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![CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF NOVEMBER 2015
Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext
References
Antonenko, P. D., & Niederhauser, D. S. (2010). The influence of leads on cognitive load and learning ina hypertext
environment. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(2),140-150.
Blau, I. (2011). [Chais] Teachers for "smart classrooms": The extent of implementation of an interactive whiteboard-
based professional development program on elementary teachers' instructional practices. Interdisciplinary
Journal of E- Learning and Learning Objects, 7(1), 275-289.
Dabbagh, N., & Dass, S. (2013). Case problems for problem-based pedagogical approaches: Acomparative analysis.
Computers & Education, 64, 161-174.
Godshalk, V. M., Harvey, D. M., & Moller, L. (2004). The role of learning tasks on attitude changeusing cognitive
flexibility hypertext systems. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(4),507-526.
Jonassen, D., Ambruso, D . & Olesen, J. (1992). Designing hypertext on transfusion medicine using cognitive
flexibility theory. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 1(3), 309-322.
Jonassen, D. H. (2011). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning
environments.New York, NY:Routledge.
Rinaldo, S. B., Laverie, D. A., Tapp, S., & Humphrey Jr, W. F. (2013). The benefits of social media in marketing
education: Evaluating Twitter as a form of cognitive flexibility hypertext. Journal for Advancement of
Marketing Education, 21(1), 16.
Spiro, R.J., Feltovich, P.J., Jacobson, M.J., & Coulson, R.L. (1992). Cognitive flexibility, constructivism, and
hypertext: Random access instruction for advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. In T.M.
Duffy & D.H. Jonassen (Eds.), Constructivism and the technology of instruction: A conversation (pp. 57-
75). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Retrieved from:http://postgutenberg.typepad.com/files/spiro92.pdf](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/5thingsyoushouldknowabout-160527195527/75/5-Things-You-Should-Know-About-CLE-Models-and-Strategies-15-2048.jpg)
![CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF
Communities of Practice
What is it?
A community of practice (COP) is an age-old learning
model, which was defined by Etienne Wenger and
Jean Lave in the early 1990s. They identified COPs as
a unique model in the process of studying
apprenticeships and knowledge sharing within a
research project run at the Institute for Research on
Learning (IRL) (Corso, n.d.). They discovered that
there need not be only two people involved in an
apprenticeship: a novice and an expert. Rather, a
community can serve as a “living curriculum” for
novices and experts at various levels (Wenger, 2006).
As it was researched further, Wenger and Lave
discovered this model virtually everywhere, often
without a formal apprenticeship structure and without
the dichotomy between novice and expert. They
identified three distinct characteristics of COPS: (1)
domain, (2) community, and (3) practice. A COP is
when practitioners of a certain domain come together
on a regular and on-going basis to discuss and share
strategies, resources, and best practices. As an off-
shoot of apprenticeships, this learning model is
authentic and largely dependent on participants that
directand construct their own learning. It is for this
reason that it falls under constructivist epistemology,
although it also has implications for connectivism in
the modern age. In essence, Wenger and Lave did not
invent a new learningmodel. Rather, they discovered
and defined anaturally-occurring model used
everywhere.
How does it work?
COPs do not lend themselves to traditional roles of
“instructor” and “student.” Rather, all practitioners
come to the table with their unique levels of expertise.
There may be core members who actively and
frequently participate and peripheral members
who come and go or eventually become core
members. Although COPs can be “cultivated,” the
members are responsible for sustaining it over time
(Cambridge, Kaplan, & Suter, 2005). The community
ranges from various levels of “connectivity” and
“institutionalization” (Jonassen, 1999). For example,
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
NASHRAH AHMED
nurses that meet for lunch daily to discuss issues is an
example of low institutionalization and high
connectivity. On the other hand, a national association
of nurses that has annual gatherings is an example
of high institutionalization and low connectivity.
The types of domain, community, and
practice vary drastically. Learning happens through
social interaction and situated learning. It is authentic
in that practitionersdrive the learning and discuss
topics that are most relevant totheir practice and that
will enhance learning in that domain. Knowledge-
sharing is also an essential component. In fact,
“theory and evidence suggest that knowledge creation
and sharing are processes that involve often
spontaneouslyformed groups of individuals” (Corso,
n.d.).
Finally, COPs are considered living, breathing entities
that evolve over time. There are five loose
stages of evolution: potential, coalescing, maturing,
stewardship and transformation. In a nutshell, a
“loose network” of individuals eventually coalesce
into a community, mature over time, and become
stewards of knowledge in a particular area (Corso,
n.d.). Even with institutionalization and orchestration,
these stages can only come into existence through
socialinteractions that are authentic andspontaneous.
Who is doing it?
Communities of practice have always existed and
continue to exist in every aspect of life, from local
knitting clubs to international associations of law or
medicine. Since its introduction by Lave and Wenger,
it has been used heavilyin business and management
settings. Wenger argues that an organization’s most
valuable resource is people and “[e]ven when people
work for large organizations, they learn through their
participation in more specific communities made up
of people with whom they interact on a regular basis”
(1998).
COPs are also used in government, non-profit
organizations, and associations. One example is the
World Bank’s knowledge management strategy,
which incorporates an increasing number of COPs
(Wenger, 1999). COPs alsooccur informally within
organizations across functional units. For example,
the group of colleagues one interacts with on a
regular basis to share experiences and discuss ideas
E D I T 7 3 0](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/5thingsyoushouldknowabout-160527195527/75/5-Things-You-Should-Know-About-CLE-Models-and-Strategies-20-2048.jpg)
![CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF NOVEMBER 2015
Communities of Practice
would be considered an informal COP. Although it
is not generally used in K-12 education for students,
teachers often work within COPs centered on
planning and instruction. In today’s increasingly
globalized world, online platforms have
further expanded COPs beyond geographic
boundaries. Many COPs contain both online and
face-to-face components. For example, teachers may
meet weekly in person and also use a Google Drive
to share resources discussed. There are professional
circles that mostly interact online but may have an
occasional live webinardiscussion.
How effective is it?
The effectiveness and impact of communities of
practice is difficult to measure because its “primary
‘output’ –knowledge is intangible” (Wenger, 1999).
However, there are certain indicators of an effective
COP such as “knowledge assimilation, creation,
transfer, sharing, capitalization, and reuse” (Corso,
n.d.). A successful COP connects people, “capture[s]
and diffuses existing knowledge,” and generates new
knowledge (Cambridge, Kaplan, & Suter, 2005).
Snyder and Wenger outlines ways in which COPs
have added valueto various businesses and
organization such as the World Bank, Buckman Labs,
and Chrysler. In particular, they have helped
organizations develop hubs of strategic knowledge and
create new lines of business by fostering the exchange
of entrepreneurial insight. COPs have also streamlined
problem- solving processes by connecting
practitioners to experts in their fields. They have also
aided in the transfer of knowledge as participants
exchange context-specific bestpractices.
Although COPs have been around for centuries and
are increasingly gaining momentum in organizational
environments, there are a number of challenges or
unresolved issues that may impede the development of
effective COPs in today’s fast-paced globalized
workforce. Kerno identifies three limitations or
challenges: (1) time constraints that don’t allow
participants to “engage in prolonged, sustained
discourse,” (2) the hierarchical structure of
organizations that has the potential to be at odds with
the fluid, horizontalnature of COPs, and (3) the role of
varying cultures, some of which may emphasize
individualismovercommunity.
What are the implications for
instructional design?
Communities of practice are a naturally occurring
model in organizations and in everyday life. They can
be a valuable structure for instruction and their
“organic, spontaneous, and informal nature” do not
warrant a great deal of “supervision and interference”
(Wenger, 1999). In this regard, it is ideal for cases
when resources to provide formal learning
interventions are limited and there is a great deal of
collective expertise ona topic. It is also ideal for
continuing education for adults because it is
embedded in a shared real-world practice or area of
expertise. COPs focus on the distribution, transfer,
and generation of knowledge through collaboration,
resource- sharing, and dialogue. However, “managers
cannot mandate communities or practice; they [must]
bring the right people together, provide an
infrastructure in which communities can thrive, and
measure the communities’ value in nontraditional
ways” (Wenger, 1999). Instructors or managers
ultimately serve as facilitators on an on-going basis
and they are cognizant of the phases or life cycle of
COPs: inquire,design, launch, grow, and sustain
(Cambridge, Kaplan, & Suter, 2005).
Technology has greatly enhanced the scope and
functionality of COPs. The “technical architecture” is
as important as the “social architecture.” In fact,
many COPs exist entirely online on social media
platforms, interactive websites, or discussion boards.
Online resource-sharing platforms such as Google
Drive are used to share resources and collectively
work on projects. Social media groups on Pinterest or
Facebook can also be used as resource-sharing and
collaboration tools respectively. For COPs that are
virtual or cannot meet face-to- face on a regular
basis, Skype, Adobe Connect, WebEx, or any similar
web conferencing tool provides a “sense ofplace”.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/5thingsyoushouldknowabout-160527195527/75/5-Things-You-Should-Know-About-CLE-Models-and-Strategies-21-2048.jpg)
![CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF NOVEMBER 2015
Communities of Practice
References
Cambridge, D., Kaplan, S., & Suter, V. (2005). Community of practice design guide: A step-by-step guide
for designing & cultivating communities of practice in higher education (pdf file). Retrieved from
https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/nli0531.pdf.
Corso, M., & Giacobbe, A. (n.d.). Building communities of practice that work: A case study based research
[pdf file]. Retrieved from
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/conf/olkc/archive/oklc6/papers/corsogiacobbe.pdf
Jonassen, D., & Land, S. (2012). Preface. Theoretical foundations of learning environments (p. vii-x). New
York, NY: Routledge. Retrieved from
http://samples.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/9781136702600_sample_844583.pdf
Kerno, S.J. (2008). Limitations of communities of practice: A consideration of unresolved issues and
difficulties in the approach. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 15(1) 69-78. Retrieved
from http://www.knowledgemobilization.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/8.-Limitations-of-
Communities-of-Practice-.pdf.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system. The Systems Thinker, 9(5).
Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. (1999). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business
Review. Retrieved from
http://www.rareplanet.org/sites/rareplanet.org/files/Communities_of_Practice_The
_Organizational_Frontier%5B1%5D.pdf.
Wenger, E. (2006). Communities of practice: A brief introduction (pdf file). Retrieved from http://wenger-
trayner.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/10/06-Brief-introduction-to-communities-of-practice.pdf.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/5thingsyoushouldknowabout-160527195527/75/5-Things-You-Should-Know-About-CLE-Models-and-Strategies-23-2048.jpg)
![CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF NOVEMBER 2015
Situated Learning
References
Bond, S., & Campbell, S. (2015). Helping students develop global understanding through Situated Learning: A religion
course example. Innovations in Teaching and Learning, Retrieved from
http://journals.gmu.edu/ITLCP/article/view/664
Dabbagh N., Bannan B. (2005) Online learning: concepts, strategies, and application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. Educational
Technology Research and Development. Retrieved from http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/situated-
learning.html
Jonassen, D. (2011). Learning to solve problems. New York, NY: Routledge.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Mahar, S., & Harford, M. (2004). Research on human learning. Department of Education and Training, Victoria.
Retrieved fromhttp://www.researchgate.net
publication/265173642_Research_on_Human_Learning_Background_Paper
Paula, V. (2003). The nature of situated learning. Innovations in Learning [pdf document]. Retrieved from
http://sites.tufts.edu/ests/files/2012/12/newsletter_feb_20031.pdf
Situated Learning. (n.d.). In Northern Illinois University, Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center.
Retrieved from http://www.facdev.niu.edu/facdev/resources/guide/strategies/situated_learning.pdf](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/5thingsyoushouldknowabout-160527195527/75/5-Things-You-Should-Know-About-CLE-Models-and-Strategies-59-2048.jpg)
![CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF NOVEMBER 2015
Virtual Learning Environments
information and interactions required for
implementing experiments. In addition, math and
science domains that require computing activity lend
themselves well to a VLE: a statistics course
integrated the statistical computational software with a
constructivist VLE that provided communications,
collaboration, and feedback. Finally, VLEs are being
used in places where access to the real environment
for training is prohibitively expensive or dangerous,
such as nuclear facilities.
How effective is it?
Research points to VLEs having several effective
benefits as a pedagogical model. Whitelock, Brna and
Holland haveproposed a theoretical framework for
VLEs which includes three dimensions that increase
learning outcomes: “namely ‘representational fidelity’,
‘immediacy of control’and ‘presence’” (Dalgarno and
Lee, 2010). Several tangible effectives of the VLE
pedagogical approach are supported by research. First,
learners “can develop spatial knowledge through
exploring a virtual environment” (Dalgarno, 2002).
Secondly, research has shown that facts learned within
the VLE context are better recalled than facts learned
out of the VLE. In addition, studies have shown that
learner motivation and engagement is increased due to
learner choice and personalization in a VLE. Specific
learner behavior has been attributed to achieving
learning outcomes. Research shows that when students
give a significant number of meaningful feedback
messages to other students, they perform better at non-
rote learning activities: “Students who submit more
feedback messages increase their chances to perform
well” (Wessa, 2011). Other promising areas are
worthy of more study, such as which rules and design
principles should inform the design of the VLE for
associated learning tasks. Finally, there are additional
“learning benefitsthat may arise from enabling
learners to construct their own virtual places and/or
objects” in VLEs (Dalgarno and Lee,2010).
What are the implications for
instructional design?
Using a VLE has impacts to choices for instructional
design. An instructional designer would recommend
this model in situations that capitalize on the
affordances of the VLE technology: experiential tasks
that would be impractical in the real world, high
degree of personalization due to learner choice,
transfer of knowledge to real situations through
context, collaborative learning, and exploration of the
spatial relationships in the domain. Instructional
characteristics of VLEs include individual and small
groups of learners,providing scaffolding and
procedural information, well-defined problems, and
hypothesis generation. The learning outcomes that are
best supported by VLEs include:
Understanding beyond rote memorization;
engagement in processing information and
findingexplanations
Identify relevant problem-solving
techniques,interpret information, critically
investigate assumptions
The technologies that are most appropriate to
implement a VLE include 3D models and computer
environments, distributed and synchronous
collaboration tools, and tools to supportscaffolding
and expert guidance as learners undertake tasks in the
VLE. The pedagogical model of a VLE can solve
learning and training problems in several key areas.
The first area is any domain that would be
inaccessible or hard to visit for the learner, such as a
foreign country or secure location. The second area
that VLEs can support is dangerous or expensive
physicalenvironments.
Finally, VLEs can be particularly effective when:
“thelearning process relies intensively on computer
software … [and] the learning activities involve
social interaction, collaboration, and/or
communications” (Wessa,2011).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/5thingsyoushouldknowabout-160527195527/75/5-Things-You-Should-Know-About-CLE-Models-and-Strategies-66-2048.jpg)
Uploaded byNada Dabbagh
5 Things You Should Know About CLE Models and Strategies
This document presents insights into constructivist pedagogical models and instructional strategies developed by graduate students at George Mason University. It outlines key aspects of various methods such as cognitive apprenticeship, problem-based learning, and game-based learning, emphasizing their effectiveness and implications for instructional design. A total of 23 students contributed to drafting briefs that explore how these strategies enhance learning environments and foster problem-solving skills.
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5 Things You Should Know About CLE Models and Strategies
- 1. 5 THINGS YOUSHOULD KNOW ABOUT… Constructivist Pedagogical Models and Instructional Strategies GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY (IDT) PROGRAM
- 2. Introduction This publication representsthe work of graduate students in the Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. The learning task involved selecting a constructivist-based pedagogical model or instructional strategy and writing a 2-page pedagogy brief that addresses the 5 Things You Need to Know About this pedagogy or instructional strategy, namely: (1) What is it? (2) How does it work? (3) Who is doing it? (4) How effective is it? (5) What are its implications for instructional design? Twenty-three students participated in this activity in the fall semester of 2015 resulting in 16 briefs on pedagogical models and 7 briefs on instructional strategies. Selections included Cognitive Apprenticeship, Cognitive FlexibilityHypertexts, Communities of Practice, Goal Based Scenarios, Problem Based Learning, Situated Learning, Virtual Learning Environments, Authentic Learning Activities, Collaboration and Social Negotiation, Game-Based Learning, Role Playing, and Scaffolding. The writing of these briefs enabled students to examine constructivist-based pedagogical models and instructional strategies, describe their theoretical principles and instructional characteristics and discuss their implications for the design of problem solving learning environments (PSLEs) through research based practice. We hope you find these briefs informative and useful for the design of PSLEs. Nada Dabbagh, PhD. Professor & Director Division of Learning Technologies George Mason University Fairfax, VA, USA May 20, 2016 This publication maybe cited as: Dabbagh, N., David, L., Morgan, L., Campbell, A., Huber, B., Ahmed, N., … Butsay, A. (2016). 5 Things You Need to Know About Constructivist-Based Pedagogical Models and Instructional Strategies. Available from: http://www.slideshare.net/NadaDabbagh/5- things-you-should-know-about-cle-models-and-strategies ix
- 3. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................................................ix Dr.Nada Dabbagh ..................................................................................................................................ix PART 1: PEDAGOGICAL MODELS COGNITIVE APPRENTICESHIP (CA) Leslie David ............................................................................................................................................ 4 Laura Morgan..........................................................................................................................................8 COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY HYPERTEXTS (CFH) Anne Campbell .......................................................................................................................................12 Brenda Huber ........................................................................................................................................16 COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE (COP) Nashrah Ahmed .....................................................................................................................................20 Chunhua Xiong......................................................................................................................................24 GOAL BASED SCENARIOS (GBS) Dan Jackson ..........................................................................................................................................28 Katelyn Schreyer....................................................................................................................................32 PROBLEM BASED LEARNING (PBL) Sakon Kieh.............................................................................................................................................36 Evgeniy Lekarev.................................................................................................................................... 40 Candido Mendes....................................................................................................................................44 Rebecca Szymanski ............................................................................................................................... 48 William Wick..........................................................................................................................................52 SITUATED LEARNING (SL) Shakila Anwari ......................................................................................................................................56 Katrina Rainer.......................................................................................................................................60 VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS (VLES) Tonya Hutson.........................................................................................................................................65 PART 2: INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES AUTHENTIC LEARNING ACTIVITIES Jennifer Kleiner .....................................................................................................................................69 COLLABORATION AND SOCIAL NEGOTIATION Ellen Brown .......................................................................................................................................... 74 Jerry Prewitt ......................................................................................................................................... 77 GAME BASED LEARNING Adam Strawn..........................................................................................................................................81 ROLE PLAYING Dustin Norwood.....................................................................................................................................84 SCAFFOLDING Doug Baldwin........................................................................................................................................88 Anna Butsay...........................................................................................................................................93
- 4. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF CognitiveApprenticeship What is it? Cognitive apprenticeship is taking the traditional model of apprenticeship where the student was taught by a master ofthe craft and, learned the skills in a hands-on performance way. Tacit knowledge was involved to teach the “tips and tricks” of the trade. Cognitive apprenticeship involves applying the process to cognitive skills. Learners are invited into the actualknowledge domains and learn to perform these practices as apprentices or interns. It involves the showing and telling characteristics of apprenticeship where the learners work with experts, and where the showing is the modeling and the telling is the explaining so the student learns where and when to apply the knowledge. In this way students gradually learn the skills and ultimately perform at master level. By learning to perform these skills the apprentice is also brought into the community ofpractice. Additionally, apprentices learn when to apply the skills in the correct situations during actual practice. Cognitiveapprenticeship involves the use of technology to enable reflection, articulation and exploration. How does it work? Characteristics of cognitive apprenticeship are: □ Modeling and explaining expertperformance □ Extensive mentoring andcoaching □ Scaffolding □ Focusing on performance mastery of the specificskill domain □ Working from simple to complexproblems □ Collaborative learning within the communityof practitioners □ Articulation and reflection on performance □ Active participation in learning the skillset □ Less supervision (fading) as the student approaches masterylevel Modeling involves experts performing tasks so students can watch and create a conceptual model of the process. Coaching involves the expert observing or monitoring the student’s performance while they are performing GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY LESLIE DAVID the skill and can provide feedback in the form of scaffolding. Scaffoldingprovides any hints or assistance to the learner. Articulation provides an opportunity for the learner to articulate in words and actions their knowledge; reflection provides the opportunity to compare their efforts to other cognitive apprentices or the experts in the field. Exploration allowsthe learner to explore how to develop and carry out solutions. Who is doing it? Cognitive apprenticeship is a paradigm for teaching a fairly complex task to students. It is not used to teach any rote task. It has been used in the more traditional sense by medical students, law students as interns, and by instructional design students in a project between a university and a corporate business. Cognitive apprenticeship is being used by teachers to teach reading, writing, and mathematical skills in primary, secondary and college level education courses. It is used in the science, technology, mathematical and engineering fields at the post graduate level. It is being used in corporate training in order to situate problem solving in the context that the learner will actively use in everyday life as a way of avoiding the overly structured problems where the learner is unable to make the jump from those types of problems to actual problem solving. It is being used by Dutch vocational schools. Dutch schools range from short, verypractical prevocational and vocational education (comparable to American vocational high schools to a 6-year academic program that permits entrance to a university study. It is being used in the Department of Transportation to teach bridge inspection by utilizing a virtual bridge where the students have to perform inspection procedures. This was developed by a former graduate of this program. http://dotnet.dot.gov/news/stories/2015/10/2015- 10- 30-nhi-innovation.html. How effective is it? This section is totally subjective. How effective is cognitive apprenticeship? I would say very effective based on the increased use in education and training. The use of web and online course materials allow E D I T 7 3 0
- 5. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Apprenticeship cognitive apprenticeship to be used in more and more fields and to minimize the time away from their desks, more and more companies and universities are going to online training as an alternative to traditional training classes since they have the advantage of being taken anywhere, anytime and linking the learners to collaborate and share information through forums, blogs, online chats using a variety of online tools. The use of being able to observe a master user, understand what and how they do, through communication, create a scaffolding to understand theprocess, to practice the skill and received coaching and feedback from an expert, instructor, or peers. In Collins, et. al.,they referenced a pilot study to test the efficacy of reciprocal reading. They tested four groups and all showed very large percentages of improvement with little decrease after aperiod of time. The Dickey study investigated integrating a cognitive apprenticeship model into an educational technology Web- based course for pre-service primary and secondary teacher education and described varying degrees of success. The Maher, et. al. study used the cognitive apprenticeship framework to explain the doctoral student’s skill development and found that it supported the cognitive component but not the apprenticeship component. The Dutch study explored the issues of how do teachers value elements of the cognitive apprenticeship model in designing and delivering competence- based prevocational secondary education and what individual action theories to teachers have regarding competence-based prevocationalsecondaryeducation. What are the implications for instructional design? The implications of cognitive apprenticeship for instructional design are to provide learners with more authentic situated problems where they will be able to transfer skills to use what they have learned in a variety of ways. It encompasses the use of dialogic environments to exchange information. It allows instructors to incorporate technology to provide online course materials and as a means to integrate technology into training. According to Michele Dickey, cognitive apprenticeship methods may be well suited for Web-based educational technology because the students have to use educational technology to learn about educational technology. The many online tools that can be used such as blogs, wikis, chat rooms, forums can create a community of practice that apprentices can use to connect with experts and other learners to not only share information but to also reflect and articulate their experiences. It provides audio and video tools to capture a master’s performance that can be incorporated into the training to provide more authentic experiences. Scenario CognitiveApprenticeship Appreciative Inquiry Charlotte Barner Until recently within the company, learners havebeen members of work teams that have moved through a traditional development process. In these teams, the members' focus has been on identifying problems and developing solutions, the leadership roles may or may not have been shared, members' authority and influence may have been limited, and members expected team leaders and project managers to give specific direction and make final decisions. Team building training provided by the company taught members what it meant to be a "good team player" and itemized problems to expect as the team developed from stage to stage. Similarly, team leaders were taught how to direct members, monitor and evaluate individual and team performance, and deal with problem behaviors. The traditional employee development curriculum does not reflect the new management style needed to cope with shifting priorities, matrixed responsibilities, and short production deadlines. A more flexible employee development methodology is being instituted, "Appreciative Inquiry." Current members of various corporate teams and are being groomed to hold the position of team leader or project manager in their respective departments as part of an initiative by the company to redefine these roles across the organization. They will be matched with mentors who will work with them in on- line environments and in face-to-face meetings to help them construct expert level knowledge of the Appreciative Inquiry process. Multimedia resources will be available for the learners to use to observe modeled examples of the approach. Learners will keep a journal of their attempts to apply the model to their work situations and will submit role-play videos for mentor critique. They will also participate in developmental team projects and engage in discussion forums andconversations. Learning Outcomes Learners will internalize the skills of experienced leaders and managers who can use
- 6. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Apprenticeship the Appreciative Inquiry process to build and support successful productive teams. They will learnto: □ Understand and apply the Appreciative Inquiry's principles and processes as these relate to teamdevelopment □ Acquire the higher-level skills and abilities necessary for successful project management □ Hone competencies necessary to balance and communicate priorities, and to makedecisions □ Enrich their communication, facilitation, and negotiation abilities, especially when dealingwith diverse teams and divisiveissues □ Appreciate multiple points of view and be able to synthesize differences into a coherent and cohesive action plan □ Use Appreciative Inquiry to develop and guide cohesive and collaborative teams capable of sustaining high levels ofperformance.
- 7. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Apprenticeship References Chan, P., Miller, R., Monroe, E. (2009). Cognitive apprenticeship as an instructional strategy for solving corporate training challenges.TechTrends,53(6),35-41.DOI10.1007/s11528-009-0341- Collins, A., Holum, A., Brown, J. S. (1991). Cognitive apprenticeship: making thinking visible. American Educator, reprinted with permission. Retrieved from http://elc.fhda.edu/transform/resources/collins_brown_holum_1991.pdf Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005) Online learning: Concepts, strategies, and application. Upper SaddleRiver, NJ: Prentice Hall. Dickey, M. (2007). Barriers and enablers in integrating cognitive apprenticeship methods in a Web-based educational technology course for K 12 (primary and secondary) teacher education, ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology, 15(2), 119 130. Jonassen, D.H. (2011). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environment. New York, NY:Routledge. Maher, M. A., Gilmore, J. A., Feldon, D. F., Davis, T. E., (2013) Cognitive apprenticeship and the supervision of science and engineering research assistants. Journal of Research Practice, 9(2) Article M5. Retrieved from http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/354/311 Seezink, A., Poell, R.F., Kirschner, P.A. (2009). Teachers' individual action theories about competence- based education: The value of the cognitive apprenticeship model. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 61(2), 203-215.
- 8. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF CognitiveApprenticeship What is it? In cognitive apprenticeships (CAs), novices learn from experts in authentic learning environments. As in traditional apprenticeships, experienced practitioners model how to handle real, complex tasks, then observe and coach the students as they attempt the tasks on their own. Eventually, the students become practitioners and mentors themselves. In cognitive apprenticeships, there is an additional focus on the internal mental processes involved in learning. Experts attempt to make these cognitive processes visible so apprentices can understand and use them. For example, reading teachers might think aloudas they read and analyze a literary passage. CAs also focus on generalizable skills and knowledge so that learning can be applied in various contexts. The cognitive apprenticeship instructional model is rooted in the constructivist theories of situated cognition and sociocultural learning. Situated cognition emphasizes that learning take place in authentic physical and social contexts, and encourages learning to be embedded in activity. This “situated” learning arguably leads to more efficient and effective transfer (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). Sociocultural learning theory focuses on the importance of social interactions for passing on cultural tools and constructing knowledge. In Vygotsky's (1978) sociocultural theory, cognitive change occurs in the zone of proximal development when experts and novices work together on a task. Also related to CAs is Lave and Wenger’s (1991) concept of legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice. They explain that newcomers who are not directly part of an activity still learn from their position in the outer limits of the community. How does it work? The cognitive apprenticeship framework focuses on four dimensions: content, method, sequencing, and sociology (Collins, 2006). The first, content, refers not only to the concepts, facts, and procedures that an expert knows (domain knowledge), but how the GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY LAURA MORGAN expert uses them to solve real-world problems (strategic knowledge). In a CA, apprentices learn both types of knowledge. The second dimension, method, refers to the six instructional strategies used in CAs: modeling, coaching, scaffolding, articulation, reflection, and exploration. Modeling requires the expert to both perform the task and make explicit the internal cognitive processes needed to complete the task so that the novice can create a conceptual model. The expert coaches the novice by observing the novice perform the task and offering hints, feedback, advice, and reminders. Scaffolding refers more specifically to the supports that the expert provides the novice, which are gradually removed as the novice learns in a process called fading. Articulation occurs when novices explain and clarify their understanding, reasoning, and problem-solving strategies in their own words. This could occur through group discussion or writing a blog post, for example. Reflection encourages novices to revisit their performance and compare it with expert performances, a set of established criteria, their peers, and/or their own mental models to identify where they could improve. Finally, in exploration, the novices are encouraged to create their own goals based on problems of special interest to them. The third dimension, sequencing, suggests that learning activities progress with increasing complexity, with increasing diversity, and from global to local skills. Lastly according to Collins, the dimension of sociology refers to the social characteristics of CA learning environments. CAs should be situated in an authentic context, involve a community of practice, support intrinsic motivation to perform, and foster cooperative problem solving. Who is doing it? The cognitive apprenticeship model has been used in many instructional settings. Many internship programs and academic research assistantships employ CAs to onboard novice practitioners. E D I T 7 3 0
- 9. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Apprenticeship Education professors at Mercer University developed a CA model for supporting dissertation writing with activities like think-aloud literature analyses with students and scholars, writing tasks with feedback sessions, and writing workshops that incorporate scaffolding, coaching, and reflection (Swanson, West, Carr, & Augustine, 2015). Nursing education also uses the CA approach. The School of Care Sciences at the University of Glamorgan used CA to teach students clinical nursing skills by recording video of expert practitioners performing and explaining procedures, recording and coaching students as they practiced, encouraging articulation through think-aloud practice, and using videos and discussions to reflect on performance (Woolley & Jarvis, 2007). Large companies also employ the cognitive apprenticeship model. Google trains new software engineers using a complex and robust program that includes CA. Google provides new hires with a mentor, encourages them to seek out other role models to coach and advise them, scaffolds their learning with check-lists, forums, and tutorials, provides opportunities for feedback, articulation, and reflection during a series of performance management procedures, and provides multiple opportunities for exploration, including Tech Talks (community-organized sharing events that are recorded and posted) and career development projects. Google found that these practices reduced isolation, enhanced collegiality, and increased employee morale and job satisfaction (Johnson & Senges, 2009). How effective is it? Research generally supports the effectiveness of cognitive apprenticeships in learning (Dennen & Burner, 2008). Seel and Schenk (2003) used CA in a multimedia environment and the results indicated that effective design-type problem solving took place, although scaffolding was difficult to employ in the digital environment. Liu (2005) studied an online CA for preservice teachers and found it to lead to better performance and attitudes towards instructional planning than classroom-based learning. Hendricks (2001) compared CA to traditional instruction and found that CA learners performed better on post-tests, but this advantage did not appear in a transfer activity two weeks later. Teong (2003) found that young students using a CA-based program called WordMath outperformed the traditional learning group in word problem- solving skills. Bonnett et al. (2006) compared 20 mentor-apprentice pairings of research scientists and undergraduate biology students who used an online CA program. The findings indicated that mentoring relationships were more successful when they focused on discipline-related topics instead of relationship management issues. The example of cognitive apprenticeship at Google is another success story in learning and engagement in a community of practice. Most of the research on CAs focuses on higher education, teacher training, and K-12 education, leaving room for research in the government and private sectors. What are the implications for instructional design? Cognitive apprenticeships can be considered for a variety of learning problems. Some of the model’s strong points are its emphasis on enculturation and making explicit the knowledge of an experienced practitioner, which are useful for novices achieving performance mastery in a specific knowledge domain (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005). For example, an instructional designer might recommend a CA to a company with high turnover rate or expected large growth in human resources in order to maintain institutional memory. Companies might also benefit from cognitive apprenticeships for people transitioning to new roles or departments within the organization where there is a distinct work culture and set of expectations. CAs could also help learners to solve decision-making problems in complex environments. New teachers, for example, might benefit from mentoring relationships with more experienced teachers, especially in terms of classroom management, instructional planning, and communication with parents. Additionally, cognitive apprenticeships could fulfill learning needs for students that require added enculturation into a community of practice. For example, after-school mentoring programs for youth that are struggling in school could provide
- 10. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Apprenticeship them with the types of metacognitive, motivational, and self- regulating skills required to succeed in class. Various technologies could be used to facilitate a cognitive apprenticeship. Experienced practitioners could be either audio or video recorded as they model a task so that novices can repeatedly go back and refer to the expert demonstration. Wikis, discussion boards, journals, blogs, and video blogs could support collaborative learning and student articulation and reflection. Email, synchronous video, and instant messaging could be leveraged for coaching. Links to related resources could provide scaffolding and encourage exploration. Scenario A large pharmaceutical company is transitioning to a more flexible employee development model called Appreciative Inquiry. Current members of various corporate teams are being groomed to hold the position of team leader or project manager in their respective departments as part of the initiative by the company to redefine these roles across the organization. They will be matched with mentors who will work with them in online environments and in face-to-face meetings to help them construct expert level knowledge of the Appreciative Inquiry process. Multimedia resources will be available for the learners to use to observe modeled examples of the approach. Learners will keep a journal of their attempts to apply the model to their work situations and will submit role-play videos for mentor critique. They will also participate in developmental team projects and engage in discussion forums and conversations. Learners will internalize the skills of experienced leaders and managers who can use the Appreciative Inquiry process to build and support successful productive teams. They will learn to: Understand and apply the Appreciative Inquiry's principles and processes as these relate to team development Acquire the higher-level skills and abilities necessary for successful project management Hone competencies necessary to balance and communicate priorities, and to make decisions Enrich their communication, facilitation, and negotiation abilities, especially when dealing with diverse teams and divisive issues Appreciate multiple points of view and be able to synthesize differences into a coherent and cohesive action plan Use Appreciative Inquiry to develop and guide cohesive and collaborative teams capable of sustaining high levels of performance. (Adapted from Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland,2005)
- 11. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Apprenticeship References Bonnett, C., Wildemuth, B. M., & Sonnenwald, D. H. (2006). Interactivity between protégés and scientists in an electronic mentoring program. Instructional Science, (34), 21-61. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32- 42. Collins, A. (2006). Cognitive apprenticeship. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learningsciences (pp. 47- 60). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies, and application. Upper Saddle River N.J.: Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall. Dennen, V. P., & Burner, K. J. (2008). The cognitive apprenticeship model in educational practice. In M. J. Spector, M.D. Merrill, M. J. J. G. Van, & M. P. Driscoll (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 425- 439). Abingdon, NY: Springer. Hendricks, C. C. (2001). Teaching causal reasoning through cognitive apprenticeship: What are results from situated learning? Journal of Educational Research, 94(5), 302-311. Johnson, M. & Senges, M. (2009). Learning to be a programmer in a complex organization: A case study on practice-based learning during the onboarding process at Google. Journal of Workplace Learning, 22(3), 180-194. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Liu, T. C. (2005). Web-based cognitive apprenticeship model for improving pre-service teachers' performances and attitudes towards instructional planning: Design and field experiment. Educational Technology & Society, 8(2), 136-149. Seel, N. M., & Schenk, K. (2003). An evaluation report of multimedia environments as cognitive learning tools. Evaluation and Program Planning, 26(2), 215-224. Swanson, K. W., West, J., Carr, S., & Augustine, S. (2015). Supporting dissertation writing using a cognitive apprenticeship model. In V. C. X. Wang (Ed.), Handbook of research on scholarly publishing and research methods (pp. 84-104). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Teong, S. K. (2003). The effect of metacognitive training on mathematical word-problem solving.Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 19(1), 46-55.
- 12. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF CognitiveFlexibility Hypertext What is it? Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext (CFH) is a constructivist learning environment that “stimulates creative and critical thinking by allowing users to look at the same problem-situations from multiple perspectives within a self-controlled, interactive environment” according to Spiro, Lima, Koehler, who helped to develop the model (2004, p. 375). The model originated from Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT), which was conceived by Rand Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich and Anderson in 1988, basing it on the following main tenets: 1) uses multiple case studies to insure that a variety of possible situations are presented, 2) focuses on cross-case differences in how concepts and principles are applied, and 3) gives consideration to multiple perspectivesas an aid to understand the connected nature of the domain concepts and promoting flexible knowledgebuilding. Cognitive flexibility theory focuses on the nature of learning in complex and ill-structured domains. Spiro & Jehng (1990, p. 165) state: "By cognitive flexibility, we mean the ability to spontaneously restructure one's knowledge, in many ways, in adaptive response to radically changing situationaldemands...This is a function of both the way knowledge is represented (e.g.,along multiple rather single conceptual dimensions) and the processes that operate on those mental representations (e.g., processes of schema assembly rather than intact schemaretrieval).” Hypertext is the medium for representing cognitive flexibility theory. Due to the non-linear learning approach in CFT, itmost often uses multimedia and interactive technology for learning. CFH is a unique pedagogical model which is best suited for extremely complex problems, such as dilemmas or highly subjective, contextualized cases that do not have a clear-cut or linear pathway to a solution, such as those in psychology and medicine. How does it work? CFHs are unique environments defined by the critical need for representing multiple perspectives, the emphasis on learner- directed study vs. instructor-led, and the rich, interconnected, specific resources present in the learning environment. It ismost often GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY ANNE CAMPBELL used as a supplemental tool as part of a course of instruction. Jonassen, Ambruso & Olesen (1992) describe an original application of cognitive flexibility theory to the design of a hypertext program on transfusion medicine. The program provides a number of different clinical cases which studentsmust diagnose and treat using various sources of informationavailable (including advice from experts). The learning environment presents multiple perspectives on the content, is complex andill- defined, and emphasizes the construction of knowledge by the learner. A key defining characteristic of CFH learning environments is that the learning activities provide multiple perspectives and representations of content as evident in the example above. Instruction by an instructor is limited, and the construction of knowledge is on the learner to create. “Hypertext” itself is a term coined by Theodor Nelson to describe a user-directed approach to organize and sequence text, versus the traditional reading approach which is author-directed (Jonassen, 2011, p. 212). This exemplifies the ownership in PSLEs, where “the onus is placedon the student to create a model to capture in meaningful ways the complexity presented in the learning task” (Dabbagh & Dass, 2013, p. 162). The instructor should also provide sources, or ensure the multimedia environment has such sources, with a high level of interconnection between the information sources to enable the learner to construct broader applications from the highly specific scenarios presented. The materials and hypertext sources should be very rich and detailed in nature and support context-dependent case knowledge. In essence, the hypertext environment needs to provide as much information or access to information to allowthe learner to consider as many vantage points to the problem as possible. Who is doing it? The original applications in CFHs have been in reading comprehension, history, biology and medicine. These are all very complex, contextually dependent domains with interrelated tasks and knowledge structures where CFT has proven to be an effective learning theory for mastery of complex knowledge transfer. Using hypertext as a medium for E D I T 7 3 0
- 13. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext CFT learning has become more prevalent in education to supplement courseworkon highly complexsubjects. Today most social media environments are essentially CFHs. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and others are ill- structured, hypermedia environments which offer multiple perspectives, timely and realistic problem solving opportunities and links to contextualized, specific cases. While non- controversial topics are also discussed using social media platforms, these hypertext environments have become knownfor being the first place most people turn to in order to learn more about the toughest issues of today and offering their perspective on matters like racial injustice, local and global politics, among many others. Most interactive technologies are CFHs by design, such as interactive smartboards which are increasingly prevalent in classrooms all across the world. Interactive whiteboards support non-linear learning in two main ways, by accessing hypertext and multimedia external to the classroom, and by allowing for non- linear movement between the smartboard files related toquestions and answers of students (Blau,2011). How effective is it? CFHs are best for raising awareness and understanding the complexities of specific societal issues. Learners must take multiple perspectives on issues and construct their own opinions and approaches to finding a solution to the problem. As Dabbagh and Dass found in their 2013 study, “CFH case problems did not guide learners toward a specific external product or concrete solution; rather, CFH case problems evoked internal or tacit outcomes and changes in understandings that cannot be readily detected or measured, such as raising awareness and developing opinions on a specific societal issue, or understanding cultural differences and analyzing debates on alternative energy sources” (p. 172). The study also revealed that students spent on average one and a half times longer in a heterarchical (network-like) case problem design, such as a CFH, and this design also resulted in greater collaboration between users (Dabbagh & Dass, p. 162). For 21st century learning objectives, CFHs are ideal environments for instilling critical thinking and collaboration inlearners. In 2004, Godshalk, Harvey, and Moller studied the effectiveness of a complex problem like sexual harassment in the workplace. They found that learning tasks that required learners to explore several opinions and options were more effective in raising learners’ awareness and understanding of sexual harassment than learning tasks that required learners to explore the issueby taking a more defined and judgmental task” (Dabbagh & Dass, 2013, p. 163). In a 2013 study by Rinaldo, Laverie, Tapp, and Humphrey, Twitter was used as the CFH to enhance the classroom experience. The study found that students who engaged morewith Twitter throughout the semester realized a variety of benefits which included positive shifts in their motivations towards the course and task mastery, as well as shaping goals related to future careers (Rinaldo et al, 2013). What are the implications for instructional design? As CFT believes that the transfer of knowledge and skills beyond their initial learning situation is very important and that thenature effective learning in complex problems are highly context- dependent, the instructional designer must make it a priority to include information from multiple perspectives and use of many case studies that present diverse and specific examples. CFT also proposes at its core that learners must be able to construct their own representations of information and construct knowledge for themselves, and must be given opportunities to do so. “CFT suggests that learning is most successful when students are applying knowledges to new situations independently” (Rinaldo, Laverie, Tapp, Humphrey, 2013, p.19). Dabbagh and Dass found in their study of case problems that problem topics that were controversial, consequential, timely, realistic, and possessing multiple perspectives were found most often in CFHs (2013, p. 171). CFH case problem tasks were also found to be less tangible or overt than problem tasks conveyedin the case problems of the other models examined in theirstudy. However, with the advent of hypermedia and the internet, designers are finding that there is unexplored territory withvery few guidelines for the practice of using CFHs in the classroom. They have the technology and connections to the world at their fingertips, but being able to decipher credible sources and knowing how to link all of the information together is lessclear. New interactive technologies are expanding to personal devices connected by the Internet of Things, and should be utilized to provide greater detail and increase the number of perspectives
- 14. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext available to everyone to help tackle complex problems. Scenario Sophomores taking a political science class at American University are failing to understand all of the factors which affect an individual government’s decision-making process in an international crisis. The professor asks them to formulatean argument, either for, against, or undecided, on whether the United States should accept more Syrianrefugees. They will be given a constrained web environment which contains hyperlinks to web resources on the most currentstate of the crisis in Syria, current U.S. government programs and stances on refugees, statistics on immigrants to the U.S. inthe last ten years, popular opinions from highly regarded media outlets, historical cases of similar past crises with actions taken by the U.S., cultural differences between our two countries, surrounding countries’ Syrian refugee numbers, immigration programs and resources, and current statisticson U.S. unemployment rates and resources. The links andTwitter feed will show perspectives from government officials, everyday citizens, refugees and immigrants, and respected journalists. A Twitter feed showing Syrian- related threadswill also be embedded in the web environment. The students will discuss opinions on an online discussion forum with each other, and they will be able to talk with classmates and the professor in class as well. For the final project, they will present a two minute argument to the professor and class of their recommendation and detail the perspectives and information they used to make theirdecision.
- 15. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext References Antonenko, P. D., & Niederhauser, D. S. (2010). The influence of leads on cognitive load and learning ina hypertext environment. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(2),140-150. Blau, I. (2011). [Chais] Teachers for "smart classrooms": The extent of implementation of an interactive whiteboard- based professional development program on elementary teachers' instructional practices. Interdisciplinary Journal of E- Learning and Learning Objects, 7(1), 275-289. Dabbagh, N., & Dass, S. (2013). Case problems for problem-based pedagogical approaches: Acomparative analysis. Computers & Education, 64, 161-174. Godshalk, V. M., Harvey, D. M., & Moller, L. (2004). The role of learning tasks on attitude changeusing cognitive flexibility hypertext systems. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(4),507-526. Jonassen, D., Ambruso, D . & Olesen, J. (1992). Designing hypertext on transfusion medicine using cognitive flexibility theory. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 1(3), 309-322. Jonassen, D. H. (2011). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environments.New York, NY:Routledge. Rinaldo, S. B., Laverie, D. A., Tapp, S., & Humphrey Jr, W. F. (2013). The benefits of social media in marketing education: Evaluating Twitter as a form of cognitive flexibility hypertext. Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education, 21(1), 16. Spiro, R.J., Feltovich, P.J., Jacobson, M.J., & Coulson, R.L. (1992). Cognitive flexibility, constructivism, and hypertext: Random access instruction for advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. In T.M. Duffy & D.H. Jonassen (Eds.), Constructivism and the technology of instruction: A conversation (pp. 57- 75). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Retrieved from:http://postgutenberg.typepad.com/files/spiro92.pdf
- 16. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF CognitiveFlexibility Hypertext What is it? Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext/Hypermedia isa web-based constructivist learningenvironment proposed by Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson in 1988. When researching biomedical cognition, Spiro and his fellow researchers discovered that medical school students frequently developed misconceptions because of the various forms of oversimplification used during their instruction. Spiro et al., proposed Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT) to facilitate complex knowledgeacquisition in ill-structured domains. Spiro & Jehng (1990) claimed hypertext to be the most appropriate medium for representing cognitive flexibility theory. CFT utilizes a real-world case to convey an advanced concept. The complexity of the concept is retained by integrating multiple mental and pedagogical representations (Spiro et al., 1988). Learners are able to flexibly accessrelated information through hypertexts. Instead of accepting an oversimplified, “pre- packaged” schema, learners must construct their own unique schemas. Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext/ Hypermedia (CFHs) were introduced in 1992 as a problem-solving learning environment to support the GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY BRENDA HUBER theory (Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson, & Coulson, 1992). With a CFH learning environment, students encounter an authentic, complex case which features multiple perspectives and no clear solution. The juxtaposition of the perspectives creates themes for the learner to explore. The case, and the interconnected perspectives and themes are presented in documents, graphics, videos, audio files, photographs, etc.,and are accessible through hypertext links. Learners can enter the multidimensional CFH at any point and “crisscross” their way in a non-linear fashion through the information, examining it repeatedly, in different orders, for different purposes, and in different contexts (Jonassen, Dyer, Peters, Robinson, Harvey, King, & Loughner, 1996). To solve the problem, students must evaluate and synthesize all the perspectives. It requires cognitive flexibility for the learners to accommodate multiple perspectives as they construct their own interpretation of and solution to the problems (Jonassen,2011). How does it work? Learners enter a CFH through a web page that introduces a realistic case that lays thefoundation for the problem. The scenario is representative of something a professional would encounter in the workplace. It can be presented in any number of ways: as a video, business report, meeting dialog, etc. Learners sometimes find they are assigneda role to play and their task is outlined. They are free to click on any hyperlink to gather the background knowledge they need by exploring the different perspectives of the problem. Each perspective is a mini-case of the overarching case, as each represents a unique reality of the situation and contributes a different opinion, possible solution, or facts that must be taken into consideration. The perspectives are presented in the form of primary case material: interviews, emails, maps, letters, reports, etc. The more varied the mini- cases are, the more likely it is for learners to be able to transfer problem solving skills (Jonassen, et al., 1996). Underlying themes are based on the points made by different perspectives and learners must navigate through competing viewpoints. Hot words and phrases link the themes and perspectives, perspective to Scenario What do the Statue of Liberty, Devil’s Tower, and Cesar Chavez’s home all have in common? They are all United States’ National Monuments. President Obama recently named three other places of historical or geological significance to the list of 117 monuments around the U.S. There are several more under consideration. However, it is not an easy task to declare a site a national monument. It takes a Presidential proclamation or Congressional legislation for it to happen. There are conflicting opinions about the designation of land as a monument as itrestricts its use and future development. Cranberry Wilderness stretches over 48,000 acres in West Virginia and is home to both an important aquifer and valuable shale deposits. Should this federally-protected wilderness area join the list of National Monuments or should several proposed natural gas pipelines be allowed to cross its boundaries? Through a Cognitive Flexibility Hypermedia activity you can explore the debate about the financial, cultural, and environment impact on Cranberry Wilderness and decide whether you support or are opposed the proposed Birthplace of Rivers NationalMonument. E D I T 7 3 0
- 17. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext perspective, themes to themes, and back to the main case. The interconnectedness of the mini- case elements allows learners to recognize patterns and analogies that can be applied to new cases (Graddy, Lee, & Timmons, 2001). Users can navigate back and forth between the themes and perspectives and review the scenario at anytime. Some CFHs further engage learners by providing a place totake notes or providing access to search engines so learners can locate additional information and add their own hyperlinks to the system. The ultimate goal is for the learner to synthesize the information in the case to make a decision and be able to justify it. The final product may be a report, a design document, an essay, or other artifact that demonstratesboth knowledge acquisition and transfer of knowledge. Who is doing it? The original research that spawned both Cognitive Flexibility Theory andCognitive Flexibility Hypertext/Hypermedia was on medical school students. The need to convey the complex thinking of expert dental anesthesiologists to Korean dental students was accomplished with a CFH that was part of a cognitive apprenticeship program. It featured mini-cases in the form of video segments that featured expert performances and reasoning. Using the knowledge gained by examining the different variables in the mini-cases and the experts’ reasoning at critical junctures, the dental students were expected to model the reasoning process used by an expert and make decisions asa dental surgeon to improve the outcome in the test case (Choi, Hong, Park & Lee, 2013). Several colleges and universities have adopted CFH learning platforms to meet the advance learning needs of their students. Jonassen (2011) developed several CFH programs including one for a geography course and another for a sociology course. The would-be geographers were asked to take on the role of a member of a consulting firm that had been asked to design an alternate route for an intersection and later to choice the location of a newcommunity landfill. The perspective included soil maps, traffic and accident reports, and the opinions of citizens and public leaders. The sociology students were asked to solve three problems: 1) chose which renter to lease a house to; 2) decide which person to hire as a sales director; and 3) decide which person to admit to the final freshman slot. The perspectives included sociological theories, and applicants’ personal viewpoints. Toy & McShay (2003) created a CFH for pre-service teachers so they could identify and explore the many multicultural themes that are present in different school settings and the ways, as teachers, they could applytheir new knowledge in other educational contexts. How effective is it? CFHs have been found to be effective inavoiding the oversimplification in instruction andstudent misconceptions that can develop when attempting to present complex or ill-structured information in a linear format (Spiro et al., 1988). Because of the cognitive load they demand of learners, CFHs are not recommended for introductory learning situations (Spiro et al.,1992). Compared to students who participated in learning designs that emphasized mastery of declarative knowledge, students who used CFHs were superior in transferring their problem solving skills to new situations. However, the control group performed better on traditional recall assessments (Jacobson & Spiro, 1995). It should be noted that students do not always use the learning tool as designed without appropriate guidance (Choi, et al., 2013; and Strobel, Jonassen & Ionas, 2008). Because the system is designed to be used independently, some users may struggle to actively construct knowledge and make meaning of the themes and perspectives (Strobel, et al., 2008). What are the implications for instructional design? CFHs are powerful instructional models for understanding the complexities of ill-defined, real- life problems and making choices for medical diagnoses, public policy decisions, and legal and ethical conundrums. They support the development of flexible thinking that is required to analyze and synthesize multiple perspectives. Because the goal is for a learner to develop a unique schema through which to approach new problems or situations, a CFH would be inappropriate for group learning environments. CFH were designed as a computer- based learning model, and internet access and search engines increase the accessibility of materials to add details to perspectives. Word processing, computer
- 18. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext aided designsoftware, and other programs can be combined with a CFH to provide opportunities for learners to demonstrate their flexible decision making and itsramifications.
- 19. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext References Choi, I., Hong, Y., Park, H., & Lee, Y. (2013). Case-based learning for anesthesiology: Enhancing dynamicdecision making skills through cognitive apprenticeship and cognitive flexibility. In Luckin, R., Goodyear, P., Puntambeker, R., Grabowski, B., Understood, J., & Winters, N. (Eds.), Handbook of design in educational technology. (pp. 230-240). New York, NY: Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/handbook-of-design/9780415807340/xhtml/Ch023.xhtml Graddy, D.B., Lee, J.T., & Timmons, J.D., (2001). Cognitive flexibility hypertext as a learning environment in economics: A pedagogical note. Journal for Economic Educators 2001, 3(3). Electronic journal. Retrieved from http://capone.mtsu.edu/jee/PDF_Files/TEAcogpaper.pdf Jacobson, M. J., & Spiro, R. J. (1995). Hypertext learning environments, cognitive flexibility, and the transfer of complex knowledge: An empirical investigation. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 12(4):301- 333. Jonassen, D.H., Strobel, J., & Ionas, I.G. (2008). The evolution of a collaborative authoring system for non- linear hypertext: A design-based research study. Computers & Education: An International Journal, 5(1), 67-85. Jonassen, D.H., Dyer, D., Peters, K., Robinson, T., Harvey, D., King, M., & Loughner, P. (1996). Cognitive flexibility hypertexts on the web. In B. Khan (Ed.), Web-based instruction. (pp. 120-133). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational TechnologyPublications. Jonassen, D.H., (2011). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environments. New York, NY:Routledge. Spiro, R.J., Cousin, R.I., Feltovich, P.J., & Anderson, D.K. (1988). Cognitive flexibility theory: Advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. Tech Report No. 441. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, Center for the Study of Reading. Retrieved fromhttp://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED302821.pdf Spiro, R.J. & Jehng, J. (1990). Cognitive flexibility and hypertext: Theory and technology for the non-linear and multidimensional traversal of complex subject matter. D. Nix & R. Spiro (eds.), Cognition, education, and multimedia. (pp. 163-205). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Spiro, R.J., Feltovich, P.J., Jacobson, M.J., & Coulson, R.L. (1992). Cognitive flexibility, constructivism, and hypertext: random access instruction for advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. In T.M. Duffy & D. H. Jonassen (Eds.), Constructivism and the technology of instruction: A conversation. (pp. 57- 75). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Toy, S. & McShay, J. (2003). Using Cognitive Flexible hypertext environments to provide virtual field experiences for preservice teachers in a multicultural course. In C. Crawford, N. Davis, J. Price, R. Weber & D. Willis (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2003. (pp. 2427-2430). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. Retrieved fromhttp://www.editlib.org/p/18465
- 20. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF Communitiesof Practice What is it? A community of practice (COP) is an age-old learning model, which was defined by Etienne Wenger and Jean Lave in the early 1990s. They identified COPs as a unique model in the process of studying apprenticeships and knowledge sharing within a research project run at the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL) (Corso, n.d.). They discovered that there need not be only two people involved in an apprenticeship: a novice and an expert. Rather, a community can serve as a “living curriculum” for novices and experts at various levels (Wenger, 2006). As it was researched further, Wenger and Lave discovered this model virtually everywhere, often without a formal apprenticeship structure and without the dichotomy between novice and expert. They identified three distinct characteristics of COPS: (1) domain, (2) community, and (3) practice. A COP is when practitioners of a certain domain come together on a regular and on-going basis to discuss and share strategies, resources, and best practices. As an off- shoot of apprenticeships, this learning model is authentic and largely dependent on participants that directand construct their own learning. It is for this reason that it falls under constructivist epistemology, although it also has implications for connectivism in the modern age. In essence, Wenger and Lave did not invent a new learningmodel. Rather, they discovered and defined anaturally-occurring model used everywhere. How does it work? COPs do not lend themselves to traditional roles of “instructor” and “student.” Rather, all practitioners come to the table with their unique levels of expertise. There may be core members who actively and frequently participate and peripheral members who come and go or eventually become core members. Although COPs can be “cultivated,” the members are responsible for sustaining it over time (Cambridge, Kaplan, & Suter, 2005). The community ranges from various levels of “connectivity” and “institutionalization” (Jonassen, 1999). For example, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY NASHRAH AHMED nurses that meet for lunch daily to discuss issues is an example of low institutionalization and high connectivity. On the other hand, a national association of nurses that has annual gatherings is an example of high institutionalization and low connectivity. The types of domain, community, and practice vary drastically. Learning happens through social interaction and situated learning. It is authentic in that practitionersdrive the learning and discuss topics that are most relevant totheir practice and that will enhance learning in that domain. Knowledge- sharing is also an essential component. In fact, “theory and evidence suggest that knowledge creation and sharing are processes that involve often spontaneouslyformed groups of individuals” (Corso, n.d.). Finally, COPs are considered living, breathing entities that evolve over time. There are five loose stages of evolution: potential, coalescing, maturing, stewardship and transformation. In a nutshell, a “loose network” of individuals eventually coalesce into a community, mature over time, and become stewards of knowledge in a particular area (Corso, n.d.). Even with institutionalization and orchestration, these stages can only come into existence through socialinteractions that are authentic andspontaneous. Who is doing it? Communities of practice have always existed and continue to exist in every aspect of life, from local knitting clubs to international associations of law or medicine. Since its introduction by Lave and Wenger, it has been used heavilyin business and management settings. Wenger argues that an organization’s most valuable resource is people and “[e]ven when people work for large organizations, they learn through their participation in more specific communities made up of people with whom they interact on a regular basis” (1998). COPs are also used in government, non-profit organizations, and associations. One example is the World Bank’s knowledge management strategy, which incorporates an increasing number of COPs (Wenger, 1999). COPs alsooccur informally within organizations across functional units. For example, the group of colleagues one interacts with on a regular basis to share experiences and discuss ideas E D I T 7 3 0
- 21. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Communities of Practice would be considered an informal COP. Although it is not generally used in K-12 education for students, teachers often work within COPs centered on planning and instruction. In today’s increasingly globalized world, online platforms have further expanded COPs beyond geographic boundaries. Many COPs contain both online and face-to-face components. For example, teachers may meet weekly in person and also use a Google Drive to share resources discussed. There are professional circles that mostly interact online but may have an occasional live webinardiscussion. How effective is it? The effectiveness and impact of communities of practice is difficult to measure because its “primary ‘output’ –knowledge is intangible” (Wenger, 1999). However, there are certain indicators of an effective COP such as “knowledge assimilation, creation, transfer, sharing, capitalization, and reuse” (Corso, n.d.). A successful COP connects people, “capture[s] and diffuses existing knowledge,” and generates new knowledge (Cambridge, Kaplan, & Suter, 2005). Snyder and Wenger outlines ways in which COPs have added valueto various businesses and organization such as the World Bank, Buckman Labs, and Chrysler. In particular, they have helped organizations develop hubs of strategic knowledge and create new lines of business by fostering the exchange of entrepreneurial insight. COPs have also streamlined problem- solving processes by connecting practitioners to experts in their fields. They have also aided in the transfer of knowledge as participants exchange context-specific bestpractices. Although COPs have been around for centuries and are increasingly gaining momentum in organizational environments, there are a number of challenges or unresolved issues that may impede the development of effective COPs in today’s fast-paced globalized workforce. Kerno identifies three limitations or challenges: (1) time constraints that don’t allow participants to “engage in prolonged, sustained discourse,” (2) the hierarchical structure of organizations that has the potential to be at odds with the fluid, horizontalnature of COPs, and (3) the role of varying cultures, some of which may emphasize individualismovercommunity. What are the implications for instructional design? Communities of practice are a naturally occurring model in organizations and in everyday life. They can be a valuable structure for instruction and their “organic, spontaneous, and informal nature” do not warrant a great deal of “supervision and interference” (Wenger, 1999). In this regard, it is ideal for cases when resources to provide formal learning interventions are limited and there is a great deal of collective expertise ona topic. It is also ideal for continuing education for adults because it is embedded in a shared real-world practice or area of expertise. COPs focus on the distribution, transfer, and generation of knowledge through collaboration, resource- sharing, and dialogue. However, “managers cannot mandate communities or practice; they [must] bring the right people together, provide an infrastructure in which communities can thrive, and measure the communities’ value in nontraditional ways” (Wenger, 1999). Instructors or managers ultimately serve as facilitators on an on-going basis and they are cognizant of the phases or life cycle of COPs: inquire,design, launch, grow, and sustain (Cambridge, Kaplan, & Suter, 2005). Technology has greatly enhanced the scope and functionality of COPs. The “technical architecture” is as important as the “social architecture.” In fact, many COPs exist entirely online on social media platforms, interactive websites, or discussion boards. Online resource-sharing platforms such as Google Drive are used to share resources and collectively work on projects. Social media groups on Pinterest or Facebook can also be used as resource-sharing and collaboration tools respectively. For COPs that are virtual or cannot meet face-to- face on a regular basis, Skype, Adobe Connect, WebEx, or any similar web conferencing tool provides a “sense ofplace”.
- 22. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Communities of Practice Scenario ABC is a two-year alternative teacher preparation and leadership development program that places highly qualified young college graduates in high- needs schools. Teachers in their second year, 60 in total, have traditionally received less support and professional development than first-year teachers. Unlike first-year teachers who are focused on mastering the foundations of instruction and pedagogy, second-year teachers are refining skills and preparing to become future leaders in the movement for education equity, whether they stay in the classroom or pursue related careers. They have expressed a need for more differentiated support because the information that is useful for first-year teachers does not feel relevant to them. Additionally, they have different interests based on the career trajectory they have decided to pursue after finishing the program. For example, some are interested in school leadership, some are interested in curriculum design, and others are interested in leveraging community relationships. ABC does not have the resources and capacity to provide robust differentiated support. However, they realized that second-year teachers have benefited from interacting with each other as well as the large alumni base in the region. Many of the second- year and alumni teachers are finding effective and innovative ways to design instruction, connect with communities, and take on leadership roles in their schools. ABC would like to leverage this collective expertise to provide more authentic and differentiated support to second- yearteachers.
- 23. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Communities of Practice References Cambridge, D., Kaplan, S., & Suter, V. (2005). Community of practice design guide: A step-by-step guide for designing & cultivating communities of practice in higher education (pdf file). Retrieved from https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/nli0531.pdf. Corso, M., & Giacobbe, A. (n.d.). Building communities of practice that work: A case study based research [pdf file]. Retrieved from http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/conf/olkc/archive/oklc6/papers/corsogiacobbe.pdf Jonassen, D., & Land, S. (2012). Preface. Theoretical foundations of learning environments (p. vii-x). New York, NY: Routledge. Retrieved from http://samples.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/9781136702600_sample_844583.pdf Kerno, S.J. (2008). Limitations of communities of practice: A consideration of unresolved issues and difficulties in the approach. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 15(1) 69-78. Retrieved from http://www.knowledgemobilization.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/8.-Limitations-of- Communities-of-Practice-.pdf. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system. The Systems Thinker, 9(5). Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. (1999). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from http://www.rareplanet.org/sites/rareplanet.org/files/Communities_of_Practice_The _Organizational_Frontier%5B1%5D.pdf. Wenger, E. (2006). Communities of practice: A brief introduction (pdf file). Retrieved from http://wenger- trayner.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/10/06-Brief-introduction-to-communities-of-practice.pdf.
- 24. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF Communitiesof Practice What is it? A community of practice is a group of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or interest in a topicand who come together to fulfill both individual and group goals (Wenger et al., 1998). Participating in these ‘communities of practice’ is essential to our learning (Wenger,2000b). Online collaborative forums offer just-in-time training solutions and are often represented in the form of discussion boards, collaborative software programs, and centers for feedback. These forums have consequentially evolved into CoPs wherein interested stakeholders can interactively problem solve, create new knowledge, or troubleshoot any issues facing field practitioners (Wenger,1998). Wenger pointed out that CoPs can also be considered as apart of broader conceptual framework for thinking about learning in its social dimensions. CoPs are theoretically grounded in social constructivism. While as pedagogical model, it is consistent with the epistemological assumptions of constructivism, which stipulate that meaning is a function of how the individual creates meaning from his or her experiences and actions (Jonassen,1991). How does it work? CoPs often focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance a domain of professional practice. Arising out of learning, Wenger considered that CoPs exhibits many characteristic of systems more generally: emergent of learning, complex relationships, self-organization, dynamic boundaries, ongoing negotiation identity and culturalmeaning. When designing itself, a community should look at the following elements: events, leadership, connectivity, membership, projects, and artifacts (Wenger,2000b). Following are the instructional characteristics ofCoPs: □ Control of learning is distributed amongthe participants in the community and is not in the hands ofa single instructor or expert. □ Participants are committed to the generationand GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY CHUNHUA XIONG sharing of newknowledge. □ Learning activities are flexible andnegotiated. □ The participants exhibit high levels of dialogue, interaction, collaboration, and socialnegotiation. □ A shared goal, problem, or project bindsthe participants and provides a common focus and an incentiveto work together as acommunity. □ Diversity, multiple perspectives, and epistemic issues are appreciated. □ Traditional disciplinary and conceptual boundariesare crossed. □ Innovation and creativity are encouragedand supported. Who is doing it? Many studies show that CoPs have existed in a very wide range of domains in academe, business, government, education, health and the civil sector. Following are a few examples of the applications of CoPs: First of all, CoPs have been applied widely in companies or organizations. For example, when a company reorganized into a team-based structure, employees with functional expertise may create communities of practice as a way of maintaining connections with peers. Elsewhere, people may form communities in response to changes originating outside or inside the organization, such as the rise of e-commerce, computer makers offering consulting service,etc. Moreover, in order to develop a knowledge sharing culture, a case study explores how NASA's Office of theChief Engineer established communities of practice on the NASA Engineering Network, from establishing simple websites that compiled discipline- specific resources to fostering a knowledge-sharing environment through collaborative and interactive technologies (Topousis et al.,2012). Last but not least, Polin’s (2008) study illustrates ways in which social computing applications enable the use of aCoP model in graduate professional education, which offers a perspective on graduate professional education as anactivity arising in a community of professionalpractice. E D I T 7 3 0
- 25. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Communities of Practice How effective is it? Combined with Wenger’s view of the application of the CoPs, the effectiveness can be discussed from following aspects: To begin with, in organization in the private and public sectors, CoPs have provided a vehicle for peer- to-peer learning among practitioners. CoPs have been seen toimprove organizational performance at companies as diverse as international bank, a major car manufacturer, and the U.S. government agency. (Wenger & Synder,2000b) Secondly, in education, CoPs are increasingly used for professional development, but they also offer a fresh perspective on learning and education more generally. New thinking about the role of educational institutions anddesign of learning opportunities is arising by applying the CoPs in educational field. Finally, in international development, cultivating horizontal communities of practice among local practitioners presents an attractive alternative to the traditional view of vertical transmission of knowledge (Wenger, 2009). Actually, NASA’s CoPs showed that the collaborative exchanges in CoPs “have already offered significant discoveries in how to reduce risk in space exploration and optimize engineering designs.” (Topousis et al., 2012). What are the implications for instructional design? Today, organizations, workgroups, teams, and individuals must work together in new ways. Inter- organizational collaboration is increasingly important (Cambridge et al., 2005). Studies indicated that CoPs can be cultivated to address the needs of sharing information, exchange of opinions, and peer-to-peer learning in a varietyof contexts through appropriate technologies, in particular the rise of social media. By applying CoPs as a pedagogical approach, members of community attempt to unveil tacitskills and abilities that often only evolve from experience (Hildreth et al., 2000; Wenger, 2000a; Wenger,2000b). In order to develop quality CoPs, Harvey et al mention that the organizational model, culture, and context must be considered (Harvey et al., 2012). While successfully facilitating a CoP involves understanding its lifecycle phase (inquire, design, prototype, launch, grow, and sustain) and ensuring that the expectations, plans, communications, collaborative activities, technologies, and measures ofsuccess map to the current phase of the community’s. The technical architecture of the community supports it in providing a platform for communication and collaboration, while the social architecture enlivens it. Therefore, the roles, processes, and approaches that engage people—whether face- to-face or online—are essential in relationship building, collaborative learning, knowledge sharing, and action (Cambridge et al., 2005). Scenario “Engaging in Cultural Inquiry” (by Kristin Percy-Calaff) Introduction A national professional teaching society estimates thatmore than half the public schools in America are wrestling with cultural diversity issues and learning needs stemming from differences in students’ educational and ethnicbackgrounds. Some diversity issues come from the fact that the families of many school-aged children emigrated from foreign countries and do not speak English. Other issues arise because American families are more mobile than they were 25 years ago. Many students spend only 1 or 2 years in the same school system. When they arrive at a new school, they havediffering academic backgrounds and expectations. Teachers need to be able to analyze student problemsand identify whether they are developmental issues, cultural differences, or learning disabilities. Perhaps the “difficulties” are the result of the teacher’s overlynarrow expectations. Educators must be able to locate resources and use these resources to flexibly solve problems that interfere withtheir students’learning. This year’s public school educational conference will address this issue; the theme is “Cultural Inquiry and Effective Education (CIEE).” Continued on next page…
- 26. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Communities of Practice The goal of the CIEE conference is “to support teachers working in culturally diverse classrooms so that they might provide effective educational opportunities for all students.” The conference will be divided into tracks geared to four audiences: teachers in K–7, teachers in 8–12, school administrators, and technology support professionals.Presenters and participants will be encouraged to collaborate and share their experiences, and to recommend resources and methods for supporting culturally diverse classrooms. As the conference organizer, you want this event to lay the groundwork for a teacher support base for culturalissues. Learning Outcomes The task force will be charged with designing an environment that will enable teachers to do the following: Identify appropriate cultural approaches,knowledge domains, and intervention strategies used in different educationalsituations Develop a research plan and identify relevant resources, including other teachers, to solve a culturally based educationalproblem Decide how and when resources should be used to support decisions, methods, and information given ina situation Envision alternative ways of viewingeducational processes Provide experiential guidance to instructors whoare unfamiliar with the cultures of the studentsthey are encountering Identify strategies to improve educational practice Reflect on strategy outcomes and refinetheir solutions for future practice.
- 27. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Communities of Practice References Cambridge. D., Kaplan. S., & Suter, V. (2005). Community of practice design guide: A step-by-step guide for designing &cultivating communities of practice in higher education. Retrieved from EDUCAUSE website: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NLI0531.pdf Harvey, J. F., Cohendet, P., Simon, L., & Dubois, L. E. (2013). Another cog in the machine: Designing communities of practice in professional bureaucracies. European Management Journal, 31, 27–40. Hildreth, P., Kimble, C., & Wright, P. (2000). Communities of practice in the distributed international environment. Journal of Knowledge Management, 4(1), 27–38. Jonassen, D. H. (1991). Objectivism versus constructivism: Do we need a new philosophical paradigm? Educational Technology Research and Development, 39(3),5–14. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge England: Cambridge UniversityPress. Polin, G. L. (2008) Graduate professional education from a community of practice perspective: The role of social and technical networking. In C. Blackmore (Eds.), Social learning systems and communities of practice (pp. 163-177). London: Springer. Topousis, D., Dennehy, C.J., & Lebsock, K.L. (2012). NASA’s experiences enabling the capture and sharing of technical expertise through communities of practice. Acta Astronautica, 81(2),499– 511. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, London: Cambridge UniversityPress. Wenger, E. C., & Snyder, W. M. (2000a). Communities of Practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 139-145. Wenger, E. (2000b). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7(2), 225 –246.
- 28. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF Goal-BasedScenarios What is it? Goal-based scenarios (GBS) are, first and foremost, a pedagogical model grounded in constructivism. According to Anne K. Bednar, constructivism is a theory that associates learning with creating meaning from experience (Ertmer & Newby, 1993). Building on this concept, GBS provideslearners with meaningful and authentic goals in the context of a real- world scenario. Originally proposed by Roger Schank, GBS accounts for the idea that too often, natural learning goals are overshadowed by artificial ones (Schank, 1992). They create a more authentic learning experience by providing learners with specific goals to work towards in solving aproblem. Additionally, goal-based scenarios allow for learning to occur throughout the scenario on a variety of different subjects; not just directly related to the specific goal. Learners are forced to build a skillset as they progress through the scenario, and make choices utilizing their newly acquired skills. As Schank notes, GBS is truly learning by doing and learning in real life, which tends to be a very effective way that people learn naturally.This also allows learners to take control of their own learning experience, since they are the ones that need to pursue the achievement of the goals (Abelson et al.,1994). How does it work? Goal-based scenarios typically have seven very well structured and well defined instructional characteristics. First are learning goals, which defines what students should learn from the GBS. Often, learning goals can be broken up into both process and content knowledge. Process knowledge describes how to practice skills that contribute to learner success, and content knowledge describes the information that learner success requires, respectively. The second instructional characteristic is a mission, which is the actual goal that will motivate the learner to solve the problem. Ideally, the mission is something relatable to the learner, but also realistic. Third is a cover story, which provides the background and context for the scenario thatcreates the need for the mission to be successfully GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY DAN JACKSON accomplished. This is a critical step, since a good cover story can be key in allowing the learner to become immersed in thescenario. The fourth instructional characteristic of a GBS is a role, which defines the character the learner is participating as during the scenario. Fifth is the scenario operations, which lay out all of the tasks the learner needs to complete in working towards the mission goal. The sixth characteristic is resources, which provide learners with additional information they needto accomplish their mission goal. Lastly, the seventh instructional characteristic is feedback, which is given to the learner in anyof three following ways as they complete the scenario. First, they can receive feedback as a direct consequence of an action they’ve taken or a decision they’ve made. Second, a coach or instructor can deliver feedback to the learner. Finally, feedback can be delivered in the form of relevant stories with similar experiences and learning outcomes (Reigeluth,1999). Within a GBS, the roles of the instructor and the learner arewell defined. The primary job of the instructor is to design the scenario, and then to explain it to the learners. One critical aspect for the instructor when explaining the scenario is that in order for the learner to be successful, they need to make sure to motivate them. The more engaged the learner is, the more successful they are at achieving the goal. The role of the learner, on the other hand, is to drive their own learning by doing. The learner needs to explore options and test solutions, acquiring new skills along the way to achieving thegoal. Who is doing it? Goal-based scenarios can be used in a multitude of educational settings, including both academia and business. One such example from academia describes Bill Purves, a Professor of Biology at Harvey Mudd College. Roger Schank encouraged Professor Purves to take a look at the skills a professional biologist needed to be successful, and then to create a GBS supporting the cultivation of those skills. Together, they created a scenario in which the student needed to develop a way to make bacteria produce insulin which would be then administered to a diabetic patient E D I T 7 3 0
- 29. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Goal-Based Scenarios (Schank,1992). Another example of a GBS is from the National Museum of Wildlife Art. In this example, learners write original stories using museum art as illustrations and inspiration for theirstories. While they use these pieces as part of the story, they are responsible for creating their own interpretations. They are also given a specific role from which the narrative is written, which allows them to learn about the artwork from the context of that particular role. The goal of this scenario is to learn more about the artwork and to understand it in context (Schaller et al., 2001). While these examples are vastly different, such is the scopeof use cases for goal-basedscenarios. How effective is it? Just like any training course, the effectiveness ofgoal- based scenarios often depends on the situation in which it is being used. However, when correctly employed, educational technology studies have shown that learning is often considerably enhanced in such real-worldenvironments. Additionally, this research supports the concept thatrole- playing in such real-world environments encourages learners to practice and internalize skills that they can eventually transfer into everyday situations (Kaufman & Sauvé, 2010). It is important to note that while the research supports GBS asa successful and effective training solution, there are a number of factors that can influence its effectiveness. First and foremost, as mentioned previously, it is critical for the instructor to not only explain the scenario, but also motivate and engage the learners. If the learners are not fully immersed in the scenario and in achieving the goal, the GBS’s effectiveness diminishes considerably. Another factor that can influence effectiveness is the scenario itself. If the scenario is not grounded in reality and authentic context, it will most likely not resonate with learners. Thus, learners will not be engaged or motivated to achieve the goal. One additional factor that can possibly influence effectiveness is the level of involvement from theinstructor. The learning in a goal-based scenario needs to be primarily learner-driven. If the instructor is too heavily involved in hand- holding the learners, it is easy for the learners to become disengaged and unmotivated. The intrinsic motivation of the learners driving themselves towards a solution cannot be forgotten, and this can significantly impact the effectiveness ofa goal-based scenario. What are the implications for instructional design? With the advancements in technology over the last several decades, the field of instructional design has benefited greatly. While traditional brick and mortar classroom settings can never be eliminated, technology has allowed instructional designers to create unbelievably immersive learning solutions across every imaginable industry. Goal-based scenarios lend themselves perfectly to a technology- supported solution, primarily because the learning is almost entirelylearner-driven. Technology can allow the learner to take on multiple roles and make decisions easily and seamlessly, without being confined to a classroom. This encourages learning to take place anywhere and everywhere, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities for real-world and authentic learning. Scenario Many organizations are currently very concerned about cyber security, and multi-family housing real estate investment trusts (REITs) are no different. Hackers know that REITs have a digital treasure trove of resident and employee information (e.g. credit card numbers, social security numbers, tax information, etc.) stored on their networks. In response to the imminent data threat, the IT department in one particular national REIT sent out a number of fake phishing emails trying to gauge the organization’s susceptibility to a cyber-attack, and the results were appalling. Employees willingly shared their intimate personal information (e.g. social security numbers, computer passwords, etc.); information which a hacker could use to cause major damage both for the individual and for the organization. As a result, it became evident that a significant training effort was necessary. A goal-based scenario computer based training course was Continued on next page…
- 30. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Goal-Based Scenarios chosen as the most effective way to reach the employeesand emphasize the importance of datasecurity. The scenario requires employees to perform a number of tasks and make choices based on problems that arise in order to protect the organization from a series of damaging cyber- attacks. These problems range anywhere from locking their computer when they leave to go to lunch, to adjusting privacy settings on their social media pages. The scenario is designed for employees to complete it individually, since it is each employee’s responsibility to keep themselves andorganization secure. As they progress through the scenario, they receive real-time feedback on their choices. They are not able to move forward in the scenario without completing a task and proving that they understand the concept being discussed at that point intime. By the time the employee completes the course, they should be well versed in the different methods hackers can use to access information, as well as how to prevent such attacks. They are of course assessed along the way during the scenario, but there is an additional layer of assessment following completion of the course. The IT department again sends out fake phishing emails to the organization at random intervals in the months following course completion. This gives them the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of the cyber security goal-based scenario in teaching employees to maintain a high level ofdata security, even after training hasconcluded.
- 31. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Goal-Based Scenarios References Abelson, R. P., Schank, R. C., & Langer, E. J. (1994). Beliefs, reasoning, and decision making: Psycho-logic in honor of Bob Abelson. Hillsdale, N.J: L.Erlbaum. Ertmer, P., & Newby, T. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 1(2), 43-71. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1002piq.21143 Kaufman, D., & Sauvé, L. (2010). Educational gameplay and simulation environments: Case studies and lessons learned. Hershey, PA: Information ScienceReference. Reigeluth, C.M. (1983). Instructional design theories and models: An overview of their current status. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence ErlbaumAssociates. Schaller, D. T., Allison-Bunnell, S., & Nagel, S. (2001). Developing goal-based scenarios for web education. Retrieved from http://www.eduweb.com/goalbasedscenarios.html Schank, R. C. (1992). Goal-based scenarios. Technical Report #36. Evanston, IL: The Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University. Retrieved fromhttp://cogprints.org/624/1/V11ANSEK.html
- 32. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF Goal-BasedScenarios What is it? Roger Schank (1994) observed that young children are natural learners, but all their learning is associated with a goal. Children want to go places, therefore they learn to walk, and they tolerate much failure in the process. They want to communicate, so they learn to talk, and they keep refining this skill over many years. This kind of personal goal has much more motivating power than learning a seemingly random assortment of skills to earn a grade. Shank proposed a pedagogical model where scenarios are constructed around meaningful, authentic goals, and these goals would require the target skills to be learned as a necessary step. He called this model Goal-Based Scenarios. These scenarios feature learners as active participants in constructing both their knowledge and the methods by which the goal is achieved. Schank proposes that Goal-Based Scenarios is a pedagogy that can “provide motivation, a sense of accomplishment, a support system, and a focus on skills rather than facts.” This constructivist model builds on the concept of Situated Learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) in that learning objectives are situated in the context in which they are used in the “real world.” However, Goal-Based Scenarios is distinct from situated learning in the presence of the titular goal; there is an overt objective that is driving the learning, which may be absent in a situated learning environment. How does it work? A Goal-Based Scenario consists of four components: Mission, Mission Focus, Cover Story, and Scenario Operations (Schank et al, 1994). The mission is the goal the learner is trying to accomplish, and it should be broad enough to entice a number of different activities. Most critically, it should be relevant and meaningful to the learner; no one mission will be meaningful to everyone. The mission focus describes the kinds of activities that the learner will need to undertake in order to complete the goal. The four kinds of mission focus are explanation, control, design, and GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY KATELYN SCHREYER discovery. The cover story is the scenario that is built up around the goal, to explain why the learner is pursuing the goal and define its context. For example, the cover story may include the background of a town with a polluted water supply, and it will also establish the learner as taking on the role of an expert consultant to solve the problem. The scenario operations are the actual activities that the students will undertake in the process of achieving the goal. In a Goal-Based Scenario, the instructor designs and explains the goal, with special care to create a goal that learners will engage with and become motivated to solve. A Goal-Based Scenario should have many viable solutions, which the learners will spend time exploring, and the skills that the instructor intends to teach should be aligned to the goal such that students will simply have to learn that skill, among others, on the way to completing the goal. The instructor must be sensitive to the interests of the learners, and design each Goal- Based Scenario to appeal to them, with the knowledge that no one scenario will be of interest to all students. Who is doing it? Goal-Based Scenarios can be used effectively in a wide variety of formal and informal educational settings and all educational levels, ranging from K-12 to workplace training and professional development to informal learning environments such as museums. With some imagination in designing the scenario, the model can be used to almost any skill. To provide some examples, the model has been used to teach financial accounting practices to MBA students by placing them in the role of a bank manager evaluating lending deals (Foster, 1995), and to teach about Sickle Cell Anemia and about health- care counseling to museum visitors of all ages (Bell, et al., 1994). It has been used to teach a government- mandated ethics program to high school students in Japan (Umeda, et al., 2012), and to teach undergraduates in a computer science program how to select computer equipment and components based on user requirements (Beriswell, 2014). It has also been E D I T 7 3 0
- 33. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Goal-Based Scenarios used in a computer-based environment to teach about the Central Limit Theorem to students in a statistics class (Hsu & Moore, 2010). How effective is it? Goal-Based Scenario are, when correctly implemented, a highly engaging and effective instructional approach. Zumbach & Reimann (1999) conducted a study comparing a computer based GBS, a computer-based rote drill program, and a hypertext environment covering the same material. Students grasp of basic facts was best in the drill program, but Schank (1994) argues that memorization of facts isn’t as significant a learning outcome as mastery of skills. Along those lines, this study showed that participants in the Goal- Based Scenario group had better structural knowledge of the target activity than the other two groups, and the Goal-Based Scenario group showed better argumentation in their discussion of the activity later. Most interestingly, both the drill and hypertext group showed a distinct drop in intrinsic motivation that did not manifest in the Goal-Based Scenario group. Furthermore, Goal-Based Scenarios have been shown to be effective for all students, regardless of ethnicity, gender,orprior coursework(Schoenfeld-Tacher,Jones, & Persichitte, 2001), so this use pedagogical model is an opportunity to minimize the achievement gap. Research has also shown when GBS’s are designed with Cognitive Load Theory in mind, motivational and academic outcomes are further improved (Kilic & Yildirim,2012). What are the implications for instructional design? Goal-Based Scenarios are ideal for teaching skills, and are less suited to teaching a corpus of facts for memorization. Furthermore, because the model centers on learning by doing, the target skill must be one that students can reasonably do, or that can be adequately reproduced in a simulator. For example, Goal-Based Scenarios are a poor choice for the skill of learning how to operate a nuclear reactor, as the cost of failure is extraordinary. Likewise, the skills of avionics and navigation for an aircraft would only fit into the Goal- Based Scenarios model with the extensive use of simulators prior to or entirely in place of flying an actual aircraft. Multiple learning technologies can benefit from this model. Most notably, almost all video games are goal- based scenarios, although they are not all educational in nature. This indicates that to develop an effective educational video game, the designer should keep the design criteria of Goal-Based Scenarios in mind. Simulations can also benefit from incorporating Goal- Based Scenarios to ensure that the learners can contextualize the skills the simulation is designed to teach. Goal-Based Scenarios are particularly helpful to teach skills that learners would have trouble contextualizing or appreciating the utility of if the skills were learned in a rote fashion. The motivating aspect of these scenarios can be useful for teaching skills that are in and of themselves “boring,” especially when removed from an authentic context, such as arithmetic. Scenario Ms. Jones is a computer science teacher at a high school, and she is teaching a unit on internet skills. She wishes to her students to learn how to use HTML, CSS, FTP, and how these basic building blocks of the internet work. Notably, her focus is that students learn to use these tools in an authentic and meaningful way, not that they memorize facts about them. She designs a Goal Based Scenario where the students will act as designers and producers of their own websites. The mission is for the student to create a website on a topic of their choice. The mission focus is on the design of a website. The cover story that she constructs for her students is that they are website developers creating a site to disseminate information about a given topic, with example topics given as a popular video game, book, or TV show. The scenario operations inherent in this scenario are: encoding desired content in HTML, applying formatting controls in CSS, using FTP and provided website to publish the site, and writing and compiling the website content. Continued on next page…
- 34. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Goal-Based Scenarios Ms. Jones prepares a resource library including HTML and CSS reference materials, completed exemplars with visible source code, and a method by which an expert may be consulted. Additionally, she instructs her students to begin by sketching their site on paper before they begin c o d i n g . As each student begins building their site, they will have to identify what kind of content they want to include and how they want to display it. As they make these design choices, the students will have to identify similar features in the exemplar sites and reverse engineer how these features were created. The students will struggle with the HTML and CSS to get the site to appear the way they want it to. They will have to upload their site to provided web hosting via FTP to see if it works and renders correctly in a variety of browsers. Because the end goal is one that students are passionate about, they are more likely to continue working after setbacks and failures. The students will also create content for the website that contains the information about their topic that they wish to convey. The content may undergo several iterations as students decide to break up content onto several pages or consolidate it into fewer pages. As content changes, the students must also iterate on the design of the website, re- visiting the HTML to reflect the structural changes. Students work on the website during their hour- long class period and as homework during the week-long unit. With Ms. Jones’ facilitation, students may collaborate and share what they have learned about how to achieve certain effects or solutions to common problems. When the projects are finished, they are published to the internet where anyone can visit them. Some students may continue to add new content to the website after the unit ends.
- 35. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Goal-Based Scenarios References Bell, B., Bareiss, R., & Beckwith, R. (1994). Sickle cell counselor: A prototype goal-based scenario for instruction in a museum environment. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(4),347-386. Beriswill, J. E. (2014). Design Process of a Goal-Based Scenario on ComputingFundamentals. TechTrends, 59(6),15-20. Foster, D. A. (1995). FRA: Teaching financial accounting with a goal-based scenario. International Journal of Intelligent Systems in Accounting Finance &Management, 4(3).173-189. Hsu, C. Y., & Moore, D. R. (2010). An example implementation of Schank’s goal-basedscenarios. TechTrends, 54(1),58-61. Kilic, E. & Yildirim, Z. (2012). Cognitive load and goal based scenario centered 3D multimedia learning environment: Learners' motivation, satisfaction and mental effort. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 47(3), 329-349. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UniversityPress. Schank, R. (1994). Goal-based scenarios: A radical look at education. The Journal of the LearningSciences, 3(4), 429-453. Schank, R., Fano, A., Bell, B. & Jona, M. (1994). Design of goal-based scenarios. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(4), 305-345. Schoenfeld-Tacher, R., Jones, L. L., & Persichitte, K. A. (2001). Differential effects of a multimedia goal-based scenario to teach introductory biochemistry--Who benefits most?. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 10(4),305–317.
- 36. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF ProblemBased Learning What is it? Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogical model where students learn content through the experience of solving authentic, real world problems. First developed in medical education in the 1950s, problem-based learning was conceived and implemented in response to the unsatisfactory clinical performance of students’ biomedical knowledge in medical school. Medical schools traditionally taught doctors by requiring them to memorize large amounts of information and then apply the information in clinical situations. This approach did not fully prepare doctors for the real world where some patients might show multiple symptoms of a type of sickness while with others might not be able to identify their symptoms at all. Although students memorized basic medical information for tests in their courses, they did not know how to apply the information to real-life situations and forgot it quickly. Howard Barrows, a physician and medical educator at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, wanted to develop methods of instructing physicians that fostered their own capabilities for reflection outside of school in ordinary life. Barrows designed a series of problems that went beyond conventional case studies. He didn't give students all the information but required them to research a situation, develop appropriate questions, and produce their own plan to solve the problem. Rooted in Dewey’s theory of learning by doing and experiencing, Barrows defined this new method, problem- based learning, as “the learning that results from the processof working toward the understanding or resolution ofa problem” (Delisle, 1997). Problem- based learning is active learning which enables students to acquire knowledge while trying to solve real world problems. The problem based learning model of Barrows has been adopted in anincreasing number of other areas ofeducation. GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY SAKON KIEH How does it work? Problem-based learning reverses the traditional approach to teaching and learning. It allows students to work collaboratively in order to investigate and solve an ill structured problem, based on real world issues, where previous knowledge of the content is not required. The problem drives all learning. It frames the learning processfor students and provides the purpose for learning. The idea is to teach students to learn how to learn. By having tosolve problems, students practice learning rather than merely memorizing. Students are placed at the center of the learning process; instead of the teacher, who is generally at the forefront, dictating the lesson. PBL represents aneducational approach where the problem comes first and learning is conducted in context. The aim however is not primarily to solve the problem, but rather to get students to identify and search for the knowledge that they need to obtain in order to approach the problem. There are several key features of problem-basedlearning. Ill-structured problem-which is ill-defined, open ended, and complex. There are one or moreunclear or unknown elements. Ill- structured problems can consist of multiple solutions, solution paths, or no solutions at all. Student centered-the instructor’s traditional role changes. The instructor does not dictate the learning; instead takes on the role as a coach/tutor; facilitating and guiding the student’s thinking and learning versus front loading the information to students. Students learn the content as they address aproblem. Self-directed-students assume responsibility for their learning. They take ownership of their learning process through self and peer assessment and access their own learningmaterials. Self-reflective-learners adjust their strategies for learning by monitoring their understanding. Collaborative-students work together in groups of three to eight. There is a shift from individual knowledge and control to group knowledge and group control. Within groups, students generate and test E D I T 7 3 0
- 37. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning hypothesis, create learning goals, and possible solutions. Who is doing it? In addition to the medical field, the adoption of PBL is also implemented in other educational institutions such as architecture, business administration, engineering studies, law schools, social work, teacher education, higher education, and K-12 education. PBL students in architecture, chemical engineering and engineering studies solve design problems (Jonassen & Hung, 2008). PBL curriculum significantly enhanced engineering students’ performance on the Mechanics Baseline Test, in which the focus of the test wason understanding and application of the concepts rather than recall of factual knowledge (Hung, Jonassen, & Liu,2008). Nursing, social work, and teacher education students primarily deal with diagnosis-solution problems (Jonassen & Hung, 2008). Business administration and leadership education focus on decision-making and policy analysis problems (Jonassen & Hung, 2008). In law schools, PBL students learn toconstruct arguments, based on evidentiary reasoning, to solve a complex form of rule-using problems. PBL transfers the active role in the classroom to students through problems that connect to their lives in the field and procedures that require them to find needed information, think through a situation, solve the problem, and develop a final presentation. As PBL continues to migrate to other academic disciplines, instructors need to consider the nature of the problems being solved and how effective PBL methodologies are for those kinds ofproblems. How effective is it? The problem-based learning model turns the student from passive information recipient to active self- learner and problem solver. It slides the emphasis from teaching to learning. PBL enables students to learn new knowledge through the problems to be solved instead of dictatingcontent. Problem-based learning positively affects the attitudes of students in relation to problem solving, thinking, collaboration, information sharing and acquisition and communication. It also enables students to see events from multiple perspectives. Students develop problem solving skills and are encouraged to learn new materials and concepts when solving problems. Social and communication skills are also enabled because students are required to study and work as a team. Students who are taught through PBL become self- directed learners with the desire to know and learn the ability to formulate their needs as learners, and the ability to select and use the best available resources to satisfy theirneeds. What are the implications for instructional design? Problem-based learning is not universally applicable to different learning problems. The primary goal of PBL is to enhance students’ application of knowledge, problem solving, and self-directed learning skills by requiring them to actively articulate, understand, and solve problems (Jonassen & Hung, 2008). PBL is problem focused, where learners begin learning by addressing an authentic problem. The subject matter content and skills to be learned are organized around problems, rather than as a hierarchical list of topics. There is a reciprocal relationship between knowledge and the problem (Jonassen & Hung, 2008). Learning is stimulated by the problem and applied back to the problem. Problem-based learning is a great way for instructors to develop students’ intrinsic interest in the subject matter, emphasize learning as opposed to recall, promote collaborative learning, and help students become self-directed learners. According to a follow- up qualitative meta-synthesis of problem-based learning research conducted by Strobel and van Barnveld (Jonassen, 2011), PBL resulted in superior long term retention, satisfaction, and skill of students and teachers compared tothe traditional approaches, such as lecture which was more effective for short- term retention (Jonassen, 2011). The appropriate technology to present learning problems, aswell as, tools to facilitate electronic communication such as discussion boards, wikis, blogs, etc.) and access to Web-based resources can also play a major role in enhancing students’ problem solving skills. These tools are integral for learning through PBL and moreover to prepare students for problem solving and 21st CenturyLearning.
- 38. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning Scenario During the first half of the 20th century, U.S. armed forces used Kahoolawe, an island in the Hawaiian chain, as a target for gunnery and bombing practice. After World War II, it was returned to the stewardship of the state of Hawaii. As a middle school teacher, you think this scenario would provide an excellent opportunity for your students to understand the interdependencies of ecology and human activity. By assuming the responsibility the government had, “to restore the island of Kahoolawe for use by the Hawaiian people,” students will enhance their skills in several domains, including science, community planning, team building, and problem management. Extensive data on the Web and in various media are available for students to use; however, there is no one correct or ideal solution. You decide to implement this scenario in your classroom as follows. Students will be grouped into multidisciplinary teams. Each team member will have a different role and responsibility and may collaborate with members of other teams charged with a similar role. Team members will research, problem solve, collaborate, and develop a comprehensive island restoration plan. Each team will present its conclusions and justify its findings. Restoration plans must include provisions for infrastructure, human services, business enterprises, and ecological sanctuaries. To ensure students can effectively transfer their skills to new contexts, you will “move the exercise” into a different geographic location— either to Prince William Sound, Alaska, after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, or to the overlogged tropical forests of Costa Rica.
- 39. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning References Delisle, R. (1997). How to use problem-based learning in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and CurriculumDevelopment. Emanovský, P. (2015). Problem-based learning and its effect on learners’ relationships. Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 63, 53 - 61. Hung, W., Jonassen, D. H., & Liu, R. (2008). Problem-based learning. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. van Merrienboer, & M. Driscoll (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (3rd ed). New York, NY: Routledge. Jonassen, D. H., & Hung, W. (2008). All problems are not equal: Implications for problem-based learning. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 2(2). Jonassen, D.H. (2011). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environment. New York, NY: Routledge. Tandogan, R. O., & Orhan, A. (2007). The effects of problem-based active learning in science education on students' academic achievement, attitude and concept learning. Online Submission, 3(1),71-81.
- 40. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF ProblemBased Learning What is it? Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogical model, which assumes that students working in groups of four to six learn about the subject through the experience of solving a real-world ill structured problemthat may have multiple solutions and/or solution paths. “In problem based learning students use ’triggers ‘from the problem case or scenario to define their own learning objectives. Subsequently they do independent, self- directed study before returning to the group to discuss and refine their acquired knowledge. Thus, PBL is not about problem solving per se, but rather it uses appropriate problems to increase knowledge and understanding.” (Wood, 2003). PBL is a pedagogical model that is part of constructivist learning environment. Major goals of PBL are to help students develop collaborative learning skills, reasoning skills, interpersonal and communication skills, and self-directed learning strategies (Barrows, 1985). Each PBL studygroup has a teacher who acts as a mentor and coach by facilitating the problem-solving process and providing appropriate resources. (Bannan & Dabbagh, 2005). The teacher no longer lectures — when PBL is integrated into the course, students are encouraged to take a responsible role in their learning. The teacher is not the only source of information and knowledge. Students must take the initiative to inquire, find the information, and learn. The teacher guides, providing a scaffolding for students' initiatives. What students learn during their self-directed learning is applied back to the problem with reanalysis andresolution How does it work? Project-based learning is a complex pedagogical model, which requires a lot of preparation and planning. The main steps of PBL implementation from the teacher’s side described in “How Does Project-Based Learning Work?” (edutopia.org) are: 1. Formulate the essential question (open-ended, ill structured, and based on real world authentic situation); 2. Design a lesson plan (activities that support the question and motivate the students, resources that are available, integration of related topics, and themes); 3. Create a timeline (length of the project, benchmarks, milestones, supporting GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY EVGENIY LEKAREV students with time management); 4. Monitor the students (control over the project without preventing students from taking responsibility for their work; help with collaborative work; resources and “scaffolding”); 5. Assess the outcome (including students’ self- assessment); 6. Evaluate the experience (including individual and group reflection). At the same time, Hmelo-Silver (2004) describes the learning cycle from the students’ perspective: After presenting a problem scenario, students formulate and analyze the problem by identifying the relevant facts from the scenario, identifying knowledge deficiencies, and generate hypotheses about possible solutions. Knowledge deficiencies become what are known aslearning issues that students research during their self-directed learning. After research and learning new facts, students apply their new knowledge to the essential problem, reanalyze the scenario, and evaluate their hypotheses about possible solutions. After a group discussion, the groups make corrections to the initial hypotheses and then provide their solution to the teacher. Students also reflect on their individual and group experience and receive feedback from the teacher. Who is doing it? American psychologist, philosopher and educator John Dewey in 1894 founded the experimental school in Chicago where education was based not on the curriculum, but on games and work projects. Those ideas are the foundation for problem-based learning. PBL as we understand it now was introduced in the medical school program at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in the late 1960s by Howard Barrows and his colleagues. McMaster University Medical School came up with an instructional format that used realistic medical problems that physicians have to deal with. Introducing “problems” in a course was not the innovative element here, but rather the moment that students were presented with these problems, namely as the starting point of the learning process before any other curriculum input (Barrows, 1996). The term “problem-based learning” was first used in McMaster University Medical School. Since then, PBL has been implemented in numerous programs across many domains and at many educational levels on a world- E D I T 7 3 0
- 41. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning wide scale (Barrows, 1996). Nowadays the PBL pedagogical model is implemented in legal and financial education, educational administration, business, educational psychology, engineering, chemistry, and K-12 education. In Eastern Europe problem‐based instruction is used in mathematics and physics for school-aged and universitystudents. How effective is it? Problem-based learning has been in existence for over 50 years and it has proven its effectiveness in medical education. Nowadays it is used in a variety of different disciplines and its effectiveness in different areas is still under discussion. As any other pedagogical model it has its advantages and disadvantages therefore the effectiveness of PBL may vary. Some researchers showed that traditional knowledge-based assessments of curriculum outcomes have shown little or no difference in student graduation from PBL or traditional curricula. However, students from PBL curricula seem to have better knowledge retention (Wood, 2003). The research conducted by Johannes Strobel and Angela van Barneveld (2009) where they compared PBL effectiveness vs. traditional approaches showed that overall, students and staff indicated greater satisfaction with the PBL approach to learning. Standardized tests that measured knowledge of basic science focusing on short-term acquisition and retention favored the traditional approach across all studies. However, when the method used to assess basic science knowledge required a level of elaboration beyond multiple-choice or true/false questions, results significantly favored the PBL approach. Standardized tests and other assessment methods that evaluated skill-oriented application of knowledge, mixed knowledge and long- term retention of knowledge, skills, and clinical performance significantly favored PBL. In addition, PBL instruction was effective when it came to long-term retention and performance improvement. PBL students were overall slightly under-performing when it came to short-term retention. Ultimately, the goal of PBL instruction should be performance improvement and long-term retention. Therefore, preference should be given to instructional strategies that focus on students’ performance in authentic situations and their long- term knowledge retention, and not on their performance on tests aimed at short-term retention of knowledge (Strobel & van Barneveld, 2009). Of course, effectiveness of PBL is highly dependable on quality of the scenarios. What types of scenarios (problem types) are effective for PBL is discussed in the next paragraph. What are the implications for instructional design? Effectiveness of PBL as an instructional methodology is different with different learning problems. What factors should be considered by a teacher or instructional designer in order to make PBL curricula more effective? Jonassen and Hung (2008) suggest that a better way to resolve these questions is to directly compare the effectiveness of PBL by problem type, rather than problem discipline. Problem difficulty plays a significant role in the process of creating PBL curricula. Students’ perceptions of problem difficulty affect their willingness to engage with problems — a problem with an appropriate difficulty level is within learners’ cognitive readiness and therefore solvable, while a high difficulty level of problem may exceed the learners’ readiness and result in failure. Very well- structured problems, like story problems, may not be appropriate for PBL. Similarly, very ill-structured and complex problems (design problems) may be too difficult to learn in a PBL environment. According to Jonassen and Hung (2008) general principles for designing good PBL problems shouldbe: • “open ended, ill structured, however, with a moderate degree ofstructure; • complex, however, the degree of complexity should be challenging and motivating, engaging students’ interests; provide opportunities for students to examine the problem from multiple perspectives or disciplines; • adapted to students’ priorknowledge; • adapted to students’ cognitive developmentand readiness; • authentic; • contextualized as to students’ future orpotential workplaces”(p.16). The technologies that work best for PBL are anchorvideo and interactive videogames.
- 42. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning Scenario Yakov Rasin is an 8th-grade physics teacher. They are about to start a new topic — uniformly accelerated motion. The topic is very important for future study and the students have to know the formula for uniformly accelerated motion by heart in order to be successful. Based onhis previousexperience Rasin knows that students have a hard timeremembering the formula that was presented to them during class. He decides to use a problem- based learning scenario in order to introduce the new topic. The PBL scenario Rasin came up withis: “What would be the most efficient way (time-wise) to travel from Moscow to Tver bycar: 1. Nonstop driving with an average speed of 80 kmper hour or 2. With two stops for fueling and snacking with a maximum speed of 100 km per hour (each stop takes 5 min; car goes from 0 to 100 for 13 sec and from 100 to 0 for 30 sec?” While solving the problem students will be able to derive the formula themselves and Rasin knows that retention of this type of knowledge is much higher. The challenge for Rasin is to present the problem open-ended with appropriate level of structure. Even though problems in physics are usually well- defined, Rasin knows that everything is relative and a well- defined problemfor a teacher ofphysics may appear ill- defined for his students. In addition, tasks in physics are more likely to have one correct solution; however, the deriving formula for uniformly accelerated motion has multiple paths (algebraic and graphic) even considering students’ limited prior knowledge. Moreover, working on a problem scenario students will be able to activate prior knowledge, review the important parts of the curricula and more importantly, will learn valuable skills of collaboration and independent learning research. The process of deriving a formula for uniformly accelerated motion requires knowledge in different domains such as algebra, geometry, trigonometry, geometry, and physics. The students already possess all necessary knowledge in these domains (vectors, exponentiation, rooting, function of cosine, angle, and uniform velocity motion). Therefore, they will not need much helpfrom the teacher. The only help they might need is in the directionof thinking and understanding that, in order to solve the presented problem, they will need to comprehend a new notion — acceleration.
- 43. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning References Barrows, H. S. (1985). How to design a problem-based curriculum for pre-clinical years? New York, NY: Springer Barrows, H. S. (1996). Problem-based learning in medicine and beyond: A brief overview. In L. Wilkerson & H. Gilselaers (eds.), Bringing problem-based learning to higher education: Theory and practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc. Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies and application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hmelo-Silver C. E. (2004). Problem-based learning: What and howdo students learn? Educational Psychology Review, 16(3), 235-266. Retrieved fromhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/23363859 How does project-based learning work? (2007, October 19). Retrieved fromhttp://www.edutopia.org/project- based-learning-guide-implementation. Jonassen, D. H., & Hung, W. (2008). All problems are not equal: Implications for problem-based learning. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 2(2). Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1080 Loyens, S. M., M., Kirschner, P. & Paas, F. (2011). Problem-based learning. In K. R. Harris, S. Graham & T. Urdan (Eds.), APA Educational Psychology Handbook, 3. Washington: American Psychological Association. Retrieved fromhttp://ro.uow.edu.au/edupapers/1235/ Strobel, J., & van Barneveld, A. (2009). When is PBL more effective? A meta-synthesis of meta-analyses comparing PBL to conventional classrooms. The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning,3(1),44-58.Retrievedfromhttp://teacherscollegesj.edu/docs/47- WhenisPBLMoreEffectiveetasynthesisofMetaanalysesCom_1226201292924.pdf Wood D.F. (2003). ABC of learning and teaching in medicine: Problem based learning. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 326(7384), 328-330. Retrieved fromhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/25453619
- 44. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF ProblemBased Learning What is it? Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional methodology that is grounded on the theory of constructivism which contends that individuals form or construct much of what they learn and understand, therefore learning and understanding is a functionof how the individual creates meaning from his or her own experiences. This new approach to learning and understanding got its roots in the works of Piaget, Bruner and Goodman. As one moves along the behaviorist-cognitivist- constructivist continuum, the focus of instruction shifts from teaching to learning, from passive transfer of facts and routines to the active application of ideas to problems (Ertmer 1993). PBL came about as a reaction to the failure of traditional teaching methods of delivering adequate preparation of medical students to solve problems in a clinical environment. Instead of requiring students to master content in non- specific environments, it began embedding students’ learning processes in real-life problems. It takes into consideration that when we solve the primary problems that we encounter day in and day out,we learn. Discounting the belief that learning ceases when one leaves formal education, PBL posits that life is full of learning opportunities since all life is problem solving. It takes into consideration the theories of situated learning, which states that learning is most effective when embedded in authentic tasksthat are anchored in everyday living. When solving everyday problems, learners create meaning derived from knowledge that is anchored in specific contexts, making it more meaningful and integrated, better retained, and more transferable. This way problems provide a purpose forlearning. How does it work? The primary purpose of PBL is to promote learning by requiring learners to solve problems. The learners consider simulations of authentic, ill- structured problems with the content and skills to be learned embedded in the problem. Learners assume responsibility, individually and collaboratively for generating learning issues, and processes, through self-assessments and peer assessments and access to their own materials and use self- reflective techniques to monitor their understanding and learn to adjust GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY CANDIDO MENDES strategies for learning. Students in groups offive to eight analyze a problem by defining it, set learning goals and determine what they already know, what they need to learn to better equip themselves to solve the problem, and decide on the activities to be carried out by each member of the team. In aself- directed mode, students complete their tasks to better understand the problem and possible solutions and prepare to rejoin the group. At a working session of the group, students share their information, revisit the problem, consider additional hypothesis while rejecting others. Students consider problems such as cases, narrative of complex, real world challenges common to the discipline being studied, and become active investigatorsand problem solvers in small collaborative groups, defining theproblem, proposing alternatives and solutions to be implemented. Teachers act as facilitators of learning, acting as guides to the process and creating a learning environment that promotes learning through the application ofknowledge. Their role is to support and model reasoning processes, facilitate group processes, and interpersonal dynamics, probe student's knowledge deeply and never interject content or provide direct answers to questions. Who is doing it? Since its adoption by the medical community in the 1960s to train medical students, PBL made its way to other disciplines like business, dentistry, health sciences, law, engineering and education. In the 1980s, the report of the Panel on the General Professional Education of the Physician and College Preparation for Medicine made the recommendation for changes in medical education such as promoting independent learning and problem solving, reducing lecture hours, reducing schedule time, and evaluating the ability to work independently. These recommendations helped to expand PBL in medical education. In the 1990s PBL expanded to other professional schools such as architecture, business administration, chemical engineering, engineering studies, law schools, leadership, education, nursing, social work, and teacher education. The implementation of PBL in K- 12 Education has shown positive results in a variety of content areas like math, science, history, E D I T 7 3 0
- 45. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning microeconomics and it has been implemented effectively in rural, urbanand suburban communities with a wide variety of populations. There is a growing interest inboth K-12 and higher education as many books have been published on this subject and there are several Internet servers concerned with PBL. With an emphasis in promoting critical thinking, problem solving, and collaborative skills, PBL offers core skills essential to navigate in today’s environment flooded by information overload and constant change. Research reveals that three major complaints that employers have about college graduates includes poor written and verbal skills,inability to problem solve, and difficulties in working collaboratively with other professionals. PBL can be a solution in all threeareas. How effective is it? PBL is often perceived as favoring higher order thinking and problem- solving skills rather than memorization of facts.There’s research on the effectiveness of PBL in the medical field, however the K-12 lacks conclusive researchresults. Studies in engineering show that students who studied under a PBL curriculum scored higher on their Mechanics Baseline Test, which focuses on understanding and application of the concepts rather than the recall of factual knowledge. Other studies revealed no significant differenceexisted in content acquisition between students that were in the PBL course and the students that were not in the PBL course. The same is not true for the medical field which has a rich body of evidence for evaluating the effectiveness of PBL. In several studies conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of PBL, the PBL classes performed substantially better on both the basic science and clinical science, with traditional curriculum classes scoring significantly lower than the national mean score. However, overall, in accordance with two meta analyses done, the PBL research findings have been mixed. Traditional curriculum students perform better on basic science acquisition, but PBL students perform better on clinical knowledge acquisition and reasoning. As for retention of content, traditional students score slightly better in short term memory with PBL students scoring higher in long-term memory. In terms of critical thinking skills, the main promise of PBL, PBL students showed significantincrease in the use of problem solving. PBL students also showed a positive impact on student’s ability to apply basic science knowledge and transfer and transfer of problem solving skills to real world professional and personal situations. What are the implications for instructional design? PBL has been called the greatest innovation in teaching methodologies in the last half a century. Its overall goal to educate students to be self- directed, independent, lifelong learners through observation of teachers’ modeling problem solving, reasoning, and metacognition processes, students learn how to think and learn independently. Research data reveals that PBL graduates rate themselves better prepared professionally than their counterparts in terms of interpersonal skills, cooperation skills, problem solving skills, self-directed learning, information gathering, professional skills and the ability to work and plan efficiently and independently. This in turn prepares them for real- world challenges. Employers who hired PBL graduates had a lot of positive feedback in regards to their ability of their self- directednessand independence in solving work related problems and improving professional development. Several studies reveal students’ positive perception of PBL in promoting their learning in dealing with complex problems. The use of reflection is an important element of PBL providing a framework for students to become effective problemsolvers by exercising higher order thinking skills to identify personal and organizational factors that constitute the challenges they face in work settings. PBL offers advantages to both organizations and educational environments by promoting lifelong learning habits of mind which are indispensable qualities of successful professionals. In a PBL environment students and teachers redefine their roles. Teachers redefine the nature of learning, and in turn change their roles from a knowledge/information/transmitter to a learning/thinking process facilitator. As facilitators, they monitor students’ development of thinking or reasoning skills that promote problem solving, metacognition and critical thinking as well as help them to become independent and self-directed learners. Students become the initiators of their own learning, making the inquiries themselves, and conducting problem solving themselves switching from passive information receivers to activelearners.
- 46. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning Scenario Geritol Solution Written by Deborah Allen. August, 1993;Revised August, 1995. John H. Martin, the director of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, thinks the potential problem of global warming could be addressed by dumping iron into the ocean waters off Antarctica. He and his coworkers have demonstrated that the amount of chlorophyll found in ocean water samplescollected (in 30 L bottles) from the Gulf of Alaska can be increased up to nine-fold by the addition ofiron. When they repeated this fertilization experiment with samples collected from a few hundred miles off the Antarctic coast, he and his colleagues found that for every unit of iron added to Antarctic sea water, the organic carbon content increased by a factor of 10,000. Martin's degree of confidence in his proposal is reflected in a remark he (half-jokingly) made during a lecture at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute: "Give me half a tanker of iron and I'll give you an Ice Age." Questions □ What is the basis for Martin's premise that seeding the ocean with iron would help combat potential greenhousewarming? □ What organisms found in sea water could account for the increase in chlorophyll content and biological productivity that Martin and his research group observed? □ Why did Martin choose to add iron to the water, rather than some othersubstance? □ Is global warming a reality? Has it actuallyhappened?
- 47. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning References Allen, D. (1993, August 1). PBL: The Geritol Solution. Retrieved November 3, 2015, from http://www.udel.edu/pbl/curric/bisc207 Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), 50-72. Jonassen, D. H., & Liu, R. (2008). Problem-based learning. Handbook of research on educational communications and technology, 3, 485-506. Jonassen, D. H. (2010). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environments.NewYork,NY:Routledge. Savery, J. R. (2015). Overview of problem-based learning: Definitions and distinctions. Essential readings in Problem-Based Learning: Exploring and extending the legacy of Howard S. Barrows. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press.
- 48. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF ProblemBased Learning What is it? Problem Based Learning (PBL) is an instructional model that initiates learning by working towards a solution to an authentic problem. While solving the problem, students constructcontent knowledge, develop problem-solving skills, and develop self- directed learning skills. Knowledge is constructed and constantly reorganized through reflection on actions based on a pattern of inquiry. The learning process is embedded in real-life problems. TheoreticalGrounding Problem-based learning is grounded in constructivism. The following assumptions created around constructivism apply themselves to problem based learning: • Knowledge evolves from the interactions within our environment as well as interactions within the social environment. • Learning results from cognitive conflict and determines the nature and organization of what is learned. • Meaning and thinking are distributed among culture and community and thrive in relevant contexts. Contemporary learning theories such as situated learning and cognitive apprenticeships share the same rationale for problem-based learning focusing on authentic contexts, and are implemented using anchored instruction and goal based scenarios. History of PBL The medical educators at McMasters University in Canada have been credited with the development of problem-based learning in the 1950s and 1960s (Boud, 1997). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s several other prominent medical universities around the world started to develop problem-based curricula. Problem- based learning was originally designed to fix the problems that arose from traditional teaching and learning for medical students in clin-ical settings. The problem-based learning model for instruction also spread to K-12 education; more specifically, in the subject areas of math andscience. Both fields of medicine and education wanted to solve the lack of problem-solving and life long-learning skills to ensure the future success ofstudents. GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY REBECCA SZYMANSKI How does it work? Instructional Characteristics The instructional characteristics of problem-based learning include, but are not limited to: • Knowledge is acquired and evolves throughout the problem solving process. • Learning is self-directed by assessing the learning of them-selves and others. • Learning is self-reflective. Students self- monitor his or her own learning and make adjustments along the way. • Learning isstudent-centered. • The facilitator acts as a tutor in order to guide learners through the learning process. Role of the Instructor When looking at the last two characteristics above, it is clear that problem-based learning is student- centered and the facilitator plays the role of a tutor, or coach. The facilitator does not directly give away answers, but instead guides learners toward achieving their own learning goals by providing feedback and supporting professional development. The two characteristics mentioned reveal that the role of the instructor is very minimal throughout the learning process, but is used as a means to facilitate group discussions advocate deep reasoning. Structure ofImplementation The typical structure of problem-based learning is broken down into several steps. This structure requires learners to use higher level thinking skills throughout the learning process and ultimately come up with a solution. Step 1(Ideas and Hypotheses): Learners are placed in groups of 5 to 8 and roles are defined for each member of the group. Learners then define the problem and setting learning goals. Step 2(Facts and Problem Information): Learners work on their specified tasks by collecting resources and conducting research using tools to help them solve the given problem. Step 3(Learning Issues): Learners share the knowledge they have gained so far, and add additional information, or reject information that does not help solve the problem. Step 4(Action Plan): The final step is for students to summarize the knowledge gained and integrate all learning that has occurred. E D I T 7 3 0
- 49. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning Who is doing it? Applications of PBL Problem-based learning has been found to be most prominent in the medical and business higher education programs, but ca in many other fields as well. Problem-based learning is starting to become more popular in the K-12 school and is also prevalent in engineering education as well. There are many different types problems used to facilitate problem-based learning for a variety learning purposes. According to Jonassen, there are eleven kinds problems, each differing in complexity, structure, context,dynamicity, and domain specificity (Jonassen, 2011). The following examples are current applications of problem-based learning,a description of how problem-based learning is being used MedicalEducation Often times, when students enter medical school, they are divided into groups. Each group gets assigned a facilitator. Students are then presented with a problem, usually involving a patient entering with symptoms, and asked to come up with a diagnosis, a rational for the diagnosis, and a recommended treatment plan. Students are not provided with any resources to solve the problem, but instead students need to look for their own reliable resources using the medical library or use resources from an online database. The problem can take students anywhere from a week to three weeks to solve. MBAPrograms Business school programs use a similar application of problem- based learning as medical school. In the MBA program at Ohio University, problems are presented, students locate their own re- sources to solve the problem, and then students present theirsolu- tion. These problems may take between five and eight weeks for students to compose their solution, and may have sub-problems that keep students engaged How effective is it? Effectiveness Some research has been conducted to determine the learning out- comes of problem-based learning; however, there is little research to support problem based learning outside of the medical field. In K-12 education, research has revealed that students who learn through problem-based learning had no significant difference in scores on standardized tests than students who learned the content in a traditional format. On the other hand, significant differences were found between problem-based learning instruction and tradi-tional instruction in the medical field. Medical school students who were taught with problem-based learning instruction scored signif- icantly higher than the national mean score on the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination, scored higher than students taught in tradi-tional classrooms when students had to apply knowledge to clinical reasoning, and performed better than their peers in their clerkships (Dunlap, 2005). SkillsAcquired Many skills are acquired through problem-based learning includ- ing, but not limited to, problem solving, critical thinking, the abili-ty to evaluate and use appropriate resources, self- monitoring, self- reflection, and increased confidence. Higher level thinking skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, and evaluating are used throughout problem-based learning. Learners are constantly testing out new ideas and deciding which information is most relevant to find the best solution to the problem at hand. Self-monitoring, self-reflection, and increased confidence levels are also acquired and practiced throughout the learning process. Setting learning goals and self-regulating learning allows the learner to further develop these skills for future endeavors; therefore, increasing the level of confidence the learner has when they come in contact with the next learning challenge. What are the implications for instructional design? An instructional designer might recommend the use of problem- based learning when a learner is trying to develop skills needed to perform a specific job. Many jobs require experience in order to be successful. If experience is unable to be acquired quickly, then problem-based learning can act as a tool to build necessary skills to start the job. For example, behavior management is a necessary skill to have when starting out a teaching career; however, most behavior management knowledge results from experience. If new teachers lack experience, a problem-based learning scenario, re- quiring the implementation of behavior management skills, would be a perfect way to practice applying those skills to a real world situation. Several positive outcomes result from the use of problem-based learning, which include, an increase in problem- solving, confidence, critical thinking, self-reflection, self- monitoring, motivation, and collaboration.
- 50. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning These outcomes help shape life-long learning and are required in order for the problem-based learning model to besuccessful. Technology Websites can be used to organize problem-based learningitself. Websites can organize groups and allow those groups to collabo-rate within the same learning environment. Chartrooms can aid with collaboration along with areas to share files. Online resources can also be used for several purposes such as, writing problems, obtaining inspiration for problem development, and finding information to solve problems. Using technology to find resources re-quires the learner to evaluate critical sources, this becomes a skill that will be relevant throughout lifelong learning. Scenario Step 1: The problem is presented. Mary Smith, a 28-year-old office worker and part-time swimming instructor, comes to see her doctor because of pain in her chest and shortness of breath. This has been a recurring problem in recent months and seems to be gradually worse. On theprevious evening, while participating in a swimming gala, she be- came so short of breath that she found it difficult to walk. Step 2: In groups, learners define the problem and set learning goals. Step 3: Individuals conduct research from the medical library and online data bases. Step 4: More information about the case is presented to continue engagement. The instructor acts as a guide throughout the process. Further discussion with her doctor reveals that Ms. Smith’s chest pain and shortness of breath come on following exercise, particularly in a cold environment. When she becomes particularly short of breath, she starts to wheeze. There is no recent history of physical trauma and no personal or family history of heart disease. She had eczema in childhood but has never had asthma. She has smoked for the past 5 years and increased her smoking to 40 cigarettes a day since she broke up with her intimate friend 3 months ago. She takes an oral contraceptive pill but no other medication. Develop a diagnosis to present to Ms. Smith and a treatment plan. Step 5: Share information within the group to add additional information or get rid of irrelevant information. Step 6: Summarize the knowledge gained and integrate all in- formation into the final product.
- 51. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning References Boud, D. (1997). What is problem-based learning? In the challenge of problem-based learning. London, England: Kogan Page. Dabbagh,N., Jonassen,D.H., Yueh, H.P., & Samouilova,M. (2000). Assessing a problem- based learning approach in an introductory instructional design course: A case study. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 13(3), 60-83. Dunlap, J. (2005). Problem-based learning and self-efficacy: How a capstone course prepares students for a profession. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53, 65-83. Jonassen, D. H. (2011). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environment. New York, NY: Routledge. Watson, G. (2002). Using technology to promote success in PBL courses. Retrieved from:http:// technology- source.org/article/using_technology_to_promote_success_in_pbl_courses/. Wilson, B. (1996). Problem-based learning in constructivist learning environments: Case studies in instructional design. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications.
- 52. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF ProblemBased Learning What is it? Problem based learning is first and foremost an instructional strategy, it is designed as a means, or methodology, to improve learning and knowledge retention by requiring students to learn content, on their own, while working to solve a problem. The main factor in these problems is that the problem itself is very ill-structured. Problem based Learning (PBL), first began as a medical school training program (Jonassen, 2011), a change from the traditional teaching and learning paradigm. By replacing basic approaches to learning medicine, students from their first day of training work in groups to solve diagnostic medical problems. In a PBL setting, students usually work in groups to solve a complex problem, because the answers will be detailed and open- ended, performance focuses on a higher-level of cognitive applications (Burris, 2007). These applications can come in the form of higher level analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Some of the defining characteristics of Problem Based Learning are that it is driven by challenging and no ‘one’ solution type of problem. These types of open-ended problems are the type where there is no one rightanswer. Often with PBL, students work is self-directed, as they are active participants and problem solvers while working in groups collaboratively (Delisle, 1997). It is in PBL that teachers work more as facilitators and guides. Teacher’s functions have been altered to be much more than a means of transfer, they are now more supporters to the learning process, creating an environment based around drive and investigation. How does it work? Problem based learning works because it situates the learning in real world and authentic problem solving. Through the use of Problem Based Learning, student –centered activities replace the traditional teacher- student narrative and seek instead to let the learning happen at a pace and direction more suited to the individual student, or group of students, and thereby removes the more standard one-dimensional teaching modality of lecturer and note taker. Problem Based Learning focuses mainly on four basic criteria to function; it is designed to be self-reflective, it is here GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY WILLIAM WICK that students monitor there learning and make adjustments. It is self- directed and that allows students to work collaboratively or individually, assuming responsibility for their learning and self- assessment. Its functional purpose if always student centered and based not on the teacher but removes the teacher almost entirely from the learning. Mainly it works because it is totally and completely problem focused and problem based. Learners begin learning by addressing simulations of an authentic, ill-structured problem. It is believed that PBL leads to development of critical thinking as well as creative skills. The use of this instructional strategy also promotes higher level problem solving skills by putting the learner in a situation through which the learner takes responsibility and initiative. Who is doing it? Problem Based Learning is gaining ground in both higher education as well as K-12 educational environments. Having its development begin in the medical field, specifically medical school, universities across the globe have embraced this teaching and learning methodology and studies have shown that problem based learning increases levels of knowledge retention in both critical information and informational domains that are considered secondary. Education theorists and specialists such as Dewey, have advocated for the use of teaching strategies that are very similar to Problem Based Learning. These strategies are used in professional trainings around the world and they are used in secondary education although not as heavily as in higher levels of education (Morrison, 2004). Stanford University (Stanford Online), for example, not only uses PBL but they have created teacher training curriculum based around how to effectively use PBL in the K-12 setting. A major university such as this also releases quarterly reviews in not only how they use and apply PBL strategies but also how it can be used by other institutions of learning. Also there are many teacher designed and directed problem based learning professional developments (McPhee, 2002) that are geared towards increasing not only the use of PBL in the K-12 classroom, but also to increase the effectiveness of the teachers who wish to apply the strategy. As you can see there are many different forms of PBL application around not only the United States but also around the globe. E D I T 7 3 0
- 53. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning How effective is it? Problem Based Learning is gaining ground in both higher education as well as K-12 educational environments. Having its development begin in the medical field, specifically medical school, universities across the globe have embraced this teaching and learning methodology and studies have shown that problem based learning increases levels of knowledge retention in both critical information and informational domains that are considered secondary. Education theorists and specialists such as Dewey, have advocated for the use of teaching strategies that are very similar to Problem Based Learning. These strategies are used in professional trainings around the world and they are used in secondary education although not as heavily as in higher levels of education (Morrison, 2004). Stanford University (Stanford Online), for example, not only uses PBL but they have created teacher training curriculum based around how to effectively use PBL in the K-12 setting. A major university such as this also releases quarterly reviews in not only how they use and apply PBL strategies but also how it can be used by other institutions of learning. Also there are many teacher designed and directed problem based learning professional developments(McPhee, 2002) that are geared towards increasing not only the use of PBL in the K-12 classroom, but also to increase the effectiveness of the teachers who wish to apply the strategy. As you can see there are many different forms of PBL application around not only the United States but also around the globe. Most researchers believe that this is often due in large part to time restrictions, or simply put, the studies were conducted over the time span of one or two curricular units, which can vary anywhere between 4-6 weeks in total. When you look at studies that have taken place over longer periods of time, you have plenty of evidence to support that PBL is extremely successful, especially when compared to more traditional lecture-based instruction. In a study on Problem Based Learning in the K-12 Education found in the American Educational Research Jounal, ‘Analyses of individual patterns…confirm the results of the between subject comparisons. The majority of student recalled, comprehended, and applied concepts better when learning took place via PBL compared to lecture’ (Wirkala, 2011). While the evidence in the Wirkala study can be seen as demonstrating little more than what is commonly accepted by a good number of practitioners, the fact that students show better long term retention and ability with new material when the instructional method is one that engages the learner in an active role. Also, according to Wirkala, the study showed ‘PBL to more effective in fostering both comprehension and application of concepts; thus the sequence of goal-oriented, inquiry- like activities, may serve as an effective method that heightens young students’ cognitive and affective engagement (Wirkala, 2011). What are the implications for instructional design? The implications for instructional design are as plentiful as they are varied. Knowing that PBL is designed to not only make students recognize that they need to be creative in not only what they think, but possibly, and maybe more important, how they think, lends itself to the very nature of instructional design. Problem Based Learning is certainly not a new addition to the world of academia as well as the world business, government and K-12 education. Through the use of PBL there develops an unlimited list of ways to apply it to instructional design, since the types of problems instructional designers will have to address deal often will ill-structured complex problems, it seems that through the application of PBL strategies recommendations for solutions can be successfully created. At its core PBL relies on functional collaboration and reflection, as instructional designers we are rarely tasked to complete projects on a solo basis and will find ourselves working in groups or even large team, PBL is especially useful for this type of work. It is a form of active learning, and promotes knowledge construction where our target audience, our learners, need to learn how to cultivate flexible knowledge and promote learning and applying problem solving skills. As instructional designers we are tasked with creating, designing and developing instructional materials based on various needs, we can apply PBL strategy to almost any situation in which new or improved materials need to be created.
- 54. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning Scenario A graduate level instructional design program has a large number of part-time students, many of them public school instructors seeking jobs in the private sector after retirement and many others currently employed in non- teaching positions. Although the school has a strong theoretical program, it has lacked a way to give its part- time students experience with a wide range of analysis and designsituations. Students potentially could graduate from the program with a deep knowledge of learning and instructional theories, but without knowledge of how and when to apply a particular theory to an actual learning situation. Part-time students with full-time jobs need a flexible learning environment. The school has licensed a software system, Teacher's Assistant (T.A.), to provide students with a range of cases that an instructional designer might encounter. The cases presented to each learner will vary, depending upon his/her zone of proximal development. Each subsequent case will increase in complexity, requiring the learner to enhance his/her problem-solving skills. The program allows a team of students to work on a case together, assuming different project roles. It also allows an individual student to "work" the case alone, while the computer simulates the roles of the other players. The Teacher's Assistant can monitor the student's research efforts and offer advice to improve his/her technique. Experts in the field will judge the student's proposed solution and offer critiques and alternate solutions. The Learning Outcomes are as follows: The software program will support the following objectives: Proficiency and problem-solving proficiency within the field of instructional design Analytical and flexible thinking about possible solutionsand consequences
- 55. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Problem Based Learning References Blackburn, G. (2015). Innovative eLearning: Technology shaping contemporaryProblem Based Learning: A crosscase analysis. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 2(2),1-19. Burris, S., & Garton, B. (2007). Effect of instructional strategy on critical thinking and content knowledge: Using problem-based learning in the secondary classroom. Journal of Agricultural Education JAE, 48(1), 106-116. Delisle, R. (1997). What is problem-based learning? Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/197166/chapters/What_Is_Problem- Based_Learning .aspx Jonassen, D. (2011). Cases as problems to solve. Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem- solving learning environments (pp. 153-160). New York, NY:Routledge. McPhee, A. (2002). Problem-based learning in initial teacher education: Taking the agenda forward. Journal of Educational Enquiry, 3(I), 60-78. Morrison, G., & Ross, S. (2004). Developing evaluation implements (7th Eds.). Designing effective instruction (pp. 290- 292). Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley & Sons. Wirkala, C., & Kuhn, D. (2011). Problem-based learning in K-12 education: Is it effective and how does it achieve its effects. American Educational Research Journal, 48(5),1157-1186.
- 56. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF SituatedLearning What is it? Situated learning is a pedagogical model in which students actively and socially participate in their education. This instructional approach was developed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in the early1990s and introduced the concept of learning outside of the classroom where context, culture and social interaction all become vital factors in the learning process (Mahar, S., & Harford, M., 2004). According to this model, students have the opportunity to work with their instructors ona particular activity and are able to practice similar activities outside of the classroom on their own. In this model the student’s memory processors trigger in meaningful situations and the knowledge obtained can be applied to similar situations in the real world. Students can also participate in groups as a community of practice where they share their skills and knowledge with other students. Situated learning creates meaning for activities outside of the classroom which in turn gives importance to participation and reflection in the classroom. FSI has made E-Homeroom, a web based situated learning environment that provides an authentic learning experience, available for each of their language sections. E-Homeroom is designed to be a multimedia program that helps teachers and students stay connected in and outside of the classroom. With their students, language instructors can form communities of practice and use social interaction and insight from past experiences to solve scenarios on E-Homeroom to prepare the students to solve real life issues which they will face on the job. Other functionalities of E-Homeroom include the ease of uploading materials; providing students with access to shared materials, homework, links, text books with audio, and other helpful information to help reinforce what they have learned in class. How does it work? Learning is driven and best presented through realistic and complex problems that allow learners to learn to think and practice like experts in the field (Paula, V., 2003). In situated learning, the instructor creates an environment by organizing the information and providing activities to help students learn. In a normal classroom setting, the instructor teaches students through lectures and presentations. In contrast, a GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY SHAKILA ANWARI situated learning environment requires the instructor to teach students by modeling, coaching, and scaffolding and the learner uses this knowledge to solve real life problems. Instructors in a situated learning environment must engage students in collaborative group based activities, discussions, reflective thinking, and evaluations. Learners on the other hand use these tools to become experts on a subject and can show an apprentice student, step by step, how to complete certain tasks. For example, in modeling, the apprentice student learns by observing the expert student. In coaching, the instructor provides a wide range of activities and oversees the student’s learningprocess. In scaffolding, the instructor begins by providing full support to the students as they acclimate to the learning environment. This support slowly declines as time progresses to allow the students to become independent and take more responsibility for their learning. Who is doing it? Organizations and institutions have applied the situated learning pedagogy model to train their employees or students by using simulations, role play, and cases. Blackboard is considered a virtual learning environment and is a good example of situated learning which is already in practice. Blackboard is used by many large universities and public and private schools across the United States. Universities that offer online classes use this model to provide a learning environment for students to actively and socially participate in their own learning. Blackboard provides students with access to a class syllabus, schedule, assignments, discussions, assessments, grades, student-to- student, and student-to-teacher collaborations. Intermediate schools are also using online homerooms specific to their classrooms to inform students about the objectives of the class and to assign homework for student to work on collaboratively. This model helps universities and schools to provide tools for students so they can participate in learning outside of the classroomsetting. George Mason's department of Religious Studies introduced an online course called "The Human Religious Experience" which applies the situated learning approach of students co- constructing E D I T 7 3 0
- 57. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Situated Learning knowledge through a social process, to meet Mason’s core requirement on global understanding (Bond, S.,& Campbell, S.,2015). E-Homeroom is an online classroom that has been modeled after situated learning and provides learning tools for FSI students to learn a foreign language on their own outside of theclassroom. How effective is it? There are several factors that demonstrate the effect of situated learning on the learner. Since in a situated learning environment learners are actively involved in learning on their own, the effectiveness of their learning will be inconsistent and depends on the variety of activities that are being offered by their instructor. Another effect of situated learning is that it enhances the learner’s knowledge and improves their cognitive ability through modeling, coaching and scaffolding. Situated learning helps improve a novice learner’s performance through apprenticeship. Learning instruction through situated learning is more effective than learning in a traditional learning environment. Also the effect of students learning in a partnership is long-term and students can benefit from the knowledge they acquire long after their class is over. E-Homeroom, which is similar in design to Blackboard, is new to FSI instructors and students. This model has been proven to be effective when used as a classroom away from the classroom. Classroom teaching has been an effective approach to learning for a long time, but any institution that includes situated learning to facilitate student’s knowledge is more effective. What are the implications for instructional design? The use of situated learning as an approach to the design of learning environments has significant implications for the instructional design of computer-based programs (Herrington, J., & Oliver, R., 2000). They believe that computer-enhanced learning can be modeled and designed based on situated learning environments. A situated learning environment should consist of; authentic context in which the content of learning is modeled on the complexity of the real world which helps learners reflect on real-life situations, authentic activities which would help the learner accomplish a task by solving a problem, provide modeling, coaching, and scaffolding which give learners multiple opportunities to engage in an activity from different perspectives, help learners to participate in critical thinking collaboratively, encourage reflection to reinforce learning, and assess and evaluate the progress of the learner while they are performing the task. E-Homeroom is not designed to take the place of an actual classroom, instead it is an online learning tool that provides a wide range of instructional materials which facilitate interactions between teachers and students in and out of the classroom. E-Homeroom is designed systematically as a tool to guide the structure of the language course and to provide step by step instructions for learner to use this online site effectively. The design of E- Homeroom helps facilitate the transfer of knowledge and skill to the learner. Its content is simple and meaningful to thelearner. Scenario John is a Foreign Service Officer who has been assignedto learn Dari for his next assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan where he will work at the American Embassy as a political officer. In order to qualify for this job he must be able to participate effectively in most conversations on a wide variety of topics and be able to read authentic prose material on unfamiliar subjects within a normal range of speed and with close to complete comprehension. In order to meet these strict requirements he will spend the next 36 weeks at the Federal Government’s primary training facility, the Foreign Service Institute(FSI). FSI students are required to spend 4-5 hours in class, 1-2 hours in the language lab, and 2-3 hours studying at home every day. Students are also not allowed any vacationdays. Because of the intensity of this program it is in the students’best interest to not have anyabsences. Due to personal reasons, John will miss a few days of class each week. His absenteeism has been approved by his department, however he must still successfully complete the language program within 36 weeks. John learns that in order to address situations like this, FSI has created a web based language program called E-Homeroom that will allow students like John to continue language training in the event of a missed class. E-Homeroom consists of up-to-date lessons which include a variety of interactive speaking, listening, reading, grammar, and vocabulary building exercises. Continued on the next page…
- 58. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Situated Learning Once the student has completed all activities he will be given multiple choice challenges allowing him to receive instant feedback to assess what he has learned. With E- Homeroom, students will be able to get the same type of instruction as they would in the classroom with dialogues, drills, narratives for reading, and practical exercises. Instructors will be able to work with students using online text or video chat and student will be able to upload their written and recorded voice homework daily for instructor’s feedback. In this way E-Homeroom can help to mitigatethe problems that most students and teachers face when trying to play catch-up for missed days. John feels thankful to FSI for offering an online program like E- Homeroom so that he can continue his language learning on his own without having to be away from his family in a time ofneed.
- 59. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Situated Learning References Bond, S., & Campbell, S. (2015). Helping students develop global understanding through Situated Learning: A religion course example. Innovations in Teaching and Learning, Retrieved from http://journals.gmu.edu/ITLCP/article/view/664 Dabbagh N., Bannan B. (2005) Online learning: concepts, strategies, and application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development. Retrieved from http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/situated- learning.html Jonassen, D. (2011). Learning to solve problems. New York, NY: Routledge. Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Mahar, S., & Harford, M. (2004). Research on human learning. Department of Education and Training, Victoria. Retrieved fromhttp://www.researchgate.net publication/265173642_Research_on_Human_Learning_Background_Paper Paula, V. (2003). The nature of situated learning. Innovations in Learning [pdf document]. Retrieved from http://sites.tufts.edu/ests/files/2012/12/newsletter_feb_20031.pdf Situated Learning. (n.d.). In Northern Illinois University, Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center. Retrieved from http://www.facdev.niu.edu/facdev/resources/guide/strategies/situated_learning.pdf
- 60. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF SituatedLearning What is it? Situated Learning emerged from anthropological studies of informal learning. Learning in informal contexts in the everyday world is an activity-based and socially meditated phenomenon that occurs naturally in communities of practice (Jonassen, 2010). A community of practice (COP) is born when a group of like-minded individuals come together for a common goal or purpose. The COP is typically made up of various individuals with different, but complementary roles and experiences. Situated learning theories stress the importance of embedding instruction in authentic, everyday problems. Learning is always learned through some type of context or scenario. Some of the critical characteristics of situated learning for instructional design are to; 1) Provide authentic context that reflect the way the knowledge will be used in real-life; 2) Provide authentic activities; 3) Provide access to expert performances and the modeling of processes; 4) Provide multiple roles and perspectives; 5) Support collaborative construction of knowledge; 6) Provide coaching and scaffolding at critical times; 7) Promote reflection to enable abstractions to be formed; 8) Promote articulation to enable tacit knowledge to be made explicit; 9) Provide for integrated assessment of learning within the tasks. Situated learning was pre- empted by proposing that ‘bridging apprenticeships’ be designed to bridge the gap between the theoretical learning in the formal instruction of the classroom and the real-life application of the knowledge in the workenvironment. How does it work? When learning in situ, the knowledge that is constructed by learners is situated in the context in which it is learned. Rather than defining learning in terms of exam performance, knowledge is assessed by the individual’s ability to participate in that community. Rather than learning content devoid of context and meaning, learning in a COP is focused on becoming a fully participating member of that community. The persons who learn the most naturally move GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY KATRINA RAINER toward the center of the COP (Lave and Wenger, 1991). The role of the instructor can take on many different forms depending on the context of the COP. If situated learning is happening in the classroom, the teacher will naturally be the instructor. However, if the situated learning is happening within a non- classroom based COP, the individual with the most experience and knowledge in the subject matter or practice will organically become the instructor. When considering situated learning, learning takes place not only within the individual learner’s mind, but also among learners within an interactive community. (McKelvey & Yuan, 2004) In order for the Situated Learning method to be successful the instructor must “provide authentic context that reflects the way knowledge will be used in real life, and is correlated with authentic challenges.” (Hossainy, Zare, Hormozi, Shaghaghi, & Kaveh, 2012). Some key aspects of situated learning include, but are not limited to: modeling, coaching, scaffolding, reflection and articulation. Scaffolding information is a key factor in situated learning. Scaffolding means increasing the novice ability with the support of a specialist and achieving expertise with receiving feedback. By increasing the student’s capabilities, the instructor adds complexity to the environment and considers greater autonomy for the learner. (Lave, 2008) It is important that the instructor have a deft hand when considering providing information to the learner. The learner will need to make sense of the provided information, but should not be swayed toward a particular solution or “answer.” Due to the possible ill-defined solution nature of this model, authentic assessments are important when considering what the learner has obtained. When situated learning is performed, traditional evaluation methods lose their adequacy, and assessment must be focused on understanding and problem solving. (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp). Who is doing it? Due to the authentic learning that occurs within the situated learning model, it can be easily implemented E D I T 7 3 0
- 61. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Situated Learning in any field of study. One of the most prevalent examples is the idea of a medical residency. Medical interns are being immersed in the culture for a period of time to experience and problem solve in their area of practice. The situated learning is occurring more when they are given scenarios or case studies to practice on with the cadavers. They are given certain conditions and provided with information to help them come up with a diagnosis for the “patient” as well as the best course of treatment. They are given just enough information to get them started, but it is up to the resident to research and obtain supplementary information as needed. Rather than defining learning in terms of exam performance, knowledge is assessed by the resident’s ability to participate in the medical community. In a recent study done by East Tennessee State University, researchers examine the relationship between medical residency models and the transition from the traditional teacher education, that is, education that is based heavily in the college classroom, to a residency model, where perspective teachers spend a significant amount of time in an elementary classroom. Another example of this is seen in a study where a situated learning curriculum was developed for nursing students studying best practices for gerontology care. The study aimed at designing and implementing a situated learning program and determining its interventional effect on motivation and academic achievement. The results showed that the program not only increased the learners’ learning and motivation, but also improved the students’ attitudes toward gerontology care (Hossainy, et. al, 2012). How effective is it? In terms of effectiveness, situated learning has a positive effect on many aspects of learning. It allows the learner to have authentic learning experiences, and it lends itself to a more individualized learning model. Learners are more likely to retain and successfully apply information when it is learned within in the context of the subject matter. One of the critical features of situated learning is scaffolding instruction. Scaffolding instruction increases the intrinsic motivation of the learner by encouraging the learner and instructor to take part in challenging activities. When the learner is invested in the activity, they are more likely to take it upon themselves to gather information rather than having to rely on the instructor to supply them with all of the necessary information. The learner actually wants to solve the problem, rather than the traditional instructor- student model, where the student is required to meet certain objectives without any say so or input on how they will learn it. What are the implications for instructional design? Situated learning theories stress the importance of embedding instructional authentic, everyday problems. Learning always occurs in some context. Because this is a constructivist learning theory, it can be used in a multitude of different environments and disciplines. Many classroom teachers in the K-12 setting are implementing the situated learning model due to the ability to create authentic learning experiences for their students. It is important for instructors to allow the students to explore information on their own. Although this model is similar to the problem- based learning (PBL) model, one of the major differences is the amount of scaffolding present in the situated learning model. Although technology does not have to be a staple resource or this model, there are various technologies that can be used for this model. Learners can use the Internet to research information, there are interactive or game-based applications that can be used to give the learner a more personalized experience when learning, orthe learner can view digital simulations that they would then have to analyze and extract problems tosolve.
- 62. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Situated Learning Scenario Rescue at Boone's Meadow is one of 12 video- based anchors in the Jasper series designed to teach mathematical problem finding and problem solving in traditional classroom environments for students in grades five and higher. Each of these adventures provides a very rich environment that creates multiple opportunities for problem solving, reasoning, communication, and making interdisciplinaryconnections. Rescue at Boone's Meadow is one of three adventures that deals with complex trip planning. The adventure's storyline begins with one of the primary characters, Larry Peterson, flying his ultralight into Cumberland City. Larry is teaching his friend Emily Johnson how to fly. During Emily's lessons, she (and the viewers) learn much about the ultralight, including information on payload, fuel capacity, fuel consumption, speed, landing requirements, and how the shape of the wing produces lift. To celebrate Emily's first solo flight, Larry and Emily join Jasper Woodbury for dinner at a local restaurant. During dinner, Jasper reveals that he will soon be taking his annual fishing trip. He plans to drive to Hilda's gas station, park his car there, and then hike 15 miles to his favorite fishing spot in the woods, a remote location known as Boone's Meadow. While camping in the Meadow, Jasper finds a bald eagle that has been wounded by a gunshot. He radios for help. Emily consults the local veterinarian, Doc Ramirez, who warns that time is the critical factor in saving the eagle. Emily consults a map on the wall that reveals there are no direct roads leading to Boone's Meadow from either Cumberland City or Hilda's. She also learns the distances from the City to Hilda's gas station and Boone's Meadow are 60 and 65 miles, respectively. Each plan proposed by the student must be evaluated with respect to the appropriate constraints. For example, if the ultralight is used for the rescue, several constraints, such as payload, landing requirements, and range of the ultralight, will determine the feasibility of each leg of a given route. An additional complication is that payload and range are interrelated constraints. Continued on the next page…
- 63. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Situated Learning The range of the ultralight will depend upon the amount of available gas, and the weight of the gas must be considered when calculating payload. The video narration ends with the challenge: ``What is the fastest way to rescue the eagle, and how long will it take?'' At this point, students shift from passive viewing to active problem solving. During the problem solving session, students are put into groups and left on their own to gather information that might help them solve the problem. The teacher is only there for support and to scaffold information during the class time. There is no right or wrong answer to the problem. The students are required to present their proposed solutions to the class and defend their work.
- 64. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Situated Learning References Abdallah, Mahmoud M. S. (2015, May). Situated language learning: Concept, significance and forms. Paper presented at the College of Education Young Researchers’ Conference, Assiut,Egypt. Biswas, G. (1997). The macrocontext: Rescue at Boone’s meadow. Anchored Interactive Learning Environments. Retrieved fromhttp://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/ biswas/Research/ile/aile/node5.html. Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (1995). Critical characteristics of situated learning: Implications for the instructional design of multimedia. Paper presented at the ASCILITE 1995, Melbourne, Australia. Hossainy, F. N., Zare, H., Hormozi, M., Shaghaghi, F., & Kaveh, M. H. (2012). Designing and implementing a Situated Learning Program and determining its impact on the students’ motivation and learning. Turkish Online Journals of Distance Education, 13(2), 36-47. Jonassen, D. (2010) Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environments. New York, NY: Routledge. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (2008). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. McKelvey, B., & Yuan, Y. (2004) Nonlinear dynamics, psychology and life sciences. Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences, 8(1). Morrison, G., Ross. S., and Kemp. J. (2007). Designing effective instruction. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Nivens, R.A. (2013). Ready2Teach: Shifts in Teacher Preparation through Residency and Situated Learning. SRATE Journal, 23(1), 13-17.
- 65. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF VirtualLearning Environments What is it? Virtual Learning Environments are computer-based environments “that immerse learners in a real-world experience by mimicking the experience virtually” (Dabbagh, 2005). VLEs are grounded in several constructivist theories, including Piaget’s, in which individuals construct their own knowledge from experiences. Theoretical underpinnings also include Lave’s situated learning, where learning takes place within an authentic setting. Finally, Bruner’s constructivist learning theory grounds VLEs in their ability to support the learner in transforming information, constructing hypotheses, and making decisions. While the term VLE has been more broadly to refer to any computer-based or online learning environment, such as a Learning Management System, the focus here is on environments that are constructed and displayed to simulate real-world interactions. VLE/LMS in the broader sense have been developed since the late 1970s with the advent of accessible computing, but immersive VLEs have only been used in mainstream education since the mid-2000s. Specifically, VLEsin the context of this brief have thesecharacteristics: The environment appears on a computer visually as physical space, either 2-D or 3- D, and incorporates sounds The learner’s point of view in the space is first-person, and the learner can move around thespace The environment responds to learner actions, suchas approaching a door and the door willopen The epistemological orientation of VLEs in this interpretationis toward constructivism, because VLEs as a learningenvironment emphasize the learner’s discovery of new knowledge while performing authentic tasks in a relevantcontext. How does it work? The design elements and features of a VLE provide a constructivist environment for learning, centered on real-life tasks in an authentic context. The VLE itself is purely context because of its place simulation; for example, there is always a setting for the VLE, such as a laboratory, or a village, or an operating room. VLEs GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY TONYA HUTSON also allow the learner to discover new information through free exploration, rather than in a predetermined series of instruction. The only constraints in the VLE are those appropriate to the context; for example, if the VLE is constructed as a village in France for the purpose of language learning, then the VLE would provide the learner the capability to hear French speakers as part of the interactions,but not provide the learner the ability to fly. Instruction inVLEs should be structured in a way that facilitates learning using instructional strategies such as authentic activities, student choice, coaching/scaffolding, and collaboration. The VLE provides the learner with authentic tasks that are supported by scaffolding, such as by a character in the VLE acting as an intelligent agent. Also, VLEs can provide social interactions to enhance and support learning, either by allowing learners to interact virtually with other actual learners or by providing a virtual mentor. Generic learning activities used in VLEs include role-playing, interacting with simulations, problem solving, and content creation. Effective learning activities are alsocustomized to the context; in the example of a language-learning VLE, ordering and paying for items with appropriate currency. Who is doing it? One of the main areas in which VLEs are being applied is in language learning. In VLE language- learning implementations such as Second Life, learners can participate in: voice/text chats, real-life scenarios such as visiting a doctor, and problem solving such as calculating the right currency amount. Another area that VLEs are effectively transforming is distance learning, since students and instructors can have a common “place” to interact regardless of their physical locations. Universities now offer courses where the VLE is the educational classroom, where students are “discovering new ways to study, discuss, create, and express the course subject under the supervision and support of the instructor” (Calongne). Another setting in which VLEs are being applied is in the area of the sciences. For example, avirtual chemistry lab has been developed which allows distancestudents to learn about the layout and function of apparatus in a chemistry lab as well as providing procedural E D I T 7 3 0
- 66. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Virtual Learning Environments information and interactions required for implementing experiments. In addition, math and science domains that require computing activity lend themselves well to a VLE: a statistics course integrated the statistical computational software with a constructivist VLE that provided communications, collaboration, and feedback. Finally, VLEs are being used in places where access to the real environment for training is prohibitively expensive or dangerous, such as nuclear facilities. How effective is it? Research points to VLEs having several effective benefits as a pedagogical model. Whitelock, Brna and Holland haveproposed a theoretical framework for VLEs which includes three dimensions that increase learning outcomes: “namely ‘representational fidelity’, ‘immediacy of control’and ‘presence’” (Dalgarno and Lee, 2010). Several tangible effectives of the VLE pedagogical approach are supported by research. First, learners “can develop spatial knowledge through exploring a virtual environment” (Dalgarno, 2002). Secondly, research has shown that facts learned within the VLE context are better recalled than facts learned out of the VLE. In addition, studies have shown that learner motivation and engagement is increased due to learner choice and personalization in a VLE. Specific learner behavior has been attributed to achieving learning outcomes. Research shows that when students give a significant number of meaningful feedback messages to other students, they perform better at non- rote learning activities: “Students who submit more feedback messages increase their chances to perform well” (Wessa, 2011). Other promising areas are worthy of more study, such as which rules and design principles should inform the design of the VLE for associated learning tasks. Finally, there are additional “learning benefitsthat may arise from enabling learners to construct their own virtual places and/or objects” in VLEs (Dalgarno and Lee,2010). What are the implications for instructional design? Using a VLE has impacts to choices for instructional design. An instructional designer would recommend this model in situations that capitalize on the affordances of the VLE technology: experiential tasks that would be impractical in the real world, high degree of personalization due to learner choice, transfer of knowledge to real situations through context, collaborative learning, and exploration of the spatial relationships in the domain. Instructional characteristics of VLEs include individual and small groups of learners,providing scaffolding and procedural information, well-defined problems, and hypothesis generation. The learning outcomes that are best supported by VLEs include: Understanding beyond rote memorization; engagement in processing information and findingexplanations Identify relevant problem-solving techniques,interpret information, critically investigate assumptions The technologies that are most appropriate to implement a VLE include 3D models and computer environments, distributed and synchronous collaboration tools, and tools to supportscaffolding and expert guidance as learners undertake tasks in the VLE. The pedagogical model of a VLE can solve learning and training problems in several key areas. The first area is any domain that would be inaccessible or hard to visit for the learner, such as a foreign country or secure location. The second area that VLEs can support is dangerous or expensive physicalenvironments. Finally, VLEs can be particularly effective when: “thelearning process relies intensively on computer software … [and] the learning activities involve social interaction, collaboration, and/or communications” (Wessa,2011).
- 67. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Virtual Learning Environments Scenario Gaining a rich understanding of chemistry is an instructional problem which requires learners to be able to link their observations and learnings in the laboratory to an understanding of what is happening at the molecular level. Laboratory experiments allow learners to empirically hypothesis-test their understanding of the invisible molecularscale. However, distance chemistry education coursesaren’t afforded with frequent physical lab time, even in hybrid settings. At Charles Sturt University, chemistry students reside at the lab once during the semester and perform all the chemistry experiments at once. This model reduces the pedagogical benefits of the experiments, since the laboratory work is not closely integrated with the theory they have learned through the semester. In addition, actual laboratory work is expensive and involves the use of hazardousmaterials. The University created a VLE of a chemistry laboratory which had the followingcharacteristics: • Representation of the layout of an actual laboratory • Scaffolding and information about procedures tofollow in the laboratory as well as a chemistry lab manual • Exploration and manipulation of laboratoryapparatus, such as glassware and a Bunsenburner • Ability for the learner to undertake virtual experiments and to zoom in on the molecularlevel • Support for distributed learners to work collaboratively in the lab and under the supervision ofmentors The chemistry lab VLE has constructivist design elements including: place context, learner choice, modelling abstract concepts, situated instructional resources, remote task collaboration, and scaffolding tools.
- 68. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Virtual Learning Environments References Calongne, C. (2008). Frontiers education: Learning in a virtual world. E-Review, 5, 36-48. Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies and application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Dalgarno, B. (2002). The Potential of 3D virtual learning environments: A constructivist analysis. E-Journal of Instructional Science &Technology,5(2),1-19. Dalgarno, B. and Lee, M. (2010). What are the learning affordances of 3-D virtual environments? British JournalofEducationTechnology,41(1),10-30.doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.01038.x Downey, S. (2014). History of the (virtual) worlds. The Journal of Technology Studies, 40(2), 54-66. Retrievedfrom https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JOTS/v40/v40n2/pdf/downey.pdf Schunk, D.H. (2011). Introduction to the study of learning. Learning theories: An educational perspective. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education,Inc. Wessa, P., Rycker, A. D., & Holliday, I. E. (2011). Content-based VLE designs improve learning efficiency in constructivist statistics education. Plos ONE, 6(10), 1-15.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025363
- 69. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF AuthenticLearning Activities What is it? “Authentic learning is a pedagogical approach that situates learning tasks in the context of future use” (Herrington, Reeves, & Oliver, 2014, p.401). Authentic learning activities are meant to enable learnersto develop a concrete and robust understanding that is easily transferrable to real- world situations. In the 1930s, educational theorists Whitehead and Dewey peaked interest in realistic contexts for learning. Sincethen, others have contributed to this philosophical foundation to stress a “learning by doing” approach to instruction. Continuing work in this area lead to the idea of authentic pedagogy with a focus on learning activities derived from “real-world” context and experiences (Herrington, Reeves, & Oliver, 2014). Authentic learning activities have their origin closely linked to the theory of situated cognition and pedagogical model of anchored instruction. Collins (1991) defines situated cognition as, “the notion of learning knowledge and skills in contexts that reflect theway the knowledge will be useful in real life” (p. 122). The anchored instruction approach has been described as enhancing knowledge transfer by aiding students in distinguishing between “knowing X” and “thinking to use X” (Bransford, Vye, Kinzer, & Risko, 1990, p. 391). How does it work? While authentic learning activities are an integral part of all constructivist learning environments and constructivist pedagogical models, ranging from problem-based learning to situated learning, there are specific attributes that authentic learning tasks should adhere to in order to be most effective. As research on authentic learning has continued, a GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY JENNIFER KLEINER framework for authentic learning tasks was formed. Listed below are the elements of authentic learning activities as described by Reeves, Herrington, and Oliver (2002, p. 2): 1. Authentic activities have real-worldrelevance. 2. Authentic activities are ill defined, which requires students to define the tasks and subtasks needed to complete the activity. 3. Authentic activities comprise complex tasks for students to investigate during a sustained time period. 4. Authentic activities provide the opportunity for students to use a variety of resources to examinethe task from different perspectives. 5. Authentic activities provide learners with the opportunity to collaborate. Authentic activities provide students with the opportunity to reflect and involve their beliefs and values. 6. Authentic activities can be integrated and applied across different subject areas and extend beyond domain- specific outcomes. 7. Authentic activities are seamlessly integrated with assessment. 8. Authentic activities create polished products valuable in their own right rather than as preparation for something else. 9. Authentic activities allow competing solutions and diversity of outcomes. If instructional designers keep each of these attributes in mind, then their learning environments will support constructivist- based learning and promote, “collaboration, reflection, problem solving, multiple perspectives, and hypothesis generation, as well as other exploratory and dialogic (conversational) learning activities” (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 206). The key among all of these attributes is that authentic activities promote learning by doing rather than a focus on content. In order to effectively achieve this, the instructor role is more of a guide to “provide scaffolding and create a resource-rich learning environment to support learning” (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 207). E D I T 7 3 0
- 70. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Authentic Learning Activities Consequently, the student will take ownership of his own learning as he engages with the content through direct and relevant interaction. Who is doing it? Authentic learning activities are being used by good instructional designers in almost every, if not all, industries and for all levels of education. From middle school through adult learning, authentic learning tasks are at the core of instructional strategies that support constructivist-based pedagogical models, as seen in the image below (Dabbagh& Bannan-Ritland, 2005). Authentic learning activities are a central component of several pedagogical models implementing these instructional strategies, including but not limited to: situated learning, problem-based learning, simulations, and cognitive apprenticeships. These models are used in countless industries, ranging from novice financial advisors engaging in cognitive apprenticeship or hospitality management students planning and hosting a community event centered on sustainable tourism (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005). How effective is it? “Learning methods that are embedded in authentic situations are not merely useful; they are essential” (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989, p. 37). This is a strong statement but has been defended by numerous researchers since it was claimed. When authentic learningactivities are integrated into design correctly, research has shown that it does improve concrete learning while lessening the likelihood that knowledge will become inert or forgotten. This is because when the content is situated in a real-world context, the knowledge is contextualized and is more readily accessible and able to be applied appropriately when solving problems in a similar context (Herrington et al., 2014). What are the implications for instructional design? If you asked several instructional designers when would they recommend the use of authentic learning activities, the answer for many would be “whenever possible.” While certain instruction may not always benefit learners if elevated to a Constructivist learning environment (e.g., memorizing times tables), there are countless concepts that are best learned through authentic learning activities. Authentic learning tasks are best for increasing knowledge transfer and making it easier for learners to recall and apply knowledge in various contexts. The realistic context of authentic learning activities has solved the issue of content being separated from context and application in instruction (Herrington et al., 2014). Authentic learning tasks reduce the difficulty in retrieving information and allow learners to know how to use information rather than just know it (Bransford et al., 1990). This is crucial because the way learners acquire knowledge in lecture-style classrooms is not always the same way that knowledge will need to be applied in every day real life. Jonassen (2011) states that every day life is filled with ill- structured decision-making problems, and learners need to know how to apply knowledge in varied, ill-structured contexts. Authentic learning activities can be used to create this realistic, ill-structured context. Authentic learning activities can be implemented in face-to- face, online, or blended learning environments. An example of a face-to-face learning environment is listed in the scenario below.
- 71. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Authentic Learning Activities Some examples of online environments include virtual worlds or cognitive flexibility hypertext models, among others. While blended learning environments may utilize a number of constructivist pedagogical models to implement authentic learning tasks, including: situated learning, problem- based learning, cognitive apprenticeship, and more (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005). Scenario “Take It to a Higher Level – RecoPort” by Hasan Altalib RecoPort provides training for employees at financial institutions. One of its most popular programs is called, "Take It to a Higher Level." The program is designed for employees who have worked as assistant planners at a financial institution, including brokerage and insurance companies. The goal of the program is to familiarize assistant planners with the skills that seasoned financial planners use when preparing an investment portfolio. A seasoned financial planner will possess a variety of "soft" skills, such as communicating, planning, and consensus building. The seasoned planner will be able to thoroughly research a wide array of companies and identify the best performers. S/he will be able to interpret relevant tax laws, fee structures, and risk factors when analyzing a business or a mix of financial products. Trainees are introduced to each case using transcripts of actual client-planner interviews. They are given access to a large sample of company and industry data. They are to develop a research plan and identify relevant data sources to assist them in making appropriate investment recommendations to their client. They will do their research and analysis individually, however,they will rely on members of their "financial team" to critique theiranalysis. Accomplished financial planners are available throughout the program to scaffold and mentor students. Each learner (trainee) will present his/her recommendations to a panel of expert financial planners who will provide feedback on the quality of the research, the validity of the analysis, and the depth of thestudent's communication and planning skills.
- 72. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Authentic Learning Activities Participants will gain competency in the tasks involvedin planning a financial strategy including: Choosing the best-fit financial product, when there are over hundreds to choose from Identifying the best company, from hundreds of companies Assembling the best mix of financial productsand companies to meet client goals Interpreting tax laws that relate to financialproducts Calculating fee structures and charges associated withpurchasing financial products Assessing the risk factors of various types of financial products Determining the investment horizon and timeframefor each product
- 73. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Authentic Learning Activities References Bransford, J.D., Vye, N., Kinzer, C., & Risko, V. (1990). Teaching thinking and content knowledge: Toward an integrated approach. In B.F. Jones & L. Idol (Eds.), Dimensions of thinking and cognitive instruction (pp. 381-413). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32– 42. Collins, A. (1991). Cognitive apprenticeship and instructional technology. In L. Idol & B. F. Jones (Eds.), Educational values and cognitive instruction: Implications for reform (pp. 121–138). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies and application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Herrington, J., Reeves, T.C., & Oliver, R. (2014). Authentic learning environments. In J.M. Specter, M.D. Merril, J. Elen, & M.J. Bishop (Eds), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 401-412). New York, NY: Springer. Jonassen, D. H. (2011). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environment. New York, NY: Routledge. Reeves, T. C., Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (2002). Authentic activities and online learning. Paper presented at the 2002 Annual International Conference of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA), Perth, Western Australia
- 74. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF Collaborationand Social Negotiation What is it? Collaboration occurs when two or more people work together toward a shared goal with a process and a purpose. Collaboration is a distinct instructional strategy in which learning is fostered through collaboration and social negotiation processes in which two or more people interact to solve problems, share ideas, explore, reflect, articulate, examine different perspectives on problems, expand understanding, cultivate knowledge construction, negotiation, and reliance on one another. Collaboration occurs in tandem with social negotiation, which is the core backbone of collaboration. Social negotiation is integral to collaboration as it is the means through which collaboration can occur between people. It allows people to benefit from the experience of others, become fully engaged in their own learning experience, and acquire and retain information more meaningfully. Social negotiation describes the human connection element of collaboration – how it occurs, when it does not occur, how two or more humans communicate, exchange information, overcome power dynamics and obstacles so that collaboration – working together toward a common goal – can occur. Collaboration can exist in face-to-face collaborations as well as in many types of computer-based collaborations. Collaboration is the ability to share ideas and thoughts openly alongside another person and to come up with a combined answer, response and/or solution for a particular topic or issue. It is the ability to combine different notions, beliefs and theories into one concrete explanation and/or solution that is reflective of the diversity of the group itself. How does it work? Collaboration and social negotiation is a constructive process. It is an instructional strategy that is integral to many pedagogical methods, such as, communities of practice, knowledge-building communities, situated learning, and cognitive apprenticeships. These models are only as effective as the collaboration and social negotiation is because the collaboration aspect plays such a key role. Social negotiation is defined to have seven different aspects: GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY ELLEN BROWN mode, object, symmetry, complexity, flexibility, systematicity, and directness. Interestingly, while negotiation is a vital dimension of collaboration, it is not a necessary part of cooperation. Social negotiation requires people to increase awareness of others’ perspectives, to reflect upon others’ viewpoints, and to expand understanding. In collaboration, the focus on the common goal remains steadfast, even if there are conflicts between participants. Who is doing it? Collaboration and social negotiation are constructivist. Therefore, they are commonly seen in constructivist learning environments. Collaboration and social negotiation are ubiquitous throughout every facet of the human development and learning cycles – from early childhood education through high school, university, the workplace, continued education programs, and professional societies. That is because collaboration and social negotiation are integral to pedagogical models such as communities of practice, knowledge-building communities, situated learning, and cognitive apprenticeships, to name a few. While the academic research on collaboration and social negotiation is fairly recent in human history, the use of collaboration and social negotiation goes back in education a millennia. Teachers have long paired up two or more students to collaborate on a project or assignment. If there is an effective organization, somewhere in that organization effective collaboration and social negotiation is happening. More and more these days, businesses are realizing the importance of collaboration and social negotiation. They are realizing the return-on-investments on genuinely impactful learning strategies, and that the learning outcomes are often better when trainings include collaboration and social negotiation. Every business type is engaged at some point in some way in collaboration and social negotiation – whether that be the government, non-government organizations, nonprofits, commercial companies, education institutions of all kinds, to name a few. How effective is it? Collaboration and social negotiation as an instructional strategy is very impactful. Arguably, E D I T 7 3 0
- 75. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Collaboration and Social Negotiation collaboration and social negotiation are one of the most powerful forms of learning. The research shows that with collaboration, learners more effectively acquire and retain information. Through it, learners benefit from the experience of the other participants, learn to overcome arguments and obstacles to keep focus on the goal, become fully immersed in their own learning experience, and have higher knowledge absorption and application of their learning to new problems, situations, and environments. Applied across different industries, this leads to improved processes, return-on-investment, and other key outcomes. Industries such as medicine, nursing, and project management have all seen positive improvements as a result of collaboration and social negotiation. For example, in medicine, there has been an increase in patient outcomes as a result of collaboration and social negotiation. What are the implications for instructional design? An instructional designer will look for opportunities to incorporate collaboration and social negotiation into their designs as appropriate in order to boost positive learner engagement and outcomes. Collaboration can be incorporated across all pedagogical models and instructional strategies. Some of those include problem-solving, role-playing, situated learning, and communities of practice, for example. Collaboration can also be incorporated into most learning technologies, such as, asynchronous and synchronous communication tools, multimedia, web development tools, social media, groupware, videoconferencing, and course management software to name a few. So, there is a wealth of opportunities and avenues through which instructional designers can promote collaboration and negotiation into their designs. Instructional designers should examine the ongoing research on collaboration and learner outcomes that results from collaboration across different learning technologies, pedagogical models and instructional strategies. Instructional designers should harness digital technologies and resources to expand and incorporate collaboration opportunities and experiences. Instructional designers should also examine how to create and share digital content and foster communication flow in any designs in which they do incorporate collaboration. Scenario A world-renown radiologist wanted to explore unique cases with his closest colleagues. So, he set up regular meeting time with these colleagues who are from all over the world. Once a month, this small cluster of radiologists met online, they review new, unique cases, they explore and debate the implications for these cases. The experts would show each other their screens, review the images, and discuss the cases in detail. Both the audio and the video portions were recorded. After a while, they realized they had quite a few of these cases. So, they decided to create a YouTube Channel. Eventually they ended up with over 50 of these cases. The cases ended up being pulled out and incorporated into training materials for residents. Sometimes these world renowned experts would disagree about findings and implications. In the beginning these arguments went badly. At one point they ended the discussion because two of the experts disagreed on when one should use the word, “display” and when one should use the word, “presents” when discussing radiology images and anomalies. The argument went on for an hour. The other team members parted ways. They came back together the next time and all participants agreed to keep the focus on their common goal, no matter what the different viewpoints. Furthermore, they decided to cultivate the different viewpoints to see where these differences would enrich their explorations. Sometimes, the discussions were quite heated. However, in this collaboration, the different perspectives were discussed openly and encouraged. The group did not lose sight of the key common goal – to dive deep into each case, identify the complexities of each case, expand understanding of both clinical and technological applications for their findings and apply those findings to their own respective institutions. What they didn’t realize is that their collaborations would end up being so helpful to their own trainees, their own institutions and their field as a whole. In fact, these collaborations, and their ability to specifically negotiate heir different viewpoints and heated debates, ended up being the cornerstone of the potency of their collaborations. In fact, these collaborations ended up advancing their field quite significantly. They started out wanting to simply explore and ended up creating a very robust and effective community of practice because of their ability to collaborate and negotiate so effectively.
- 76. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Collaboration and Social Negotiation References Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies, and application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: PrenticeHall. Dabbagh, N., & Dass, S. (2013). Case problems for problem-based pedagogical approaches: A comparative analysis. Computers & Education, 64, 161-174. Jonassen, D.H. (2011). Learning to solve problems: A handbook for designing problem-solving learning environments. NewYork, NY:Routledge. Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2006). Knowledge building: Theory, pedagogy, and technology. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 97-115). NewYork, NY: Cambridge University Press. Schunk, D.H. (2011). Learning theories: An educational perspective. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. Ziegenfuss, D. H., & Lawler, P. A. (2008). Collaborative course design: Changing the process, acknowledging the context, and implications for academic development. International Journal for Academic Development,13(3), 151-160.
- 77. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF Collaborationand Social Negotiation What is it? Collaboration and social negotiation is an instructional strategy encouraging “interaction between or among two or more learners to maximize their own and one another’s learning” (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 217). This strategy is derived of two specific parts: collaboration and social negotiation. Collaboration is the act of fostering interaction, conversation, and joining of resources by two or more learners to complete any number of tasks or activities. Typically, learners are grouped in a small number to work on assignments andprojects. Social negotiation encompasses the interrelations and dialogue between two or more individuals to arrive at a mutually beneficial outcome or establish social hierarchies and authority. Social negotiation is the complex process of interactions through which community knowledge and learning is achieved according to social-learning theorists. Learning is a social process through which we negotiate meaning, social roles, societal norms, and conventions (Vratulis & Dobson,2008). Isolating the distinct roles each of these play in learning and human development is extremely complex and may not be possible. One may argue that social negotiation is always a component of the collaborative learning environment, and by the very nature of people one cannot effectively collaborate without some degree of social negotiation. Let’s see how theinstructional strategy of collaboration and social negotiation work. How does it work? The instructional strategy of collaboration and social negotiation is rooted in Vygotsky’s work in establishing that “social interactions are involved in the process of human development and learning” (Rojas-Drummond & Mercer, 2003,p.100). Collaboration and social negotiation build upon the importanceof the social environment and interactions with others to provide information and opinions which conflict with their own understanding. It is within the resolution, or negotiation, of these conflicts in which knowledge is constructed and learning occurs (Schunk, 2011). By its very nature, collaboration and GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY JERRY PREWITT social negotiation require the ideas, opinions, and information from multiple contributors; some of the greatest learning may occur when the degree of differences isgreater. Social learning theorists believe “that ‘intermental’ (social, interactional) activity forges some of the most important ‘intramental’ (individual) cognitive capabilities, withchildren’s involvement in joint activities generating new understandings and ways of thinking” (Rojas- Drummond & Mercer, 2003,p.100). Collaboration and social negotiation also requires the learner to incorporate personal reflection as part of the learning process. Itis through this personal mental negotiation where new thoughts, opinions, and understandings emerge. In other words, it is when new learning occurs. By collaborating and interacting with those around us, our personal beliefs, knowledge, and current understanding is challenged. This instructional strategy requires others. Who is doing it? Collaboration and social negotiation is used successfully in a wide variety of learning environments and with a wide variety of audiences, including early childhood, K12, Higher Education, and Industry. It supports the constructivist pedagogical models including communities of learning, communities of practice (COP), cognitive apprenticeships, problem based learning (PBL), and situated learning (SL). Collaboration and social negotiationis a commonly implemented dialogic instructional strategy. This widely implemented instructional strategy draws from the basic curiosity that is human nature. One of the most powerful and substantive questions to be asked in our interactions with others for learning and understanding is “why?” This one-word question, unleashes an immediate state of personal reflection, even if that personal reflection is somewhat defensive and self- preserving. However, it is through that reflection that we begin the process of articulating, explaining, defending, and refining our understanding and knowledge to create new understanding. This instructional strategy is used in K12 through small groups working through task and problems, E D I T 7 3 0
- 78. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Collaboration and Social Negotiation resolving everyday challenges, and learning new information. As demonstrated in the scenario, Collaboration and social negotiation is used in higher education and beyond the physical classroom. Industry and corporate training professionals are discovering the immense power of applying collaboration and social negotiation to their training and learning programs. Communities of Practice are a prime example of where using this instructional strategy is natural. COPs are dependent upon the sharing of personal experiences, questions for further thought,and gaining the synergy of community to solve challenges. How effective is it? “Social negotiation is an integral part of learning” (Dabbagh & Dass, 2013). Collaboration and social negotiation is an effective instructional strategy. As this strategy relies on aspects which are part of the human experience, it is successful in a broad range of applications. As described here, it has been used successfully in K12, Higher Education, and Industry, and is a reliable strategy for a number of Constructivist pedagogies. Rojas-Drummond and Mercer conclude with research providing new evidence in support of Vygotsky’s claim on the influence of “intermental” activity on “intramental” development (2003), and this is foundational for the strategy of collaboration and social negotiation. Other research provides guidelines based upon findings for university instructors to best use online discussions in asynchronous online courses to invoke greater discourse through social negotiation and collaboration (Gilbert & Dabbagh,2005). What are the implications for instructional design? Collaboration and social negotiation engages “…students in reflection, articulation, exploration, and problem solving” (Dabbagh & Bannon-Ritland, 2005, p. 217). Based upon social learning theory, collaboration and social negotiation is one of the broadest reaching instructional strategies which can effectivelybe implemented in a wide variety of courses and audiences. This strategy lends itself to use in numerous constructivist pedagogies. Problem-based learning is a pedagogy in which collaboration and social negotiation can be applied. This pedagogy requires the use of small groups, which will share experiences and opinions. The learner will be able to discuss and debate, hypothesize and test their solutions. Together the learners will negotiate and collaborate to develop and redevelop process to solve the problem. Collaboration and social negotiation is easily incorporated into situated learning. This pedagogy requires that learning take place in a fashion mimicking the real-world, if not in real-world. This will only increase the effectiveness of social negotiation as the collaboration and interactions amongst the team occurs in the real environment. This will help the learners create better alternatives and provide for fasterlearning. Communities of Practice use collaboration as a basis for their learning environments and social negotiation will enhance the sharing, understanding, incorporation of new information and opinions into the shared community knowledge. Learning inCOP is largely social and dependent upon the willingness of itsusers to share information to the benefit of the community. For technology-based distributed learning opportunities, collaboration and social negotiation is a valuable instructional strategy for the instructional designer. The ability to harness the collaborative abilities of editing documents by multiple users in real-time such as Google Docs allows. The numerous chat, videoconferencing, and collaborative project spaces available in both the personal, professional, and academic spaces providethe necessary virtual environment for successful execution of this instructional strategy. These are a few short examples of the implication for instructional design for the strategy of collaboration and social negotiation for K12, Higher Education, and Industry.
- 79. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Collaboration and Social Negotiation Scenario Collaboration and Social Negotiation: Life of the PM Project managers in the federal Government are more than task masters, clerks, and time keepers for an assignedteam. Today’s most effective project managers are leaders who collaborate, build alliances, and contribute to the successof their agency’smission. However, most current project manager training focuses on completing steps of a predefined process – knowing which forms to complete, to what level of detail, and to whom they are submitted for approval. Yet agencies across the federal Government struggle with dysfunctional project teams, gold- plated pet projects, cost overruns, extended timelines, and a growing percentage of projects cancelled before delivering the intended product or service. To address the deficiencies in developing project managers, Agency X is implementing a new cohort program which includes a variety of learning opportunities both face-to-face and virtually. The cohort of 20 experienced (5+ years) employees are newto the role of project manager. For their foundational learning experience they are divided into project teams of 5 members. In addition to the course facilitator and cohort coach, the team has access to the same resources available to all project managers across Agency X, including: the agency’s online PM toolkit and templates, virtual project/program management knowledge base, virtual project/program managers COP, and existing professional contacts. An experienced project or program manager is assigned to each team, and serves the role of the IPT Board (determine the success/failure or go/no go of the project). The five day foundation learning experience consists of each team successfully analyzing, preparing, and presenting project information for a sample project. Each team receives project artifacts for three project gate reviews. The learners work together as a team to define how they will accomplish the needed tasks within the prescribed time period, in order to present before and gain approval from their IPT Board. Each of the three sample projects concludes with a team reflection, detailed debrief, and feedback session with the IPT Board, course facilitator, and cohort coach. Each of the three sample projects increases in levels ofcomplexity and scope.
- 80. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Collaboration and Social Negotiation References Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies, and application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill/PrenticeHall. Dabbagh, N., & Dass, S. (2013). Case problems for problem-based pedagogical approaches: Acomparative analysis. Computers &Education. 64, 161-174. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.007 Gilbert, P. K., & Dabbagh, N. (2005). Howto structure online discussions for meaningful discourse: A case study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(1). 5-18. Rojas-Drummond, S., & Mercer, N. (2003). Chapter 5: Scaffolding the development of effective collaboration and learning. International Journal of Educational Research. 39, 99-111. doi: 10.1016/S0883-0355(03)00075-2 Schunk, D.H. (2011). Learning theories: An educational perspective. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education,Inc. Vratulis, V., & Dobson, T. M. (2008). Social negotiations in a wiki-environment: A case study with pre-service teachers. Educational Media International. 45(4), 285-294.
- 81. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF Game-BasedLearning What is it? Game-based learning (GBL) is an instructional strategy unlike any other. Simply stated, it is using a game for learning. Traditional GBL attempts to teach a skill or elicit a certain outcome so it is not usually considered a full- developed pedagogy. However, this lack of departmentalization allowsGBL to exhibit the characteristics of nearly any pedagogical model from situated learning tobehaviorism. An important difference to point out is GBL is not gamification. Gamification is simply adding game like elements to traditional problems. Earning points for completing a regular math problem would be an example of gamification while balancing creaturesto isolate a Dragon Box to learn algebra is an example of Game- Based Learning. While electronic gaming is a fairly new concept of the lastfifty years, learning games is anythingbut new. Though there are several individuals who original examined play, Johan Huizinga wrote one of the first studies about play actually preceding and even leading to the creationof culture. Ancient games like Chess, Go, and Shogi were used to practice military strategies in ancient times aswell. As for the epistemological orientation, games can fit any type based on how they are designed, but they are ideally constructivist learning environments. Games can simulate real world situations, employee scaffolding to support the players, evaluate the players for self-analysis, and most importantly,the student controlslearning. How does it work? Game-based learning can be employed in many different waysin the classroom so it’s instructional characteristics can differ greatly. Currently, GBL is used primarily as a supplement to practice and review previously taught lessons. GBL usually requires computers, but beyond that it is very easy to implement. Students can either do GBL at school or home, depends on the required software. They usually require little to no teacher intervention once the GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY ADAM STRAWN practice has begun aswell. With GBL, teachers serve primarily as a guide or monitor. They can move freely around the room and assist students with troubleshooting, comprehension, or staying on task. Students direct their own learning. In GBL, students’ progress at their individual speeds and receive scaffolding or enrichment based on their performanceimmediately. In reality, GBL learning activities are limited only by the creativity of the original creator. While being a greatsupplement, GBL can also function as the whole lesson, practice, and assessment. The essential features of GBL are engagement, scaffolding/enrichment, and reward. Teachers can therefore base their lesson around the game, plan the lesson with the game included, or use the game to review the lesson aftercompletion. Who is doing it? Schools all over the world are beginning to employee GBL. In Fairfax County Public Schools they have begun to use a piece of math software called Dreambox which is a great example of a serious game. Let’s observe an even more extreme situation though. There is a public school in New York called Quest to Learn. It is a junior/senior high school where everything the students do is done with game- based learning. Biology is taught through cloning dinosaurs and creating ecosystems forthem. For watching the videos on the website, it appears they use a combination of physical game-based learning, electronicgames, and even original game creation. The school strives on having all of the key elements of game- based learning as a constructivist environment listed on their website. Even the website itself unlocks achievements as you browse it, though this characteristic is closer related to gamification. See if you can unlock them all: http://www.q2l.org/ How effective is it? Game-based learning usually elicits great results. This is because of three big reasons: motivation, customization, and realization. First, games are incredibly motivating. Ask any student if they’d E D I T 7 3 0
- 82. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Game-Based Learning rather listen to a teacher or play a game for 20 minutes and nine times out of ten they will pickthe game. Games stimulate many of the senses and immerse the player in a sense of wonder. Secondly, games tailorthemselves to the player. For example, a math problem like 2+3 has only one answer. However, if a game asks you how you can arrange stones to create 5, a huge amount of variation can be created: 1 and 4, 7 remove 2, etc. While the players are exploring this deep problems, the game is constantly assessing them and progressing at a speed which suits the player’s level. Therefore the learner never feels bored or overwhelmed. Lastly, games are not easy. They present a kind of difficult fun that keeps challenging the learner. But a mistake doesn’t result in a demotivating red mark. Instead the game can instantly review what you have missed and it becomes a teachable moment. It is easy to see how GBL improves learning with motivating activities, increases problem solving skills with open-ended problems, and improves critical thinking skills by presenting a constant challenge that meets the learner’s level. On top of all this, it uses an ongoing assessment method to give instant feedback rather than giving an arbitrary percentage on a post test. What are the implications for instructional design? The full potential of game-based learning has yet to be found, but I believe it to be one of the most engaging methods on the market. It is easy to implement, personalized, and incredibly motivating. The implications are huge because not only can you tailor an education to fit the student, but you can teach information formally that was not available before. GBL can fit any learner, but it shines the best when used with students who feel lost in the traditional classroom. One size fits all education leaves several students behind, many of whom think they are just no good at learning. GBL can empower these students and show them how anyone can learn and a speed which is appropriate to them. It can be used to teach any skill and they can be used on technology regularly owned by schools and families such as computer and smartphones. The main learning problem it solves is making sure every learner has an equal opportunity to succeed and no one falls through the cracks. Scenario X-sensei is a sixth grade teacher in Fairfax County. His school only have enough money for a half time teacher so he has to teach a class of 36 sixth grade students at once. On top of this, he is also a Japanese immersion teacher meaning he has to teach math entirely in Japanese with no extra time for language skills. Finally, because he teaches Japanese immersion, the advanced math students shouldn’t be learning in the English room, so he is tasked with teaching regular and advanced math in the same hour block. So to sum up the whole situation, he has 36 students with different math skill levels, language skill levels, and completely different math classes as well. Any saneteacher would have run for the hills but X-sensei is different; he rolls up his sleeves and begins planning. To combat all the different levels and types of students in his classroom X-sensei chooses to use game-based learning in a station environment. He divides the class into 3 groups and create 3 stations in his room: Learning, Reviewing, and Exploring. At the learning station he teaches his students about the new topic and vocabulary in Japanese. In the review section students can practice math facts on websites like Khan Academy, a wonderful gamification website, and paper worksheets. In the exploration center, students can play serious math games like 21, Cribbage, and Equate along with electronic devices such as iPads and laptops for the students to play learning games like DragonBox. He even teaches them how to create their own serious games in PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Scratch and the number of games continued togrow. Even with all of the odds stacked against him, X-sensei has a great year and all of his students pass the SOLs with flying colors. Most of all, his students had a great time and they all loved learning. Thanks game-based learning!
- 83. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Game-Based Learning References Carr, J. (2012). Does math achievement h'APP'en when iPads and game-based learning are incorporated into fifth-grade mathematics instruction? Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 11, 269-286. DiCerbo, K. E. (2014). Game-based assessment of persistence. Educational Technology & Society. 17(1),17- 28. Hess, T., & Gunter, G. (2013). Serious game-based and nongame-based online courses: Learning experiences and outcomes. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(3), 372-385. Huizinga, J. (1949). Homo Ludens Ils 86. Retrieved fromhttps://books.google.com. Ku, O., Chen, S. Y., Wu, D. H., Lao, A. C., & Chan, T. W. (2014). The effects of game-based learning on mathematical confidence and performance: High ability vs. low ability. Journal of Educational Technology &Society,17(3). Marino, M., Becht, K., Vasquez, E., Gallup, J., Basham, J., & Gallegos, B. (2014). Enhancing secondary science content accessibility with video games. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 47(1),27-34. Rice, J. W. (2007). Assessing higher order thinking in video games. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 15(1), 87 100. Woo, J. C. (2014). Digital game-based learning supports student motivation, cognitive success, and performance outcomes. Educational Technology &Society, 17(3),291-307.
- 84. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF RolePlaying What is it? Role-play reserves a unique place in the pantheon of educational strategies in that its application to education was secondary. The first documented application of role-play can be traced back to a physician named Joseph Marino’s “Theater of Spontaneity” founded in 1921. Marino observed the therapeutic nature that improvisational theater had on actors. As a result upon his immigration to American in 1925, he began developing a type of therapy that he called “psychodrama,” which later became “sociodrama” due to its application to social problems. In the exercise people are instructed to assume a role given a specific context and scenario. The “actors” choose the direction that the scene will take much like in improvisational theater. It wasn’t until Marino realized that the sociodrama could be adapted to help people reflect on the various roles they play in their lives that the term “role-play” was coined (Blatner, 2009). Role-play remained a popular technique in psychological and behavioral science circles throughout the last century, whereas in education it was relegated to second tier status despite being present in various forms in the classroom since the 1940’s (Blatner, 2009). It was with the emergence of constructivist learning environments that role-play became a more popular instructional classroom strategy. Role-play is ideal for such environments due to its focus on the affective and cognitive domains that stress the interplay between emotions and experience. It is at this juncture that many ill-defined problems exists allowing students to explore multiple perspectives and explore problems. As a learning strategy they fall under exploratory strategies, making them applicable to all instructional models such as situated learning, problem-based learning, cognitive apprenticeship, communities of practice, microworlds, simulations, etc. It is through this exploration that knowledge is acquired (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005,p. 213-214). How does it work? Many different models for designing an effective role- play have been suggested over the years. Dr. Carolyn GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY DUSTIN NORWOOD Shaw at Wichita State has suggested a model that includes five steps. The first step is to select a topic and develop the objectives for the role- play. Next, the designer should determine the duration of the exercise. Once the groundwork is laid, the focus should be on designing the scenario to ensure that there is the maximum amount of collaboration and cooperation between learners(Shaw, 2010). After all, as an exploratory strategy in a constructivist learning environment, social interaction between learners should be emphasized (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 213). The designer can do so by emphasizing the interplay between the various roles in the scenario (Shaw,2010). As with any constructivist learning strategy, a key part is setting the role-play in a relevant, real-world context. Therefore, the next and most important step is creating this context. Shaw (2010) states that the context can be fictional, but it should still remain relevant to the learners. The context should be framed by specific information to help guide the learners or help them understand the focus of the scenario. This ensures the focus is on the interaction and not the setup of the scenario. Finally, the designer should decide on the timeline or phases of the exercise since role-plays can go on indefinitely or veer off topic easily, especially if the learners are engaged. During the role-play, the instructor's role is to setup and assign the roles. He/she should then allow the role-play to proceed uninterrupted unless it is necessary stop it for time considerations or to direct the role-play back on topic. The most important role of the instructor is to be a facilitator of the debriefing after the role-play has concluded. He/she should ask reflective questions to the learners to allow deeper analysis of what occurred (Shaw, 2010). Who is doing it? Role-play is a widely used strategy. As stated earlier, it found its earliest uses in the fields of psychology and socialsciences. However, the application has become much broader over theyears. One area of learning that has found role-play particularly useful is language learning. Role-play fulfills the need of students to engage in conversation in a wide variety of highly contextualized settings before using the language in the real world. It offers advantages over E D I T 7 3 0
- 85. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Role Playing other types of instructional strategies in that role- play exercises are directly transferable to use of the languagewhile other strategies require intermediary steps before transfer occurs (Maxwell, 1997). It is also becoming increasingly popular in microworlds, virtual learning environments, simulations, and serious games (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 226). In these instructional models, it is very useful for the student to assume a defined role and engage with others who have assumed different roles to explore problems from multiple perspectives. Roleplaying meshes with these models very well since assuming a role is an inherent part of the learning experience. For example, in order for a game to be effective, the learner must be immersed in a role and make decisions as he/she believes a person in a similar rolewould. Models that fail to immerse the learner in the designed roleand context will most likely not achieve theirobjectives. How effective is it? Of course with any instructional strategy, the question is how effective is it. It depends on if it was designed and implemented correctly and whether it was properly aligned with the instructional model. Many studies suggest that role-play can have a significant impact on learning. In a study examining the use of role-plays in a construction management course, it was found that students who participated in a role-play during the course were more likely to score higher on nine out of ten questions on a test using a pre/post test measurement (Bhattacharjee, 2014). Role-play can also be effective using online technology. In a study on the effectiveness of role- plays designed for an online marketing course, it was found that the role-plays outrated traditional methods of online instruction in areas such as applying theory to practice, developing problem solving skills, and encouraging personal responsibility for learning, all of which link directly with an effective constructivist learning environment. Although, the researchers admit that more research needs to be conducted in the area and that designing such role-plays can be resource intensive, they reiterate that the role-plays implemented resulted in greater student interaction and learning than the more traditional methods of reading and discussing texts and cases. Through actually experiencing the issues involved and assuming the role on an Internet marketer, learners were able to get a better understand of the tasks involved (Miller, 2008). What are the implications for instructional design? Even though role-plays have been proven to be effective, they would not be appropriate to apply in all situations. Role-plays are best used when it is necessary to create a safe environment in which learners can bring their prior experience and apply it to a real-world role in order to gain greater ownership over the learning and to apply new knowledge and skills in an ill- defined, complex scenario. They would be ideal when it is necessary for the learner to practice the new skills in the actual context in which they would be expected to apply the skills. The goal is that the learner will be able to transfer the learning when he/she encounters the same or similar scenario in real life. Some common examples of these applications in a traditional learning environment are teaching medical school students to interact with patients, mock trials for attorneys, or training employees to deal with customers over the phone in a call center. Role-plays lend them self-integration with many learning technologies, especially if the technology allows the user to assume a role in order to accomplish the learning objectives. Some of the applications of role-playing using technology mimic its traditional application through the use of video conferencing, online chats, or more recently MOOs or MUDs (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 226). Using these platforms, learners participate in traditional role-plays where they negotiate complex topics with other learners. However, more recently role-plays are increasingly being used to place the user in the defined role in a serious games and ask him/her to apply new knowledge and skills to accomplish the game's goals. In these types of role- plays, non- player characters (NPCs) often replace the instructor orother learner in assuming various roles, making it possible for the learner to engage with various other characters without the need for another person (Donovan, 2012).. Still, it is important that some sort of debriefing or other reflection of the learning is present for greatereffectiveness.
- 86. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Role Playing As technology continues to evolve, so will role-plays. However, at their core the design and application will probably remain consistent. The learner will be required to assume some role and through encounters with another learner, NPC, or instructor, navigate the complexities of a specific situation while acquiring relevant knowledge and skills necessary for real-world application. Whenever there is a subject that lends itself to exploration through practice, role-play will always present itself as a viable learning strategy for designers to employ. Scenario XYZ Corporation has recently hired a group of employees as sales staff for its retail stores in shopping malls throughout the country. XYZ specializes in high- end consumer electronics and computing hardware. Their customers are very loyal and often times have a high knowledge of XYZ products. Given that XYZ products are more expensive than competitors and that newer versions of the products are available at regular release intervals, sales to existing customers can be difficult. Furthermore, sales to new customers are challenging due to competitor brand loyalty. As a result XYZ has designed highly contextualized role-plays based on actual customer types to allow for new sales staff to practice selling. The customers ask questions similar to those of actual customers, and the staffs are expected to answer while trying to convince the instructor playing the role of the customer to purchase a new productor upgrade.
- 87. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Role Playing References Bhattacharjee, S. (2014, August). Effectiveness of role-playing as a pedagogical approach in construction education. Paper presented at 50th ASC Annual International Conference, Washington,D.C. Blatner, A. (2009, October 18). Role playing in education. Retrieved from http://www.blatner.com/adam/pdntbk/rlplayedu.htm Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies, and application. Upper Saddle River N.J.: Pearson, Merrill, PrenticeHall. Donovan, L. (2012, December 1). The use of serious games in the corporate sector. Retrieved from http://www.learnovatecentre.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/06/Use_of_Serious_Games_in_the_Corporate_Sector_ PRINT_FINAL.pdf Maxwell, C. (1997, October). Role play and foreign language learning. Paper presented at 23rd Annual Meeting of the Japan Association of Language Teachers, Hamamatsu,Japan. Miller, R. (2008). A preliminary review of online role-plays as a tool for experiential learning in marketing education. In C. Bonk, M. Lee & T. Reynolds (Eds.), Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E- Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2008 (p. 144-149). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Shaw, Carolyn M. (2010). Designing and using simulations and role-play exercises. In R.A. Denemark (Ed.), The International Studies Encyclopedia. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing. Retrieved from http://webs.wichita.edu/depttools/depttoolsmemberfiles/carolynshaw/Shaw%20in%2 0Compendium.pdf
- 88. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF Scaffolding Whatis it? In education, scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process. The term itself offers the relevant descriptive metaphor: teachers provide successive levels of temporary support that help students reach higher levels of comprehension and skill acquisition that they would not be able to achieve without assistance. Like physical scaffolding, the supportive strategies are incrementally removed when they are no longer needed, and the teacher gradually shifts more responsibility over the learning process to the student. Scaffolding is considered to be an essential element of effective teaching, and all teachers—to a greater or lesser extent—almost certainly use various forms of instructional scaffolding in their teaching. In addition, scaffolding is often used to bridge learning gaps—i.e., the difference between what students have learned and what they are expected to know and be able to do at a certainpoint in their education. A construct is that critical for scaffolding instruction is Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Zone of proximal development is that field between what a learner can do by himself and what can be achieved with the support of a knowledgeable peer or instructor (Ellis & Worthington, 1994). Instructional Scaffolding strategies work within the (ZPD) to initially support a student’s learning and then as mastery is achieved the supports are gradually removed allowingthe student to take full control of his or herlearning. How does it work? According to Ginat (2009), scaffolding includes the following: (1) identification of what the student can do, (2) establishment of shared goals, (3) provision of ongoing assessment of learning needs, (4) provision of individualized assistance, (5) reflection on activities and identification of what worked well and what requires improvement, and (6) inclusion of opportunities for internalization and generalization of the learning. Some of the best Instructional Scaffolding strategies include the following: Activating priorknowledge Offering a motivational context to GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY DOUG BALDWIN pique student interestor curiosity in the subject at hand Showing students an example of the desired outcome before they complete thetask Using verbal cues to prompt studentanswers Facilitating student engagement andparticipation Using graphic organizers to offer a visual framework for assimilating newinformation Guiding the students in making predictions for what they expect will occur in a story, experiment, or other course ofaction Modeling an activity for the students before theyare asked to complete the same or similar activity Offering hints or partial solutions to problems Breaking a complex task into easier, more "doable" stepsto facilitate student achievement Modeling the thought process for students through "think aloud"talk Teaching key vocabulary terms beforereading Displaying a historical timeline to offer a contextfor learning Teaching students chants or mnemonic devices toease memorization of key facts or procedures Asking questions while reading to encourage deeper investigation of concepts Who is doing it? Instructional Scaffolding is widely considered to be an essential element of effective teaching. Teachers should remember several important facts about instructional scaffolding: Scaffolding is most useful for teaching new tasks or strategies with multiple steps. Any student at any grade level, including high school, can benefit frominstructional scaffolding. Scaffolding can be applied to any academic task. For example, if students are not at the reading level required to understand a text being taught in a course, the teacher might use instructional scaffolding to incrementally improve their reading ability until they can read the required text independently and without assistance. One of the main goals of scaffolding is to reduce the negative emotions and self-perceptions that students may experience when they get E D I T 7 3 0
- 89. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Scaffolding frustrated, intimidated, or discouraged when attempting a difficult task without the assistance, direction, or understanding they need to complete it. Although a teachermay scaffold instruction in a number of ways, it is important to note that there are two critical elements to keep in mind when using instructional scaffolding: Modeling: Throughout the learning process, students should be able to watch their teacher model, or demonstrate, each step in the task or strategy multiple times. Such modeling and repetition allow students to understand both how to perform each step and why each step is important. Knowing how and why leads to students’ successful performance of the task or strategy. Practice: Students, either individually or as a group, must have the opportunity to work collaboratively with theteacher to practice the task or thestrategy. How effective is it? Instructional Scaffolding Stratagems have been studied for the last several decades and have generally proven effective in helping students achieve their educational objectives. Various instructional strategies have been suggested for developing and scaffolding critical thinkingskills. Scaffolding—the process by which an expert supports a learner in executing a complex task—has proven successful in a variety of environments, for a variety of learning goals, and for diverse student populations (Hogan & Pressley, 1997; Palincsar,1986; Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). Because scaffolding is sucha dynamic intervention finely tuned to the learner’s ongoing progress, the support given by theteacher during scaffolding strongly depends upon the characteristics of the situation like the type of task (e.g., well-structured versus ill- structured) and the responses of the student (Janrkeke, 2010). It is important to note that every student is different and can and will react to Instructional Scaffolding differently. In General, the literature suggests that Scaffolding can produce higher effect sizes when studied in authentic settings (e.g., classroom-based problem-based learning) in which there are more threats to internal and external validity. Thus, educators can have confidence in scaffolding's efficacy even when studies suffered from threats to internal or external validity. Scaffolding with no fading produced larger effects than scaffolding with fixed fading. This reinforces the role of teachers in supporting metacognition and transfer of responsibility (Belland, Walker, Olsen, & Leary 2015). With Instructional Scaffolding seen as an essential element in effective teaching let’s take a look at some of the implications of using Instructional Scaffolding in Instructional Design. What are the implications for instructional design? There are no hard-and-fast rules for how to scaffold instruction. In fact, how a teacher chooses to go about it will depend on the task or strategy in question and the students’ needs. The teacher should use common sense, teaching experience, and the students’ needs to assess what type of scaffolding or support will be required by the students. In order to incorporate scaffolding throughout the lesson, teachers may find the framework outlined by Ellis & Larkin (1998) helpful. The teacher does it - In other words, the teacher models how to perform a new or difficult task, such as how to use a graphic organizer. For example, the teacher may have a partially completed graphic organizer on an overhead transparency and "think aloud" as he or she describes how the graphic organizer illustrates the relationships among the information contained on it. The class does it - The teacher and students work together to perform the task. For example, the students may suggest information to be added to the graphic organizer. As the teacher writes the suggestions on the transparency, students fill in their own copies of the organizer. The group does it - Students work with a partner or a small cooperative group to complete a graphic organizer (i.e., either a partially completed or a blank one). The individual does it - This is the independent practice stage where individual students can demonstrate their task mastery (e.g., successfully completing a graphic organizer to demonstrate appropriate relationships among information) and receive the necessary practice to help them to perform the task automatically and quickly. Guidelines for Implementing Scaffolding. The following points can be used as guidelines when implementing instructional scaffolding(adapted from Hogan and Pressley,1997). Select suitable tasks that match curriculum goals,course learning objectives and students’needs. Allow students to help create instructional goals (thiscan increase students’ motivation and their commitment to learning).
- 90. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Scaffolding Consider students’ backgrounds and prior knowledge to assess their progress – material that is too easy will quickly bore students and reduce motivation. On the other hand, material that is too difficult can turn off students’ interestlevels). Use a variety of supports as students’ progress through a task (e.g., prompts, questions, hints, stories, models, visual scaffolding―includingpointing, representational gestures, diagrams, and other methods of highlighting visual information. Provide encouragement and praise as well as ask questionsand have students explain their progress to help them stay focused on thegoal. Monitor student progress through feedback (in addition to instructor feedback, have students summarize what they have accomplished so they are aware of their progress and what they have yet to complete). Create a welcoming, safe, and supportive learning environment that encourages students to take risks and try alternatives (everyone should feel comfortable expressing their thoughts without fear of negativeresponses). Help students become less dependent on instructional supports as they work on tasks and encourage themto practice the task indifferentcontexts. Scenario Third grade students in Mrs. Maddox’s class have been studying about different types of communities. Throughout this unit, students have focused on distinguishing between rural, urban and suburban communities. As a culminating activity for this unit on types of communities, the students are going to prepare some type of individually selected project demonstrating their knowledge of urban, suburban and rural communities. Mrs. Maddox makes suggestions as to the types of projects students might consider. Some choose to write and illustrate a book, others write and perform a play, and still others film a video using footage taken from their trip. One student focuses on interviewing residents of each community. Patrick, the computer whiz of the class, decidesto prepare a PowerPoint presentation which will incorporate digital pictures taken on the field trip and of the rural areas surrounding the school community. He has successfully written the text for his slides but has been unable to insert the digital pictures from his disk. Mrs. Maddox notices that Patrick is experiencing frustration with his inability to insert the pictures. She approaches to offer help, not to complete the task for Patrick, but rather to provide support and to help him achieve his objective on his own. Mrs. Maddox thinks aloud as she offers help: “Let’s see. I want to insert a picture into the slide from the disk. I need to go to the toolbar at the top and select 'insert' since that’s what I want to do. And since it’s a picture that I want to insert, I’ll select 'picture'. Now I have to tell the computer where to find the picture I want. Since the picture is on a disk, I’ll select ‘from file’. Then I’ll click 'insert' and viola`! My picture is there. Now all I have to do is save it”. As Mrs. Maddox talks through the steps, Patrick carefully follows her prompts and completes each step. He beams as he sees the selected picture on his slide. Mrs. Maddox then teaches Patrick a chant she has composed that will assist him with the steps: “In-sert a picture from a file; locate the file and se- lect the pic; click to in-sert and save it, quick!” She watches as Patrick goes through the steps, questioning him with leading questions when he hesitates, and listens while he quietly says the chant to himself to perform the task. Again, he beams with excitement as the slide displays the selected picture. Mrs. Maddox moves away from the computer and allows Patrick to insert the next picture on his own. Continued on the next page…
- 91. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Scaffolding Seeing that he issuccessful, she moves on to assist another student. Later, when another student, Melissa, needs assistance with inserting a picture to a PowerPoint slide, Mrs. Maddox asks Patrick to be a peer tutor to her. He further expands his learning by explaining the steps to Melissa and by teaching her the same chant he used to complete the steps to insert a picture in the PowerPoint slide. Through her support and facilitation, Mrs. Maddox helped Patrick master a skill and achieve independence through carefully designed instruction called scaffolding (Lipscomb, Swanson, & West, 2004).
- 92. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Scaffolding References Belland, B. R., Walker, A. E., Olsen, M. W., & Leary, H. (2015). A pilot meta-analysis of computer-based scaffolding in STEM education. Educational Technology &Society,18(1),183–197. Ellis, E., & Worthington, L. (1994). Research synthesis on effective teaching principles and the design of quality tools for educators. University of Oregon. Retrieved October 25, 2013, from http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/ellisressynth.pdf Ellis, E. S., & Larkin, M. J. (1998). Strategic instruction for adolescents with learning disabilities. In B. Y. L. Wong (Ed.), Learning about learning disabilities (2nd ed., 585-656). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Ginat, D. (2009). Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery.doi:10.1145/1562877.1562915 Hogan, K., & Pressley, M. (1997). Scaffolding scientific competencies within classroomcommunities of inquiry. In K. Hogan & M. Pressley (Eds.), Scaffolding student learning: Instructional approaches and issues, (pp. 74-107). Cambridge, MA: BrooklineBooks. Lipscomb, L., Swanson, J., West, A. (2004). Scaffolding. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved October 27, 2015, from http://epltt.coe.uga.edu/ . Palincsar, A. S. (1986). The role of dialogue in providing scaffolded instruction. Educational Psychologist, 21,73-98. Van de Pol, J., Volman, M., & Beishuizen, J. (2010). Scaffolding in teacher–student interaction: A decade of research published online. Educational Psychology Review, 22,271–296. doi: 10.1007/s10648-010- 9127-6 Wood, D., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry &Allied Disciplines, 17(2), 89-100.
- 93. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEF Scaffolding Whatis it? The term scaffolding in education has evolved from its original meaning to a tool or a technique used by a teacher to support a learner so that he or she can complete their learning goals. Scaffolding theory was first introduced in the late 1950s by David Wood, Jerome Bruner and Gail Ross, who defined it as a "process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts. This scaffolding consists essentially of the adult "controlling" those elements of the task that are initially beyond the learner's capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence" (Wood, 1978). The notion of scaffolding was influenced by Lev Vygotsky's "Zone of Proximal Development". According to Lev the Zone of Proximal Development is the difference in the level of a student's current development, in other words the task that heor she can solve by themselves and the level of their potential development, that they are able to reach with the help of their teacher or by working together with other students (Vigotsky, 1978). Scaffolding is an instructional strategy that embodies the instructional characteristics and implications of constructivist- based pedagogical models (Dabbagh, 2005). How does it work? (Yelland, 2007). First, the interaction has to be collaborative where the learner's intentions are the aim. Second, it has to happen within the learner’s zone of proximal development. Third, the scaffold is gradually withdrawn from the process to allow learners to complete a task that they wouldn't have been able to complete on their own (Yelland, 2007). The final goal is for the learner to become independent in the completion of the task. The role of the teacher changes from an expert to a tutor or a coach. Teachers draw the learner's attention, select appropriate tasks, and motivate the learners. Tutors "provide a bridge between a learner's existing knowledge and skills and the demands of the new task", support the learner's problem solving, and eventually transfer the responsibility of learning to the learner (Wood, 1996). The usage of scaffolds can be very different. In a GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY ANNA BUTSAY traditional classroom scaffolding can be done through coaching either by a teacher or another student. It can also be done through modeling, explaining and by using various resources and tools. In online learning environments it can be supported through the useof modern tools such as links, search engines, chats, discussions, etc. (Dabbagh, 2003). Who is doing it? Scaffolding is used in many traditional classroom environments in subject areas such as foreign language, reading, writing, mathematics, science, technology etc. For example, in a Fairfax County (VA) science classroom a teacher uses scaffolding to lead students through a complex physics problem, by asking questions so students can find their own errors and providing feedback on their work. At the Foreign Service Institute (VA) a foreign language Instructor models a thinking aloud practice of creating a sentence in a foreign language to help her students understand the process of thinking in another language at the beginning of learning a newlanguage. With the rapid development of technology scaffolding is now used in online learning environments as well. Scaffolding is highly used in problem-based learning and inquiry learning. For example, in the medical field a teacher encouraged students to explain their thinking to help them build explanations or identify limits of theirthinking. How effective is it? Scaffolding is a very effective instructional strategy. It creates a supportive learning environment where the teacher no longer plays the role of a content-expert but more of a tutor or mentor. Students also take a more active role in the learning process, are free to provide feedback and guidance for their peers and take on the responsibility for their own learning. It is very beneficial for students to work in pairs with someone who has a different perspective or is at a different level. A conflict or an argument can push the student to question his thinking and to move to a higher level of thinking. Online learning environments are opening new horizons for the implementation of scaffolding. If before scaffolding would be hard to achieve in a large E D I T 7 3 0
- 94. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Scaffolding class, now the technology allows "teachers to assume supportive and facilitative roles due to their comprehensive and integrative nature, user- friendliness, and embedded user support systems" (Dabbagh,2003). Scaffolding is not only an effective strategy to teach well- structured skills, but is also beneficial to higher- level cognitive strategies, such as "comprehension and interpretation of text, scientific processes, and mathematical problem solving" (Rosenshine, 1992). What are the implications for instructional design? Scaffolding is a highly effective instructional strategy that is an integral part of any constructivist learning environment. Through scaffolds higher level of student achievement can be achieved. It has found diverse use in traditional classrooms and in many subject areas. Scaffolding is extremely necessary to support learners ill-structured problem-solving. Recent technological advances and the development of online learning environments challenge the traditional use of scaffolding. It is now more important than ever to study scaffolding and to build online learning environments that make effective use of the instructional strategy. However, this area has still a lot of room for research and for ideas on designing effective 21st century learning environments. Creating an online course by uploading materials is no longer sufficient. Instructional designers are now faced with a complicated task of defining the sequence of instructional events, chunking material appropriately, building scaffolds within the course. Scaffolding that takes place in a traditional classroom (when the teacher explains a task to students or models it for them) has to be replaced in the online environment with written procedures, videos, etc. Instructional designers now also deal with instructional scaffolding. They set up guides for learners to guide their learning and to have the freedom to conduct self-directed learning. An online course has to have wikis (a collaborative learning environment), synchronous and asynchronous communication tools so learners can share ideas, discuss problems and conduct group work. Instructional designers have to scaffold question prompts, peer review mechanism, dynamic feedback within the course in order for the online learning environment to be successful. Scaffolding in online learning environment still presents many challenges for instructional designers. One of the main challenges is the measurements of the optimal level of scaffolding necessary for each individual learner. This has to take into consideration prior knowledge and the learner's zone of proximal development. In the field of instructional design of online learning environments creating a scaffolding system that will provide timely scaffolding in the needed amount for the given learner and fade away when it is unnecessary is a problem that needs to be solved soon to accommodate the plethora of online learners and the growing tendency for learning to take place in a self-paced onlinemanner. Scenario Natasha Ivanova is a Russian teacher at a local university in NewYork. She teaches Russian to different students whose first language is mainly English. Russian presents many difficulties for her students and thus she tries to employdifferent techniques in class to break down tasks for students and to help them gain confidence and fluency so they can use even the most challengingmaterial. Todaytheyare learninga newcase -the Prepositional Case. One of the functions of the Prepositional Case is location. Thus, by using this case the students will be able to say where they are, where they lived, where something is located and so on.Before asking the students to produce sentences using the case Natasha scaffolds the task for them. They first review the nouns for different places in Russian. She opens an exercise on the Smart Board where a picture is shown and students take turns coming up to the board and choosing the right name for each pictureon the screen. After students reviewed the names of variousplaces Natasha plays a quick game with them. She says a noun to a student and the student replies by putting the noun in the Prepositional case (i.e., museum - in a museum). Then, Natasha hands out graphic organizers to her students with a blank space for each day of the week and a place. Continued on the next page…
- 95. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Scaffolding At the top of the handout there is a table with the case endings for the Prepositional Case. She gives students a minute to fill out the handout and then asks students to ask each other where they were last week and tells them that after they complete this activity that they will share the information they gathered with theirclass. Students complete the activity and in a matter of 15 minutes are able to produce grammatically correct sentences to their class with an adequate amount of fluency. Natasha records her students’ speech on her mobile device. She makes note of their mistakes and emails the recording to her students and asks that for homework they listen to the recording and rerecord their sentences again correcting the mistakes they had made. Natasha is an experienced teacher who knows that by scaffolding a new task for her students she actually helps them learn and use the material efficiently. She also employs technologyadequatelyto make her lessons engaging for the new generation ofstudents.
- 96. CLE PEDAGOGY BRIEFNOVEMBER 2015 Scaffolding References Blake, M. (2009). Agent-customized training for human learning performance enhancement. Computers and Education,53(3),966-976.Retrievedfrom http://www.sciencedirect.com.mutex.gmu.edu/science/article/pii/S0360131509001250. Dabbagh, N. (2003). Scaffolding: An important teacher competency in online learning. TechTrends, 47(2), 39-44. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.mutex.gmu.edu/docview/223119546?accountid=14541. Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). Online learning: Concepts, strategies and application. Upper Saddle River, NJ: PrenticeHall. Hmelo-Silver, C. E., Duncan, R. G., & Chinn, C. A. (2007). Scaffolding and achievement in problem-based and inquirylearning: A response to Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006). Educational Psychologist, 42(2),99- 107.Retrievedfromhttp://web.a.ebscohost.com.mutex.gmu.edu Rosenshine, B., & Meister, C. (1992). The use of scaffolds for teaching higher-level cognitive strategies. Educational Leadership, 49(7), 26. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press. Wood, D. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17(2), 89- 100. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x/abstract Wood, D., & Wood, H. (1996). Vygotsky, tutoring and learning. Oxford Review of Education, 22(1), 5-16. Retrievedfromhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/1050800 Yelland, N., & Masters, J. (2007). Rethinking scaffolding in the information age. Computers and Education, 48(3), 362-382. Retrieved fromhttp://dx.doi.org.mutex.gmu.edu/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.01.010