CS92 3/2/00
Hi Everyone,
So here's the plan for today. We're going to discuss the chapters we read for today, and hopefully we'll be able to reflect on software we've used in our childhood/highschool years and assess its effectiveness. We read the Nickerson chapter 'Can Technology Help Teach for Understanding' , and the Schwartz chapter 'Reflections of an Educational Software Designer.' They are thematically quite different in nature -- the Nickerson is more theorizing and general education psychology, while Schwartz acts as more of a primary source for educational software design. Below is a brief outline of the authors' main points and questions we'll be discussing:
Nickerson:
Nickerson faces the daunting task of trying to define "understanding" -- quite literally, what it means to understand something. Included in his definition is the person's "ability to explain to the satisfaction of an acknowledged expert, apply knowledge appropriately in various contexts, produce appropriate qualitative representations, make appropriate analogies, repair malfunctions, and predict effects in change in structure or process.
Question: Do we agree with his definition of "understanding?" What would you add? remove? change the wording of?
He emphasizes the importance in understanding what we don't understand - not only the list of popular misconceptions, but in learning how to learn by understanding (circular much?).
Question: Everyone say in one sentence what you think LEARNING is.
Nickerson's theory on learning- ? constructive process, one imposes structure and meaning on new information ? integrate that information with what one already knows ? revise one's existing model of reality ? EXPLORATION and DISCOVERY ? "A cardinal rule of learning is that one is more likely to comprehend what one discovers for oneself than what one is taught by someone else." ? Simulations ? Supportive environment
Question: What do we think about all this? Agree? Disagree? To what extent?
Schwartz:
"Insider" view of educational software design -- he outlines the steps in developing education software, wrestling with the core issues along the way.
Question: How do you feel about the different contexts in which software can be employed? (i.e. old content using old approaches, old content using new approaches, etc.)
"I suggest that judiciously chosen traditional content, implemented in thoughtful and engaging new ways that both promote and scaffold new learning and teaching approaches, is the key to bringing the new technology, and in the end new content as well, into the lives of our students and teachers in a serious way." (p. 173)
? Should the software run the conversation with the user, or just respond? ? We need to find an INTERMEDIATE of these two. ? Schwartz talks a lot about the need for both teachers and students to learn, separately and together, using new technology to further the process of learning and understanding.
Question: How do we go about "Jumping into the Interesting Middle?"
