Monthly Archives: July 2017

Using the LfU literature as a lens, I reflected on the “Back Country Bridge” project that my STEM 11/12 class did this past September.  At the time, I had never heard of Learning For Use as a design theory.  This is what we presented to the students on the first day:

“Research, design, and construct the lightest possible wood-frame bridge that will safely allow a 100 kg person to cross a 4.0 m crevasse.”

Students worked collaboratively in groups of three.  Evaluations were set as 50% for the final bridge performance, 25% for written tests, and 25% for shop procedures. There was some direct instruction on how to shape and fasten wooden members, how to analyze forces, and how to test for strength.  We assigned homework problem sets with relevant math and physics, and set a “prototype” testing day at the 2.5 week mark to keep the students from procrastinating.  The entire project was 4.5 weeks long.

In retrospect, here is how I think we faired relative to my paraphrasing of the four LfU tenets of design found in Edelson (2000, p. 375):

1.   Learning takes place through construction and modification of knowledge structures.

This is later defined as constructivism, and I think we are following a constructivist model of learning. We are quite purposeful in our attempt to ensure that projects end with the creation of an artifact, be that physical or digital.  The students really got into building and testing the bridges, so that seemed like a success.

2.  Learning can only be initiated by the learner, whether it is through conscious goal-setting or as a natural, unconscious result of experience.

I feel that this is really about authentic engagement.  Later in the paper, it clarifies:

“…although a teacher can create a demand for knowledge by creating an exam that requires students to recite a certain body of knowledge, that would not constitute a natural use of the knowledge for the purposes of creating an intrinsic motivation to learn”  (Edelson, 2000, p.375)

I like that he emphasizes that “academic threats” or extrinsic motivation are not authentic engagement.  I think we failed here in our bridge project.  Although many of the students got into the building and testing, we spent zero time considering if this project was relevant to students or how they experience their environment.  I chose the project because I do back-country travel, and I like bridges.  In other words, it was relevant to me.  In future, I would like to be more considered in our choice of projects, or find some way to involve students in the selection process.

3.  Knowledge is retrieved based on contextual cues, or “indices”.

This is called situated learning elsewhere in the literature (NLG, 1996).  For those of you who teach physics and mathematics, you’ll know that the analysis of bridge structures is about as situated as trigonometry and “static equilibrium” can get.  We did test to see if students could recognize contextual cues and transfer this knowledge to similar structures, like bicycle frames and chairs.  The results were so-so, and we discussed that as colleagues.  Perhaps we need to include more transfer exercises or reflections that ask students to place bridge analysis in a larger context, something Garcia & Morrell (2013) call “Guided Reflexivity”, and Gee (2007) calls “Critical Learning”.   We didn’t do much in the way of meta-cognition at that point in the year.

4.  To apply declarative knowledge, an individual must have procedural knowledge.

I had trouble with this tenet.  Isn’t this isn’t just a repeat of principle 1?  Since our students are working in groups in a constructivist model, the development of common vocabulary and declarative knowledge is fully necessary to communicate, or the project doesn’t move forward (which sometimes happens and requires intervention).  The act of design and successful iteration is the application of “procedural knowledge”, which has declarative knowledge embedded.  Maybe I’m missing something here.

Overall, I feel like LfU is just a merger of constructivism and basic cognitive learning theories.  My school’s program and projects would benefit a lot by being more purposeful about authentic engagement and helping students see their project as part of a larger domain of related problems.

Edelson, D.C. (2001). Learning-for-use: A framework for the design of technology-supported inquiry activities. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38(3), 355-385

Garcia, A. & Morrell, E. (2013). City Youth and the Pedagogy of Participatory Media. Learning, Media and Technology 38(2). 123-127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2013.782040

Gee, J. 2007. Semiotic Domains: Is playing video games a “waste of time?” In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy (pp.17-45). New York: Palgrave and Macmillian.

New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review. 66(1), 60-92.

Through the use of GIS technology based applications, students are afforded the opportunity to apply skills and knowledge within authentic, real life situations that are similar to those experienced by experts in their field of work and study. From this, one of the key components of the LfU design model is to promote and support student development of deep, interconnected content knowledge and inquiry skills through activities that actively involve authentic scientific inquiry (Bodzin, Anastasio, & Kulo 2014). The LfU model also incorporates and characterizes the development of understanding as taking place through a three step process that includes motivation (experiencing the need for new knowledge), knowledge construction (building new knowledge structures), and knowledge refinement (organizing and connecting knowledge structures), which emphasizes the need for applicability in using knowledge and learning (Edelson 2001). With motivation as the essential starting point for student learning, applications such as Google Earth allow teachers to design tasks that follow LfU structures in teaching science and mathematics content through inquiry based activities. In order for knowledge to be truly useful, students must be motivated to learn specific content or skills through a personal understanding of the application of that content beyond the learning environment (Edelson 2001).

In terms of teaching an LfU based activity to explore mathematical and scientific concepts, educators need to start from the premise that student understanding must be incrementally constructed from experience and communication, as it cannot be simply transmitted directly from one individual to another. This involves the design of a learning task that engages and motivates the learner to find out more, often in the context of a situation that elicits prior conceptions and challenges these conceptions through the identification of gaps in the learner’s knowledge and understanding. By constructing new knowledge, and connecting it with existing knowledge, Edelson argues that a sense of curiosity, which he terms “situational interest,” creates a direct motivation to learn (2001). Through firsthand experience and observation, combined with the reception of information through communication with others, students construct understanding through a continuous, iterative process that leads them through progression, challenge, and sometimes, regression as they experience the target concept (Edelson 2001). Students must be afforded opportunities to engage in reflection and application of their own learning in order to foster knowledge refinement, thus allowing for a full integration of content and process learning.

As identified by Bodzin, Anastasio, & Kulo (2014), design activities must also incorporate scalability and portability, and they detail the applicability of Google Earth in structuring learning experiences for students that promote the development of linkages and connections between contexts that are personally meaningful and relevant. If tasks are structured in a format that provides appropriate levels of challenge within a reasonable time frame, and further promotes the application of knowledge and skills beyond the context of the specific learning task, students are afforded opportunities to participate in rich learning experiences that significantly deepen scientific and mathematical concepts and content.

References

Bodzin, A. M., Anastasio, D., & Kulo, V. (2014). Designing Google Earth activities for learning Earth and environmental science. In Teaching science and investigating environmental issues with geospatial technology (pp. 213-232). Springer Netherlands.

Edelson, D.C. (2001). Learning-for-use: A framework for the design of technology-supported inquiry activities. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38(3), 355-385.

• In what ways would you teach an LfU-based activity to explore a concept in math or science? Draw on LfU and My World scholarship to support your pedagogical directions. Given its social and cognitive affordances, extend the discussion by describing how the activity and roles of the teacher and students are aligned with LfU principles.

Traditionally educators view content and process as having competing priorities, designing technology-supported inquiry to address memorization and recitation. Since classroom resources and time are scarce, evaluating Learning-for-Use (LfU) requires considerable risk and reward in pedagogical reform. Given a preliminary understanding of MyWorld, I can imagine teaching lessons on comparing geographical precipitation and energy balance in different biomes. Or for motion kinematics, measuring distances between cities and travel times enables contextual learning of average and instantaneous velocities. With albeit out-dated information, LfU compiles and visualizes actual data files, superimposing mapview layers to customize appearance based on range of interest. Students can make predictions before exploration, clicking underlay to graph entire/current selections, comparing data sets with parallel cursor movements, creating actual difference graphs averaging statistics using colour to define categories. Dynamically interacting real-world data mimics authentic science practice, operationalizing inert knowledge towards construction, forming connections towards accessible goals. Learners initiate reflection progressing incrementally given stepwise elaboration, creating appropriate indices to retrieve memory as useable knowledge.

MyWorld and Google Earth promote spatial thinking and geographic conceptions, producing environmental citizens that make sustainable decisions. Inquiry-based investigations of sea ice distribution and local weather phenomena are current, valid and essential for persistent understandings and multiple intelligences (Bodzin et al., 2014). Constructivist models enable cognitive flexibility, iteratively promoting teacher pedagogical content knowledge to accommodate differentiated learners. Construction does not invalidate reading, viewing and listening, actively making observations through personal experience and peer communication, applying sense-making to interact with the world. In particular, LfU frameworks purposely lack absolute solutions, asking learners to evaluate priorities where for example urban expansion results in vegetation loss, automobile dependence, along with diminished heat dissipation. Students interpret time-sequenced data to explore alternative energy sources and efficient practices to minimize environmental impact. LfU reveals misconceptions and deficits to promote innovation, achieving both scalability and portability engaging learners with motivating contexts personally relevant to daily lives. To minimize visualizations detracting from learners, teachers encourage understanding with embedded prompts to focus observations.

Traditional inform, verify and practice become transmission which does not acknowledge motivation and refinement. The LfU approach uses exploration, discovery and invention to build contextual interpretive framework, eliciting curiosity from direct experience reinforced by reflection (Edelson, 2001). Technology guided investigations pose violations of expectations developing authentic motivation to naturally apply knowledge, where situational interest articulates prior conceptions to activate existing knowledge. LfU grounds abstract understanding in concrete experience, providing simulations to participate in guided discovery focusing on accessibility and applicability when faced with demands and limitations. LfU addresses the content process dichotomy by combining effectiveness and efficiency in time-limited system.

References

Bodzin, A. M., Anastasio, D., & Kulo, V. (2014). Designing Google Earth activities for learning Earth and environmental science. In Teaching science and investigating environmental issues with geospatial technology (pp. 213-232). Springer Netherlands.

Edelson, D.C. (2001). Learning-for-use: A framework for the design of technology-supported inquiry activities. Journal of Research in Science Teaching,38(3), 355-385.