AUC Academic Conference 'From Virtual to Reality' The University of
Queensland 1996AUC Academic Conference 'From Virtual to Reality' The University of
Queensland 1996
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Paper Title:
WHOSE REALITY:
OPPORTUNITIES AND PITFALLS IN
MULTI-MEDIA TEACHING?Presenter:
Chris Watson and Mark Brown, Massey University NZ
Authors:
Chris Watson, Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology,
Mark Brown, Lecturer in Educational Psychology,
Massey University
Keywords: Multimedia, Psychology
Faculty area: Educational Psychology
There are two paths by which people come to an interest in educational technology (of which 'multimedia' is the latest manifestation). One stems from an interest in technical solutions to problems, the other from a belief that education could be tackled more effectively than it usually is today. The former can be referred to as a 'Physical Science paradigm'; the latter as a 'Social Science paradigm'.
1. MULTI-MEDIA AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCE VS PHYSICAL SCIENCE PARADIGMS
The commitment to the concepts and techniques of Educational Technology has been seen by Paul Saettler (1968) and others as having its roots in two different archetypes. For some it stems from a conviction that equipment works wonders. Such people are characterised as technocrats and their affinity is with a 'Physical Science paradigm'. Others, knowledgeable about how people learn, from a psychological, or developmental point of view, evince an enthusiasm that stems from a 'Social Science paradigm'. Many, from both groups, are keen to make use of Educational Technology.
However, there are at the same time technophobes and humanists who are frightened of the power of machines and/or oppose the philosophy of behaviourism espoused by many within the Social Science paradigm. These educators are sceptical of, or opposed to, the use of technology in education Thus, there is tension between these two groups and even amongst those who actually express enthusiasm for the technology for they may do so for different reasons. Contemporary Multi-media approaches are accepted and criticised along these classical lines.
Those who wish the enterprise success will seek to maximise the point of linkage illustrated in the diagrammatic model (see Fig 1; adapted from Watson, 1991). In their view if the software which is to teach is well-designed, in educational terms, and the hardware is 'user-friendly' and reliable, learning will be greatly enhanced.
(Fig 1: Paradigms of Educational Technology)
2. MULTI-MEDIA USED FOR MASS INSTRUCTION OR INDIVIDUAL LEARNING
A second dichotomy is of interest to us in terms of the audience for the multi-media product. This split stems from the way educational technology is used. This use may either be for the tuition of individuals or for the instruction of large groups.
2.1. The former conceives of a student sitting alone, or with one or two others, working with the multi-media equipment as he or she would work with a book. The 'library' analogy is very appropriate for such equipment might well be located in a library and the carrel, or work-station, which houses it looks similar to those long placed there for individual study. The potential can be expanded to encompass large numbers only by multiplying the number of units purchased. As the equipment is expensive this is a costly development. To date it has tended to be restricted to high-cost areas of training such as the military, aviation and medicine.
2.2. On the other hand there is a long tradition of using Educational Technology to teach large groups. Joseph Lancaster, in the late 18th early 19th century, devised various techniques and items of equipment for educating huge numbers of students with a minimum of trained teachers. His efforts were partly to keep costs down and partly to accommodate the large numbers of students that were delivered to him by the requirements of the Industrial Revolution.
A similar impetus makes the use of multi-media approaches popular today in order to make information available to large numbers. It may be that they are grouped in one place, so that the machinery is used to make visual information large and clear. In the hands of a skilled staff member a boring lecture can be transformed into a lively display by the use of a projector such as we are using to present this paper today.
2.3. Another way of accommodating large numbers of students will be to use multi-media over distance The students may be large in number but dispersed, and working as individuals, at remote locations, linked to the centre by telecommunications. Thus, multi-media are used for Distance Education. The present experiments with videoconferencing and home pages on the Internet are the precursors of this approach.
Both lecture theatre usage and dissemination by telecommunication will result in economies of scale. Furthermore, both of these expensive usages for the multi-media technology will be facilitated, in terms of funding, if they are used to deliver messages worked out by the instructors i.e. if they are used didactically. The crucial role of the instructor here leads us back to the 'Social Science' paradigm and the specific perspectives that inform the educational application of multi-media.
3. THE 'INSTRUCTING'/'TEACHING'/'LEARNING' DIMENSIONS OF MULTI-MEDIA
To the person-in-the-street the words 'instruction', 'teaching' and 'learning' would appear synonymous, but they are not.
3.1. 'Instruction' suggests that the knowledge content being transmitted is to be accepted with the minimum of mediation (i.e. without argument). The connotation is that it is immutable and very important. Hence the military and those 'training' others to perform a task efficiently, and without deviation from the norm, favour the phrase. Multi-media can be used to 'instruct' in this way e.g. to ensure that a pilot follows correct landing procedures; that a surgeon operates in the approved manner. The context will be that of individual instruction; the psychology driving the programmes will be behaviourist. The key proponents of this approach were Edward Thorndike (1874-1949) and his student B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). In 1912 Thorndike wrote:-
If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could be so arranged that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible ... much that now requires personal instruction could be managed by print. Books ... arranged so that the student only suffers if he misuses them, should be worked in many subjects (p12).
Skinner, who did not agree with Thorndike's view of punishment but preferred to rely on reward ('reinforcement') as the stimulus to effective learning, actually designed many mechanical machines to do what his mentor envisaged. These machines were developed from a number of famous studies on dogs, rats and pigeons. As a learning theory, behaviourism places a strong emphasis on controlling students by carefully sequencing teaching material. It is inherent within the theory is that teaching steps have to be small in order to be successful and that these have to be linked together in chains to yield mastery of more complex material.
Before Skinner died he was thrilled to see that personal computers could do the job very easily (Skinner, 1986). The sort of programmes that came from their philosophy included all those that relied on teaching something by taking students through a series of steps towards a final goal. "Computer Assisted Instruction" was the phrase used to describe such software. Implicit within this software was an objective view of knowledge. The software gave students little opportunity to question the validity of the content. Subject matter was presented in an unproblematic way. There were assumed truths and the delivery of the subject conveyed an authenticity that it did not necessarily deserve.
3.2. 'Teaching' is less prescriptive than 'Instructing' and suggests that there may be an element of feed-back from the students. If multi-media are used in a lecture situation there may well be questions posed for later tutorial discussion. Interruption may be sought; open-ended tasks may be set. If it is used for individuals the software should have been developed with student input sought and incorporated. However, it must be conceded that in a teacher/lesson situation the programme is unlikely to be interactive. It is most likely to progress along lines determined by the teacher.
3.3. 'Learning' implies a strong element of control by the individual student. It is difficult to envisage the use of multi-media in a mass situation for such 'learning'. However, the new multi-media technology is much better suited to learning, when it is controlled by the student, than the mechanical machines hitherto available for this purpose.
The emphasis on learning grew out of a concern that both teaching and instruction took no account of the underlying mental processes that occur within students. How knowledge is internally structured or organised by the student is believed to have considerable impact on what is learnt. This cognitive perspective assumes that students bring to each task an individual and unique set of prior experiences, prior knowledge, self-perceptions. Students differ from each other in terms of their locus of control, learning styles, aspirations, expectations and motivations. All these factors combine to influence the way a particular student engages with a new learning medium.
4. MULTIMEDIA AND COGNITIVE THEORIES OF LEARNING
The cognitive learning tradition encompasses a number of theories. Although distinctive, these theories share similar assumptions. They are not separate or mutually exclusive categories. The purpose of describing the individual theories is to demonstrate an evolution of thought rather than suggesting a discontinuous series of steps. In this sense our position is eclectic.
4.1 Information processing theory recognises that the key to successful learning lies in the quality of the processing. The computer is used as a metaphor for the brain to explain cognitive processes. The theory has its origins in experimental cognitive psychology and from definitions of intelligence that concentrate on the mechanisms involved in the flow of information (Crook, 1994). Problems in learning are believed to be problems in information loss. Multi-media are claimed to prevent such loss through the stimulation of multiple sensors. It is common to hear that:
People retain only 20% of what they see and 30% of what they hear. But they remember 50% of what they see and hear, and as much as 80% of what they see, hear and do simultaneously.
We need to be wary, however, of such claims. The solution to learning is not to bombard the learner with stimuli. Indeed, multi-media may make learning more difficult. Students can become distracted and may not have the strategies to give attention to the relevant information. It is easy to become drowned in information, but starved for knowledge!
4.2. Constructivist theory views learning as an active process of making sense of experiences in terms of prior knowledge. Students learn by relating new experiences to their existing understandings. The basic tenet is that people learn by processing information they encounter on the basis of what they already know, and thus construct their own knowledge. The Swiss biologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is usually attributed as the founder of constructivism, although there are now many variations on the theory. The theory is often, inappropriately, associated with "discovery" learning. It is more accurate, however, to see constructivism as a theory that emphasises student control and the teacher as facilitator of learning as opposed to a direct transmitter of knowledge. Multi-media can support this type of learning environment. Students can have a high degree of freedom as they navigate an electronic database according to their own interests. Ironically, the problem is that what interests the student is not always what a teacher would want the student to discover.
4.3 Cognitive apprenticeship theory places greater attention on the role of the teacher in helping students acquire domain specific knowledge. It is based on the view that an expert learner has more knowledge than a novice. The teacher's role, as a master or coach, is to provide scaffolded instruction where control is gradually faded to the student. The aim is to offer the learner just enough support to achieve a goal that would be impossible without assistance. Cognitive apprenticeship emanates from an interest in the area of artificial intelligence and anthropological work on the learning process outside of school (see for example, Resnick, 1987). A basic tenet is that the acquisition of knowledge and skills should occur in the social and functional contexts of their use. We should situate cognition in authentic problems that are relevant to the real world of students. This is where well-designed multi-media has real potential (see for example, The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1993). No doubt there will be further interesting developments here in the future.
4.4 Metacognitive theory is concerned with the development of higher order thinking skills. These metacognitive skills are cognitive processes that students use to regulate their own learning. The main feature of students who display metacognitive skills is that they are 'aware' of their own thinking processes and make conscious attempts to 'control' their cognitive strategies (Brown, 1978). The significance of metacognitive skills is that they are attributed towards the ability to learn how to learn. We believe that this is precisely what education is all about. Students with knowledge of how they learn, and how to regulate their cognitive strategies, are more effective learners.
The interesting point is that the origin of metacognitive awareness and self-regulatory thinking is thought to reside in the social interactions students have with other learners. As students discuss ideas with one another they undress their minds, and open their thought processes to wider scrutiny. This is why contemporary educational psychologists place a strong emphasis on students working together. It is when students come together in a community of learners to exchange ideas that they reflect on their own cognitive processes and acquire the meta-knowledge of how to learn. We have seen few attempts to incorporate this theory within recent multi-media. This is an example of how the physical and social scientist would benefit from greater collaboration.
4.5 Socio-cultural theory presents human learning as socially grounded within culture. Learning is profoundly defined as a social phenomenon; that is, conceptualised as something 'distributed' within culture, rather than just a set of cognitive processes thought to exist in the head (Crook, 1994). This theory refers to a school of thought inspired by the Soviet socio-historical movement of the 1930s and in particular the work of Vygotsky, Luria and Leont'ev. The work was independent of other research at the time and has only recently attracted interest. There are three main themes that unify a social-cultural view of learning: (a) the importance of culture; (b) the central role of language; and, (c) the zone of proximal development (ZPD).
The basic idea is that the individual's thinking processes are modified by interactions within their culture first, and then, in the mind, re-shaped as a result of their personal experiences.
The role of language is that it is an organiser of cognitive processors and a conceptual tool that helps people to think in new ways. Students use speech and action together in the development of higher mental functions and in the processes of problem solving.
The importance of language and culture is expressed through a concept known as the 'ZPD'. The 'ZPD' refers to the distance between actual development, as determined by independent problem solving, and the level of potential development, as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers (Vygotsky, 1978). Through communication and co-operation with clever peers students learn how to progressively understand their own thinking processes.
Multi-media can act as that more 'capable peer'. It can also be a medium for student-student and student-teacher interaction. When designed and used in the right way multi-media can help reorganise the interactions between people and thereby lead to more collaborative learning experiences.
4.6 The key theme that flows through all the above theories is essentially that learning is a social activity. Students rather than the instructor should be placed at the centre of learning. What constitutes knowledge is not fixed, but open to debate. It is not objectively defined as a 'given', but something that is continually changing. The aim should be to create and re-invent knowledge within a socially interactive and reflective learning environment.
5.0 LEARNING WITH MULTIMEDIA
In the final part of this paper we want to describe an innovative case study utilising multi-media in higher education.
5.1 Background to the project:- The research was inspired by the cognitive learning tradition and the view that the creation of an environment for thinking is far more important than the structure of a good lesson. It was designed to promote higher order levels of thinking through an investigative "project" approach. A class of educational psychology students at Massey University were required to research a specific topic, and present their work, by designing and building an electronic multi-media project. This involved 18 students enrolled in a course called 'Innovations in Teaching' working together as a design team over a period of six weeks.
5.2 Project requirements:- The task was to present an assignment on a selected famous New Zealander using Hyperstudio (Wagner, 1995). Hyperstudio is a multi-media authoring package ideally suited to this purpose. There was a quite specific design brief requiring students to use a full range of media. Students had available a computer suite equipped with Macintosh computers including a Power PC 7100 AV machine along with a colour scanner, video equipment, Quicktake camera and keyboard with midi synthesiser. Few in the course had previously used this associated hardware. The project was structured in such a way that individual students had responsibility for learning how to use specific equipment, and then teaching others in the class what to do with it.
Our role was to act as facilitators and to provide overall leadership. Each week we would meet as a research team to discuss progress and problems along the way. An important feature of the project were the reflective diaries that students were required to maintain. These diaries were in keeping with our goal of encouraging metacognitive awareness in that students had to record their ideas, reflect on thinking processes and refine their understandings.
5.3 Project Observations:- The success of the project was influenced by the willingness of students to share their new found skills with each other. This was helped by the fact that students were positively inter-dependant in that individual assignments were planned to be linked by a common front end and pressed as a CD-ROM.
(Fig 2: Student's Completed Electronic Projects on Selected Famous New Zealanders)
We found this was a very active process which was greatly enhanced because the students involved were preparing a project that was intended to teach someone else about something that they had become experts in. The Course Evaluation contained the following student observations. One noted that "In trying to sum up a field of knowledge and present it to someone else the person doing it learns heaps!" Another said "There is no more certain way of mastering a topic than the requirement that you teach it to someone else". Simple awards were made for especially effective contributions and these were received with much hilarity although at a Skinnerian level the reinforcement was very real.
The assignment also benefited from a method devised to aid project work devised by William Kilpatrick (1871-1965) a protege of John Dewey (1859-1952) to whom is usually ascribed the role of the originator of the approach. Kilpatrick actually laid down a series of steps to be taken which proved ideal for the staff members involved in mentoring the experiment. He summarized the role of the teacher as follows:- "The teacher helps to (1) initiate the activity. (2) plan how to carry the activity forward, (3) execute the plan, (4) evaluate progress, (5) think up and note new leads, (6) formulate the new leads by writing them down for later recall, (7) keep the pupils critical of their thinking en route to a solution, (8) look back over the whole process to pick up and fix important kinds of learning, as well as to draw lessons for the future (Kilpatrick, 1926).
For many years the best teachers have used these same steps to help students write essays. However, essays are very literary. Which is why those with good English skills have a head start. Much of the work consists of reading, selecting, re-organising and re-presenting printed material. The huge advantage of multi-media processes is that a much wider range of sources can be integrated into the package. A range which includes pictures, both still and moving; sounds; interactive, moving diagrams as well as the traditional printed material. The latter needs to be curtailed for presentation on the screen but this is invariably a good thing for the pictures have so much more power that is right that they should be privileged. The student who produced the graphic illustrated on this page found that she "had saved a thousand words".
Furthermore, in group situations, the cumulative skills of several people were combined to provide a product that is superior to that which any one of them could have produced alone. For a music student specialized in assisting his colleagues with sound input and another with an art 'major' offered advice to those needing help with frame design.
Other students observed that "this was the way to learn to use a technology that had scared me in the past", and "once we had to use a tool in order to say something and I had a reason to try I did not find it at all difficult."
5.4 Research Implications:- What this case study demonstrates is that the real value of multi-media is not necessarily viewing someone else's efforts, but rather the type of learning processes students engage in as they research, design and build their own projects. We want to stress that multi-media should not be seen as simply a presentation medium. It can provide a new means of expression that supports innovative approaches to education, for example, co-operative learning, thematic teaching and meaningful problem-solving. When multi-media is used like this students become active learners, able to develop their own understandings -- thus creating their own knowledge in terms of the theories which we have presented in this paper.
Multi-media should not be seen as a new way of doing old things, but a new way of doing new things. To be used effectively multi-media must be linked to contemporary views of the learning process, for example, there is a clear dichotomy in the way that multi-media can be used for learning. Students can either learn with multi-media or from multi-media. The former is based on the behavioural tradition; the latter follows the cognitive. From the point of view of the student it is the making of a product that really counts. In the end it doesn't matter if anyone actually uses it. It is the doing that brings about the learning which is what makes these student designed packages more useful than a commercial product made at the cost of many thousands of dollars.
6. CONCLUSION
There is a great deal of rhetoric about the benefits of electronic media in education. Many of the claims about such media are, however, technocentric in that it is assumed that new technologies automatically change the way teachers teach. Miller and Olson (1994) argued that teachers largely use computers according to their pre-existing conceptions of teaching . There is no guarantee that teachers will use multi-media as a means of doing new things in new ways. The danger is that the sophisticated features of the hardware and software hide what are still fairly traditional approaches to teaching. D'Ignazio (1990) makes the point that there are many educational institutions using advanced technologies in accordance with out-dated theories of learning, whereas, there are many staff experimenting with innovative teaching approaches with out-dated technologies. There is a clear choice. We can either focus on what multi-media can do to our students, our what students can do with multi-media. The later recognises that the solution to better learning does not lie with multi-media, but the way that it is used in the learning environment.
We started this paper by outlining two paradigms by which people come to multi-media. Our mission is to bring these paradigms closer together by developing a greater level of reciprocity between new developments in educational technology and contemporary views of the learning process. The teaching/learning requirements for the usage of electronic media will vary across the educational system, but the potential for use is wide-spread even if it is not universal. The goal should be to ensure that multi-media are used in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons, by people who have made the right choice for the circumstances.
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Reference
Brown, A. L. (1978). Knowing when, where and how to remember: A problem of metacognition. In R. Glaser (ED.), Advances in instructional psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
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D'Ignazio, F. (1990). An inquiry centred classroom of the future. The Computing Teacher, 17 (6), 16-19.
Kilpatrick, W. (1926) Foundations of Method, Macmillan, N.Y.
Miller, L. and Olson, J. (1994). Putting the computer in its place: A study of teaching with technology. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 26 (2), 121-141.
Resnick, L. B. (1987). Learning in and out of school. Educational Researcher, 16 (12), 13-20.
Saettler, P. (1968). A history of instructional technology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Skinner, B. F. (1986). Programmed instruction revisited. Phi Delta Kappan, 62 (2), 103-110.
The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1993). Anchored instruction and situated cognition revisited. Educational Technology, 33 (3), 52-70.
Thorndike, W., (1912) Education, Macmillan, N.Y.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wagner, R. (1995). Hyperstudio. Santee, CA: Roger Wagner Publishing.
Watson, C., (1991) Module 1: The Development of Educational Technology, Extra-mural Study Guide #1 for paper 36.244 Educational Technology, Massey University, Palmerston North, p2.
Chris Watson,
Senior Lecturer
Massey University,
Educational Technology & Media
Palmerston North,
NEW ZEALAND.
Fax 64 6 350 5635
email: cwatson@mailserver.massey.ac.nz
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