Design Project Proposal – Key Frameworks

Key Frameworks

This proposal aims to describe, develop, and rationalize our approach to teaching problem-based learning through digital photography.  The content is digital photography and all that it entails, but our hidden curriculum is problem-based learning in addition to other theories such as situated learning, constructivism, scaffolding and task-based learning.  Our learners are grade 11 and 12 learners.  According to the literature, teachers should be more teacher-directed, content-centred in early courses, and highly, student-centred, and process centred in the advanced courses.  As this course is a senior level course, it would fall under the latter category (Merrill, 2007). 

The role of the teacher in term of technology instruction is that of an instruction manager and a creator of teaching and learning environments.

The target population is made up of grade 11 and 12 students. The students are required to work in groups of three to five due to limited resources, cameras and computers.

Different from Jean Piaget’s theory where a learner would be just influenced by society, Lev Vygotsky sought to explain the development of a learner through a collaborative and transformative approach which involved cultural tools, cultural influences, and other individuals (Vianna, 2006). The emphasis on this developmental learning is collaboration, which leads to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal learning (ZPD). Vygotsky viewed ZPD as the space between where the learner currently resided and the learner’s potential for development. Vygotsky’s famous definition of his term “zone of proximal development” states that ZPD is “the distance between the actual developmental level 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, p. 86, 1978). In other words, ZPD is an area where the learner cannot solve the problem alone but can successfully solve it under the guidance or in collaboration with a more advanced peer (e.g. maybe an adult, an expert in the field, etc.) – this is when actual learning takes place (Woolfolk, 2000).

There is a need and a dependent social aspect consisting of someone with expertise to provide guidance and direction.  Through the assistance of more experienced people, a learner may be able to achieve much more than learning by themselves. The ZPD represents a place where the learner is challenged enough and may be frustrated without the aid of another expertise individual. The idea of scaffolding is related to this type of guidance, where the learner’s knowledge is constructed in a layered manner (almost in stages or in levels), with each level of instruction building upon another layer (Oxford, 1997). The guidance of more competent peers assists in the learner’s experience (Vygotsky, 1978). The key is eventually the learner will be able to do the same-related tasks or understand a concept without the help of the peer or educator. However, educators, parents, and competent peers must take into consideration that the activities in which the learner engages be neither too simple nor too difficult – this will in turn lead to successful growth and development (Lefrancois, 1997).

Therefore, the primary educational activities are framed with the sense of having the student work with other students to start confidently grasping how to shoot with a DSLR.  All the while, an expert in the field of photography is on the sidelines assisting with the scenarios and experimental dissections of learning how to take a photograph with the use of DSLR technology.