the student. The description slot is an open compartment into which an author can place any desired information about the knowledge object.”

I think that it is easy to see how learning objects would be useful to the instructional designer. As mentioned in the lecture, however, the ID needs to be aware of the context in which the learning object was created, lest his lesson become a patchwork quilt learning activities with little or no internal cohesion. There appears to be an economic side to the use of learning objects: indeed, it makes little sense to reinvent the wheel, and if someone has created a learning activity that can be employed within the lesson the ID is creating, it simply makes sense to integrate it rather than create a whole new learning activity. Thus time and money are saved. I think a lot of time might be spent hunting for the perfect learning object. As long as they are efficiently indexed, I see no problem with using them.

Certainly I would use learning objects in my lessons. They’re convenient, one draws upon the intellectual capital of other designers, and they can, as already indicated, save much time when putting a lesson together.

I found some great resources having to do with learning objects, such as this learning object tutorial:
http://www.eduworks.com/index.php/Publications/Learning-Object-Tutorial.html

And here’s a handy little repository from Rice University:
http://cnx.org/

Cognitive Flexibility Theory Reflection

Cognitive Flexibility Reflection

What would happen if the internet, with its hypertext capabilities, and constructivist educational psychology got married and had a child? I think the child’s name would be “Cognitive Flexibility.”

According to Jacobson (1995), CFT addresses “empirically identified problems associated with the acquisition and transfer of complex knowledge.” Using the study of a geographical location as a metaphor, he states that a “rich and flexible understanding of a complex conceptual landscape will emerge only after the learner has made numerous transversals of the domain from different intellectual perspectives.”

Jonassen (1992) describes Cognitive Flexibility (CF) as a theory that provides “a meaningful, case-based approach to accessing information. Learners access information that they need to solve (a) particular case.” He also maintains that “(c)ognitive flexibility theory avoids oversimplifying instruction, provides multiple representations of content, emphasized case-based instruction which results in context-dependent knowledge, and supports knowledge construction and complexity which enables the learner to investigate the multiple perspectives represented in the knowledge domain in an exploratory way.”

CFT prescribes the following five principles as antidotes for the oversimplification of educational approaches:

1. Use multiple conceptual representations of knowledge
“CFT recommends employing multiple ways to represent knowledge in instructional activities…to reflect more accurately the multifaceted nature of complex knowledge.”

2. Link and tailor abstract concepts to different case examples
“CFT recommends illustrating abstract concepts using multiple case examples to demonstrate to the learner the nuances of abstract conceptual variability associated with ill-structured domains.”

3. Introduce domain complexity early
“CFT recommends the early introduction of complexity in a cognitively manageable manner that still reflects some of the multifaceted interactions of various conceptual elements.”

4. Stress the interrelated and web-like nature of knowledge
“CFT proposes that the demonstration of conceptual interrelationships in multiple contexts helps cultivate a rich and flexible understanding of a complex content area.”

5. Encourage knowledge assembly
“CFT proposes that the learner assemble relevant abstract conceptual and case-specific knowledge components for a given application or problem-solving task.”

So what we have here is a methodology which adapts to the flexible way in which we store and retrieve knowledge. Given the epistemic paradigm that learning is more than rote memorization, and that there is no "one size fits all" educational experience, the learner utilizing this approach may expect to synthesize cases and adapt them for his/her use as necessary. This is, of course, an approach suitable for problem-based and case-based education where situations are ill-defined. It appears to be extremely well-matched with the hypertext language of the internet, and affords the learner the flexibility to explore knowledge and transverse the intellectual universe from all desired angles. As the lady in the video says, "you are the learning management system!"

I think that this is an incredibly well-thought out approach, but it seems that one needs a programmer well-versed in HTML and Flash in order to pull off a really good educational product. The subject being taught is also of importance: it is recommended for ill-defined domains such as law and medicine, where no two cases are exactly alike and thus must draw from different perspectives and situations. I would have liked to have seen an example of this approach in a domain other than history: my opinion of this approach is not as concretized as I would like, not having seen such examples.

Drawbacks naturally are the time and expense involved in creation of curricula using this approach. Once again, companies specializing in multimedia educational products could easily produce lessons in this format while the average classroom teacher is left in the dust. Students with the belief that ill-defined problems are best approached in this manner will clearly benefit, otherwise it could be wasted effort.

Given the resources, certainly I would use this approach when creating instruction. It adapts well to internet usage and is supported by research to combat oversimplified educational methodologies. Anyone with a website could put together a lesson with this approach, but, once again, you might need a crackerjack html programmer to help put it together.

Reflection on Case-Based Learning

Wang (2003) describes Case-Based Learning as “a means for collecting, indexing, accessing, and analyzing cases.”

According to the Queen’s University Centre for Teaching and Learning, the eleven rules for Case-Based Learning are:
1. Tells a story
2. Focuses on an interest-arousing issue
3. Set in the past five years
4. Creates empathy with the central characters
5. Includes quotations. There is no better way to understand a situation and to gain empathy for the characters
6. Relevant to the reader
7. Must have pedagogic utility
8. Conflict provoking
9. Decision forcing
10. Has generality
11. Is short

Case-Based Learning strikes me as being a very practical, well-thought-out technique for teaching certain courses which require higher-order thinking skills, foremost among them, problem-solving and synthesis. Synthesis requires that the learner take an idea and mold it to fit his situation. There are no “right or wrong” answers in this approach…just plenty of divergent thinking with the goal of producing multiple responses that would adequately fit the situations for which they are intended. Once again, learning is student-centered and there is plenty of room for collaboration, and situations are relevant as well as authentic.

Jonassen (2002) describes stories as “the most natural and powerful formalism for storing and describing experiential knowledge that is essential to problem solving…Problems are solved by retrieving similar past experiences in the form of stories and applying the lessons learned from those stories to the new problems.” He further describes the ability of human intellect to synthesize and incorporate ideas when he states that “(t)he memory structures used for understanding the story are the same as those used to carry out the task…(g)iven the lack of previous experiences by novices, experiences available through a case library are expected to augment their repertoire of experiences by connecting with those they have experienced.”

Creation of a case library is central to this approach. Jonassen (2002) states that “(t)he process of understanding and solving new problems using case libraries has three parts:
1. Recalling old experiences
2. Interpreting the new situation in terms of the old experience based on the lessons that we learned from the old experience
3. Adapting the old solution to meet the needs of the new situation



This approach simply makes too much sense. All of us, when faced with a difficult situation, have asked people whose opinions we trust how they dealt with that particular situation. More often than not, those people are glad to tell us their stories so that we may synthesize their previously acquired wisdom to fit our situation. This is education in its most natural form, and teachers and instructional designers should be encouraged to use it generously.

There are a couple of difficulties, however, with this approach. As usual, the time required to create CBL is prohibitive, unless it will be used with repetition. Mass production by an educational firm once again is the cure for that ill. There is also the problem of finding authoritative persons who will be willing to give of their time and efforts to relate their own experiences on a wholesale basis.

I would not hesitate to use this theory because of the philosophical basis upon which the theory is designed. Authenticity, well-adapted to multimedia making it accessible to any student at any time, students have the ability to draw upon the intellectual capital of others and synthesize it for their own purposes, the list goes on and on.

Educational modules can easily be presented via internet using video broadcast media including Youtube and Ustream. Wikis, chatrooms , and collaboration sites such as Elluminate and Skype are the perfect companion to video broadcast sites. Not to mention websites presenting the good old standby, text.

Many in this class have already taken ECI 716, “Design & Evaluation of Instructional Materials.” Those who have taken this course have already been introduced to case-based learning, as videos were created for that course that describe situations that instructional designers have faced and require that students reflect upon the material and draw information for their own purposes.

Reflection on MOST Environments

“A major goal of MOST environments is to accelerate children’s learning by organizing instruction around rich, meaningful “macrocontexts” that students and teachers can mutually share and explore…(w)e want to make it possible for children who are at risk of school failure to interact with, teach, and learn from other students who may be more developmentally advanced.”

There is no question that “(l)iteracy skills are foundational for lifelong learning” and that “(s)uccess is particularly important at the beginning stages of reading because strategies, behaviors, and beliefs established early are difficult to change.” It is probably true as well that “at-risk students often receive instruction in phonics, vocabulary and decoding, where each is taught as an isolated skill that is unintegrated with other aspects of thinking and learning.”

Maybe it’s because I have no background in teaching reading or working with at-risk students. Or maybe I’m getting crusty in my old age. Whatever the reason may be, I’m not terribly impressed by this approach.

Our reading related an anecdote where some at-risk students were read a story and others saw the video version of the same story. The students who saw the video version were more able than the others to “retell the story and answer the comprehension questions.” Facepalm. Of course they were. One normally extracts more understanding of a story through use of video than solely through use of text.

Another important feature in this methodology is telling the story to a puppet. As one who intends to create instruction to be administered by Internet or other A-V means, I am struggling to imagine young readers telling the story to an inanimate object after seeing the video on the computer, or even in a classroom. I see frustration looming. Money’s scarce, maybe they can “talk to the hand!”

After reading about the anecdote about using video to support a story about Donald Duck. It seems interesting, has some degree of common sense, but the time and technology required to dice up a story and interject video in strategic locations would be prohibitive. Once again, time and money rear their ugly heads.

I’m sure that I am coming off as bitterly opposed to this approach, and in reality, I am not, it is just that I think that there are better methods for teaching reading comprehension to at-risk students, especially via Internet. If studies show that this approach is effective, so be it. I’m just not excited about children relating stories to puppets and creating a rubric that will determine that child’s reading scores. Teachers can always motivate students to read by choosing books and magazines which appeal to the students.

I began to wonder whatever happened to Sesame Street. As far as I know, the show was cancelled years ago, but it seemed to be fairly effective at teaching children how to read. Children loved the characters, and there was plenty of music and special effects to bedazzle younger learners, essentially selling them on the idea of reading. So I did a little research, and, surely enough, Sesame Street continues to influence the teaching of reading to younger students:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8404427/Phonics-QandA-why-Sesame-Street-learning-is-making-a-comeback.html

I decided to do a little research and came across a Master’s Thesis by Ellen K. Closs. She offers plenty of useful advice on this subject, and after reading her thesis, would tend to lean towards her methodology for teaching younger at-risk readers: Here’s a link to her thesis:

http://www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/TeachingReadingComprehensiontoStrugglingReaders-MastersThesisbyEllen.pdf

So, in conclusion, I see time involved and technology needed to create the videos to be a restriction to the use of this approach. If the appropriate videos are manufactured by the folks at Vanderbilt, I suppose they’re worth a shot. At-risk students apparently do benefit from their use, apparently, at least according to the literature. I’m not certain how to assess student learning, unless the students wanted to e-mail their instructor(s) relating what happened in the video.

Once again, I just do not see using this methodology for creation of internet and distance-based education. Embedding information into the videos is absolutely beneficial, and with the time and technology to do so, I suppose that it’s worth the effort. YouTube, Vimeo, and Ustreem would all be excellent ways of transmitting the videos to interested parties.

As for the puppets…well…the students can find their own!

Star Legacy Reflection

The Star Legacy approach is described to be similar to Anchored Instruction, but as I am reading the steps involved, I am struck by its similarity to Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction:

1. Gain attention
2. Inform learner of objectives
3. Stimulate recall of prior learning
4. Present stimulus material
5. Provide learner guidance
6. Elicit performance
7. Provide feedback
8. Assess performance
9. Enhance retention and transfer

The only apparent differences to me between Star Legacy and Gagne are the emphases on context, statements by experts on the problem being addressed (which I suppose could loosely be kin to “provide learner guidance) and on the publishing of final results. Plus, there is the reflective thinking of Dewey that we have come to expect in all of our methodologies.

There is also an eerie similarity to Guided Design:
1. Define Problem
2. State Objectives
3. List Constraints limiting solutions, assumptions one must make, and facts to be known,
4. Generate possible solutions and evaluate using criteria,
5. Select one solution, synthesize,
6. Present results and recommendations as a result, or other project
7. Implement decision,
8. Evaluate results, and
9. Feedback should be provided how an “experienced” decision maker might have performed.

Or maybe all the methodologies are just starting to look alike!

As in Anchored Instruction, this is a marvelous methodology for maximum metacognition (sorry ‘bout the alliteration, it just worked out that way!) We are given a problem that piques our interest, one which is meaningful and authentic…our attention is retained with a motivating mental model (there, did it again!)…we find out what we know and what we need to find out…then we begin to generate ideas in concert with our peers, utilizing perspectives from experts….then we begin to refine our ideas through research…we get feedback from the instructor…our ideas are put to the test…then, once our ideas have gained the “academic seal of approval”, we herald our newly-founded intellectual prowess to others so that others may benefit from our accomplishments!

As with AI, this would be an extremely time-consuming approach for the average classroom teacher to create. However, I think it would be an outstanding approach IF the appropriate software were made available. The learning cycle is the heart of this approach, and therefore the software to be used should adhere to the learning cycle. This would make a most worthwhile endeavor for software developers specializing in educational applications. Obviously the program would need to be made available to the students either online or as software. There appears to be a flexibility that allows adaptation to various disciplines, plus the philosophical foundation of this approach so greatly resembles other well-thought out approaches, so I would not hesitate to use it for teaching and training.

Reflection on Anchored Instruction

Reflection on Anchored Instruction

The Anchored Instruction approach appears to be an eclectic amalgam of the best features of Situated Cognition, Problem-Based Learning Environments, and Goal Based Scenarios. Anchored Instruction is described as “situated in engaging, problem-rich environments that allow sustained exploration by students and teachers. In the process, they come to understand why, when, and how to use various concepts and strategies.” Once again, as in past models, there is an emphasis on helping students to become “independent thinkers and learners rather than simply become able to perform basic computations and retrieve simple knowledge facts.”

In similar manner as Situated Cognition, I am enamored by the idea of “creating apprenticeships composed of authentic tasks.” What a change would be made in our typical math and science classes, if we were to infuse some authenticity! Subject matter, as is, tends to be inert and irrelevant to real life situations, and most of the approaches we have been studying are directed toward this problem.

In fact, there’s really little not to like about the Anchored Instruction approach. The format is video-based, narrative with realistic problems, generative, embedded data design, challenging in the level of problem complexity, introduces transferable problem-solving skills, and links across the curriculum. What else can a math or science teacher ask for?

I find it highly encouraging that the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has made suggestions for changes in classroom activities, such as “more emphasis on complex, open-minded problem solving, communication, and reasoning…more connections from mathematics to other subjects, and to the world outside the classroom…and more use of calculators and…computer-based tools.” Anchored Instruction capitalizes on these recommendations in an innovative manner, I think, highly desirable for today’s classroom or for e-learning.

Just as Anchored Instruction is reminiscent of other approaches, so will be my reservations. The time taken to create adventures such as the ones described would be exorbitant, and as long as they were created and published on videodisk, they would probably be ideal. Since this class is more about e-learning than about classroom environments, publishing adventures online would be a wonderful way to convey the adventures. Then, also, is the concern that students learn the curriculum prescribed by the State Board of Education. If, however, this approach follows the guidelines of the NCTM, I think it reasonable to assume that the State Board would be satisfied.

Once again, Elluminate and Skype would be excellent ways for groups to collaborate, but after seeing the video I am linking to this post, I think that problems could arise when students are not located in the same geographic location. Second Life has not been mentioned so far, and that could prove to be an excellent means for collaboration.

It appears also to be of enormous benefit to those with reading disabilities. I particularly like the emphasis on the use of video disk for that reason, plus the other reasons given in our readings:
It allows students to develop pattern recognition skills
Allows students to more easily form rich mental models of the problem situations, and
Random-access capabilities: allows teachers to almost instantly access information for discussion.
I also like the fact that material is embedded in the video, making it possible for students to review the video while generating solutions to the problems posed. I also like its emphasis on linking to other subjects and giving students practice in addressing complex problems using open-ended thinking, which they’ll need in the real world.

All in all, I think that a creative team of Flash and Java developers, or just some creative people with film-making skills, could put together a wicked little curriculum which would not only motivate online students, but enable them to develop the thinking skills needed for the outside world!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlsnYwp870

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

I just had to share this video I saw on YouTube:

Reflection on Goal-Based Scenarios

There’s no question but that the Goal-Based Scenario approach is more interesting than chalk-and-talk. There’s also no question but that we lose young people somewhere between elementary school and high school due to the inability/unwillingness of school systems to relinquish its use of traditional teaching methodologies. Furthermore, GBS adapts wonderfully to internet applications, allowing the creator of online instruction to employ flash animation into a learning module.

So why am I less than totally enthusiastic about GBS? Well, to be totally honest, I can see how GBS would be of tremendous benefit in, say, an American History or World Civilization class, or perhaps as a supplement to home economics or biology. But would it work in a music, foreign language, or mathematics class? And how might one evaluate a student using this approach? Would we be able to prove to the state board that the students have learned the curriculum sufficiently to give them passing grades? And if we’re talking about “learning by doing”, isn’t that exactly what Cognitive Apprenticeship is all about? Will students remember what they have learned long after the class is over? These are unresolved issues that one must consider before employing GBS.

Some of the models I have seen of GBS presuppose that the student has gained a sufficient understanding of economics, mathematics, and the like to be able to make the intelligent decisions required of them. How did they gain this expertise in the first place? By role-play? That seems a bit far-fetched to me.

In many ways, however, this approach makes all the sense in the world. We are, after all, goal-directed by our very nature, and our goals carry along with them certain expectations. We need to learn how to make plans to achieve our goals, otherwise our goals are nothing more than daydreams. Plus, in the process of achieving our goals, we may just fail at first. GBS does not condemn the erring student to failure, but allows him/her to learn from his/her error. This is where explanation comes in. There’s nothing like positive feedback from a mentor to help us understand why we failed, and encourage us to get back on our feet and try again.

Schenk makes a comment that rather annoys me: “you cannot really teach anyone anything unless they are ready to receive new information.” This reminds me of psychedelic humanism, which suggests that we are not to teach a child anything unless he/she has expressed a felt need to learn. That’s when I usually “wax third reich” and tell the student that he is about to explain his unwillingness to learn to the school principal!

Schenk does make one profound statement: “Commonly, learners do not understand the relevance of what they learn, and the lessons do not apply to an intrinsically motivating goal. The effect of these shortcomings is that learners do not index the lessons learned effectively, and thus cannot retrieve them when they need them.” Schenk’s final statement in this week’s reading really sums up his approach: “One can maximize the effectiveness of GBS learning environments when the domain and the scenario are interesting to the student. When students are pursuing goals in a topic that they care about, they are motivated to pay attention to the information that is required to accomplish that goal. They are unlikely to forget what they learn, because the lessons will be indexed with other memories of other experiences in the domain. When they work within the domain again, they are likely to retrieve the relevant memories. GBSs allow the students to do target skills by doing them. Each experience provided within the GBS environment helps the learner to build a domain-relevant case library, complete with many lessons learned. This is how novices become experts.”

Sounds like Dr. Schenk just answered one of my questions.

Reflection on Cognitive Apprenticeship

Having studied music and drafting, I could not be more enthused with any other educational methodology as I am with cognitive apprenticeship.

The teacher who uses this approach doesn’t teach inert musical, mathematical, historical, or engineering facts divorced from real world situations:  (s)he teaches the student how to think like a musician, a mathematician, a historian, or an engineer.  By doing so, according to DeBruijn (1995), the instructor allows the student to acquire “cognitive and metacognitive knowledge and skills by means of observation and guided practice.”

In its most basic form, cognitive apprenticeship begins with four teaching strategies:  modeling, scaffolding, coaching, and then fading.  This is precisely what the music teacher does when he shows the young music student how to play an instrument.  He demonstrates how it is done, explaining all of the “how’s and why’s”, after which it is the student’s turn to begin to follow the lead of the teacher, and as (s)he gains more and more confidence with his/her newly acquired skill, the teacher begins to withdraw his/her pedagogical presence, until finally the student is able to perform in public without the need of being coached by the instructor.

Once the student has achieved an acceptable degree of competence at the newly acquired skill, (s)he then has an opportunity to articulate his/her problem solving strategies to the instructor, who in turn reflects on the student’s cognitive processes, making the student’s problem solving process perceivable.  Finally the cognitive apprenticeship enters into the exploration phase, where the student is able to create and solve his/her own problems.

Also, interestingly enough, evaluation is frequently done by means of nonconventional testing methods, most popularly portfolios.  Rather than matching and multiple-choice items, the apprentice is responsible to submit samples of his/her work for instructor approval.  This, too, is related to real-world situations, where the test of one’s competence is determined by the quality of the product.

Debruijn cites Resnick (1987) as saying that “(l)earning at school is considered to be an activity in which knowledge and skills are isolated from their practical uses, whereas, in normal life, knowledge cannot be isolated from the activities in which it is required.”  Hopefully cognitive apprenticeship will enable us to steer away from antiquated methodologies having little if anything to do with real world situations and towards those which are transferable and relevant to situations outside the halls of academe.

I am personally extremely impressed with this methodology and find it very usable in an online situation.  In particular, as a drafter, I can envision a situation where I would be able to create a drawing in, say, Google Sketchup, explaining why I am using the commands available in the program to create a 3-D drawing.  A collaborative website such as Dimdim, which would allow me to see the drawing as it is being produced would easily allow me to coach my student.  Once the student has demonstrated an acceptable level of skill,  I could send him/her a drawing, say “here’s your project, good luck” and have him/her submit the results for evaluation.  The student would eventually have the opportunity to create his/her own drawings with all of the problems that the drawing entailed, and would be able to synthesize the problem-solving strategies previously learned for use in their own drawings.  What an exciting concept!  The only problem I see with this is having a superabundance of apprentices.  There are only so many hours in the day.  I suppose that the simple solution to that would be to have master drafters under my supervision who could help me with all the Sketchup artists trying to achieve greatness at the craft! :P

Reflection on Problem-Based Learning

Refection on Problem-Based Learning

Deja-Vu.

Seems like I’ve seen this somewhere before.  Students are broken up into groups and have been given a strategy with which to solve a problem.  The instructor acts more like a facilitator than a grand exalted disseminator of knowledge.  Learning is collaborative.  Students are responsible for their own learning.  Oh yeah…that’s Guided Design!

But, wait…we’re in a new chapter now, aren’t we?  It appears to me that Problem-Based Learning is pretty much the same thing as Guided Design, but with greater emphasis on beginning with open-ended, ill-defined and ill-structured problems.  Such an approach is ideal for subjects where divergent thinking is symptomatic of the field of interest, such as health sciences, education, and engineering.  It occurred to me as I was reading about PBL that this kind of thinking is what detectives thrive on.  PBL should be enormously popular in criminal justice classes.

Let’s face it, the traditional approach to education is coming under greater fire as time goes on.  Educational approaches are like tools….we can mold them to fit our particular need, and considering how PBL has caught on since the 50’s, it is obvious that, for some academic areas at least, it is of enormous benefit to the students.

PBL also resembles Cooperative Learning in that the group is responsible for the material that is being learned.  The learning process is organized and directed with support from an instructor or tutor.  Students are asked what they do not know, and are required to do research to find any number of possible solutions.  Such an approach is easily transferable to real-life situations beyond the halls of academe.

Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen (2003) state that “a primary goal of PBL is to prepare students to be self-directed, life-long learners and practical problem solvers.”  They go on to say that such preparation “contrasts with the need to prepare students for standardized tests.”  This statement resonated with me due to a situation posed in a previous class at NSCU:  that of the ethicalness of teaching to a test.  It must be remembered that college is NOT the real world, and that students must pass standardized tests before becoming licensed professionals.  Still, I think that the transfer of problem-solving skills that PBL affords ameliorates the doubts of most of the skeptics.

Koschmann (1995) forward PBL as a means of fostering “hypothetico-deductive reasoning, which “has been described as hypothesis generation followed by inquiry (Elstein, Shulman, & Sprafka, 1978.)”  There are several ways in which students develop this reasoning, also referred to as “the clinical reasoning process. (Barrows & Feltovich, 1987, cited in Koschmann, 1995.)  Firstly, ill-structured problems resemble real-life situations faced by health professionals;  they are examined in small-group settings, allowing for collaboration among team members; and students must be proactive in doing the necessary research to find the best solution to the problem.  All things considered, I think this would qualify PBL as a superior means of teaching health science or engineering.

Reflection on Cooperative Education

As I am reading about Cooperative Education, I cannot help but to be tormented by ambivalent feelings about this philosophy, overall.  On the one hand, cooperative education has an enormous amount of empirical evidence to suggest that symbiotic relationships between group members greatly facilitates the learning process:  once again we are told that education does not take place in a vacuum, and in the real world, we cooperate with others as we delve into educational experiences.

On the other hand, one notices that evaluation is norm-referenced rather than criterion-referenced.  This adds fuel to the fire of the distracters of cooperation who point out that under cooperative education, it’s about the group, not about the individual learner.  Some go as far as to say that cooperative education furthers a socialist agenda.  That, to me, is a bit extreme:  parts of cooperative education make too much sense, such as shared understanding, to dismiss it in such a manner.  Years ago I learned more about architecture from fellow classmates than I did from the instructor.  Then again, taking the instructor into consideration, I had to learn from my fellow classmates.

In many ways, this approach seems too good to be true.  I am thinking of classes where there were a couple of disenfranchised students who sat at the back of the room, apathy written all over their faces.  I am wondering how these students would interact with their fellow classmates if given the chance to share their insights and experience.  Who knows, I might be pleasantly surprised.

There appears to be several effective techniques for handling students of varying degrees of  motivation.  I would have to see them in operation to pass judgment.

One of the concepts that has been mentioned in relation to this approach is that of students teaching other students, and the powerful effect doing so has on the student’s own learning.  Stephen Covey wrote an immensely popular book in 1989 called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  After presenting and elaborating on the habits, he recommends that the reader teach others what he/she had learned, reasoning that when we teach something, we learn it twice.  This is excellent advice for anyone in the educational or business world, and I am delighted to see its inclusion in the Cooperative Learning approach.

I would not hesitate to use this method to teach aspiring drafters, at least not if they were all together in the same room and therefore able to gauge each others’ reactions.  I have seen this approach used before first hand, and it works.

My gut instinct is that Cooperative Education could be a nightmare if used in an online environment.  Previous experiences have afforded me the opportunity to notice how people interact when meetings are held strictly online.  It was certainly be interesting to observe the group dynamics involved as normally introverted personalities transform into more extroverted ones in an online environment.  One sometimes needs a referee to control the competitive member and encourage the unmotivated.

The old standbys such as Elluminate and Skype would be essential to provide an ambience in which 2-5 students could cooperate online and share with each other as they engage in a group project. 

Guided Design

Reflection on Guided Design

After reading what I have about Guided Design, I would have to say that I’m an avid enthusiast of this approach to E-learning for three reasons:  it’s relevant to the real world, it’s incredibly well-thought out, and the problem-solving skills fostered in this approach transfer so well to real-life applications.  It does share the same emphasis on small groups as the A-T approach, but this does not make it dysfunctional:  decisions are generally made in concert with peers in the real world, after all.

As stated by White and Coscarelli (1986), the Guided Design approach was developed “with the objective of helping students to become ‘adaptive, creative, independent people.’  He reasoned that before students could reach that goal, they would have to obtain three different types of skills:  knowledge, decision-making, and values.  Traditional teaching…typically concentrate(s) on only the first, knowledge.  In order for students to learn decision-making skills and value skills a completely new educational system must be designed.”  They state that a mentor is necessary to guide others stepwise in acquiring decision-making skills, that students must practice “applying these decision-making steps to progressively more difficult problems, and that the mentor “must be available at each step of the process to point out errors or answer questions.”  That, in my opinion, creates a formidable task for the online teacher.  I think that if the mentor is divorced from the milieu in which the problem-solving strategies are required, there may not be sufficient understanding on the part of the mentor to adequately supply the steps needed to solve a particular problem.

The Guided Design approach prescribes the following activities:

• Independent Study

Students are to learn the class material outside of class from “programmed instruction materials, audio-tutorial lectures, or a textbook supplemented by teaching notes.”

• Small Groups

“Students are organized into groups of 4-6 to apply their knowledge skills in solving unstructured, open-ended problems.”

• Guided Design Projects

“Each project is designed so that students must apply the course content material that they have just learned, thus creating a need for their knowledge skills.”

• Instructor as Model and Mentor

The instructor “must help to guide students through the decision-making process and show them how a professional applies both knowledge and values in solving real problems”, rather than simply being a “transmitter of knowledge.”

• Competency-Based Testing

“Tests are…developed from the performance objectives established for the independent study material.”

• Grading

“Grades are usually based on both test scores and grades assigned to project reports.”

Altogether, this is the most effective approach to preparing young people for the real world that I have seen to date:  We have progressed from lecture format to mentorship and have begun to employ real-life situations requiring real-life problem solving techniques in a real-life manner.  The only difference is, in the real world, you don’t get a grade:  you eat or get eaten!

In addition, I am particularly enamored with White and Coscarelli’s attention to hierarchical analysis.  They advise that the creation of a hierarchical analysis will force the instructor to “look at what (he/she) want(s) the students to learn and how all of the parts of the course fit together.”  Hierarchical analysis implies that there are a number of skills to be learned in a Guided Design course, and that the mastery of some skills is required before progressing to other skills.  Hierarchical analysis enables the instructor to organize skills from easiest to hardest, thus more efficiently organizing the course content.

As stated earlier, the instructor (or mentor) has the formidable task of guiding his various groups of students through the decision-making process.  This can be particularly daunting, as no one person has faced all the problems which are to be solved, especially considering the quantity of problems the mentor must examine in order to help his students find solutions to those problems.  For this reason I would be hesitant to use this approach, unless I only had a couple dozen students.  I would imagine that the person who is able to overcome this disadvantage will have the satisfaction of knowing that his students are going out into the world armed with general problem-solving strategies which, with higher-order thinking skills such as synthesis, will enable them to tackle problems not covered in class.

I see online collaborative resources such as Elluminate as being instrumental to small groups with this approach.  Elluminate and similar packages will allow students to get together to strategize and to work on group projects.  They may have to be patient with their instructor, however, as he/she may struggle to provide the step-by-step guidance they need in solving problems.  Synchronous instruction may be impossible in the case of large classes.  The instructor may need to rely upon tutors, or point his/her students in the direction of online and other resources to help them learn problem-solving strategies.

A Guided Design-based course probably wouldn’t need an LMS such as Moodle in order to operate.  This kind of course relies on communication between instructor and students, hence any e-mail supplemented by Messenger or Elluminate for instant communication would probably be adequate.  Of course, one would also need an online evaluation tool, such as test.com.

References

Coscarelly, W.C., and White, G.P.; The Guided Design Handbook:  Patterns in Implementation. (1986) Morgantown, WV: National Center for Guided Design.

Reflection: The A-T Approach

Postlethwait’s Audio-Tutorial method impresses me as an extravagantly complicated method for delivering instruction.  The three phases: General Assembly Session (GAS), Independent Study Session (ISS), and Integrated Quiz Session (IQS) left me asking myself if this method isn’t virtually what I did in my old foreign language classes.

Kulik, Kulik, and Cohen (1979) state that “(m)any researchers who compared A-T and conventional teaching concluded that this approach was at least as effective as conventional training.”  However, they indicate that “Keller’s Personalized System of Instruction or PSI…has produced much more dramatic results.”  PSI “made a substantial contribution to examination performance and also contributed significantly to student ratings of course quality.”  They clearly were not as impressed with the A-T approach.  They conclude that “A-T does not lead to higher or lower course ratings than conventional teaching methods.

One of the advantages of this system is allegedly to progress through the material at their own pace.  This may appear to be an attractive feature, but Kulik, Kulik, and Cohen point out in their monograph that pacing does not appear to ameliorate the differences between the slower and the more efficient learners

This method appears to be what a financially well-endowed school might want to use if it wanted to appear “trendy.”  Certainly, under this method, students are no longer sequestered by long-winded, mind-numbingly boring instructors who seem to ramble on and on long after the most astute class member has lost his/her attention span.

As mentioned in the lecture, several barriers appear:  students need to be self-directed and must take the responsibility for their own learning, the creation of tapes and other media is time-consuming, and, in the physical “learning lab”, materials had to be organized for student use.  Many students, however, adapt well to being self-directed (although not all are) and the internet allows us greater efficiency in organizing, creating, and distributing the learning materials.

Still, it is unlikely that I will use the A-T approach, as the Keller Plan, and especially the Guided Learning method appear to be superior methods of delivery of instruction via internet.  I feel that the three phases of the A-T approach make the delivery of online instruction unnecessarily difficult, especially when coordinating small assembly sessions and peer support sessions.  Perhaps modifications could be made, but once they were, A-T would closely resemble other more efficient methodologies.

Were this model to be used, audio-visual materials could easily be delivered by YouTube, Ustreem, and  mp3 files.  Websites such as Dimdim, Elluminate and Come To Meeting could be used for peer tutoring sessions.  Quiz sites such as Quia could be used.  Certainly Moodle could be used to deliver most if not all of the class materials.

References:

Kulik, J. A., Kulik, C. C., and Cohen, P.A.; Research on Audio-Tutorial Instruction: A Meta-Analysis of Comparative Studies. (1979)

Reflection on Davis

Reflection on Davis

“…learning is a very creative activity that can seldom be scheduled. That is, no teacher, no matter how good, can say “You will learn this, now!” Learning is basically an asynchronous, creative adventure. Accordingly, we should attempt to design learning environments that facilitate asynchronous learning experiences for all students. Synchronicity should be a choice not a demand.”

What a profound statement this is, and it is, in my opinion, the most important statement made in this monograph.  Since the beginning of recorded history, instruction has relied on synchronicity, viz., all students are to assemble at the instructor’s feet, as it were, to receive an education.  The instructor communicated the perceived necessary information and may well have used the Socratic method to encourage the use of critical thinking among his students, gauging his disciples’ reactions for evidence of having achieved comprehension.  Such educational activities could hardly be done if the students were scattered in time and in place.

With the advent of modern technologies, it is no longer necessary to require the students to be in the same place at the same time, and, especially with the development of the internet, it is remarkable that some institutions continue to require students to convene in one geographical location at a particular time in order to be taught.  True, there are academic subjects which, by their nature, require a laboratory which is extremely difficult if not impossible to accomplish by means of an internet connection, but generally, we have come to a time in our history when we realize that we need no longer be bound to traditional methods for learning.

That there are efficient learners and inefficient learners is hardly a new discovery.  With modern technologies it is possible to accommodate learners, however fast or slow, however good or poor.

I have long been critical of the “cookie cutter” concept in education that assumes that all students will learn the same material at the same time and at the same pace.  Every student brings his/her own learning ability into the classroom, and it is immensely unfair to expect the slower learners to somehow speed up their cognitive capabilities or for the faster learners to force themselves into a cognitive suspended animation while waiting for the rest of the class to catch up with them.  “Accommodation” is the magic word here:  modern technologies accommodate students with differing learning capabilities, and we do our students a tremendous disservice by expecting them all to learn at the same rate.

The Keller Plan

The Keller plan offers a very simple, commonsense approach to education which is just as applicable in the classroom as it is online or aided by other media such as CDs and other media.

1.                  Clear educational objectives

Morrison, Ross, and Kemp (2007) describe three important functions of educational objectives:  to “select and organize instructional activities and resources that facilitate effective learning”, to “provide a framework for devising ways to evaluate student learning” and to “guide the learner.  The rationale is that students will use the objectives to identify the skills and knowledge they must master.”

We have probably all taken courses in which there did not seem to be any particular set of objectives:  the instructor rambled seemingly incoherently as well as indefinitely, taxing the attention levels of the students.  With the Keller plan, students know in advance what cognitive and behavioral objectives will be satisfied.

           

2.                  Small learning modules with associated achievement tests and immediate feedback.

This, I believe, is a common sense approach to education.  The learner is not overwhelmed with a vast amount of information upon which he/she will be tested.  Rather, the lesson is broken up into “bite-sized” morsels which are more easily digested, after which the learner receives input as to how successfully his/her learning experience has transpired.

Learning, I believe, is like painting a portrait:  we do not paint the whole picture and then ask ourselves if it looks like the person we have in mind.  We paint the background and evaluate whether it is to our satisfaction.  Then we do the same with the face, the eyes, the hair, so on and so forth, one object at a time.  Finally, we can look at the overall picture and evaluate ourselves on the whole piece of artwork.

3.                  Student self-pacing

Morrison, Ross, and Kemp (2007) indicate that “much evidence supports the belief that optimum learning takes place when a student works at his or her own pace, is actively involved in performing specific learning tasks, and experiences success in learning.”  They add that “the important features for the learner are responsibility, pacing, and successful learning based on specific learning objectives and a variety of activities with accompanying resources.” (pp. 219-220).

4.                  Positive reinforcement

According to Davidson-Shivers and Rasmussen (2006), “(p)ositive reinforcers are used to maintain and strengthen desirable behaviors and are those things considered to be pleasant that are presented after the desired behavior has occurred.” (p.41).  Although positive reinforcers are effective when used appropriately in the educational process, Davidson-Shivers and Rasmussen include that “(b)ecause it is doubtful that any form of punishment would be very successful within a WBI situation, it is best to apply positive reinforcers and avoid negative consequences.”(p. 43).

5.                  Student emphasis on doing rather than listening

Coscarelli & White (1986) state that “(e)ffective instructional systems emphasize active rather than passive involvement in learning.  “As contrasted with the stereotypical lecture session, individualized mastery approaches will expect the learner to assume active involvement in the class. The teacher is no longer responsible for pouring knowledge into waiting vessels.” (p.6).  There is, instead, an emphasis on learning rather than on teaching.  The teacher, then, becomes  more of a manager of the students’ learning experience.

A few years ago, I earned an Associate of Applied Science degree in Drafting Design Technology.  Lectures were brief, but were given only as necessary.  The greater emphasis was on labs, as the class needed to engage in activities which would result in the successful acquisition of a new marketable skill.  Having been in such an ambience, I can testify to how much better one learns with educational activities rather than by passively listening to lecture.

My initial reaction to this model is that it makes all the sense in the world.  It recognizes that distance education is growing at an astonishing rate and that today’s technology is makes the academic establishment well able to reach those who, for any reason, cannot receive their education within the walls of a brick-and-mortar college.

The key elements of the Keller plan:  clear educational objectives, small learning modules with associated achievement tests and immediate feedback, student self-pacing, positive reinforcement, and student emphasis on doing rather than listening, are principles that work marvelously in the classroom.  It is all too obvious that these elements would greatly benefit distance education.

Arranging for qualified student assistants to be present during class times can present a problem.  The financial aspect of this may be prohibitive.  Test preparation on the part of the instructor might also prevent time constraints.

I would absolutely use this model when teaching via internet or other media.  It is extremely well-thought out, is based on much research, has been developed successfully at many educational establishments, and has proven to be of great value in distance education.  Perhaps a staff of instructors working in concert could alleviate the problem of recruiting others to monitor student behavior.

There are learning management systems such as WebCT which could be used to leveraged to employ the Keller plan in an online learning environment.  I have used sites such as MyICourse.com to deliver instruction, and it can easily be seen how the Keller plan could operate in concert with that site.  Microsoft’s Learning Content Development System could also easily be employed with the Keller plan.

References:

Coscarelli, W., and White, G. (1986).  The Guided Design Guidebook:  Patterns in Implementation.  Morgantown, WV:  The National Center for Guided Design, West Virginia University.

Davidson-Shivers, G., and Rasmussen, K.  (2006).  Web-Based Learning:  Design, Implementation, and Evaluation.  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Pearson Education, Inc.

Morrison, G., Ross, S., and Kemp, J.  (2007).  Designing Effective Instruction. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.