Learning Objects - Session 14

Wow, Learning Objects seem difficult to develop if you have to start from scratch. It appears that you need a lot of technical know-how to develop these learning objects that can meet the objectives of the instructional unit. Software programming is not my specialty by any means. “Flash” and me just don’t seem to get along so well…

Something that I noticed about Learning Objects is that many of the examples we were given seem to mirror individualized instructional units with some more thoroughly developed multimedia/software elements thrown in. I think the focus of implementing learning objects isn’t necessarily developing your own, but using what has already been developed out there and has already been “tagged” so that you can use it to accomplish an instructional goal. Or, if you do in fact create your own, it becomes far more useful if it is uploaded and tagged somewhere for other teachers to use, as well. That reminds me of one of the best things about the internet and how it relates to learning these days – teachers can easily communicate with one another and swap lesson ideas that have been tested in a class setting and have proven successful.

Cognitive Flexibility Theory -- Session 13

This theory is another great one at putting learning in context to a learner. Anytime a real-world connection can be made to what a student is learning about, there is a much higher likelihood of the student fully understanding (and thus remembering) the lesson. As with some of the other learning theories, I like the inclusion of “expert opinions” in CFT, and I really like how students can use various points of view to determine their own resolution to a problem.

Another plus of CFT is how students are allowed to construct their own “model” of the context. Allowing them to connect a new learning experience to their own mental framework or experience is definitely a plus when it comes to retention of the material.

Case Based Learning - Session 12

It seems that case-based learning is another theory that works well in certain contexts and content areas. I particularly like the idea that students can learn from what somebody else has learned by evaluating a case and the end result as experienced by others. Another plus is the level to which students have to evaluate data – one of the areas I find that students are very weak in is evaluating resources and facts. Many will take anything they see, read, or hear to be the absolute truth, and I like how the case-based learning model can allow them to explore contradictory data to come up with their own conclusions, or to simply push them to conduct further research or figure out why data turned out a certain way. It would also be easy to integrate multi-media components by allowing students to manipulate data and conduct hypothetical scenarios to see their end result.

Engaging students in the types of debates that arise from their research under case based learning also is a plus – anytime we can get students to passionately defend their stance on something we are helping them foster higher-order thinking skills, and I have found that my students will fight tooth-and-nail to defend a stance they have invested a lot of time in developing and researching.

MOST Learning Environments - Session 11

When I first started reading about the MOST model of learning environments, I got a little excited about the fact that we finally have a learning model that caters to the less-than-stellar student. I’ve always viewed many learning models/theories as trying to boil learning down to its most elemental steps, but there don’t seem to be many that find a way to make learning in the classroom as much fun for the struggling student as for the academically confident one.

I’m also pretty excited about putting the MOST model to the test in my upcoming module. It is perfect for students learning Spanish in my classes, since 2nd language acquisition mimics the way in which we learned our first language. I find that I always have students in my classes who are far behind others, and this gives me a way to level the playing field for a while and allow all students to succeed at the same assignment and (hopefully) get the same thing out of it.

STAR Model

I really like how the STAR model allows students to work with their initial
thoughts. Very often, being able to refer to what students initially thought at the
beginning allows them to synthesize how far their thoughts have come, and how they
have developed over the course of the unit. It seems like a good way to increase
retention and actually recognize what they have learned (I've had to "walk" students
through things they have learned on more than one occasion -- they don't seem to
always be programed to recognize that they have learned things!) Also, as the
Schwartz reading pointed out, it's very helpful for students to be able to see
"where they are" in terms of their initial thoughts and their final thoughts.

Developing a lesson using the STAR legacy model seems relatively easy with the web
as a resource -- I can only imagine the work that would be involved in trying to
organize everything without the web!! It seems like we have enough Web 2.0 resources
to effectively incorporate them into a lesson that follows the STAR Legacy model.

Anchored Instruction - Session 9

Anchored Instruction strikes me as a more guided form of PBL. It seems to require the most intense planning on the part of the instructor, unless a video or other multi-media format exists that can deliver the problem at hand.

Dr. Oliver made a good point in his slide presentation that I’ve touched on in other blog posts, but seems worthy of mentioning again. There are so many excellent teaching strategies and techniques out there, but we are often forced to lecture students in order to meet the overwhelming requirements of many standardized curricula. There’s little time to waste with “delivering” information to our students, and employing many of the techniques and strategies we’ve discussed in this course is next to impossible given our time constraints. At the same time, we wonder why our educational system is failing our children and not preparing them for life outside of the classroom!!

As a foreign language teacher, much of what I do touches on the strategies within Anchored Instruction. Students are very often exposed to some type of scenario in which they must detect a situational problem and (in the target language) communicate their need to somebody to solve it. This is very often accomplished in small group settings and is shared as a class afterward. It’s actually a pretty easy way to get my students communicating in Spanish when I choose a “fun” problem for them to solve. They absolutely love relationship drama!

Goal Based Scenario Model – Session 8

The GBS model of teaching is one of those that makes me sit back and think, “Isn’t this common sense?” It seems logical to connect what students want to learn with what to teach in a way that they find fun and interesting. Unfortunately, so much of our curriculum is driven by standardized testing, which forces students to learn and rehash facts and information. There is, of course, room to incorporate the GBS model, but the flip-side is that you might not touch on the exact facts that will show up on a standardized test.

I find myself coming up against this all the time in the Spanish classes I teach. My students love to be creative, silly, and ridiculous, but oftentimes I’m forced to temper their desires to continue working with certain topics because I have to make time to cover the specific guidelines of the curriculum, which they will be tested on near the end of the year. Some of the vocabulary I have to teach them is quite obscure and not too relevant to their lives. There are many times when I allow them to do things that are aligned with elements of the Goal Based Scenario model, such as pretending to be a doctor during a unit on body parts and describing injuries, but for other units it is hard to incorporate GBS when they have little interest in the topic at hand anyway.

It seems like science and social studies areas are a perfect match for GBS because it's a good way to teach facts and information in a way that captures the students' attention.

Cognitive Apprenticeship & Situated Learning Theory - Session 7

This week’s readings reminded me of one of the key things about learning a foreign language (I teach Spanish!) -- students must model their use of the language after some other person. Usually that model is the teacher, but a good classroom allows for many different people to be the models – other students, native speakers, videos, etc.

Another characteristic of a quality foreign language classroom is the implementation of “situated learning.” Students can learn ABOUT a language all they want, but they will never learn the language itself unless they have to use it to meet an end. Therefore, they have to be engaged in active communication, not simply completing grammar exercises about situations that are irrelevant to their lives. The neat thing about it is that this is when my students tend to thrive – when I give them a task they have to complete using only the target language (or a game played in the target language), I can see their proficiency growing rapidly. It doesn’t matter if everything they say is grammatically correct – their “approximation” of the correct grammar forms will eventually become the correct grammar form after many opportunities to try to say something.

Cognitive apprenticeship and situated learning remind me (again) of the Chinese proverb, “Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand.”. The unfortunate thing about our schools today is that we are very often forced to “teach to the test,” and our teaching style ends up being very didactic with little opportunity to include techniques like cognitive apprenticeship. Our students are forced to memorize information and regurgitate it to be “proficient” on an end-of-course test. In my classes, for example, I am forced to stick to the vocabulary units that make up our benchmark standardized tests, even if some of those units are extremely irrelevant to my student’s lives. The challenge them becomes finding a way to use innovative teaching techniques to help students learn the things that they really don’t relate to very much. It can be extremely frustrating.

Problem Based Learning - Session 6

Many of the elements of PBL remind me of the better parts of Cooperative Learning. I really enjoy using teaching techniques in which there are many correct answers, and PBL seems to fit right in with that. It seems readily adaptable to web-based teaching contexts because the web itself is a great resource for information, and it can also be used to host different ways to present multiple solutions by multiple groups.

The only thing I don’t really like about PBL is the limited role of the facilitator. Although he/she isn’t supposed to state opinions or offer advice until the end, I think the learning process is much more effective if the facilitator can play “devil’s advocate” while students are immersed in diagnosing a certain problem. I think doing so prevents them from falling into a self-fulfilling prophecy with their solution to the problem at hand -- it not only forces them to consider other options, solutions, and opinions, but also forces them to really back-up their solution to the problem with solid support. I understand there is some power in letting groups go through the entire process with nothing more than probing, but I think that should be reserved for unique situations and that general teaching should allow instant “dissent” from an instructor.

We also have to remember that PBL is not perfect. I know I mention it a lot in my blog, but the essence of quality teaching is using multiple teaching strategies because no one strategy encompasses everything we know about how learning takes place. For the medical school students that were discussed in the readings, we have to remember that PBL was not the only teaching strategy in their medical school. It supplemented traditional instruction in a way that allowed students to not only use what they had learned, but gave them a way to expand their knowledge base.

Cooperative Learning - Session 5

I think this is probably one of the most poorly implemented teaching techniques in schools today. Cooperative learning is not putting students in a group and having them complete an assignment together!! There is a specific design to cooperative learning that must be followed through for it to be effective. A lot of preparation goes into developing a cooperative learning assignment, and it must have a true structure that allows for individual and collective responsibilities. I find that this is very seldom the case, as teachers will give almost any assignment to students and call it “cooperative learning” simply because they can work in groups together. Inevitably, one or two students end up doing the majority of the work and the others get credit simply for being part of the group.

True, cooperative learning does have its benefits, but I think one of the biggest drawbacks to cooperative learning is that there very often is an ineffective division of tasks when the group is allowed to divide responsibilities on its own. The less ambitious students will always quickly volunteer for what they perceive as the “easiest” job. Or, students will instinctively volunteer for tasks based upon which tasks they are “good at” and are thus the easiest for them. The unfortunate result is that students gain very little practice in the areas they need the most help in. Again, effective lessons using cooperative learning include a great deal of preparation beforehand, and I think they are really only effective when the teacher chooses not only the groups, but the individual responsibilities of each group member based not upon what each member is good at, but based upon which skills each member needs the most practice at developing. I think teachers need to go through the steps and assign each member of the group a responsibility to ensure that cooperative learning is a worthwhile teaching strategy.

And we have to always remember that we cannot implement any single strategy all the time and hope it will be effective! Moderation is the key!

Guided Design -- Session 4

Guided Design reminds me of the Chinese proverb we often mention in education, “Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand.” The group-focus of Guided Design also adds an extra benefit, even though some students are reluctant to participate in group-based work. I find that I am constantly reminding myself that students will be working in group-settings in almost any field they go into as employees.

I like the way in which Guided Design forces students to follow a decision-making process. Sometimes we have to force our students to make decisions so they can examine their thinking processes and tweak areas of it that are weak. Guided Design serves as a perfect opportunity for students to engage in this very important part of their intellectual development.

That being said, Guided Design isn’t perfect, and we have to realize that working with a team really does expose all of us to being a potential victim of the “weakest link” of the team. As the Wilson study noted, sometimes the most advanced member of the group ends up being worse off at the end because of their working with the group. That’s specifically why we should always adopt a well-rounded approach in the ways we teach – one type of teaching does not always work the best, the key to successful instruction is including multiple instructional strategies (after all, variety is the spice of life, right?). While it might be true that some members of the group could end up worse off, they will learn valuable interaction skills that will prepare them for the real world. They can also learn a lot about themselves from any feelings of frustration that may arise, and can also get experience that will help them emerge as a future leader in any sort of group setting. Their experiences may help them make future group tasks more efficient. In fact, the overall impact upon them should be quite small since Guided Design is hopefully not the only teaching technique to which they are exposed. These students will have multiple other opportunities to advance their knowledge and mastery of material. The skills they learn as part of a group are worth any small setbacks in terms of mastery of content.

One final note – Guided Design reminds me of the importance of giving quality feedback to our students. No teaching strategy can be considered effective if we don’t probe our students to think to their fullest and guide them through their missteps to avoid future ones!!

Audio-Tutorial Presentations - Session 3

As the slide presentation noted, A-T instruction is making a comeback via Podcasts & Vodcasts. I think it's a valuable addition to almost any teaching format -- I've had several students over the years who use tape recorders to record what happens in the classroom, and then play the tapes back to themselves as they go over notes and practice activities at home. For those students, being able to revisit the class has made a huge difference in retention and comprehension. Including an A-T presentation for this purpose would be worthwhile for most any content area.

There's still a large part of me that thinks A-T presentations should be limited to just supplementing what happens within a more traditional learning environment, and should not be the sole means of instruction. For example, if ECI 517 was limited to watching PowerPoint presentations and completing mini-quizzes, I think we students would feel that we only accomplished part of our learning objectives. However, integrating A-T presentations along with projects and group discussions goes a long way into making the course seem well-rounded.

The success of A-T-presentations really seems to depend on the content area of the instruction. As the Kulik study noted, some students experienced higher retention, comprehension of material, and satisfaction using the A-T approach, whereas others succeeded more in a traditional classroom setting. If we go with the A-T approach in developing instruction for certain content areas, we need to make sure that the format of instruction matches the goals, and that we aren't limiting the learning that takes place.

Session 2 - the Keller Plan & PSI

Creating a Personalized System of Instruction seems like a definite challenge for some content areas and lessons. I think the most challenging aspect is transforming what we do in face-to-face instruction into an interesting way that will engage our learner. As a foreign language teacher, class interaction is a HUGE part of my teaching. It would be very difficult to mimick the quality of this oral and aural interaction.

For any subject area, I think the success of a PSI is directly linked to the type of feedback given to the learner. Quality feedback that allows the learner to actually learn from his/her mistakes is crucial to retention and application of the material. Of course, a PSI must be interesting, logical, clear, and comprehensive in its design, but in the end if its user does not have a good understanding of whether he/she has mastered the material, it has done little good. I think it is also important to have some type of variety in the delivery of instruction and the practice activities -- my sister, for example, is taking an online class at ECU that consists of nothing more than watching a professor lecture and writing essays. There isn't much opportunity for student interaction or the sharing of ideas/theories.

I think that designing a PSI can be a valuable alternative to a traditional classroom enviroment if that type of environment does not match the needs of the learner. The North Carolina Virtual Public School resulted partly as a way for students who aren't experiencing success in the tradition classroom to experience a different teaching style. I've heard that many students also don't succeed in those classes, but I get the impression that a large portion of that can be attributed to students thinking it will be "easy" because it is online. We have to remember that there is still a level of self-discipline necessary in any learning environment.