Why We Learn

I’ve just received four questions that I must address as the primary component of comprehensive exams at Kent State University. I have eight weeks to answer these completely, after which they will be evaluated. If I’m successful, I will then be asked to defend my responses in person.

Research Methods in Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology

One of the things that may distinguish one discipline from another is the research that is done. The research may differ in the content, in the questions asked, and in the methods used. Instructional Technology and Educational Psychology are closely related disciplines in many ways, but they are also different. Choose a topic that is likely of interest to each field. Now design two studies, one that looks at the topic from an Educational Psychology perspective and one that does so from an Instructional Technology perspective. Explain how and why the two studies are different. What do these differences imply for the two disciplines?

Cognitive Load Theory in Designing Instruction

The basics of cognitive load theory seem well-established at this point, and it appears that instruction that fails to minimize extraneous cognitive load is likely to be less effective than instruction that takes this theory into account. First, explain the theory and its application clearly and succinctly. Then go beyond it. Specifically, it is unlikely to that cognitive load is the only factor that determines what and how much people learn from instruction, multimedia, and other elements. Describe another key factor that you believe, from your reading of the literature, has important effects on learning. Now consider how those two factors may interact in instructional settings. Describe a study that would illuminate these interactions and provide practical guidance in the design of instruction. You may narrow this down to a specific type of instruction, setting, population, or other factors.

The Application of Motivation Theory to Education

Discuss the current trends in contemporary motivation theory in the context of education. Compare and contrast motivation theories, such as need for achievement, attribution theory, achievement goal theory and theories of self-regulated learning. Make certain that your discussion focuses on theoretical developments that have stemmed from correcting earlier theoretical misconstructions. In your response be sure to cite research, which discusses each theoretical perspective’s take on achievement outcomes. Present some directions for the future related to the development of motivation theories and educational practices.

Instructional Design for Maximizing the Effectiveness of Technology

Many of us think that instructional design is one of the key foundations of instructional technology in general. In the current explosion of interest in and use of technology in education and training at all levels, it often appears that the focus is almost exclusively on the technology, with relatively little attention paid to instructional design and especially to the systematic processes of ID usually used within the field. There may be many reasons for that. Discuss the barriers that exist to applying instructional design procedures to improving the effectiveness of technology in schools, universities, or companies. Describe in some detail an approach to instructional design that would help teachers and others maximize the effectiveness of technology use in education. You may choose the setting, grade level, and other contextual factors that you concentrate on here. The approach may be one that is already in the ID literature or one that you have developed (with reference to the ID and related literatures).

January 3, 2010

I spent 3 months tutoring a middle school student during my senior year of high school, and ever since I’ve believed that the one-on-one, face-to-face environment is uniquely suited for instruction. These feelings have been reinforced, my interest piqued once more, as I have read about cognitive apprenticeship and Rogoff’s Apprenticeship in Thinking. Vygotsky, in his work Thought and Language is fairly direct in his criticism of society’s disregard for what students might be able to accomplish with others

…even the most profoundest thinkers never questioned the assumption; they never entertained the notion that what children can do with the assistance of others might be in some way more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone (p. 85).

He then instructs the reader as to the qualities of what he deems “good instruction”.

Therefore the only good kind of instruction is that which marches ahead of development and leads it; it must be aimed not so much at the ripe as at the ripening functions (p. 188).

Here he alludes to his well known Zone of Proximal Development, and the fact that students need to be pushed just beyond what they are able to do on their own. Daniel Willingham makes a similar point early in his new book Why Don’t Students Like School.

Working on problems that are of the right level of difficulty is rewarding, but working on problems that are too easy or too difficult is unpleasant (Kindle Edition, 310).

Recently, I’ve made the point that monitoring this sort of thing in a classroom of 20-30 students requires that we classify instruction as complex in nature. My reverence for the tutoring paradigm is so great that I’ve focused my inquiries on ways of using technology to generate time for teachers and students to meet face-to-face. Today I read Open for Learning: The CMS and the Open Learning Network, an article in the first edition of the open journal in education written by Jon Mott and David Wiley. They suggest that social networks might be able to replicate Bloom’s 2-Sigma Effect, which demonstrates that tutored individuals outperform their peers by +2 standard deviations. They begin with a critique of course management systems, predicated on three assertions.

• CMSs reinforce artificial time constraints
• CMSs are teacher-centric, as instructors control both content and direction
• CMSs isolate students from the outside (real) world

Instead of relying so heavily on CMSs, Mott et al. suggest that universities utilize open learning networks, described as the middle ground between PLEs and CMSs. In an OLN,

faculty, students and support staff would reap the benefits of enterprise, networked software for authentication, identity management, integration with SISs, etc. Additionally, they would be able to use a vast range of Web 2.0 apps, integrated into the OLN via web services and other sorts of integrations.

I find this to be a practical, if evolutionary, suggestion. The authors’ argument that students understand that their work within the CMS environment will not be added to or viewed after their course, and that this knowledge depresses the desire to contribute is believable. There is no question that CMSs act primarily as a conduit for the transmission of content, and that teachers make the majority of the instructional decisions. Their failure, however, to acknowledge the existence synchronous/asynchronous forms of communication, collaborative writing modules (wikis), and the ability to share/comment on files, is unfortunate. However, it is their second-to-last sentence that I find most surprising. (The entire paragraph is included for context.)

While the CMS tends to reinforce the knowledge-transfer model, long deemed the best and only way to teach large groups of students, the OLN poses as an intriguing alternative. Instead of limiting ourselves to knowledge transfer, we can leverage the affordances of the web to uncover content, to help students become more than just temporarily knowledgeable about a subject. We can do so by approximating — and perhaps even surpassing — the efficacy of one-to-one learning relationships. As the tradition-preserving CMS gives way to the OLN and the learning affordances it brings with it, Bloom’s challenge may finally be met.

In general, research tells us that tutoring is not homogeneous in application (some tutoring is better than others), that the act of tutoring is beneficial (one learns as they teach), and that tutoring is a skill (it can be learned and improved upon). Yet, here – one sentence from the end of their paper – Mott & Wiley suggest that implementing OLNs will “approximate – and perhaps even surpass – the efficacy of one-to-one learning relationships”? Isn’t this a rather bold statement?

Tutoring’s ability to produce positive results might be attributed to a variety of features. From a behavioral perspective, one might point to the benefits of being able to interpret both verbal (inflection, hesitation) and non-verbal cues as a session unfolds. A cognitivist might suggest that the intimacy of the environment requires that each participant is attentive, this facilitating thought processes (activation of long-term memory, combination of new information with activated LTM in working memory). The teacher might simply say that they are able to monitor the learner’s ability and knowledge more closely and accurately. Regardless of the perspective, tutoring remains unique; a simple and uncommonly effective instructional technique, rooted in the history of the apprenticeship, but generally impractical.

As I said initially, I agree with much of what the authors have to say. I don’t like CMSs, and my vision of what online learning should be is even more liberal than what they suggest. I don’t have a answer to the 2-Sigma question. (I don’t know if there is an answer.) That doesn’t mean that replacing CMSs with OLNs is unwise, or would not be beneficial. But, introducing such a bold, unsubstantiated prognostication two lines from the end of a scholarly work serves no purpose.

Comments and/or critiques are welcomed.

Benjamin S. Bloom has two works from which to draw when interpreting the results of a new study by Carnegie Mellon. The key finding, related to the efficiency of this design, is summarized in the following quotation.

By combining the open-learning software with two weekly 50-minute class sessions in an intro-level statistics course, they found that they could get students to learn the same amount of material in half the time.

Essentially, the inclusion of this intelligent tutoring system allows the professor to discuss more nuanced and/or complex aspects of the content, and do so in one less class period. Bloom might infer that the observed improvements were due to an increase in the amount of time spent analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating, i.e., at the higher levels of “his” taxonomy, while in class. Alternatively, he could point to his work on tutoring, and its corresponding “2 Sigma Problem”, which suggests that one can expect to observe a difference of +2 standard deviations when students work with a teacher in a one-to-one setting.

I’m inclined to agree with both of these hypothetical conclusions. I’m also reminded of Ewan McIntosh’s recent response to Will Richardson’s post commenting on an image of a lecture hall filled with (mostly Apple) computers. McIntosh’s critique, in he differentiates between curriculum and pedagogy, noting that teachers can control pedagogy but not curriculum, culminates with the following assertion.

The reason the picture presents a dubious message is that neither curriculum nor pedagogy have changed an iota in this learning space: it’s about the same layout – with as many apples on laps – as a Victorian classroom would have appeared.

I wonder how instructional design fits, as Carnegie Mellon’s design offloads the mundane, didactic portions of instruction to technological entities, thus freeing up space and time for the instructor/professor to do the sorts of things that are much harder for computers, even “intelligent” systems, to replicate. This is a good start, but can we go further?

The program’s efforts to maximize the contributions of technology are impressive. They’ve applied adaptive algorithms similar to those that are used in the GRE, which monitor and subsequently respond to students understanding. This is one of the first times this technology has been used outside of the assessment arena. (The article refers to its use as “novel”.) What needs to be considered, however, is a design that manufactures or generates time for face-to-face. That is to say that although the tutoring aspect of Bloom’s research is (partially) present in the form of the intelligent tutoring system, the potential of human tutoring is greater.

This is not the first time that I’ve considered using technology to offload the sort of lower level tasks of instruction. My presentation, entitled “A Shift in Focus: Designing for Face-to-Face” can be found here. Comments/critiques are welcome.

Apple has added a document to their web site, published in early December of 2009, entitled iPod Touch/iPhone for Administrators. These sort of documents, put out by developers of technology, are interesting in that they shed some light on the way in which these companies perceive the educational domain, and more specifically how they think their product “fits” within that field. Apple typically does a nice job presenting information in a persuasive way, and they do a so here. However, my intent is to deduce what the information included in this piece tells us about Apple’s perception of the educational realm.

The text’s most glaring omission is the failure to acknowledge the potential inherent to the use of Web 2.0 and mobile technologies. Apple has included a section dedicated to Web 2.0, and includes brief overviews of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. These technologies are introduced by the following passage.

Today, more and more educators and students are using social networks to build relationships, meet new contacts, and market themselves. By embracing even just a few of these popular Web 2.0 tools using your iPod touch or iPhone, you can see how these technologies are changing the landscape of life in the 21st Century, grow as a professional, and learn about the world as they way our children are and will experience it later in life.

Two important points need to be made. First, Apple presents these technologies as tools that administrators can use to advance their career. Secondly, the last phrase (obviously a typo, and thus hard to decipher) straddles the fence if you will, indicating that “our children” are and will experience this world that administrators are to learn about through the use of this device. Are students to experience this world inside of school? Moreover, there is nothing here about pedagogy or curriculum. Rather, a focus on the potential to improving one’s position, and to increase one’s understanding of today’s students.

Is this a failure of Apple to understand the potential of their own device? Or, is it indicative of their unwillingness to jump into the debate about technology’s role in the classroom? Professional development is presented in a way that reinforces, in a fundamental way, the status quo, as Audible.com, podcasts, RSS, and iTunes U are discussed in some detail. These are certainly worthy inclusions. However, the common thread, present in all four, is that each presents or is a conduit for information. Apple is missing the point of Web 2.0 — to participate in the construction of our own (shared) understanding through collaborative exercises.

I will only mention one or two additional observations from reviewing this document. Basic productivity applications, Mail, Safari, iCal, and Address book are reviewed first. I might be reading into this a bit too much, but that tells me that Apple’s first prerogative is to allay any fears that one might have about the potential to do these sorts of things on the device, specifically the fears of those most comfortable using Microsoft Office products. The last applications reviewed reinforce this idea, addressing the ability to edit Microsoft Office files, check spelling, and share/exchange files. How is the reader to reconcile the focus on these sorts of tasks and the inclusion of the following phrase to early in the text?

On the pages that follow, you will see how the iPod touch or iPhone can be used by administrators in a variety of ways well beyond a simple PIM device or media player, become a fantastic tool to practice digital leadership!

What is “digital leadership”? This document implies that Apple imagines superintendents/principals/supervisors performing managerial tasks on a smaller, electronic device. Email, calendaring, web browsing, editing documents, and sharing/exchanging files are the principle focuses of this paper. What happened to “high expectations”? Digital leadership encompasses a wide range of tasks, most importantly modeling the ways in which technology can be used to increase students motivation via their participation in this great experiment that is unfolding online everyday. Apple, and other producers of technology, should be considering the iPod/iPhone’s potential to encourage students to think more and in more complex ways, rather than focusing on the automation/facilitation of administrative tasks.

Lastly, the section on data collection does a fair job of illustrating the iPod Touch/iPhone’s potential, although I wonder why things such as eInstruction’s student response system or FMTouch aren’t included. There are other alternatives to the walk-through software listed, and the application iObserve hasn’t been updated since October of 2008, i.e., I believe that it’s no longer being developed.

There is a disconnect between the way that Apple presents the iPod/iPhone to the educational community as a whole (see Mobile Learning with the iPod touch and Lessons on the goPhone for examples of more progressive presentations), and the way that they envision its use by administrators. Although I’ve been pretty tough on the particular resource, the existence of these other works suggests that it is not Apple’s naivety in terms of how they envision Web 2.0 technologies fitting into today’s classroom, but rather their uninspiring image of administrators role in this process.

As we engage in discussions regarding the integration of technology, arguments inevitably arise. Deliberating how to allocate of funds can be a contentious process. The merits of the multiple positions that one might take with regards to these conversations is not the focus of this post. Instead, I would like to consider the precursor to any such dialogue. Isn’t the quality of instruction, face-to-face or online, most directly related to the teacher and his or her way of being? And if so, how do we reconcile the use of Web 2.0 technologies with such a assertion?

I find it difficult to accept arguments that emphasize technology over pedagogy. However, if we accept the premise that the effectiveness of classroom instruction is most directly we related to the teacher, mustn’t we also consider the role of the student. That is to say that we might choose to identify the nature/quality of both participants the individuals, and their “way of being” with each other, as the preeminent predictors of the degree to which the desired objectives are achieved. For a thorough conversation on the topic, see Rogoff and her idea of “intersubjectivity”. This is where technology comes into play. The collaborative and communicative powers of technology and online media are impressive. Thus, these interactions can be carried on after class has ended.

The combination of the Internet and cellular, or mobile technology renders both time and space inconsequential. At a time where the performance of America’s schools is being questioned daily, in a world in which other countries send their youth to school more often and for longer duration, the (un)willingness of public educators to shift from a 8-to-4 mindset to one of continual or ongoing discussion is, or should be, a concern. The discussions do not have to end, they can continue. Teachers must make themselves available to their students, via SMS, their mobile phones, and a plethora of Web 2.0 tools, before and after school.

There is a problem, I think, with the way we talk about technology. It may not be as big of a problem with our younger generation of teachers, but it’s critically important that we think about how we discuss, or “represent” technology in front of veteran educators. Technology is not one thing, but it is often represented as such (see Learning Management Systems). Communicating now is very different than it was only 15 years ago, when essentially three forms of media, the written word, the telephone, and television existed. Educators must understand that the growth, the modification the evolution of technology is rapid. If an individual feels that they “have got it”, they are wrong, regardless of their degree of understanding at that point in time.

More than anything teachers must be encouraged to buy into the idea that there is an exciting, engaging, collaborative exercise unfolding minute by minute online. They are leaders of a group of young people that, as a whole, can add to this ongoing construction of artifacts, tools, and virtual documentation. The idea is for them to pass this excitement onto their students. The degree to which they buy into this idea is directly related to their ability to use these collaborative, constructive, online activities as motivational rationale. One would think that contributing to something meaningful and real is a much more attractive exercise than the sort of repetitive, managerial tasks that are so often observed in today’s classrooms. Today’s youth are the early adopters of new technology. If they are to be allowed to use it as they see fit, then those individuals who must assess their “contributions” (teachers) must be comfortable using such technology.

Each new school year will present teachers with new students prepared, through their experiences outside of school, to implement technology the latest way. The teacher’s options are to either force their students to adopt technology he or she is most comfortable using, or to adapt themselves. The progressive educator, the innovator who embraces the rapid evolution inherent to the Web, will be most comfortable (possibly energized) by the later possibility. Research related to motivation, goal orientation, and locus of control, have a place in this conversation. If we choose to integrate technology in a way that allows students to interact with their teachers when they want and in the way that they want, that permits their demonstration of knowledge, skills, and efforts using the tools they want, we are essentially shifting the locus of control towards them. This allows students to operate more autonomously which has been shown to increase intrinsic motivation, or motivation from within. However, adopting this approach requires much more, in terms of time/accessibility and technological proficiency, from the instructor.