The Knowledge Economy and Postsecondary Education Report of a Workshop (2002) / Chapter Skim
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6 Creating High-Quality Learning Environments: Guidelines from Research on How People Learn
6 Creating High-Quality Learning Environments: Guidelines from Research on How People Learn
Pages 159-198
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From page 159... ...
Nancy Vye is senior research associate and codirector of the Learning Center at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Helen Bateman is presently a research fellow at the Learning Technology Center, Vanderbilt University.
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From page 160... ...
Questions about teaching strategies are important, but they need to be asked in the context of whom we are teaching and what we want our students to accomplish. The reason is that particular types of teaching and learning strategies can be strong or weak depending on our goals for learning and the knowledge and skills that students bring to the learning task (e.g., see Jenkins, 1978; Morris, Bransford, and Franks, 1977; Schwartz and Bransford, 1998~.
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From page 161... ...
. Given the availability of this knowledge, mnemonic techniques like the one noted above "work" extremely well given particular assumptions about what it means for something to "work." JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 161
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From page 162... ...
Students who have learned with understanding know the functions of elasticity and hence are freer to consider possibilities like a nonelastic artery that has one-way valves (Bransford and Stein, 1993~. Overall, this example illustrates how memorizing versus understanding represents different learning goals in the Jenkins framework and how changes in these goals require different types of teaching strategies.
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Think about the sentence ART(ery) was THICK around the middle but he was RICH enough to afford pants JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 163
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In a minute I'll give you a different sentence for remembering information about veins." There is a great deal of research about the power of memory techniques and about ways that strategically spaced reminders can decrease the rate of forgetting (e.g., Bjork and Richardson-Klavhen, 1989; Bransford and Stein, 1993; Mann, 1979~. The competitor to Father Sarduci's university would probably use these studies as evidence for the "research-based teaching methods" that her school provides.
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Several committees organized by the National Academy of Sciences have summarized much of this research in reports published by the National Academy JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 165
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In particular, it suggests that we ask about the degree to which learning environments are: · Knowledge centered (in the sense of being based on a careful analysis of what we want people to know and be able to do when they finish with our materials or course and providing them with the foundational knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for successful transfer) ; · Learner centered (in the sense of connecting to the strengths, interests, and preconceptions of learners and helping them learn about themselves as learners)
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argue that the knowledge to be taught should be prioritized into categories that range from "enduring ideas of the discipline" to "important things to JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 167
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From page 168... ...
Making this choice is often described as choosing "depth over breadth," but in the long run it is not an either/or proposition. Learner Centered There are many overlaps between being knowledge centered and learner centered, but there are differences as well.
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I started to tell my teacher about it last Wednesday in science class when the pump we were using to make a JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 169
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Many argue that this can have important benefits. Community Centered This aspect of the HPL framework is highly related to being learner centered, but it specifically focuses our attention on the norms and modes of operation of any community we are joining.
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Students were allowed to learn at their own pace, and teachers provided scaffolding that was appropriate to each student's developmental level (Vygotsky, 1978~. Students in these classrooms were given multiple opportunities to engage in formative assessment.
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Similarly, students can use feedback from formative assessments to help them determine what they have not yet mastered and need to work on further. Data indicate that providing opportunities for feedback and revision greatly helps students learn (e.g., Black and William, 1998; Barron et al., 1998; CTGV, 1997; Hunt and Minstrell, 1994~.
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Are they simply fact based or do they develop an understanding of the discipline? The learner-centered lens reminds us to help students understand why certain answers are and are not correct, to make it possible for them JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 175
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You have to be bored to be in school. Summative Assessment Unlike formative assessments, summative assessments are generally used to index what has been learned at the end of a unit, course, or 176 CREATING HIGH-QUALITY LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
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From page 178... ...
In one study, researchers asked fifth graders and college students to create a statewide recovery plan to protect bald eagles from the threat of extinction. The goal was to investigate the degree to which their general educational experiences prepared them for this novel task; none of the students had explicitly studied eagle recovery plans.
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HE and Motivation Many people ask where motivation resides in the HPL framework. We argue that all aspects of the framework are relevant to this issue.
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Traditionally, teaching practices have tended to remain private and have been very hard to capture and analyze. If science had been carried out primarily by individual scientists who never made their thinking and work public, it seems JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 181
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From page 182... ...
Nevertheless, research on how people learn suggests that we can improve both the traditional classroom and the "port the traditional classroom to the Internet" model (Duffy and Cunningham, 1996~. In the discussion below, we explore several ways to redesign a traditional lesson in order to take advantages of both new technologies and new knowledge of how people learn.
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(Instructors typically learn to set online office hours rather than have students assume that they are available on a 24/7 basis.) Practice problems can also be provided that ask JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 183
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From page 184... ...
If the course is Web-enhanced rather than Web-based, students also have the advantage of discovering what they don't yet understand by working on the Web and then talking with the professor when they come to class (e.g., Bransford, Lin, and Schwartz, 2000~. Using the HPL Framework to Redesign the Lesson The HPL framework provides a useful set of lenses for taking the redesign of the density lesson a step deeper than was described above.
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Ass ssm nt C nt r An ss e e e ee e This lens of the HPL framework has a number of important implications for redesigning the density lesson. First, the challenge-based approach invites students to make their initial thinking visible.
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. A very important advantage involves getting immediate feedback on homework and practice problems JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 187
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Overall, existing research on how to build and sustain face-to-face learning communities has a number of implications for creating highquality online courses (Baseman et al., 1999; CTGV, 1994~. The data suggest that online learning environments should be designed to enable community elements such as: (a)
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With some trepidation, we attempted to illustrate how the HPL framework might provide a guide for more fully redesigning the density lecture. We say "with trepidation" because none of us is truly an expert in the area of density.
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were also emphasized. In addition, we discussed issues of effective summative assessments including the possibilities of moving from mere "sequestered problem-solving" assessments to ones where we track students' abilities to learn to JOHN BRANSFORD, NANCY VYE, AND HELEN BATEMAN 191
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A major issue is to help students develop the kinds of connected knowledge, skills, and attitudes that prepare them for effective lifelong learning. This involves the need to seriously rethink not only how to help students learn about particular isolated topics (e.g., density)
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(1994~. From visual word problems to learning communities: Changing conceptions of cognitive research.
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. How people learn: Bridging research and practice.
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Griffin Office of Science and Technology Policy Email: jgriffin(~ostp.eop.gov Janet S Hansen Committee for Economic Development Email: janet.hansen~ced.org Lucy Hausner National Alliance of Business Email: hausnerI~nab.com Gregory Hensche]
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