Daniel Schwartz & John Bransford wrote an article in 1998 called A Time for Telling. In this article they "propose that analyzing contrasting cases can help learners generate the differentiated knowledge structures that enable them to understand a text deeply. Noticing the distinctions between contrasting cases creates a 'time for telling'; learners are prepared to be told the significance of the distinctions they have discovered."[1]
Schwartz went on with others to more fully develop this instructional design model into having groups of learners looking at a series of "tightly focused contrasting cases"; after each case the learners would create a model to explain the concept that was being taught. The different cases emphasized different aspects of a concept, forcing learners to adjust their models. As a class, they would compare models, and then receive a lecture about the concept they had just learned. Because they grappled with the material & concept on their own first, they were able to more deeply integrate the lecture with what they had just learned. This works well with novel concepts and knowledge domains.
In my first semester in graduate school we had to design instruction and we used a variation on the above model. We were teaching people how to use the subway system in New York City. The course consisted of a classroom portion and a experiential or video portion. In the classroom portion we had learners investigate and navigate "cases" of increasing complexity (using one subway line only, using the express, using multiple lines) in order to have them build their own mental model of the subway system. The experiential or video portion was designed to provide a mini-lecture on using on using the system, and to familiarize people with the affective part of riding the subway (noise, signage, using the machines, etc.) We actually tested out our design on a few people with pretty good results: the 2-3 actual novices we got felt less intimidated in using the system. They actually used the express first time out! (Note: it was challenging to find "novice" subway riders in NYC.)
Learning about the concept of contrasting cases, the thinking and research behind it, put a whole new perspective on instructional design. Up until then, I was familiar only with the ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implment & Evaluate) model, and then only tangentially so. Schwartz & Bransford's research was easier to implement and more effective than the ADDIE model. The ADDIE model to me is too abstract. It is not concrete enough. It's not USEFUL enough. One should call it the ADDIE model because you progressively run out of energy, time and resources as you try to go through all the steps.
One of the cores of effective instruction is effective methods. Some people might characterize the research of Schwartz & Bransford as a method, but I think it is much more than that. It is about how we build knowledge by seeing differences, and how we create the courage to use that knowledge. It increases the probability of success -- isn't that we try to do when we design instruction? Prescribe how to design so we can increase the probability of success of our learners? (that's from Reigeluth, What is ID?)
Schwartz and Bransford's instructional design model invigorated me -- it gave me hope that I too, could design.
[1] Schwartz, Daniel L. and Bransford, John D. (1998) A Time for Telling. Cognition and Instruction. Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 475-522.
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2 comments:
This is really fascinating, Rani, as we're reading about how people build mental models as they search for information -- who or where do they go to, how do they adjust their search parameters based on what they learn, etc. I'd love to know what evolutionary psychology has to say about this model-building process. On the savannah, I imagine the hunter-gatherers had pretty stable models with the occasional interrupt of "SABERTOOTH TIGER!. I wonder if one of the things that makes this world so stressful is that each entity we deal with -- law, house renovation, getting a degree -- requires that we build a model for it, with incomplete information, and loading and unloading these models takes more psychic energy than we like to admit.
Mike,
Not sure what evolutionary psychologists have to say about mental models or schemas. To me what is intriguing is the the concept of event schemas, or scripts (Schank). The script for getting the degree wen something like this - (go to NYC, do courses, get enlightened, create project, write paper -- all in 2 years). My script for the degree didn't quite pan out in that way. Did it take energy to let go of that? Absolutely. Do people have scripts when searching for information? Not sure - perhaps it is called the Google script.
Your comment about the sabertooth tiger did bring up a connection to Gibson. He studied visual perception and he is the guy that came up with the Theory of Affordances (popularized by Donald Norman). It says that people know the use of something when they perceive it (chair is for sitting). How are our mental models shaped by affordances? About our perception of an object and what we expect it do?
Just some thoughts. Thanks for provocative comments.
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