Instructional design:a back-door entrance to learn?
The readings of this week were very interesting, but complexes, so I need more time to reflect.
But I was impressed by a topic on the elearnspace’s weekly blog summary email, by GeorgeSiemens, which affects so much the matter of this CCK08 week, instructional design.
“You know why a student would prefer to look at a picture or watch a video? Because it’s way easier than reading something that would nearly always be more informative about the subject at hand. You know why a student would be more interested in producing, say, a video than writing a paper? Because writing well is DIFFICULT and it’s far easier to gloss up poor research by packaging it in a video format that appears to involve a lot of work. Yes, older people who think that games, social networks, collaborative learning environments, and the creation audiovisual mashups are the future of education, the basic message I’m sending here is that young students don’t want to learn, they want to play, and presentations like the one I saw today essentially seem to be saying that we need to support this play (masked as educational needs) as much as possible in order to try to get some learning in there."
I see the matter in another way.
Learning has always been viewed as a difficult,tiring, hard work.
So, since antiquity, it has been masked. Education has been masked in order “to try to get some learning”. But, how it has be done?
Greeks used mithology to reflect on human life, on ethics. Homer, tragedy writers, lyrical poets.. they all did it. They told stories, to get some learning.
Lucretius, the Latin author of “De rerum natura”, tried to teach Epicurean philosophy by poetry. He wrote:
“nam veluti pueris abstinthia taetra medentes / cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum / contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore - lib V vv. 11-13”. Poetry is like honey used to sweeten a medicine that a child must take…
Jesus Christ taught by parables. He also told stories, to teach.
And what we can think about little zen stories?Clean, but intense and deep, they was told in order to reflect and for a deep learning.
All these are ancient strategies for learning, which involve fun and prepare for gaining knowledge.
Now the technology, with his multimedia, allows multifaceted approaches, compared to those offered by the narration (in the aural societies )or by poetic writings. But it is simplistic to believe it is only a masked learning, a game played in the hope of producing learning, or in order to fit with Millennials distinctive features . It has to be a conscious strategy.
I and a colleague of mine have considered this issue, and we are thinking about an approach what we called B.E.T Theory (back-door entrance theory). This- not direct- approach, often reached by means of technology, is more effective than a direct approach, and not only because it is more attractive for students, or because learning, in this way, seems to be less hard.
But because it adjust to more learning styles, (i.d. visual, kinesthetic, diverger, accomodator…),because it makes learning closest to the reality, and above all because it involves emotion , emotional intelligence and motivation, thus breaking down cognitive barriers, prejudices, mental blocks that can delay or stop learning. Emotion is a strong key for learning: an effective instrutional design could increase it a lot.
But I was impressed by a topic on the elearnspace’s weekly blog summary email, by GeorgeSiemens, which affects so much the matter of this CCK08 week, instructional design.
“You know why a student would prefer to look at a picture or watch a video? Because it’s way easier than reading something that would nearly always be more informative about the subject at hand. You know why a student would be more interested in producing, say, a video than writing a paper? Because writing well is DIFFICULT and it’s far easier to gloss up poor research by packaging it in a video format that appears to involve a lot of work. Yes, older people who think that games, social networks, collaborative learning environments, and the creation audiovisual mashups are the future of education, the basic message I’m sending here is that young students don’t want to learn, they want to play, and presentations like the one I saw today essentially seem to be saying that we need to support this play (masked as educational needs) as much as possible in order to try to get some learning in there."
I see the matter in another way.
Learning has always been viewed as a difficult,tiring, hard work.
So, since antiquity, it has been masked. Education has been masked in order “to try to get some learning”. But, how it has be done?
Greeks used mithology to reflect on human life, on ethics. Homer, tragedy writers, lyrical poets.. they all did it. They told stories, to get some learning.
Lucretius, the Latin author of “De rerum natura”, tried to teach Epicurean philosophy by poetry. He wrote:
“nam veluti pueris abstinthia taetra medentes / cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum / contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore - lib V vv. 11-13”. Poetry is like honey used to sweeten a medicine that a child must take…
Jesus Christ taught by parables. He also told stories, to teach.
And what we can think about little zen stories?Clean, but intense and deep, they was told in order to reflect and for a deep learning.
All these are ancient strategies for learning, which involve fun and prepare for gaining knowledge.
Now the technology, with his multimedia, allows multifaceted approaches, compared to those offered by the narration (in the aural societies )or by poetic writings. But it is simplistic to believe it is only a masked learning, a game played in the hope of producing learning, or in order to fit with Millennials distinctive features . It has to be a conscious strategy.
I and a colleague of mine have considered this issue, and we are thinking about an approach what we called B.E.T Theory (back-door entrance theory). This- not direct- approach, often reached by means of technology, is more effective than a direct approach, and not only because it is more attractive for students, or because learning, in this way, seems to be less hard.
But because it adjust to more learning styles, (i.d. visual, kinesthetic, diverger, accomodator…),because it makes learning closest to the reality, and above all because it involves emotion , emotional intelligence and motivation, thus breaking down cognitive barriers, prejudices, mental blocks that can delay or stop learning. Emotion is a strong key for learning: an effective instrutional design could increase it a lot.
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