[what pedagogical frameworks exist to explain, underpin, predict or critique TELEs and the materials and resources they use?]
Goodyear, P & Jones, C (2004) Pedagogical frameworks for DNER (the Distributed National Electronic Resource), Deliverable DC1, EDNER Project. Lancaster: Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technology, Lancaster University
(online at www.cerlim.ac.uk/edner/dissem/dc1.doc)
See in particular Section 2 (pages 12-37) but check also the references (p.48) and the Recommended Reading (p.54). The document discusses the theories and practice of pedagogical frameworks generally, deriving from the literature, as a background to a national project on electronic resources and uses this to derive a set of pedagogical issues that individual projects need to address. It suggests a 'Theory of Change' technique to help teams align their work with these pedagogical principles. Below is a summary of this in two parts:
1. Models, characteristics and principles of learning
2. Pedagogical frameworks
1. Models, Characteristics and Principles of Learning
The report identifies 4 models of learning (based on Shuell, 1992):
- Learning as passive reception
- Learning as discovery
- Learning as knowledge deficit and accrual
- Learning as guided construction
Taking the last of these as representative of the growing consensus in education it examines the guided process of knowledge construction and identifies 6 characteristics of 'good learning (drawing on Shuell, 1992, Biggs 1999, Simons et al, 2000':
- Learning is active
- Learning is cumulative
- Learning is individual
- Learning is self-regulated
- Learning is goal-oriented
- Learning is situated
Taking Higher Education as a specific context, the authors next address 12 principles of 'good learning' for Higher Education:
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Proposition
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Explanation
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1
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Learning should be extensive
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It is no longer defensible (if ever it was) to define the outcomes of higher education purely and simply in terms of mastery of a subject. Outcomes now also need to include more generally useful skills, including so-called transferable skills, the capacity to act as an autonomous lifelong learner, a belief in one’s own efficacy, etc.
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2
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Learning involves constructing understandings that are acceptable within communities of practice
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Learning involves acts of sensemaking within a community that shares common interests, practices, language and other cultural artefacts and tools. Access to disembodied information has little to do with real learning.
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3
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Learning is a natural outcome of the normal workings of communities of practice
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Participation in the day-to-day life of a community of practice is inseparable from learning. If someone has a legitimised role within a community of practice – however peripheral that role may seem – they cannot help but learn. In HE, learning may best be seen as induction into one or more communities of practice.
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4
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Learning is situated and hard to transfer
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What is learned in one context tends to be hard to transfer to another – indeed the idea of ‘transfer’ may be suspect. However, learning in HE does require learners to be able to recognise community boundaries and shift between communities. It requires use of knowledge abstracted from specific contexts and the ability to work with different ways of knowing (epistemic fluency)
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5
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Engagement and practice make for good learning
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Learning demands application (engagement in practice); skill-acquisition demands opportunities for repetition, feedback, fine-tuning, automation, etc.
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6
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Learning involves challenge and scaffolding
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Learning can be a by-product of taking on a challenging new task; challenge and learning go hand in hand but challenge should not overwhelm. What one can do with others is in advance of what one can do alone – the scaffolding they provide helps one accept and overcome challenges.
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7
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Learning must embody an idea of progression
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Learning involves qualitative change in understandings rather than quantitative accumulation of factual knowledge. Learners in HE typically move from relatively simple to more complex beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning. Curriculum challenges need to reflect this.
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8
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Learning is conversational and interactive
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Learning and practice in communities is inseparable from discourse; generation of narratives and explanations are key to sense-making; understanding others’ accounts of the world is an important aspect of academic learning; sharing in the construction of knowledge demands communication and other forms of social interaction.
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9
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Learning involves effective use of reflection
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‘Conversations’ can be with others but they can also be with oneself; self-explanations and ‘replaying’ and analysing one’s experiences are important parts of sense-making.
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10
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Learning is not significantly limited by fixed abilities
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IQ and other claimants to be measures of ‘general ability’ are poor predictors of complex learning or of successful progression within a community of practice; engagement/application entail hard work not good genes and are cultural not inherited; specific knowledge rather than general ability is a potent influence on learning; other so-called stable traits (eg learning style) are more context-sensitive than is often acknowledged.
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11
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Motivation is something designed into curriculum, not something added by charismatic teaching
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People are motivated by goals they value, especially ones they have had chance to help shape; goals should be challenging but achievable; feedback aids persistence; intrinsic motivation accompanies a personal belief in the value of one’s efforts –overuse of extrinsic motivators can undermine intrinsic motivation.
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12
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Teaching contributes to learning, but in various ways
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Direct (didactive) teaching can be appropriate in helping learners reach mastery of tightly-structured subject matters – factual and rule-based material and skills coaching can be well served by direct teaching. But much of learning in HE involves uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, weighing of evidence and judgement. Here, direct teaching is much less useful than planning and facilitating appropriate learning experiences.
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The paper then considers these models, characteristics and principles and identifies pedagogical issues for DNER (and this could be applied to TELEs or OERs) - see page 19:
- Understandings of how DNER/OER/TELEs can be used needs to be set against these principles - it is OK to depart from these principles but this needs to be explicitly explained and addressed
- Teaching materials should reflect the best of these principles
- The link between pedagogical principles and their effect on the design of learning and learning materials is not established (and needs to be researched) but hwile these principles cannot be used to determine design they should also not be ignored
- The process of aligning these principles with the design of learning and learning materials involves designing for the future
'The focus can no longer be upon creating learning resources without regard to their intended contexts' (p. 24). The report discusses changing conceptions of teaching and the shift towards student-centred learning and identifies two approaches that appear to exist (see p. 22):
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Teaching as transmission of knowledge
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Teachers holding this conception tend to see teaching as a teacher-centered activity; the main aim being to transmit knowledge to students, who are considered as passive recipients of information
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Teaching as passing information
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Teaching is merely passing information to students; emphasis on syllabus coverage or meeting exam requirements, without much concern for students’ understanding
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Teaching as making it easier for students to understand
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Teaching is still conceived of as the transmission of knowledge but now with a concern for students’ understanding; emphasis on structuring knowledge & organising teaching to help students understand, remember and apply
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Teaching as the facilitation of learning
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Teachers holding this conception tend to see teaching as student-centered; the main aim being to facilitate their learning
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Teaching as meeting students’ learning needs
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The emphasis here shifts to the variety of students and the diversity of their learning needs; teaching is informed by a sense of responsibility about meeting these various needs
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Teaching as helping students become independent learners
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The focus here is on the growth of the individual, rather than on specific knowledge and skills. Teaching is seen as a process of helping learners develop intellectually and become autonomous lifelong learners
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Table: Conceptions of teaching (adapted from Kember and Kwan, 2000)
And the paradigm shift in teaching and educational design (see p.23):
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From
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To
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Information transmission
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Design of learning tasks and environments
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‘Teacher’ directed
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Learner-managed learning
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Subject-centered
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Learner-centered design & development
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Individualistic learning
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Learning communities
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Inert knowledge
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Usable knowledge
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Atomistic, technology-focused approaches
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Holistic/systemic approaches
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Table: The broader paradigm shift
2. Pedagogical Frameworks
What is a pedagogical framework? Figure 2.1 is an attempt to capture a version of what might be meant by this term. The point is not to construct one ideal pedagogical framework; but neither are all possible frameworks equally satisfactory' (p. 25)
Fig 2.1 Pedagogical framework, educational setting, organisational context
Environment as the physical setting for the learner's work - this requires a degree of openness to allow for variable learner needs and to initiate a creative response (what we might call a 'loose coupling')
Philosophy and High Level Pedagogy as declarative / conceptual aspects of the P. framework
Ped. Strategy and Ped. Tasks as procedural / operational aspects of P. framework
Philosophy as the beliefs held about the nature of knowledge and competence and how learning occurs (see theory of learning on this, but roughly mapping to instructivism / constructivism continuum for learning, and epistemology that connects relativist / phenomenolgy approaches to constructivism (note: Goodyear contests this suggesting that realism connects with constructivist approaches more effectively)
High Level Pedagogy as enacted Philosophy, the 'concrete instantiation of philosophical positions' (p. 31). Here we might examine the types (or flavours?) of pedagogy - and this needs greater examination for it to be useful and meaningful to designers - including
Problem based Learning
Guided Discovery Learning
Cognitive Apprenticeship
programmed Learning
Collaborative Learning
Pedagogical Strategy - a broad brush depiction of plans - a description of actions and intentions to enable shared understandings by teachers and learners
Pedagogical Tactics - strategy at a more granular level - the detailed moves by which strategy is effected - this is not necessarily top down (i.e. from strategy to tactics) as strategy can be emergent, and threads woven from intuitive tactical activity (the tacit, informal and intuitive): 'its articulation can serve the coordination and communication facility ... and help turm intuiive action into something more reflective, self-aware and discussable' [this is important]
Tasks as prescribed work and Activity as what people actually do (see Brown and Duguid, 2000, on 'canonical' and 'non-canonical' work practices. Learning Task as a specification of learning activity - that is specified to make the chance of unproductive activity within tolerable limits.
Organisational Context as including the institutional context, in which the pedagogical framework and the educational settings can be developed. This brings constraints (e.g. logistical and financial)
There follows a discussion of indirection in design and of the three connected sets of design considerations:
design of tasks,
design of supportive organisational forms / structures
design of supportive tools / physical (and virtual?) environments which each learner can customise to their own needs
And the latter of these are seen as having direct influence on the 'learnplace' (see discussion on the space place distinction p. 36)
The pedagogical framework model is offered in the paper as a conceptual tool to structure discussions about teams are trying to achieve and how they are going to achieve it.
'Depicting the pedagogical framework and educational setting within their organizational context can also help us locate key interactions between the context and innovative activity. Features of the organizational context may have a particularly strong influence at certain key points - for example, where a new educational setting is being created according to the ideas sketched in a pedagogical framework (the top arrow in Figure 1). It is important for innovatory projects to be able to identify the nature of such influences as clearly as possible. They can be as crucial to the long term success or failure of an innovation as the pedagogical strategy or the learning environment.' (p. 34)
Merril, D.M. (2002), First Principles of Instruction, Educational Technology Research and Development, Vol. 50, Issue 3, pg. 43
First principles of instruction is a attempt by M. David Merrill to identify fundamental invariant principles of good instructional design, regardless of pedagogic strategy. It can be used both as an instructional design model and as evaluation grid to judge the quality of a pedagogical design. (see Edutech Wiki for more discussion)
This is an often cited and important paper.
Diagram: Components of Merrill's First Principles of Instruction
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