Sunday, November 11, 2012
Problem Solving and Learner Motivation
Although behaviorists and constructivist will both utilize problem solving in instructional design, the application and types of problems utilized, as well as the desired outcome, are different. The behaviorist is more likely to utilize the traditional strictly defined problem scenarios which offer the learner limited opportunity to deviate from a predetermined line of thought. The behaviorist will be looking for a structured response to a structured problem from a structured approach to the problem. The behaviorist will also be more likely to assist the learner by providing "answers" to questions. This is in constrast to the likely approach of the constructivist who will likely design problems which are more "open" allowing the learner to not only develop their own unique perspective of the problem but allowing them the opportunity to learn concepts necessary to the development of the solution through a discovery process as they work through the problem. This is in contrast to the behaviorist who might spend instructional time prior to the presentation of the problem defining all of the necessary vocabulary and skills for solving the problem. The learner will likely respond very differently to the 2 approaches to problem solving. Research seems to indicate that the learner may become bored with the problem solving presented by the behaviorist due to the mundane nature of the problem and the lack of enginuity and authenticity. The learner will also likely fall into the scenario described by Jonassen wherein the learner will short-change the learning experience by approaching the problem from a problem-avoidance perspective as he\she perceives that the behaviorist instructor's only real purpose in presenting the problem is to acquire a predefined "book" answer. The learner motivation when approaching the problem presented by the behaviorist instructor is to complete the assignment and provide the correct answer - hardly an example of intrinsic motivation and more than likely motivation that will not affect his\her Habits of Thought! The constructivist will more likely develop a more real world, genuine based problem, allowing the learner to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to solve the problem as they go. This should develop a sense of interest and, if designed correctly, a sense of intrinsic motivation to solve the problem. I would think that the constructivist might present this problem within an environment designed around the concept of the task and instructional spaces described by Reigeluth, establishing an instructional environment in which the learner might feel free to move back and forth in the environment, exploring the problem and seeking research based information to fill in knowledge and skill gaps required to solve the problem. As the learner takes on the responsibility and in fact is given the opportunity to develop his\her own resolution to the issue, intrinsic motivation should be developed and the learner will hopefully develop the schemas necessary to not only solve this problem, but to apply the learning (not the solution) from this problem to future problems.
Contextualist Epistemology
My understanding of the contextualist epistemology is that this group places more of a focus on the social context in which the learning exists as a critical element affecting learning, the retention of knowledge, and the meaning of the learning to the learner. Although the constructivist takes the same approach in that learning is viewed more as an inside-out approach, the constructivist does not appear to place the same weight on the social context of the learner. Certainly the behaviorist is on the right wing of this equation, placing the weight of learning soley on the response of the learner to stimuli (outside-in). Instructional designers adhering to any one of these different approaches to learning will design the learning environment accordingly. Whereas the positivist will approach learning by providing distinct learning objectives which will be presented in the same manner to all learners and will probably utilize norm-based assessment, the relativist will be more likely to "customize" the environment to the learner and will seek to assess learning through authentic works and criterion based assessments. Of all approaches, the contextualist will most likely be oriented to design a classroom demonstrating characteristics not unlike those described by Reigeluth, including design features which focus on learner-centered, customized elements. I would think that this person would also be most likely to see the value in the task and instructional spaces and team and individual assessment techniques as described by Reigeluth, as these elements would likely allow for very individualized instruction which would allow for the social being of the learner to not only be emphasized but also seized upon as a strength rather than a weakness.
Epistemology and Instructional Theories
When discussing epistemology and instructional theories, I think it is safe to state that the latter would not exist without the former, obviously. And just as there are varied understandings and theories concerning how we learn and retain information, there are even more theories about how to go about affecting learning and knowing. Each instructional method or model attempts to leverage, typically, a specific understanding of learning to accomplish this goal. There are however, those instructional methods which attempt to cover the gammet of several learning theories. The focus has shifted from attempting to transmit distinct and often isolated bits of information based on methods leveraging behaviorism to affecting whole learning and long term cognition based on interacting and leveraging characteristics of learning described by the cognitive psychologists and anthropologists also known as constructivism. Constructivism based instructional models tend to be more wholistic in nature, taking a "problem" oriented approach to instruction and offering the learner the opportunity to learn within the context of his\her cultural environment and leveraging their prior knowledge to generate an understanding and solution which fits within an existing schema or at least one that the learner has "updated" through the process of working through the problem. Of all of the content included within this section of reading, I thought that one of the most interestingly accusing points was made by Jonassen as he discussed problem solving as a design for instruction. Certainly this is an approach which has received a great deal of attention and focus in recent years as educators attempt to develop higher order thinking oriented learning environments, however I think Jonassen makes a point which is undeniable and holds a great deal of liability for educators. He states that as problem solving has been used in instruction, specifically regarding story problems in mathematics, learners tend to bypass the intended affectiveness of the method by employeeing a "problem avoidance" strategy to solve the problems, which effectively nullifies the intended affect of the approach. The damning underlying statement is that as educators we have become a major contributing factor this phenomenon by actually teaching our students "strategies" which allow them to bypass the power of the problem solving strategy; and of course we do this in the name of "teaching" our students how to be "successful" on standardized testing! I am still contemplating the long term meaning of this and what it means for the validity of even worrying about different instructional strategies if all we are going to do as educators is find the easiest way around the issue to continue teaching as we have forever.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Instructional Design and Media
Reiser excludes the teacher, chalkboard, and textbook from the definition of instructional media for the purpose of clarity during the discussion of the history of instructional media. This is primarily, I believe, due to the fact that throughout history, the term "instructional media" has applied a very narrow scope. This point is exemplified by a point that I made in a previous post concerning the definition of "instructional technology" wherein I stated that I believe that many educators today make the same mistake and focus on specific and burgeoning technologies when defining instructional technology. When this occurs, the definition takes on a hyper-narrow focus and ceases to take into account the systems and processes which are germane to the subject. Throughout history, the definition of instructional media has changed each time a new technology has been identified for the purpose of use in instruction, whether it was motion pictures, radio, or computers. With each iteration of the definition, the standard elements (the teacher or instructor, the chalkboard, and the textbook) are forgotten to exist entirely. Reiser actually states that these elements should be included in the definition, but excludes them for argument sake.
I believe that these 3 core elements are certainly components which can be defined as instructional media. Actually, I think instructional media can encompass just about anything which can be utilized to bridge the information for which the lesson or ID is focused on to the learner. This means that in a given situation with a given topic, instructional media may include any number of bizarre and unimaginable resources.
Given this perspective of instructional media, I would say that the goal of ID is not to incorporate media into instruction, but rather to design instruction which is capable of utilizing and leveraging for the benefit of the learner, myriad media resources if needed. I suppose my hesitation in stating that the goal of ID is to incorporate media into instruction is that if that precise statement is made, some may robotically seek to accomodate the precise definition, becoming entangled in "stuff" or resources, specifically, rather than focusing on the goal and process of the instruction.
I believe that these 3 core elements are certainly components which can be defined as instructional media. Actually, I think instructional media can encompass just about anything which can be utilized to bridge the information for which the lesson or ID is focused on to the learner. This means that in a given situation with a given topic, instructional media may include any number of bizarre and unimaginable resources.
Given this perspective of instructional media, I would say that the goal of ID is not to incorporate media into instruction, but rather to design instruction which is capable of utilizing and leveraging for the benefit of the learner, myriad media resources if needed. I suppose my hesitation in stating that the goal of ID is to incorporate media into instruction is that if that precise statement is made, some may robotically seek to accomodate the precise definition, becoming entangled in "stuff" or resources, specifically, rather than focusing on the goal and process of the instruction.
6 Characteristics of Instructional Design
It has been a long time since I developed a lesson for the K-12 environment and almost as long since I received a lesson in any kind of formal manner, so in order to relate a personal learning experience to the 6 characeristics of instructional design, I am going to use an example of a recent Bible study lesson that I presented to my 5th and 6th graders at church.
The last lesson that I presented was on the topic of The Value of People of Other Beliefs. The lesson was developed along the lines presented in a provided leader guide, but was redesigned to include more in depth scripture basis and to attempt to "meet the students where they are".
After having worked with this particular group of students for a couple of years, we have developed a general sense of where they are with their spiritual walk, what types of issues they tend to be confronted with, and how they tend to respond to different types of lessons. The goal of the lesson was to demonstrate through scripture the value that Christ placed on all people and to foster the practice of the same values in the students. The instructional design was, as is typical for us, a conversational interactive group discussion including specific scripture reading, sharing of personal experiences, drawing comparisons between the students' values and behaviors and those of Christ, and open discussion of issues which appear as distractions or road blocks to adopting and exhibiting the same values and behaviors as Christ when dealing with other people.
So, we have a student centered design: the design takes into account the student's historical desire to interact rather than be lectured to and the students will through this design be expected to participate actively to experience a successful lesson.
We also have a goal oriented design: there are expectations of the students' behavior and attitudes upon completion of the lesson.
We have an instructional design which focuses on a meaningful performance: the discussions concerning adopting and exhibiting the desired new values and behaviours relate to real world scenarios and the "test" of the success of the lesson is the authentic performance of each of the student in their real and individually unique environments.
The lesson also presents outcomes which can be measured; the question here is whether or not the outcomes can be measured with reliability and validity. The behaviors and attitudes which are we desire to see as a result of the lesson can be observed and measured if we were to go about doing so, and they would be observed in the real world around the students so the data would be valid. Data reliability in this case would probably not be very high as the performance of the new "skills" are going to be inconsistent by nature (the explanation for this would take us into the nature of sin and that is a topic which most academic ID scenarios do not have to take into account).
What this lesson does not have is: empirical, iterative, and self-correcting qualities and team effort. To include team effort would have certainly made sense as 3 other leaders were present in the room during the lesson, performed supporting roles during the lesson, and brought unique and poignant views and information to the lesson which added significant value to the meaning of the lesson for the students. In retrospect, I would have attempted to sit down with these other leaders to develop this lesson in a cooperative manner to allow the supporting activities (praise and worship music, prayer and praise time activities) to be designed not as stand alone processes but to be designed to redirect focus to the topic of the lesson. This type of team work is possibly a little more difficult to achieve, however, when you are talking about leaders who do not see each other except for twice a week versus an every day interaction which would be expected in a typically school\educational setting.
As far as the empirical, iterative, and self-correcting attributes of the design, it would obviously be a great idea to develop a data collection tool to administer the week prior to such a lesson to gather data about students' understandings concerning Christ driven attitudes and the reasoning behind such attitudes as well as an inventory to identify how students currently respond to and think about people of different faiths prior to the lesson. Not only would this step be reasonable, but would actually be very easy to incorporate into the design process. Additionally, formative assessments could be conducted to inform the leaders that re-teach or additional instruction conecering the topic is needed.
The last lesson that I presented was on the topic of The Value of People of Other Beliefs. The lesson was developed along the lines presented in a provided leader guide, but was redesigned to include more in depth scripture basis and to attempt to "meet the students where they are".
After having worked with this particular group of students for a couple of years, we have developed a general sense of where they are with their spiritual walk, what types of issues they tend to be confronted with, and how they tend to respond to different types of lessons. The goal of the lesson was to demonstrate through scripture the value that Christ placed on all people and to foster the practice of the same values in the students. The instructional design was, as is typical for us, a conversational interactive group discussion including specific scripture reading, sharing of personal experiences, drawing comparisons between the students' values and behaviors and those of Christ, and open discussion of issues which appear as distractions or road blocks to adopting and exhibiting the same values and behaviors as Christ when dealing with other people.
So, we have a student centered design: the design takes into account the student's historical desire to interact rather than be lectured to and the students will through this design be expected to participate actively to experience a successful lesson.
We also have a goal oriented design: there are expectations of the students' behavior and attitudes upon completion of the lesson.
We have an instructional design which focuses on a meaningful performance: the discussions concerning adopting and exhibiting the desired new values and behaviours relate to real world scenarios and the "test" of the success of the lesson is the authentic performance of each of the student in their real and individually unique environments.
The lesson also presents outcomes which can be measured; the question here is whether or not the outcomes can be measured with reliability and validity. The behaviors and attitudes which are we desire to see as a result of the lesson can be observed and measured if we were to go about doing so, and they would be observed in the real world around the students so the data would be valid. Data reliability in this case would probably not be very high as the performance of the new "skills" are going to be inconsistent by nature (the explanation for this would take us into the nature of sin and that is a topic which most academic ID scenarios do not have to take into account).
What this lesson does not have is: empirical, iterative, and self-correcting qualities and team effort. To include team effort would have certainly made sense as 3 other leaders were present in the room during the lesson, performed supporting roles during the lesson, and brought unique and poignant views and information to the lesson which added significant value to the meaning of the lesson for the students. In retrospect, I would have attempted to sit down with these other leaders to develop this lesson in a cooperative manner to allow the supporting activities (praise and worship music, prayer and praise time activities) to be designed not as stand alone processes but to be designed to redirect focus to the topic of the lesson. This type of team work is possibly a little more difficult to achieve, however, when you are talking about leaders who do not see each other except for twice a week versus an every day interaction which would be expected in a typically school\educational setting.
As far as the empirical, iterative, and self-correcting attributes of the design, it would obviously be a great idea to develop a data collection tool to administer the week prior to such a lesson to gather data about students' understandings concerning Christ driven attitudes and the reasoning behind such attitudes as well as an inventory to identify how students currently respond to and think about people of different faiths prior to the lesson. Not only would this step be reasonable, but would actually be very easy to incorporate into the design process. Additionally, formative assessments could be conducted to inform the leaders that re-teach or additional instruction conecering the topic is needed.
Instructional Technology Defined
The early definitions of instructional technology were obviously a work in progress which developed along side the progression of how education itself was defined. How someone defines and understands the purpose and function of education certainly helps to form a personal understanding and definition of how technology affects and exists within education.
Just as the early definitions of instructional technology developed from the rudimentary, although basic, focus on the media itself and developed to include the processes, goals, actvities and qualities of the field, my personal definition has grown and developed through a similar process.
As a novice educator it was very difficult to see the proverbial forest for the trees; to understand the process as a whole and to therefore understand the synergy that exists when instruction and technology are not viewed or approached separately but as symbiotic components. I cannot say that I had a formalized personal definition for instructional technology, but I can remember that my approach to technology in the classroom was certainly one-dimensional. The term that I use for that approach now is "technology for technology's sake".
Interestingly, it was not until I left the classroom that I escaped the "box" and began to view the instructional application of technology from the outside and developed a more significant understanding of instructional technology. The revelation that instructional technology is more than the "stuff" came as I began to observe educators implementing the technological resources made available to them through my department, only to see the instructional process remain the same as it was without the new resources. Instructional technology meant to those educators the same thing that it had once meant to me - "the stuff I use to teach". More disturbing than the narrowly developed definition for instructional technology was the fact that the definition was tied to specific pieces of equipment, forcing the narrow definition to be even more narrowly applied.
As I review the different definitions provided through chapter 1, I see basically the same type of progression in my personal definition of instructional technology as we see progressing in the chapter. The definition provided by the AECT in 1977, I believe, is more focused on problem resolution than is necessary or maybe even appropriate. However, by 1994 I think the AECT developed a definition that is very congruent with how I would define instructional technology. The removal of problem solving as a component of the definition seems to open the application of the field to learning in general rather than limiting it to a means of providing a solution to an existing problem in education or instruction overall. As we move through the semester and I have more time to digest and think about the 1977 definition, I may find that this "problem solving" concept is more applicable and meaningful than I do currently, however.
Just as the early definitions of instructional technology developed from the rudimentary, although basic, focus on the media itself and developed to include the processes, goals, actvities and qualities of the field, my personal definition has grown and developed through a similar process.
As a novice educator it was very difficult to see the proverbial forest for the trees; to understand the process as a whole and to therefore understand the synergy that exists when instruction and technology are not viewed or approached separately but as symbiotic components. I cannot say that I had a formalized personal definition for instructional technology, but I can remember that my approach to technology in the classroom was certainly one-dimensional. The term that I use for that approach now is "technology for technology's sake".
Interestingly, it was not until I left the classroom that I escaped the "box" and began to view the instructional application of technology from the outside and developed a more significant understanding of instructional technology. The revelation that instructional technology is more than the "stuff" came as I began to observe educators implementing the technological resources made available to them through my department, only to see the instructional process remain the same as it was without the new resources. Instructional technology meant to those educators the same thing that it had once meant to me - "the stuff I use to teach". More disturbing than the narrowly developed definition for instructional technology was the fact that the definition was tied to specific pieces of equipment, forcing the narrow definition to be even more narrowly applied.
As I review the different definitions provided through chapter 1, I see basically the same type of progression in my personal definition of instructional technology as we see progressing in the chapter. The definition provided by the AECT in 1977, I believe, is more focused on problem resolution than is necessary or maybe even appropriate. However, by 1994 I think the AECT developed a definition that is very congruent with how I would define instructional technology. The removal of problem solving as a component of the definition seems to open the application of the field to learning in general rather than limiting it to a means of providing a solution to an existing problem in education or instruction overall. As we move through the semester and I have more time to digest and think about the 1977 definition, I may find that this "problem solving" concept is more applicable and meaningful than I do currently, however.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
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