Cognitive Flexibility Memory aka Photoshop of the Mind

Do you think your technology use has affected the way you think and learn?  

Yes. Absolutely. I went back to school in 2004 and that was a time in which technology was really making serious in-roads into education. We were using Blackboard, heavily using email, and my undergraduate degree was in Science Education. We utilized technology in a variety of ways in the lab. No longer did I write papers with a pen and paper (or word processor/typewriter) like I did in the late 80’s. I could type my thoughts out about as fast as I could think them (as my typing speed improved). I wonder if that was the cause of Nietzsche's change in writing style when he moved to the typewriter? Maybe he was actually processing his thoughts at a faster rate than he did with a pen and paper? I could see an argument both for and against this (think about speaking a response vs. writing out a well-articulated response to someone's question).

If so, has the change been positive or negative?

I, too, have experienced the difficulty in engaging with long-texts. I’m working to get my habits of mind back to being able to engage with those longer texts (out of necessity - otherwise I might never finish this program!). I enjoy the snippets of information on the web. Twitter gives me a tremendous amount of information. I engage with only some it deeply. However, it has exposed me to so much more knowledge than I would have been able to see without it (twitter). Learning on the web (isn’t everything web-based now days?) is a bit like being a public education student. You get a tremendous amount of information and only some of the it sticks. To use Carr’s example, public education is much like the pancake. Students cover a huge breadth of subjects yet their shallow understanding of those subjects can often be problematic. Without going too far on a tangent, I attribute this problem more to education’s woes in testing (data-driven nature) rather than students’ inability to think deeply.

What ideas do you have for how the design of technology could facilitate positive, rather than negative, changes in human thinking and learning habits?  

I’m not entirely sure that I have anything new to add to the design of technology. I enjoy utilizing technology to encourage collaboration and get students to engage with (the instructor and) one another in new, deeper, more meaningful ways. That said, one big piece for me is to have students access knowledge (the internet) and do something with that information. An example might be to pull something from the news (say a natural disaster) and have students analyze it from a scientific (conceptual) point of view, a resilience (recovery) point of view, and a moral worldview. As Spiro pointed out, have students engage with a single mini-case from several different conceptual standpoints. While reading this part of the 1990 text excerpt, I kept thinking about Photoshop. If you are at all familiar with PS, you know that it works with layers. So you take several layers (each of which could stand on its own) and lay them on top of one another to form an image (which could be completely separate from the layers). The best part about this CF theory is the “multiplicative” nature of it - the sum of the parts being greater than the whole (which applies to one of my favorite physics theories, too).

For example, how can technology promote cognitive flexibility, or any other positive consequences you can imagine?

If I may digress a bit here, in education (specifically K-12) administration (including all elected officials) feel that education is a well-defined domain. They have taken a decidedly reductionist theory of education. One which can be simplified to a series of standards, lessons, and tests. This strategy absolutely will equal greater student achievement. However, practitioners (present company included) likely/hopefully recognize that education is an ill-structured domain. I recognize that there are exceptions to this idea. Young learners who are learning language or writing will eventually arrive at the same destination (a literacy of some degree in writing or speaking). However, when those two skills are required to be applied to life (e.g. a paper or a speech analyzing some big concept in history/business/education/philosophy) we begin to enter a domain which is ill-structured. In fact, isn’t this what education as a whole looks like? We have a series of processes that teachers are required to learn, tests they have to pass, several concepts and educational philosophers they should know (well-structured) and then they are turned loose in a classroom with a group of students and are expected to teach them the ideas, concepts, skills, and knowledge (well-structured - well defined destination with a clear roadmap to get to said destination) they need to know to be successful in life (ill-structured). Additionally, it doesn’t take long to look at the Common Core State Standards to know that we are expecting students to be able to work in an ill-structured domain (connections between subjects), yet how often do we give them the opportunity to do so?

So, what about technology? Our students are (by and large) connected (at a minimum through a smartphone) to the largest body of knowledge ever compiled in the whole of human history. Using technology and mini-cases (Spiro) we have the ability (and I would say the responsibility) to engage students in opportunities to construct their own connections between concepts, ideas, and events. Those concepts, ideas, and events are the layers of the Photoshop image before it has been “flattened” (where all the layers are combined and are no longer parts, but are integral to the whole image) and the connections are the entire image. These “images” constructed by students make up their entire knowledge base (about anything) and are akin to a collage of images (stored in their minds), with a series of layers (many of which may not be in the students minds, but part of the web/body of all human knowledge).

The Problem with Problem Based Learning

Prompt #5 - “Discuss ill-structured vs well-structured problems.  Refer to Jonassen's (2000) article”

The Problem with Problem-Based Learning -
by Jody Bowie

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Jonassen (2000) quotes Gagnéa (1980) as saying “the central point of education is to teach people to think, to use their rational powers, to become better problem solvers” (p.85). This statement resonates with me and follows my own philosophy of education. In fact, this idea is the basis of the parent discipline of the natural sciences: Physics (formerly, Natural Philosophy), which provided a natural fit for me as a teacher (or has the fact that I taught physics shaped my philosophy of education? Maybe this will require further reflection/research.) The greats like Newton and Galileo worked toward an understanding of observable phenomena. They worked within/on ill-structured problems. These phenomena had been observed, e.g. acceleration, gravity, etc., but not explained. These problems (and the way in which these men solved the problems) are still the basis for entry-level science classes of today. Science classes are taught within the historical context of the Journey of the Pillars of Problem Solving.

Background

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Problems are an “unknown entity” (2000, p. 65) solved via a “goal-oriented sequence of cognitive actions” (Anderson, 1987, p.250). These problems vary in complexity, domain, and structure. Hopefully, they are presented in varying levels based on age/developmental appropriateness.  Our main focus will be on structure because while Jonassen argues that among the charateristics of problems “... they are neither independent nor equivalent” (p. 66), the structure of the problem is dependent on the other areas, i.e. complexity and abstractedness.

Well-structured problems are formal, domain-specific, have a very well defined initial state, and have a clear solution. Because there is often a single solution nature of well-structured problems, these are relatively easy to assess. They can be assessed in a “mass-gradable” format, e.g. multiple-choice. There is a clear solution to these problems and (hopefully) the teacher knows or, at least, has access to, this solution/answer. Occasionally, there is only one path to the solution and all students draw on the same intellectual skills/processes to arrive at the “destination”. If you can find the answer to your problem in the back of a book (or on Google), you are working on a well-structured problem.

Ill-structured problems are more broad, often cross-disciplinary, may or may not have a well-defined initial state, and do not have a clear, single solution. These problems are much more difficult to assess and may be graded via a “component/skill rubric,” i.e. a rubric with specific components of a concept or skills that need to be assessed individually. These problems might cover a number of skills/ideas and often incorporate seemingly unrelated ideas. However, when students begin to consider the implications (economic, cultural, morality, civil-rights) of their particular solution, these “unrelated ideas” become very relevant. Ill-structured problems have numerous answers (or none) and will likely give students the opportunity to arrive at solutions in through a number of paths (strategies).

To address Cates’ question of “I am also curious as to how everyone feels about the new Core Standards and if it will be easier, or more realistic to incorporate ill-structured problems into classroom instruction?” I’m not sure whether or not it will be “more realistic or easier” but if PAARC is making assessments with ill-structured problems, you can be that teachers had better be exposing students to this type of assessment. Otherwise students’ performance on the assessments will be a disaster. I don’t mean to sound like we should “teach to the test.” However, if our objective is to increase students’ ability to problem solve (authentically) and the assessments are designed as such, our instruction should be driven in those tests. Isn’t that how the objective or learning outcome/assessment relationship is supposed to work? This ties directly to Jonassen’s assertion that two very strong predictors of success in problem-solving is students’ familiarity with problem type and their domain knowledge. If students have sufficient domain knowledge and have some familiarity with the problem type, they will be able to be successful in solving the problem. The reciprocal of this is that successful problem solving should be an indicator within the domain specified by the problem. Students can show mastery (or at least knowledge) of a domain or concept within that domain.

Issues

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Based on the title of this post, there should be problem. So where/what is it, you ask? It lies in the planning on the part of the teacher. Teachers (no surprise) are the key to students’ ability to problem solve. (If the rest of this writing sounds like I “know it all,” I do not mean it that way. I’m learning so much about what I did wrong in my classes of the past and I’m doing my best to apply that to my current teaching load.) If teachers rely only on the practice problems in the book, Scantron (or self-grading tests), and pre-made test banks, we will keep getting what we have always gotten, or worse, as shown in the results of the 2009 PISA.Teachers must target their instruction to the needs of the students. How can pre-made materials, test banks, powerpoints, possibly know what your students need to learn, based on their current level of knowledge/skill? I keep thinking over and over in my head as I write, “Set the bar based on the abilities of your current students. Set that bar high. If some make it over, great. Hopefully, everyone else jumped as high as possible.” The fact remains, the bar needs to be adjusted according this current group of students. Likely, that will involve keeping up with current research within a discipline, reframing knowledge within that domain in current cultural and socio-economic lenses. Not only will this allow teachers the ability to always have new problems for students to solve, they will model one of the intended outcomes of PBL: living as a lifelong-learner.

As we discussed during Week 6, many adaptive, stand-alone technologies are emerging in education. These technologies give students a pre-test, identify their weaknesses, and differentiate autonomous instruction to meet the students at their point of need. These technologies assess based on factual information, skill attainment, and/or some analysis. These assessments are based on problems that have a specific answer, likely based on the fact that we have not yet written an algorithm allowing a computer to assess ill-structured problems, due to the nature of those problems. My point here is that many lower-level thinking processes, facts, and skills can be replaced (to some extent) by a program (adaptive technology). This leaves the teacher in the role of lab monitor. While I am not implying that fear of losing our jobs should drive us to enrich our students learning experience through authentic problem-solving experiences, job security is a side-benefit! Assessment of ill-structured problems, at least currently, can only be done by a human, capable of considering all aspects of a students solution and the way in which they arrived at that solution.

Solution

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Teachers must continue their learning to be enabled to engage students in ill-structured problems, while still engaging in authentic assessment of students’ problem-solving skills, ability to think critically, and domain knowledge (concept-specific). As a part of this, students should also be assessed on their ability to make cross-disciplinary connections. This can be done easily if other disciplines are brought into the process. For example, Michelle and I are going to be a part of paired class next semester, in which she will teach writing/research (skill) and I will teach technology (skill), through the lens of American History (the context). Finally, these problems should be student-directed. Students should be able to construct their own relevancy/motivation by being allowed to choose a topic that both fits the context of the class and is something in which they are interested. Jonassen suggests that students “...think harder and process more deeply when they are interested...” and “...have high-self efficacy” (p.73) Allowing students to select their own problems enables them to choose those in which they are (or can be) interested and believe they have the ability to solve.



References

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1. Anderson, J. R. (1980). Cognitive psychology and its implications. San Francisco: Freeman.


2. Gagnéa, R.M. (1980). Learnable aspects of problem solving. Educational Psychologist, 15(2), 84-92.


3. Jonassen, D.H. (2000). Toward a design theory of problem solving. Educational Technology Research & Development, 48(4), 63-85.


4. Plekhanov, A. (2011). PISA Results: How does quality of education compare across the EBRD’s countries of operation? Retrieved from http://www.ebrdblog.com/wordpress/2011/03/pisa-results-how-does-quality-of-education-compare-across-the-ebrds-countries-of-operation/

Here we go again

I have no idea if anyone actually gets anything out of what I'm writing, but it's time to start learning again, which means writing/reflection. I've taken about 6 months off from school, but I'm back in class taking it to the next level. This time it's Trends and Issues in Educational Technology.

For class, I've been reading The Cambridge Handbook of The Learning Sciences (R. Keith Sawyer, Ed. 2005). I've just started, but the first part of the book is fantastic!

It begins with a bit of educational history, starting with the early years of Public Education in America and the concept of instructionism. While I write this, my computer says that instuctionism is not a word, but you are all familiar with the concept because it's how you were taught in school. There was a lot of wrote memorization and factual learning, but not a lot of critical thinking or application. It did a good job of preparing students for the "industrialized economy of the early 20th century" (Sawyer, 2005). However, in today's knowledge economy, this won't work any longer. Students cannot continue to be taught fact after fact. They cannot continue to be taught the same way they were 100 years ago, because the world is not the same place as it was 100 years ago.  We have to teach students how to think. Thinking is a skill. In order to teach it, students must be put in the position of practicing that skill. The only way they will get better is to practice.

Before picking up this book (on my new Kindle), I'd never heard of the Learning Sciences. I guess I had a vague understanding of what they were/are, but didn't know them by that name. However, beginning in the 1970's and ending in the 1990's, scientists and researchers began to word towards a consensus on the way in which students need to learn to be successful in today's society. Those are:

• It is important for students to gain a deep conceptual understanding. Many of you can probably recite Newton's 2nd law of Motion, but could you apply it to a situation?


• In addition to teaching better, some focus needs to be on students learning better. Great teachers are so important, but if the student (or teacher) doesn't have some grasp on how they learn, it may not do much good. Passive learning is no longer acceptable. Students must take control of their learning and begin to construct their own body of knowledge. (I know, Piaget has been saying this since the 60's!)


• Schools must create an environment where learning can occur. Facts are okay, but teachers and schools need to put students in situations that encourage thinking deeply about concepts and there must be some real world application.


• Successful learning comes as a result of building on the learner's prior knowledge.  Again, no passive learning. Students come in with prior understanding (or misunderstanding) and often only learn enough to pass a test, but their learning in no way affects the way in which they interact with their world.


• Reflection is important. That's why I write here. It's not so anyone can read. It's so I can process. This blog is a place for me to actively analyze my state of knowledge. What did I know before and what do I know now? How are those different? How will what I've learned impact me? Will it? If not, why not?

**bold sections: The Cambridge Handbook of The Learning Sciences, (R. Keith Sawyer, Ed. 2005).

Next week, I'm doing my "final" professional development session with public school teachers. I say final only because it's the last commitment I made while a State Dept. of Ed. employee. I'm supposed to talk about Problem-Based Learning. The early part of this book, while not explicitly so, talks about Problem-Based Learning.

Students need to engage in inquiry, beginning with a driving question and proposing a hypothesis/solution. They need to use complex representations to communicate and collaborate. They also need to use models, represented in some visual format. That's basically what my presentation is, in 3 sentences. If you are a Yukon Public School teacher, don't bother coming to listen. You just got the nutshell version!

Finally, there is a situativity perspective. This means that knowledge is not static. Knowledge is a process. I think of it as a sieve. When you interact with the information, you change what is there and it changes you, as well. It goes beyond simple knowledge acquisition and moves into a fundamental change in the way in which learners collaborate. This change comes as a result of the collaboration.

Bring it on. This is going to be a great class.

In case you are wondering what's going on here, here's a little intro video I made of myself for class.