Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:736] Re: Structured Play and Constructed Knowledge
From: Albert Ip (albert@dls.au.com)
Date: Mon 27 Nov 2000 - 04:46:43 MET
From: "Albert Ip" <albert@dls.au.com> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:736] Re: Structured Play and Constructed Knowledge Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 14:46:43 +1100
On Sun, 26 Nov 2000 17:20:23 +0000 Cathy Burke
<cathy@windses.free-online.co.uk> wrote:
> In any teaching & learning situation - there is structure imposed by
> teachers and learners usually in unequal measures. A central feature of
> this structure is the hierarchy of power and control embedded in the
> 'classroom' environment. Teachers and students walk into a room and take
> up their known and understood positions of authority and subservience. ...
The transition from the familar face to face classroom to an online role
play environment can be difficult. A learner in a traditional classroom
*expects* to be led and in some cases, expects to be sitting there in
"subservence". One major challenge for online discussion or role play
learning environment is to get the learners to participate and contribute.
There is a "mutual obiligation" which Cathy refers to as:
> .... collaboration and cooperation -
> students are aware that they cannot take the journey alone and need the
> support of their peers if they are going to have enough material to
> comment on when they complete their assessment and evaluation of the
> experience.
Here, another structure is coming into play. A structure that expects
learners to participate and contribute. In the case of role play, the
structure requires the learners to participate in character of the role as
assigned.
The relationship between "structured play " and learning is a very
interesting issue which I have been trying to understand and have yet to
reach any sense. I would not go as far as discounting the effectiveness of a
traditional lecture type classroom. There are too many examples of
memorable lectures which have inspired me and which I can never forget.
However, back to the relationship, in a role play (structured play??), does
the participation (in the form of text sent to the role play environment)
consititute articulation of the understanding of the subject matter by the
learner as in the sense of the Laurillard's "conversation model" ? My
guess, "no". During such text production, does learning occur? My guess,
"may be". During debriefing, does learning occur when learners reflect on
the experience? My guess, "likely".
Online role play creates "learning opportunities" and offers an alternate
structure to the classroom. Creating learning opportunity is one thing, the
willingness, ability and the actual use of such opportunities is another.
Let's take the role of risk taker and convert learning opportunites into
experence and into real learning.
cheers
Albert
---------------------------------------------------------
List address to send message to everyone:
ifets-discussion@catfish.valdosta.edu
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
Forum website: http://ifets.ieee.org/
Forum's contact person: kinshuk@massey.ac.nz
Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.ieee.org/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Wed 29 Nov 2000 - 14:06:07 MET