Its sight distorted Takes the part for the whole, Misreading Nature. _______________ The Bhagavad-Gita |
The first step (#1) presumes that the developer can narrow the focus to a particular group or audience, which is always ambitious in any case. For example, the target group may be 4th grade and the subject may be math, or the target group may be graduate students and the subject statistics, but there will be a wide discrepancy among any group of students in terms of background, experience, needs, interests and so forth. It would be impossible to plan effectively to meet all the needs of students who differ in terms of experience, interests, attitudes, abilities, desire to learn, and other variables. While it is important to consider these factors in design, the limitations should be obvious. The necessary approach is to have a variety of applications that account for a range of possible differences, which can be done by branching in the program.
#2. A goal is a general statement that should be achievable in a course of instruction. Goals provide a context for understanding the purpose.
#3. Enabling objectives are specific statements that lead to learning outcomes. Instruction will include a variety of objectives, which are always measurable. See the unit on objectives.
#4. Instructional activities are designed by the program to provide the content and learning experiences to lead to meeting the objectives.
#5. Instructional media can include any kind of technological applications.
#6. Assessment tools provide an avenue to demonstrate the new skills, knowledge, and attitudes included in the objectives. Evaluation can be handled in many ways, including quantitative evaluation and performance measures.
#7. Finally, there is a feedback loop to revise the course of activities from the beginning. Typically, although it may be that the goals or objectives would be altered, activities and experiences are changed to improve the chances of reaching the stated outcomes.
Now look at some other design
models common in instructional technology design:
Do you see many differences? Are they more alike than dissimilar? These models are consistent with the behavioral approach, systems theory, and designing instruction for procedural knowledge. This is the current state of IT design, a sequential, positivist, lock-step design.
Now consider design from the perspective of George Lucas:
Instead of making film into a sequential assembly-line process where one person does one thing, takes it, and turns it over to the next person, I'm turning it more into the process of a painter or sculptor. You work on it for a bit, then you stand back and look at it and add some more onto it, then stand back and look at it and add some more. You basically end up layering the whole thing. Film making by layering means you write, and direct, and edit all at once. It's much more like what you do when you write a story.This is not the way it has been done in IT. But the day is coming when it might be.
Constructivists believe that people construct their own meaning. The ways that some designers get around this restriction is to create simulations and "authentic" learning tasks rather than follow a direct instructional model. A problem-solving model would employ some design with a loosely structured problem to solve, as would a critical thinking designer, although the thought processes of the learner would be challenged at every step. In the latter instance, the emphasis in on the process more than a "correct" answer. A cooperative learning advocate would employ some model where students learn together, either online or in person.
However, the predominant approach in IT is behavioral. Objectives are stated, media selected, and an assessment design erected before training begins. In an ideal situation, there is actually a pilot test to debug the system and see that it functions properly and that students learn. Due to a lack of time or resources, many projects are hurried into operation without much testing. This can be less of a problem in a classroom because the instructor can quickly shift objectives and materials. But the more the project depends upon media, the more locked in the designer is because it is impossible to quickly change media in something that is "canned" for consumption. One way this is handled is to have many branches by attempting to plan as many possible diversions from the main path. Although many designers say that they are eclectic and try to take a middle of the road position, advances in technology and software will find more of them doing less structured planning in the future, except in precise procedural training for specific kinds of skills.
There are two kinds of delivery, synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous requires students to be at a particular location at a specific time. The technologies used in synchronous delivery include two-way interactive video (compressed or full-motion), one-way video with two-way audio, audioconferencing, and audiographic conferencing, and may include electronic white boards. Radio, television, IITS, closed circuit, satellite, and computer-based delivery may be used, where the instructor and students are in real-time contact at an appointed time. This form of delivery is inappropriate for many because professionals in several different time zones with complex jobs and unpredictable schedules require more flexibility than is provided in a synchronous model.
The World Wide Web (WWW) has revolutionized speed and access to information, tutorials, references, tests, and communication. Use of the WWW enables use of the asynchronous method of distance education. The instructor and students are not required to have real-time contact on a regular basis and instruction is not time and location dependent, as in a traditional class. It is possible to develop an electronic analog of distributed classes that have lectures, recitations, student study groups, research, and all the other elements of a traditional class. Students access pertinent university resources and other resources available on the Internet. File sharing, downloading, chat, and e-mail would be used for access to "lectures," assignments, transfer of reports, library, other on-line resources, and communication. Presentation of course content will be augmented by "streaming video and audio," print, and computer files, which may be accessed in real-time or downloaded.
Although the instructor may require certain deadlines, the students are responsible for organizing themselves and meeting requirements. Research has shown in the Open University that students must be responsible, motivated, and able to manage their time wisely. Typically, one would expect this of professionals.
Component Display Theory
Some writers discuss component display theory and others seem to accept it tacitly without identifying it. Merrill's component display theory can be described as follows:
Component Display Theory (CDT) classifies learning along two dimensions: content (facts, concepts, procedures, and principles) and performance (remembering, using, generalities). The theory specifies four primary presentation forms: rules (expository presentation of a generality), examples (expository presentation of instances), recall (inquisitory generality) and practice (inquisitory instance). Secondary presentation forms include: prerequisites, objectives, helps, mnemonics, and feedback.There is similarity between component design theory and behavioral approaches or teacher-directed lessons that emphasize a specific instructional process. The lesson can be individualized or for a group, although component design theory has been considered a tool for IT development. As described elsewhere in our discussions, this is another method of decontextualizing and simplifying knowledge for learning. Although the component design theory was inspired by such persons as Bruner, the actual theory is cannot be considered constructivist although it is definitely based on cognitive principles of learning. The methods of performance (remember, use, and find) are similar to the hierarchical arrangement of objectives of Bloom's taxonomy.The theory specifies that instruction is more effective to the extent that it contains all necessary primary and secondary forms. Thus, a complete lesson would consist of objective followed by some combination of rules, examples, recall, practice, feedback, helps and mnemonics appropriate to the subject matter and learning task. Indeed, the theory suggests that for a given objective and learner, there is a unique combination of presentation forms that results in the most effective learning experience.
Elaboration Theory
Another approach to course design is elaboration theory, which may be thought of as a thematic approach. A single organizing structure for a course is developed. Following the recommendations of Reigeluth, the structure can be conceptual, procedural, or theoretical. Nonetheless, the structure after the design strategy can be very similar to the behavioral approach.
Development of Courseware
Lesson Format.
Each lesson is designed, beginning with outcomes, how the outcomes will
be measured, and the support that will permit learners to meet expectations.
The lesson is structured around text, graphics, audio, and video files.
These files contain the material which would ordinarily be handed out in
class, including the syllabus, readings, assignments, activities, notes,
and so forth. In addition, anything that might be presented on an
overhead is developed as a graphic.
.
Communication between the
student and the instructor and between the student and other students is
also done asynchronously. Students access course notes, reference materials,
and exams. Another application is an electronic bulletin board application
to support asynchronous discussions among students and faculty. A permanent
record of all student-faculty interactions will be kept and analyzed.
The instructor can maintain office hours for real-time, one-on-one discussions with students as required. These sessions may be by electronic document conferencing (on-line help), telephone conversations, or both.
Roles in Web Development
- Needs assessment
- Identification of Content
- Writing Content
- Designing Web Pages
- Incorporating Multimedia
- Testing and Revising
Content Expert. Content experts have expertise in different aspects of any subject matter that may be placed on the Internet. Unless also able to fill other roles, they develop the instructional material (content) in printed form. . Each content expert will writes objectives, provides or writes text, lists readings and links to pertinent information on the Internet, defines learning assignments and exercises. While the HTML format does not restrict the development of content, there are certain technical considerations that must be recognized to develop a useful HTML analog of the same content.
Instructional Designer.
The designer ways to accomplish the aims of the content expert in electronic
form.
The instructional designer
has the responsibility of providing the "blueprints" or "architectural
drawings" for organizing content. The designer provides a format to follow
that accounts for many variables, including the limitations that may be
imposed by funding, personnel, time, and technical aspects. .
HTML Author. The HTML author converts content into web pages. While familiar with the overall design, the role here is restricted to putting content onto pages that are acceptable to the designer and the content experts. t,
WWW Programmer. It is common that this role is also filled by the HTML author, and in some cases all three technical roles may be filled by the same person. The programmer's role is to place web pages on the server, assure that course materials function properly, and add additional software tools necessary for all aspects of course delivery from registration to feedback. Additional features may be added such as forms and special instructions about the web site.
The following figure shows the conceptual design of a course.
Influence of Theories
In other sections we have considered some of the various theories of instruction, including the historical influences. We can classify the theories in several ways but generally they are all conceived as ways that humans learn--behavioral, constructivist, instructivist, postmodern, positivist, objectivist, interpretative, and so on. The differences, of course, are explained by the different theories that people have about how learning actually occurs. It would be an amazing circumstance if all the theories were correct. For this reason you will find many instructional designers claiming that they are not wedded to one theory or another. Eclecticism is common among classroom teachers also but less possible when planning detailed multimedia products that cannot be easily changed. At the theoretical level there is an obvious incongruity because some theories cannot be simply hammered together, especially the extreme positions of behaviorism and constructivism. The more objectives are defined and expressed and the more content is itemized, the less opportunity for the learner to exercise control and divergence.
Sara McNeil presents an interesting series of definitions of IT ranging from a process to more lofty definitions as a discipline and a science, but ending with "Instructional Design as Reality" in which she implies that time and other factors limit the process to something pragmatic.
Except in online activities where there are fewer limitations and the ability to create numerous links, subjective meanings and social constructions among people are restricted (interpretative). The "drill and kill" notion of CAI is an example of a very restricted program that can easily be designed in a positivist (behavioral) form. In any case, however, it is often other factors that draw a project to closure by compromising theoretical issues. Money and time are often the most important forces shaping the context for decision-making. Consider the remarks of George Lucas in an interview about making the film Star Wars:
Well, I wasn't completely satisfied with some of the technical aspects. I was satisfied with the other parts of it. Some of what bothered me was a result of a lack of time and money.Due to the limitations of technology, a program is more likely to be developed that will account for the typical learner, because it is difficult to include the possible range of learning needs that might be encountered. Gifted, mentally retarded, students with learning disabilities, and students with diverse cultural backgrounds and prior experience will comprise the target group. As the technology becomes more powerful it will be increasingly possible to account for unique learning problems rather than a single product that may be useful to the majority. George Lucas makes the point:
Other things simply couldn't be done in a way that was acceptable. That's why the Jabba section couldn't be done right until now. Our technology has improved by many leaps since then. I wanted to improve the look--get closer to what I imagined--without changing the basic film. I think we did that. People will enjoy seeing the new elements, but nobody will feel that the film they cared about has been altered in any significant way.The greatest challenge to instructional design at the present time is how to bridge the instructivist-constructivist
(positivist-interpretative) divide. While many persons are attracted to IT because they believe the tools can improve learning, they are often discouraged because the field has been decidedly rational and behavioral in approach.
| Lucas estimates that due to budget and technological constraints, the 1977 version of Star Wars lived up to only about forty percent of its potential. While audiences around the world were thrilling to the heroic exploits of Luke, Han, Leia, and Obi-Wan, the filmmaker was feeling "really disappointed"--frowning all the way to the bank. Over the next twenty years, overcoming the technological constraints of film became a passion for Lucas: he has not directed a film since Star Wars, and has instead devoted his time to improving technology and special effects through his company, Industrial Light & Magic. |
While the technologies will
improve and it will be theoretically possible to design a product that
can be positivist or interpretative, it may be difficult to find designers
who think both ways. Usually one does not adopt a position out of
convenience but out of conviction, and many people are quite passionate
about their beliefs. Asking a devout behaviorist to make something for
constructivists, or importuning a constructivist to strip a product down
to a linear program may be impossible. There are those, however,
who can take a middle-of-the-road approach.
Gros et al. (1997) denounce
traditional IT for too much linearity or too little specificity.
While it is possible for tutors to change rapidly "on the fly" to shift
instruction, we are an 'electronic" generation or so away from the kind
of technology that will permit such interactive shifting in IT. Fortunately,
the generations in IT are relatively short.
In some ways it may be possible to use technology now to approach some of the more expansive goals in learning. For example, examine this site that shows extensive use of technology by students and their change over a long period of time.
Considering the Place of Technology in Education
Reason is each person's way to interpret reality and there is considerable variation. Scientists often infer from research that they understand reality. Consider the question, "Why are some people better at school than others?" Any answer to this question is a statement of belief about reality. This is different than the question, What do some people think about why some people are better at school than others? There may be many reasons why some people succeed in school and others do not, and this may be different from one place to another. There are several approaches to the first question, three of which are summarized here: (a) family variables, (b) quality of schools, and (c) peer group influence.
Family Variables. If SAT scores really measure a person's scholastic aptitude, then aptitude is distributed according to parental income. SAT scores are highly correlated with family income but not with rank in high school class. If parents' income is unrelated to SAT (aptitude?), then other family variables must account for rank in high school. The predominant research about family variables stems from the Equal Educational Opportunity Survey research of Coleman et al. (1966) that has shaped educational policy in America for 30 years. The study concluded that family background has more influence on student achievement than school effects. Policy makers in the federal government were persuaded, and remain persuaded, that it impossible to improve schools with more funding because teachers have little or no influence on student achievement.
Quality of Schools. Unwilling to accept Coleman's reality, Brookover et al. (1973) initiated a new generation of research known as the effective schools studies and found that some children from the "wrong" families, nonetheless, have high achievement in some schools. The researchers concluded that some "outlier" schools were able to overcome the adverse influences of family variables because they had strong leadership, a safe and orderly climate, a schoolwide emphasis on skill instruction, high expectations for achievement, and systematic monitoring of instruction and assessment of pupil performance. To improve other schools, create a similar environment.
Peer Group Influence. Another possible reality is reflected in the recent work about peer group influence by Judith Rich Harris, whose book, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do; Parents Matter Less Than You Think and Peers Matter More, contradicts the previous research of Coleman and Brookover. Harris says that heredity accounts for only about half of the reliable variation among adults in personality characteristics. She concludes that peer groups shape attitude toward school and achievement, among other aspects. To Harris, peers shape adult personality characteristics (Harris, 1995).
Each of these is a different view of the same reality or perhaps of different realities. These views may only inform the second question about what people think about success in school but do not tell us with any certainty why some people succeed and others do not.
A number of years ago a movie,Stand and Deliver, enjoyed box office success and has since been used as an inspirational tool for inducting new teachers and revitalizing veterans. The central character portrayed in the movie is the real-life Jaime Escalante, who taught Hispanic students in Los Angeles and succeeded in getting 87 students to pass the Advanced Placement examination in calculus. Taking a new teaching position in Sacramento, Mr. Escalante is reported to have difficulty transferring his methods to the new school, with only 11 students attempting AP calculus (Matthews, 1997). This underscores the problems in finding methods that are universally successful. It also shows how complex and difficult are educational problems compared to a more advanced field such as medicine. While a physician may be able to diagnose and successfully treat the same disease in either Los Angeles or Sacramento, Mr. Escalante cannot be assured that similar problems will yield to the same educational remedies.
How do we approach instruction?
We have considered three general views about school success or lack of it: (a) family variables, (b) quality of schools, and (c) peer group influence. If we accept the first view, schools can have little influence on students because they have no influence on family income, values, or the gene pool. If we accept the second view that students achieve in some schools that have certain unique characteristics, we are frustrated to learn these conditions are difficult to replicate. If we accept the third, there is the impossible challenge of changing the child's peer group or the peer group's value system to coincide with school values. In other words, schools can do very little because almost all factors are beyond the control of educators. If schools can do nothing to improve education, they need to carefully pick which students they admit. While children can pick their friends but not their parents, public schools have never been able to choose their students. In deed, the best test of the quality premise would be to switch the faculties of the "worst" public schools with the "best" private schools and see what happens to achievement scores in both schools. What do you think would happen?
In shifting from sociological
explanations to the classroom we must ask a different question. How
do we make school content understandable to a classroom of pupils regardless
of their parents, their school, or their friends?
There are two general views
about how to get students to learn, instructivism and constructivism. Hirsch
(1996) would transmit "core knowledge" to students, because he sees the
essence of a good education to be common set of standards, rigor, hard
work, and testing. Conversely, Brooks
and Brooks (1993) would have student autonomy, open-ended questions,
dialogue, hypotheses, and the use of raw data, primary sources, manipulatives,
physical, and interactive materials. In Hirsch's method the teacher
really does not care how a student thinks as long as he or she gives correct
answers. For Brooks and Brooks it is critical that the teacher know
the minds of students. The former view is unsatisfactory for
many students, as achievement data will attest, and the latter view may
be unreasonable because there are too many minds in classrooms. A
more general strategy and related tactics are necessary to address this
complex issue.
Despite the belief that "a harmful vision . . .has been steadily taking over education in schools and universities (Morrison, 1997)," constructivism has not conquered education. The heart of school instruction is still the teacher-led lesson based on a curriculum guide, and many schools concentrate on testing for as much as 3 months of the school year. Schmidt (1997) said, "Mathematics curricula in the U.S. consistently cover far more topics than is typical in other countries." Dempster (1993) said, "What one hears in classrooms is a torrent of disconnected facts, procedures, lists, and dates" (p. 437). By contrast Stevenson and Stigler (1992) say that teachers in Japan are skilled performers who emphasize clarity and enthusiasm over standards and patience, and present instruction guided by the concept of a lesson carefully designed to fill the time period to develop a concept or skill, often based on a single problem. Japanese children are carefully guided by their teachers to learn a more narrow range of information than presented in American schools, representing an entire thematic entity instead of a framework It should be remembered, too, that the class size in Japan is about 45 and there is no special education. By contrast, the American approach is much different, according to Dempster (1993):
The curriculum that now predominates in American schools seems to be based on their beliefs about human learning. First, curriculum decisions appear to be informed by the conviction that "more is better" and that just about anything that "enriches the meaning" of a lesson will assist learning. Second, there appears to be a pervasive belief among educators that exposing students to information contains little or no risk, that knowledge can't hurt. Third, the curriculum has been shaped according to the dual assumption that most students can learn most things quickly and that, once a student has satisfactorily demonstrated such learning, further practice is unnecessary, As the research. . .shows, each of these beliefs is false" (p. 433-434).Classroom instruction is somewhere in between Hirsch's vision and that of the Brooks' but clearly closer to the former. The teacher tells and tells a lot, describes, presents, and directs the whole class. Over a decade ago, Romberg (1985) described the teacher's actions: to..."assign lessons to a class of students, start and stop lessons according to some schedule, explain the rules and procedures of each lesson, judge the actions of students during the lesson, and maintain order and control throughout" (p. 5). A visit to most classrooms today will find this to still be true.
Process-Product Methodology. Common classroom instructional practice is based on the model for classroom instruction referred to as the process-product method (Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986; Waxman & Walberg, 1991; Walberg, 1991; and Englert, Tarrant, & Mariage, 1992). The teacher is expected to:
Classroom Scaffolding. Sensitive to criticism about the highly structured classrooms by constructivists, process-product investigators have attempted to introduce some flexibility in the model by a process called scaffolding. Scaffolding is a way for the classroom teacher to teach cognitive strategies to students directly by means of concrete prompts (Collins, Brown & Newman, 1989; Rosenshine & Meister, 1996). Rosenshine describes it:structure learning proceed in small steps give detailed, redundant explanations and many examples ask many questions and provide active practice give feedback and corrective information, especially in the first phase of instruction set student success rate at 80% in initial learning divide seat work assignments into smaller assignments provide for continual student practice to achieve 100% review, check previous day's work present new content check for understanding in initial student practice give feedback and corrective information, and re-teach if necessary provide student independent practice make weekly and monthly reviews
The essence of these instructional procedures is "scaffolding". One does not direct the learner, as one can do when teaching an algorithm, but rather, one supports or scaffolds the learner as they develop internal structures.Graves (1994) describes a Scaffolded Reading Experience as:
...a set of prereading, reading, and postreading activities designed specifically to assist a particular group of students in successfully reading, understanding, learning from, and enjoying a particular selection.Scaffolding is a term used by both constructivists and instructivists. It is a support in the classroom erected by the teacher to lead students to higher order thinking, or a device created by the learner to aid in transfer. Some use the term "scaffold" as a construction a learner uses to bridge to a new problem, what is often called transfer of learning (Baker & Baker, 1991). Scaffolding is not far removed from its process-product roots, as described by Rosenshine & Stevens (1986), because it has all the characteristics of traditional teacher-led lesson with the teacher doing most of the thinking and talking. When the scaffolds are removed it is hoped that the student will have consumed the unloaded knowledge and that there will be transfer of learning when the teacher is not present. As used by constructivists, scaffold seems to mean a schema.
Approaching the Mind
Carl Jung (1936) is one of the few writers to speak of a collective consciousness comprised of inherited "archetypes." Joseph Campbell believed that all mythology has a common source in the biology of human beings. While providing explanations of creation, the myths also tell stories that can be easily grasped by the human mind because they relate to a common experience and a common way of seeing the world. The collective unconscious is unapproachable and not very useful in science, but the notion is useful. These are stories that human beings tell about themselves, about their beliefs, values and rituals. Until recently the brain and the mind have been considered to be too complex, avoided for being an impenetrable "black box."
If we are to know how students learn or make mental constructions, we must attempt to understand how the brain functions with whatever available evidence we have at our disposal. We need to know this from a general perspective for broad interpretation and application. As in the case of intelligence, which is one aspect of the mind, essential to considering the mind and the brain are three core elements: (1) biology, (2) problem solving, and (3) survival. All aspects of intelligence, learning, motivation, cognitive styles, and so forth must be explained in terms of these three core elements (Marsh & Iran-Nejad, 1992). Others have held biology at arm's length because the nervous system is considered to be too difficult to comprehend, an issue we have addressed elsewhere (Iran-Nejad, Marsh, & Clements, 1992). Biology must be considered because the brain is a biological organ. Problem solving and survival are critical because they have been important for the continued existence of the species.
Within this biological-adaptive outlook are the elements essential for understanding the functioning of the human brain which, although similar to other animals, is unique and differs from any other species. In this sense we may also approach the collective mind because, as we shall later describe, the species-specific characteristics and processes enable human beings to have shared constructs. The brain and its systems have become what they are today because of the system from which they are built, systems that formed to meet fundamental evolutionary survival problems. While the human species has inherited many self-organizing systems to support it's existence including blood circulation, the immune system, and others, it stands to reason that self-organization also functions in the brain. Marsh and Iran-Nejad (1992) put it this way:
The parts form a coherent system to work toward survival and solving problems. Because knowledge is created dynamically, any change in one part has implications for the functioning of other parts. In a dynamic process, every combination of the parts is a new combination. Even combinations that repeat the past exactly are new combinations, in that the process replicates again.The most unique characteristic of the species is the ability to reproduce activities of the past for future survival through planning, teaching, learning, and recording knowledge. The brain is an interactional system that engages in nonlinear dynamic activities and intentional problem solving. To disregard the biological nature of the brain and accept statistical, computer, and mathematical models leads further into complex representation that nay not relate to anything in the natural world. Understanding the nature of evolution-tested brain processes may lead to a better understanding of intelligence and knowledge creation (Iran-Nejad & Ortony, 1984). Much can simply be learned while we wait to learn the precise processes by which the brain operates at the sub-symbolic level.
The Mind and Social Origins. Vygotsky says the human species is distinguished from others by use of tools, deliberate teaching, and intentional learning. Tools refer both to the variety of implements created by humans and psychological tools, such as language. The mind has social origins and the cultural tools available to the individual influence the nature of the mind that is constructed. Signs (graphical, verbal, and gestures) carry meaning between people, which is unique to the culture and variable within a culture at the familial and colloquial levels. It is here that Vygotsky believed that we might understand social influences and how culture forms the basis for translating perceptions into shared meanings and individual mental constructs.
Language and psychological processes develop initially as social, interpersonal interactions among people, which Vygotsky referred to as interpsychological. These are gradually "turned inward" or incorporated as internal tools, which he referred to as intrapsychological. In the first instance the individual learns by imitating the immediate social environment, which is influenced in different ways by the larger culture. The individual's psychological processes are always bound to the culture in some way because the individual uses a particular "set" of cultural tools, thus mental constructs are delimited by one's culture.
Language development is based on word meaning. Vygotsky (1962) said that a word without meaning is not a word. Vygotsky (1962) states that words are saturated with sense. To be meaningful, a word must be part of inner speech and language. To acquire meaning, the child transforms the word as a symbol along with many kinds of contextual experiences. Vygotsky revealed his basic theory about human cognitive development:
...the most significant moment in the course of intellectual development, which gives birth to the purely human forms of practical and abstract intelligence, occurs when speech and practical activity, two previously completely independent lines of development, converge (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 24).The significance of this "convergence" is that speech can be used to solve problems. According to Vygotsky, it is the "interpersonal function" of speech, or the turning inward of social speech, that enables children to organize their own behavior, a mechanism that is not commonly explained in constructivism, other than through the use of Piaget's theory of assimilation and accommodation. Signs permit cognitive construction. Sign mediated memory, voluntary attention, and concepts are developed on the basis of internalization of external activities begun at the social level.
While knowledge cannot exist in some complete form outside the learner to be internalized, the culture and social system surrounding the child form the ingredients or the building blocks for cognitive development by means of signs the child incorporates from the environment. The case of the "Wild Boy of Aveyron" is illustrative. A feral child of 12 years of age was found in a wooded area near Paris in September, 1799. It was presumed that the child had lived more or less alone in the forest without the company of humans and perhaps reared among animals, although this was disputed at the time and now seems highly unlikely. The boy was put into the care of Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard who believed the child had existed in a primitive state apart from human society. This and documented rare cases of children raised in isolation with minimal human contact have shown the devastating effects of social deprivation. Speech and language do not exist or are very limited, and ordinary behaviors including movement, attention, posture and gait of such children are strange and appear unnatural. Culture is particularly relevant in determining the meaning of events, people, and things (Applegate & Sypher, 1988), for without humans and the surrounding culture the child cannot access the cultural tool of language or the shared meanings in a communal group.
Vygotsky (1978) introduced his views on teaching by identifying three popular theoretical approaches, each of which he immediately dismissed:
- processes of development are independent of learning, learning being extraneous to the process of development,
- learning is development, and
- a combination of the first two positions.
The social context is important for stimulating and nourishing the features that we consider to be human and take for granted. As Vygotsky put it, the critical concept is:
Children can imitate a variety of actions that go well beyond the limits of their own capabilities. Using imitation, children are capable of doing much more in collective activity or under the guidance of adults. . . human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them (p. 88).So although we may agree that children construct but do not internalize information, the social context is, nonetheless, the critical factor for emerging concepts, for it is at first the only source of substance for psychological processes. According to Vygotsky, it would be impossible for children to "generate, demonstrate, and exhibit" without imitation. While it is true that deep understanding should be the goal, not imitation, according to Vygotsky, imitation is a necessary prerequisite for deep understanding.
By elaborating on Vygotsky's theory and other social theories, we can explain learning in the social setting as it interacts with personal constructions. In the family the child and the family members share contexts that can be regarded as shared social constructs, which is also a critical context for determining individual constructs, and this is extremely powerful within the peer group. If shared constructions are critical for individual learning, and they are, then the context of the classroom is of much greater importance than it has been generally considered in educational research and practice. Two of the most important aspects are (a) the child's need to make himself or herself understood by others and (b) to persuade (defend, argue) about a personal point of view. The objectives of improved education must focus on the influences of social setting and context on cognitive development. Is there any reason to believe that the factors are unimportant with adult learners?
Thematic Learning
At the outset it is important to make a distinction between whole theme learning and themes, thematic units, and other related terms in the literature. Thematic units of instruction are unique to K-12 programs, primarily in elementary and middle schools and sometimes in high school, such as social studies. In the 1960s and 1970s, elementary teachers often used a method known as the "Language Experience Chart" to introduce a thematic unit of instruction, usually in reading. Students would be surveyed to find topics that interested them, they would provide words they wished to learn, and the teacher would construct a lesson around these elements. Throughout an indefinite period of time all the reading and related activities would revolve around the theme.
A more comprehensive form of thematic learning is the thematic unit, which many attribute to the influence of Whole Language (Goodman, 1986; Pickering, 1989; Schirmer, 1994.). In many respects the thematic unit is the antithesis of traditional lesson plans erected on behavioral principles, such as goals, measurable objectives, and traditional evaluations. Rather, the thematic unit is less concerned with the outcomes than the process, and evaluation is often a portfolio of products created by the student (papers, art, pictures, photographs, stories, research, and so forth). An explicit purpose may be to de-emphasize factual information, per se, in the pursuit of critical thinking and higher order thinking skills. Lessons begin with what children already know, frequently return to initial understandings and questions raised at the beginning, and end by returning to the original questions.
The thematic unit is based on a theme that incorporates topics and facts, organized around a variety of learning activities. Students may have considerable freedom to choose the experiences they want, although the teacher may require certain activities. A thematic unit can be about any topic, such as space, ants, the farm, bats, and a medieval fair. A typical thematic unit is "integrated" or combines and intersects various disciplines.
For example, a thematic unit on the Inca civilization or Ancient Egypt might be constructed to present content that would be ordinarily separated into categories such as social studies, math, reading, writing, research skills, geography, religious beliefs, family life, and so forth. The goal of the unit would be to understand the culture in terms of its social structures, its science, art, farming, and to make comparisons and contrasts between the lives of students and the ancient culture. Implicit in the theme are questions such as: What is culture? How are our cultures alike? How are our cultures different? Is there a "culture" of our class? A major part of study in the thematic unit involves research and writing, including field trips. Use of the Internet, encyclopedias, atlases and many books is common. Various literary sources are employed, including assigned and voluntary reading. Various forms of organization are used: individual study, group or team work, cooperative learning, peer tutoring, and so forth. Personal research about one's family tree and history might be involved, including interviews of older family members and friends. Students might also create various clay objects, artwork and music to imitate the culture or express some connection or similarity across cultures.
Dewey (1938) said, "there is an intimate and necessary relation between the processes of actual experience and education." Bruner (1962) said, "Insofar as possible, a method of instruction should have the objective of leading the child to discover for himself." (Bruner, 1962). However, both Dewey and Bruner may be interpreted to mean that mental constructions derive from experience. The use of discovery learning based on these principles must take care to avoid deviation from the original meanings of these writers several decades in the past. Bruner (1962) also said, "Emphasis on discovery in learning has precisely the effect on the learner of leading him to be a constructivist, to organize what he is encountering in a manner not only designed to discover regularity and relatedness, but also to avoid the kind of information drift that fails to keep account of the uses to which information might have to be put." Beyond this, however, is the always thorny problem of defining and implementing instruction based on these concepts and, particularly, how much teacher guidance is employed.
At the heart of this is interpretation of what is meant by construction in the process of discovery. The main point of contention between constructivists and instructivists is about the value of the learner acquiring information from an expository lesson or creating knowledge from first-hand experience. The problem is how to frame a problem in a meaningful way that both relates to the student's prior experience and in a form that is recognizable as a problem the student can solve. The more familiar the student is with the nature of the problem and the context, the more likely there will be a solution. This relates to understanding and also to transfer of learning. There is considerable evidence that success in attention to some dimension in one kind of problem increases the tendency to attend to the same dimension in similar contexts (Shepp & Schrier, 1971). Spitz (1963) reported deficient memory is neither an attention deficit nor a memory disorder, but a problem in identifying important cues or using meaningful labels in the initial phase of learning. Presented with problems, albeit simple perceptual tasks, retarded subjects in an institution were able to perform as well as college students if they knew the relevant cues in the problems. Left to their own devices to find the relevant cues, they struggled long and often without much success. Giving students totally unfamiliar complex problems or giving them no framing at all is frustrating. Solution of a problem within a familiar context will more likely result in transfer to similar situations because of an ongoing theme held by the learner.
Most graduate students can recognize this problem in a course like statistics. Until there is some experience with the meanings behind such terms as standard deviation or leptokurtic, very little progress is made beyond memorizing the terms. Even students with some experience and understanding encounter problems with subtle shifts in terminology. For example, earlier versions of SPSS software referred to ANOVA in ways similar to most textbooks but later versions used the term General Linear Models in place of ANOVA. This simple change created an amazing amount of confusion and difficulty in using the software. Once the students had the problem reframed for them (ANOVA=General Linear Models), the confusion abated. The professors could have left the students to their own devices, directed them to the new manuals, but it was simpler and easier to just tell them.
Thematic Learning
The theme is a all-encompassing and the spontaneous formation of a whole experience in learners as a first step toward introducing them to a domain. In part, it is a way of framing the learning context.
Simplifying the task of learning by directly duplicating or simulating an authentic real-world context is a common educational tool. The piecemeal approach assumes a long period of part teaching for an unfamiliar domain. In fact, "there is a sense in which learning stops (is complete) with the emergence of the first whole experience. Thus, in the final phase of learning, the emphasis is on performance rather than learning, "because any change in performance [i.e., learning] is most likely the result of different task requirements rather than changes in one's cognitive structures or potential for performing in a particular manner" (Shuell, 1990, p. 543).
The idea that the whole is a prerequisite for subsequent learning is the basis for lesson plans, and it has caused many since Plato to hypothesize existence of innate knowledge structures. What is necessary is the convergence of essential diverse sources simultaneously that form a whole. At an early stage, knowledge may be fragmentary and superficial but will still be connected by a coherent theme, rather than existing merely as a list of facts.
Either because of a lack of sufficient internal themes due to inexperience, or because of a lack of interest, performance may vary greatly from one learner to the next. Therefore, in many classroom tasks students may only attempt to remember relatively meaningless words and symbols. If the tasks are related to their experience and, perhaps also in an interesting or novel way, they may also memorize them but be more likely to construct knowledge dynamically.
Teaching is based on building up many part experiences over a long period of time so that ultimately the string of many isolated parts will represent some kind of whole experiences in the new domain. The ultimate goal is to establish a separate knowledge base that lies, in most cases, many years in the future. In reading, for instance, the child must first learn to recognize individual sound-symbol associations, discriminate sounds, discriminate symbols, and so forth before combining letters into words, words into paragraphs, and finally deriving meaning from a passage. Similarly, a long period of practice with words is a prerequisite for reading sentences, and so on. As a result, a long time must pass before the learner can have a whole-experience of reading, one that involves using print for the same reasons that mature readers use it. Perhaps many students have many such part experiences with fragments, work sheets, exercises, but very few whole experiences in reading.
Biology and evolution have prepared the brain to function in whole experiences. If the mind learns best during whole-experiences (or during part-experiences that occur in the context of whole experiences), this is learning is by nature multisource (Iran-Nejad et al. 1990). In other words, whole-experience functioning, in which all the required sources contribute simultaneously, is necessary for all learning except, perhaps, rote memorization. Part experiences unfold naturally as part of the context of whole experiences. This idea is similar in general philosophy to Piaget's notion of equilibration and to the notion of cognitive consistency in social psychology (see Iran-Nejad, Clore, & Vondruska, 1984). Unlike abstractions and piecemeal instruction, a whole-theme promotes productive thinking where knowledge is formed in part from the environment and the learner's interactions with the environment.
In the literature about science and mathematics instruction, where there is discussion of the concepts of learners, it is presumed that "novices" have immature, incomplete, naïve theories about a domain. The goal is to correct the learner to develop a correct or near-expert model. This is particularly used in direct instruction, where the learner it told a response is incorrect and what should be used to replace it, the mode in programmed learning. In one instance the learner has a theory that is altered by replacement, in the other the theory is altered by reorganization. The emphasis should not be on the way the expert sees the domain, rather it should be on the learner's experiences. The environment where learners are provided experiences to use the concepts they have developed will lead to reorganization. This can be real world, the classroom, or through multimedia.
Authentic tasks are best because of the underlying principles. While it may seem logical to give students "real world" experiences to prepare for the real world, there are probably many examples that could be cited to show this is not always true. Ultimately, however, instruction is not necessarily concerned with real world but for reorganization of learning. Emphasis on authenticity is for the purpose of making learning new content meaningful to the learner, for understanding landmarks and relationships that aid in conquering the new domain. This is the use of transfer from a meaningful, existing context for application in an unknown domain. Such transfer usually relies upon devices such as metaphor or analogy. As indicated before, list-like learning may be useful for some, but it limits the ability to achieve reorganization due to the inordinate demand on executive control. Capturing interest by means of suspense or motivation are more likely with thematic approaches than by means of a list of behavioral objectives or cognitive organizers. A simple story can structure a theme.
For most of history the traditions of the culture were passed down orally. Only recently, relatively speaking, has written language formally displaced oral traditions, and specialized, technical writing has displaced story telling. Ceremony, rituals, taboos, and stories were how people learned about their past and they were powerful methods. Each method had a thematic structure. Except for movies and some television programs, and children whose parents read to them, modern society has abandoned story telling. Some elementary teachers tell or read stories to children, but this practice drops off quickly around the 3rd or 4th grade, after which virtually all information in subject or content areas is taken from textbooks. Textbooks ordinarily do not tell stories. In the figure below is a contrast of two different approaches to the introduction of the same content.