Final Wk 8 Reflections

Reflection Ashan R. Hampton December 27, 2009
Before taking this course, I never considered the intricate process the brain follows in absorbing, storing and recalling information. Once data gets lodged into the brain’s long-term memory, the ease of recalling the information depends on the associative structures that were used to get it there from short-term memory. This is why mnemonics have been very useful to me over the years.
One thing that has stood out to me during this course is the many different ways that some learners prefer to or are inclined to learn new information. Whether or not learners prefer visuals or auditory instructional elements will affect how they navigate a course and instructional designers have to be sensitive to all the myriad ways that learners process new information in order to develop successful training materials.
I have always considered myself to be low on the need to associate with people face to face while taking classes, but this online experience has shown me that I actually do like the social aspects of being in a physical classroom. I feel more motivated to fully participate in class in more traditional settings, but in the online environment, I am less motivated by my peers and more so by the need to get the work done to receive a good grade. Although my course performance has not suffered due to a lack of face to face contact, it is interesting for me to feel a desire to learn in a traditional classroom environment.
I have also learned that theories are truly theoretical and are not always relevant in actual classroom teaching, although some elements of all the theories are helpful in gaining an overall understanding of how students learn. I lean toward the behavioral and cognitive learning theories because I am focused on students receiving feedback from the practical application of new knowledge. Regardless of the theories used to develop course content, the content has to satisfy the basic ways in which students like to learn. The educational technology used to develop course content also limits the scope of what elements can be incorporated to keep students motivated throughout the course.
The things I have learned in this course will help me as I progress throughout the instructional design program. I will refer back to the chapter on motivation as I consider how to effectively develop content, because if the users are dissatisfied with the material and not completing the courses then I have failed to deliver materials that will facilitate the learning process. I will also be more mindful of the different learning styles that some students lean toward while developing content so that everyone has the opportunity to successfully navigate the course.

Week 7 Learning Theory Reflections

Earlier in the course I mentioned that I value self-directed learning. I like to delve into subjects on my own to gain an understanding of the material before listening to someone else impose meaning for me. That has not necessarily changed, but I am now more attuned to my need for social interactions during the learning process. Although physical classrooms can be distracting, I miss the sensory aspects of learning from others through body language and non-verbal cues. Before, I didn’t think that was a very important aspect of learning to me. I can function without it, but I have come to understand that I prefer some physical interaction in learning environments.

Although I still do not particularly enjoy blogging or social networks as a mode of learning, I can now appreciate the connectivist viewpoint about the meaningful nature of interpersonal learning exchanges. I prefer to gain information from experts and more authoritative sources, but I have found tutorials that some have posted to blog sites very helpful in my attempts to learn more advanced graphic design techniques.

I use the internet as a primary mode of research, because I do not always have time to go to a nearby library to conduct research, now that I am employed full-time. During my unemployment days, I frequented local public libraries a lot to find new books to read. Using computer technology like the internet is one thing, but I still cannot fathom using a mobile to conduct academic work, as we have learned about through resources like the Horizon Report. I am still very much a traditional learner and not inclined to use all the new fancy gadgets available for personal or business use. ( I still don’t have a BlackBerry and can’t imagine ever buying an I-phone).

Overall, I have a deeper understanding of the intricacies and arguments of learning theories. As an instructional designer, I am still inclined to create materials based on some aspects of the behaviorist and cognitive theories because I still prefer reinforcement activities with immediate feedback, like online quizzes, as I mentioned in the Week One post.

Connectivism

George Siemens’ theory of connectivism attempts to explain the means by which learners use technology to form social networks to assist in acquiring knowledge at a faster pace. Davis and Kelly-Bateman’s web article on connectivism offers this paraphrase of the importance of networks, according to Siemens’ theory:

According to Siemens, “considering technology and meaning-making as learning activities begins to move learning into the digital age” (2005, para. 15). Inherent to this new viewpoint on learning is the idea that we can no longer personally experience everything there is to experience as we try to learn something new. We must create networks which, simply defined, are connections between entities. By using these networks - of people, of technology, of social structures, of systems, of power grids, etc. - learning communities can share their ideas with others, thereby “cross-pollinating” the learning environment (Siemens, 2005, para. 21).

Outside of taking formal university classes for instructional design, I spend a lot of time teaching myself to create multimedia applications and to build websites. It seems that once I have mastered one technique that I am already behind on the latest multimedia features and effects that are used on flash or dynamic websites.

However, my first line of defense in broadening my skillsets is to go to the library or Barnes & Noble to find visual quick guide books. I need screenshots and clean, concise text written in instructional, how-to format in order to feel comfortable teaching myself CSS, Flash techniques or whatever multimedia skill I am trying to learn at that moment. I do not look for blog groups or join forums to build a network of knowledge as connectivism suggests.

I do spend quite a bit of time surfing the net for well written tutorials on Fireworks, or other software that I might be unfamiliar with. Many of tutorials are posted to Wordpress blog sites or other types of social networking message boards, but I do not join groups or ask for information in the forums, although I benefit from others that do utilize them. I prefer to figure things out myself or to look for people in my area who are already proficient in the skill I am trying to gain. I have met these people at social events or through friends who have employed their services.

Although I use Facebook and MySpace frequently to promote my goods or services or exchange other kinds of information, I do not really use social networks to acquire new knowledge. Therefore, my online and face to face networks have not changed the way I learn. I still rely on books, tutorial print outs and videos to learn new information.

Taking online classes has, however, forced me to adjust the way I gain new knowledge in this situation, because instead of grabbing a book first or a printed syllabus, I must log on to the class to download and view multimedia related to the course.
So, to recap, my networks have not changed my personal learning preferences. I still like to at least scan printed materials about a subject I have no prior experience with. However, my participation in online classes has prompted me to adjust those learning preferences based on the way the course is set up, not because I favor virtual approaches to learning as opposed to traditional techniques. The digital tools that help facilitate learning for me include flash based quizzes with immediate feedback, screencasts or videos.

When I have questions, I Google the subject matter first then seek people in my area that I can ask for assistance. My learning network refutes the social networking aspect of connectivism, because I don’t join online forums to gain new information or participate in ongoing conversations about the subject matter I am interested in, but I use technology to learn and retain new knowledge.



Source: Davis, C., Edmunds, E., & Kelly-Bateman, V. (2008). Connectivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Connectivism

Week 2 Resources

SOURCE #1 -- Article

The Role of Spirituality in Breast Cancer Information Processing between African American and Caucasian Women.
Authors:I-Huei Cheng1
Hyun Joo Song2
Yoonhyueng Choi2
Frisby, Cynthia3
Leshner, Glenn4 leshnerg@missouri.edu
Source:Conference Papers -- International Communication Association; 2005 Annual Meeting, New York, NY, p1-22, 22p, 4 charts


http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=18655913&site=ehost-live&scope=site

I found this article when conducting a Google keyword search for "information processing theory." The title grabbed my attention and I had to discover more on the results of this study. I decided to search for the article in Walden's Library when the intial referral page turned out to be a dead end link; meaning, that I could not retrieve the article in a printable format.

This conference paper details a study that was conducted with black and white females regarding their different perceptions of breast cancer prevention messages.

The panel discovered that breast cancer awareness messages were not being effectively or objectively processed by black women, because their beliefs in God hindered the way they interpreted the information. Black women who felt breast cancer was a punishment from God for not following his will were less likely to adopt prevention measures due to a sense of hopelessness in trying to reverse God's intentions for them to endure the disease.

Spirituality was not a consideration for caucasian women when processing the efficacy of breast cancer prevention messages.

The researchers used the Extended Parallel Process and the Risk Perception
Attitude framework to formulate their claims.

I think this article is a fledgling attempt to ascertain whether or not race and cultural background influence the way information is processed. This is a valuable resource because at the time of its presentation, no one had conducted a study with these specific parameters. Although I question the sample and the method of the research, this resource is a valuable contribution to the conversation on race and information processing theories.

SOURCE #2 -- Website

The International Communication Association
http://www.icahdq.org/index.asp

ICA is an academic organization dedicated to the empiricial study of human communication. Their goal is to advance the scholarly study of human communication by developing conferences, workshops and other opportunities for its 3,500 members in 65 countries to share information within this field.

ICA also publishes five peer reviewed journals: Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research , Communication Theory, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Communication, Culture, & Critique.

Because the organization has been in existence for many years and the information distributed is often written my some of the foremost authorities in the discipline, I feel that this organization's website is a valuable resource in understanding the connection between brain functioning and how humans use the brain to process the information it receives.

The 60 second lecture

I just discovered this blog post and wanted to share it, because I found it fascinating; this is new information for me. As a former college instructor, I can say that the educational process becomes compromised when short cuts like these are employed in the classroom on a regular basis. Our educational system was built on brick and mortar, traditional teaching techniques that need to be resurrected, not replaced.

arh
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The 60 second lecture
| Posted on: March 6th, 2009

I received an email yesterday from the State News (our local university newspaper) about what I thought of the 60 second lecture—a trend sweeping through online courses. Some of my first thoughts about this are below.

If you don’t know what they are, check out this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: These lectures are gone in 60 seconds. As the article says,


Take a 60-minute lecture. Cut the excess verbiage, do away with most of the details, and pare it down to key concepts and themes.

What’s left? A “microlecture” over in as few as 60 seconds. A course designer for San Juan College, a community college in Farmington, N.M., says that in online education, such tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions.

Skeptics, however, argue that lectures involving sustained arguments, such as literary analyses or explanations of complex equations, cannot be boiled down in this way.

You can find out more about such lectures (and how to create them) by going to this page that lists handy tips for creating such lectures.

So in some sense these mini-lectures are the logical culmination of a process that emphasizes modularity – little pieces that can be fit and moved around at will for specific pedagogic purposes—A byte size chunk of talk that captures in one short burst the key ideas of a topic. This is a perfect fit for our increasingly fragmented lives – a quick lecture on fire safety or nuclear physics or educational theory that slides effortlessly between the drive-through pickup window and taking your kids to soccer. Whether you like it or not the 60 second lecture is symptomatic of our nervous and hurried times. So what’s next? Lectures as haiku? Seventeen syllables that will enlighten you about any topic you choose to learn?

The debate between proponents and detractors of the 60 second lecture, though, miss the point. I don’t think the people creating these lectures actually see them as being the medium for conveying every nuance or detail that students need to learn. The key point is that these mini-lectures need to be “paired with assignments and discussions.”

Those who don’t like these micro-lectures suggest that forcing complex ideas into such tight constraints is fundamentally disrespectful to the complexities of acquiring deep domain knowledge. And there is truth to this view. Take a moment to just read the transcripts of these lectures. Here is one titled “The Knowable Universe” by Physics professor Vijay Balasubramanian:


The most amazing thing about this world of wonders is that we can understand it. It is not at all evident why this had to be the case, but it is the case, and there are two reasons why. First, underneath all of the immense complexity and apparent randomness of the natural world, there seems to be an intricate order. To perceive this order we must look beneath the surface – often with specialized instruments, but it is there nevertheless. What is more, the human mind can apparently understand the underlying structure in the universe. A cat can’t understand calculus, and likewise there is no compelling reason why the inner workings of the universe should be comprehensible to us. But they are. The human mind apparently apprehends the abstract patterns within the universal weave. We can see, for example, that the orbits around the sun can be simply described as ellipses. We can give a complete description of the physics of light in four short equations that would fit on a t-shirt. Nature is replete with such miraculous orderly relations. And the human sense of aesthetic simplicity seems to be an excellent guide to comprehending that order. Perhaps, as the poet concluded, “Beauty is truth and truth beauty. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”

Poetic, sure. Evocative, yes. But as a physics lesson it leaves a lot out, don’t you think? You can see the same problem when you go through the transcripts of all the lectures on this site.

So what does all this mean? Just a few thoughts.

First, it seems to me that there are two positive aspects of this phenomena.

First, the less we lecture the better we (and our students) are for it. So mini-lectures combined with intelligent assignments can be a good combination for student learning.

Second, crafting mini-lectures is hard. It forces instructors to think carefully about each and every word, and the nuances of each word. If this trend forces faculty members (including myself) to tightly craft what we say, for maximal impact, that’s a good thing. It is always easier to blather on without making a salient point than it is to present a well thought through coherent, cogent argument. So if this leads to less talking and, more importantly, smarter talking by instructors, who am I to complain.

Now for the concerns, which parallel the two positives I noted above.

Though lecturing less is a great idea, we must be careful about how we are selling this idea of a mini-lecture. It seems to me that a large part of this hyping of mini-lectures has to do with marketing, building on a fundamental misconception that most people have about the nature of learning. Most people believe in a transmission model of learning, where professors transmit knowledge from their brains to those of their students. Clearly the lecture is a pretty good way of doing this – which explains why most people think of learning as listening to lectures. (See this video from Kaplan that I blogged about earlier, as an example of another institution that parades the same idea.) I would not be surprised to find out that most students who flock to these mini-lecture driven courses think that all they have to do is listen to these 60 second lectures. How easy and convenient is that. The problem is that no deep learning can happen through these mini-lectures. (One can argue that no deep-learning can happen through lectures period, but obviously mini-lectures are a even greater failure in that regard.)

I see this offering of mini-lectures as a form of bait-n-switch that does not serve higher education well. If we have to advertise our programs they should not be along the lines of how little time they will take but rather how good they are. I am not against convenience. I love teaching online and one of its greatest assets is that it is convenient. So a mini-lecture complemented by intelligently designed assignments and activities would be great – but it would take significant effort and time. I wonder if the students signing up for these courses know that – or whether they think that all course learning will happen through these little snippets of video.

Second, though I am sure instructors are crafting their words carefully, it is not clear to me that the video aspect is being used as appropriately. That is not surprising since university faculty are often well versed in using words and can actually be quite naive when it comes to images and video. Clearly, the transcripts of these lectures shows just how naked the emperor is. Now video is a powerful medium, but it is a seductive medium. It is only when we read the transcript do we realize the paucity of ideas that can be conveyed in a mini-lecture. I remember having a similar feeling many years ago when reading news stories on CNN.com. The same news-segment that looked quite complex and rich on TV appeared woefully inadequate and short on the screen. So a story of a demonstration in the West-Bank, at least on TV, was more then just the words – it was words + images. And just as we craft the words, we need to craft the images. Now, this is not something that is happening with the mini-lectures. The mini-lectures are usually just a talking head mouthing the words. There is no attempt to craft the affordances of video for any pedagogical purpose. But this takes time and money – and requires instructors to step out of their comfort zone of words into thinking of the semantics, syntactics and rhetorical aspects of using images and video.

At the end of the day, these mini-lectures are a fad, I guess created for marketing purposes. They sidestep some of the more thorny issues of teaching with technology and that has to do with how technology, content and pedagogy have to work together for deep, engaged teaching and learning to occur.

Why, oh, why does everything have to end up with the TPACK framework?


http://punya.educ.msu.edu/2009/03/06/the-60-second-lecture/

Week 1 Resources Post

Hello Class,

Like most of you, my google search for instructional design resources was nearly overwhelming. However, I managed to narrow the results down to the following three that I have personally found useful.

1. 7 Widely-Used and Open Source E-Learning Applications

http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/7-widely-used-and-open-source-e-learning-applications/

Summary: I actually found this link before beginning this course as I searched for open source e-learning development software. I wanted to see if there were any good alternatives to the expensive, learning intensive Adobe products for instructional design. This blog presents seven useful software programs for developing online presentations and course materials followed by a critique of each one. I also found the comments from other users useful in deciding which to download and test.

2. Instructional Design & Development Blog: A Service of the IDD Department at DePaul University

http://www.iddblog.org/

Summary: This blog provides credible information from faculty within the IDD Department of Depaul University. Each contributor posts highly useful and insightful commentary and resources for other instructional design students and professionals. Topics range from open source tools, social networking to multimedia resources.

3. E LEARNING TECHNOLOGY

http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/

Summary: The highly esteemed Dr. Tony Karrer runs this blog. He is considered an expert in e-learning technologies and has also worked as the CTO for eHarmony. The blog is very active with reader questions, comments and responses from Dr. Karrer. The additional tools and resources listed on the site are also very helpful.