comps reading - The Jasper Experiment: An Exploration of Issues in Learning and Instructional Design

This article described "The Jasper Woodbury Problem Solving Series," an illustration of "anchored" approach to instructional design, whereby instruction is situated in realistic, problem-rich settings. The theoretical framework underlying the series includes the following assumptions:

• Assumptions about goals: students learn to become independent learners
• Assumptions about learning:

1. constructive theories
2. generative learning
3. argumentation+reflection+refinement+sense-making
4. knowledge that is not acquired and used generatively tends to become what Whithead (1929) called "inert knowledge"-knowledge that is used spontaneously even though it is relevant (e.g., Bransford et al., 1986; Gick & Holyoak, 1980, 1983; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1985). Data indicate that knowledge is less likely to remain inert when it is acquired in a problem-solving mode rather than in a factual knowledge mode (Adams et al., 1988; Lockhart, Lamon, & Gick, 1988)

• Assumptions about instruction: cooperative learning setting

1. form community of inquiry
2. monitor one another
3. one of the differences between expert and novice is that experts can experience the changes in their own thinking that these ideas afford
4. self-generated information is better remembered than passively received information

• Assumptions about learning materials: concept of affordances

1. James Gibson (1977)
2. different types of instructional materials afford different kinds of learning activities

Based on these assumptions, there are seven design features underlying the Jasper Adventure Series. They, together with their respective hypothesized benefits, are listed below:

However, notice that whether these features are utilized depends on the teaching model at work in the classroom. In this article, three teaching models are mentioned:

• Model 1: basic first, immediate feedback, direct instruction
• Model 2: structured problem-solving

1. focus on the need to help students minimize errors and feelings of confusion
2. the greater the degree of guidance, the higher the probability that the students will not make errors
3. the strong point of this model is that students only work on correct plans; the tradeoff is that they do not engage in problem generation and monitoring

• Model 3: the "guided generation" model

1. emphasize the importance of generative activities on the part of students
2. make maximum use of the features afforded by the Jasper series
3. scaffolding concept: ZPD, Vygotsky

comps reading - The Role of Assessment in a Learning Culture

Written by Lorrie A Shepard, this article is about classroom assessment, the kind of assessment that can be integrated with instruction and be used to enhance learning.From historical perspectives Shepard first elaborated the transformation and relationship between curriculum, psychology, and measurement. Shepard finally summarized briefly some specific assessment strategies to make assessment more informative and more insightfully tied to learning steps. All the strategies serve a social, motivational purpose as well as a cognitive, informaitonal one.

For assessment itself, the transformation of assessment practices cannot be accomplished in separate tests and measurement courses, but rather should be a central concern in teaching methods courses. Assessment practices should change to be consistent with and support social constructivist pedagogy.

Regarding the historical perspectives, it can be divided into three phases:

1. curriculum: social efficiency vs. reformed vision
2. learning theory: Hereditarian (behaviorist, associationist) vs. cognitive & constructivist
3. measurement: scientific vs. classroom

Objective test is the realm of scientific measurement, and its dominance in classroom practices has not only affected more than the form of subject-matter knowledge, but also shaped beliefs about the nature of evidence and principles of fairness.

Classroom measurement is associated with "social-constructivist" conceptual framework, borrowing from cognitive, constructivist, and sociocultural theories. Within such framework, learning is viewed as an active process of mental construction and sense making, and both development and learning are primarily social processes. School learning, under such framework, should be authentic and connected to the world outside of school, not only to make learning more interesting and more motivating to students, but also to develop the ability to use knowledge in real-world settings.

In terms of the form and content of assessments, they should match challenging subject matter standards and serve to instantiate what it means to know and learn in each of the discipline. Good assessment tasks are interchangeable with good instructional tasks. However, under intense political pressure, test scores are likely to go up without a corresponding improvement in student learning, and external accountability testing leads to the de-skilling and de-profressionalization of teaching. These issues should be addressed.

Finally, with regards to assessment strategies, none of the 7 strategies listed below by themselves will be effective if they are not part of a more fundamental shift in classroom practices and expectations about learning. These strategies are:

1. dynamic, on-going assessment: ZPD, Activity Theory
2. assessment of of prior knowledge
3. the use of feedback: Lepper, Drake and O'Donnell-Johnson (1997) found that the most effective tutors do not routinely correct student errors directly; instead, they ignore errors when they are inconsequential to the solution process and forestall errors that the student has made previously by offering hints or asking leading questions
4. teaching for transfer: true understanding is flexible, connected, and generalizable.
5. explicit criteria
6. student self-assessment: serve cognitive purpose, increase students' responsibility (ownership) for their own learning, and make the relationship between teachers and students more collaborative
7. evaluation of teaching

comps reading - Computer Criticism vs. Technocentric Thinking

Written by Seymour Papert, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• The purpose of computer criticism is not to condemn but to understand, to explicate, to place in perspective.

• Technocentrism refers to the tendency to give a similar centrality to a technical object, for example, LOGO. When questions like "what is the effect of LOGO on cognitive development" are asked, such turns of phrases often betray a tendency to think of "LOGO" as "agents" that acts directly on thinking and learning.

• The context for human development is always a culture, never an isolated technology.

• People from humanities are often the most vulnerable to the technocentric trap. Insecurity sometimes makes a technical object loom too large in their thinking.

• Everyone realizes that it is carpenters who use wood, hammers and saws to produce houses and furnitures, and the quality of the product depends on the quality of their (i.e., carpenters) work. But when it comes to computers and LOGO, critics seem to move into abstractions and ask questions like "is LOGO goof for cognitive thinking of children."

• Technocentrism is often supported by a certain model of what a "rigorous" experiment in educational psychology consists of. I (Papert) will call this "the treatment model." The use of this model requires care, and technocentrism places unskilled users at risk, and the risk is greatest in the interpretation of negative results.

• Technocentric thinking favors the "treatment" methodology, which leads to a danger that all experiments with computers and learning will be seen as failures: either they are trivial because very little happened, or they are "unscientific" because something real did happen and too many factors changed at once.

• At the core of the process of design is the art of trade-off.

• Each choice is a reflection of cultural affiliation. The individual's taste is never purely individual but a reflection of culture.

• LOGO practitioners must learn to integrate the larger social movement into their thinking. To do so, two steps need to be followed:

1. pay attention to the individual manifestations of cultural movement around computers
2. use the interest they might arouse

comps reading - Designing Organizational Memory: Preserving Intellectual Assets in a Knowledge Economy

Written by Jeff Conklin, this paper introduced some computer systems such as Quest Map, Organization Memory System, Short Term Store, Display System, and IBIS (Issue-Based Information System), all of which are designed to preserve intellectual assets in a knowledge economy. According to Conklin, the key component of such project memory system that can capture informal knowledge is the use of a display system that captures the key issues and ideas during meeting.

The whole society is gradually turning itself into a knowledge economy, whose basis is knowledge work, and the workforce of this economy is the knowledge worker. Some characteristics a knowledge worker possess include :

1. scarcity
2. fluidity
3. expertise
4. collaboration

Conklin talked about formal and informal knowledge. While the former usually refers to books, manuals, documents, and training courses, the latter is created and used in the process of creating the formal results (knowledge). To put metaphorically, if formal knowledge is the foreground, informal knowledge is the background. Informal knowledge, being wild and process-oriented, is hard to capture and to keep. Reasons for the failures to capture informal knowledge are as follows:

1. artifact-oriented culture: (Western) culture has come to value results - the output of the work process - far above the process itself, and to emphasize things over relationship.
2. the tools of knowledge work - based on computer and communication technology - little recognize or support the process of knowledge work. Tools for knowledge work in a sense reflect the artifact-oriented ontology of the culture.

What follows are four barriers to effective organizational memory:

1. making informal knowledge explicit: informal organizational knowledge, like a wild animal, resists capture
2. documents without context: the usual approach to project and organizational memory, preserving documents, fails to preserve context
3. relevance and size: knowledge loses its relevance, and thus its value, over time
4. litigation and organizational amnesia: the current litigious environment may create an economic incentive for "organizational amnesia," the systematic destruction of all unneeded personal notes and documents at regular intervals

In a word, the obstacles to an effective organizational memory system fall into two categories: cultural and technical.

In describing steps toward organizational memory, Conklin provided three metaphors to demonstrate the operation of how memory is mediated between both short term and long term memory. The four metaphors, together with the illustrations, are as follows:

• computer architecture

• human cognition

• living cells

For the pattern of mediated memory in information system and the proposed model of the project memory, the illustration looks almost the same, as follows:

The display system proposed in this article has three components that fits the criteria for project memory system:

1. capture of information into the system
2. a structure by which the information is organized
3. a representation and display of that information, usually to a group

(for criteria details, refer to pg. 26-27 in the paper)

Such display system aims to promote collaboration, for a central assumption of this paper is that most knowledge work happens in groups, and that group work is largely conversations.

(for article summary, refer to pg 38-39 in the paper)

comps reading - What Good is Polarizing Research into Qualitative and Quantitative?

The purpose of this paper co-written by Kadriye Ercikan and Wolff-Michael Roth is twofold:

1. to demonstrate that this polarization is not meaningful or productive for education resarch
2. to propose an integrated approach to education research inquiry

To achieve such integration, the authors argued that the research questions asked should determine the modes of inquiry that are used to answer them.

First the authors believed that polarization in research is confusing to many people and tends to limit research inquiry, often resulting in incomplete answers to research questions and potentially inappropriate inferences based on findings. To demonstrate such polarization, the authors unfolded from four aspects:

1. The problem
2. Existence of qualitative and quantitative characteristics in phenomena: as data are representations of phenomena in nature, society, education, and cultures, the main determining factor of the classification of research activities into qualitative and quantitative is the nature of the data.
3. Objectivity and subjectivity in constructing data: both types of research activities (qualitative and quantitative) involve subjective judgments. Basically, the subjectivity involved in data construction phase depends on "who is involved in scoring," "their level of experiencing in scoring," "the scoring rules," and "the students response or products." Any data that are constructed arise through an interpretation model that involves subjective judgments. The processes involved in constructing data may be quantitative or qualitative in nature and include three dimensions: data sources, interpretation model, and data.
4. Generalizability

Based on the following three reasons, the authors concluded that polarization in research is problematic.

1. All phenomena and all knowledge simultaneously have quantitative and qualitative dimensions
2. The distinction between objectivity and subjectivity, normally associated with that between quantitative and qualitative research, is neither accurate nor useful
3. Generalizability is not a feature of mathematization but a description for the tendency of inferences to go beyond the context and participants involved in the research.

To counter these problems, the authors proposed moving beyond polarization by:

1. using a different classificatory continuum based on the relational terms "low inference" and "high inference"
2. emphasizing a focus on the research questions
3. encouraging the collaboration of researchers with expertise in forms of research formerly labeled quantitative and qualitative

comps reading - Higher Level of Agency for Children in Knowledge Building: A Chellenge for the Design of New Knowledge Media

Written by Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter, though there's no ZPD mentioned in the title, this paper does talk about Vygotsky's theory and ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development). ZPD is not exclusive to children's learning, that is, both adults and children have ZPD where more knowledgeable others play essential role. However, according to our authors, there is a difference in executive control that is most salient in question-answer dialogue.

"Adults learners typically ask questions based on their perceived knowledge needs, whereas with school children, questions are typically asked by the teacher, based on the teachers' perception of the children's needs"

In the paper, the authors, based on evidence that children can produce and recognize educationally productive questions and can adapt them to their knowledge needs, introduced CSILE (Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environments), a computer supported knowledge medium that aims to design environments for students to use questions to guide their learning, so that they can higher their level of agency in learning.

CSILE is a networked system that gives students simultaneous access to a database that is composed of text and graphical notes that the students produce themselves and a means of searching and commenting on one another's contributions. Three models of teaching are described:

1. task model: student as doer or worker, students as the agent
2. knowledge-based model: Vygotsky's thinking
3. similar to knowledge-based model, with more emphasis on students to take over: both LOGO and CSILE employ this model; more of Piaget's thinking

The authors asked a key question: who is in charge of the zone of proximal development? To answer this question, we first need to know "what gos on in the ZPD." Two kinds of development need to be taken into account:

1. growth in the competencies directly involved in the activity
2. growth toward children's takeover of executive functions

As to who is in charge of ZPD, generally there are three different viewpoints: 1) mutual takeover; 2) learner takeover; and 3) more capable peers takeover. CSILE not only aims to scaffold learners to acquire the executive control in ZPD but also to achieve the goal of knowledge transforming, instead of mere knowledge telling.

Followed by the theoretical explanation, the authors introduced CSILE as to the interface and how to use it. To address whether or not children ask educationally productive questions in CSILE, the authors analyzed questions, be it their representation formats or questions type. In general, text-based questions facilitate bottom-up process, while knowledge-based questions help top-down process. Questions can also be categorized to basic info questions (uneducated guessing) and wonderment questions. Basic questions such as what are fossil fuels have a text-based quality and get quite directly at the kinds of information normally conveyed in basic text-based or encyclopedia treatments of a topic. Uneducated guessing questions are usually yes-no questions that have similar motivation to obtain basic orienting information, except that they take the form if shots in the dark at possible answers. As for wonderment questions, they reflect curiosity, puzzlement, skepticism, or a knowledge-based speculation, in contrast to a grouping for basic orienting information. Some examples of wonderment questions could be "Is everything either a fuel or needs a fuel?" "Can you make different fossil fuels by mixing other fossil fuels?" What kind of questions students are capable of asking depends on whether they have prior knowledge on that topic.

comps reading - Criteria for Assessing the Trustworthiness of Naturalistic Inquiries

Written by Egon G. Guba, this paper deals with what suggests in the title "Criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of naturalistic inquiries," starting from defining what naturalistic inquiry is, describing the differences between naturalistic and rationalistic paradigms, explaining questions of trustworthiness should be addressed, bringing about methods that researchers can employ to guard trustworthiness, and the implications.

To begin with, the term "naturalistic" describes a paradigm for inquiry, not a method. There are many different paradigms used in research inquiry, and the chief ones are naturalistic and rationalistic paradigm. They differ on certain key assumptions: (rationalistic vs naturalistic)

• The nature of reality: single and converge reality vs multiple and diverge reality
• The nature of the inquirer / object relationship: independent vs interrelated
• The nature of "truth statements": nomothetic (generalization, similarity) vs idiographic (differences)

The two inquiry paradigm also differ in some research approaches taken:

• Methods: quantitative vs qualitative
• Quality criterion: rigor (internal validity) vs relevance (external validity)
• Source of theory: priori theory vs grounded theory
• Knowledge types used: propositional knowledge vs tacit knowledge
• Instruments: layers of instruments vs inquirers as instruments
• Design: preordinate design vs emergent design
• Setting: laboratory (best) vs real world (nature, worst)

Here is the four questions of trustworthiness should be addressed, and from this we come up with for aspects of trustworthiness appropriate to scientific (rationalistic) and naturalistic terms, and different methods that naturalistic inquiry can employ to guard each aspect of trustworthiness, respectively.

Finally, five implications were drawn from the preceding analysis by Guba. Now they are listed as follows:

• Naturalistic inquiry has its own set of criteria for adequacy
• The proposed criteria, like scientific criteria, have utility at several stages in the inquiry process
• The statement of criteria is not equivalent to the statement of decision rules for applying these criteria
• The use of the naturalistic paradigm is fraught with special risks for an investigation
• The methods suggested cannot be viewed as an orthodoxy.

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comps reading - Reconsidering Research on Learning from Media

Drawing analysis and conclusion from the current summaries and meta-analyses of media comparison studies, Richard E. Clark in this paper has a fundamental point to argue: media do not influence learning under any conditions; it was not the medium that caused the change but rather a curricular reform that accompanied the change. To validate such statement and to make clear the relationship between media and learning, Clark has an interesting and self-explanatory analogy: media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence study achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition; the choice of vehicle might influence the cost or extent of distributing instruction, but only the content of the vehicle can influence achievement.

This assertion stays true when we question why different media are exploited to facilitate leaning: most of time the exploitation of media on learning is to serve "efficiency" purpose, to save time, effort, and money. There are people arguing that media with its interesting and novel interface and function provided can ignite and sustain learners' learning interests. Clark addressed such "novelty effect" for new media, though may promote learning interest in the first place, tends to disappear over time.

Clark in this paper brings up the concept of "media attribute/attribution," which he considers the connection bridging media and learning. It is this media attribute that influence learning (notice that what means by learning here is not learning content per se but "the way that information is processed in learning.") Clark provided some media attributes examples such as zooming to explicate his idea. Media with diverse attributes can serve different learners' needs, for example, a child with low cue attending ability might learn the cognitive skill of "zooming" into stimulus details (Salomon, 1974a).

The promise of the media attributed approach is based on at least three expectations:

1. the attributes were an integral part of media and would provide a connection between instructional uses of media and learning
2. attributes would provide for the cultivation of cognitive skills for learners who needed them
3. identified attributes would provide unique independent variables for instructional theories that specified causal relationships between attribute modeling and learning.

While media attribute research may contribute ti instructional design, it is difficult for theory development.

One final argument Clark makes is about enjoyment, achievement, and choice of media: the relationship between media preferences and learning achievement seems antagonistic (Saracho, 1982; Machula, 1978-1979; Clark, 1982). Learners tend to choose media that serve their needs best to facilitate their learning. Sometimes such needs could be for the convenience and ease of learning, under this circumstance, learners believe through media exploitation, they can save time / effort / money invested on their learning. As they have such mindset, it is likely that they invest less effort than required when employing their preferred media on learning, thus the learning achievement decreases. Same situation happens to both higher and lower ability students. Such antagonistic relationship explains attention needs to be paid when employing media on learning, for media is like a double sworded knife.

comps reading - Motivation to Learn via Computer Conferencing

Collaboratively written by Bures, Amundsen, and Abrami, this quantitative study investigated the relationship between student motivation and student acceptance of learning via computer conferencing (CC). CC is defined by researchers as "text-based asynchronous messaging; students and instructors log on at different time, read messages previously left by others, and contribute new messages." In this study, the researchers used FirstClass, a user-friendly Canadian conferencing software package, as CC context.

There are two sets of hypotheses in this study. The first relates to whether trait-like motivational variables help explain variance in student acceptance of CC. By "trait-like motivational variables" the researchers mean: 1) outcome expectation; 2) student belief (that they are capable of mastering the CC software); 3) learning / performance orientation. The second set relates to whether state-like motivational variables help explain variance in student acceptance of CC. By state-like motivational variable the researchers mean: 1) subjective competence; 2) personal relevance; 3) task attractiveness.

The overall result is that the trait-like motivational variables were more important predictors of outcomes in CC than the state-like ones. However, the addition of the state-like motivational variables tended to increase significantly the predictive value of the researchers' model of motivation to learn via CC.

For educational importance of the study, the researchers listed four recommendations:

1. instructors may wish to encourage students to pursue mastery-oriented goals.
2. instructors who wish to increase students' CC expectations might design online activities and tasks that help students learn the course material, and then highlight to the students how the activities are related to their learning.
3. instructors might encourage students to believe that they are capable of learning how to use CC
4. instructors should pay special attention to designing tasks that their students will like and will find personally relevant.

comps reading - On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One

Written by Anna Sfard, this paper first points out why and how metaphor is used in research. While metaphors in research serve the function of reifying abstract concept by employing the power of language, they, to some extent, also constrain the meaning of the concept reified by metaphors. Sfard said in the paper:

"The difficulty with telling the metaphorical from the scientific is aggravated by the fact that scientific vocabulary is usually borrowed from other domains and that the figurative expressions are the only ones in which the theories can be formulated."

"On one hand, as a basic mechanism behind any conceptualization, they (metaphors) are what makes our abstract (and scientific) thinking possible; on the other hand, they keep human imagination within the confines of our former experience and conceptions."

Followed by explicating functions and constraints metaphors have, Sfard talked about two currently dominant metaphors for learning: acquisition metaphor (AM) versus participation metaphor (PM). Sfard in Table 1 distinguished AM from PM:

Respectively Sfard the characteristics and the theoretical foundations of AM and PM, along with the different issues / dilemmas existing in AM and PM. In this way Sfard makes clear the dangers of choosing just one metaphor to follow. Regarding AM, the main problem lies in the so-called "learning paradox": how can we want to acquire a knowledge of something that is not yet know to us? With respect to PM, as it views learning as being in action and in a constant flux, problems arise when it comes to transfer and subject matter.

Sfard's conclusion: one metaphor is not enough. By arguing this way Sfard thought that each (of the two metaphors) has something to offer that the other cannot provide. She encourages us to live with contradictions (of the two metaphors). It seems to me that when applying the metaphors to reify abstract concepts, though convenient, make sure not to be stuck by the contradictions the metaphors per se have. Very often it is the exploitation of words that causes problems. Therefore, when perceiving being stuck, try to think out of the box.

comps reading - Why are Video Games Good for Learning

Written by James Paul Gee, this paper, as the self-explanatory tile suggests, discusses why video games are good for learning. Gee put forth six important reasons, none of which is about its characteristics of being interesting and audiovisual entertaining, which is really beyond my expectation. It seems to me the six reasons are quite valid in terms of educational principles. They are now listed as follows:

1. They can create an embodied empathy for a complex system
2. They are action-and-goal-directed preparations for, and simulations of,embodied experience”
3. They involve distributed intelligence via the creation of smart tools
4. They create opportunities for cross-functional affiliation
5. They allow meaning to be situated
6. They can be open-ended, allowing for goals and projects that meld the personal and the social

One implication to me after this paper may be that I can provide more educationally valid concrete explanations when next time being asked why video games are good fro learning, instead of giving some ambiguous and abstract answers such as more motivating and interesting.

Since I was sort of being convinced by Gee.

comps reading - Learning In School and Out

Written by Lauren B. Resnick, this paper is also the 1987 Presidential Address. Resnick first pointed out four distinctions that school learning differs from other learning, listed as follows:

1. Individual cognition in school versus shared cognition outside
2. Pure mentation in school versus tool manipulation outside
3. Symbol manipulation in school versus contextualized reasoning outside school
4. Generalized learning in school versus situation-specific competencies outside

Followed by the four distinctions, Resnick further raised the question: what role for schooling then? And what kind of schooling? He considered the two questions from three points of view:

1. Schooling and economic participation: the question of job training
2. Skills for learning outside school (i.e. learn how to learn)
3. Revising schooling: the civic and cultural functions of education

Throughout the article, I found two statements most interesting to me.

1. Tool use is not only a way for people of limited education to participate in cognitively complex activity systems; it is also a way of enhancing the capacity of highly educated people well beyond what they could do independently (P.69).
2. Some people argue that the economically advantaged - whether individuals, regions, or countries - demand more and choose to pay for more education; education is, thus. more a consumer good than a vehicle for increasing economic productivity (P.71).

To me, the first statement has two implications. To begin with, everyone, regardless the social and economic status, needs the capacity of using tools. Secondly, tool exploitation is even more important for the socially disadvantaged, for tools provide them more opportunity to success. To some extent, this speaks for my belief that education technology can help distribute education resources in a more even way, offering the socially disadvantaged more access and opportunity to realize themselves. With respect to the second statement, to me, it seems to highlight the phenomenon of education commodification. It is not education itself choosing the direction but the people having more access determine the direction for education.

That's pretty much it so far.