Learning Objects

Good teachers beg, borrow, or steal whatever they can to create authentic learning experiences for their students. For me that about sums up the discussion on learning objects since that's essentially what it is. I do it all the time in the traditional class setting, finding it easier to "borrow and adapt" than "create from scratch." Sure lots of things that I use in the classroom are completely unique but probably more are "borrowed."

In my borrowing forays on the internet I have come across many videos or other multimedia objects that I have used in a mixed-method class period but I have never developed an entire lesson based on these learning objects. Of course in a sense that is what we have been doing all semester, integrating these learning objects into online lessons. I think the complexity of this type of instruction will be dependent, more so than others, on the technological "savvy" of the teacher. I say this because this method more than any other depends largely on the teacher/instructor's ability to find resources and the quality of the lesson will depend on the quality of those resources.

MOST Environments

Immediate reaction- MOST is WORK. This method would be extremely time-consuming to transfer to a completely web-based format. Also as a high school teacher I see this being most helpful with younger students but I can see some situations where it could be applicable to secondary students. In the high school setting I could see it being useful with advanced or technical vocabulary but obviously this was a system developed primarily for young and at-risk youth. Another way I can see components of this method being used is as a replacement for field trips or real world experiences, however I think that would be counter-productive as well....

STAR Legacy Module

The STAR Legacy module is a good tool to use if you can find some of these resources already made. My limited experience with STAR is that is it, like anchored instruction and a lot of the other methods we've discussed, takes quite a bit of time to develop and often the time required of the students to complete the assignment doesn't always mesh with the time required of the instructor to create it. Of course all of this is dependent on how many times a certain lesson/module will be used. Where for a teacher who only teaches one section of a course a year the time may not be justifiable a teacher teaching six sections of a course per year might find it to be worthwhile. Again I am in favor of any method that forces students to think about what they have done and reflect on their work and the wrap-up stage of the STAR Legacy method does that. I also think this is one of the methods that lends itself more to a web-based format than some of the others and is probably actually easier to teach/use in a web-based format.

Finally the one thing I am most thankful for out of this unit is the title- context based instruction. Everyday (well almost) I have students come to me and ask how something they "learned" in another class is going to be applicable in the real-world. The question I ask myself as I answer (or try to do so anyway) them is "Why am I the one telling them this? Shouldn't their teacher be showing them the real-world context?"

Cognitive Apprenticeships

More and more I am realizing that there are an abundance of people out in the academia that need to spend some time sitting in career and technical (aka vocational aka workforce development aka career-technical) education classes. Once again as I read the articles this week I find myself going "well, duh" to some of these things. In CTE we've been doing this for the last 100 years or so in formal education programs and it's been working. Multimedia tools, in my opinion, are only making it easier to take our programs to the masses. Using web-based media as well as other methods (video, etc) we make the lessons we teach that much more "real" for a broader variety of students. I'm definitely a show-me type person and as such my classroom is a show-them classroom. This apprenticeship isn't anything new at all, as was pointed out in the articles and presentation, and it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Another thing- this approach is once again about teaching kids how to think, something that sadly is becoming less and less important as we continue to test and test....

Problem Based Learning

Oh the essays I could write on Problem Based Learning. I have a student teacher this semester and she has to teach at least one unit using a PBL approach and has struggled to find the right topic that the students can understand, use the PBL, and still accomplish the curricular goals that need to be addressed. Unfortunately in secondary schools with the current emphasis on testing PBL is an idea that while utterly awesome in theory often is difficult to use if the goal is for students to learn certain specific things. However if a teacher decides that learning itself is more important than the curricular goals the state has mandated for our students then PBL is a great tool. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I never use PBL, I probably use it as much if not more than any of the other 100+ teachers in my school, but sometimes at the end (or beginning) of a unit I have to "teach" certain aspects that the students didn't get out of the unit that it has been decided that they should have. PBL works, I know it works, every year I see students that have already graduated who come back to see me and tell me that they learned so much in my class even though lots of it wasn't necessarily about the course they took. A large portion of this I attribute to my use of PBL which allows students to think outside of the box to arrive at solutions in their own way.

As to using PBL in a multimedia environment- I don't know how to NOT use multimedia with PBL in today's society. Often the first place my students will go with a PBL-based assignment is the web to seek out information, videos, or other graphics. I know we can structure PBL activities and give students specific resources to use but personally I feel it minimizes the importance of the quest for knowledge if students are being spoon-fed the information. I think if I were going to structure a web-module or something for PBL I'd probably include some dead-ends and such to keep the process as authentic as possible.

Cooperative Learning

Now we're talking. Yet another strategy I actually already use in my classroom. Think, Pair, Share; Jigsaw; etc nothing new here (to me any way). But....how am I going to translate this to a web- or multimedia-based lesson without using a tool like CMaps? It would be too easy for a single student to do all of the work and then delegate credit to predict his or her own grade. Another tool I could think of to use would be something like Elluminate and then record the sessions so I could check after the fact to see that every person does actually participate. However probably the simplest method of assuring that all group members actually do their part would be to have them all email their portion of a presentation/assignment to me (the instructor) prior to them compiling the final product. Another option would be wiki assignments since I would be able to see who added what by checking out the page history (as in pbwiki).

Cooperative learning is a great tool to use in the traditional classroom to get students thinking about concepts and to think through problems. Something I've done in the classroom to make sure all students do their part is to tell each student they have a "specialty" and are the expert in that area so they must do a certain part. I guess I could do that with a web-based assignment but again, it would be harder to monitor who actually did what.

-Scott

Guided Design

Finally something that I will definitely use! I use a variation of
this model already in my classroom on a regular basis as I find it to
be a good way to stimulate discussion. It can sometimes be a challenge
to get students to understand exactly what it is they are supposed to
be learning so it is important to frame the instruction carefully and
provide help where needed. Another consideration is groups "hearing"
other groups in a traditional classroom so when possible I try to put
my groups in different rooms. I also have used this strategy, or
similiar, for leadership and team building activities with high school
students with success.

Despite my prior use of this system I have not used it with
multimedia. I think it will work well and I really see where wiki's
can be useful fir asynchronous group discussions.

Scott Robison

*sent from my iPhone