Feuerstein – Genius in the making

Reuven Feuerstein

I love Feuerstein’s way of thinking.  He has broken down the very basics of how we think and gone through a step by step process to demonstrate to others how they too can think for themselves.  Brilliant!

Feuerstein’s model is a very internal way of learning – Laurillard’s ‘conversation’ or Yacci’s ‘interactivity’ in the learning here is mainly done within the student himself.  There is also feedback from the class and tutor, but the most important work here is done internally within the student i.e. reviewing and learning.

Muirhead and Juwah say “However, to support authentic learning as well as enhance the learner’s educational experience in distance and online courses, it is imperative to provide adequate scaffolding.”  The scaffolding that they discuss contains conceptual, procedural, strategic and metacognitive learning.  So according to M&J, metacognition is only part of the scaffolding whereas Feuerstein believes that metacognition is the most important part of the learning.  They are both right. Metacognition is a huge part of learning; until you know how to learn, it is pretty pointless learning anything at all!

So how would I apply what I have learnt tonight?  We have a lot of mature students at UCB who lack confidence using computers in general.  As I was reading Feuerstein I could immediately see how I could help them to be able to use software more effectively.  I can create a step-by-step guide for them, telling them to slow down and look at the application that they are using, think about how the tabs are arranged and how the name of the tab will give a clue as to its purpose, then open a tab and explore it, and so on …  I think I would do this as a face-to-face session initially but may try to find a way to put it online.

That’s it for one day – gonna watch the Steve Jobs program on C4 now.  Blog ya later!  🙂

 

Blew my mind or blew a gasket??

My blog review of

Sabry, K. & Barker, J. (2009) Dynamic interactive learning systems. Innovations in Education and Teaching International46:185-197.   Link

Well I started reading this article with slight headache and finished it with a thumping headache.  So which is it?  Did this article blow my mind or am I ready to blow a gasket?  Lets find out …

Blown mind or blown gasket??

(Image courtesy of fuckedupmedicalconditions.tumblr.com)

Perhaps one of the most ongoing and complex questions in education is how educational organisations can deal simultaneously with multiple types of learner without ignoring their differences.

What a way to start!  Yes – how can it be done?  I wanna know and I wanna know now.

… a large gap exists between the information available and the use of that information (Barker, 2005; Barker, 2007; Barker & Finnie, 2004).

Again, yes!  How can we close this gap? Please tell me …

For a learning system to be interactive for different types of learner, it will be necessary to take account of the users (the learners) who are expected to use such systems for learning, and it is not merely enough to give students access to different tools and/or learning environments (Bates & Leary, 2001). It requires a move from a teacher–student dependence design to a teacher–student independence design that gives students flexibility and control over their learning in line with their changing needs.

Woah!  These guys are good.  This stuff is exactly what I want to know.

S&B continue by telling us about the components that make a good Interactive Learning System: Learner, Subject Content, Technology and Pedagogy.  So far so good – they are making lots of sense and it is well referenced, with lots of other theorists backing them up.

DILS will not only have interactive components, but dynamic components rather than static, components that are constantly updated and modified based on latest research and updated knowledge gained in the field concerned.

Fantastic!  But how?  This is where I start to get a bit mad with them.  All theory backup (references) seem to stop here and they appear to just be pulling ideas out of thin air and chucking them in.  OK maybe this is because they are all their own ideas but I can’t help feeling that they should have thrown a few examples in here.

Course Materials

This component should contain up-to-date links to up-to-date information and knowledge resources related to subject area in digital form (e.g. e-book, virtual lecture, e- libraries, web, simulations, labs, etc). … As an example, each student in a class will have his/her own dynamic text book, the content of which is based on the constantly updated (dynamic) evaluation of the student’s knowledge and understanding of the material.

If the course material is so dynamic – what happens to the teacher?  Will they stop learning themselves because there is no perceived need?  If this happens then at some stage, surely the learner will know more than the teacher?  Then where does the teaching profession stand?

And if students use dynamic books, what happens if the website/company stops trading/publishing?  Who will update the knowledge then and how will the teacher know that the knowledge is no longer being updated?

Learner

This component contains actual and dynamic information including up-to-date information about level of attainment, courses evaluation results (as it occurs), efforts, progress, and considerations about the student

Where does this information come from?  How can this be dynamic?  Surely it would come from the teacher?  If that’s the case then is the teacher of the future just going to be an evaluator/administrator?

Educational Technology and Pedagogy

OK great.  How can these examples be used?

Learning interaction design

This is the component that coordinates and balances the other four components, based on up-to-date and dynamic course material, technology, pedagogy, and learners’ profile.

And the diagram includes a teacher!  Sorry – where does the teacher fit in???  Poor old teacher doesn’t seem to fit with this model at all to my mind.

The whole idea of dynamicity (dynamicness, dynamicality …what word am I looking for here?) is brilliant, great, smashing, super but seems to be rather a model of utopia than a realisic model in my mind.

Sorry rant over!  It looks like I blew a gasket in the end – my temples are certainly throbbing now 😦  Or have I missed the whole point?  Please tell me I have …

Thoughts on Muirhead & Juwah

Muirhead, B., & Juwah, C. (2004). Interactivity in computer-mediated college and university education: A recent review of the literature. Educational Technology & Society, 7 (1), 12-20.

OK – here goes …

This article is the first that has invoked any real response in me so far this module.  I have also read a couple of Laurillard articles (‘Pedagogical challenges to collaborative technologies’ and ‘Conversational framework for individual learning …’) both of which were perfectly good articles but didn’t say anything that surprised, motivated or otherwise entice me to blog.

“Interaction is a dialogue or discourse or event between two or more participants and objects which occurs synchronously and/or asynchronously mediated by response or feedback and interfaced by technology.”

This is the definition of interactivity coined by M&J in response to articles written by Beard and Harper (2002) and Thurmond (2003).  I have two points to raise here:

1.  “… between two or more participants …” – what about internal reflection?  You don’t need a second participant for this.  Believe me; I’m very good at arguing with myself

2.  “… interfaced by technology”.  OK I’m probably being picky with this bit, because within our scope the technology aspect is very important.  However, this is a definition of interactivity not necessarily even within an educational setting and so strictly speaking should be taken out.  After all we don’t want to fall into the trap of making the education fit the technology; as Laurillard says “How do we ensure that pedagogy exploits the technology, and not vice versa?” (Laurillard, 2008).  We need to make sure that we use the most appropriate technology for the job to create educational solutions that are more stimulating and engaging than traditional teaching.

The next bit that caught my attention was a study by Taylor and Maor in 2000 that was discussed by M&J.  Taylor and Maor identified 6 categories to measure student and tutor perceptions of an online course;

“ professional relevance- the extent to which engagement in the on-line classroom environment is relevant to students’s professional worldviews and related practices;
 reflective thinking- the extent to which critical reflective thinking is occurring in association with online peer discussion;
 interactivity-the extent to which communicative interactivity is occurring on-line between students and between students and tutors;
 cognitive demand- the extent to which communicative interactivity is occurring on-line between students and tutors;
 affective support- the extent to which sensitive and encouraging support is provided by tutors;

 interpretation of meaning- the extent to which students and tutor co-construct meaning in a congruent and connected manner (Taylor and Maor, 2000, paragraph 4).”

Going back to my own studies with OU I found these categories to be extremely relevant.  Regarding professional relevance; whenever I came across something that was relevant to my own situation I would sit back, read it again and translate it into what it meant in my work/life. I had a lot of ‘Eureka’ moments through doing this!  The next 4 points were covered through using FirstClass which is the OU’s online community, rather like a forum it is made up of threads.  Students, moderators and tutors would use FirstClass to interact with each other, offering support, asking questions, clarifying answers and so on.  It was our lifeline whenever we were struggling and was one of the best examples of a community of practice that I have ever come across.  The last point was probably an example of the telephone conversations between myself any my tutors which I would turn to if the help from FirstClass wasn’t enough.  All of these were my support mechanism during my OU studies and without this interactivity my attention would have disappeared and I would very possibly have discontinued my study.

M&J go on to identify that “It is clearly evident from the literature that interactions are critical for enhancing motivation, communication, a diverse range of skills and intellectual development in the educational process.”  I couldn’t agree more!

M&J continued with “Student online remarks were one-dimensional commentaries that failed to address comments made by their colleagues.”  We need to make sure that we don’t do that on this course!  We need lots of different dimensions and comment-addressing  🙂  But not tonight – I’ve had enough tonight!

And my final quote for the night

“Additionally, students must be dedicated to becoming more sophisticated learners who are willing to learn from their colleagues while cultivating an intellectually engaging writing style that fosters academic discussion.”

Happy blogging!  😀

References

Laurillard, D. (2008). The pedagogical challenges to collaborative technologies. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(1), 5-20. doi:10.1007/s11412-008-9056-2

Muirhead, B., & Juwah, C. (2004). Interactivity in computer-mediated college and university education: A recent review of the literature. Educational Technology & Society, 7 (1), 12-20.