Thursday, March 26, 2009

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.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

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

Friday, March 13, 2009

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)

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

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.