SWTng 6: Tools or Instructional Design

Article #6 is by Bradley (2009) in International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning titled "Promoting and supporting authentic online conversations - Which comes first - The tools or instructional design?" The author includes 22 references and the following keywords: collaboration, constructivist learning environments, facilitator, instructional design, interaction, and teacher presence. The abstract is as follows:

"There are elements of instructional design which are fundamental to a higher education constructivist learning environment. These elements, embedded in a well-designed learning environment are necessary to promote academic discourse. The presence of communication tools alone in an online environment does not assure collaboration and construction of new knowledge. The skill of the facilitator is integral to achieving successful outcomes. This paper describes instructional design strategies which play a key role in promoting and supporting conversation which results in higher order thinking in the context of a pedagogical event conducted as a requirement of a Masters course."

In contrast to behaviorist theory, which focuses on sequence of instruction to achieve a predetermined outcome, constructivist theory focuses more on the design of the learning environment. The author states that this perspective makes the ADDIE model ill-suited for designing a constructivist online learning environment because it does not readily lend itself to a student-centered approach. It does not usually involve the students determining their own learning needs, setting their own goals, monitoring their own progress, or determining "how to reach the desired learning outcomes in a collaborative learning environment (Neo, Neo, and Xiao-Lan, 2007)" (p. 20, ). Instructional designers need new tools and models to meet the challenge. The focus must be less on teaching and more on learning, especially collaboratively.

Instead of "clearly defined concepts and skills together with a prescribed method for approaching problems" (p. 21), the learner engages in learning customized to "develop their own unique potentials and creativity so as to promote initiative, diversity and flexibility" (p.22). Thus, the design process must also be flexible and adaptable to the learning process as it progresses. The focus must therefore be on the learning environment. The author refers to a statement by Jonassen in 1991 for the following design goals for constructivist learning environments (p. 22):

• the negotiation, rather than imposition, of goals and objectives;
• task analysis consideration be given to appropriate interpretations and provision of the intellectual tools that are necessary when learners are constructing knowledge;
• the promotion of multiple perspectives of reality through these tools and within the environment;
• the provision of generative, mental construction 'tool kits' embedded in relevant learning;
• environments that facilitate knowledge construction by learners; and
• evaluation should become more goal-free and reflective (Lefoe, 1998)

Again citing Lefoe (1998), the author lists four common threads that are fundamental in creating a constructivist learning environment: context, collaboration, conversation, and construction.

The main problem with this article is the abundance of secondary sources. Repeatedly, the author uses "cited in" to give a citation. Perhaps that's part of the reason there are only 22 references.

REFERENCES

Bradley, J. (2009). Promoting and supporting authentic online conversations - Which comes first - The tools or instructional design? International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning, 5(3), pp. 20-31.

Lefoe, G. (1998). Creating constructivist learning environments on the web: The challenge in higher education. Retrieved May1, 2009, from http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sollongong98/asc98-pdf/lefoe00162.pdf

Neo, M., Neo, T.K. and Xiao-Lian, G.T. (2007). A constructivist approach to learning an interactive multimedia course: Malaysian students' perspectives. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 23(4), pp. 470-489. Retrieved May 3, 2009, from http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet23/neo.html

SWTng Article No. 1

Okay, here we go again. This will be the first article of a literature review for the new topic of software training. It's by Boot, Merrienboer, and Veerman (2007) in Educational Technology Research and Development titled "Novice and experienced instructional software developers: effects on materials created with instructional software templates." Keywords are instructional software templates, instructional design, and authoring. There are 29 references listed. Here's the abstract:

"The development of instructional software is a complex process, posing high demands to the technical and didactical expertise of developers. Domain specialists rather than professional developers are often responsible for it, but authoring tools with pre-structured templates claim to compensate for this limited experience. This study compares instructional software products made by developers with low production experience (n = 6) and high production experience (n = 8), working with a template-based authoring tool. It is hypothesized that those with high production experience will be more productive and create software with a higher didactical quality than those with low production experience, whereas no differences with regard to technical and authoring quality are expected. The results show that the didactical quality was unsatisfactory and did not differ between groups. Nevertheless the templates compensated for differences in experience because the technical and authoring quality was equal for both groups, indicating that templates enable domain specialists to participate successfully in the production process."

The first question is "Why are the domain specialists (i.e., subject matter experts) the ones building the courseware?" The authors point out two reasons in the introduction: (1) many times very specific requirements for custom-made instructional software benefit from the use of domain specialists as the developers because "they already possess the necessary domain knowledge and have easy access to relevant--multimedia-- resources (Spector and Muraida, 1997)" (p. 648); and (2) "professional instructional designers and software producers are not easily available or too expensive to hire." (p. 648).

The second question is "What is didactical quality?" The authors define this as "the extent to which desired learning outcomes are attained in an efficient manner." (p.648) Combined with technical quality ("...the extent to which the software takes care of the input, information processing, and output as intended" (p. 648)), these two elements together are necessary to "stimulate the desired learning processes." (p. 648) Assessing didactical quality can be accomplished by using a Kirkpatrick Level 2 evaluation of the learners achievement of the learning objectives and/or an analysis of the use of specific instructional principles in the software. The authors reference Merrill's (2002) five learning principles: "(1) the use of real-life problems as the driving force for learning; (2) the proper activation of relevant prior knowledge; (3) the demonstration of useful problem-solving approaches and procedures by the learner; (4) the practical application of those approaches and procedures by the learner; and (5) the integration of what has been learned into real-world activities." (p. 648) However, the authors point out that it is not merely the presence of these five principles that determines the didactical quality of instruction but rather the way in which they are applied.

Why is this an issue? Because frequently domain specialists forget what it was like for them in the beginning, before they had 10, 15, 20, or even 30 years of experience in the field for which they are developing instructional software. Without an understanding of learning theory, let alone the learning traits of their target audience, or of instructional design theory, they frequently develop instructional materials that center around everything they know about the topic and end up "deep in the weeds," so to speak.

This study looked at the effects the templates had on the development process, the quality of the software, and the level of support perceived by the developers. As expected, the experienced group produced more software than the novice group and did so with more information and question elements, but the difference was small, possibly because of the shortened time span for the exercise. Also as expected, the templates helped to compensate for the novices' lack of experience with regard to authoring and technical quality. The novices were only inexperienced with regard to instructional software production, not their domain specialty. Finally, it was expected that the experienced group would incorporate a higher didactical quality than their counterparts, but that both groups' products would evidence sufficient didactic quality. However, although the developers' assessment of their own achievement in this area outstripped the evaluation by experts, neither group evidenced superiority in this regard. The only clear advantage the experienced group seemed to possess was in their questioning strategies, leading to a more active approach to learning with greater variety.

How does this apply to my topic? My population also consists of domain specialists engaged in the task of developing instructional software. Some characterizations of the population are thus transferable. My focus, however, moves back a step to the point before the novices begin development when they are just learning to use the authoring software. Still, the information in this research lays a strong foundation for description of the population.

REFERENCES

Boot, E.W., van Merrienboer, J.J.G., and Veerman, A.L. (2007). Novice and experienced instructional software developers: Effects on materials created with instructional software templates. Educational Technology Research and Development, 55, pp. 647-666. DOI 10.1007/s11423-006-9002-9

Merrill, M.D. (2002). First principles of instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 50, pp. 51-55.

Spector, J., and Muraida, D. (1997). Automating design instruction. In S. Dijkstra, N. Seel, F. Schott, and D. Tennyson (Eds.), Instructional design: International perspectives, Vol. 2 (pp. 59-81). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Change 3 of Change 4,972

 Update (11/2/11): I received an email from my advisor this week informing me that there is a third extension for which I can apply. Since the Scientific Merit Review is only the precursor to the milestone I am striving to achieve, namely the approval by my mentor of my proposal, i.e. the first three chapters of my dissertation, it looks like I will at least apply for the extra extension.

With less than five weeks to my second extension deadline, I have changed my topic (!). I am no longer looking at the impact of ISO 9000 registration on instructional design. I just couldn't get it past the committee. Instead, I am now working on a Scientific Merit Review for software training methods. Here's my concept feasibility proposal:

With the explosion of online learning, an increasing number of instructional software developers are the domain specialists themselves (Boot, van Merrienboer, & Veermen, 2007), whether in higher education, corporate, or military training development. In many cases, companies use proprietary authoring system software that may or may not come with tutorials, either printed copy or online. In addition, documentation may be written by the software engineers who designed the authoring system. Often, these scaffolding tolls are unintelligible to the untrained user.

So what is the most common method of training new hires in the use of the tool of their new trade? Frequently in a corporate setting, it is a form of peer coaching where an experienced user sits alongside the novice and guides them through the initial steps of learning their new job and its tool simultaneously. While behavior modeling is usually considered the most effective method of software training (citation), it may not always bee the most efficient. However, one possible explanation for the use of this method is the project managers' desires to get as much production out of the new hire as soon as possible. Thus, they set them to work on actual development under the tutelage of a developer-mentor. Yet, one could easily argue that instead of one developer producing at full capacity while the other sits through "unproductive" training, now two developers are producing at less that full capacity for even one developer while the novice "learns the ropes."

Managers frequently view training as "lost production time." However, it may be possible to supplement the peer coaching with online tutorials that are individually prescribed, problem-oriented, and authentic--in a word, constructivist in their theoretical foundation. Combined with a pre-test/post-test to ascertain the learner's level of knowledge and understanding both before and after the training and with an Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) for scaffolding the learner's efforts, it may be possible to significantly increase the new hire's productivity in a shorter amount of time. In addition, levels of instruction can be scaled for basic, intermediate, and advanced instruction which can also be used as inservice or refresher training for more experience developers.

From a population of >500, volunteers will be given a pretest. Then, a random sample of roughly half will receive the training while the rest will go about their normal development duties. After the target sample has completed the training, both groups will execute a post-test and the results compared for correlation between facility with the authoring system and the training.

First Post

This is my new blog for my dissertation on my Ph.D. in Education from Capella University, specializing in Instructional Design for Online Learning. I'm going to use this as a sounding board, for brainstorming, and for note taking as I progress. At this point, my committee is in place and I have chosen a topic. I am researching the literature to develop my Pre-Proposal followed by my proposal. Comments are always welcome.