Myers, Ken (kmyers@netg.com)
Thu, 13 May 1999 11:34:57 -0500
From: "Myers, Ken" <kmyers@netg.com> Subject: Responding to Phillip Duchastel Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 11:34:57 -0500
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In the past, instructional science has evolved as an empirically proven
discipline. What was advertised as effective had hard research data to back
up those claims. While I accept that the classroom has shared knowledge of
this same research, I am not convinced that sufficient application of the
fundamental tenants of good design find there way into enough classrooms.
Unless I am sadly misinformed, the classroom is not a setting for individual
objective-based study and assessment. For every classroom that follows
absolute standards of performance, a far greater number practice measurement
by comparison. This is not a mastery approach working to achieve clearly
defined objectives. For every carefully crafted and well designed classroom
experience being taught today, I would suggest that there are a far greater
number of lessons being presented with a "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants"
(sometime called spontaneous) approach to instruction. The basic outline
and intent may be in place, but the outcomes are not clearly in place and
the application and practice may be slight or completely missing.
I build highly interactive multimedia for a living. You might think all
learners would quickly embrace products that provided them with a chance to
practice and evaluate their skills. The truth is that learners are often
reticent to embrace multimedia because there is a constant demand that they
participate. This forces learners out of a classroom mode of absorbing
instruction and places them directly into the process of learning. Why are
they uncomfortable? One reason is because the designers of interactive
instruction need to do a far better job of making the interactive experience
relevant. We need to require interactions that have application to the
tasks people do rather than simply asking questions because we must grade
performance. This is another remnant of the classroom. Still another
reason for this discomfort is that learners have been conditioned by years
of one way instruction with a test on Friday. It is easy to be anonymous in
a classroom. It is impossible to be anonymous in well designed interactive
CBT.
If information is the only consideration for instruction, then the design of
information may certainly be a focus for discussion. Merrill is clearly
indicating in your citation that the definition of instruction is really
what has changed. Now anything delivered electronically is considered
instruction. "The Internet is a great source of knowledge" is a constantly
resounding assumption. We all used to know the instructional definition of
assumption. I fear you are right in the premise that instructional design
will be absorbed by information design. I would equate this with a similar
event when pioneers like Benjamine Bloom and Robert Gagne were writing the
foundations of instructional science for a teacher audience. Just as
individual instruction was swallowed up by educational practice, there is a
clear indication that the definition of instruction itself may disappear in
a sea of opinion, preferences, feelings, attitudes, expectations and
ASSUMPTIONS. Where is the research? Everyone seems to have a solution but
no one seems to have time to prove that their solution works. Instructional
theory is in disarray. Perhaps it is time to test a few theories and
discard those causing the disarray.
The real implication of this information age is that we have finally
achieved a speed of information distribution that has overwhelmed the
infrastructure of education. Everyone marvels at the way nature finds ways
of defeating obstacles created by man. Perhaps the new channels of
information available to learners have finally worked their way around the
obstacles to learning and students are now truly free to learn on their own.
Certainly the amount of rhetoric on spelling, grammar and etiquette on this
forum clearly indicates people trying to maintain some semblance of control
over literacy. If we do have a new audience of unbridled learners out
there, then my focus is clear. I must provide agents of change that are
effective and useful to these new learners. I would further suggest that
you need to do more than provide more efficient means of searching
information. You must find ways to demonstrate, provide practice and offer
self-assessment of the skills required to transform that information into
productive work. I am not going to take a position on whether that solution
should be a constructivist or behaviorist solution. That should be obvious
in my previous comments. Ultimately that argument is resolved by the
learner who chooses from the solutions offered and support what works.
Ken Myers
Ken Myers
Senior Instructional Designer
NETg Research and Development
630 637-8903
Kmyers@NETg.com
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