Reflections
“Why the E-Learning Boom Went Bust” – catchy title and an intriguing article in The Chronicle this morning.
The Chronicle
Authors Robert Zemsky and William F. Massy start by asking why the claims about e-learning were so “extravagantly off the mark.” They begin by looking at three basic assumptions behind the belief that e-learning would revolutionize teaching.
1.
If we build it, they will come. But they didn’t because no “dominant design” emerged and gathered a critical mass of practitioners behind it.
Actually two dominant designs did emerge: PowerPoint and commercial Course Management Systems (CMS). But both of these “tools” tend to be teacher-centric as they are commonly used. Both have the potential for dynamic, engaged, non-linear presentation, but, because of their deceptive ease of use, most folks just skim the surface and use the basic. Hence, learning occurs within traditional, teacher-centric framework.
2.
The kids will take to e-learning like ducks to water. But no one bothered to really examine what it was that students wanted.
From my experience at the University of Tennessee, supporting the Blackboard CMS and trying to advance the pedagogy that utilizes emerging technology, we notice that students like and now expect course materials to be available 24/7, and they like instant access to grades. Neither of these features, by itself, is a crucial element in creating in engaged learning. They can be. But in and of themselves. They are just convenience features.
A campus bookstore manager suggested that the researchers observe what software students were buying. The most popular programs were those that “allow their purchasers to prepare and distribute complex presentations.” They want to show off, presenting themselves and their work through these new tools.
Their fascination with technology has three major components:
A.
Desire for connectivity, to each other principally – on my daily walk, I am amazed at the number of cell phones pressed to ears with animated conversations going on
B.
Desire to be entertained: peer-to-peer file sharing here almost brought the Residential Network to its knees because students were unaware of the background activity that was taking place on this network, facilitated by the P2P software programs operating in the background.
C.
Desire to present themselves and their work. In 1992, I was technology coordinator for an affluent school district in Massachusetts. The computer teacher established criteria for a class project: credit for content and credit for presentation techniques and use of the technology. We were both amazed when the students quite deliberately chose to take a lower grade because their interest was, in fact, not on content mastery, but rather on bells and whistles.
3.
E-learning will force a change in how we teach
Faculty members use electronics to simplify tasks rather than changing how they teach their subjects. They “webify” their PowerPoint slide presentations and post them online in the CMS. The assignments look and feel the same, with some additional accessibility.
When campuses made investments in e-learning courses with their early adopting faculty, they found that “the courses died, simply because no one wanted to teach someone else’s e-learning syllabus.”
This expensive dying points out a critical aspect of pedagogical change that might have come along with the interest in learning objects, but did not emerge until recently: concept of designing, creating, storing, and retrieving course content with the express intent of facilitating reuse has not been adopted. I think the concept of reuse can be articulated and embedded in faculty development models but it hasn’t been adopted yet in any way that might impact how faculty teach.
The authors recommend that higher education develop a catalog of lessons learned. I see Educause as well as the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII) as attempting precisely that, through their publications and conferences. Fine minds are actively working on these issues. However, the “pace of educational change and reform” is agonizingly slow for a variety of reasons. But the dialogue itself about transforming the academy is dynamic and exciting.
The authors recommend their report, “Thwarted Innovation: What Happened to E-Learning and Why,” available from their website.
Thwarted Innovation
I am currently working on a paper whose argument will be that the dialogue surrounding learning objects is essential to the evolution of understanding in higher education of how LO might be integrated into a university's enterprise content management system. (and if they don't have one, they'd better begin planning one!!).
Debating with the wonderful writers and thinkers who are tackling this thorny topic is one great way to exercise the brain cells. So I will here be responding to Norm Friesen’s article:
Three Objections to Learning Objects
Friesen begins by dissecting the two terms involved in the phrase “learning object.” This is a great way to start because it clearly delineates the contradictory worlds that are trying to merge as the concepts behind LOs move more deeply into the thinking and infrastructure of our universities. However, as I read, I felt that while the argument was powerful, it was also negative in a way that blocked an alternative view of the role of LO in higher education (HE).
I see the concepts of Learning Objects and object-oriented models as catalysts for precisely the kind of deeper, critical thinking that higher education needs to be involved in. And it is involved in this conversation, through Educause and EdMedia conferences and publications, through NLII’s identification of key themes such as learning objects, deeper learning, and communities of practice. The dialogue is dynamic and evolving toward articulating a different paradigm, one that will absorb and transform the ideas from the corporate world, the military realm, and the discipline of cognitive science.
Friesen is also right on target in noting the vast sums of money that are being expended on pilot projects and even national initiatives such as the Australian Learning Foundation. He notes that the term “object” emerges from a “specific technological paradigm.” In turn this term’s connotations support a behaviorist, objectivist conception of information as an external object, external to the learner.
And of course we know that the term “learning” is fraught with all kinds of vagueness. Yet the minute I began to explore LO in 2001 with colleague Susan Metros, I was fascinated by how the very concept challenged my thinking about how and what I taught. I had been a high school English teacher for years before morphing into a “web instructional technologist.” I knew the role of intuition and creativity and passion and credibility that comprised my successful teaching career. How would I then take a successful year’s course on the history of British Literature, and break it down, chunk it, organize it into smaller components that could be readily re-used during the next semester? Because I recognized the magic in great teaching and course development, I realized that my fellow teachers might resist this de-construction.
So from the very first, I have used the concepts and the dialogues to reframe the rich bed of ideas surrounding learning objects so that the innovative, non-threatening, exciting parts could be shared with university faculty.
Back to the Friesen article. SCORM compliance is a concept that would be foreign to a university professor crafting a blended learning course on the history of world civilization. The hierarchy of the traditional university is also not such that the SCORM debate would seem to offer great benefits. However, the very fact that the major CMS players are touting that they are “interoperable” and “SCORM-compliant” requires that university administrators look carefully and critically at their infrastructure and their planning strategies. We move into the future at a very rapid pace. Universities need to keep their focus on their mission as well as on remaining competitive in the new marketplace.
In his third objection, Friesen does a wonderful job of articulating the military world view and the stark contrast to the ancient university tradition with its foundation in Socratic dialogue, Aristotelian methodology, and the great medieval institutions.
He quotes Douglas Noble in The Classroom Arsenal as pointing out the three principal characteristics of the military world view:
• Technological innovation
• Command and control
• Systems thinking
Let’s look at each of those briefly with respect to the stance of universities in general. Universities are often in the forefront of the intersection of technical and pedagogical innovation. For example, the University of Tennessee has one of the largest wireless implementations in the country, based on number of access points. Developing innovative ways to transform the classroom using this ubiquitous network is a slower process, but it is happening, through a series of wireless projects which target a particular department or college and deliberately gather data to refine the process of transforming teaching and learning.
“Command and control” are, rightly, largely foreign to universities in spite of their often top-heavy bureaucracies. Systems thinking, on the other hand, has immense value to offer universities. Since Peter Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, first appeared in 1990, the concept of the university as a learning organization has intrigued me and with Susan Metros, I have presented on this topic at several conferences.
Before moving on let me share one of the best quotes from Norm’s article, and he is quoting military personnel, “Humans, by their very nature are multi-mission capable.”
He concludes briefly by stating that “Developers and designers will have to recognize and choose relevant (and probably differing) pedagogical positions, or risk pedagogical irrelevance.”
I believe that the exploration of pedagogical positions, the examination of the role metadata can play in adding this dimension to the learning object model is being undertaken at the present moment by innovative thinkers in both higher education and the corporate world.
Two examples will briefly indicate the paths that are being explored.
Dr. Patricia McGee, assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and an NLII Fellow in 2003, crafted a detailed survey
Survey
Because of the complexity of the topic, the survey is necessarily lengthy. Areas explored include:
• Access
• Dissemination and Management
• Assessment
• Learning Design
Among the critical questions she is asking institutions are the following:
Which of the following best describes your institutions definition of learning objects?
Do you follow a systematic design process?
From a series of questions on Learning Design
Which of the following are used in the design or implementation of learning objects (check all that apply):
• Activity Theory
• Adult Learning Theory
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Cognitive Theory
• Cone of Experience
• Gagné’s Events of Instruction
• Gagné's Conditions of Learning
• Generative Learning
• Keller’s ARCS - Motivation Theory
• Mager's Criterion Referenced Instruction
• Merrill's Component Display Theory
• Reigeluth’s Elaboration Theory
• Schema Theory
• Social Learning Theory
• None
The fact that the survey is this comprehensive is indicative of the movement forward by learning theoreticians and practitioners (Patricia is both) in HE.
The second example is from the corporate world. Dr. Heather Katz, Sr. Instructional Technologist for Intelligent Decision Systems, Inc., presented a paper at EdMedia 2004 in Lugano, Switzerland, which directly addressed the gaps in current thinking about reusable learning object models (RLOM).
She explicitly states that we need a new RLOM model which is “SCORM 2004 compliant and grounded in learning sciences, instructional systems design (ISD), and respective theories in order to produce meaningful learning events.”
Higher education needs to make a conceptual shift. They need to understand the value of an object-oriented strategy. They need to perceive the value in managing learning object content, to put a cost on the effort needed to create those technical and pedagogical efficiencies. HE can learn from the corporate world, from the object-oriented programming model, and from the discipline of cognitive science. We are the pedagogy specialists, the thinkers and practitioners. The path is exciting and the dialogue stimulating.
More to follow….
Just back from EdMedia 2004, held in Lugano, Switzerland.
EdMedia 2004
Ideas are emerging from presentations I have given and attended, as well as discussions which emerged from those.
A colleague and co-presenter, Dr. Patricia McGee, wrote to me about a new definition of a learning object she’d heard there: “the smallest component within a course that directs a learning activity.” Back at the University of Texas, San Antonio, she then discussed this concept with her graduate students and they decided that this might mean any of these types: modeling, discussion, examples, questions, etc. Nothing to do with content, but focused on what activities the content generates. Because modeling and discussion do not occur in a vacuum. Some presentation of content began the string of activities or learning events.
Describing a presentation she saw at EdMedia Patricia quoted the presenter as identifying the top mistakes made in instructional design:
• Implementing old models
• Seeking to control the student
• Undue focus on content
This theoretical movement away from content and controlling student behavior piqued my interest. I replied with a brief discussion of self-efficacy in students. At some point a student becomes capable, effective and efficient at directing her own learning, having acquired a certain skill set, personalized, of course, that facilitates deep learning.
However, at what point a student is capable of this self-directed learning is difficult to determine. I referenced drivers ed where the instructor has an identical set of controls on his/her side of the vehicle. And not until a certain point, does he/she turn over control of the car to the student. Instruction in flying a plane involves the same setup. The instructor has full control of the plane until a certain point, when he/she turns control over to the novice pilot.
When is a student ready to solo in their directing of their own learning? I spent years as a superb regurgitator of the knowledge that was presented to me. And it was not until graduate school that I even began to experiment with accelerating my own learning by thinking metacognitively about how I learned.
Having nobly made my case of the need to guide students in the direction of self-directed learning, I then read an article in the NLII Focus Session packet, “Applying the Science of Learning to the University and Beyond: Teaching for Long-Term Retention and Transfer,” by Dianne F. Halpern and Milton D. Hakel.
NLII Summer Focus Session 2004
I am going to summarize their article, particularly their ten basic principles for deliberately teaching for long-term retention and transfer. Most of the following is composed of direct quotes from the authors of this excellent article.
Basic assumption: the first and only goal of a teacher is to teach for long-term retention and transfer. Given that conceptual framework, how can the principles/findings of cognitive science be applied to bring about more effective learning?
1. The single most important variable in promoting long-term retention and transfer is “practice at retrieval,” strengthening that memory trace. How? Practice retrieval. How? Use a rich LO repository!! Use
LON-CAPA.
2. Varying the conditions under which learning takes place makes learning harder for learners but results in better learning. This way key ideas have “multiple retrieval cues.” Use a rich LO repository!! Use LON-CAPA.
3. Learning is generally enhanced when learners are required to take information that is presented in one format and “re-present” it in an alternative format. This strategy activates the two distinct processing channels: visuospatial information and auditory-verbal information. Ex. Concept mapping
4. What and how much is learned in any situation depends heavily on prior knowledge and experience. So survey to discover this!
5. Learning is influenced by both our students’ and our own epistemologies. For example, when students complain, “I can’t do math,” what they are really operating from is an unquestioned belief that learning ought to be easy. When the learning doesn’t fit this model, they say they can’t do it. Give them strategies to think more effectively and efficiently about what is “hard” and what is “easy.” Computer games aren’t easy but a proficient gamer will spend hours learning the game and moving through the levels. So indeed what is “hard”?
6. Experience alone is a poor teacher. Most people are poor judges of how well they comprehend a complex topic.
7. Lectures work well for learning assessed with recognition tests, but work badly for understanding.
8. The act of remembering itself influences what learners will and will not remember in the future.
9. Less is more, especially when we think about long-term retention and transfer. Is extensive domain coverage the best way to approach a curriculum? If you want deep understanding of basic principles, then teaching and learning process needs to be structured accordingly
10. What learners DO determines what and how much is learned, how well it is remembered, and the conditions under which it will be recalled. What professors do in the classes matters far less than what they ask students to do.
Thought-provoking! Many thanks to the authors.
