November 16, 2005
Let’s take care of business first…
For final projects
Presentations will be on Nov 30 and Dec 7. If you would like to present on Nov. 30, email Dr. Foreman. All final papers/projects are due Dec. 7. Presentations should be less than 10 minutes. If you present on Nov. 30, you get a few extra minutes.
Have you turned in all your homework?
Go to your journal, and let Dr. Foreman know what homework assignments you have turned in. She will post on Moddle all the assignments she should have from each of us.
First part of class:
Dr. Foreman started class by asking if anyone learned anything this week that they would like to share. She spoke about the aha! moment. Did you find yourself connecting something that you learned before with something that happened to you recently? Michael, Nicole and Vaidis shared examples of tools they are using or have used at work, which they have learned will improve their ability to do their work. Jon’s research project is on just this topic, technology diffusion, so he introduced us to the term “early adopters”, people who buy in early and easily to technologies that help productivity at work.
Dr. Foreman continued with a discussion on constructivism, and 3 theorists associated with it:
Theorist Learning Theory Instructional Theory
Bruner Discovery learning If little schema, use discovery learning
Ausbel Reception learning
Vygotsky Scaffolding If more schema, motivation for learning is greater
With no scaffolding or schema, can’t have aha! moment
As a teacher, we need to know which strategy to use? This is why we do an audience analysis.
How can we provide scaffolding to students, offer the right amount of help? From the group that read ch. 7, we heard about the ZPD, the Zone of Proximal Development. What information is missing in order to learn to solve the problem? The farther away, the less scaffolding that is available.
Entry behavior-----------------Goal
What is the distance between these two?
Need to provide instruction to bring these two closer together
What is difference between learning theory and instructional theory?
Theory is a lens. What are we looking at?
Learning theory – focuses on learner, what is going on in learner’s mind, how the mind works. The three big that we learn in this class are Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism.
Instructional theory – focuses on what the teacher does, what is the instructional strategy, what is best way to design instruction. All the theories we learn in this class are learning theories, except for Gagne’s theory, which is instructional
WHAT to teach? That’s the Curriculum
HOW to teach? Those are the Instructional strategies
Dr. Foreman reviewed Gagne’s Taxonomy, in further discussion about WHAT we teach
Verbal – verbal information used to explain
Intellectual – rules, discrimination, association
Cognitive Strategies – when to use what? Strategies based on experience. This is what experts do. Problem solving based on patterns and accumulated experience
Attitude – beliefs, value, motivation
Motor skills – physical behavior, demonstration of physical skills
Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction is then used to teach, which is the HOW. But this si best used for training, or teaching short lessons or simpler skills.
For complex teaching, like online design and instruction, Gagne’s 9 events don’t work so well. Component Display Theory (CDT) (see ITEC moodle sight for link) by David Merrill, Gagne’s student. (Gagne set up Instructional Design departments at universities in Utah and Florida.) Merrill challenged Gagne’s taxonomy as too global, not very good for computer-instruction design.
CDT is two-dimensional instructional design model
What level of performance is needed for type of instruction.
Levels of Performance Find
(Discover)* Accomplished story teller invents good story based on what they’ve discovered. E.g. brought conflict in at exactly right time in story. Invent
a new way to balance your checkbook Research findings, Ph.D. work
Use Apply the rules for writing a good story, may not necessarily be a great story Demonstrate
the steps; show how to balance a checkbook Do experiments to see principles in action.
Remember Learn facts Remember definition, e.g. story telling; know the elements of telling a good story, such as conflict Know
the steps, like balancing your checkbook Memorizing principles
Teaching what?
Fact Concept Procedure Principle
Gray boxes: used very often
Yellow boxes: not often taught, reserved for higher level, graduate level work
*Top level: True constructivism
Now, based on the table, test what you’ve learned:
Performance-Content Analysis
Performance Level
Remember: requires the student to search memory in order to recognize some item of information that was previously stored
Use: requires the student to apply some abstraction to specific case
Find: requires the student to derive or invent a new abstraction
Content Categories
Facts
Concepts
Procedures
Principles
Identify the performance level and content category for each example
For example, answer to #1 is RF, for Remember-Facts
1. On a topographic map what is the symbol for a church?
2. Define positive reinforcement.
3. Read the following short story. Identify the paragraph that best represents the climax of the story.
4. Figure out a way to group students in a classroom that assures a range of ability, sex and ethnic background in each group.
5. What are the steps in balancing a checkbook?
6. Demonstrate how to clean a clarinet.
7. Write a computer program that will index and retrieve the class list.
8. What happens when water evaporates? Explain in terms of molecular movement and heat.
9. Read the following case study of an ecological system. In this system, the rodents are increasing in number. Predict some possible hypothesis based on your knowledge of life cycles and the interdependence of species in this ecological system.
10. Set up your experiment to assess the effect of tobacco smoke on plant growth. Report your findings.
Scroll to end for answers.
Second part of class:
We broke into groups to teach each other about chapters 7 and 9. We spent 30 minutes putting together powerpoint presentations to teach each other.
Ch. 7 presentation by group #1 on Interactional Theories of Cognitive Development (link to powerpoint on Moodle)
Ch. 9 presentation by group #2 on Motivation and Self-Regulation in Learning (link to powerpoints)
Answer key:
1. RF
2. RC
3. UC
4. FC
5. RP
6. UP
7. FP
8. RP
9. UP
10. FP
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Matt Harris
Director of Technology
Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School
http://www.wornickjds.org/tech
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