CHAPTER 2: TECHNOLOGIES FOR LEARNING

What are technologies for learning?    

The concept an operating system (windows, for example) might be a helpful analogy. An operating system consist of a package of rule and procedures that provides a standardize, consistent pattern for using the computer. Once this template is installed, the user doen’t. In a similar way, technologies for learning are packages of tested and proven procedures, ready to be “loaded” with some specific content and to lead learners through a particular kind of learning experience.

            Technologies for learning combat boredom by providing a change of pace from lecture and seatwork and by adding motivational featires that excite learner interest. They also provide a means for individualizing instruction to a greater degree. Their creators were guided by different theoritical prespectives, so they have different rationales for doing so. All the technologies discussed here emphasize active and continous practice of relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes, and all as part of the total system, provide for rapid, effective feedback. Many of them are driven by the search for ways to build intepersonal feedback into all instruction.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

            Cooperative learning involves small heterogeneous groups of student working together to learn colaboration and social skills. Group members are interdependen-that is, each is dependent on the others for achieveing their goal. Learning involves active participation by all students. These should be practiced in a realistic, often simulated context while receiving feedback from peers, the teacher or computer.

            Cooperative learning has gained momentum in both formal and informal education from two converging forces: first the practical realization that life outside the classroom requires more and more collaborative activity, from the use of teams in the workplace to everyday social life, and second, a growing awareness of the value of social interaction in making meaningful.

Advantages

Ø  Active learning. Cooperative learning “requires” students to actively interact with others.

Ø Social skill. Students learn to interact with other developing their interpersonal, communication, leadership, compromise, and collaboration skills.

Ø  Interdependence. Positive interdependence and accountability are developed as students interact to reach a common goal.

Ø  Individual accountability. When a group’s success depends on the input of each individual in it, individuals learn to be accountable for their actions.

Limitation

Ø  Student compability. It is sometimes difficult to form groups of students who will work together well. The teacher must know her students well to form groups that will function effectively.

Ø  Student dependency. You may create dependency and defeat the purpose of cooperative learning. The challange is to devise management systems that require learner to truly collaborative.

Ø  Time consuming. It requires more time to cover the same amount of content than do some other methods.

Ø  Logistical obstacles. The teacher must arrange a lot of information, student responsibilities, and assesment activities.

Integration

Ø  Students can learn cooperatively not only by being taught with materials but also by prodecing materials themselves. Ex/ produce a videotape or powerpoint presentation related to historical content being studied.

Ø  The notion of students wrorking together in small groups is not new, but ensuring that their efforts are truly collaborative has recently become a point of emphasis. Ex/ make a project tim to prepare a report on Peru.

Learning Together Model

Johnson and Johnson’s (1993) interdependent learning group , known as the Learning Together Model, requires four basic elements :

1. Positive interdependence. Student must recognize that all the members of the group are dependent on each other to reach success. The teacher creates positive goal intedependence by requiring teammates to agree on objectives, strucures role intedependence by assigning each student a role.
2. Face to face helping interaction. The learner teach each other and discuss any confusion or misconception.
3. Individual accontability. It’s to randomly select one student’s test to represent the whole group to reinforce individual accountability.
4. Teaching interpersonal and small groups skill. They must be taught the skills of communication, leadership, and conflict management and must learn to monitor the processes in their group, making connections if there are shortcomings.

Team-Assisted Individualization (TAI)

            Robert Slavin (1985) and his colleagues have developed a different format for cooperative learning, Team-Assisted Individualization (TAI), which they develped for mathematics instruction in grades three to six.  TAI has achieved impressive result in field test. Not only do TAI students score higher on computation and aplication skills, they also show better social relation wth disabilities and with students of another ethnic and cultural origin. Specifically intended to avoid some of the problems encountered with individualized programmed instructions.

TAI follows this pattern:

1. Teaching groups. The Teacher gives short lessons to small homogenous group –learner who are at about the same point in the curriculum. It prepare students for major concepts in upcoming units.
2. Team formation. Every eight weeks, student are asssigned to four member teams that are as heterogenous as possible in terms of acheivement levels, gender, and ethnic bacground.
3. Self-instructional materials. Student work independently using self-instructional materials, which include step by step procedures for solving problems, a set of problems, self-test items, and a summative test.
4. Team study. Student work in pairs within their assigned team, working on problems and having their partner check their solutions.
5. Team scores and team recognition. Team scores are computed at the end of each week; certificates are given to those who greatly exceed the criterion level.

Computer-Based Cooperative Learning

Computer assistance can alleviate some of the logistical obstacles to using cooperative learning methods, particulary the task of managing information, allocationg different individual responsibilities, presenting and monitoring instructional material, analyzing learner responses, administering tests, scoring and providing remediation for those tests.

            Group oriented programs of this sprt can also deal with the logistical problems of assisting a number of groups simultaneously, as is necessary in the single computer classroom. The software manages a rotation of the teams so that there is the little tome lost waiting in line.

Games

            A game is an activity in which participants follow prescribed rules that differ from those of real life as they strive to attain a challenging goal.  To be challenging, goals should have a probability of achievement of approximately 50 percent. A goal that is always or never attained presents no real challenge; the outcome is too predictable. People exhibit the most interest and motivation when the challenge is in the intermediate range.

Advantages:

1. Attractive. It provide attractive frameworks for learning activities because they are fun. Children and adults alike tend to react positively to an invitation to play..
2. Novel. As a departure from normal classroom routine, games arouse interest because of their novelty.
3. Atmosphere. It relaxed atmosphere fostered by games can be especially helpful for those who avoid other types of structured learning activities.
4. Time on task. It can keep learners interested in repetitious tasks, such as memorizing multiplication tables.

Limitations:

1. Competition. Competitive activities can be counter-productive for students who are less interested in competing or who are weak in the content or skill being practiced.
2. Distraction. Student can get caught up in the excitement of play and fail to focus on the real objectives.
3. Poor design. A fatal shortcoming of poorly designed games is that players spend a large portion of their time waiting for their turn, throwing dice,moving markers, around a board, and performing similar trivial actions.

Integration:

1. Attainment of cognitive objectives, particularly those involving recognition, dicrimination, or memorization.
2. Adding motivation to topics that ordinarily attract little student interst.
3. Small group instructio, providing structured activities that student or trainees can conduct by themselves without close instructor supervision.
4. Basic skills such as sequence, sense of directions, visual perceptions, number concept, and following rules which can be developed by means of card games.
5. Vocabulary building. Various commercial games have been used succesfully by teachers to expand spelling and vocabulary skills.

Adapting The Content Of Instructional Games

            Familiar games such as tic-tac-toe, rummy, constration, and Jeopardy, which were intended for recreation rather than instructio, can serve as potential frameworks for your own instructional content. Some televion game shows have been modeled after such parlor games; they can suggest additional frameworks. Here are some sample adaptions :

1. Safety tic-tac-toe. Use a three by three grid, each row represents a place where safety rules pertain to home, school and street. Team take turns selecting and trying to answer safety related question, attempting to fill in three squares in a row.
2. Spelling rummy. Using alphabet cards instead of regular playing cards, players attempt to spell short words following the general rules of rummy.
3. Reading concentration. This game using about a dozen matched picture-word pairs of flashcards. Cards are placed face down, on each turn the player turns over two card, seeking to match a pair.
4. Word bingo. Each player’s card has a five by five grid with a vocabulary word in each square. The reader randomly select words, players thn seek the words on their boards, and if they are found, the square is marked.

SIMULATIONS

            A simulations is an abstraction or simplication of some real-life situation or process. Participant usually play a role that involves them in interactions with other people or with elements of the simulated environment.

            Stimulations are by design active. They are nit a “spectator sport”. Stimulations provide realistic practice with feedback in a realistic context. Most simulations include social interaction. One type of simulation, role play, provides relatively open-ended social interaction between and among individuals. However, there are some simulations, such as flight simulators, in which there is no social interaction. Team simulation allow students to use their individual differences. Some computer-based simulations adjus their difficulty level based on the ability of the “player”.

Simulation and Problem-Based Learning.

            One particular value of simulation is that it implements the problem-based learning  method as directly and clearly as possible. In problem-based learning , the learner is led toward understanding principles through grappling with a problem situation. Most simulation attempt to immerse participants in a problem.

            The great advantage of this sort of firsthand immersion in a topic is that students are more likely to be able to a play to real life what they have practiced in simulated circumstances. This raises the issue of the degree of realism captured by a simulation. A common defect in poorly designed simulations is an overemphasis on chance factor deteermining outcomes. Much of he reality is spoiled if chance-element cards cause players to gain or lose great quantities of points or other resources regadless of their strategic decisions. An overemphasis on chance or overly simplied representation of real relationships might end up teaching lessons quite contrary to those indeed.

Simulators

            Competencies in the motor skill domain require practice under conditions of high feedback, which gives learners the feel of the action. Although it might be ideal to practice such skill under real-life conditions,. Sample simulators are in widespread use in applications such as training workers in a range of manual skills from CPR to welding. One famliar example of a simulator is the flight trainer, a mock-up of the interior of the cockpit complete and control gauges. The device employed to represent a physical system in a scaled-down form.

Advantages:

1. Realistic. They allow practice of real world skills under conditions similar to those in real life.
2. Safe. Learners can practice risky activities, ex/ cardiopulmonary resusciation without risking injury to themselves or to others.
3. Simplified. It intended to capture the essential features of a situation without dwelling on details that might be distracting or too complex for the learner’s current level of understanding.

Limitations:

1. Time consuming.  it are often used with problem based learning methods, allowing learners to immerse themselves in a problematic situation and to experiment with different approaches.
2. Oversimplications. Learner should take place in fully realistic situations, with all the complexity of real life. They would be concerned that a stimulation might give students a false understanding of tje real life situation.

Integration:

1. Training in motor skills, inscluding athletic and mechanical skills, and complex skills that might  otherwise be too hazardous or expensive in real life settings.
2. Instruction in social istruction and human relation, where displaying empahty and coping the reactions of other people are major goals.
3. Development of decision making skills ex/ microteaching in teacher education, mock court in law school, management simulations in bussiness administration.

Role Plays

            Role play refers to a type of stimulation in which the dominant feature is relatively open-ended interaction among people. In essence, a role play asks someone to imagine that she is another person or is in a particular situation; the person then behaves as the other person would or in the way rge situation seems to demand. The purpose in many cases is to allow the person’s own traits to emerge so that they can be discussed and possibly modified.

STIMULATION GAMES

A simulation game combines the attributes of a simulation with the attributes of a game. Participation in simulation games, players can see the whole process and its dynamic interrelationships in action.

Integration: a simulation games require both the repetitive skill practice associated with games and the reality context associated with simulations. The teacher frequently use it to provide an overview of a large, dynamic process.

LEARNING CENTERS

            A self contained environment designed to promote individual or small group learning around a specific tasks. It may be as simple as a table and some chairs around which student discuss, or it may be as sophisticated as several networked computers used by a group for collaborative research and problem solving. Learning centers should encourage active participantion rather than just sitting and reading a book. Most learning centers provide student practice with feedback through individualized activities. Learning centers tend not to provide realistic contexts and not to provide social interaction. They tend to be designed for use by individuals, however, they can be designed for pairs or triads.

Advantages:

1. Self-pacing. Centers encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning and allow them to learn at their own pace, thus minimizing the possibility of failure and maximizing the likelihood of success.
2. Active learning. It provide for student participation in the learning experience, student responses, immediate feedback to student response.
3. Teacher role. It allow the teacher to play more of a coaching role, moving around the classroom and providing individual help to students when they need it.

Limitations:

1. Cost. A great deal of time must be spent in planning and setting up center around in collecting and arranging for center materials.
2. Management. Teacher who manage it must be very good at classroom organization and management.
3. Student responsibility. Independent student will be successful only insofar as students are able and willing to accept resposibility  for their own learning.
4. Student isolation. It need not be limited to individual student use; small groups can be assigned to work together. If student do work alone, you must make other provitions to provide for the social dimension of learning.

Integration:

1. Skill centers. It can provide students with an opportunity to do additional practice, typically to reinforce  a lesson previously taught through other media or methods.
2. Interest centers. It can stimulate new intersest and encourage creativity.
3. Remedial centers. It can help students who need additional assistance with a particular concept or skill.
4. Enrichment centers. It can provide stimulating additional learning experiences for students who have completed other classroon activities.

PROGRAMMED INSTRUCTION

Programmed instruction is a method of presenting new subject matters to students in a graded sequence of controlled steps. Students work through the programmed material by themselves at their own speed and after each step test their comprehension by answering an examination question or filling in a diagram. They are then immediately shown the correct answer or given additional information. Computers and other types of teaching machines are often used to present the material, although books may also be used.

Advantages

1.     Self-pacing. Progammed instruction allows individuals to learn at their own pace at a time and place of their choice.

2.  Practice and feedback. It requires learner to participate actively in their learnng and provides immediate feedback for each practice attempt.

3.   Reliable. This technology provides a reliable form of learning, in that the instructional routine is embodied in print so that it can be mass produced an experienced by many people in exactlly the same form.

4. Effective. Hundreds of research studies compare programmed instruction with conventional instruction. Summaries of these studies indicate slight superiority for programmed instruction.

Limitation

1.   Program design. As with many other media and technologies, the quality of the software varies greatly. Some programmed materials are poorly designed and have little value.

2.     Tedious. The repetition of the same cycle and plowing through an endless series of small steps taxes rge attention spamn and patience of many students. For highly motivated learners with the required reading skills and self-discipline, programmed instruction can give them a chance to go off on their own and progress as far and as fast as they like. For other it can be tedious.

3.     Lack of social interaction. Most programmed materials are meant to be used by one individul at time. Long periods of independet study are inappropriate or younger children. Even older students and adults prefer more special interaction in their learning. Some kinds of skills and understanding are enchanced by the socia exchange of group-based intsructiion. Affective and interpersonal skills are unlikely candidates for programmed intruction.

Integration

Programmed instuction is particullary useful as an enrichment activity. It can help provide higly motivated student with additional lerning experiences that the teacher might ordinaraly be unable to provide because of classroom time pressure.

PROGRAMMED TUTORING

Programmed tutoring is a one to one method of instruction in which the tutor’s responses are programmed in advance in the form of carefully structured printed instruction. in typical program the tutor and student go through the lesson material together.

If the learner responds correctly, she is reinforced and goes on to a new item. If the response is incorrect, a series of increasingly clealer prompts or hints is given. For example, in teaching a begonning reader to follow writen instructions, the students’s book might say, “point to your teacher when first shown the intruction, the tutor might follow this sequence of proms:

1.     “read it again” (wait for response)

2.     “what does it say”

3.     “what does it tell you do?”

4.     Do what it tells you to do”

Advantages

1.  Self pacing. Programmed tutoring shares with programmed instruction the characteristic of individualized pacing.

2.     Practice and feedback. Programmed tutoring requires learner participation. The use of live tutor as a mediator adds immensely to the flexibitity of the feedback system, and it adds another major advantage over printed self-instructional material by employing social reinforces in the form of praise (“that’s great. Oh good answer”)

3.  Reliable. Programmed tutoring provides reliable instruction in that the written instructions for the tutor.

4.   Effective. The effectiveness of programmed formats. Has been well established through the evaluation studies carried out by its originator.

Limitation

1.     Labor intensive. Programmed tutoring depends on the availability of volunteer tutors. In schools, tutoring is usually done by peers, older students, or parents.

2.     Development. The success of programmed tutoring depends on the design of the tutoring guides, their development requires an investment of time and expertise.

Integration

Reading and mathematics have been by far the most popular subjects for tutoring. Being basic skills and higly structured by nature, these subjects lend themselves well to this approach. Remidial instruction is the typical aplication of tutoring program.

PROGRAMMED TEACHING

            Programmed teaching, also known as direct intruction, is an attempt to apply the principles of programmed intruction in large-group setting. In this approach, a whole class is broken into smaller groups of 5 to 10 students. These smaller groups are led through a lesson by a teacher, professional, or student peer following a highly prespective lesson plan. The critical features of these lesson include unison responding by learners to prompts (or cues) given by the instructor, rapid pacing and procedures for reinforcment or correction.

PERSONALIZED SYSTEM OF INSTRUCTION

            Personalized System of Intruction (PSI) differs from the whole-class aplication of mastery learning in that adheres to the notion of using individual self-study as the main form for learning activity. In many PSI courses there are no whole –class learning activities at all; in some cases, hoewever there are used for course orientation, guest speakers, and review sessions.

Advantages

1.     Self-facing. PSI allows students to progress at their own rate and to take full resposnsibility for detemining when, where, and how they study. And although this is not often done because of constraints of cost and convenience, students with differing learning sytles and interests could be given study materials best suited to their needs.

2.     Mastery. The main clain of PSI is that it prevents the “accumulation of ignorance” students are not allowed to go on to advanced units until they show the most frequent causes of failure in conventional intruction is that students plunge ahead into new material without completely grasping prerequistie knowledge or skills.

3.     Effective. The effectiveness of PSI has been documented in a large number of studies comparing PSI and conventional versions of courses.

Integration

In secondary education it has been most successful in mathematics, engineering and psychology and slightly less successful in the life sciences and social sciences.