Week 10- Webquest!

In that week's lecture, we were taught the definitions of a webquest, and how it should entail. For my group, we had already done planning for the webquest, and to our horror, we realized that what we had planned for all along, was in fact not a webquest. However, we were ready and we quickly modified our parts and set out to generate our new improved webquest motivated by our enlightenment.

Webquest is seen as an inquiry-oriented lesson where the user has to locate resources from the Internet to perform tasks designated by the webquest. For our group, we decided to develop one targeted towards secondary 1 children, with the aim to teach them on the importance of recycling. The need to instill in themselves an affective feeling of practising recycling to save the environment was also discussed and considered. In the webquest, we assigned a series of tasks broken down in clear and coherent levels which the learner has to go through, and eventually with the final overall task of producing a recycling guide out of recycled materials. We deliberately used the idea of them as "Recycling Heroes" to generate a level of excitement and fun.

Furthermore, to aid in the feedback process, we created a Facebook group called "Recycling Heroes' Guide" for them to discuss, interact, view/post links and interesting video information and also to put their work online. It also acts as a form of support.

Overall, the development of the webquest was fun and an interesting experience! Could have a higher weightage though, lol. =)

Assignment 3

Assignment was done in tutorial with group members in "Team Venture".

Week 6 Tutorial Assignment

This was the learning design sequence we did in tutorial.

Such a tool is useful to planning a learning program. It provides a good overview of the learning objectives and is effective in tracking the effectiveness when doing assessment review. A good tip Mr Alfred gave was to first arrange your objectives on a post-it before you start doing the learning design sequence so that you can re-arrange the different steps when needed, allaying confusion and easing the planning process.

Week 9- Instructional Strategies Leading to Problem-solving and Affective Learning

Week 9- Instructional Strategies Leading to Problem-solving and Affective Learning

Problem-solving and Affective Learning are under Evaluation-Design-Development facets of the Instructional Design framework. (ADDIE)

Problem solving is seen as a specialized skill within a domain of knowledge rather than a generalized skill that applies across a variety of content areas.

It is the ability to combine previously learnt principles, procedures, declarative knowledge and cognitive strategies to solve previously unencountered problems.

The problem solving task analysis includes 9 steps, namely (Smith and Ragan):

1. Clarify the given state, including any obstacles or constraints.

2. Clarify the goal state

3. Search for relevent prior knowledge that will aid in solution

4. Determine if conditions and goal state imply a known class of problems

5. Decompose problems into subproblems

6. Determine a sequence for subproblems

7. Consider a possible solution path/s to subproblems using related prior knowledge

8. Select solution path and apply principles in appropriate order

9. Evaluate achievement of goal.

For attitudes, Gagne and Discroll described it as identifiable as desirable educational goals. They are sometimes coupled in thought with values.

In Instructional design, motivation and attitudes are differentiated. Motivation is sought to be changed during instruction, whereas attitude is the outcome of an instruction.

Learning outcomes of an affective domain can be gauged through the Krathwohl taxonomy:

1. Attending (being aware)
2. Responding
3. Valuing
4. Organization
5. Characterization

Week 8: Instructional Strategies for Procedures and Principles Learning

Week 8: Instructional Strategies for Procedures and Principles Learning

Procedures and Principles Learning are under Evaluation-Design-Development facets of the Instructional Design framework. (ADDIE)

According to Gagné (1985), procedure knowledge is “knowing how”. Another term for procedure is also "algorithm". For example, mathematics operations are procedures that are algorithmic. The ability to state the steps of a procedure is a declarative knowledge whereas the ability to execute a procedure is called productions, and intellectual skill.

There are simple and complex procedures. Simple procedures may be taught straightforwardly, with a step presented, demonstrated and then practiced.

Complex procedures, on the other hand, must be simplified for their inital instruction. Then later can it be elaborated into its more complex form.

The instructional events for learning procedures are:
• Learning to determine if the procedure is required
• Learning steps to complete the procedure
• Learning to list the steps in the prodcedure
• Learning to check the appropriateness of a completed procedure

In teaching procedures through E-learning , the most difficult Instructional events are feedback and practice.

However, ways in which we can circumvent the feedback problem is through online forums, wikis and even facebook groups (creation of facebook groups) to simulate discussion and which the learners can access in their own time and convenience. For practice, the problem can be solved through webquests, where the learner has to find his own resources from the internet to aid in his learning, and that can be a form of practice.

Principles are seen as a combination of rules, concepts and facts. It is considered a form of higher-level learning.
In contrast, principle learning can be described as “knowing why”. They can often be expressed in the form of “if-then” or “cause-effect” statements. Mental operations involved in applying principles are called "productions", which are implicit in all of the intellectual skills. Principles are characterized as variables, concepts, contexts, conditions, situations or conditions in which the principle is applicable and judgmental heuristics or “rules-of-thumb”.

The instructional events for learning principles are:
• State the principle.
• Recognizing situations in which the principle is applicable
• Applying the principle (aided through Variables, Factors, Illustrations or Explanation)
• Determining whether a principle has been correctly applied (through Practice and Feedback)

Week 7: Instructional Strategies for Fact and Concept Learning

Week 7: Instructional Strategies for Fact and Concept Learning

This week, we learnt the instructional strategies for Fact and Concept learning.

Fact and Concept needs to be distinguished from each other, one rule of thumb which Mr Alfred offered was that if it includes a definition, then most likely it is a Concept.

Fact and concept learning covers the 3 facets of Instructional Design, which are Evaluation, Design and Development.

A concept is defined as a set of specific objects, symbols or events which are grouped together on basis of shared characteristics and referenced by a particular name of symbol (Merrill & Tennyson) There are different types of attrributes in concept learning:

Functional attribute: relating to how it works and what is its use

Relational attribute: the quality of a concept defined in terms of something else

Intrinsic attribute: invariant property of an observation

There needs to be a distinction between abstract and concrete concepts:

Smith and Ragan distinguishes from such by identifying concrete concepts through their physical characteristics, which may be discerned by sense of sight, smell, taste, touch or hearing.

Ideas such as profit, norm, bull market are not perceived by their appearance, thus are seen as abstract concepts.

In designing concept instruction, 2 general strategies may be followed namely, the inquiry approach and the expository approach.


The inquiry approach presents examples and non-examples of the concept and prompts the learner to "discover" the concept underlying the instances.

The expository approach presents the concept, its label and its critical attributes earlier than the inquiry approach. In this type of approach, the learner is encouraged to develop their own example, but after the attributes of the concept has been discussed.

Learning strategies to aid in concept learning include development of concept "trees" or "maps", analogies, mnemonics and the use of imagery.

In Smith and Ragan, declarative knowledge refers to "knowing what" something is the case. Words often used to describe declarative knowledge include "explain" , "describe", "summarize" and "list". There are important distinctions in this category of learning. Gagne and Briggs (1979) identified theree subtypes, which involve slightly different cognitive processes. They are:


1) Labels and names
• Involves Pairing of information (Propositional or image-based)
• Does not require understanding of the “meaning of the linked ideas but “one thing” links to “the other”.

2) Facts and list
• Fundamentally propositional in nature
• A statement that describes a relationship between or among concepts.
• May also be learnt as Individual facts

3) Organized discourse.
• Also propositional in nature
• Learning by reading through expository text

Declarative knowledge has to be arranged into meaningful ways. There are three ways to teach factual declarative knowledge and they are:

1) Organizing strategies
• When presented with a large set of elements to remember, it is often helpful to combine the elements to form smaller number of groups. Each of these groups is referred to as a chunk.

2) Linking (or association) strategies
• Mnemonics - Aids to memory such as acronyms, rhymes, linking information by creating visual images or making up a story

3) Elaboration strategies
• Useful for complex memorisations.
• Makes elaborations on the material being learned.
• Similar to Mnemonics, but employs the more complex associations.

Learning strategies to use for declarative strategies include mnemonic techniques, elaboration strategies, imagery, analogy, organization, chunking, linking, graphic organizers and rehearsal.

Week 6- Domains of Learning and Writing Learning Objectives

This week, discussion on how to conduct a task and instructional analysis was conducted.

In Instructional Design, it is under both the frameworks of Analysis-Evaluation and Evaluation-Design

3 Domains of Learning was introduced:

Cognitive (knowing and thinking) to increase learners knowledge

Affective (feelings and attitude) to change learners attitude

Psychomotor (doing) to increase learners physical skills

We were also taught how to write Behavioral / Performance Learning Objectives. They are split up into ABCD, namely:

Audience, Behaviour, Condition and Degree.

Action verbs that are provided for Learning Objectives include:

state, define, name, write, recall, recognise, list, label, reproduce, identify (if you want them to know)

appreciate, select, indicate, illustrate, represent, formulate, explain, classify, comprehend (if you want them to comprehend)

and so forth, list in this website: http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/reflection/table.html

Verbs like know, comprehend and understand are not allowed in the Blooms Taxonomy. As they are only allowed in goals.

An example provided of the Learning Objectives was:

Using the Simpson’s formula (condition), the Quantity Surveyor (audience) can estimate (behaviour) the volume of granite stock with 95% accuracy (degree).

For affective learning, 4 types of attitudinal outcomes were covered:

Levels of learning:
Receiving (or Attending)
Responding
Valuing
Organisation
Characterization by a Value Complex

Action verbs suitable for attitudinal outcomes are namely: Emphasize,Encourage, Confront,Celebrate,Repent,Resolve

Action verbs for psychomotor outcomes are, for example : Spread, Skip,Turn,Rotate,Kick,Act,Row

Week 5 - Conducting Needs Assesment

Week 5

Needs Assessment is introduced in this lecture, where aspects of Analysis and Evaluation are covered in the Instructional Design framework.

3 Steps of Needs Assessment is introduced, where

STEP 1- Going through the 3-Face Model of

Problem model, Discrepancy model and Innovation model.

STEP 2: Analyzing the Goal of Discrepancy and Innovation

STEP 3: Output of analysis or Evaluate Step 1 and Step 2.

The Problem Model, Discrepancy Model and Innovation Model are introduced in the Needs Assesment

In a Problem Model, firstly, you need to determine whether the solution to the performance / achievement can be solved by learning.

Then you need to determine whether instruction for desired performance /achievement goal is offered. If the answer is no, proceed to the Innovations model. If yes, then you proceed to the Discrepancy model.

Week 4- Learning Design Authoring

In this lecture, Learning Design was introduced, as an alternative to instructional design.

A few basic components of a Learning Design involve

Tasks that learners have to do(symbolized by a square)

Resources that aid learners in their task (symbolized by a triangle)

and

Supports that occur from the teachers implementing it, also providing feedback (symbolized by a circle))

The need to design learning is to place the onus back to the learner , comparison of the old ptolemic view of the curriculum of ideas moving around task and activities, to that of the more dynamic copernican view of task and activities moving around the principal idea. It also provides and improvement over Instructional Design.

Instructional Design is introduced, with the acronym ADDIE, indicating different parts of Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation .

However, drawbacks of Instructional Design are stated, in which it:

- Assumes that all outcomes can be predetermined.

- Is rigid and sometimes takes too long to complete.

- Authenticity of analysis result hinges on the
appropriateness of the methods used and their applications.

- Hard to implement and are expensive.

Learning Theories- Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Socioculturalism.

For the second lecture, Mr Low introduced 3 major E-Learning theories to the class. He further explained the importance of the need to discuss theory in E-Learning as for the need for prescription & justification (Smith & Ragan)

He also drew a S +R = L diagram for Behaviorism



Where S symbolized the Stimulus , R for Reinforcement which in turn leads to L (Learning), thus explaining Behaviorist pedagogy to be akin to drill and practice, with somewhat following a manual, reminding me of the Rote learning debate that was brought to the fore recently in local forums.

Ironically, what i've just stated earlier on in this blog post (where I described Mr. Alfred as having said so and so, introduced so and so) being one of the examples of Behaviorism, where it is somewhat what I see and get is what I regurgitate.

Such, perhaps could have been the concern of our Government recently, and I was waiting for the announcement of the Primary school curriculum changes before I decided to blog this weeks reflections.

And true enough, it could be inferred that MOE is veering away from too much emphasis on Behaviorist pedagogy,

as the latest announcement to do away with year-end examinations in Primary 1 & 2 were announced.

Instead of examinations, the PERI Committee has recommended that schools introduce bite-sized tests for Primary 1 and 2 students, and for parents to be given regular updates on the children's progress.

Senior Minister of State for Education Grace Fu, chairperson of Primary Education Review and Implementation (PERI) Committee, said: "We'd like our students to enjoy the process of learning, and therefore having assessment that is tailored to the way that we teach is important.

"Having them sit through very important year-end exams may not be the best idea and I think there are better ways of assessing their progress. We can find better substitutes than just a one-off examination at year-end."

(Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/405140/1/.html)

Perhaps it could spark the heralding of emphasis on Cognitivism , where the learner has to construct his or her own meaning from the instruction, and seen in the emphasis towards more arts in primary schools, where there would be a new
Programme for Active Learning (PAL) where students will have to participate in modular activities in two broad areas – Sports & Outdoor Education and Performing & Visual Arts.

Why, this would be relevant to E-Learning in primary schools as well, as gone are the days where I had to play software games which were purely drill and practice for IT lessons (although there were colourful buttons and graphics, the nuance was still very rote based)

Why, such could also bring in the Sociocultural stance of learning in such schools,where having the students to do Sports and Outdoor activities together could be a first step to collaboratiive and imitative learning if it could be extrapolated into teaching pedagogy when they start to learn through the computer.

I remember, they started to introduce E-learning through the computer by Primary 4, and i feel that you are not too young to engage in such collaborative learning at such an age, as children nowadays are very bright and full of ideas, it will be interesting to see them collaborate and learn through the Sociocultural pedagogy!

E- Learning Module Week One

What's so special about the human touch? Whats so unique about human communication? Can we ever be void of human communication in learning?

These questions weighed on my mind when it comes to the subject of E-learning

I believe that it is very difficult to effectively execute a 'sterile' form of learning without any form of relationship, or human communication involved, one advantage i can think of is:

-motivation ( an individual would be motivated if placed in a group setting with communication, vis self-paced learning where the person might not have an advantage of such , 'also seen as competition to some')


On another note, I'm interested to find out about the impact and feasibility of e-learning in disadvantaged societies/locations, where issues of cultural differences (or impediments?), cognitive skills in using computers..

one initiative that springs to mind is the "One laptop per child" movement chaired by Nicholas Negroponte.

and a question: will the children know 'what' to do with the laptop if it gets to them?