Subject: Re: Learning objects discussion
From: Clark Quinn (cquinn@knowledgeplanet.com)
Date: Thu 24 Feb 2000 - 19:23:24 MET
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 10:23:24 -0800 From: Clark Quinn <cquinn@knowledgeplanet.com> Subject: Re: Learning objects discussion
List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>I was thinking here more in terms of helping students develop self
>assessment skills. I have delivered sample answers but it hasn't
>always generated the desired improvement in the standard of
>student work. The students needed some skills in assessing their
>own work.
Two answers.
Ann Brown & Anne-Marie Palincsar, in their work on reciprocal teaching, have argued that by criticizing others' work, learners acquire monitoring skills that they then can internalize. So, if you want learners to assess their own work, you first provide an imperfect answer (it helps if you use ones that contain common misconceptions), then model critiquing it. Learners then take turns performing and critiquing other's performances. Eventually the learners should internalize the critiquing to become self-monitoring (read: self-assessment). I would think that you could scaffold that self-assessment by having learners perform, then critique their own performance before others then do it. You'd have to assess/reward the critiquing, not the performance.
I still think Collins, Brown, & Newman's "Cognitive Apprenticeship" is one of the best distillations of principles across several efforts (including reciprocal teaching) and provides great guidance for improving learners learning skills as well as whatever you're trying to teach.
>One of the benefits that I see of learning objects is that generic
>learning support objects can be created and re-used in other
>courses. We might also have some foundational concepts in the
>subject area that we want made available to a range of courses.
>These might be subject area specific but not necessarily course
>specific.
Yes, this is my other answer (with a more direct relation to this discussion :-). If you were tracking students on their learning skills, you could present objects that teach self-monitoring skills when needed. A library of such a set of objects would be quite valuable, I would think (any pointers?). Diane Halpern has a book of critical thinking skills that could be a starting point.
-- Clark
-- Clark Quinn KnowledgePlanet.com (510) 768-2408 cquinn@knowledgeplanet.com--------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Thu 24 Feb 2000 - 21:05:48 MET