Tag Archives: anchored instruction

Reflections on Anchored Instruction Posts/Discussion

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

 

After reading through the myriad of posts in the Anchored Instruction portion of module B several themes seemed to stand out. When discussing the Jasper Series videos the value of this type of teaching and learning was evident. My peers spoke to the abstract thinking that is an outcome of learning. In addition, the positive learning that occurs through collaboration, having an authentic purpose for learning, engaging students, a student centered and constructivist approach and scaffolded problem solving were all hilighted.

On the other hand, many also alluded to the possible drawbacks to using this style of teaching/learning. The lack of teacher understanding of how to use the videos effectively surfaced, as well as the problems with lack of technology training for educators, which may leave them at a disadvantage when attempting to incorporate anchored instruction using these videos or technology in general.Several peers also mentioned that these videoes were a bit outdated and that newer technology(ies) could provide the same type of anchored instruction. Virtual reality was suggested, as well as videos that are even more interactive and open-ended.

It was interesting to read that several peers were attempting to integrate anchored instruction in their own classrooms but tailoring it to meet both their own needs and the needs of their students. I think seeing the videos provided some with a springboard which they could then use to change or start to change their math program. If nothing else, the videos provided a new way to look at math instruction and although there would be a learning curve before fully integrating this type of instruction in a classroom, many felt that anchored instruction and using videos would be a valuable component of a student centered classroom.

I still have questions about evaluation/assessment as well as how to properly scaffold group work and collaboration. I believe in constructivist teaching/learning but I also understand that it is not a linear way to teach and learn and it takes a lot of work and flexibility in approach. This may not be comfortable for some educators and having a mentor to help them through developing a classroom with anchored instruction components would be beneficial.

Considering WISE Design and Jasper Adventures

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Wise research aims to bridge the gap between the research that shows the efficacy of inquiry learning in science and the method in which science is generally delivered. In science specifically it has been found that students have many misunderstandings developed either through experiences, concepts or examples (Linn, M., Clark, D. & Slotta, J., 2003). In order to address these, WISE curriculum projects promote knowledge integration through providing inquiry projects which are flexible, customizable and adaptive. They also believe in sustainability. Through field testing and multiple cycles of trial, adaptation and refinement the inquiry projects are continually honed to meet the specific needs of the students. In this way WISE is a bottom up approach rather than a top down approach and is meeting the educational goal of delivering curriculum in a differentiated way, which is one of the goals of education.

In addition, WISE supports the provision of an instructional pattern to assist students through the inquiry. These include eliciting student ideas, adding ideas to these and supporting the process learning to improve understanding. In this way WISE is able to scaffold the students’ learning in an indirect way, while still providing them with many pathways to reach their conclusions. WISE guides the students through the inquiry project without being prescriptive, which leads to deeper learning.

In addition, WISE project teams are made up of diverse partners so as to provide a more holistic inquiry. These include pedagogical specialists, scientists, teachers, and technology designers. WISE framework design principles include making thinking visible, making science accessible, helping students learn from each other, and  promoting lifelong learning, all goals of 21st century education as well as sound pedagogy.

Further to this, many WISE inquiry projects have been designed with detailed steps for the first inquiry investigation and then providing less detailed steps in subsequent projects. In this way students are able to move from supported learning to more independent pathways. This method is debated. When considering the Jasper Series, the belief that students can develop basic skills in the context of meaningful problem posing and problem-solving activities rather than isolated “targets” of instruction seems to refute this. That being said, the Jasper Series coincides with WISE with its emphasis on complex, problem solving, communication and reasoning and in connecting mathematics to the world outside the classroom. (Cognition and Technology and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1992).

Looking at this more closely in WISE design it has been found that students prefer to not have a lot of detail before they begin their inquiry, but rather work well with an  initial page that provides an entry into the disciplinary knowledge and provides hyperlinks for students who wish more detail. In this way, making science accessible may not mean making it simple (Linn et al., 2003). This mirrors the anchored instruction shown in the Jasper Series as well.

Another link between the Jasper Series and WISE seems to be the belief that the educator should be a facilitator rather than the disseminator of information. In WISE an inquiry map helps students work independently on their project with prompts that help guide through process. Teachers can also easily customize the projects to match their curriculum and students.

The flexible, continually changing approach to WISE is based on the need for scientific materials that enable local adaptation along with support from multiple cycles of trial and refinement. Students’ needs and what scientific inquiries which engage them are also closely considered. Providing students with content they are interested in and that may have an impact on them is part of the real-world problem solving that is encapsulated in anchored instruction.  This continual refinement is also found in the Jasper Series. Technology can provide for this, whereas traditional textbooks cannot. Furthermore new technologies can be integrated into WISE and the system itself scaffolds the use of offline activities by providing a project context, a pedagogical framework, and proven curriculum design patterns.

Customizing WISE would be beneficial. If I were to use any of the inquiries I could integrate the climate and realities in Northwestern Ontario or the Canadian Shield. In addition I could integrate information about Lake Superior, one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, which is situated in Thunder Bay (the students’ hometown). Local flora and fauna could be considered. The seasons and the weather locally could also be integrated. These are just some examples.

Linn, M., Clark, D., & Slotta, J. (2003). Wise design for knowledge integration. Science Education, 87 (4), 517-538.

Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (1992). The jasper experiment: An exploration of issues in learning instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 40 (1), 65-80.

Mathematics Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities-Jasper and Reflections on my Teaching Practice

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The article, “Mathematics Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Meta-Analysis of Instructional Components”, helped me to further analyze the Jasper series and its goals. Within this study the researchers sorted the studies by major types of instructional variables. Their interest was in the detailed curriculum design and teaching practices that resulted in enhanced mathematics and they focussed on the essential attributes of effective practice. They went further and defined “explicit instruction”, which in previous research has shown positive effects in terms of increased understanding of mathematical skills for students with learning disabilities. The researchers broke it down into three components: (a) The teacher demonstrated a step-by-step plan (strategy) for solving the problem, (b) this step-by-step plan needed to be specific for a set of problems (as opposed to a general problem-solving heuristic strategy), and (c) students were asked to use the same procedure/steps demonstrated by the teacher to solve the problem (Gersten, Chard, Jayanthi, Baker, Morphy & Flojo, 2009). They also looked at the methods that exemplify a generic approach for solving a problem, student verbalizations of their mathematical reasoning, using visual representations while solving problems and range and sequence of examples. They further investigated providing ongoing formative assessment data and feedback to teachers on students’ mathematics performance, providing formative assessment data and feedback to students with LD on their mathematics performance and peer-assisted math instruction.

The results of the meta-analysis rendered some interesting data. Firstly, peer assisted learning did not provide much benefit, whereas being tutored by a well-trained older student or adult appears to help significantly (Gersten, et al., 2009). When assisting students with LD in my classroom, this finding is important, as I often pair my students with LD with their peers in order to provide more scaffolding or scaffolding when I am busy helping other students. I will need to rethink this approach.

In addition the two instructional components that provided significant benefits were teaching students to use heuristics (a process or method) to solve problems and explicit instruction (Gersten et al., 2009). When reflecting on these findings I still have some questions. I do teach my LD students a certain process or method to solving mathematical problems but I also don’t want to limit their strategies as we are being told to allow them to explore mathematical problems with a variety of strategies. Now that I think about this, perhaps students with LD do not benefit from a variety of strategies but are best served with a limited number of strategies to use, at least initially. In terms of explicit instruction, I do provide this to my students with LD, although they are also part of any open-ended problem solving that we do in class. I feel it is important to expose them to this type of mathematics as well, but perhaps they would be better served working on other math during this time. That being said, the researchers found that explicit instruction should not be the only form of instruction, so perhaps I should continue to expose the LD students to our open-ended problem solving discussions.

They also found that the sequence of examples is of importance when new skills are being taught, so scaffolding is critical for student success. Examples and problems should move from simple to increasing complexity (Gersten et al., 2009). When reflecting on my own teaching, I find that I do this naturally with all students, as it makes sense to me to move from simple to more complex problems. That being said, and reflecting on the Jasper series, perhaps introducing complex problems that students have to work through and problem solve through may be of more benefit.  The Jasper experiment believes that engaging students in real-world problems that are inherently interesting and important helps students understand why it is important to learn various sub skills and when they are useful. The Jasper adventures are purposely created to reflect the complexity of real world problems (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1992).  As part of inquiry teaching (a method I use to teach some of the time in my classroom), I often introduce mathematical problems based on math explored in read-alouds. For example, when reading the book “Iron Man” we explored measurement as we explored how big we thought the Iron Man, the science fiction character in the story, would be compared to us as students. So in this way I attempt to introduce concepts that lead the students down possibly unexplored mathematical pathways and see what they can produce. I am left with the wondering: Do LD students benefit from this?

Importantly, the study showed that the process of encouraging students to verbalize their thinking or their strategies, or even the explicit strategies modeled by the teacher, was always effective (Gersten et al., 2009). In my teaching practice I often use verbal understandings to gain a better understanding of student understanding/misunderstanding and for ongoing assessment to move forward. I do this for all students, but particularly for students with LD.

It appears that teachers and students also benefit if the teachers are given specific guidance on addressing instructional needs or curricula so that they can immediately provide relevant instructional material to their student.  Teachers require support!!  This is an important point to discuss as educators are often expected to know what to do in all situations with a variety of different styles of learners, with a variety of curriculum and with a variety of learning abilities. As Schulman (1986) noted in his research, teacher training and the type of training provided needs to be revised to reflect both content and pedagogical knowledge.  The fact of the matter is that educators do not have all of these skills and cannot devote the amount of time required to meet the needs of all students. Teachers require the supports of special education teachers, administration, professional development, etc. in order to gain and implement these skills.  The research further disseminates this as the researchers recommend that providing specific instructional guidelines and curricular materials for teachers  and co-teachers or providing support services, peer tutors, cross-age tutors and/or adults providing extra support would be of direct benefit to students with LD (Gersten, et al., 2009).

Interestingly the researchers found at there seems to be no benefit in providing students with LD-specific feedback that is specifically linked to their goal attainment (Gersten et al., 2009). This seems to refute the feedback loop that we are encouraged to use as educators in order to help students to move forward in their learning. I will have to consider this when providing feedback to LD students. Perhaps spending more time on heuristics and explicit instruction and use of visuals would provide better scaffolding for their learning. I look forward to your thoughts on these points.

References

Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (1992). The jasper experiment: An exploration of issues in learning instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 40(1). pp. 65–80.

Gersten, R., Chard., D.J., Jayanthi, M., Baker, S.K., Morphy, P., Flojo, J. (2009). Mathematics instruction for students with learning disabilities: A meta-analysis of instructional components. Review of Educational Research, 79(3), 1202-1242.

Shulman, Lee S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching.  Educational Researcher, 15(2)., pp. 4-14.

 

Initial Reflections on the Jasper Series

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Before reading the article about Jasper anchored instruction, I explored the videos just to get a feel for what this series entailed.  I also wanted to get my initial impressions without having much background. The first thing that struck me was that they were posed as challenges, which I believe would be engaging to students. Then I noticed that they were real-life explorations and I reflected that they would foster rich discussion amongst students. These problems or “situations” would allow students to test out, hypothesize, work and rework as they problem solved. It would be messy but rewarding. They may require some facilitation along the way or a sounding board, but the problem solving would be student centered.

Some questions I had after watching the videos were:

  1. Would it be possible to have the students conduct some of these situations in real-life? (as an adjunct to the videos)
  2. What background in mathematical terminology would the students require?
  3. Could the students competently solve these problems without some prior math knowledge in the area of exploration (rate, capacity, range, temperature, etc.)
  4. What software or platform was used to create and share the videos?

After reflecting on the videos I read the essential article, ” The Jasper Experiment: An Exploration of Issues in Learning and Instructional Design Cognition and Technology”. I was happy to see that many of my reflections correlated with the article.

Within the situational videos basic skills are important, but students develop them in the context of meaningful problem posing and problem-solving activities rather than as isolated “targets” of instruction. (    )students must learn to identify and define issues and problems on their own rather than simply respond to problems that others have posed. I also found it interesting that the videos naturally encourage cooperative learning in which students have opportunities to discuss and explain which can assist in solidifying understanding. It is also interestingly noted that working in these cooperative groups allows the students to monitor one another and thus keep one another on track. This would definitely allow the teacher to take on a facilitation role more naturally.

The videos align with the goals of the NCTM as well. These include an emphasis on complex, open-ended problem solving, communication, and reasoning. In addition, connecting mathematics to other subjects and to the world outside the classroom is encouraged. The Jasper videos seem to fit the bill.

Within the article it explains that educators allow the students as much time and room to work on these problems without teacher interaction. Some may see this as foolhardy and may contest that certain skill sets need to be taught before complex problem solving can occur. The Jasper Experiment believes that engaging students in real-world problems that are inherently interesting and important helps students understand why it is important to learn various sub skills and when they are useful. The Jasper adventures are purposely created to reflect the complexity of real world problems.

Within the article it is also noted that Jasper developers are continuing to work with teachers in order to collect “scaffolding” or “guidance” information to include  with the videos. So although the goal of anchored instruction is situated in engaging, problem-rich environments that allow sustained exploration by students and teachers, some purposeful scaffolding and guidance can assist the problem solving process in some situations.

The Jasper Experiment: An Exploration of Issues in Learning and Instructional Design Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt Educational Technology Research and Development Vol. 40, No. 1 (1992), pp. 65-80