Situated Learning Environments and Cognitive Apprenticeships February 27, 2010

I think this approach will be very useful especially in younger children to help them develop leadership and problem-solving skills.  I also think this model is great in helping students develop planning and organizational skills. The idea that students will practice the tasks within their group under direction of their teacher and other group members will likely have more benefits that relying on them to independently practice in homework. I like this model and am trying to think of some ways I can incorporate it into my distance courses. My students are older, but this model should be very effective for them as well. This model should fit very nicely in a management/leadership course.

The barriers to this model would be similar to the barriers of any other type of group learning. There may be some students who don’t get along, some who are shy and have trouble expressing themselves in the group, and some who don’t want to take on a lead role or some that want to totally take over. I think careful planning by the teacher should help deal with these issues. The model identifies the teacher as doing more coaching during the beginning of the lessons and then backing off as the students gain understanding of the material and understanding of how they perform the tasks and take the teaching role. Even though the teacher gives the students more control in the later parts of the instruction, the teacher is still carefully watching and can intervene.

Screencasts and screencaptures should work very well for using this model via the Internet. Teachers can use screencasts and screencaptures in sections as the “cues” and for coaching. I also think streaming videos can be very useful in a distance setting. The streaming videos could be of a teacher working with and coaching a group and then show individual students within the group playing out their roles, working with one another and taking the lead in tasks. This may help give distance students a better grasp on how this system works and what their individual role is. And also, this model is for groups, utilizing some sort of group work software or meeting software would be necessary.

Problem Based Learning February 19, 2010

I am a firm believer that understanding of the whole comes from understanding the details of its parts. I do think that this can work in either direction, depending on the situation (i.e. understanding the parts first vs. understanding the whole first). I see Problem Based Learning (PBL) as presenting the “whole” or problem first and the students then solving it through the details. The reading explains that PBL focuses more on “depth”, not “breadth”. So, the question becomes: Do you want your students to know a little about a lot, or a lot about a little? Again, this can go either way and is situation dependent.

I’m very interested in the interdisciplinary aspect of PBL. I think it is extremely mind opening for students and will help them find many other applications for what they are learning. I do agree with the reading that despite other claims, factual knowledge is not sacrificed with PBL. I like that PBL helps students develop research strategies, since they aren’t given direct resources. I like the idea of giving the open ended resources so they can decipher what is and isn’t relevant. However, I do think this model is probably pretty time consuming from the students perspective so this will definitely need to be taken into account as teachers are scheduling assignments. Presenting the student with open-ended resources is a great idea. I’m assuming students will have training in using the scientific method before taking on a model like this, but if not, it would be helpful to give them a little background information about how to perform research. Especially if they are new at this type of model. Otherwise, they may become overwhelmed or easily sidetracked.

Several of the readings focus on PBL for medical education. This makes perfect sense since the whole backbone of medicine is problem solving, thus PBL is a natural fit. I plan to explore new ways to incorporate this model into my own teaching. Dr. Oliver stated that the challenge for PBL is what series of tools can be strung together to make this model work. Some of the bigger collaboration systems, like Elluminate and Adobe Connect would probably work well, but as more or less a “shell” for pulling in other tools and resources. Like giving open-ended resources, how about the same idea for web tools? One of the most important pieces of problem solving is figuring out what tools are needed, so maybe letting the students take control of tool choice (with some guidance) would be even more beneficial for them and for the teacher. I keep thinking “There’s an App for that”.

Cooperative Learning February 14, 2010

As I think about cooperative learning, the first thing that comes to my mind is – it is perfect for lab type classes, especially those where students have to learn how to physically do something. Cooperative learning has so many benefits in these situations. In addition to students actually mastering the material or performing the task correctly, they also gain (hopefully positive) communication skills, ability to work in teams, organizational skills, etc. The cooperative learning environment provides a support structure and will help students learn to support one another to solve problems and complete tasks. I am a firm believer that one of the best ways to learn is to teach.

Cooperative learning can be just as effective online as it is face to face. Our group work in this class is a perfect example. The tools we are using to communicate with one another make me feel just as connected with my group in this class as I have in face to face group work in other classes. My experience with the first module completed as a group in this class has given me a new appreciation for group work (and definitely gave me new ideas for my own courses). I’m not saying it was easy by any means, but separating the group work into “roles” made all of the difference.

I greatly appreciate that Dr. Oliver helped us get started with our modules by giving such detailed descriptions and examples of how we might split up our group work.  In my previous experiences, I think the lack of initial structure is what makes group work so painful. I give group assignments to my classes, but I always assume the groups will organize themselves around the topic I give them. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case. What typically happens is I find the group in the library the day the project is due. All of the students are frantic. One or two of them are actually doing any work and the others are so stressed out that they can’t come to grips with what they should be doing and they are hovering above the ones who are working. I now realize I have been making terrible mistakes in the way I have been trying to incorporate collaborative learning. That said, I am very thankful for this week’s readings. I also like the idea put forth in Dynamics of Peer Education in Cooperative Learning Workgroups about doing team-building exercises before the actual assignment begins. That should really help overcome the problems that usually arise because of peoples different work ethics, views, ideas, resistance to group work, etc.

Guided Design Model February 6, 2010

I like this model and think it is very useful. Since I am teaching in health care, I think this model will work great teaching scenarios. For example, a guided lesson on how to perform CPR, which includes the step-by-step instructions and sample problem situations with solutions. I also understand that the module probably couldn’t cover every scenario, but a benefit is that the new scenarios can be added to the module as they are discovered. Listing the problems and solutions is a great way to help students learn to troubleshoot and develop problem solving skills. Students can also adapt the problem sets to their own situation and build upon them. They can also develop new problem sets from the modules guidance.

Web modules will work well for this type of instruction. However, since this type of module teaches methodology, I think that print resources are necessary, or at least there should be some way to quickly and easily access the instructions without login hassles. I think it could be a barrier if the module information could not be easily referenced because there would be so much memorization involved in certain cases. In the CPR example I gave, the person performing CPR may not remember all of the scenarios or even the list of steps from the module since they are in an emergency situation. The Web module could have printable PDF’s or the module developer could create an app for mobile devices with the steps and scenarios.

I’m not convinced this model would be very effective in younger students. I do think this model is effective in educational settings like final projects, group projects, senior capstone courses (high school and college), etc. Workplace training and continuing education for adults are also good uses for this model, for example, What to do in a natural disaster.