ComputerAided Instruction

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Computer-Aided Instruction

• Department of Computer Science
• Xavier University

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Instructional Design Theories
Week 2
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Week 2 Outline

• Instructional Science
• Instructional Design
• Learner Control
• Behaviorism
• Constructivism

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Design Paradigms

• The success of computer-based instruction
  depends, to a large extent, upon the selection of
  a suitable instructional design paradigm.
• products of the currently accepted cognitive
  theory

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Instructional Science

• the study of instruction, which includes the
  study of the interaction between the learner and
  what has been planned to enhance that learner's
  understanding (teacher, text, media, computers or
  tutors)

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Instructional Design

• systematic development of instructional
  specifications using learning and instructional
  theory to ensure the quality of instruction
• entire process of analysis of learning needs and
  goals and the development of a delivery system to
  meet those needs

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Personalized Instruction

• a computer system which gains a profile of the
  user (level of motivation, degree of knowledge,
  preferred learning style, etc) and designs a
  course track based on this profile (complex
  system)
• granting the user control of the how the material
  is accessed (learner-controlled, easier to
  implement)

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Learner Control

• allowing the learner some control in an
  individualized lesson
• The learner may control lesson pace, sequence,
  content, or feedback.

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Lerner Control

• Advantage Learners can tailor the instruction to
  their own style of learning, thereby enhancing
  the efficacy and efficiency of learning

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Learner Control

• Disadvantage Giving users complete control over
  such materials would tend to destroy their
  instructional intent and so would have a negative
  effect.

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Learner Control

• What should be controlled?
• what is learned?
• the pace of learning?
• sequence of instruction?
• length of presentation?
• number of questions to answer?

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Learner Control

• Too much control over the branching of
  instruction may even lead learners to acquire
  negative attitudes towards the lesson.
• due to the fact that the users who have control
  have more decisions to make (distracts students)

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Learner Control

• Recommendation users should either be only given
  a degree of learner control, or that the control
  given should be accompanied by some means of
  guiding the user through the material.

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Learner Control

• An "appropriate amount" of learner control
  implies that matters of instructional integrity,
  such as important sequence decisions and presence
  of prerequisites, be controlled by the designer
  and not the learner.

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Learner Control

• it is rather suggested that the student should
  only be given control over
• rate of presentation
• entry and exit
• review of instructions if needed or desired
• help menus or hints
• music (volume, muting)

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Learner Control

• Tips
• Make the modularity and any hierarchical
  arrangement of topics obvious to the learner.
• To facilitate review, allow easy access to lesson
  segments.

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Learner Control

• Tips
• Monitor progress and allow the learner to
  continue where a previous session ended or to
  restart the module or the entire lesson.
• Provide estimates of the time required to
  complete each module.

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Learner Control

• How is it achieved?
• Analyze the Learner Prior knowledge of user of
  the computer, Age of the User, etc. (e.g. giving
  more control to computer-literate learners)

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Learner Control

• An alternative to restricting the amount of
  control that is given to users is to grant users
  control but at the same time offering help/advice
  as to how they should progress through the
  material.

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Learner Control

• How is this achieved?
• presenting users with a progress report, a list
  of options available and a suggestion as to which
  of these the user should take

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Learner Control

• Learners should be given control, but if they do
  not make good use of it, the program should
  intervene and lead the student through
  instruction.

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Behaviorism

• rooted in the positivist, objectivist tradition
• Learning is evidenced by a changing of behavior
  so that if we control the behavior of the
  learner, we also control his or her knowledge
  acquisition.

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Behaviorism

• Knowledge results from the instructional
  interventions conceived by designers that mediate
  learning.
• based on the premise that learning results from
  the pairing of responses with stimuli

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Behaviorism

• prescriptive in that it dictates what knowledge
  the students will learn, in what order they will
  learn it and how they will learn it

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Behaviorism

• Nine Events of Instruction (Robert M. Gagné,
  1981)
• Gaining attention
• Informing learner of lesson objective
• Stimulating recall of prior learning
• Presenting stimuli with distinctive features
• Guiding learning

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Behaviorism

• Nine Events of Instruction
• Eliciting performance
• Providing informative feedback
• Assessing performance
• Enhancing retention and learner transfer

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Constructivism

• based on the premise that learners have the
  potential to allow learners to construct a
  well-linked semantic network or mental model.
• the belief that knowledge is personally
  constructed from internal representations by
  individuals using their experience as foundation

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Constructivism

• Knowledge is based upon individual constructions
  that are not tied to any external reality, but
  rather to the knower's interaction with the
  external world.
• Reality is to a degree whatever the knower
  conceives it to be.

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Constructivism

• At the heart of constructivism is the notion that
  knowledge is constructed, which in the present
  instance means that our theoretical views are
  personal creations embedded in a social context,
  within a social community that accepts the
  assumptions underlying the perspective.

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Constructivism

• Example
• Water is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and
  one atom of oxygen.
• this has been accepted for a long period of time
• this could be supposed to be a truth and
  presumably would be accepted by anyone who has
  been exposed to modern chemistry

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Constructivism

• Example
• Iraq is a dangerous country.
• while it could be claimed that this is only a
  matter of opinion, it has become so embedded in
  western culture that it would probably, a few
  years ago, have been regarded as 'knowledge
• The acceptance of this statement would have been
  governed by the social context in which it was
  made.

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Constructivism

• Knowledge can be constructed in a social context,
  but this construction may well change with time.

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Constructivism

• Three ways in which this information can be
  obtained
• from long term memory
• from the external environment
• Primary experienced directly from observation
• Secondary books, television, conversations

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Constructivism

• primary source
• much more difficult as the learners have to
  provide their own processing and interpretation
  of it whereas secondary information is
  'pre-digested' as it has already been processed
  at least once and the interpretations of at least
  one other person applied to it

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Constructivism

• Learning Process
• a chunk of information is taken into short term
  memory (attempt to examine the existing semantic
  network/s in an attempt to establish links)
• Two interlinked processes then take place

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Constructivism

• If the learner does not identify links between
  new information and existing knowledge, the new
  knowledge will not be incorporated into the
  semantic network.
• What sort of learner would fail to do this?
• an unmotivated and uninterested one

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Constructivism

• How do we motivate and perk the learners
  interest?
• teach things in context of some real-world
  problem or experience so that the learners can
  see the relevance and importance of the material
  being presented

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Constructivism

• The most effective learning contexts are those
  which are problem- or case-based and
  activity-oriented, that immerse the learner in
  the situation requiring him or her to acquire
  skills or knowledge in order to solve the problem
  or manipulate the situation.

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Constructivism

• Problem 1
• Most educators were educated within a behaviorist
  environment and basically they still see
  themselves as being a dispenser of knowledge
  rather than as a facilitator of learning (plus
  the concept that a certain amount of prescribed
  content must be taught)

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Constructivism

• Problem 2
• Assessment is much more difficult as the
  knowledge construction of the student has to be
  assessed (vs. Behaviorism simply a matter of
  assessing how well students have achieved the
  pre-defined objectives)
• assessment is not just a case of ascertaining if
  knowledge has been constructed or not but rather
  how well it has been constructed

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Constructivism

• D.N. Perkins Five facets of a Learning
  Environment (1991)
• Information Banks
• Symbol Pads
• Construction Kits
• Phenomenaria
• Task Managers

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Constructivism

• Information Banks
• any resource that, more than anything else,
  serves as a source of explicit information about
  topics
• examples text books, dictionaries,
  encyclopedias, and the teacher

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Constructivism

• Symbol Pads
• surfaces for the construction and manipulation
  of symbols
• examples student's notebook and laptop computer
  (both of which help support the short term memory
  of students as they "record ideas, develop
  outlines, formulate and manipulate equations"

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Constructivism

• Construction Kits
• common parts of the educational environment both
  at school and in the home with such things as
  Lego, laboratory equipment, etc.

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Constructivism

• Phenomenaria
• area for the specific purpose of presenting
  phenomena and making them accessible to scrutiny
  and manipulation
• examples experimental apparatus and simulation
  games

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Constructivism

• Task Managers
• are elements of the environment that set tasks to
  be undertaken in the course of learning, guide
  and sometimes help with the execution of those
  tasks, and provide feedback regarding process
  and/or product
• examples teacher, textbook (chapter exercises)

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Constructivism

• Examining these concepts from a computer assisted
  learning point of view, it would appear that
  drill and practice, games and tutorials would
  have very little part to play in a
  constructivist-oriented classroom.

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Constructivism

• Simulations would, however, appear to have an
  important role to play.
• So what becomes of the computer?
• the major function of the computer in this scheme
  would appear to be in its mode as a tool with
  applications

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Constructivism

• It would also appear that the concept of the role
  of the computer in the constructivist-oriented
  classroom would be for the storage and retrieval
  of information, the manipulation of information,
  and the simulation of phenomena.

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Constructivism

• How then do we implement Perkins Five Facets of
  Learning Environment with the potential use of
  computers?

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Constructivism

• Information Banks
• information banks would become less central in a
  constructivist environment
• but plays an important part in the learning
  situation in teaching learners how to
• search for and access the information that they
  require and then to manipulate it
• be discriminating about the information that they
  have access to

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Constructivism

• Information Bank Goal Produce computer programs
  which not only hold information, but which will
  allow it to be manipulated in a variety of ways
  thus assisting the learners to construct their
  own knowledge.

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Constructivism

• Symbol Pads
• become places not just for recording but working
  through ideas in a constructivist environment

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Constructivism

• Construction Kits and Phenomenaria
• central ring" in many constructivist oriented
  environments
• simulations (including simulation games) as being
  computer based materials fit into this category

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Constructivism

• Task Management
• given over to the learners
• rationale Students cannot develop as autonomous
  learners if they are not given the chance to
  manage their own learning.
• Computers are used mainly in a tool mode rather
  than an instructional one (e.g assessment).