Well, the initial feedback from draft 1 arrived in my inbox yesterday. She "really liked" the paper (whew!), but can't open the flash files I sent. I rushed to meet a deadline and didn't have time to convert to an earlier more compatible format. Then she ended up being out for a week :-} There were of course, some very valid questions on sections of my argument/thesis, and other minor edits. Overall - a day's or so of work.
What I'm really curious about is how she will react the actual 'games' once she's able to play them. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, I keep thinking she'll take it all back and say "it's not good enough."
I'm having a hard time believing that this paper/project is worthy because it really didn't turn out like I wanted or expected. But I know that I had to do it the way I did it to get it out of my system. This particular design is something that I had to try. And now I have a better understanding of the limitations of content and form. I have a better understanding of why I struggled with this so. Even though intellectually I thought I understood what makes a better instructional design, the old teacher-centric models on how it ought to be done keep seeping back in. Conditioning and retraining of the mind are not so easily done. Not so easy to change the way you think; not so easy to change your metaphors.
Showing posts with label instructional design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label instructional design. Show all posts
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Sunday, October 19, 2008
A Time for Telling: ID with Contrasting Cases
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.
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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