Looking Forward
Nickerson 1995
McGilly 1994
For Next Week
The feedback I received from the Evaluations was extremely useful, and makes me think it a good idea to begin the week with a revised introduction to the Seminar. Specifically, I want to explain in light of the first part of the semester what we're doing now and why.
In 1960, Scheffler published an important book entitled The Language of Education. Among the many interesting issues discussed in the book (e.g. how to reconstruct substantive educational issues from educational slogans), he criticized the idea of "Education" being an autonomous discipline. He wrote:
"[e]ducational research must not be conceived as a single science, but rather as the common focus of many sciences with bearings on educational practice." (p. 73)
An interesting question is whether the same must be said about computer science research, at least the kind associated with educational technologies. That is, to try to figure out what "good" means in a phrase like "good interface," we need to draw on principles and investigations from many fields (how many?), and to raise difficult questions about what sort of science computer science could possibly be (e.g. how does a "theory" in computer science compare with a physical, mathematical, economic, sociological, or literary theory?).
The Seminar has been constructed with that very big issue in mind. The primary purpose of the projects, readings, and assignments is to promote a kind of inquiry into issues concerning education, technology, and the interaction between the two. As I said in the introduction to the course in January, CS92/ED89 is designed both as an exercise in creating educational technology and an experience in thinking carefully about what computers can contribute to education and how programs should best be designed to make these contributions.
Unfortunately (perhaps), there is no algorithm or method for making "good" educational software, only some fairly basic ideas about what to consider in trying to avoid "bad" educational software. Similarly, there is very limited data concerning what works well and badly in the use of computers for education (except in grave and trivial cases). Personally, I am more interested in getting more data than in developing Principles of Good Design, recalling Camus' famous line: "When one has no character, one has to have a method."
So, as we turn to the final weeks of the semester, and the teams start putting together the pieces of their programs, test them, and present them, we'll read some things that are meant to motivate discussions about computers and/in/for education, and articulate a question that has been implicit in many of our discussions: "Can/should computer tech. transform the character of K-16 education and how?"
Finally, it's worth noting that undergraduates right now, perhaps esp. at Brown, are in a rather unique and important position as regards these issues. Because computers have been such an "ordinary" part of your education (at least as compared with your elders -- and that includes your teachers!), you are perhaps less distracted by technological innovation, and can focus on the important questions concerning the rationale for computers in education. In other words, you are perhaps the first generation of people to be able to ask "What for?" in a serious and informed way.
We now turn to Nickerson's "Can Technology Help Teach for Understanding?," and to Steve's interesting questions. An additional, and to me especially challenging question, is how computers generally and software in particular can assist in the development (and not merely the assessment) of understanding in various disciplines.
After class on Tuesday, Chris Creed posted a question and some further comments on the article. His point about trying to resolve the difficulties between engaging students' misconceptions and making sure those misconceptions get resolved/dissolved, makes clear that any teaching philosophy has to face difficult very issues about how understanding, knowledge and authority ought to be acquired, related, and demonstrated.
Kate McGilly's "Cognitive Science and Educational Practice" is the first chapter in a book about "cognitive learning theory." Ericka's questions raise some very important questions (I hope she'll explain what a metaphysics is), and of course a general question that I hope we can deal with is what role cognitive science research can and should play in educational reform. I think it's fair to say that, today, responses to this question among "educators" run the gammut from "No role whatsoever" to "Education is simply a branch of cognitive science".
Next week we'll continue our attempt to synthesize ideas from various disciplines about computers and education by looking to the future. Read Tiffin and Rajasingham In Search of the Virtual Class (1995), chapterss 1-3, for Tuesday, and chapters 5-8 and 9 for Thursday. This will likely be the last readings we'll do as a class this semester, as the testing and assessment sessions will begin the following week (!).