The Educational Landscape in the Information Age

2. Buckley, D. 2002. EDUCAUSE Review37(1): 28-38. (Jan/Feb) http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm02/erm021w.asp

3. The Information Age Has Changed the Educational Landscape The meaning of ‘knowing’ has shifted from being able to repeat and remember information to being able to find and use it Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate Bransford et al., 2000 Learning Goals Have Changed Information Age Industrial Age 1800’s 1900’s 2000’s

4. Student Preparation Standards May Be Lower Now • Vocabularies of entering college freshman 1962: 10,000 words Today: 4,000 words • The region of our brain most related to language has multiple duties: • Communication • Synthesis • Long term memory

5. Educational Consequences: e.g., Scientific Literacy • In the early 1990's... The United States ranked 13 out of the top 14 industrial nations of the world • By the late 1990's... The United States ranked halfway among the worlds nations

6. NRC 2000 - How People Learn Learning Standards A Revolution In Science Education today A Revolutionary Opportunity Has Emerged NRC 1995 - National Science Education Standards Content Standards 1980’s 1990’s 2000’s

7. 1. The Decade of the Brain: • New insights about the cognitive development of learning 2. Soul-searching about alarming levels of literacy: • Emergence of the Learning Paradigm 3. Information technology: • Data collection/analysis & authoring • Simulation • Communication • Formative Assessment A Revolution in Education!

8. What Is Our Greatest Challenge?Institutional Transition to the Learning Paradigm Instructional Paradigm Learning Paradigm emphasis on Delivery of Content emphasis on Learning with Understanding

9. We Occupy A Special Opportunity In History.Only once in our species’ history will education progress from teaching styles based on metaphors about how we thought people learned to teaching styles based on an understanding of the way the brain functions in learning.The time is now …and we are the stewards of this transition

10. Bottlenecks to Transition to the Learning Paradigm • Problem: Most faculty reside in the Instructional Paradigmbecause this is the way that our teacher role models taught us: emphasis on content delivery, not learning with understanding. • Effective transition to the Learning Paradigm will require transformational faculty development: • Transformational faculty development must be coupled to institutional change processes to be effective

11. Current Practice Is Mismatched with the Pedagogical Potential of Instructional Technology Pedagogical Potential of Instructional Technology Instructional Paradigm Learning Paradigm Learning Paradigm emphasis on Delivery of Content emphasis on Learning with Understanding

12. What Should the Highest Priority of IT Be? • Technology Integration?

13. What Should the Highest Priority of IT Be? • Technology Integration? No, a secondary goal • Promoting Institutional Transition to Learning Paradigm • How? • Providing a Repertoire of Learning-Centered Tools • Transformational Faculty Development • Driving Institutional Change

14. Let’s Consider… • How People Learn • Pedagogical Feature Set of Learningware • Authoring as a Transformational Faculty Development Experience • Institutional Change Process

15. Let’s Consider… • How People Learn • Pedagogical Feature Set of Learningware • Authoring as a Transformational Faculty Development Experience • Institutional Change Process

23. But Where Do We Start? Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 2000.

24. Principle Educational Goals 1. Teaching so students learn with understanding 2. Promoting student experience of investigation

25. Learning with Understanding Studying Facts Is Necessary, But Memorization Is Not Enough Students Need to Construct Their Own Meaning Learn for Understanding Transfer Application to Solve New Real World Problems

26. Key Principles about How People Learn • Learning is both constructive & reconstructive • Students need to construct knowledge to learn with understanding …constructive learning is knowledge-centered • Students mustdevelop metacognitive skills habits of reflection that help them to gauge their progress toward making meaning Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 2000.

27. Expertise: A Pivotal Cognitive Window • Comparison of Novices and Experts • Reveals the Pathway to Expertise • Expertise Is the Basis of Transfer

28. factoid Knowledge Systems: “Big Ideas” novice expert Constructing of Knowledge: Novice versus Expert

29. Constructing of Knowledge Requires Chunking with Background Knowledge (schema) • Train to remember digit strings • From 7 to over 70 within 30 days • Then same with letters …back to 7 again, but no progress thereafter because there was no schema to organize letter strings • Break big strings into smaller number of elements (chunking) • Each chunked element was remembered with a trick: races (background knowledge …schema) 94100 = 9.41 seconds for 100 yards 3591 = 3 minutes, 59.1 secs for 1 mile

30. schema Learning for Understanding Involves an Iterative Construction of Knowledge chunked content TRANSFER Expertise new chunked content new chunked content Expertise schema new chunked content revised schema new chunked content revised schema revised schema new chunked content early schema: student interests, emotions, initial understanding

31. The Process of Critical Inquiry understanding Hypothesis A Hypothesis B study BELIEF collect evidence defer judgement understanding This is how the brain seems to be wired! study BELIEF

32. Why don’t we seek alternative explanations and exploit evidence? • The part of the brain that we use for critical inquiry seems to have evolved from perceptual regions of the brain • The perceptual region of the brain draws lots of assumptions and makes lots of snap decisions in order for us to navigate though our daily existence to prevent cognitive overload • Critical inquiry skills are not intuitive and students need lots practice to develop them

33. How Do We DriveInstitutional Transition to the Learning Paradigm Instructional Paradigm Learning Paradigm emphasis on Delivery of Content emphasis on Learning with Understanding

34. Let’s Consider… • How People Learn • Pedagogical Feature Set of Learningware • Authoring as a Transformational Faculty Development Experience • Institutional Change Process

35. Technology can be an Enabler COMMUNICATING SIMULATING VISUALIZING COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS DATA COLLECTION ANALYZING MODELING BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium

36. Pedagogical Feature Set of Instructional Technology Interactivity: fosters active-learning experiences Multimedia: engages important cognitive processes Communication: promotes social construction of knowledge Computing components: • experience with professional tools & skills • simulations to develop critical inquiryskills • authoring tools for construction of knowledge • integration of powerful formative assessment tools

37. Goals of Formative Assessment • To improve the communication of learning goals • To foster mindful engagement …by promoting reflection and metacognition • To construct learning cycles ...”chunking” • To provide timely feedback • To build incentive systems for competency-based learning • To collect diagnostic clues about individual needs

38. Learn Facts Learn Concepts Learn Inquiry main learning goal foundational information Instructional Technology Assessment Tools Vary with Learning Goals Open-ended assessment styles Structured assessment styles Utility of Competing Assessment Styles

39. Examples

40. Assessment of Open-ended SimulationsA Contradiction in Terms? • Iterative, analogous scenarios to build meaning • Perhaps some structured assessment • Student portfolio model …authoring & construction of knowledge • But needs epistemological scaffolding …e.g., 3P's • Problem posing (hypothesis generating) • Problem solving (data collection and analysis) • Peer persuasion (formulating an argument before peers) • Path analysis …monitor decision making

41. Let’s Consider… • How People Learn • Pedagogical Feature Set of Learningware • Authoring as a Transformational Faculty Development Experience • Institutional Change Process

42. WE NEED TO SOLVE TWO PROBLEMS SIMULTANEOUSLYTransform faculty communities: learning & technology savvy Instructional Technology Instructional Paradigm Learning Paradigm emphasis on Delivery of Content emphasis on Learning with Understanding

43. The Bottleneck to Transition to the Learning Paradigm • Problem: Most faculty reside in the Instructional Paradigmbecause this is the way that our teacher role models taught us: emphasis on content delivery, not learning with understanding. • Effective transition to the Learning Paradigm will require transformational faculty development: • Transformational faculty development must be coupled to institutional change processes to be effective

44. Traditional Technology Training • Limited training model (e.g., slide show authoring) …because “faculty don’t have the time to commit to deeper efforts” • Problem: this training is not transformational • Doesn’t foster transition to learning-centered pedagogies • Faculty wonder “why spend the effort?” • Result: faculty willingness to participate in training is limited

45. Faculty Development Is Key Authoring learning centered activities is a transformational experience

46. Solution: Up the Ante • Transformational experience …altering practice through authoring • Capture the pedagogical high ground …focus on learning & inquiry • Formative Training …on-going development cycles • Long-term support and scalable tools …needs change with experience • Value faculty learners …heroes and heroines take risks …create a culture of teaching reform, promote the scholarship of teaching

47. Deep Authoring Works It was enormously stimulating to most participants to create learning environments that would enable them to teach things that they could not teach well before. Assessment data available in Q&A

48. Core Training Concepts Focus on Pedagogical Innovation Keep the Technology Transparent Build Collaborations …Involve Faculty Mentors Seek the Eager-Beavers

49. Let’s Consider… • How People Learn • Pedagogical Feature Set of Learningware • Authoring as a Transformational Faculty Development Experience • Institutional Change Process

50. Problem with Authoring As Training: Scalability • Authoring LearningWare is a deep experience • Faculty do become sophisticated consumers of LearningWare and explore learning principles • Problem …very effort intensive • We need another kind of authoring experience to provide transformational faculty & curriculum development • Course Management Systems: Coupling Transformation & Scalability?