Instruction Matters

Personal Development Plan

2011-10-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

(this is a required Walden University post. From the assignment: "Write your own personal development plan designed for you specifically and post it on your blog. Include the following components in your plan:

Four types of development (from this week’s Learning Resources) that you will advocate for your employer to provide you and/or that you will pursue on your own (for example, continuing your professional learning outside of the workplace)
A rationale for each of your development ideas")

Looking at myself, I see a budding instructional designer with a wealth of good ideas, some experience, a lot of excitement, and a need for practice. While there are many positive things Walden's MSIDT program provides, its curriculum is short on opportunities to practice and fully integrate the different areas of professional practice that instructional design includes. Some classes even feature projects whose requirements conflict with best practices taught in other classes, which is often frustrating. This leaves me with the feeling that my primary goal in professional development post-MS involves unification and synthesis of the different lessons I've been taught over the past two years.

Formal education
It may seem strange that my first area for professional development is "formal education" given that I'm about to complete a Master's degree. However, I've watched my skills and knowledge grow very quickly through the years I've been in graduate school, and I think part of the reason is that my mind works differently when I'm actively engaged in learning new things. I believe that, in my own case, learning is a habit as much as a skill, and graduate school instills and strengthens that habit. Put simply, I believe that I am a better employee when I am working to learn things: my mind is quicker, my writing is clearer, and my ideas flow more freely.

There are many areas of instructional design practice I would like to explore more fully, including

the role of multimedia in learning
the use of mobile devices for learning and electronic performance support
how to teach facilitation skills to novices
how to crystallize ID practice into easily-communicated chunks for laypeople
fostering far transfer of training into complex, high-level environments
statistical methods for analyzing instructional effectiveness
quantifying the effect of distraction on learning
teaching and promoting metacognitive strategies in learners
instructional methods analysis with focus on low implementation cost
collaboration around teaching basic video media production to instructional designers
the interaction between good instructional design and pre-fabricated curricula such as those for No Child Left Behind
development of effective coaching and mentoring systems
development of Training For Trainers (T4T) courses
development of low-cost higher-level evaluation measures for training courses
evaluating return on investment (ROI) for attitudinal training such as suicide awareness/intervention

Evaluation of work
My coursework included substantial segments about program evaluation and project management, and the courses on performance improvement definitely played into my fixation on results. That said, the old adage that "a man who proofs his own prose has a fool for an editor" holds true for instructional design work. I will need help evaluating my design work and holding it up to the light of analysis.

If past experience holds true, I will not lack for supporters and proponents; people generally think my work is excellent. Sometimes, I even agree with them! For example, a training program I created recently won the NSU Award for Outstanding Practice by a Graduate Student from the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. I'm (justifiably?) proud of this, because it tells me that I'm moving in the right direction in my work as a designer.

But too often, I've seen people laud my work simply because it was better than what came before. Often, I've been the first person to develop training around an issue, which makes my work de facto an improvement. But for true professional growth, I need colleagues who will help me see areas where my work needs to improve, not just those where it already excels. I don't think these colleagues must be instructional designers--I just think they need to be willing to ask questions, give suggestions, and examine data with me.

Assessment/performance appraisal
This relates to the previous set of professional development goals. On the face of it, this is a pretty obvious need, but there's a deeper level that requires a bit of explanation.

I am, among other things, a professional musician. (If you're interested in Celtic music, please check out my band, Frost and Fire! We have some new music that we're releasing on our Facebook page, too!) I love performing, and I've learned something over the last few decades of music: I play best when people are listening. I put the most energy into my performance, and I create music on a level that doesn't seem to happen when I'm just playing for myself. I work hardest when there's an audience.

Do you see how this connects to a need for performance appraisal and assessment? I don't mean that I want recognition for good performance, although that's always nice. I mean that knowing I'm going to be observed changes my performance. Whenever I'm working in a context where people assess my performance, I always seem to turn it up a notch, and I think that building in opportunities for assessment is important for my long-term professional growth. Again, I'm not looking for empty compliments and fulsome praise; I'm looking for honesty. (And I hope I'll remember that when the comments aren't favorable!)

Mentoring
This is where it all comes together. I am a fairly seasoned professional in the crisis hotline business, but a relatively new one in the world of instructional design. I don't know all the tricks yet, and I don't know all the right people. My network is small. I also worry that once I graduate and lose access to Walden's reference library, it will become harder and harder for me to stay in touch with new developments in the ID field (since academic research is hard to access for people outside academia).

Who will help me find new areas to explore? Who will pick me up and dust me off when the inevitable low points hit? Who will teach me how to mentor other new instructional designers? Who will ferret out my flaws as a designer and help me to correct them, while helping me to see my talents as well? Who will make sure that I'm a stronger instructional designer ten years from now, not just a more experienced one?

I don't know the answers to these questions. I wish I did. I'm used to seeking--and finding--mentors in unusual places, but I'm worried about this: I'm the first instructional designer a lot of people have ever met, and IDs are a bit thin on the ground in northern New York. Where do I go for mentoring? I have some leads already, and I have friends who respect me but also challenge me and demand evidence... is that what the mentor role looks like in the post-graduate world? I work in a business that's too small to provide formal mentoring on instructional design--I am the expert and mentor now. So where do I look for other mentors? That is, perhaps, my biggest long-term goal.

References

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

High-Tech Training

2011-10-16T22:10:00.001-07:00

(this is a required Walden post)

Five technologies that are changing the world of learning and performance:

Smartphones. Today's smartphones are powerful, networked computing devices whose capabilities dwarf those of many computers from a few years ago. As mobile technology becomes cheaper, smaller, and more pervasive, we can expect to see a continued focus on smartphones in learning, particularly in large-setting instruction. Smartphones can be used as classroom clickers, can provide learners with instant access to resources shown in class, and allow learners to remain connected to their productivity networks while in learning environments. I spent this week at a national conference for crisis center directors, and it was amazing to see how many people were using smartphones for business purposes during and between workshops. I used mine to supervise hotline volunteers back home, to view resources related to the presentations, and to discuss the presentations with fellow participants. I think we will continue to see smartphones being integrated into more and more aspects of learning.

Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS). I had the privilege of visiting BHR (Behavioral Health Response) during this week's crisis hotline conference in St. Louis, MO. BHR operates dozens of different lines for a variety of contracts ranging from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to youth hotlines to after-hours support for patients in substance abuse programs. BHR's staff are expected to answer all calls in a professional and appropriate manner, which includes knowing which questions to ask of callers. They've built a truly impressive EPSS that ties in with their phone system and makes sure that all of their Masters-level counselors have support in working with callers. As soon as the phone rings, BHR workers see a screen displaying the required greeting and listing questions they'll need to ask. With hundreds of different protocols, it would be a practical impossibility to create this kind of service without an EPSS. As network connectivity continues to make memorized information into a less and less valued commodity, I expect EPSSes to shine: they offer appropriate support and guidance, as well as tailored information when needed. I would love to have access to BHR's EPSS for my hotline volunteers!

Interactive Voice Technology. Anyone who reads about technology probably heard this week's buzz about the new Apple iPhone 4S. Amid all the other features is a truly impressive speech recognition package called Siri. The idea is that Siri will allow iPhone users to talk to their phones in a fluid, natural language manner--and that Siri will answer back verbally. Although some of these technologies have been around a while, the addition of powerful mobile computing has made them a much more significant factor in the marketplace and learning world. There are lots of ways that Siri and similar technologies could affect learning; as an example, a student in a course about mental hygiene laws could whisper, "Siri: what is the law about involuntary hospitalization of the mentally ill in New York?" and quickly receive answers from Google.

Imaging. I teach Scottish music for part of my living, primarily on highland bagpipes. Since most of the Scottish repertoire consists of fairly short tunes, pipers tend to amass a great deal of sheet music. Recent advances in imaging technology should pay real dividends when it comes to acquiring, cataloguing, and storing sheet music. I look forward to the day when I can scan all my sheet music and search for it when I'm trying to remember how a particular tune goes. No more flipping through endless books of the wrong tunes!

Cloud Computing. Han (2010) offers a good, accessible introduction to the principles of cloud computing. If you've ever used Google Docs or Youtube, you probably have an innate sense of cloud computing's power. In brief, it uses economies of scale to shift computer power away from individually-owned clusters and into more massive collections--which are, collectively, referred to as the Cloud. The networked nature of cloud data has made it accessible from anywhere, and that has facilitated incredible collaboration between people working in separate countries. I think cloud computing will continue to affect learning as it becomes more prevalent--more and more services will move toward cloud-hosting solutions... so websites will be hosted in the cloud, photos will live there, etc. Through it all, we'll see a continuation and strengthening of the "work from anywhere" approach in cloud computing. The cloud will help a great deal in the project to eliminate physical distance as a factor involved in learning potential.

References

Han, Y. (2010). On the clouds: a new way of computing. Information Technology & Libraries, 29, 87-92.

Noe, R. A. (2010). Employee training and development (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Stolovitch, H. D., & Keeps, E. J. (2011). Telling ain’t training. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

Needs Assessment for Southwest Airlines

2011-09-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

(This is a required Walden post)

For this post, we're asked to discuss what kinds of factors might play into a needs assessment for training design at Southwest Airlines. Southwest is a budget airline carrier whose reputation for fun, customer service, and "LUV" is a watchword throughout the airline industry. I have many professional colleagues who will only fly Southwest, and I have found it intriguing to see the ways that staid, straight-laced professionals wax rhapsodic about the kooky antics of their Southwest air stewards.

We're asked to reflect on these questions:

What stakeholders would you want to make sure to get buy-in from?
What questions would you ask (and to whom would you address them) during the organizational, person, and task analysis phases?
What documents or records might you ask to see?
What techniques would you employ (see Table 3.2 on page 108 of the Noe text), and why?

Southwest is an airline. That means most of its training will likely pertain to aviation, logistics, customer service, or management. Aviation is already a heavily-regulated field, and as a licensed pilot I can say that aviation is pretty well covered from a training perspective. That brings us to logistics, customer service, and management. These are quite different domains, and they're likely to have highly different problems, different people, different techniques for managing problems, and thus different needs for training. In the absence of further guidance, it's hard to describe where to start with needs analysis.

Drawing on Stolovitch & Keeps's ideas about performance improvement, I don't hold with the belief that training is an automatic necessity--so I'm uncomfortable with the idea that Southwest needs training just because someone says so. I'd like to focus on the business needs first: what's happening now, what is the goal state, and how do those two things differ? What needs to be happening differently? That's a critical first step in needs assessment.

There are a number of stakeholders who need to buy into the training development if it's going to be a success. At a minimum, we need management support (from both lower- and upper-level management). We need to know that the project will be implemented if it is successful. Other important stakeholders include: the people to be trained; the shareholders in the company (depending on what kind of training we're talking about, and how extensive the new training is); and relevant regulators (again depending on the type of training). It would also be important to include Southwest's internal evaluation team, assuming it has one, so we can build evaluation into the training from the very beginning.

Organizational questions:

What business goals are we trying to support? (Managers)
Are all the stakeholders on board? (All stakeholders)
What gaps in performance do we see? (All stakeholders)
What other solutions have been tried for fixing these gaps? (Managers)
Do we have subject matter experts to help with developing training? (All stakeholders)
What is the goal behavior? (Managers)
What resources are available for solving this problem? (Managers)
How soon does the problem need to be fixed? (Managers)
How shall we measure our success? (All stakeholders)

Person analysis:

What are the characteristics of the trainees? (All stakeholders)
What are the gaps in performance? (All stakeholders)
How important are those gaps, relative to each other? (Managers)
What assets and skills do the prospective trainees have? (All stakeholders)
What do the trainees see as important? (Workers)
What are the motivational aspects of this situation? (Workers and managers)
What previous training have the trainees undergone? (Workers and managers)
(without knowing which people we're doing needs assessment on, it's hard to come up with more specific questions)

Task analysis:

What standards for performance exist? (Managers)
How are those standards communicated and enforced? (Managers and workers)
Are there best practices for whatever we're training people to do? (Managers)
What are workers doing now? (Managers and workers)
What should workers be doing? (Managers)
Where do mistakes occur? (Managers and workers)
Why do mistakes occur? (Managers and workers)
How much tolerance for variation is there within the task requirements? (Managers and workers)

Data sources:

(Again, this is hard because I don't know what kind of training we're being asked to develop.) For behaviors, I would probably want to observe the poor behavior with an SME at my side to explain what was happening. Once I was grounded in the situation, I would want to see the pre-existing training materials, any written standards, information about how feedback is communicated to the workers, data about how often the undesirable behaviors happen and how much they cost the company, etc. I would be interested to see how other airlines train their workers, but I doubt that Southwest would be able to provide that information.

Techniques used:

As I said, I would use some interviews, some documentation review, some observation, and some focus groups. Depending on the training needs, some of these might not be necessary, and other methods might be more cost-effective; but it's hard to know in the general case.

I have a strong personal bias in favor of doing a really good front-end analysis and needs assessment, to the point where I think it's worth spending a larger chunk of the total budget on analysis. Solving the right problem is important, and I would rather know for sure what's happening and what causes it before we go developing solutions. To be clear, I would also plan to run an iterative model that periodically re-evaluates the initial assumptions... but I think it's important to think clearly and critically at the beginning, too.

Training that Supports Learning

2011-09-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

(This is a required Walden post with an elevator speech about the value of training in a corporate environment).

Training is a tool for helping all our employees to perform their best, and it's a cost-effective way of making sure that our company is competitive today and stays that way tomorrow.

Training can be a lot of different things--people often think of it as just learning new information, but training can also help people to work better together. Aside from just giving people new knowledge, we can help them develop skills like working effectively in groups, communicating concisely and clearly, managing other workers effectively, giving and receiving appropriate feedback... the sky is the limit. If you're tired of sitting in long meetings, you might find it useful if we offered management some training on how to run meetings and keep
them short and on-task. Training might help managers to see why giving their workers adequate
time on breaks is critical for productivity, and it might help workers to feel more connected
to each other and to their work here.

Lots of people dislike training, and I think that's partly because they've never experienced
*good* training. Training, at its best, helps people. It helps them do things they care about
doing well, it teaches them how to do new things, and it opens their minds to new ideas that
matter. It's an important part of building for the future--our company's sustainability depends
on quickly training people to fill the shoes of employees who retire. Good training makes that
process much faster, which saves us money.

Anyone can "do" training, but like many other things, it improves with time and attention--and
that's why it's worth having a training department. Since we study training development, we can
build courses that are efficient, and that saves time for everyone. Our job is to make sure
every part of the company performs at a high level, which is important because it helps us all
stay competitive... and that's how *we* contribute to the company's bottom line.

Learning to exist in the world (as an instructional designer)

2011-07-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

When I enrolled in a program to get an MS in Instructional Design, a friend told me something. She was my predecessor in my current job, and she left our office to pursue her own graduate studies--in instructional design. Thanks to distance learning, I can keep my job and study at the same time. Anyway.

She told me, "Watch out--it's going to ruin training for you." What she meant was that, when you start learning to design effective instruction, you become attuned to the things that make learning work. More to the point, you start to notice when those things are conspicuously absent in training programs, textbooks, instruction manuals, menus, websites, memoranda, ... you get the idea.

There's a corollary that's probably familiar to anyone who has gotten really excited about some new thing, whether it's religion, a new baby, dieting, exercise, World of Warcraft, a new kitten, whatever: other people may not share your excitement. They may not wish to receive the benefit of your new-found knowledge, however obsessively researched it may be. They may not want it. And so there's a time-honored tradition of not pointing out all the flaws we see, so as to exist in the world without being strung up by our thumbs.

And yet we're supposed to be making the world a better place. There's stuff in our codes of ethics about using our powers for good, and it seems unreasonable to withhold useful knowledge from people who clearly need it. I imagine that doctors struggle with this all the time, seeing people socially whose health problems will soon get much worse--and choosing to remain silent. But where's the dividing line?

Now that I'm studying performance improvement in addition to instructional design, the quandary is worse. When a friend's business is in danger from (what seem to be) fairly clear performance issues, should you speak up? If you live by the creed of "first, do no harm", what do you do when it's no longer clear which choice harms people more? This is the kind of situation ethics my grandfather studied at Oxford, and I wish he were still alive to talk about it.

For myself, I mostly stay quiet. But I'm not happy with that, because I feel that I've been given this knowledge and these skills... almost in trust, I guess you could say. It doesn't seem right to hoard them. But how to share appropriately? That's a skill my textbooks don't cover, and I'm still working on learning.

If any of these questions resonate for you, how do you answer them in your own life?

Scope Creep

2011-04-07T22:46:00.000-07:00

(another Walden required blog post)

I haven't been part of too many projects that suffered from scope creep--that sin, at least, I've mostly managed to avoid--but I do recall one series of Training Weekends for my employer that drifted noticeably outside their intended scope. We do a Training Weekend at the beginning of each academic semester as part of our initial training for new crisis hotline volunteers, and it typically introduces the new recruits to a wide range of hotline-related topics ranging from listening skills through suicide intervention.

We often had outside speakers from other organizations during our Training Weekends, too: presenters from the domestic violence organization, folks talking about Alcoholics Anonymous, people talking about what it was like to grow up gay in our rural, often conservative area. Our volunteers got a real charge out of these presentations, and we found that they learned a lot from them. So, as time went on, more and more organizations found out that we were offering training and started sending us their public speakers for presentations. Since we work closely with all of these agencies, we found it hard--even impossible--to say no.

Over time, the list grew, and near the end we had this grouping at our training: Alcoholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Al-Anon, our county's mental health clinic, domestic violence, rape and sexual assault, gay support, and a student support group. Out of our total 22 hours of instruction, we were spending 8 of them on outside groups. These outside presenters were often very busy, which meant that scheduling them was a nightmare--and forced us to throw our internal presentations in wherever there was a slot. Certainly not an ideal instructional sequencing plan! I remember finding that I spent more hours on scheduling and coordinating the outside speakers than on all other preparatory tasks combined.

Something needed to change, and we met as a training team to discuss it. We'd been seeing problems among our trainees for several semesters: they weren't strong enough at some of the basics, and they were often quite confused about the outside organizations that had come to present. After a lot of discussion, we concluded that the outside presentations were often perplexing to our new trainees, and that we needed to give them a more coherent training that focused on basics. We changed the schedule, and the new (now-current) Training Weekend was born.

Some things that were pretty important in the process: having an open, honest meeting with all the stakeholders (our staff, volunteers, and trainees). Greer (2010) talks about this kind of meeting being important, and it really was, since it helped us to see where the problem was starting. Portny et al (2009) talk about the value of formal change of scope documents, and we didn't have those--although they might have helped us to recognize this problem before it got so far out of hand, because each additional presenter would have required separate thought and approval. Our organization is typically quite relaxed about the scheduling of trainings, and while that's valuable, it also contributed to this problem.

We're asked to reflect on what we could have done to fix the problems if we had been in charge of the project. Well, I was in charge of the project. However, I was very new in my job, and much younger than the rest of the staff and most of the outside presenters. I don't think I was sufficiently confident in my authority to make major changes at first--I needed some "seasoning" time. It might have helped to have a slightly more formal delegation of responsibility and authority for the training program, since I think our leadership team was a bit unsure about who was in charge of what.

In the end, we cut out most of the outside speakers, reduced the scope of our training, and found that our trainees showed a marked improvement in their ability to do the basic tasks of a hotline worker. We attribute this change to our new practice of spending a lot of time on a fairly small set of skills and knowledge, which gives the group time to form, learn, and start to perform.

References

Greer, M. (2010). The Project Management Minimalist: Just Enough PM to Rock Your Projects! Baltimore Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/courses/56611/CRS-CW-4894953/educ_6145_readings/pm-minimalist-ver-3-laureate.pdf

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

2011-03-31T22:01:00.000-07:00

Instructional designers are often asked to estimate the cost of training projects, whether through a formal bidding process or a casual discussion. As a newer designer, it can be pretty intimidating to try to assess the cost of the instructional design methods we've learned. Here are some resources to help:

Greer, M. (2009). Estimating instructional development (ID) time. Retrieved from http://michaelgreer.biz/?p=279 .
Greer's excellent Project Management Minimalist book is one of the texts for our class, and I've found his writing to be clear and thought-provoking. This page is one of many from Greer's site, and two pieces of advice stuck out for me:

Be careful with rules of thumb. It's common to hear shorthand rules like 300:1 or 15:1 for development time, usually representing the idea that it takes 300 hours of development to produce 1 hour of a particular kind of instruction. Greer feels that rules of thumb aren't especially useful because they're so variable as to produce meaningless estimates.
Pay close attention to the "non-writing" portions of the project. Most of us became instructional designers because we're interested in developing instruction, so we leap right toward estimating the costs of the instructional design time. In our excited rush, we may miss the huge amount of time spent in communications, document preparation, etc., and vastly underestimate the total cost of the project.

Clark, D. (2010). Estimating costs and time in instructional design. Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/costs.html .
I've often returned to Don Clark's website during my ID program. His writing is direct but also comfortable, as if I'm an apprentice learning from an experienced master. He has an excellent page about estimating costs that provides a variety of ballpark estimates for different instructional design tasks, which gives a useful baseline for estimation. While his approach does use ratios, he qualifies them heavily to make it clear which ratios are likely to be appropriate. Clark also includes links to a bunch of other resources like free stock photos and cost estimation spreadsheets.

Cook, J. (2010). How to estimate training time and costs. Retrieved from http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/05/how-to-estimate-trainingtime-and-costs/ .
I wasn't familiar with Jenice Cook's writing until this assignment, and I've now added it to my collection of RSS feeds. Her post stands as an excellent annotated bibliography of ID cost estimation writing from some prominent members of the field. She also advocates a slightly different approach with first-time clients: working on an hourly rate as the project progresses, so that everyone has a constant sense of where things stand.

Defelice, R., & Kapp, K. (2009). Time to develop one hour of training. Retrieved from http://www.astd.org/LC/2009/0809_kapp.htm .
If nothing else, the fact that this is published by ASTD should draw our attention. Defelice & Kapp surveyed a number of experienced IDs to find out how much time it takes to build training programs in a variety of different categories. The report also contrasts 2009 data with data from 2003. This provides a really valuable look at how expectations within the ID field are changing, and it's a strong data source for discussion with clients. In addition, the authors include several recommendations for increasing the speed of projects and keeping them from getting bogged down.

Communication modalities

2011-03-17T21:15:00.000-07:00

(This post is for a Walden assignment: to consider a particular set of words sequentially as written text, as audio, and as video, and to reflect on the different perceptions I had of the text each time. The text is not available outside our course site, however--sorry for those who are reading from outside Walden)

Questions:

How did your interpretation of the message change from one modality to the next?
What factors influenced how you perceived the message?
Which form of communication best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message?
What are the implications of what you learned from this exercise for communicating effectively with members of a project team?

Text only:
This seems like a brief, fairly businesslike email from an antsy co-worker who's asking for data. She follows a fairly standard metaphorical template for acknowledging the reasons why Mark may not have been able to get the work done, but it doesn't sound sincere--and it's overshadowed by the rest of her communication. Jane (the writer) uses an informal tone in her email, with some grammatical errors that catch my eye.

From a text design perspective, her email has a single very long paragraph followed by a one-line paragraph, which makes it look unbalanced and rushed. Her closing "I really appreciate your help" feels insincere, too.

I think we've all gotten emails like this; in my experience, without knowing the person, it's hard to know whether it's an urgent plea or a simple reminder.

Audio:
Jane's voice sounds a little bit strained to me, but that could be projection. Her affect is relatively flat in the recorded voicemail, which leads me to believe that she's fairly frustrated--most people I know tend to have more animated inflection when they're having a non-frustrated conversation.

Video:
(Clearly Jane-in-the-video is not the same person as Jane-in-the-voicemail). Jane's posture and demeanor seem relaxed here, and the fact that she's leaning over a cubicle wall (with arms crossed atop it) rather than entering the cubicle lends credence to the idea that this she's making a request, not expressing frustration or serious urgency. She blinks an awful lot at the beginning of the video (while expressing compassion for Mark's tribulations), which makes me question her sincerity again.

Analysis:
One of the discussion questions asks which form of communication best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "I don't know". I think all forms of communication leave their marks and shadings on the message, and since I'm not Jane, I'm not sure quite what the "true" meaning and intent was. I definitely took somewhat different messages from each form of communication, and that has relevance for us in the project management context.

I think it's worth considering the order of messages, too. I think I would take a different sense of Jane's meaning if I first saw the video (relaxed, fairly friendly, focused) and then read the email (which would then confirm the specific things she needs) rather than in the opposite order (where the email sets an urgent, somewhat snippy tone and then the video undercuts that message). My own sense as a supervisor is that when you have problems with coworkers or employees, it's best to convey that information in a face-to-face meeting whenever possible--following up with written documentation. Otherwise, people frequently mistake the seriousness of the incident or infer things that aren't true. Portny et al (2008) might call this the distinction between formal and informal communications.

Part of the point of this exercise is to talk about the strengths of different kinds of communication. We tend to use a lot of email and text these days, and one of the strengths of written communication is that it's fast, it's efficient, it's clear, and it's permanent. We can share a lot of data pretty quickly, and it's easy to skim or scan to find what we're looking for. The downside of skimming is that people often skim right over the important bits--and, although it's easy to convey data through text, it's much harder to convey emotion and tone. If it were easier to write emotions convincingly, novels would cost a lot less!

Voice communication is cheap these days, and it has the benefit of being synchronous. When there are misunderstandings, both parties are free to clarify things immediately. It's also much easier to convey non-verbal things like tone and certainty through voice. A drawn-out pause means a lot in a phone conversation; in an email, it doesn't register. Voice communication is slow, though, and it isn't possible to skim. With voicemail and other vocal recording technologies, voice communication can create a permanent record, which is useful.

Face-to-face contact is the gold standard for clear communication about emotions. It's often less efficient for data-driven communication, but it has clear benefits for interpersonal relations. It's often more satisfying to be in the same room than to be on the phone or exchanging email, but there are costs to arranging face-to-face time (says the guy who's driving for three hours to see his girlfriend every other weekend). Without video cameras, face-to-face communications don't usually have permanent records, which means that we want to document conversations in written form.

I think we need to look at what we're trying to convey before we can really choose the best medium. If the message is intended to specify requirements, an email is great. If it's supposed to convey urgency or an emotional appeal, voice or face-to-face may be better. For delivering hard news or discipline, I think face-to-face communication is the way to go.

References

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Learning From A Project "Post-Mortem"

2011-03-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

(this is a required post for my MS at Walden University. We were asked to reflect on a project from our personal or professional history that was unsuccessful or didn't reach the desired outcomes and, after reflecting, analyze the project's success or failure and discuss how project management could have helped.)

Since this is a public blog, I am uncomfortable talking about the failure of past projects--it seems like a good way to expose myself to liability. I don't really want to start my career as an instructional designer by being indiscreet! But since the assignment is a mandatory one, I've chosen a project from my personal life that, while not a failure, did not achieve my desired ends. There are other examples of projects that went poorly, but none that I feel it's appropriate to discuss in public.

Setting the stage
I live in a somewhat isolated rural community near the Canadian border in New York. I grew up here and, like most of the smart young people raised here, I moved away. I moved back after my post-college year in Scotland (studying bagpipes on a prestigious Watson Fellowship) because it wasn't possible to apply for jobs from Glasgow, and I needed some temporary work while I was figuring out where to go for my Ph. D. in Robotics and Machine Learning. As such, I'm in the real minority of local young people who had the opportunity to "get out"... and didn't.

Potsdam has four universities within eleven miles, so it's hardly a provincial backwater, but most of the young folks graduate and move immediately away, diplomas and brain cells in tow. There aren't too many jobs available here; there's also a strong perception that this is a bad place to be a young professional person. No youth culture, no dating scene, no social life, no nothing. Ain't nothin' here but the bars and the churches. (As with most broad-brush statements, this one is inaccurate... but widely held.) It seemed like there was a real desire to have a wider menu of social opportunities for smart, educated young people.

A few years ago, a number of us decided to do something about it, and we created an organization for young professionals. We collaborated with the county's chamber of commerce and a variety of other employers, we worked together to find interested stakeholders, and there were some meetings about what needed to happen. We planned our first real "meetings" to happen as "happy hour mixers" at local restaurants and taverns, and sketched a plan that involved slowly accumulating members and gaining critical mass as time went on.

The issues
We did a great job at achieving our main objectives: we got lots of young professionals to come out to the mixers. The organization stands, today, in pretty good shape: the monthly get-togethers are well attended, and there's a central core of people who keep the ball rolling. In summer months, there's often a potluck picnic with beer and wine, or a cocktail hour on the porch of a local restaurant, or similar events.

But for me, the project was a failure, and I no longer participate--or even really consider myself a member. I think project management habits of mind would have really helped here, because we would have clarified everyone's expectations at the beginning of the process. We did a great job of working together to create something, but it turned out that the "something" wasn't what I had been looking for. You see, we created an organization that primarily succeeds at getting interesting young people to hang out with each other at bars. That's great, and many people love it--because going to bars is something they enjoy. They viewed the role of the organization as helping them to find more people to hang out with at the bars, with some light professional networking on the side... so for them, the project was successful.

My take is different. I wanted an alternative to the alcohol-centered social scene, and it never really materialized--and after a while, it became clear that most people simply weren't interested in that. I thought we had been working together on the same project, but it turned out that some important assumptions about the goal had been left without clarification, and that meant the project failed for me.

How could project management have helped?
I think there's real value in the kind of focusing discussion that happens in the planning and evaluation phases of project management. If we had been thinking in those terms, we might have thought to talk about what everyone's real goals were--and how we would know when we had reached them. That would have helped us to make clearer plans about who would do what, which would have prevented a lot of frustration. I think those discussions would have also helped us all to talk about our frustrations with the way work and decisions were happening, and clearing the air would have made it a lot easier for us to work together. While this wasn't really a formal project, I think it could have profited from project management.

As it was, I felt like we made tremendous progress as a team on "building a road through the jungle"... only, at the end of the project, I learned that we had been building in the wrong jungle. Our road didn't lead anywhere I wanted to go.

The Impact of Open Source

2011-02-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

(this post is submitted as a (late) assignment for a Walden University course, asking that we evaluate a distance course provided by an open course site. We are directed to comment on the course's planned attention to distance learning, its attention to DL recommendations, and its use of activities to maximize learning.)

I chose to examine a course on Lighting Design for the Theatre, provided by MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative. I picked the class because I took a very similar course during my sophomore year at Swarthmore, and I thought my experience would allow me to compare and contrast the distance and face-to-face approaches.

Does the course appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment? If so, how? If not, in what ways?

In short, the course does not seem to have been designed in any way for a distance learning environment. At best, we might say that the course provides the shell for a web-facilitated course where most instruction was planned for face-to-face classroom meetings. All direct instruction occurs either in face-to-face classes or through readings from textbooks that are not cited by name--leaving distance learners without any means of securing information about the content. There is a course calendar, but it does not contain either dates or ways of finding out specific assignments for most tasks.

The course is delivered through a flat, text-based website using static HTML; as such, it lacks such LMS features as discussion boards, chat rooms, etc. Most pages are simple text, although there are a few images included either in the pages or in linked PDFs. There is no way for learners to contact a professor to ask for help, although in a free open course that hardly seems surprising.

Does the course follow the recommendations for online instruction as listed in your course textbook? Which does it follow? In what ways? Which does it not follow?

Unsurprisingly, the course follows relatively few of the recommendations in our text book, at least insofar as those recommendations pertain specifically to distant learning. The first guideline, "Avoid 'dumping a face-to-face course onto the web (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009, p. 248)", is almost humorous, since this course seems to epitomize dumping materials onto a website and calling it a distant course. It seems to lack visible organization, and its syllabus is unclear by distance education standards. I don't see any evidence of a means for staying in contact with students, nor does the course integrate many web-based materials. The course materials are heavily focused on textbooks rather than independent readings, and the course offers no training on how to use the (minimal) website. To the extent that those recommendations are "best practices" for distance learning, the course does a poor job.

Where the course does stand up is in its attention to the recommendations for thinking about course outcomes and testing applications rather than rote memorization (Simonson et al., 2009). The course appears to be carefully designed to help students develop both a theoretical understanding of theatrical lighting design and a strong familiarity with the actual practice of working lighting designers. I don't see any evidence that the course focuses on memorization at all, and the example assignments all involve original work solving real-world problems in an authentic context--a very constructivist approach.

Did the course designer implement course activities that maximize active learning for the students?” If yes, in what ways? If not, how is it deficient?

I believe the course designer did implement course activities that maximize active learning. Many of the assignments involve detailed, interesting thought that would force learners to elaborate on new knowledge. Many of the assignments require learners to translate words (or emotional ideas) into visual expressions, either through the use of lighting instruments or by finding images that represent a particular lighting idea. I imagine that classroom debates would focus on the merits of different choices, and I have found that style of learning to be highly effective with artistic topics. The assignments show a deliberate sequencing from easier tasks to more complex ones, and they seem to shepherd learners from simple, guided tasks into independent work.

It might be fair to ask, "can a lighting design class really be taught online?" Yes, I believe it can. There are strong software packages that allow users to simulate different lighting plots on their home computers, without need for a theater. Sites like Youtube make it easy to view videos of theatrical lighting, concerts, and other examples of lighting design--without the constraints of physical proximity. There are certainly some aspects of lighting design that require practical, face-to-face instruction: electrical safety involves developing deeply-ingrained habits, and ultimately learners need to demonstrate their mastery using real lighting instruments. But much of the class seems like a strong candidate for blended learning.

I would encourage MIT to revisit its lighting design class, incorporating a learning management system for student engagement, shifting from textbooks to PDF-based journal articles or resources, using simulation software to enable students to work with lighting problems at home, and linking to videos depicting different kinds of lighting topics. I would recommend that they keep their excellent exercises largely intact, altering them only so as to help them fit in a distance context.

References

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Reflecting on Distance Learning

2011-02-27T19:49:00.000-08:00

This post is submitted for my Walden University class on distance learning. I was asked to respond to three questions: What do you think the perceptions of distance learning will be in the future (in 5–10 years; 10–20 years)? How can you as an instructional designer be a proponent for improving societal perceptions of distance learning? How will you be a positive force for continuous improvement in the field of distance education?

In the next 5-10 years, I think distance learning will continue to gain traction and respect in academic circles as well as corporate ones, since entire generations of distance-trained students will have moved into decision-making roles in education, business, and government. I don't see this as a hostile takeover or a diplomatic coup; I see it as continued adaptation to new demands and needs. I imagine distance education as an ivy vine that will slowly infiltrate even the bastions of the Ivy League, weaving itself into the fibers of our educational institutions across the board.

Twenty years from now, in 2031, I doubt that the term "distance learning" will continue to hold its present meaning--I expect "distance learning" to become subsumed into our definition of "learning". Traditional instructors will continue to adopt portions of the technology available to them, and "pure" face-to-face classes will become Web-facilitated, then blended... and will, gradually, join with whatever technology replaces the Web in twenty years. I think most educators are already on this road. Will traditional institutions still exist? Absolutely! They might even retain as many students as they have now. But I expect the overall market for education to grow as more and more people gain access to high-quality teaching at a distance, and I think education that incorporates distance will hold a much larger portion of the market than it does today.

Bates (in Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009, p. 147) advanced a set of "golden rules" to guide instructional designers in developing technology-based instruction, including such ideas as "Good teaching matters", "There is no 'super-technology'", and "New technologies are not necessarily better than old ones". Simonson's version of Bates's final point is worth quoting here: "Technology is not the issue. How and what we want the learners to learn is the issue and technology is a tool (p. 147)." So too with distance learning. I think our responsibility for helping to improve both the image and the substance of distance learning is the same as our duty in any instructional design context: to ask the right questions, to think carefully, and to develop training that is efficient, responsive, and effective at meeting the needs of our learners. Delivering great training is a far better advertisement than any Super Bowl ad or direct mailing scheme.

More directly, what can we do to improve societal perceptions today? My personal commitment is to speak out, frequently, about my experiences as a distant learner with an unimpeachable undergraduate pedigree. I went to one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the United States, and I find my distance Masters program valuable and challenging. I don't whitewash over the problems I see, but neither do I withhold praise where Walden earns it. So I think we can change a lot by offering appropriate personal testimonials. Speaking as an instructional designer, I think an important way to improve perceptions is to make sure that we only propose particular delivery methods with sound reasoning and design to accompany them. If face-to-face instruction is the right choice for a particular topic, we should not hesitate to use it--and we should not agree to "slip by" using distance learning. But similarly, if a topic can be served by distant methods, we should boldly embrace them--and be prepared to explain our reasoning.

As far as being a positive force for pushing distance learning in new directions, I think the best I can say is that I will try. I will try new ideas. I will try to find ways to reach my future learners through technological means, whether that means offering bagpipe lessons at a distance, helping to develop distance-based education for new hikers, pulling Reachout's training toward including more online resources and communication methods, teaching New York's suicide intervention trainers through distant media... or whatever new opportunities arise. I will try. I will try, and I will look unflinchingly at the results. George Piskurich (2006) talks about rapid instructional design not as a one-time process but as a continuous spiral of improvement and analysis--like the successive approximation I learned in physics--and I take that as my model. I will improve distance learning by trying new things, by looking at the results, and by trying again until we reach the goal. That's my plan.

References

Piskurich, G. M. (2006). Rapid instructional design: Learning ID fast and right (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Converting courses to blended instruction

2011-02-20T22:35:00.000-08:00

As part of my MS, I've been asked to prepare a short checklist of ideas and tips for a trainer who's thinking of migrating a face-to-face training program to a blended instructional delivery model. The scenario is pretty free-form, and the only other information is that the trainer wants to make the change because of poor learner communication in the face-to-face class.

I broke my guidelines into four basic areas:

Things to consider before starting the transition
Areas where distance education can be of benefit
Changes to the trainer role
Ways to help facilitate communication among the learners

Within these categories, I proposed a variety of thought experiences intended to help the course designer focus on important questions related to instructional design.

In an ideal world, my hypothetical trainer would follow all of my instructions. In the real world, he might do a few of them--possibly saving his learners from an excruciating videotape-the-lecture snorefest.

Here's the list of guidelines! Click to view.

The 'Myth' of eLearning? A reply

2011-02-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

Posted in reply to Trent Batson's article, "The Myth of eLearning: There Is No 'There' There". I found Batson's article (and a worthy discussion about it) from Eric Tremblay's excellent blog, E-Learning Acupuncture

Many of Batson's claims about exciting new classroom prospects--coordinating learning done elsewhere, the use of portfolios, focus on written communication and collaboration, authentic learning and assessment--are hallmarks of the distance learning approach. That's intriguing given his flat claim that "distance education is an oxymoron". I wonder if he's reading the same research I am--or whether his claim is based in evidence. I'd love to hear.

The first page of his article seems to devote itself to carving out turf: "distance education is not, and should never be considered, a replacement of traditional on-the-ground learning". The irony is that most distance learning folks aren't interested in _replacing_ F2F universities; the focus is more on providing complementary alternatives, and much of the distance education literature focuses on blended approaches that incorporate both distant and face-to-face contexts.

I agree wholeheartedly with his assertion that employers want people who write well, collaborate well, and are skilled at assessing and handling complicated, difficult problems. I think he's wrong about the idea that in-situ universities are automatically the best way to reach these goals simply by dint of their physical presence.

As a check of concept, if his ideas are correct about the importance of being in a physical community with lots of other learners doing authentic tasks, we should expect that homeschoolers would have significantly poorer assessments than people who went to high schools--after all, the difference between a high school senior and a college freshman is quite small, and homeschoolers don't get a huge physical community with lots of other learners. But we don't see that difference in performance.

Some of Batson's points are excellent. But claiming them as a mandate for campus-based education and a rebuke of distance learning is a rhetorical device, not an evidential one, and it doesn't work for me.

Selecting Distance Learning Technologies

2011-01-23T21:14:00.000-08:00

(for a Walden University assignment: to identify distance learning technologies that would be appropriate for the given situation)

The problem: "In an effort to improve its poor safety record, a biodiesel manufacturing plant needs a series of safety training modules. These stand-alone modules must illustrate best practices on how to safely operate the many pieces of heavy machinery on the plant floor. The modules should involve step-by-step processes and the method of delivery needs to be available to all shifts at the plant. As well, the shift supervisors want to be sure the employees are engaged and can demonstrate their learning from the modules."

To me, the key here is the last sentence: "demonstrate their learning from the modules". Given that we're talking about safety issues, I want to make sure that we don't advocate a strictly online learning format: safety is too important to allow people to "demonstrate" their safety skills solely within the confines of a computer. As such, I want to make sure that floor personnel are invested in the safety factors and willing to participate in an in-person assessment during the training course.

In terms of teaching the information, I like the idea of combining several distance learning concepts: training videos, podcasts, and social media. With training videos, we can show learners exactly how to do the specific tasks associated with biodiesel safety in situ--that is, in the actual factory environment. By breaking the training videos into manageable chunks, we can build them into podcasts that the factory employees can carry with them--either to learn the material at home or, even better, to take it on a portable device and learn the safety concepts while standing on the factory floor. This offers the kind of situated, context-based learning that constructivist theory holds to be valuable.

Finally, we'll use social media concepts to encourage learners to comment on the podcasts with things they've learned from the shop floor. This will help to scaffold new learners, may help us to update or improve the training in future, and also demonstrates that we value the wisdom of experienced workers--which is important for motivation reasons as well as fostering the kind of engagement our clients want to promote. Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek (2009, p. 244) write that collective knowledge, networking, and collaborative combination of wisdom are critically important in developing Web 2.0 learning tools, and I think our training program should take this approach.

Heilesen (2010) completed a literature review of the academic value of podcasting and concluded that, although the evidence supporting academic podcasting is currently weak, there is reason to believe it will improve in future. In particular, he suggests that podcasting may help to shorten completion times and aid retention of material. Schlairet (2010) examined the efficacy of podcasting with regard to retention and learner understanding in a nursing school. She found that podcasting aided both motivation and understanding of technological issues, which makes her findings highly relevant for our proposed safety training in a biodiesel plant.

References

Heilesen, S. B. (2010). What is the academic efficiency of podcasting? Computers & Education, 55(3), 1063-1068. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.002

Schlairet, M. C. (2010). Efficacy of podcasting: use in undergraduate and graduate programs in a college of nursing. Journal of Nursing Education, 49(9), 529-533. doi:10.3928/01484834-20100524-08

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Defining Distance Learning

2011-01-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

(this post is submitted for an assignment in my Walden University course on distance learning. since it is a blog post, I have adopted a less formal tone than I would normally take in academic prose.)

From my early childhood as a computer-savvy youngster (exploring the internet through now-forgotten tools like gopher, Usenet, and Unix talk) to my online Master's program, I have labored long in the vineyards of distance learning. I remember blended distance learning during my time at Swarthmore, when some of my computer science classes with Lisa Meeden used Doug Blank's open source LMS (edventure) and other classes began using Blackboard for readings and discussions. A few years ago, I became a certified Wilderness First Responder through a blended distance program with the Wilderness Medicine Training Center. My sense of distance learning springs from these experiences, which were varied in scope, format, and style. I suppose I reflexively thought of distance learning as, well, what we do here at Walden: I sign into a website, read some texts, write some words, and press 'Send'. But if I had stopped to think--as I now have--I would have remembered all these different experiences of distance learning. In the course of reading my texts for the week, I was surprised by how much space in the literature (e.g., Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009) seems devoted to arguing about what, specifically, constitutes distance learning. Why is this an important question? For me, distance learning is a moving target: it's a way to use available technology to meet the specific needs of people who aren't always in the same room as their teachers.

I learned from Huett et al (2008) that distance learning is making inroads into K-12 environs, where I would have expected socialization to be of such paramount importance that distance education wouldn't be accepted. Of course, I hated a lot of the social aspects of K-12, so it might not be a bad idea! Although the idea that distance learning is asocial still seems to hold a lot of traction, I think the lack of social interaction in distance education is largely a problem of technology rather than orientation, as I'll explain later.

I'm not sure I believe in the assertion Huett et al (2008) make that we're at a crux point for distance learning, where it will either be accepted or relegated to the dustbin of history. Since our assignment asks what will happen as distance learning continues to evolve, I'll use the language of evolutionary science and say that natural selection will weed out poorer distance learning options, but there isn't reason to believe that the world will select against effective distance learning programs on an evolutionary basis. If we build great distance learning programs now, that's wonderful... but if our first efforts fail, the set of needs that prompted distance learning in the first place--busy people with jobs, families, and wide geographic spread--will still exist. As long as those needs exist, people will continue inventing new methods for serving them, and distance learning will continue.

New forms of distance learning needn't be mutually exclusive. If enough learners want asynchronous online classes, someone will create courses and sell them to meet the need. If enough learners want synchronous online classes conducted by video, someone will build those classes. The pool is big enough for many kinds of swimmers, and I can only see one reason why particular forms of distance learning will disappear: people will lose interest in paying for them. This might happen because those models cost too much to deliver, or because newer technologies supplant them, or because political and social pressure makes them unattractive... but in the end, it all comes back to market value. The global nature of the internet makes it pretty likely that someone, somewhere in the world, will supply whatever form of education people want to buy.

I wonder whether we'll see a return to traditional classroom style teaching, mediated by technology. It's clear that technology has facilitated the rise of distance learning over the past 160 years, but we could also say that available technology has capped distance learning throughout its history. In the days of correspondence courses, the postman represented the apex of communications technology, enabling learners to touch distant points on the globe. But the limitations of the postal system (considered here as a technology) also hindered the development of new forms of distance learning: there was no capacity for real-time distance learning. Fast forward to 2011, and you'll find that technology still plays this dual facilitation/interference role. Thanks to cheap international data transmission and a rise of new profit-making business models, it's possible to video chat with people anywhere on the globe, and we're seeing distance learning models that use this capacity. But the computer systems and data networks aren't yet strong enough to support video chats with 30 other people--so we haven't seen that yet. When the technology advances to that point, perhaps we'll start to see digital classrooms that meet at specified times with 30 students all listening to their instructors via video chat, with concurrent opportunities for live debate and discussion where everyone sees and hears everyone else. Available technology will define the playing field, and it will be up to us to use it.

I hope I've lent the impression that I think of distance learning as a process or a category rather than a specific set of ideas, constructs, or methods. Just as we now enjoy a multitude of options for learning at a distance, the future will offer a plethora of choices--perhaps including some of the formats we use today. I believe that the advent of new technologies will continue to enable ever-changing forms of distance learning, and that the learners themselves will tell us which choices hold value.

Concept map - Click to view full-size

References

Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Coleman, C. (2008). The evolution of distance education: implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63–67.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

TSA needs some instructional designers!

2010-11-23T20:22:00.000-08:00

Hi friends,

If you live in the USA, you've doubtless heard something of the furor concerning the new AIT/backscatter image scanners in some of our airports, and the contemporaneous development of "enhanced" patdowns--which many people have compared to groping or sexual assault. Outrage is high, lines are long, and it seems as though the Transportation Security Administration may finally have gone too far.

Image from Furry Girl/feminisnt.com

But the interesting thing comes from Department of Homeland Security's internal proceedings, as reported by the American Civil Liberties Union. Many of the complaints listed refer to training design: TSA made no plans to update its training, did not train TSOs (officers) to use the current equipment, did not provide TSOs with time to complete required trainings, and most importantly, developed training assessments in such a way that TSOs were able to merely sign a declaration affirming that they had completed the training and learned the materials (Ito, 2010).

That's right: their training methods apparently include no final assessment of learner capabilities, and rely solely on signed statements that the learners have understood it all. It also sounds like their recurrent training program consists of reading materials alone, without any sort of practical experience or assessment.

Perhaps an instructional design team could have helped them to avoid the current fiasco. (Yes, this is tongue-in-cheek, but I think there's also some truth to it. The way that agencies choose to support or ignore their training needs has lasting impact on their relationships with the public, and they need to pay attention.)

References:

Ito, S. (2010, November 17). TSA has no time to train its screeners. Retrieved from http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/tsa-has-no-time-train-its-screeners .

What makes teachers great? (survey data)

2010-07-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

Introduction
I spent a lot of time last month thinking about what it is that makes teachers great. My graduate schooling focuses on the value of instructional design--which is to say that we're primarily concerned with the curriculum rather than its delivery. The actual concept gets a lot fuzzier than that, but there it is.

I really believe in the power of teachers, though. Although it makes me crazy when teachers claim credit for their students' accomplishments (we need to avoid the savior complex, folks), I think that good teachers offer truly marvelous gifts to their students. I had a few teachers who fundamentally altered the way I saw my place in the world, and at least one who saved my life. For Mr. Bryan Thompson, my first-grade teacher, I offer this thanks: I would probably not be here today if it weren't you. Thank you.

In thinking about teachers like Mr. Thompson, I started wondering: what is it that students value in their teachers? Is it the same thing that school boards value? See, teaching is a funny thing. We rely on teachers to offer us all kinds of subject knowledge, but some of them seem to go further and share wisdom or hope or compassion or something more than the simple result of focused intelligence. Some of them change more than our brains. How do they do it?

I trace the path of my life through several branching points where a truly great teacher helped me find my own way. I wondered if other students shared this sense of having been "guided" by their teachers, not in the sense of "guidelines" that we have to follow, but of a "guide book" that shows us what's possible.

So I created this survey. I was surprised by how quickly the responses came in--it turns out that people love to talk about their favorite teachers! (I was also surprised to learn that SurveyMonkey starts charging you money after you receive a certain number of responses). The results surprised me.

Caveats, disclaimers, and it's-not-our-faults
The survey is not perfect. I did the best I could with it, but I have not yet taken research methods or statistics. I tried to reduce bias in the questions, but it's imperfect. I'm also not going to show you all the free-text responses directly, since people wrote some astonishingly personal things about themselves. So the analysis on that stuff is mine.

Also, if reading this analysis ruins your life (or makes you want to become a teacher), it's not my fault. Srsly.

Survey design
Method. The survey was conducted using SurveyMonkey, a free Internet-based tool that allows, well, free surveys. It provides rudimentary statistics (deeper ones are available for a fee) and allows the tracking of individual responses (i.e., it's possible to see each respondent's answers to all the questions, separately).

I tried to eliminate bias in the phrasing of questions, and also tried to make sure that choices were similar in scope and tone. I also set the survey to randomize the presentation order of most choices. Some questions allowed free-text "Other (please specify)" options.

Confounding variables. I posted the survey address to my Facebook profile and asked my friends to fill it out and then share it with their friends. Initially, most respondents were first-order friends of mine. As time drew on, more and more responses came from nth-order friends (those with distant, unknown connections to me). The issue here is that I am not friends with a random distribution of people, nor are my friends. Some themes that run through my friends list: students at elite universities; musicians; actors; people who volunteer or work at crisis hotlines; backpacking aficionados; people who live in northern New York, Scotland, or Philadelphia. Make of this information what you will.

Survey data and analysis
In total, 111 people responded to the survey. SurveyMonkey will only let me see the results of the first 100 responses without paying a fee. Given the relatively small difference in responses, I am reluctant to pay--but I would be willing to buy in if people felt it was important, especially if they were willing to contribute to the cost. In any case, this analysis draws only on the first 100 responses (which means that all percentages are also raw counts).

Question 1 asked for simple demographic information. 66 people provided it; 34 chose to skip the question.

Question 2: Highest education level
2. What's your highest level of formal education?

Middle school (finished 8th grade): 0%
High school (finished 12th grade): 2%
Partial college/university: 12%
Associate's degree: 3%
Bachelor's degree: 24%
Partial graduate school: 8%
Master's degree: 30%
ABD doctoral studies: 5%
Doctoral degree: 10%
Post-doctoral studies: 1%
Other: 5%

Of the "Other" choices, one had an unusual doctoral degree, one had a pair of bachelor's degrees, one had partial medical school, one had partial college plus a professional degree, and one had a master's degree plus a lot of extra credits.

The interesting thing here is that our sample size is highly educated and, to my eye, unusually so. 57% of respondents have done some form of graduate education, which seems high for the general populace. There exists the possibility that this group of people holds especially passionate views about teachers, given its predilection for advanced education.

Question 3. Type of schools
3. Looking at your primary and secondary education (before college), what kind of schools did you attend? (check all that apply)

Public school (usually organized by geographic boundaries): 93%
Private school: 19%
Home schooling: 3%
Summer camps focused on a learning topic (music camp, sports camp, art camp, math camp, CTY, Scout camp, etc.): 25%
Other (please specify): 5%

Choices for "Other" included specialized forms of public schooling, foreign language schooling, Catholic school, and law-enforcement/military training.

The interesting thing here is that nearly everyone spent some time in public school. Since this is "check all", the totals add up to more than 100%. It would be interesting to see, in follow-up research, where the highest incidence of "really great teachers" occurs (in terms of school type) after normalizing the data for population size. I think a lot of us hold the belief that the best teachers are found in private schools, and that homeschooling isn't as focused on teachers. It would be interesting to see.

Question 4: Number of great teachers
4. Think back to the best teachers you've ever had. Think of the people who really changed your life in some way, or inspired you, or gave you the kick in the pants you really needed. They might be formal classroom teachers; they might be mentors; they might be employers; they might be neighbors. How many great teachers did you have BEFORE college?

0: 1%
1: 5%
2: 18%
3-5: 49%
6-10: 18%
More than 10: 9%

This is a badly-designed question, because the intervals are different. My bad. Still, it's interesting that nearly everyone had at least one teacher they felt was "great", and that most (76%) had at least three great teachers. Note that the person who responded "0" went on to say that all her great teachers were in college.

I left this question deliberately open to interpretation because I wanted to isolate the variable (presented later) of what went into being a great teacher. This is just a count.

Question 5. What subjects great teachers teach
5. Thinking of those great teachers, what subjects did they teach? Alternatively, what was their field of expertise? Check as many as apply. If you had several great teachers, or your teachers had many specialties, check as many boxes as you like--but only think of the _really_ good teachers.

Mathematics: 34%
Physical sciences (physics, chemistry, earth science, biology, etc.): 37%
Technology/shop class: 4%
Agriculture: 1%
Physical education/sports: 5%
Music (music performance, music history, etc.): 45%
Dance: 2%
Art (studio art, art history, etc.): 12%
Social studies/history/government: 44%
English: 57%
Economics: 3%
Foreign languages: 21%
Health: 2%
Elementary school (where you had the same teacher for every subject all year): 42%
Vocational skills: 2%
Religious studies: 4%
Extracurricular activities: 18%
Other (please specify): 15%

Choices for "Other" included college professors, home and careers (home economics) teachers, librarians, mentors, camp counselors, parents, theatrical directors, journalism teachers, and martial arts instructors. I chose the options for this question by thinking of the different classes available in my pre-collegiate schools and then adding a few I knew other people had taken elsewhere.

Teachers everywhere, take heart! No matter what you teach, there is room for good teachers. Every category had at least one really great teacher in it, which was interesting given how few students take classes in, e.g., agriculture. Remember, also, that these statistics are not normalized: I did not think to ask how many students took each class. So, for example, I can't tell whether English has a high percentage because English teachers are especially amazing or because everyone has to take English.

That said, I was surprised by the results here. I expected to see that "creative" disciplines like music and art would take the lion's share here, which probably reflects my own bias as an occasional music teacher. But the neat thing is that every field of study across a typical school had quite a few great teachers.

The top five: English (57%), music (45%), social studies/history/government (44%), elementary school (42%), and physical sciences (37%). Mathematics is just behind, with 34%.

To me, this says pretty clearly that, in the eyes of learners, great teaching is about the person, not the subject.

Question 6: What makes teachers effective
6. What was it about those teachers that made them so effective for you? Do you have a sense of why their messages really got through for you? Alternatively, what made the great teachers different from the mediocre ones? This question is optional, but I would love it if you would answer!

This was a free-text question, so I have no statistics to offer you. A few general themes emerged, though, and I'll present them with quotations from respondents.

"What made it exceptional was their love for what they were doing". "The positive energy they gave out and obvious sense of wanting students to succeed." "Teachers that found a way to challenge me." ". . . it was simply teachers that demanded my own thought and effort to the practice . . . in order to be successful." "She had faith in me." "She gave me confidence and the where-withall to ask why? I don't think I had a real 'Me' personality before her."

"They were creative, enthusiastic and passionate... And had a great sense of humor" ". . . took extra time with the kids that needed it. They sacrificed their time, to make sure that the kids knew the material before moving on with the rest of the work." "I think she tricked us into thinking that [subject] was easy." "No one ever felt stupid in her room." "They went out of their way to help me." "Because of his encouragement, I am a [professional] today."

"Teachers who enjoy teaching can make learning magical." "They were both curmudgeons. They didn't bend over backward to make the class 'enjoyable' for every single person, but if you invested time/attention you would get a lot out of their classes." "Great teachers challenge you to leave your comfort zone." "They responded to the unique in me." "My great teachers held us up to high standards, [and] gave praise only when it was due". "The great teachers saw that I was bored and preoccupied, rather than disrespectful or 'bad'." "They were also fearlessly quirky, and had great senses of humor."

"They didn't just teach the subject content, they taught about life. They were able to put the content aside when necessary and teach life lessons - while they were passionate about their subject, they knew that there was life beyond it." "I could always tell the difference between a teacher who was there because it was their 'job' and a teacher that was there because they really loved to teach and cared if they made a difference."

If you're a teacher, you've probably spent some time wondering whether it really matters how hard you try, and wondering whether your students notice. They do. Really. The responses for this question were 20 pages long, and I wish I could share them all with you. Students notice, they care, and they remember for their entire lives. It matters.

I find it interesting that, although I didn't impose any structure on the responses, they fell into broad categories that pretty much mirrored my later questions. One general theme that wove through a lot of responses was the concept of treating students as whole people: learners who also have to live in the world, who are trying to puzzle it out, and who need sturdy guides. Respect is a pretty big theme in many responses, as is love. Love is a dangerous word in schools these days, but we seem to need it--and it seems like we withhold it at some peril. Note that I'm not advocating anything untoward here--I'm just saying that we seem hungry for the knowledge that our teachers care about us.

Question 7: Influence on profession
7. Was your choice of profession (or direction of study) directly influenced by one of those great teachers?

Yes, and I chose to do what they do: 33%
Yes, even though I chose to follow a different path: 32%
No, they didn't influence my decision: 19%
Other (please specify): 16%

Choices for "Other" included people who don't yet have professions, those who weren't certain, a substantial number of people who chose their path based on college professors, and those who chose their path based on all their great teachers, not just one.

Depending on how you count the "Others", we see somewhere between 65% and 81% of respondents choosing their life directions based on a few great teachers. That's a pretty hefty impact. Follow-up studies might explore what people mean when they say that someone influenced their decision, and what that means in terms of actions.

Question 8: What matters most
8. This is a total cheap-shot question, and it's exactly the kind that we all hate survey designers for writing. Sorry. Assume for the sake of discussion that all teachers are adequately qualified to teach their subjects, meaning that they possess adequate subject expertise and sufficient teaching ability to convey that expertise in a classroom. Above and beyond that, which of these qualities is MOST important for a truly great teacher? (i.e. which of these best differentiates great teachers from adequate ones?)

Mastery of the subject (as evidenced by knowledge): 3%
Mastery of the subject (as evidenced by advanced degrees): 0%
Visible excitement about/passion for the subject: 42%
Strong personal rapport with students: 27%
Ability to provide instruction that reaches most students: 13%
Other (please specify): 15%

Most people who chose "Other" used it to get around the question's "choose only one" requirement, and most of those selected both passion for the subject and personal rapport with students. Some went on to state that it doesn't work if teachers "try too hard" to seem passionate, while others focused on meeting each student's needs (which is basically 'instruction that reaches most students').

Wordiest. question. ever. Seriously, I should have made the question shorter. But there it is.

I think it's fascinating that visible excitement about the subject trashes all other options, especially when we consider the variety of subjects taught (Question 5). Not only do we love the music teacher who's out gigging on the weekends, but we also love the chemistry teacher who's giggling in the corner as she makes baking soda volcanoes, the math teacher who runs a website on how to solve brain teasers, the history teacher who publishes analyses of thirteenth-century combat tactics, and the gym teacher who plays five sports and coaches six more. We love teachers who show us something of themselves, who make it obvious why they chose this profession.

And we love teachers who connect with us on a personal level. We don't seem to care as much about whether they're geniuses in their subjects, although several people expressed scorn for teachers who didn't seem to know their craft and, e.g., gave credit for history papers about fictitious battles between countries that don't exist. But subject area knowledge seems like a sufficiency condition, not a demand in itself.

This question forced people to rank their priorities, which was uncomfortable for many people. I got a number of nasty emails for making people choose. Whatever else it shows, it seems clear that we rank the "soft" skills (passion and personal connection) vastly higher than the "professional" ones, at least when it comes to separating the truly great teachers from the rest of the flock.

Conclusions
I'm fascinated by the results, and I would love to study this more. I expected that visible excitement would be important, but I had no idea it would be such a clear winner. I wonder how we measure it. How do you tell whether I care about my subject? Is it the same way someone else would figure it out? How did those teachers establish a good rapport with students? I teach crisis counseling and suicide intervention in my day job, which means that I spend a good part of my professional life teaching people how to establish rapport. Should I be offering to help teachers keep that skill polished?

Lots of teachers wonder whether their work really matters--it's so hard to know whether we're doing a good job, especially since our "products" tend to move around and defy categorization. For 100 Facebook users, it seems like teachers really did matter. Every one of us had a teacher who fundamentally changed some aspect of our lives for the better.

So what do the results mean we should do differently? You're free to make your own choices about that, but for me? I'm going to make sure I show my students why I care so much about teaching them. I'm going to tell them why I turned down more lucrative job opportunities so I could share what I know. And I'm going to keep making it a priority to know them on a personal level.

Epilogue
Did you learn something from this? Tell me! Leave a comment on the blog, or email me at hollis easter at g mail dot com. Have some ideas for the next thing to study? Let's hear 'em! I would love to see whether the same results hold true for a larger data set. If you're interested too, let's see if we can find funding to make it happen. It won't take a lot of money.

I think these results are pretty interesting, and I hope you do too! Pass the link on to a teacher you know, or post it to your Facebook page. Let's talk.

There was one really neat side effect of this project. A lot of respondents wrote in afterward and told me that the survey gave them the push they needed to go thank those teachers who meant so much to them. There's a challenge there for us all: to give thanks for the gifts others offered us. I'm going to work on doing it more; will you join me?

Finally, I triple-dog-dare someone to cite this research in an academic paper.

Thanks for reading.
Hollis

Surveying people: what makes teachers great?

2010-06-28T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hi friends!

After a fantastic conversation with Jasmine and Meg in Burlington this weekend, I've got a question burning inside: what is it that makes teachers great?

We've all had them: teachers whose presence in our lives marked a turning point, an alchemical moment when we were transmuted into something different. Teachers without whom we would have ended up in very different places from where we are today.

I'd like to ask you some questions about yours, if you don't mind. I put together a brief survey (which you can find here) with a few questions about your experience with teachers. It shouldn't take you more than about five minutes. Will you help? Feel free to pass the link (or this page) to friends--I'd love to have a bigger data set.

Once I've gotten a bunch of responses, I will post some data analysis to this blog. I think it will be interesting to see.

Here's the link to the survey again. Thanks so much for your help!
Hollis

ADDIE vs. HPT

2010-05-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation) and HPT (Human Performance Technology) have broad similarities, but there are enough differences to merit a deeper look. The biggest difference, for me, is that ADDIE focuses explicitly on building training programs, while HPT aims to develop an appropriate solution, which might be "training, performance support tools, a new or re-engineered process, the redesign of a workspace, or a change in compensation or benefits" (ISPI, p. 3). HPT advocates a systems view of performance improvement, in which training is one potential tool.

Both models include evaluation, but ADDIE (as classically defined) places it at the end of the process whereas HPT welds it into the middle portions of the system as well. HPT also explicitly asks about retention of information by including a "Confirmative" evaluation of learners ("Continuing Competence"), organizational goals ("Continuing Effectiveness"), and value ("Return on Investment (ROI)").

To some degree, it seems like a red herring to compare ADDIE to anything on a fine-grained level since, as Morrison et al. (2007, p. 13) point out, ADDIE does not exist as a formal model and it has never been written down in an authoritative way. The beauty of ADDIE--its simplicity--is also its downfall here, since it tends to morph into whatever some author wants to call it. ADDIE takes a lot of flak because authors want straw men to argue against. At its heart, ADDIE offers a reminder to consider certain kinds of tasks when designing instruction, and its value as a "mental checklist" is high.

I think HPT is valuable for the same reason: it offers a systematic, visible way of thinking about performance deficiency and improvement. As Reigeluth says, it reminds us to ask important questions about the solutions we propose, and gives us tools for knowing whether the process is finished.

For my example of ADDIE versus HPT, I will take a real-world example that actually crossed my desk a few months ago. In my work at the hotline, I spoke with a woman who was very upset about her husband's habit of leaving the light on in the bathroom after he left the room. His habit was very firmly ingrained, and the woman found herself being significantly annoyed every time she saw the bathroom light left on. She asked me how she could teach him to turn the light off.

ADDIE might have me analyze the situation, determine that the husband did know how to use the light switch, and eventually design some sort of training that explained the deleterious effects of light-switch-left-on syndrome on their marriage and their shared bank account, and went on to teach light extinction skills. Had I done this, I suspect my evaluation would have shown a failure to change anything.

HPT addresses this as a performance problem. In analyzing the learners, I determined that the husband, though very good-hearted, was often absent-minded. The problem wasn't that he chose not to turn off the light--it was that he didn't notice the light at all. Is training the right solution? No! I suggested a workplace modification: that she install a motion-sensing light switch in the bathroom. Evaluation will show that the original performance problem--leaving the light on--was eradicated immediately and did not recur.

A few other thoughts that interested me:

Gram (2009, September 9) feels "Adherents and crankites alike view ADDIE as an 'instructional design' methodology when in fact it should be viewed more as a project management process for learning projects. Viewing Instructional Design as synonymous with ADDIE does both a disservice. There is loads of ID going on inside ADDIE but it is primarily in the Design phase of the process, and it can be much more creative than the original model prescribes." This meshes nicely with my own observations: most experts learn a model and then improvise using its tools, rather than slavishly following the model.

Bhattacharya (2006) argues that structural models like ADDIE and HPT are losing their relevance because they demand adherence to a relatively strict procedural model in an era where rapid development is the norm. He also argues that most actual developers follow something he calls a "seismograph" pathway through models like ADDIE, rather than the linear "waterfall" other authors sometimes describe. Although some of his points involve arguments with straw men, the central tenet is valuable: instructional design ought to stay in touch with its learners and employers throughout the process, not merely during Analysis and Evaluation.

Jarche (2006, November 7) points out that models like ADDIE and HPT are, by nature, better suited to _training_ tasks (those with specific end-point goals) than to _educational_ tasks (those that aim to increase general knowledge, skills, etc.) because these models demand specific measurements. He goes on to argue that models like ADDIE and HPT are still valid today, but that they need careful application. He writes, "too often we see training as a solution looking for a problem." At its heart, this favors HPT somewhat, since HPT explicitly includes non-training solutions. But the over-arching admonition is to analyze the situation, determine what kind of solution is needed, and _then_ choose a model for getting there.

References:

Bhattacharya, A. (2006, November 8). Big question: ISD / ADDIE / HPT: still relevant? Retrieved May 12, 2010, from http://incsub.org/soulsoup/?p=739

Gram, T. (2009, September 9). ADDIE is dead! Long live ADDIE! Retrieved May 12, 2010, from http://gramconsulting.com/2009/09/addie-is-dead-long-live-addie/

International Society for Performance Improvement. (2009). What is human performance technology? Retrieved May 12, 2010, from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/courses/46324/CRS-CW-4119171/What_is_Human_Performance_Technology_%28HPT%29.pdf

Jarche, H. (2006, November 7). Whither ISD, ADDIE & HPT? Retrieved May 12, 2010, from http://www.jarche.com/2006/11/wither-isd-addie-hpt/

Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., & Kemp, J. E. (2007). Designing effective instruction (5th ed.). San Francisco: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

AIRS 2010: Strength In Numbers

2010-05-12T00:47:00.000-07:00

I'm teaching a workshop at this year's national Alliance of Information and Referral Systems conference. It's called Strength in Numbers: Bringing Effective Group Work to Training Programs, and it's a workshop I've done at several other conferences... inasmuch as any participatory workshop can be "done before"! I'm a different person now, with different experiences.

Among the things I plan to do around the periphery of the workshop:
- give them digital (online) media to use during the workshop, if they wish
- provide tools in concept-map format as well as traditional formats
- provide a reading list for people who want to learn more

Here's a working list of things I think might be relevant to their needs:

stuff about Robert Gagne
stuff about instructional design
stuff about ARCS motivation theory
the importance of elaboration for cognitive storage
stuff about constructivism
Armstrong or Gardner on multiple intelligence theory?
stuff about managing time in class
stuff about Socratic questioning
tools of the trade
stuff about Vygotsky/ZPD
stuff about Bloom's taxonomy

Malachowski, M. (2002). ADDIE based five-step method towards instructional design. Retrieved from http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~mmalacho/OnLine/ADDIE.html

The Hammer and the Hacksaw: Choosing the Right Tool for the Job

2010-04-25T22:51:00.000-07:00

My family has a love affair with tools. My father started teaching me to work with tools before I could walk, and my grandfather’s tool collection was legendary. As he put it, “I just like ‘em.” My relatives instilled the belief that a well-rounded person has many tools and knows their capabilities, and I carry that mindset forward into my study of learning theories. Over the past two months, I have tried to look at learning theories not as being “right or wrong”, but with an eye to “how is this useful?” and “what can this teach me?” The hammer and the hacksaw are both valuable tools, but one is clearly better for pounding nails and the other excels at cutting timbers. So, too, with learning theories: each is valuable for certain tasks, and we need the right tool for the job.

I was surprised to learn how divergent some of the theories are—I expected a Grand Unified Theory of human learning. In retrospect, that was an odd expectation to have. I was struck, repeatedly, by how slippery the concept of “learning” is. A behaviorist’s idea of learning looks rather different from a connectivist’s idea, but both claim to describe the same thing. I also learned to beware the seductive habit of assuming that everyone else learns the way I do—I now believe that the mark of a good instructional designer is that he tries to understand how everyone else learns too. This leads toward an eclectic view of learning: if a theory explains how anyone learns, we should pay attention to it.

This course has shown me the huge role technology and connectivity have played in my learning over the past twenty years. Although I am a cognitive constructivist at heart, my habits tend strongly toward connectivism. I spend much of my life researching things or sharing things on the Internet, and my life would be poorer without it. In pondering this, I have come to see the Internet (and its associated technologies) as a new constructivist environment: a rich context full of authentic tasks that have meaning for learners. Generational diversity plays into this, and I have spent much of this class thinking about what people of different ages expect about learning and educational technology.

In designing instruction, I tend to ask “why” a lot. Why do it this way? Why do the learners need to know this? Why is this class failing to teach what I want my learners to know? Learning theories help to give me answers to these questions, because they break down the nebulous “learning process” into more manageable chunks that I can diagnose and debug. I came into the class with some strong ideas about what constituted “good instruction”, and I still hold many of those views; the learning theories have helped me to understand why “good instruction” succeeds, and why “bad instruction” fails.

Theories provide a foundation for understanding how instruction works. Like most foundations, their structure is sometimes hard to see, but without them, the house falls down. We may not interact with the foundations every day, directly, but we rely on their support. Learning theories make me a better designer because they help me to know what I am trying to achieve and how to get there. The theories also offer strategies for fixing problems—these different approaches and lenses give me new tools to try when designing instruction.

Where is this going? Part of me now wants to study educational psychology at the doctoral level, because it fascinates me. More immediately, I plan to continue asking how the training programs I develop support learning, motivation, and transfer. In that sense, learning theories have already been valuable to me: I used motivation theory in developing a presentation last week, and I have been getting rave reviews about it. I used connectivism to explain why social services need to adapt to the habits of today’s users, and I used constructivism to develop an assessment tool that really works. It all comes down to having the right tool for the job.

Dipping from many wells

2010-04-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last two months studying learning theories at Walden University, and it's been a fascinating journey. The class forced me to get involved with blogs, and it made me jump head-first into the pool of Web participation. Talk about a lesson with wide-reaching effects!

Photo by Diego_3666

When I dipped my toe into studying learning theories, I classified myself as a cognitive constructivist, and I think my first instincts were good ones. Although aspects of behaviorism hold true for me (as they do for everyone), that theory doesn't explain the way I learn higher-order skills and knowledge. Cognitive theory, with its focus on connections between related concepts and emphasis on metaphor, is an obvious choice for me; it pairs well with constructivism, which explains the fact that I learn best in rich environments where I can see the problem, work at it from different angles, and draw on different resources to find solutions.

As I've learned about later theories like connectivism, social learning, and adult learning theory, the water has grown a bit muddier.

Connectivism--the focus on a network of resources, rather than one person's knowledge--has played a tremendous role in my intellectual development. I adopted technology early on, hit the Internet well before the Web had been invented, and never really looked back. The network of resources has been a feature of my learning since elementary school. I still spend hours each day immersed in the Internet, connecting with friends and colleagues, researching new ideas, communicating, and learning. I only recently learned about connectivist theory, but I've been doing what it describes for years.

I'm not sure where I stand with social learning theory. Some of my best experiences have been with other learners, but I tend to gravitate toward learning on my own. Perhaps this stems from years of being interested in things that bored my classmates, or maybe it grows from my native introversion. When I can find groups of people with similar interests, I learn a lot by discussing and debating with them, which is why the 'net is such a wonderful tool for me. I also learn through teaching.

Adult learning theory seems more like a collection of descriptions than a coherent theory, but it has a lot of merit. It points out that adults tend to be self-directed learners (I am!) and tend to prefer forms of instruction that explain why the learning is useful. We also draw heavily on our past experiences and pre-existing knowledge, and use technology to aid our learning.

I rely on technology for many things: I use a computer to stay in touch with friends and colleagues; I participate in forums, blogs, and email lists where I both learn and teach; I schedule my time with the aid of a BlackBerry; I make music on electronic instruments and record the analog instruments with a computer. Technology plays a big role in my learning because it makes it easy to find information and it also simplifies the task of preserving what I've learned and publishing new ideas. Discussion boards are very helpful to me, as are the few close friends who'll indulge me, because I often cement learning by summarizing it and explaining it to someone else. Internet connectivity facilitates this. I also find a simple word processor valuable in taking notes--I can type at around 100 words per minute, which is more than three times the average handwriting speed (31 wpm). Faster note-taking means less time away from the material I'm trying to drink in.

My learning theory preferences seem to relate to the letter 'C': the more 'C's, the better. So I am strongly constructivist and connectivist (both have two 'C's), still quite cognitivist and interested in social learning (one 'C' each), and not very behaviorist (no 'C's at all). Since every family needs a black sheep, mine is adult learning theory, which lacks a 'C' but still enjoys my warm regard.

You may have noticed the water theme running through my post. That's intentional: one of the things I learned from cognitivism is that attaching metaphors to things can make them easier to learn. I feel like my understanding of learning has flowed through each theory, sipping from each, drinking deeply from a few. In the end, I find it difficult to say which influences me the most--so much depends on context. I think they all serve useful purposes, and I intend to continue dipping from each well.

Geolocation in learning

2010-04-14T22:38:00.000-07:00

I am intensely interested in the ways location affects learning and development, as I've written in the past. I think the rise of geolocation technologies will have profound and subtle effects on the way we teach. I'm using geolocation in two senses here: one being the (relatively broad) sense of using GPS and other technology to describe two-dimensional position in latitude and longitude, and the other being a more general term for electronically-mediated spatial awareness: a sense of "knowing where things are".

Some of the technology here doesn't exist yet—but that's the nature of technological prediction. I owe a debt to Educause's 2009 Horizon Report for getting me thinking about some of these issues in a new light.

NatureMapping (as referenced on Edutopia) is one sort of educational use, but there are others. I found relatively little information about geolocated learning on Edutopia; perhaps the field is so new that little has yet been written. With luck, I'll be able to contribute something one day.

Maps have always helped me learn. From the day I discovered them, they fascinated me. They help me understand topography and illuminate historical trends and wars, but I realize now that the map is one of my fundamental metaphors for interacting with the world. Here, then, are a few ideas about how new mapping tools—geolocation tools—could be used for instruction.

Tracking

There are obvious opportunities for tracking and data collection. But what might that mean? Students in libraries could be automatically directed to the nearest open study carrel, and music students could be automatically sent to the nearest available practice room.

A mobile phone with a store map and Hamiltonian circuit calculator could read your shopping list from your email (or, e.g., RememberTheMilk.com) and help you find and follow the quickest route to getting all of your groceries; it could also help you determine where to park for optimal shopping speed. If we combined fine-grained geolocation with communications ability, we could have shopping carts scan RFID tags when you placed groceries into the cart. When you arrived at the checkout counter, your cart could just communicate its contents to the cashier, saving time for everyone.

Location as metaphor

There are other exciting possibilities, too: we could also use geolocation to provide metaphors for teaching other concepts, in a cognitive theory sense. We can use geolocation to unlock other ideas for our learners, giving them a scaffold to hold onto.

Imagine a whole class of high school students wearing location trackers. We run several iterations of an exercise where all of the high school students start in one location and race to another—the first n students receive a reward. The iterations:

We put the students in a hallway and give a reward to the first students to reach the classroom at the other end.
We put the students in a hallway and give a reward to the first students to run down the hallway, up the stairs, and into the classroom.
We put the students in the same hallway as (2), but we allow them a choice: run down the first-floor hallway, then climb the stairs; or climb the stairs, then run down the second-floor hallway. Reward the first ones to arrive.

When we've finished, we come back into the classroom and upload all of the location tracks into a computer and superimpose them on a map of the building.

What are we teaching? We're teaching electrical concepts in physics class. We've given people kinesthetic experience with a few important physics concepts—which is important because kinesthetic intelligence is underused in most science classes—but there are some other parallels too:

Scenario (1) simulates flow of electricity in wires of different gauge. Students run with low resistance through the wide wire (hallway), but the resistance changes when they all try to cram through the narrow wire (doorway), and they slow down. I bet some of the students would jostle in the doorway, too, which illustrates the principle that added resistance leads to heat (or arguments). By giving a reward for the first ones to finish, we've gotten the students to behave kind of like electrons (or molecules in an ideal gas): they're all moving as fast as possible in whatever direction they're pointed.

(2) does the same thing, but it's a longer race, so some of the front-runners get tired and fall back; here we might still be talking about electricity, but we could be talking about the movement of sperm in biology class or the changing fortunes of political campaigns. In looking at the position traces over time, students might come to understand the group dynamics in flocks of geese, or the positional strategy of car racing. We could use the example to talk about chemical diffusion, too.

(3) runs back to electricity: increase the number of paths, and you decrease resistance. But the same concept has applications in plumbing, civil engineering, event planning (bathrooms), packing algorithms (math)... and you might then relate it back to educational theory and talk about how multiple-intelligence instruction offers multiple paths and makes it easier for more students to move more quickly through material.

In each case, the students will have a bunch of concrete memories to associate with the new concept, and they may start to hook together such disparate topics as electron flow, fluid dynamics, crowd behavior, and plumbing. By letting us show the individual movement within the crowd, geolocation offers a lot of interesting opportunities for "real world" simulation of complex topics.

The rise of geolocation technology also offers the opportunity to talk about trust and privacy issues in terms that are relevant to today's learners. Today's students are comfortable sharing their personal lives on sites like Facebook, and my students often laugh at me for talking about privacy concerns—but how would they feel about a smart bathroom stall that published the user's name to its data log? Geolocation is neat, but do you want your girlfriend and your mom to be able to look up where you were last night? What if your boss can tell that you were in the bar all afternoon even though you claim that you were at an important meeting? Are these things privacy concerns? What if police could use your cell phone to track how fast you were moving and send you speeding tickets automatically?

We could use geolocation to start a discussion about critical thinking and information sources, too: we frequently assume that location data is "true", somehow. What if the photographs of Rodney King being beaten in Los Angeles had included location tags showing that they happened in the Mayor's parking lot, or if someone published a Photoshopped picture of Tiger Woods and his mistress and geocoded it to be taken from her house?

Conclusion

Location underpins a great deal of our society, and geolocation devices offer a great opportunity to make that underpinning visible. They could be used in behaviorist contexts (imagine a weight-loss program that wouldn't let you leave the gym until you had spent five minutes on each machine), but the best uses are cognitive and constructivist contexts. Location can help us to develop rich metaphors that connect learners to the concepts in the world around them, and geolocation tools can also help learners to create knowledge and seek out things that interest them. When we include geolocation within the greater sphere of always-on communication devices, it becomes a real tool for connectivist theory, because it allows us to pull relevant knowledge from our networks whenever we need it.

Connectivism in my life

2010-04-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

This week, Walden's graduate course on learning theories asks us to consider Siemens's theory of connectivism, which broadly states that learning is affected by those we meet and work with as much as by our own experiences. We are asked to respond publicly to some discussion questions and, in so doing, refine our own thinking.

Therefore, O members of my learning network: please respond to my ideas here. Help me process and interact with what I know, and share your knowledge with me. Thanks!

How has your network changed the way you learn?

Thinking back on it, I've always relied on a network for learning. As a kid, I was always snagging books from the school library, and trips to bookstores were big days because many of my interests weren't represented by the local libraries. Quite early, I absorbed the lesson not to believe everything I read, and I came to view reading as a useful tool for figuring out the truth.

"Figuring out the truth": that's important. Back in school, it often seemed that my teachers thought complexity was undesirable. The textbook says that the Civil War was fought primarily because of disagreements about slavery, so it must be true. Therefore, we'll go with the idea that slavery was the motivation behind that whole period of American history, and we'll sweep industrialization, cultural differences, and divergent opinions about the nature of a federal government under the rug. School often showed me the world in a sanitized Burger King package with all the mud wiped off.

Maybe it was because I grew up as the child of a lawyer, but I never saw things as being that simple. I learned from my dad that even "the law" is often unclear--there are always new situations for which no specific law exists, so lawyers are trained to find a way through those thickets. As I see it, the truth of the world tends to emerge from the murky depths of conflicting information, and there is rarely any confirmation that we've gotten it right. The world exists, unsanitized and covered in mud, and that's how we have to deal with it.

In that context, networks are incredibly valuable because they point toward truth. Networks help us to find inconsistencies within arguments, and they show us ideas we might never have considered. The networks help us to think better, although they shouldn't be allowed to think for us. When lots of different parts of our network agree on something, it cues us to consider it. Where they disagree, that's a sign too. A wide network of learning sources is better than a narrow one for the same reason that academic papers are better-respected when they include substantial literature review than when they don't: breadth signals careful attention.

I first started using computer networks in the late 1980s, back when AOL, bulletin board systems, gopher, and MUDs were all the rage. Those networks exposed me to all kinds of ideas--and people--I wouldn't have otherwise encountered for years. The rise of the Web kicked it into higher gear by making it even easier to research ideas.

I would say that I owe a huge part of my intellectual development to the internet, both because of the data sources it exposes and because of the personal communications it facilitates.

Which digital tools best facilitate learning for you?

My two biggest digital tools are Google and Wikipedia. Both are wide-ranging, available 24/7, and free. When a new concept comes up, I'll often check to see if there's a Wikipedia article on it, read it, and then Google some related terms if I'm interested in learning more.

My strategies change depending on what I'm planning to do with the information, too. If I'm researching something for work or academia, I slant more toward the formal, authoritative resources--partly because of their greater accountability but also because I don't usually need broad overviews when I'm researching something for work or school. I do not consider Wikipedia authoritative, because anyone can modify it, but I do find it valuable for getting a quick overview of a topic.

I strongly dislike tools that require me to install additional software, since I've been a Linux user for years and many of them insist on Windows. I'm also very skeptical of sites that require me to register and log in--privacy issues and simple internet-laziness lead me to move on.

I bought a BlackBerry phone about a year ago, and it's been incredibly valuable to me--but not for the reasons people suggested. People told me it would replace my computer, would make it easy to browse the Web from everywhere, and so on. But in reality, Verizon's 3G network is very slow in northern New York (sometimes Google's homepage takes more than a minute to load), and I can type orders of magnitude faster on a computer keyboard than on the BlackBerry. But the BlackBerry really shines in two areas: controlling my schedule and clearing my mind.

I have my BlackBerry calendar connected up to my Google Calendar, which means that whenever I add appointments on my phone they sync up with Google--and vice versa. When it's time for an appointment, my phone buzzes at me. This is old technology, but it's very easy to use, and it has made my life a great deal simpler. My job life requires a great deal of flexibility--I'm never doing the same task two days in a row--which means that I rarely have any sense of routine. The BlackBerry keeps track of the immovable commitments in my life.

Which leads to the second virtue: clearing my mind. I no longer have to pay as much attention to my schedule, because a computer does it for me. As long as I'm diligent about putting new appointments in, everything works out. I was worried about server failures at first, but (knock on wood) they haven't been a problem. I can scan my email from my phone, which allows me to manage incoming data and responsibilities; I usually respond later, when I'm at my computer. I write down ideas and tasks in the To Do list, which frees me from remembering them.

My technology allows me to offload a lot of that memory stuff onto systems that are intentionally designed for it, which seems to leave the rest of my brain more available for actual thinking.

How do you gain new knowledge when you have questions?

I investigate, either through Internet-based research as I previously mentioned or by asking people I know. Often I take a number of different approaches, looking for patterns in the answers.

One major change in my investigation strategy comes thanks to the internet: I almost always do investigate questions that interest me, because the research tools are so easy. In the days of paper encyclopedias and physical libraries, there were many questions that I never bothered tracking down because I didn't have time. These days, I'll open up a browser window, do some initial searching, and save the window for later use.

In what ways does your personal learning network support or refute the central tenets of connectivism?

I'm taking my list of central tenets from George Siemens (2005), since his paper sparked the debate about connectivism. Before I begin, let me say this: it is hard to disagree with connectivism because its precepts are so broad and so difficult to test. Much of connectivist theory seems, well, obvious--in part because Siemens blurs the line between learning-as-process and learning-as-possession. Consider these different meanings of 'learning' and you'll get a sense of the difference: "We are learning about cognition" vs. "He has a lot of learning behind that folksy façade".

Siemens argues that learning "can reside outside of ourselves", and his theories hold to the idea that learning ("defined as actionable knowledge") inheres in networks rather than individuals. I think I agree, but there's a logical end-point that connectivism doesn't explain: if my knowledge is stored in my networks, how do my networks store it? In their networks? Okay, then how do their networks store it? In the end, it's turtles all the way down. To me, this means that connectivism is incomplete as a learning theory--which is fine. We just need to keep track of those other theories too.

Here's a point-by-point analysis of Siemens's principles of connectivism:

Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions. Absolutely. This perfectly describes my habit of soliciting diverse information sources and then processing their outputs.

Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. Yes, although I'm not sure what defines "specialized", and "information sources" needs to be very general. I'm not sure how Siemens would, for example, explain how a deaf-blind person could learn to walk or speak. What nodes and information sources was Helen Keller connecting, given that she lacked the sensory inputs most of us rely on for information processing? But for me, this point works: I go looking for specialized sources when I want to learn something new.

Learning may reside in non-human appliances. Agreed, although the learning/knowledge line is blurry again. When I use Audacity to record audio files, this seems to indicate that I have "learned" all about Fast Fourier Transforms, sampling rates, bit depths, etc., and that seems a bit far-fetched. I am able to use the capabilities of those appliances, but I'm not sure it counts as learning.

Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known. My habit of using the internet is a good example of this. As long as I know how to use Google and Wikipedia, I can learn a lot about completely new topics. This does presuppose a certain amount of existing knowledge, though.

Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning. Agreed. I do not learn from connections I don't use. However, I can learn in an episodic manner by re-connecting with stale parts of my network, and I then gain access to their new learning. So I agree that it's important to maintain connections, but I don't think I permanently lose "learning" if a connection drifts--only if I cannot re-establish contact when needed.

Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill. Absolutely. There's a new distinction between the ability to recall information and the ability to process it. One of the things my colleagues like about me is my ability to find connections between disparate ideas.

Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities. I'm not sure how to argue this one. I love learning about archaic things, so I often learn--through my connections--about knowledge that is no longer accurate or up-to-date. I'm not sure how to refute or confirm this.

Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision. How can I argue against the idea that the world, and our interactions with it, changes? I am typing on a laptop computer connected wirelessly to an internet website--something my grandparents never imagined they would see. I agree that the way we interpret information depends on our context and beliefs about the world, and I do believe that we learn by making decisions and living with the results--that's behaviorism at work.

I think connectivism is an interesting idea, although I find some of its concepts "fuzzy" enough that I'm not quite sure what they mean. I find Siemens's ideas about information flow within organizations fascinating, and I plan to track down his references and see what they have to say. In that sense, I am learning from his personal learning network. Food for thought.

References:

Davis, C, Edmunds, E, & Kelly-Bateman, V. (2008). Connectivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved 4 April 2010, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, Retrieved 4 April 2010, from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm

My learning network (click to view full-size):

Connectivist learning networks

2010-03-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

This week's Learning Theories assignment involves connectivist theories of learning, and we've been asked to start compiling ideas about our learning networks--the idea being that most of us rely on networks (of people, computers, services, etc.) to provide much of the information we use, and to help us learn (or know) more than we already do.

Here's my start, with the focus being on electronic means of accessing networks. More to come as we go.

Click to see larger version.

There's no emotion in text?

2010-03-24T23:10:00.001-07:00

Crisis hotlines all around the world are working on ways to bring crisis counseling services to people whose preferred communication media involve text-based communication, rather than voice-based. There's a lot of really exciting work happening in the field (I was part of it, on the national level, until very recently), and it has a ton of potential.

People often try to shoot holes in the idea, though, saying things like "you can't talk about emotion in text", "texts aren't real communication", and "omg ur suicidil lol!!!". Typically, the level of hostility is linearly related to the speaker's age. They often focus on the unavailability of verbal and visual cues (tone of voice, pacing of speech, expression, redness of the face, body language, etc.) and use them to justify the belief that emotional communication, online, is impossible.

My new rebuttal: if verbal and visual cues are necessary for communicating emotion, how is it possible that deaf and blind people share their feelings? There's a deaf woman who works in my local grocery store, and I speak with her quite often. She knows how to read lips, and she's able to speak intelligibly even though she can't hear herself (the more I think about this, the more impressive it seems). She's quite capable of understanding and conveying emotion without tone of voice.

Similarly, our crisis hotline has had several blind volunteers--all were successful crisis hotline workers once we got them past the technical challenges of using our unfamiliar technology (phones, databases). It's worth pointing out that, as far as crisis hotline callers are concerned, ALL of us are blind. And yet we help them.

Saying that online environments cannot convey emotion clearly is the same argument as saying that emotion cannot be shared over the phone, by deaf people, or by the blind. It's just not true. The means of communication may be different, but people find a way.

"Behavior" and behaviorism, positive and negative

2010-03-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

'Behavior', as it's often used, is not the same thing as behaviorism. They're different. As I try to understand learning theories, I often see people confusing two different ideas. This article is my attempt to help.

Behavior is a word that's much in vogue with parents and educators, and it's usually used in to describe undesirable activities (I could have said 'negative', but I didn't—we'll get to that later on). But behavior, like stress, is a concept that comes without any value judgments attached. Behavior just means the stuff a person does. You're exhibiting behavior right now, reading this, and I'm exhibiting different behavior while writing it. Everyone is exhibiting behavior all the time, whatever they're doing.

But these days, we've forgotten about the desirable and neutral aspects of behavior, and have largely restricted the term to mean undesirable stuff. A teacher doesn't summon Billy's parents "to discuss his behavior" when he aced a test or won the science fair—she summons them when he pulled Janie's hair. Similarly, we don't talk about "being stressed" when we just got a raise—we focus on the undesirable side of things, and we talk about "being stressed" when, e.g., little Billy pulled yet another girl's hair at school.

'Behavior' has been used so many times in this context that it seems we've forgotten about its more general term. As such, behavior is now largely synonymous with 'discipline' and 'obedience'. But we want to understand behaviorism as a learning theory, we need to get past that collision of meanings, or else proactive interference is going to ruin the new ideas.

What behaviorism isn't
Behaviorism, as a learning theory, isn't primarily concerned with the goal of compelling discipline—although we want Billy and Janie to get along, that isn't the real point here. Behaviorism holds to the central idea that people's actions—their behavior—are conditioned and influenced by the way the world responds to them. I'm drawing broadly here, and there are disagreements, but I think that's a fair general statement.

Referring to the Walden classroom discussion that prompted this post, behaviorists would agree that discipline problems (like Billy and Janie's) can often be solved through behaviorist methods. But they would also be quick to point out that discipline is only the tip of the iceberg.

Positive and negative

Remember how I said I was avoiding the word 'negative'? It's another one of those words that has so many meanings that it's easy to lose the appropriate one. We aren't talking about 'positive and negative' as synonyms for 'good and bad' here—we're talking about "presence and absence", "fullness and emptiness", or "yang and yin". Have a look at Edgar Rubin's vase over there in the margins. On the left side, what you probably see is a yellow vase represented by positive space—the presence of color, lines, and shading. But if you look around the yellow vase, into the negative space, you'll see something defined by absence: a pair of faces in profile. To make this negative image clearer, we've provided a version of the image with colors inverted.

For those of you who've seen the Da Vinci Code, you may recall a good explanation of positive and negative space in Leigh Teabing's description of Da Vinci's Last Supper, where he talked about a chalice appearing in the negative space.

So what does this have to do with learning theory?
Positive and negative reinforcement and punishment are the major tools of behaviorism. We use reinforcement when we're trying to get a behavior to stick around, and we use punishment when we're trying to get it to go away.

Positive techniques add something. In the case of 'positive reinforcement', we might tell students we're proud of them when they do what we want... or we might elect politicians who tell us just what we want to hear. We're adding (positive) something to increase behavior (praise for what they did).

'Positive punishment' is a little bit less intuitive—remember that we're adding (positive) something to inhibit behavior (punishment). So positive punishment might be what happens when your credit card company raises your rates after a late payment, or it might be the old example of students being made to stay after class to clap erasers for the chalkboards. Positive punishment gives you more of something that you didn't want in the first place.

Negative techniques take something away. In the case of 'negative punishment', where we're trying to remove (negative) something to inhibit behavior (punishment), we might take away Billy's cell phone because he pulled Janie's hair again.

'Negative reinforcement' is a little harder to see, because we're trying to remove (negative) something to increase behavior. Suppose that Billy normally has to pay $20 to the family for his cell phone each month. We might negatively reinforce desired behavior by saying that, in every month where he treats classmates nicely in class, he will only have to pay $5 for his cell phone. We removed something (the expense) in order to increase his desirable behavior (being nice to classmates).

So when you're thinking about behaviorism, try to let yourself drift away from the idea of behavior as something bad. Behavior is just the way that humans interact with their world. And similarly, when you're thinking about positive and negative reinforcement and punishment, try not to think of positive and negative as "good and bad"... think of them as full and empty, present and absent, and yang and yin.

References:

Standridge, M. (2001). Behaviorism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Behaviorism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_space

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_vase

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taijitu

Got questions? Think I've misunderstood something? Let's talk! Please comment—I check the comments frequently.

Problem-solving in adult learning

2010-03-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

Since I work primarily with adults, I'm especially interested in the ways learning theory informs instructional practice in older learners. As I'm discovering, there are quite a few resources out there to help instructional designers work with adult learners.

The International Journal of Learning (IJL):

This journal's focus is very broad: "a forum for any person with an interest in, and concern for, education at any of its levels and in any of its forms, from early childhood, to schools, to higher education and lifelong learning — and in any of its sites, from home to school to university to workplace." Recent articles cover a variety of topics from the care and feeding of teachers through sexual identity to the implications of teaching in a multi-language environment.

I discovered IJL because of Robert Toynton's work on integrating various learning theories into a pedagogic approach he calls "jigsaw"-based instruction (Toynton, 2007). The idea is that groups of adult learners, working on "group-supported implicit learning through discovery", are often able to learn a great deal by mobilizing implicit (un-taught) knowledge that exists already within the group. He describes the jigsaw approach as having six main points: learning by doing, discovering, elaborating, collaborating, experiencing, and being supported (p. 61). He integrates these ideas within a constructivist framework designed to help learners share in discovering (and therefore owning) new knowledge. This approach seems particularly well suited to adults, who typically have vast amounts of implicit knowledge in the form of life experience. I particularly appreciate Toynton's guidelines for teachers: stay out of the way, let the students discuss and argue, and only intervene when you're fairly sure they won't reach the goal without your help. When you must intervene, do so as minimally as possible.

As Toynton points out, the jigsaw is "particularly useful, for learning and teaching with groups of varied levels of experience and prior knowledge" (p. 64). By placing learners in small groups in a shared problem-solving environment, the jigsaw method supports group trust while mitigating the effects of different knowledge levels. Students with a lot of task-specific knowledge are free to use it, where less-experienced students may feel comfortable learning by listening and watching. The jigsaw method describes some of the best teachers I've ever seen, and I look forward to reading Toynton's other works to see more specific examples.

Learning and Instruction:

Learning and Instruction also displays interest in learning, across "a diversity of learning and instructional settings", and places some emphasis on adult learning. Its mandate is to publish "the most advanced scientific research". It seems as though articles from the journal receive a lot of citations, which is good to see.

Rieber, Tzeng, and Tribble (2004) describe an experiment in teaching college students about basic Newtonian physics using a computer simulation that allows practical experimentation without requiring initial understanding of the physics involved—focusing on "experiences, rather than explanations" (p. 308). Within this framework, they evaluated the result of using single- and multi-medium instruction in the context of dual coding theory.

Rieber et al. designed their study to see whether it was possible to improve referential processing of information, to the point that students might learn principles of physics that they could successfully transfer to other problem domains. Their methods are interesting in part because they used a ball-and-impulse computer game to teach and assess the students' understanding of physics.

They suggest that, rather than using simulations as a post-instructional assessment, it may be more effective to integrate simulation into initial experience--and that brief instructional moments may significantly help to diminish cognitive load and improve learning. Something I found worth noting was this: "students with little prior knowledge in a domain do not necessarily make good decisions when it comes to their own learning" (p. 320). When the researchers removed the experimental constraints on access to instruction, most participants eschewed help--with detrimental results to their assessment scores. Within a constructivist framework, teachers need to pay close attention to the fact that learners sometimes need us to intervene and teach, because they will not otherwise seek help.

Maybe I'm just fascinated by the possibilities of using physics simulations to test learning theories because I used to be a computer scientist and a physics geek. But it seems very much germane to my studies in instructional design and technology, and I look forward to reading more of the research cited in Rieber et al.

References:

Rieber, L., Tzeng, S-C., and Tribble, K. (2004). Discovery learning, representation, and explanation within a computer-based simulation: finding the right mix. Learning and Instruction, 14, 307-323. Retrieved on March 14, 2010, from Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2004.06.008 .

Toynton, R. (2007). Theorising 'jigsaws': investigating the transferable elements of a problem-solving approach to teaching and learning. International Journal of Learning, 14(5), 59-66. Retrieved on March 14, 2010, from Education Research Complete database.

Geographically-Situated Learning

2010-03-08T20:36:00.000-08:00

Michelle Pacansky-Brock offers some fascinating ideas about how Google Earth can be used to teach art history ("Interactive Learning with Google Earth"). The basic premise is that Google's open software solutions for terrain mapping have allowed people to develop tremendous value for instruction -- as, for example, in an art studio class that flies across the Google Earth, zooms in on the Prado, and has high-quality digital images of famous paintings available to look at.

Another great example of how location-based sites can really improve learning comes from Andrew Lavigne's fantastic site about the 46 High Peaks in the Adirondack Mountains, here in New York. That's a topic near and dear to my heart since I normally spend most of the year hiking or (rock/ice) climbing there. Andrew is a Winter 46er; I'm a bit more than halfway there, although I made almost no progress this year thanks to a bad knee injury. Anyway, Andrew has done a masterful job of combining trip reports, photographs, GPS traces, and geolocation to give hikers a truly valuable resource--and to give non-hikers a sense of what it's "really like" to climb these mountains. Check out his base map: click on any of the tags and you'll get a link to that mountain's page, which includes photos, trip reports, etc. It's great!

My friend Dale Hobson, webmaster for North Country Public Radio, got the geotagging bug recently. Now they're tagging news stories, to help readers get a sense of what "local" means up here in the big north. Check out their map.

The possibilities for rich instructional environments are obvious, and I think it's also possible to limit the information enough to provide some educational direction. If one of the tasks of instruction is to help learners discover a hunger for more information, I think situated learning has a lot of potential.

If I'd had access to this kind of information when I was working on a bagpipe music archive in Scotland, I might have used it to tie our recordings to the villages where the pipers lived. Scottish bagpipe music has a definite terroir just as wine does, and it would be really neat to make it easy to hear the regional differences, and to listen to the changes as you scrolled across a landscape. We could integrate sheet music that tracked with the recordings, to help with differentiated instruction for our students, and we could include photographs of the pipers, their homes, and the landscape.

Learning to play the glorious piobaireachd "Lament for the Children"? You should see where Padraig Mor MacCrimmon lived when he wrote it, and be able to learn about that remote cove on the Isle of Skye where he lived. Cognitively, the repeated F#s in the tune--normally cheerful notes in pipe music--take on a different sense when you know that Padraig wrote his tune after losing seven of his eight children to smallpox--carried by a Spanish vessel that sailed into that bay. You might even draw some melodic comparisons between his Lament and the Spanish traditional music of that time. The possibilities are rich. (Thanks to Bruce Gandy for the recording--Bruce is a fantastic piper from Nova Scotia).

Teaching children about the geopolitics of food, and the reason why there's a "going local" movement? You can talk about climates, transportation costs, spoilage rates, piracy, and the rest. But might it not be clearer to start with the image of your local grocery store on-screen, and zoom out to a map of the world, with clickable tags showing where the foods you ate came from? Draw lines to map out the trading pathways, and you start to see why China enjoyed Most Favored Nation status--the pathway is as thick as a slab of imported beef.

It's been said that all politics is local. So is everything else. So many interesting trends emerge when we start taking data out of the statistical realm and start mapping it onto the globe. When we can use the newer technologies to make that data accessible through a mapping model, we present learners with a fascinating view... of the world. Let's get on it.

Blogs worth reading

2010-03-07T14:04:00.000-08:00

Although the term "instructional design" is unfamiliar to many people, you probably already know quite a few instructional designers. We stand at the confluence of educational psychology, practical pedagogy, educational technology, and a few other fields, and our focus is simple: whatever subject you want to teach, we want to help your students learn it. We want to make sure you give them whatever they need to absorb, understand, and retain the information, linking it deeply within their own understanding of the world.

Although there are instructional design books out there (an excellent one is George Piskurich's Rapid Instructional Design, in its second edition from Pfeiffer Press), you can also find a lot of information on the web, for free. Here are some good places to start:

Making Change, by Cathy Moore

I've been reading Cathy's thoughts on instructional design almost from the first day I discovered the field, and she has guided a lot of my practical experiments at work. She has a strong pragmatic bent in her philosophy of design, and she feels that many of the traditional military-model instructional design principles (like ADDIE) are often used too rigidly. As such, I think her words will provide interesting fodder for debate when we discuss models of instructional design.

I love the way Cathy organizes her site. She's a technology-based instructional designer, and her site actually does what she talks about. She frequently posts slide shows, graphic explanations, and other tools that really increase my understanding of her topic. But she's also a philosopher and a careful thinker about why something is worth doing:

Too often, elearning is viewed as simply a way to deliver information . . . . But elearning’s strength is in its ability to challenge learners with realistic interactions that make them interpret and apply new information. ("Could animations hurt learning?", retrieved 7 March 2010).

I enjoy Cathy's writing immensely, and I always learn something new from her posts. They don't come often—the last was in November 2009—but when they do, they're worth the time.

Word of Mouth: the Articulate Blog, hosted by Gabe Anderson

For those who don't know it, Articulate isn't merely an adjective for a well-spoken person; it's also a software package for the development of eLearning presentations and experiences. As such, the Articulate Blog sometimes comes across a bit heavily in the direction of Articulate's products, but they usually have some larger point to make—and when they do, it's worth hearing.

Articulate's bloggers tend to focus on different aspects of the technological expertise required to create strong visual eLearning materials. Since I am not trained as a graphic designer and have relatively little experience with tools like PowerPoint and Flash, I find this sort of advice very valuable.

Articulate tends to have a bias toward corporate training topics, which casts it in a different light from some of the instructional design blogs that focus on schools.

I also really like Articulate's Rapid eLearning Blog.

Instructional Design and Development Blog, by the IDD faculty of DePaul University

I like reading IDD Blog because, although its voice represents several different writers with diverse backgrounds, it manages to present a consistently valuable, thought-provoking look at different topics that relate to instructional design. I work with a lot of college students, so their university setting is valuable to me. IDD Blog seems to have a good worthy variety of discussions, didactic materials, and simple ruminations, and I enjoy reading it.

For example, some recent posts involve such varied topics as how to handle situations where one person's lack of inability gets cast as a design problem ("Poor Usability or Just Poor Users? The Squeaky-Wheel Syndrome"), some basic tips on good PowerPoint design ("Oh, Good Old PowerPoint"), and some classroom techniques on how to get discussions moving ("Getting Students Talking in Synchronous Sessions, Part II"). None of these posts is encyclopedic, but they often have valuable insight that applies to other problem domains, and some—like the PowerPoint article linked above—are both direct and packed with information.

Why bother?
In their own ways, each of these blogs makes me think. They make me argue with myself, and they make me wrestle with new ideas. I believe that process makes me a better instructional designer, and I look forward to learning more about how these professionals do their work.

Why instruction matters

2010-03-07T13:55:00.000-08:00

Hi friends!

I'm Hollis, and I believe that instruction matters. Although knowledge is important (and, I think, valuable in itself), the way we teach it makes a huge difference in how accessible it is to other people. I've also found, in my own life, that teaching others to understand or do something often helps cement that knowledge for me, showing me new facets I had missed before.

Many different topics touch on matters of instruction, and this blog will end up being somewhat eclectic. Although I began it for an assignment in my MS in Instructional Design and Technology degree program, I hope to continue using it once I finish the degree.

Instruction matters. A lot. Let's talk about it!