hopper, 1993 [abstract, toc, switchboard, references]

Courseware projects in advanced educational computing environments
Mary E. Hopper, Doctoral dissertation, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

Educational Contexts [Overview]

"The challenge of the educational context" is to
decide what educational role technology will play,
avoid "technology for the sake of technology" by
examining traditional educational experiences
and determining goals based upon the special
"value added of the technology" for both the
discipline content representation as well
as cognitive and motivational outcomes.
1.3.2 The Educational Contexts of Past Projects 1.3.2.1 The Educational Goals of Past Projects 1.3.2.2 The Focus of Educational Goals of Past Projects [See 6.2 The Educational Contexts of Advanced Courseware Projects.] [See 6.2.1 The Educational Goals of Advanced Courseware.] [See 6.2.2 The Focus of Educational Goals of Advanced Courseware.] [See 6.2.3 The Impact of Educational Contexts on Advanced Courseware.] [See 6.2.4 Implications for the Educational Contexts of Future Projects.]
Chapter 3 Educational Contexts

Educational Goals Question: What were the educational goals of viable courseware? Successful courseware project's goals carefully emphasized the value added of using the computer for improved discipline representation and broader learner oriented outcomes! (Avoid "Computer Use for Sake of Computer Use") Because the courseware efforts studied during this research project were educational, their participants were first and foremost concerned with the educational nature of their endeavor and the educational context in which the courseware was to be delivered. Evidence was found that successful projects tried to provide a significantly different experience than could be provided through more traditional means. Participants in this study of successful courseware endeavors developed explicit rationales describing how the computer based tools met their educational goals in ways that could not be done in any other way as effectively, efficiently or cheaply. An orientation towards thoughtful implementation of technology based on its ability to serve broader, preexisting educational goals was a predominant theme throughout the projects studied. The other sections of this study are an analysis of the many ways in which careful attention to the "educational" nature of computing projects exerted both a subtle and a powerful influence upon technical and organizational decisions.
 
Successful courseware endeavors examined during this study provided explicit rationales describing how the computer based tools met multiple educational goals in multiple ways that could not be done in any other way as effectively, efficiently or cheaply. They went beyond providing a high quality experience, to providing a significantly different kind of experience than was available without the computer. They made sure that their goals were based upon thoughtful outcomes that could not be easily achieved in more traditional ways, rather than to use "technology for the sake of technology." Pedagogical Orientation Question: Did the goals focus more upon discipline oriented outcomes, or upon broader outcomes for the learners? There was consistent duality of focus on improved representation of the discipline and broader learner oriented outcomes (cognitive & motivational)! Participants in successful courseware projects maintained a focus on their educational goals and made conscious efforts to employ technology to meet goals which were not easily met through more traditional means. The leaders of the projects were careful that in their enthusiasm for the technology, they did not overlook the quality of the educational experience they provided or use technology where traditional methods would have sufficed. The educational outcomes of courseware projects resulted from:
 
o Authors decisions about what type of representations to create
 
o Degree to which representations were supported by the chosen or created tools
 
o Roles for learners afforded by software used to create courseware
 
o Assignments given by the faculty during implementation
 
o Arrangements made to create the courseware in cost effective and convenient ways.
 
The Focus of Educational Goals and Outcomes
 
All goals and outcomes of projects were framed in terms of benefits for both discipline and learner. Each project was centered around one or more discipline oriented rationales of how the chosen computer based representations could improve what would normally be done in a traditional academic situations. Educators associated with the projects were also concerned about the relationship between the student and the computer, and the impact of that relationship upon the student. Anne Nicol (1990), a researcher at Apple, proposed a continuum to represent levels of control learners receive over the creation, organization, and presentation of material (See Table 2). This continuum has been used in this study to frame findings about the role of the learner and degrees of participation. Distinctions have been limited to a bi-level distinction between activities which allowed for interaction (Interaction) and activities which involved learners as active constructors of some aspect of their own instruction (Construction).
 
Table 2 Continuum of Learner Control
 
Interactive: Learner as Reader with no control over presentation. (Interaction) Browser: Learner has control over presentation order and amount. (Interaction) Templates: Learner has control over the organization and entry of material. (Construction) Author: Learner is an author with full control. (Construction)
 
Levels of involvement varied from more interaction than provided through a traditional textbook, as in microworlds (TODOR, MECHANICS 2.01 and PHYSICAL GEOLOGY TUTOR), or exploratory hypertext (ESCAPE), to learner construction within the context of a course (Context32). Learner involevement was mainly precipitated through characteristics of courseware and the types of assignments given. Incidental decisions also changed levels of student involvement and relationship to content. For example, during Athena courseware projects (TODOR and Geology Tutor), student construction of the materials took place outside of the context of the regular classes, and in the context of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program instead.
 
Directors of projects were consistently concerned about the corresponding discipline and learner oriented benefits of the particular types of software function they emphasized. Table 3 describes the five kinds of outcomes found across the projects in this study, arranged by how they were described in both discipline and learner oriented terms (see Table 3). The concerns were not mutually exclusive, and a great deal of effort was devoted to balancing them successfully.
 
Table 3 Corresponding Discipline and Learner Oriented Goals
 
SoftwareFunctions Discipline Representation Level of Learner Involvement Corresponding Learner Concerns Linking Structure, Connections & Interrelationships Interaction--------------------Construction Freedom for Exploration--------------------------------------Critical Thinking / Multi-causal Interpretations and Descriptions Database Extensive Knowledge-Base Interaction--------------------Construction Access and Interaction--------------------------------------Self-Construction Multimedia Multimodal Interaction--------------------Construction Attention and Interest-----------------------------Creative Expression Microworlds Dynamic Systems and Processes Interaction--------------------Construction Problem-Solving Experience--------------------------------------Analysis, Modificationand Design Networks Connectivity with Geographically Dispersed Community Interaction--------------------Construction Observation--------------------------------------Communication and Collaboration
 
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Improved Representations of Discipline

________________________________________________

Increased Involvement for Learner Outcomes
(Cognitive & Motivational Improvements)

Nicol, A. (1990). Children Using HyperCard. In Ambron, Sueann and Hooper, Kristen (Eds.). Learning with Interactive Hypermedia Developing and Using Multimedia Tools in Education, Microsoft Press. ____________________________________


 
In each successful project in this study, neither the learners nor the discipline were slighted. Each of the projects provided mutual benefits for the learner and the discipline. This attention to the dual set of issues within each of the courseware projects appeared to be a major factor in their success. The fact that courseware did not succeed if it did not provide for active learner involvement may be an infrequently discussed reality behind what has become known as "Constructionism" (Papert,. 1980). A common interpretation may be that "Constructionism" represents a predominant and overriding concern for the learner. A more accurate representation of "Constructionism" may be reflected within Lawler's portrayal of the central dilemma of education as a concern for "instructing" while respecting "the self-constructive" character of the mind (Lawler, 1982). A deep concern for "instruction" is not absent from this formulation of the central dilemma of education, as it was not in any of the courseware projects. On the contrary, it was evident that the "learner oriented" educators were also dedicated to the discipline that they taught. Educators may arrive at concerns for the learner by way of realizing that in order to effectively communicate their discipline, they must do so within the constraints of the "self-constructive" nature of the learners who will carry on that discipline. Attempts to "instruct" without taking the nature of the learner into consideration are ineffective, so "constructivism" can emerge from a concern for the effective communication of the discipline, in addition to humanistic concerns about improving learners problem solving skills and overall enjoyment of their educational experiences.
 

 
Educational Conclusion & Recommendation Carefully Base Goals of Computer on Value Added for Both Discipline Representation and Broader Learner Outcomes (Cognitive & Motivational) and Avoid Using the "Computer for Computer's Sake"

Corresponding Discipline and Learner Oriented Goals

There were reports of change associated with the use of computers in every site. This was not surprising because the use of the computer for each successful project was based upon what it could do that traditional forms of education could not accomplish as readily. The educational experiences designed to do things differently resulted in different outcomes. Educators who determined how computers could improve the representation of the discipline and levels of learner involvement also rethought how they taught the content of the course and their role as instructor. This is reflected by Bucciarelli in the following passage:
 
We have raised some questions, prompted by my attempts to make use of Athena in 2.01. My questions are as much about traditional modes in undergraduate engineering education as they are about computers. But that is the value of this new machinery. Like an ethnography of a recently discovered culture in some far off land, the computer prompts reflection on one's own way of doing things, one's own assumptions, objectives and values.(Bucciarelli & LaVin, 1992)
 
While changes that resulted from computer use were sometimes incidental, they were also sometimes the result of deliberate processes. Before TODOR began, the entire faculty of a division reexamined their curriculum to determine the most appropriate and valuable approaches to using the Athena workstations. They employed an innovative bi-directional analysis in which they openly and concisely reexamined their curriculum, in search of the ways in which computers could contribute to improvements in the communication of their discipline. They broke down their traditional topics by content and the different fashions in which they felt these topics would be addressed by the technology. They decided that some areas of existing material could be enhanced through the use of interactive graphics, because these were topics that seemed difficult for students to grasp. Other topics were selected in which the computer curriculum would be used to replace existing materials because modern developments in the discipline had caused traditional methods to largely be replaced by computational methods. These proposed changes in the curriculum reflected larger changes in their discipline that had already taken place due to computer use, rather than changes they hoped to precipitate. Finally, some topics were chosen because the faculty felt that the workstations could provide more realistic "hands-on approaches" to the material through problem sets on the computer (Murman, LaVin & Ellis, 1988). Successful courseware endeavors examined during this study provided explicit rationales describing how the computer based tools met multiple educational goals in multiple ways that could not be done in any other way as effectively, efficiently or cheaply. They went beyond providing a high quality experience, to providing a significantly different kind of experience than was available without the computer. They made sure that their goals were based upon thoughtful outcomes that could not be easily achieved in more traditional ways, rather than to use "technology for the sake of technology."
 
As learning environments become more powerful, they also become more expensive and necessary to justify financially. The trend of needing increasingly expensive technology to support more valuable educational goals is likely to continue in the future. Educators will be more successful if they deliberately define the unique contributions that their use of computers will serve in order to justify the expense. Courseware projects in the future will be most justifiable if they are founded upon goals focused around providing unique contributions to both discipline representation and broader learner outcomes. To insure an appropriate focus, projects should begin with the deliberate reexamination of traditional content and methods. This process should be done under the leadership of one or more faculty with an understanding of the opportunities and limitations inherent in computational technologies. The reconsideration should begin with determining the ways in which the computer might serve to do the following :
 
o Enhance existing materials in areas which students traditionally have difficulty grasping fundamental concepts.
 
o Promote the application of existing material through the development of more realistic hands-on experiences for the student.
 
o Replace existing material with more modern computer based approaches.
 
(Murman, LaVin & Ellis, 1988)
 
Educators should then systematically determine which functions of the computer could be used to enhance, extend or replace the representation of each topic in the traditional curriculum. The following are the five main functions of computers which relate to improved representations of particular aspects of disciplines, although as computers evolve there will be new forms of representation to be considered:
 
o Linking through hypertext functions supported better representations of the structure and interrelationships of knowledge.
 
o Powerful database functions allowed for the inclusion and management of more extensive representations of the knowledge-base of the discipline.
 
o Multimedia functions allowed for more realistic and powerful representations of multimodal and experiential content.
 
o Microworlds were emphasized for their ability to provide students with the ability to interact with computational representations of dynamic systems and processes.
 
o Networks were emphasized for their ability to precipitate increased levels of connectivity and collaboration with both local and geographically dispersed communities of learners and scholars.
 
Improving the representations of course content is one role that computers play during successful projects. Future projects should also determine ways to use the computer to provide increased levels of learner involvement resulting in improved motivation and attainment of higher-order cognitive goals. Increased involvement can be achieved through particular characteristics of courseware or software as well as carefully selected implementation strategies:
 
o Courseware structured to provide opportunities for interaction with representations.
 
o Implied invitations to participate in courseware construction resulting from sincere formative evaluation practices.
 
o Courseware structured to allow learners opportunities for modification or construction of representations within the context of a course.
 
o Carefully crafted assignments requiring learner construction of representations to change the relationship of learners to content.
 
o Educational opportunities to participate in construction of representations as members of courseware teams outside of the traditional classroom.
 
Future courseware projects may also consider the possibility that courseware be structured to provide different degrees of learner involvement in different situations. During this study, levels of learner involvement were sometimes increased relative to the sophistication of the learners. Less participation may be provided for learners early in their academic careers, while the more extensive forms of involvement may be emphasized for more advanced students.

© Mary E. Hopper | MEHopper@TheWorld.com [posted 12/04/93 | revised 04/12/13]