Issues in Instructional Technology

I would like to focus primarily on Open Education, partly inspired by the presentation given in IP&T 564 on Monday, partly inspired by my own desires to make a difference. I see that the idea of open education definitely has the potential to benefit millions of people all over the world.

However, it has a number of issues that need to be addressed:

• Copyright issues - if courses are to be made available to the entire general public, we must come to grips with copyright issues. Who owns the copyright for curriculum used in these open courses? What license should these curriculum be licensed under? What types of rights does it give to the people who access these courses? Can the materials be resued? For commercial purposes?
• Accreditation issues - One major issue here is that by taking an open education course, you may have learned something that will help you do a particular job better. Can you cite your use of open courseware as evidence that you are "qualified" for a particular task? Who says you are qualified? Do you receive a certificate of completion? Can you receive college credit? If so, does this mean the end of tuition-based colleges as we know them?
  
• Sustainability issues - How can we sustain open courseware? It costs money, no doubt about it. How can we develop a system that is sustainable, as far as financial and human resources are concerned?
  

Differences between IT and LS

"Instructional technology" and the "learning sciences". At first, I thought these two had a lot in common--and they do. But reading the article by Barab allowed me to see some interesting distinctions.

In an article entitled Using Design to Advance Learning Theory, or Using Learning Theory to Advance Design, Barab (2004) gives a personal account of several of his own experiences in the two fields of instructional technology and the learning sciences. Barab informs us that he was originally trained as an "educational psychologist"--or using his own words located elsewhere--a "learning scientist," and that he prided himself on using methods that were purely descriptive and naturalistic.

He tells of an experience in which he had to work with some Instructional Technology students to complete a project for the NSF. In this project, they needed to create a collaborative, online environment. To do this, they used a more rigid design process, something that he was not at all used to doing. He says that the project turned out well because of the influence of the IT students and their design process.

However, he tells of another experience (also an online, collaborative environment) in which the design of their project was not nearly so structured, nor did it follow a particularly well-articulated process. He also says that this project turned out very well, despite their not utilizing a well established design process.

In the end, Barab says that he was able to gain a lot of insight from both the Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences camps, but that he ultimately identifies himself more with the Learning Sciences.

According to Barab, the following are some of the key differences between the learning sciences and instructional technology:

Learning Sciences

• Attempting to drive the generation of theory about learning by observing learning environments in context
• Tend to be more descriptivist in nature
• Have a very large collaborative discipline, involving researchers from many different fields, including psychology, cognitive science, social science, computer science, etc.
  

Instructional Technology

• Concerned more with the practical applications of theory
• Tend to be more prescriptivist in nature
• Tend to keep to themselves in their own field, often not keeping abreast of research outside the immediate boundaries of their field.
  
• Sometimes feel frustrated that the learning sciences are pumping out all sorts of theories but are unable to give concrete examples of how to apply these new theories

From his own words, it sounds almost like Barab is accusing the IT community of being slightly closed-minded, but his final judgment on the issue is that both fields have valuable insights to offer, and each field can feed new data and ideas into the research being done in the other field.

Readings - 10/13/08

Bransford

1. What is the difference between implicit, informal, and formal learning?

   Quoting Reber (1993), Bransford defines implicit learning as "the rapid, effortless, and untutored detection of patters of covariation among events." In other words, implicit learning is that learning that happens on an unconscious basis. It is is acquired non-verbally and is generally difficult to express verbally, as it is acquired unintentionally on a very basic neurological level.
   

   Informal learning differs from implicit learning in that it is generally intentional. However, it differs from formal learning in that it does not take place ina formal instructional setting (such as a school, community center, or an instructional moment with a parent.) Informal learning can take place in many settings, including peer-to-peer communications and play environments.
   

   Formal learning is another type of intentional learning, but in contrast to informal learning, formal learning takes place in environments that one would generally consider a "formal" learning environment, such as a classroom.
   

2. What is "adaptive expertise"?

   Adaptive is that type of expertise which can readily be applied to new situations. It is grounded in the concept of creativity, allowing the expert to invent new applications of his/her knowledge to solve problems in unfamiliar situations.

   In contrast, routine expertise differs from adaptive expertise in terms of efficiency. The creativity associated with adaptive expertise does not always lend itself well to immediately finding the best or most efficient solution to a problem. Routine expertise encompasses that expertise which allows an expert to perform a task in a familiar context with speed and precision, in the most efficient way possible, but this type of expertise generally does not transfer well to new contexts.
   

3. Can you think of examples of routine expertise vs adaptive expertise in your own life context?

   There is one activity in which I participate almost every day, and I believe it has aspects native to both routine expertise and adaptive expertise. To be gainfully employed as a computer programmer, I have had to become very efficient at programming a number of different code structures that are common to many different software applications. It is to the point that when I need to program these structures, it happens quickly and easily, without too much problem-solving thought occurring during the process. Because I have coded these structures so many different times, I have learned many "best-coding practices and how to implement these structures with great efficiency, in terms of memory usage and cpu resource consumption.

   However, my expertise is also a form of adaptive expertise, because I am able to wrap my mind around the requirements of a new project in a way that allows me to reuse ideas learned from past projects. I am able to quickly see how these routine code structures can be implemented in the new project to solve new problems.

1. What are the foundational ideas that the learning sciences are built upon?

   For much of the 20th century, the educational world revolved around a philosophy of education known as nstructionism. In summary, this philosophy asserted that "knowledge" was a mental collection of facts and procedures, and that the role of education was to transfer these facts and procedures into the minds of children. This transfer of "Knowledge" was generally attempted through oral means by teachers who were presumed to know all of the facts and procedures and were therefore able to teach them to children.
   

   The assumptions upon which this philosophy is grounded were never really tested for validity before they became the basis for many of our public schools today. As the world became more technologically complex and economically competitive, this philosophy became less and less capable of effectively educating our children.

   Beginning in the 1970s, a number of researchers began to set their minds to the issue of establishing a science of learning. Because these researchers came from all different types of backgrounds (psychology, computer science, philosophy, sociology, and many others), the science they came to establish is known as the "learning sciences," due to the interdisciplinary nature of this new field.

   The findings of researchers in the learning sciences have given us new ways to view education, and this resulting educational philosophy is markedly different from the earlier days of instructionism. This new philosophy is based on completely new foundational principles, such as:

   • A deeper, conceptual understanding of a topic, which one is able to transfer to extra-scholastic settings, will much more effectively prepare a student for the real world than will the shallow, fact-based understanding generally afforded by instructionism.
   • A focus on learning, in addition to a focus on teaching, will ultimately yield better educational results than will an approach that focuses solely on the efficacy of the instructor.
   • Learning environments that provide an authentic context for a particular topic are educationally more effective than an environment in which no authentica context is attempted.
   • As no child comes into a classroom with an intellectual "blank slate," it is essential to understand the prior knowledge and learning experiences of a child if one is to effectively teach that child.
   • Articulation and self-reflection is extremely beneficial to the learning process, whether in the form of conversation with peers, written reports, or other artifacts.
     


2. What does Sawyer mean when he uses the term "design science"? How is this different from non-design science?