The doctoral emphasis area in Curriculum, Learning, and Technology (CLT) faces some of the same problems as the school-wide program as a whole--namely, how to meet the needs of students and faculty from a variety of different disciplines and backgrounds, achieving some form of unity while respecting people's individual interests and research foci. The CLT emphasis area is particularly eclectic in its composition, drawing on faculty from a host of specialities, from special education to language and culture to technology to curriculum.
To illustrate the problem, consider two students in the program. Lorrie is a recent graduate of a masters program in industrial/organizational psychology. She has no formal experience in public schools and plans on working in business settings using technologies to support learning. She finds herself a distinct minority in a research methods class, where classmates come mostly from K-12 backgrounds. Frank is a high school mathematics teacher with a master's degree, several teaching awards, and a desire to work in staff development. He is required to take a doctoral seminar in technology, a subject in which he has little natural interest or inclination.
In light of such diverse audiences, program designers are at times tempted to just "stay out of the way" and let individual students and faculty fashion their own customized learning experiences. Keep the common requirements to a minimum. While we believe that considerable latitude needs to be given for this very reason, going too far in this direction would be a mistake. The program needs an identifiable core--not just courses, but structures, experiences, and values--that builds bridges across the chasms of specialty. Finding the right balance between designs for unity and allowances for individuality will remain a continuing challenge as the CLT emphasis area grows and develops in the future.
Currently, the CLT emphasis area is designed around four key responsibilities:
Change agency is a focus of the entire school-wide program (see the core seminar, EDUC 7100: Leadership and Innovation , required of all students). What follows below is a discussion of some of the responsibilities unique to the CLT emphasis area, namely, instructional design, implementation, and evaluation.
1. Design, implementation, and evaluation are ultimately inseparable. Some of the most valuable lessons learned about instructional design come from the experience gained in setting up, administering, and evaluating programs. Real-world tryout can be just as important as theory-guided design.
An example may be taken from the 1970s research in computer-assisted instruction. One program, the TICCIT project, was shown by an NSF evaluation to achieve its objectives more successfully than traditional classroom instruction (Merrill, Schneider, & Fletcher, 1979). The program failed, however, in getting students to stay with the program; the dropout rate was unacceptably high when compared to traditional classrooms. In this case, the program's design did not take into account certain factors that were critical to the implementation. The program evaluation highlighted those factors and clarified ways the program might succeed in future efforts.
Another example is Clancey's research in intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). In a remarkable example of self-reflection, Clancey (1993) concludes: "After more than a decade, I felt that I could no longer continue saying that I was developing instructional programs for medicine because not a single program I worked on was in routine use..." (p. 7). Clancey and colleagues were so absorbed in the design of systems that they neglected the needs of the practice community. "[R]esearchers must participate in the community they wish to influence....[S]ome members of our research community must necessarily broaden their goals from developing...tools to changing practice--changing how people interact and changing their lives... (p. 9, italics retained). Clancey reflects on how he might approach his research agenda differently today:
Designing solutions for instruction is a highly situated activity. The success in implementing a program will depend more on the local variables than on the general variables contained in the conceptual model used to guide design. Put another way, "the devil is in the details." There is a way to succeed and a way to fail using a whole host of teaching models. Teachers and students must see the sense of what they are doing, come to believe in the efficacy of the program, and work hard to ensure that the right outcomes--that is, outcomes that are consensually agreed upon--are achieved.
This situational perspective conflicts with traditional views. Thinking of instructional design as a technology would lead us to think that a situation gets analyzed, which leads to a technical fix to be implemented, which leads either to a measured solution to the problem or a revision in the fix for the next cycle of intervention. A situated view of instructional design would lead to a different process, something perhaps like this:
If community members have participated in the establishment of a program, they are more likely to believe in it. If they believe in the program, the chances of success increase dramatically. As Perkins (1992) suggests, even very imperfect instructional methods can work if the commitment is made to work together and ask the right questions in designing curriculum.
Several implications for the doctoral program are in order:
2. Questions of curriculum and value are central. Perkins (1992) warns of a common fallacy implied by the statement: "What we need is a new and better method. If only we had improved ways of inculcating knowledge or inducing youngsters to learn, we would attain the precise...outcomes we cherish" (p. 44). Instead, Perkins believes that "given reasonably sound methods, the most powerful choice we can make concerns not method but curriculum--not how we teach but what we choose to try to teach" (p. 44). This observation reaffirms that a fundamental step in instructional design involves the serious consideration of learning goals. A variety of constituencies should be included in this process, including sponsors and members of the learning community itself. Once consensus is reached about the kind of learning being sought, certain teaching models become unfeasible while others become more attractive. As Reigeluth (1983) acknowledges, curriculum and instruction cannot be completely separated. There is a tendency among many institutions to give lip service to higher-order outcomes while maintaining teaching methods that specifically suppress such outcomes. Medical schools that teach students to simply memorize and take tests are an example. Another example is a military school whose mission statement prizes "creativity" in students, yet whose teaching methods and authoritarian culture strictly reinforce conformity and transmission of content.
A basic lesson learned from observing schools is that two teachers may be covering the same ostensive curriculum while what really is taught differs radically between them. At its base, the constructivist movement in education involves curriculum reform, a rethinking of what it means to know something. A constructivist curriculum is reflected in many of the design innovations being discussed in the literature (Hanaffin, 1992). Thus, if a commitment is made toward rethinking curriculum to expand the roles of knowledge construction and learning communities, then a corresponding commitment needs to be made in rethinking learning activities. Deciding upon a teaching strategy is not a value-neutral activity. Recognizing this puts the articulation of a conceptual model squarely into the political realm of policy making. New issues become important, such as access, equity, representation, voice, and achieving consensus amid diverse perspectives.
The curriculum question needs to be fully addressed by the doctoral program. That is, what is our vision of a competent graduate of the program? What are the relative merits of:
The curriculum seminar (EDUC 6710: Curriculum Design and the Improvement of Practice) provides the most extensive treatment of value issues related to curriculum.
Because of the diversity within the CLT emphasis area, program participants (including students and faculty) need to engage in a continuing dialogue designed to accommodate differences while maintaining a core identity. The unique voices of different disciplines and specialties should not be silenced in any seminar or methods course. For example, a student with a primary interest in technology may need to make room for a student anxious about technology but committed to the needs of special students or students from multiple cultures and backgrounds.
3. Program design and implementation involves decisions with moral and cost consequences. Programs are designed to have consequences, and consequences affect the lives of real people. Hence, designing and implementing programs includes a moral dimension and a need to justify expenditures based on valued outcomes. Teachers or curriculum committees need to acknowledge the value implications of their work. Every decision to adopt one teaching approach over another involves a weighing of pros and cons, and reflects the underlying values of the people and practices of the institution.
A problem arises, however, in determining the most needed thing in a given situation. While costs may be objectively measured and estimated, learning benefits are notoriously difficult to reduce down to a number. This inequity of measurability results in a common bias: The cost differences become exaggerated while the potential benefits, because they are harder to measure, tend to be undervalued or ignored. Comparison of alternative teaching models must give full consideration to qualitative differences in learning outcomes in addition to the more visible cost differences in time and money.
Doctoral students need opportunities to weigh moral and other considerations, arrive at a design or implementation decision, then observe the consequences of the decision in learning settings. Many will come to the program with extensive experience of this kind; others will need extended opportunities as part of their doctoral training. Fully acknowledging and appreciating the value implications of educational activities is an important accomplishment for student level work.
Similarly, architects of the doctoral experience need to be sensitive to the impact of program requirements on the lives of students. To a large degree, students are the designers of their own learning experiences at the doctoral level. Faculty, students, and staff should have a mutual respect that serves as a basis for co-participation and co-design of program requirements.
4. Instruction should support learners as they become efficient in procedural performance and deliberate in their self-reflection and understanding. Most current instructional theories emphasize the grounding of instruction in complex problems, cases, or performance opportunities. Yet organizing instruction around problems and cases should not mask the importance of perception, reflection, and metacognitive activity. Indeed, these two aspects of human performance (problem solving and perception) can be seen as inherently complementary and equally necessary. Experts are more than mere automatic problem-solvers. Rather, experts become experts through a progressive series of encounters with the domain, each involving an element of routine performance and a corresponding element of reflection and deliberation. This is the process of expertise spoken of by Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994). EPSY 6710: Learning Theory and Learners presents doctoral students with a sound theory base in cognition, learning and development theories, and how that theory base relates to questions of practice.
Prawat (1993) makes a similar point about the importance of perception. While there is a tendency among cognitive psychologists to make problem solving central to all cognition, Prawat reminds us that schemas, ideas, and perceptual processes hold an equally important place. Learning how to see --from a variety of points of view--is as important as solving a problem once we do see. Principles of perception, whether from ecological psychology, connectionism, or aesthetics, need to have a place within successful instructional models. This includes teaching students how to represent problems and situations, but also how to appreciate and respond to the aesthetic side of the subject, how to reflect upon one's actions, and how to "raise one's consciousness" and recognize recurring themes and patterns in behavior and interactions.
Successful programs must seek to make complex performance do-able while avoiding the pitfalls of simplistic proceduralization. The art of "scaffolding" complex performance is a key problem area that surprisingly is still not well understood. How does a coach entice a young gymnast to perform just beyond her capacities, overcoming the fear and uncertainty that normally accompany new performances? How does the coach know just when and where to step in, preserving the integrity of the task (and the learning) while not letting the athlete fall on her head? These are questions of appropriate scaffolding or support for learning. Once a teacher begins believing the constructivist agenda and the importance of authentic, meaningful tasks, then the challenge of supporting novice performance within a complex environment becomes a central concern. As Sweller's (1989) research makes clear, poorly supported problem-solving activities force learners to rely on weak methods that they already know. The result is a lot of wasted time and frustrated learners. Appropriate and wise scaffolding makes problem-solving activities more efficient because learners stay focused within the critical "development" zone between previously mastered knowledge and skills beyond their reach (Vygotsky, 1978). Developing methods for optimizing this kind of support is an area in need of further research and development. Possibilities will be explored in the learning seminar. We expect a number of doctoral students to tackle this general problem as a research or dissertation topic.
This same concept of scaffolding can be directed to the implementation of instructional strategies themselves. Instructional designers and teachers need proper supports and aids in designing according to a particular model or tradition. At the same time, they should be cautioned against simplistically "applying" a model in a proceduralized or objectivist fashion. Postmodernists would say that in such cases, the model "does violence" to the situation. The complexities of a situation should not be reduced down to the simple maxims of a teaching model. Any model that is forced upon a situation and made to fit, will lead inevitably to unintended negative consequences. The negative fallout will happen at those points of disjuncture or lack of fit between model and situation. As I have stressed, the details of the situation need to be respected and taken into account when adapting a model to a situation.
This, perhaps, is a more appropriate way of thinking about implementation: Rather than applying a particular instructional theory, a teacher necessarily adapts or reconstructs that theory to present circumstances. Learning how to adapt abstractions to concrete realities is a worthy task for both students and teachers, and indeed, may lie at the heart of some forms of expertise. This process of adaptation and using conceptual models as tools in a given situation is an essential ingredient of a situated approach to instructional design.
Applied to the doctoral program, a necessary tension exists between problem-solving versus contemplative activities, and between scaffolding complex performances versus guided practice of simplified skills. A doctoral program is primarily a mentoring, apprenticeship experience. Students should have opportunities to work closely with faculty members (and other doctoral students) on projects, programs, books, paper, and grants. Thus in many ways, the program takes on an action-oriented, applied emphasis. On the other hand, nowhere are opportunities for reflection and knowledge assimilation more important. Some doctoral work will be decontextualized from any obvious problem of practice--Core seminars and methods courses come to mind. Other activities, such as doctoral labs and certain portfolio requirements, will require careful scaffolding to support students as they engaged in complex, situationally dependent tasks. A period of months and sometimes years will be needed to develop and fine-tune a support system for such complex performances.
An example is students' (and faculty members') use of the Internet. The idea of scaffolding is a relevant way to think about how best to support students' research activity and communications on the Internet. Students cannot be spoon-fed a simple tutorial that will teach them all they need to know about the Internet. Instead, students need a variety of tools and supports that can be flexibly appropriated and accessed in a timely way. Such supportive technologies are a subject of study in IT 6710: Theoretical Bases of Instructional Technology. Each student is developing a homepage for the World-Wide Web. Students are accessing local and remote tools and resources, allowing them to find information, upload and download files, participate in professional conversations, and receive help on projects and problems. Both students and faculty need concrete supports to help the culture move toward greater use of newly available tools and resources.
Conclusion
The CLT emphasis area has begun to articulate a model of expertise--in NCATE parlance, a "knowledge base"--that takes a socio-constructivist view of theory and practice. Theorists, researchers, teachers, and educational leaders are all practitioners with in work communities. Doctoral students must learn the conventions of practice within both the academic, research-oriented culture and the work settings where they teach, educate, design programs, etc. Academics tend to deal in abstractions and share those abstractions through publishing, grants, and conference presentations. Educational work settings typically require highly skilled performances, wherein teachers make use of all the knowledge at their disposal in meeting the needs of their students. Reflection, skill fluency, acquisition of a broad knowledge all are key parts of the expert's performance.
In a sense, CLT doctoral students need to become "bilingual", fluent in both the research and the teaching communities. Given the eclectic composition of the CLT emphasis area, students must learn to recognize patterns and themes, relate cases from divergent settings, and collaborate with others with widely varying expertise.
References
Clancey, W. J. (1993). Guidon-Manage revisited: A socio-technical systems approach. Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 4 (1), 5-34.
Merrill, M. D., Schneider, E., & Fletcher, K. (1979). TICCIT. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Educational Technology Publications.
Perkins, D. (1992). Smart schools: From training memories to educating minds. New York: The Free Press (MacMillan).
Prawat, R. S. (1993). The value of ideas: Problems versus possibilities in learning. Educational Researcher, 22 (6), 5-16.
Reigeluth, C. M. (Ed.). (1983). Instructional-design theories and models: An overview of their current status. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3 (3), 265-283.
Sweller, J. (1989). Cognitive technology: Some procedures for facilitating learning and problem solving in mathematics and science. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81 (4), 457-466.
Vygotsky, L. (l978). Mind and society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
1 Portions of this paper are excerpted from B. G. Wilson (1995). Situated instructional design: Blurring the distinctions between theory and practice, design and implementation, curriculum and instruction. In M. Simonson (Ed.), Proceedings of selected research and development presentations . Washington D. C.: Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Contributors to the paper include Brent Wilson, Mark Clarke, Maurice Holt, and Alan Davis.