thoughts on learning, part IV
Filed Under Questions
So I finished the 16-hour course on eLearning last week. I really enjoyed it. I thought we covered a lot of the fundamentals that contribute to the creation of engaging and motivating learning experiences. Michael Allen’s model of Context, Challenge, Activity, Feedback is something I’ll be chewing on for a while.
A colleague of mine also introduced me to David Merrill’s model of an effective learning environment, which I think echos, and in other ways, subsumes Allen’s methodology. Merrill identifies the first principles of instruction as 1) activation of prior experience, 2) demonstration of skills, 3) application of skills, and 4) integration of these skills into real-world activities. His point is that instructional practice concentrates primarily on 2) the demonstration of skills by itself, without paying much attention to 1), 3), and 4). By ignoring prior experience, potential application, and the world we live in, what do we get? Learners looking bored, disaffected, and turning their brains off in the classroom.
Merrill’s schema matches up somewhat with my thoughts on building a learning community. For me, a community starts with personal skills and knowledge development [prompted by the presentation of a shared problem worth solving], continues with finding good models (”show me how” you solved this problem) [number 2 in Merrill's model], the personal risk of trying it yourself [principle 3 in Merrill's model], and then reflecting and sharing with others what you learned [an aspect of Merrill's 4th principle, integration]. This cycle repeated over and over again equals, in my mind, a vibrant learning community, whether that’s teachers learning about teaching or students learning about any given discipline.
It’s not so much “how” a teacher delivers content; the “how” of pedagogy begins to fade when we look at “what” the goals of instruction are and how they are relevant to students’ lives. What really matters is the problem that teachers are presenting for students to solve, or the problems that teachers and students are working to solve together. If Merrill’s model holds true, than the crucial problem of good instruction is to find, identify, or create problems worth solving.
“Teaching” = “Probleming”
The principle quest of a teacher becomes, “What questions or problems are relevant to my student’s lives that could be in some way answered or solved by all of this content we have at our disposal?” That is the starting place.
Thanks to my colleague, Mark Weiss, for prompting these thoughts.
