Technology Plan for Basic English courses at Korean Universities

Overview

The following general assessment is a modified version of Thirteen Ed’s (n.d.) Technology Plan Template. It provides a general overview of the current situation and future goals for technology integration in the basic English Conversation classes.

Vision Statement:

To create a holistic learning environment with student-centered learning approaches in which multiple learning styles are both recognized and accommodated. This holistic environment will address academic, mental, and physical growth and development. Students will be prepared for employment, citizenship and life-long health and wellness. This will be realized through partnerships with parents and the larger community employing appropriate technology, internships and other resources to benefit and enhance student outcomes.

Mission Statement:

Basic English courses at the tertiary level will align with the Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology’s (Major Tasks, n.d.) goals of developing a STEAM- based education system, serving to enhance and grow students’ communication skills with the enhancement of appropriate technologies.

Goals and Objectives:

Through technology, students will learn to employ tools that enhance communication, interact with global citizens and their perspectives, and gain preparation for the future through collaborative problem solving.

Download the Complete Plan:

HOGG Technology Plan for University

Game-based assessment

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about badges in learning as a result of my using Foursquare to chart some of the places I visit, and share what I do and don’t like about these places. I’m not as motivated by the badges on this particular platform as I’m really interested in the content. I can see, however, how using badges can help encourage users to check in more often and in that moment add more information to the service, increasing the service’s value to people like me. Win-win.

There are other apps that do this as well, while some apps (like SCVNGR) have challenges instead, but a similar idea of gamifying social interactions. In fact, universities are using apps like SCVNGR to add a gameplay element to their campus tours and orientation week walkabouts. In SCVNGR, users can do single challenges at one location, or as in the campus tour, they can be strung together in a “trek” that happens over a series of locations, possibly over an extended period of time (scvngr.com). The challenges also may be linked to real-world rewards like freebies or discounts.

Then there’s OpenStudy, which has gamified elements of academia, and users get badges for activities such as helping others with their homework (Young, 2012). Preetha Ram of Emory University started the company in an effort to give a better idea of what soft skills students are learning while studying. She says, “We all know that teaching someone is the best way to deepen your understanding of the concept” (as cited in Young, 2012). This begs the question, however, of how to document these achievements when they occur in the analog world.

The value of this gamification of learning seems to come in the incremental feedback and sense of achievement vs grading what hasn’t been mastered as in traditional grading (Gerstein, J., 2012). Khan Academy’s Sal Khan (2010) focuses in on this difference between positive and negative feedback in his editorial “YouTube U. Beats YouSnooze U.” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. He says:

Perhaps the worst artifact of this system is that most students end up mastering nothing. What is the 5 percent that even the A student, with a 95 percent, doesn’t know? The question becomes scarier when considering the B or C student. How can they even hope to understand 100 percent of a more advanced class? Is there any point in studying differential equations if you don’t have an intuitive understanding of basic calculus? Is there any point to taking biochemistry when you have less than perfect understanding of first-year biology and chemistry? (¶ 5).

In a pointed summary of his argument, Khan states, “The current system does not allow for addressing [comprehension] gaps, so both professor and students settle for superficial coverage of the material. Students don’t retain anything because they didn’t intuitively understand it to begin with” (¶ 7).

Education and games might have more in common than at first sight. James Gee relays his experiences of trying to learn how to play a game from the manual, saying that he couldn’t understand the game from the rulebook. But, after playing (poorly) a couple of time, and then coming back to the manual after attempting the game he had a better idea of what the contents, in particular the new vocabulary, were referring to. He compares textbooks to the game manual:

Now if you’d played the game, what you’d do with the manual is use it as a reference to look up stuff that you need to know to get better or to understand something in the game that you don’t think you fully understand. And that’s the same way a textbook ought to be used. You ought to be using your chemistry textbook when you’ve already understood there’s something you need to know about chemistry, and you go use it, then, proactively. (3:19-3:39)

He argues that games and education are actually quite similar, and how they’re different:

All a video game is is problem solving. It’s just a series- and if you think about it, in some weird way, a video game is just an assessment. All you do is get assessed every moment as you try to solve a problem, and if you don’t solve it, the game says, “You fail; try again.” and then you solve it, and then you have a boss, which is a test, and you pass the test. I mean, games essentially are a form of assessment. The thing that is probably the most painful, ludicrous part of schooling, but in a game it’s fun, right, because it’s handled in a very different way. One thing games don’t really do is separate learning and assessment. They don’t say, “Learn some stuff, and then later we’ll take a test.” They’re giving you feedback all the time about the learning curve that you’re on. (1:14-1:53)

 

Application to the Classroom

Judy Willis (2011) recognizes that the differentiation required to create “individualized instruction, assignments, and feedback, that allow students to consistently work at their individualized achievable challenge levels, are time-consuming processes not possible for teachers to consistently provide all students” (¶ 16), but this does not mean that the idea cannot be applied to the classroom. Rather, she argues, “keep achievable challenge and incremental progress feedback in mind when planning units of instruction” (¶ 16). To do this she recommends shifting the responsibility for monitoring progress to students themselves via independent progress recording. Using charts or graphs, students can tangibly see their own incremental progress toward a larger goal. Individual consultation and goal-setting can set the parameters for these increments.

Badges could potentially be used here, where students have set targets on their way to the larger goal. At each target, students receive a badge demonstrating achievement and giving a waypoint, much as how in a game when a player loses a “life” they don’t start back at the beginning of a level, but at the checkpoint closest to the most recent failure. This also creates a reference point for future teachers/educators working with the student to understand exactly what they do and do not know and to what degree. In combination with Problem-based learning, this could allow for more confidence in the legitimacy of the certification/badge the student has received.

When determining how to set up these increments and levels of achievement, educators can learn from the gaming world. Ingrid Lunden at Techcrunch reports on how app-makers will fail without proper planning and understanding of game psychology; mere gamification is insufficient. It all comes down to meaningful motivations and objectives (Lunden, 2012). Lunden also warns that the gamification of apps is reaching its peak in the Gartner hype cycle and interest in the style may soon wane (Lunden).

To make it work, game designer Tadgh Kelly (2012) offers some insights on what works:

  • Validation: the feedback from others that what the user has done was valuable, which gets construed as personal value.
  • Completion: progress bars and a clear set of requirements for completion help users reach their goals and feel good about it. Legitimate goals only, though, not backdoor ways to get the user (or student) to do your work for you.
  • Prizes: Extrinsic reinforcement. Caution: removal of prizes can backfire, so be committed or stay away.
When looking at how this may work, in coordination with PBL there is space for success. Validation could come from students in the feedback and presentation stages, Completion is realized in finding the answer to the problem. Prizes do no seem to be necessary as the model for motivation in PBL is intrinsic. Stages in the PBL process could be marked by badges, or another appropriate, meaningful objectives and outcomes.
To do:
Look at one or two outcomes from my courses and identify how these could be put into a PBL lesson.
  • How can the outcomes be badge-ified? 
  • What are the checkpoints at each stage? 
  • Why should these stages and outcomes be meaningful for my students? 
  • Run an experiment and see how it goes. Report back.
Ah, my own little project. Perfect.
Further reading:

 

References

Gee, J. (2010, April 9) James Paul Gee on Grading with Games. Edutopia.org. Youtube interview. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-EbfteDBtg#!

Gerstein, J., (2012, May 12). Assessment as a means for developing a sense of acheivement. User Generated Education. Retrieved from http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/assessment-as-a-means-for-developing-a-sense-of-achievement/

Kelly, T. (2012, November 17). Everything you’ll need to know about gamification. Techcrunch.com Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/17/everything-youll-ever-need-to-know-about-gamification/

Lunden; I., (2012, November 27). Badges Beware: 80% Of Gamification Apps Will End Up Being Losers, Says Gartner. Techcrunch.com. Retreived from http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/27/badges-beware-80-of-gamification-apps-will-end-up-being-losers-says-gartner/

Willis, J., (2011, April 14). A Neurologist Makes the Case for the Video Game Model as a Learning Tool. Edutopia.org. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/video-games-learning-student-engagement-judy-willis

Young, J., (2012, January 8). ‘Badges’ Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Badges-Earned-Online-Pose/130241/ 

 

E-portfolio: Future goals

This eportfolio is really bare-bones and I hope it will eventually grow into something amazing. Something amazing would probably look like Stian’s PhD Wiki, with the accompanying incredi-workflow. Unfortunately for us mere tech mortals, this is a cobbled-together solution that isn’t a stand-alone plugin or series thereof that can be easily implemented. I haven’t yet started to learn Ruby, so I’m certainly not going to be able to pull this off any time soon.

What I do really like about the wiki, however, is how the research is documented, the individual author pages and the like. As I move through my own research, my own projects and such, it would be really nice to have something a little more like that. For now, I’m using WP because I’m both comfortable with it and familiar enough to make it jump through a couple of hoops for me when I need it to. I’m not convinced this is best, however. The further I get into this, however, the harder it is going to be to get out.

Future wants:

  • a running bibliography of things I’ve read and my comments on them. I have this all in devonthink right now, but I want something online in the interest of open academia. This is a particular strength of Stian’s wiki that I think is valuable.
  • a repository of things I’ve tried in classes and how well they’ve worked, or not, and why.

6 Things To Teach Students About Social Media – Edudemic

In my class Issues and Trends in Ed Tech class, we had a group project that looked at digital citizenship for students. This article is somewhat related, and discusses several issues that students need to be up to speed on as they grow with social media. Not only are their reputations and privacy a concern, they also discuss soft skills like networking, becoming an expert, benefits of good search skills, and staying abreast of trends and changes in the world around them.

Details here:

6 Things To Teach Students About Social Media – Edudemic. via Jackie Gerstein.

5 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Innovate in Your School | edSocialMedia

5 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Innovate in Your School | edSocialMedia.

Via Jackie Gerstein’s Twitter feed.

I often complain about how I see technology (and by that I mean largely computers and the Internet) being implemented in education. What waste. What effort. What….disappointing results.

It’s not all bad, however, and before implementing technology, or at any evaluation stage, you want to be asking these questions of your structures, motivations, and desired outcomes.

Project-Based Learning: Success Start to Finish | Edutopia

A Step-by-Step Guide to the Best Projects | Edutopia.org

In learning about how PBL works, I found this website by Edutopia extremely enlightening. The content is clearly laid out, and while I don’t teach high school students, I teach university freshmen who are, in many ways, still very dependent on their teachers.

I’m interested in both PBL and flipped learning, and I’m really scratching my head as to how I can start implementing these practices in my university classes. Barriers to this change include unified testing across sections of the course (all students take the same exams), unified grading system and a culture that is heavy on direct instruction.

Last year, however, I had a fair amount of success negotiating content with students and setting them off on their projects when I didn’t have this system to work under. I also had no idea PBL even existed, so there are several things I would do differently if I were running the activities again. I am quite certain the resources included in this PBL Best Practices outline would be quite handy, and I’ll be needing these again as I try to determine how I can escape this direct instruction death spiral that is my teaching environment.

Lessons from second semester

Grad school this semester has been a real struggle for me. I suppose it was last semester as well, which came as a bit of a shock, but I chalked it up to getting back into the swing of things. I told myself I was just getting my feet back under me and that I’d be good to go next time around. After all, I was a Dean’s List student in ungrad. I always scored high in assessments throughout my life. I loved the research aspect of my undergrad courses. Why would I expect any different in graduate school? I was made for academia. So my decision at the outset to take on three courses this semester, up from the two in my first semester seemed doable. The first week of class I looked at the syllabi and said to myself this was not only possible, but I could kill this. What was that about pride and a fall?

So here I am nearing the end of second semester and I’m still not where I want to be. So much so that I think I’ll shift to part-time status next semester. If it weren’t for one of the classes I’ve been taking, however, I would probably give up completely. I know the stats on distance ed dropouts; I focused on motivation in distance education setups in one of my first semester courses. I don’t think it’s motivation, however, that makes up the bulk of my problem. I think it’s learning style.

In the first module of my course on designing web-based learning, we took a Multiple Intelligences survey. I was not surprised that my results came out in such a clump. I’ve always seen myself as a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. What was shocking, however, was how my linguistic intelligence was basically second to last. It’s not that I’m a language buffoon. No, I’ve always loved reading and books, and have a rather deep and complex vocabulary, and I speak three languages. It’s not that I have problems with words. It’s just that I don’t learn as well in a text-based environment. And the key to my struggle in grad school might just be that very thing: it’s almost entirely text-based. From readings for class, participation in online forum discussions, to negotiating group projects, it’s all text. I don’t speak, I don’t listen, I don’t watch, and short of my arms from the elbows down, there’s not a whole lot of movement, either. It’s just not engaging.

That’s not (entirely) the professors’ fault. There are technology barriers that have existed until very recently, and high-speed access to the internet is not required, although for some assignments it certainly has been, as I learned while in Indonesia. And so while video lectures might not be available to all students in all places, it certainly would be nice to have them as an option for learners who have that capability (after all, there aren’t many people in the program, I would guess, without at least access to Youtube or the ability to download video and audio podcasts to the phone or computer). At the very least, audio lectures would supplement nicely and give me the opportunity to at least listen and take notes, a system I know works for me.

When I reflect back on learning successes of my recent history, I have come to realize that I’m very much a visual and kinaesthetic learner. Lynda.com was an invaluable resource for me when I learned a lot of the tech skills that I’ve acquired. Other books from PeachPit Press (Visual QuickStart series). I learned these things through watching and trying myself. Even back in university I had near-verbatim notes from a lot of my classes, and I think the physical writing aspect was key to internalizing a lot of that information. So, in retrospect, had I been aware of my learning style in a little more detail at the outset of the semester I probably would have reduced my class load instead of convincing myself that there was just some hump I had to get over. Sometimes I wish foresight, rather than hindsight was 20/20.

So now I’m up against the end of the semester, too much to do, too much undone, wishing I had the chance to do it over again. One thing’s for sure: going forward, I’m going to have to do things differently, and that’s going to start with a more manageable workload.

Ed Theory and Technology

Introduction

For one of my courses I need to do some remedial reading on education theory. Since I didn’t do my undergrad in education, I don’t have the background of some of my classmates, and so I’m grateful for this package of information. I’m going to document my notes below.

Learning Objectives:

After completing this unit you should be able to:

  1. explain the difference between an archetype, a paradigm and a model;
  2. discuss the key characteristics of Davies’ three educational technologies;
  3. discuss the key principles of behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism;
  4. explain the key differences between behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism;
  5. discuss the difference between the objectivist and the subjectivist epistemologies;
  6. discuss the implications of behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism on instructional design and development;
  7. explain the five perspectives on teaching; and
  8. appreciate the value of different approaches to teaching and learning.


Obj 1: Archetypes, Paradigms and Models

When first talking about technology, Davies (1978) discusses the differences between decisions, which are choices before an event “between a range of alternatives, none of which is probably more right than the other” (p. 10), whereas judgements take place after an event and are choices between “‘right’ and ‘wrong’; a choice between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘true’ and ‘false'” (p. 10). From this he goes on to note that when choosing a technology for use in education, one might start by making a choice but must at some point afterward make a judgement and evaluate these decisions for their worth.

Questions for Reflection

What is the difference between an archetype, a paradigm, and a model?

Archetype: “The viewpoint or perspective used by someone engaged in an act of inquiry” (Davies, 1978, p. 16). A framework or prototype useful for in-communication about the “myths, dreams and ritualised models of professional conduct” (p. 16). They are the framework on which the community is built. Can limit growth beyond the commonly-held ideas of what education or teaching is. Archetypes can serve multiple paradigms but often only serve one.

Paradigm:  The paradigm is a concept with more structure around a given idea or theory, including “definitions, statements and interrelationships between the statements” (Davies, 1978, p. 17). Diagrams are often used to explain the relationships between different aspects of a phenomena, revealing methodologies and suggest research questions for further study. The paradigm is more limited than a worldview, and is rarely a new idea, as an archetype may be. Educational technology paradigms may be recognised in two ways: 1) it is new enough to be appealing, drawing adherents away from other paradigms, and 2) is not yet fully formed, allowing for adherents to add to and refine the basic structure while bringing in yet more adherents (Davies).

Adherents to a specific paradigm share values and concerns, often working together with a common set of authoritative texts and a set of rituals (Davies, 1978). This paradigm is the glue that holds their work together in a common set. Davies laments that educational technology is (at the time of writing) greatly lacking breadth in its paradigms, with the variation that does exist lacking creativity in distinctions.

Pedagogies and curricula designs, while called “models,” are actually paradigms (Davies, 1978).

Paradigms are constructed to prove they are wrong, allowing it to be replaced with another paradigm that more accurately reflects reality (Davies, 1978).

Model: Usually at least partially quantitative, is more specific and detailed than a paradigm (Davies, 1978). The example Davies gives is that of a model car, in which the model can be used to determine the facts of reality on the basis of a certain scale. Another example given is that of a map, where distances on the map correspond to distances in reality. Davies attributes the rise of models as an authentic source of knowledge based on three factors: 1) manipulation of people and organizations is unethical/unlawful, 2) the costs of dealing with actual people is too high, given the increasing uncertainty that may breed errors, and 3) contemporary models are actually pretty good at representing reality, so confidence in their results has increased (Davies).

Models, unlike paradigms, are constructed to use in determining the solution to a particular problem (Davies, 1978). They are often problem-specific, and different models may present the same phenomenon from the perspectives of different paradigms. The strength of the model is the ability to use it to form hypotheses for testing.

Davies (1978) complains that few models in educational technology have been tested, and those that have lack reference to underlying theory. He says the research that has been performed is fragmented and disjointed in such a way that creating a framework for the future from the parts is a Sisyphean task.

 

Obj 2: What are the key characteristics of Davies’ three educational technologies?

The three educational technologies don’t have any particular names and thus are simply numbered sequentially.

Technology One (T1): Davies (1978) identifies this as being a hardware-driven approach to technology in which education problems are solved with methods common to the physical sciences and engineering. The assumptions are that the technology of the machines employed determines the quality of the output. T1 serves to increase efficiency in information transfer, especially as it relates to larger groups of students. The cost/benefit ratio is primarily financial.

Technology Two (T2): Davies (1978) sees this as a software-driven approach with a basis in behavioural science. The design of the message, rather than the medium, is key to efficient learning according to T2. Curriculum development revolves around “identifying appropriate aims, goals and objections; selecting relevant content and subject matter; choosing contrasting learning methodologies, activities and experiences so as to make for a worthwhile and rewarding course of study; and then evaluating not only the success of the resulting learning experience but also the effectiveness of the very development techniques employed” (Daves, p. 13).

Technology 3 (T3): This technology combines both the hardware and software approaches, rejecting systematic (mechanical) development in favour of systemic (organic) method (Davies, 1978). The focus is on both the process and the outcomes of teaching. Using systems analysis, the technology looks more at individuals as actors in a group rather than individuals independently. The environment (media/hardware) are as important as the message (software/content). Schools, including administration, teachers and students are all part of a symbiotic whole, and the system itself is either healthy or unwell.

As such, T1 sees solutions to problems in transmission-reception, T2 seeks to purposefully shape behaviour, while T3 takes a more integrated approach. It seeks to identify the best approach to a given problem through diagnosis and inquiry without prejudice as to the source of or solution. This inquiry, however, can have messy outcomes. Davies (1978) notes, “What at first might appear to be a nice, self-contained difficulty, can soon become a matter of complexity involving a greatly enlarged context” (p. 14). Davies believes that it is common sense to take a measured approach to change, even when it seems the entire system needs to be dismantled, suggesting that with T3, practitioners must put boundaries on their problem, deal with the primary or immediate problem without going overboard. This method is not efficient, but it may be (eventually?) effective.

Davies (1978) identifies “five skills of effectiveness” (p. 15) that form the foundation of the T3 approach:

  1. sensitivity, so that the needs of the total situation, both people and task, can be sensed
  2. diagnostic ability, so that the nature of the problem or difficulty can be identified and communicated
  3. decision making, so that appropriate actions can be selected from a wide range of possible alternatives
  4. flexibility, so that it is possible to implement whatever the situation demands or requires
  5. action skills, so that routine and mechanistic tasks of implementation can be efficiently carried out. (p. 15)

Davies cautions against biting off more than is possible to chew, respecting the time of both student and teacher in the interest of effort output for greatest return rather than busywork. This will not always be with consensus, but should consider dissenting opinions. 

 

What are the key characteristics of the audio-visual, the engineering and the problem-solving archetypes of educational technology?

When Davies (1978) was writing, he listed the engineering archtype as the most pervasive, in which associated paradigms had a bias toward objectivity as in the hard sciences. Davies quickly dismisses the pervasive assumption of his contemporaries that objectivity was thus the “only paradigm possible in educational technology, especially in the areas of curriculum, course and instructional development” (p. 19). He makes space for subjectivity, calling both it and objectivity assumptions. Much as in the case of light being both particles and waves, he comments that the very process of observation changes the observed, changing the phenomenon merely by observing it. Thus, objectivity is limited, as the mere act of making observations and analysis contaminates. The new archetype, based on problem-solving, employes lateral thinking over vertical. Davies argues that objectivity is devoid of ethical concerns, but this is critical to subjectivity as it draws upon behaviourism. He cautions against Dogmatism, as technologists still need to make judgements and decisions with the information they have, and implies that rigidity can lead to poor conclusions.

The characteristics of each archetype are as follows:

The Audio-Visual Archetype: This is the first of the three archetypes, initially developing in the 1930s and growing in popularity following the second world war (Davies, 1978). This archetype is based on the hardware used to deliver information “chunks;” an aid to presentations and teaching, increasing access to experiences not normally available, expanding the sphere of influence of teachers across geographic boundaries, enriching teaching and learning by integrating with both processes, and in assessment through computers or other machines, expediting the process.

The Engineering Archetype: With growing interest in programmed learning coming to the fore in the 1960s, the Engineering Archetype emerged with it (Davies, 1978). This was still prevalent contemporary with Davies’ article. B.F. Skinner’s influence was heavy on the archetype in which behaviourist technology was implemented on teaching an learning. This archetype is highly process-oriented, in which experiments are repeated with small variations to find optimal approaches to education delivery and reception. It reflects the pharmacological techniques of control and test populations. Davies criticizes this approach, as some technologists lose the forest for the trees, creating overly-complicated systems for analysis when the foundations upon which they are build rely on poor assumptions.

The Problem-Solving Archetype: Was beginning to emerge in the mid-1970s, and Davies (1978) saw it as more innovative, due in part to its relationship with the creative process.   As of the late 1970s, it was still in a growth stage. Comparing its approach to a chess game, Davies says this archetype requires intense concentration, ability to foresee consequences to several degrees of removal, flexibility, acquired skills and learning experiences. Activities should be developed out of a sense of dissatisfaction with the goal of resolving it as quickly as possible.

 

What archetype, paradigm and model of educational technology do you think most of your teaching would fall into?

I teach in a culture where I see (or believe I perceive) methodology sprung largely from the Audio-Visual Archetype, where, as Mark Twain might have said, “a professor’s lecture notes go straight to the students’ lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either.” These lectures rely heavily on powerpoint in a lecture hall with a microphone to amplify the professor’s voice. Students are variously sleeping, talking, texting, making trips into the hall, and yes, a few are cognizant of what is supposed to be happening in the space.

Dealing with these expectations from my students has created some difficulty as I attempt to work within the Problem-Solving Archetype. One might conclude that my foremost problem is primarily one of expectations! As far as the growth of my students in the content area is concerned, many of my colleagues view it as a happy accident when it occurs. This is, as one might imagine, a source of frustration but also of great opportunity. As a visible “other” in the classroom (I am of both a different nationality and ethnicity than my students in a largely homogeneous setting), my proverbial foot-in-the-door to change is my very otherness. From this I am able to create a space, however small, where things are different.

As for my paradigm, I haven’t set myself into any as of yet. The tabula rasa that I work with affords me many opportunities to test and experiment with pedagogy as I see fit. As of this year, some mandates have come in as to how the program will be taught (see the above comment on the Audio-Visual paradigm), but I do my best under it to carve out a space for my own approaches. I have no fear (perhaps to my folly!) of experimenting with new technologies, remixing existing technologies for a new purpose if it solves a pedagogical problem, such as smartphone-based chat groups with students for multi-directional communication (teacher to student, student to teacher and between students).  I am not sure that I will ever settle into a single paradigm. For me, it’s a matter of finding the best path for the moment and taking it.

I don’t have a model as Davies defined it; a scaled-down version of how things work. I’m not entirely sure how I would go about creating one. Perhaps the above problem of communication and its solution are an example of a model for my specific context.

Davies wrote his article in 1978, over 20 years ago. Is it still relevant to the thinking of using technology in teaching and learning, today? Why or why not?

Absolutely. A key problem that Davies (1978) is that education has not taken the opportunity to renew itself, which is a hallmark of organizations on the decline. “Instead of viewing educational technology as an opportunity for renewing educational practice, it has, too often, been conceived as a means of doing what has always been done — only more efficiently” (p. 12). As I mentioned in my comment about colleagues in other departments using paradigms from an archetype 90 years old, there is much relevance to these competing ideas.

The Problem-Solving Archetype, in concert with the T3 approach to technology seems to me to be the best possibility to finding successful solutions to educational problems. This is particularly true of the requirements of flexibility and foresight that come out of the Problem-Solving Archetype. As technologies expand and morph at ever-decreasing intervals, these two characteristics of the technologist will be (continue to be?) in high demand. Without these skills, an education technologist will be quickly left behind.

 

Obj 3.1: Behaviourism

The following information is derived from the online course notes,  “Theories of Learning: Behaviourism”

A psychological theory that emerged in the 1920s. Prior to Behaviorism, learning was considered an internal process and “introspection,” a process in which study participants were asked to reflect on their own thoughts, was used to investigate learning. Behaviourists thought this was bunk because there was no external way to measure it. For Behaviourists, learning happens when there is an observable change in behaviour. Everything internal is irrelevant as it cannot be measured or directly observed.

Behaviourism has a few key assumptions:

  • If you can’t directly observe or measure it, it doesn’t count. The things that count are stimuli on an organism and how it responds to that stimuli.
  • The mind can’t be studied. Stimuli can go in and responses can come out, but the process is unobservable and unmeasurable, and thus unknowable.
  • If behaviour hasn’t changed, learning hasn’t happened.

These assumptions affected education in that learning was believed to have happened if there was an observable change in behaviour. Thus, you teach in such a way as to see changes in how people behave. It’s the only way you can know they’re learning

The sorts of activities that resulted from this thinking included drills and similar practice activities. Programmed learning is the extreme version in which instruction is broken into chunks and sequenced. Programmed learning follows a pre-determined course and reinforces correct responses immediately.

Behaviourism has fallen out of favour as it is seen as overly mechanical and insensitive to human learning needs. There may be appropriate applications for some aspects of behaviourism, so caution is needed before dismissing the paradigm outright.

Questions for Reflection:

What are some of the ways in which the behaviourist principle of reinforcement has been applied to education?

  • drill exercises
  • practice activities (as in for multiplication tables, basic math priciples)

What are the roles of the teacher and the learner in the behaviourist framework?


What are some of the criticisms of behavioural objectives?

What epistemological tradition (objectivism or subjectivism) do you think underlies the behaviourist view of learning?


Can you think of anything you do as an instructor that is influenced by the behaviourist view of learning?

In what contexts do you think it would be appropriate to use a behaviourist approach to teaching?

In what contexts do you think it would be inappropriate to use a behaviourist approach to teaching?

 

 

References:

Davies, I.K. (1978). Educational Technology: Archetypes, Paradigms and Models. In J.H. Hartley & I.K. Davies (Eds.), Contributions to an Educational Technology, Volume 2. (pp. 9-24). New York: Kogan Page.

Learning Styles and Intelligences

We’ve been studying different learning styles and intelligences. This module asks us to take a couple of learning style tests* and examine what they say about ourselves. The guiding question is:

How are learning styles and multiple intelligences similar? Different?

My tests came out as 1) visual learner, 2) visual learner, 3)even split visual-auditory-tactile/kinaesthetic 4) the chart below:

Graph showing my learning styles


Given my even balance on visual, physical and Aural above, I’m not surprised that I came out with an even 4-4-4 split in test 3, where there were fewer questions (the test with the graph had 70).

Reflecting back on my multiple intelligences (MI) test results, the results of the learning style test appear strongly correlated. As in the graph above, which shows a low level of learning in a solitary way, my interpersonal MI was one of my highest scores. Additionally, my kinaesthetic and visual scores were high on the MI test, so it would seem that I also use these in my learning.

After taking the tests, we were to review the following article and answer the guiding question listed above. Here’s the citation for the article:

Solvie, P. & Senske, L. (2009). Teaching for Success: Linking Technology and Learning Styles in Preservice Teacher Education. In I. Gibson et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2009 (pp. 2681-2684). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

So to answer the question, how are MI and Learning Styles the same and different? For starters, there is some crossover in categorization: visual, kinesthetic, aural, all seem to correspond directly to different intelligences, but there are more intelligences than categories of learning style. It would seem that each learning style is able to encompass aspects or totalities of these intelligences.

Learning Style: Intelligences

Visual: Visual/Spatial

Social: Interpersonal

Physical: Body/Kinesthetic

Oral: Musical?

Verbal: Linguistic

Solitary: Intrapersonal

Logical: Logical-Mathematical

Outside of these are Naturalist and Existentialist, which may fit into solitary, visual and logical for naturalist, and solitary and logical for existentialist.

Applications

When I think about MI and learning styles in the context of my classroom, I see quickly how lacking the current curriculum and near-mandatory lesson plans are. I spent some time today on my commute thinking about how I might open at least parts of the curriculum for students who, like me, don’t necessarily work well with just processing text. I spent some time thinking about alternative homework to even making learning teams among my students to allow them to work with the target language in ways that were beneficial to them, rather than the boring, out-of-date methodologies proscribed by the required text. I wondered if I could create some MI and learning styles test for them during the first week to create these groups. I also wonder if I will be able to adequately prepare my students for the unified written exams that all students in my classes must take with the rest of the cohort. I don’t want to be self-defeating before I even try, but I have concerns about leaping off a cliff and not doing it well.

*I also took the test to look at my motivation style, and it came out to be purely learning. Sure, I valued some of the items in “Goal” and “Social” sections, but if I were honest about what mattered most, it was the learning option.

Multiple Intelligences and My Learning Style

As per the guidelines of one of my grad school courses, I was to take this test on Multiple Intelligences and reflect on the following questions:

  • What are your areas of personal strength?
  • How should learning be structured to best meet your personal needs? What needs to occur in the teaching-learning process to help develop your other intelligences?

Here are my test results:

Kim's Multiple Intelligences Test Results
My results.

The complete list of intelligences and their relationships to learning are available if you’d like to look a them. I’m not too sure what to make of it. I’m not very surprised that my music score was high, but I am surprised that my visual/spatial was not higher. Also, while I didn’t do well in French class in high school, I have always used writing/note taking as an integral aspect of my learning process. Often going to lectures and taking notes (which were thorough enough to command audiences at exam time) was sufficient for my studies. Reading alone, however, has been a struggle, unless I have a high degree of intrinsic motivation for the subject matter.

To answer the questions:

  • What are your areas of personal strength?

My strongest area is Musical Intelligence. As I mentioned above, this comes as no surprise, nor should it to anyone who knows me. Aside from singing, I have learned at some point to play about a dozen instruments to varying degrees of mediocrity. While not a fantastic player, I learned to play most of them to a level of personal satisfaction and good enough for public performance, but hardly the calibre of professional performing musicians of any stripe. Most of my extra curricular pursuits from elementary onward involved some sort of music study, and even now I love few free-time activities as much as attending a concert, although I seldom do so.

From there, I have a clump of intelligences for the next six, starting six points down from Music and themselves having only a six-point spread. Then it’s another seven-point drop to Intrapersonal. From this I can see a clear separation between my strongest and weakest points to “the pack,” but the middle has very little differentiation, and may be partially due to my answers on this particular day or the questions asked.

I often call myself a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none, and in my own life have had a difficult time settling on a graduate program to pursue. I’ve been interested in international relations, business, communications, graphic design, computer science and linguistics; I’ve even considered going back to school and doing a professional degree in engineering or architecture. That’s really quite the gamut. I frequently find my time-wasting on the Internet drawn to one of these areas of interest. It comes as no surprise that I have such a clump of intelligences so tightly packed around the middle.

But of the two intelligences tied for second-place, I would have to say when it comes to formal learning, the body/kinaesthetic aspect is more important to me, usually in combination with visual/spatial. While some would argue that my note-taking in high school and university was more evidence for my linguistic intelligence, I believe it was the physical creation of the words on paper, manifesting them in something visual as I listened to the lecture and observed my professors, that helped ingrain these ideas onto my memory.

I love all things mechanical and creative. From early elementary school I have memories of taking apart machines just to see how they worked. I was thankfully wise enough to limit myself to what a screwdriver or set of pliers could put back together; things that were soldered or glued in place were left alone for fear of upsetting my parents by “breaking” something. Thankfully it never came to that, and I secretly continued to pull things apart for the mere joy of understanding them and putting them back together. I think this disassembly-reassembly grew in concert with my visual-spacial skills, making it easier for me to visualize multiple dimensions in my mind when constructing or creating things in my heads’ space.

 

  • How should learning be structured to best meet your personal needs? What needs to occur in the teaching-learning process to help develop your other intelligences?

To meet my personal needs, learning should take place in an environment where I receive some visual instruction as well as have the opportunity to physically process either the information or the physical product I am studying. If it is possible to put rote memorization to music, I am more likely to remember it; as evidenced by my memory of my musical multiplication tables from over twenty years ago to high-school history jingles for classes I never even took.

To develop my other intelligences, I would most need to focus on my intrapersonal skills. My areas of particular weakness are self-understanding and sometimes with self-paced instruction. Where I am highly motivated, I have no problems progressing through materials, but without this I find more interesting pursuits for my time. As my greatest strength is music, either putting a series of tasks to a jingle or short song/chant might work as a meditation to keep me on task. I also find using outside time managers (such as the Pomodoro Technique) help me to get in some solid work time toward completing an undesirable or externally-motivated task. To help with my inner, personal development, again some kind of music-based chant or song might be enough to help me reflect on the day or task I have completed and visualize for the day ahead. I am not sure how any particular course or program that was not intentionally designed for such growth could encourage it.

In closing, I thought the exercise was interesting, as were the results, but I’d like to take the test again, and possible have another person take it on my behalf based on how they see me. I find the very idea rather attractive and it could lead to some very thought-provoking results. And maybe that’s just what I need.