Workshop Notes

I met with several of my workshop invitees--in person--Thursday. I did not provide a handout but had meaningful dialogue that raised the comfort levels of several people present. Once again, my assumptions went unsupported: non-participation was simply because people were busy--one was out of town, one was finishing up a contract position and in the middle of job interviews, one forgot because of other distractions, one did not think she had anything of value to say (now convinced otherwise). I am in the process of re-inviting them all as a renewal practice of the transactional distance theory--the structure is pretty low, so the dialogue must, of necessity, increase--that is my responsibility. Also, I see the theories for instructional design useful here--especially in teaching the wiki elements with mastery in mind--so I see the Structural Learning Theory might work for that--a structural analysis of the wiki knowledge and breakdown content into the learning paths--building onto the prior mastery as we go, and each learner can achieve the mastery in their own way--yes, I see the value here...however, the behavioral approach is also relevant, as I must do some "shaping" to set up the lesson--prior to stepping the path of the routine process--what the learner needs as a background--and looking at the component skills beforehand that will stimulate the knowledge creation through practice...so this is what I will have to do next--The lesson plan extraordinaire--and the decreasing of the transactional distance, as well. Also, my increased practice in posting--serves as what Moore calls "internal didactic conversation" and decreases transactional distance between myself and my mentor at Distance Education Village.

Reading Notes on Stevens & Scandura: Structural Learning Theory

Chapter five in the Reigeluth Book:

A Lesson Designed On Instructional Prescriptions From The Structural Learning Theory

By George H. Stevens and Joseph M. Scandura

Scandura: A cognitive theory of learning that led to a theory of instruction intended to accommodate other theories. His focus is on what to teach.

Selection of content—should be taught in the form of higher order rules when possible; testing for mastery and teaching only paths to mastery not yet attained.

[ page 161] …”equivalence classes represent the unique way of operationalizing and identifying the categories of divergence.”

[ page 162] … sequencing prescriptions: teach the most simple path and proceeding to more complex unmastered paths, until the entire rule has been mastered.

Reigeluth notes similarities between Scandura’s sequencing prescription and Landa’s level of elementary operations as well as Gagne’s entry level of skills.

S. L. T., also known as structural learning theory states that all knowledge is represented in terms of rules, i.e., cognitive processes. But structural analysis of content from a body of knowledge is the basis for designing the learning path rules to lesson mastery.

[ page 163] “ …a path, then, is that sequence of atomic rules that results in the satisfaction of an objective to a specific level of difficulty”

Divergence describes the many possible paths a solution rule can take.

Reading Notes on Gropper: Behavioral Approach to Instructional Design

Summary of readings from Instructional Theories In Action, edited by Charles M. Reigeluth.

Chapter three a lesson Based on a behavioral approach to instructional design by George L. Gropper.

Practice three approaches: routine treatments, shaping treatments, and specialized treatments.

Four categories of objectives: read calling or applying facts; giving definitions and explanations, applying them to examples, or illustrating them with examples; following procedural rules; solving problems.

Underlying components skills: discriminations, generalizations, associations, and chains. [ page 51].

Page 52:

Routine treatments:

• providing a cue that elicits desired responses; how to file procedures, how to define a concept war classify an instance of the concept, how to explain phenomena.
• Providing examples of performance
• Providing opportunities to practice

Non-routine treatments [ shaping and specialized]

• The size of the unit behavior practised
• The amount of cueing made available during practice
• The mode of stimulus or response
• The frequency and variety of practice
• The content of practice

Other organizational strategies

• Advanced organizers
• Self instruction

Display of information

• Directing attention
• Characterizing lesson content

Sequencing

• “Sequence” as facilitator
• Sequencing Of prerequisites

Lesson preface

• The instructional objectives
• The performance requirements
• Classify
• Define
• Predict
• Explain
• State from memory significant events
• Applied learning to new situation
• Target audience
• Lesson description
• Testing
• Annotations
• Reader introductions
• The conditions
• What the learner has to do
• Procedures
• Transfer of learning
• Treatments
• Model performance
• Address problem through practice
• Characteristics of correct outcomes
• Practice without cues
• Practised routine in new situation
• Itemized comments
• Learning hints