Tasks, design and the architecture of pedagogic spaces

1
Tasks, design and the architecture of pedagogic
spaces

• Virginia Samuda
• TBLT 2007

2
Are sharks predictable?

• Research on shark behavior day to day helps us
  understand the space and resources they need for
  survival. And research gives insight into
  potential interactions between sharks and humans.
• Tracking sharks
• Scientists in Hawaii attach a lightweight sound
  producing tag to track a sharks movements.
  Researchers listen to the sounds the tag produces
  and record the sharks location.

3
Tasks, design and the architecture of pedagogic
spaces

• Virginia Samuda
• TBLT 2007

4
The teacher as task designer

• The texture and subtlety of teachers work
  connotes a need to acknowledge that they are
  necessarily involved in designing tasks at almost
  every twist and turn of classroom interaction.
• (Towndrow, 2004)

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Tasks, design and the architecture of pedagogic
spaces

• 1) Some background issues brought into focus
  through the title of this talk
• 2) Some real world pedagogic problems, relating
  to the demands made on teachers that these issues
  bring into focus
• 3) Some recent empirical directions that seek to
  engage with those issues

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Tasks,

• As a pedagogic tool
• open to systematic use for a range of pedagogic
  purposes at different points in a teaching
  sequence
• open to a range of pedagogic decisions about how
  it may be varied, shaped and adjusted to meet
  those purposes
• open to mediation by a teacher

7
Design

• Done by.
• materials writers, curriculum developers,
  researchers, testers, teachers, learners
• Includes
• Development of a new task from scratch
  adjustments to existing tasks
• Draws on..
• Complex problem-solving mechanisms and
  conceptual domain knowledge

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Designsome problems of scope?

• Emergent?
• Re-shape.., re-interpret.., re-define..
• (Lantolf, 2000, Coughlan Duff, 1994 Donato
  2000, Seedhouse, 2005, Slimani-Rolls, 2005 etc)

• Impact on performance and SLA processes?
• Direct..,channel.., deflect.., predispose..
  require.., impinge on..
• (Pica et al, 1993 Skehan Foster studies,
  1996-9 Ellis, 2001 Robinson, 2001 2007
  Mackey, 1999 etc..)

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in relation to task as a pedagogic tool?

• Interactions between emergent and predictable
  elements of task design?
• The zone where teachers work?

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Design

• Development of the workplan

• Implementation of the workplan

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Task-as-workplans
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The architecture of pedagogic spaces

• Task-as-frame
• Practitioner construals of task as
• a bounded pedagogic unit
• ..with a beginning, a middle, and end
• unfolding in stages
• providing a reason to use language
• ..leaving space for the learner
• (Samuda et al, 2001)

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Pedagogic task design some real world issues

• The curriculum
• All English teachers must take on the
  responsibility of selecting or adapting suitable
  tasks from existing materials or designing tasks
  for their own learners (Curriculum Development
  Council, Hong Kong/SAR, 1999)

• The teacher
• I am very conscious that if I sit down of an
  evening as a teacher that I dont want to spend
  all evening preparing tasks or designing tasks. I
  want to produce something which is valid and
  enjoyable for the class in as short a time as
  possible (Samuda et al, 20005)

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Problems with design an example

• Teacher x
• never considered the question of how to design
  the tasks in a way that would make it necessary
  for the students to collaborate for task
  completion (Tsui, 2003 174)
• and did not appear to have any principles on
  which to base her judgment of whether the
  activities were well designed (ibid 219).

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Potential guidance on task design

• How to manuals (Nunan, 1989 2004 Estaire
  Zanón, 1994, Jolly Bolitho, 1998 etc)
• Empirically-grounded insights (notably the two
  Peters)
• Empirically-grounded recommendations about
  task-based methodology (Ellis, 2003)

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Principles of task-based methodology (Ellis, 2003)

• Ensure an appropriate level of task difficulty
• Establish clear goals for each task-based lesson
• Develop an appropriate orientation to performing
  the task in the students
• Ensure that students adopt an active role in
  task-based lessons
• Encourage students to take risks
• Ensure that students are primarily focused on
  meaning when they perform a task
• Provide opportunities for focusing on form
• Require students to evaluate their progress

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Design awareness (Samuda, 2005)

• Enabling task implementation teacher and task
  in tandem (Samuda, 2001)
• Enabling teacher planning over a course of
  instruction (Mohan Marshall Smith, 1992)
• A role for design awareness in developing the
  workplan and in implementing it?

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Design awareness some unknowns

• What does it entail?
• How is it deployed in the development of the
  workplan, and how is it deployed in task
  implementation in the classroom?
• How is it acquired?
• How does it develop?
• Can it be trained?

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Some empirical studies of design

• Example 1The development of the workplan
  (Johnson, 2003 Samuda, 2005)
• Example 2 Teachers implementation of the
  workplan (Samuda, forthcoming)

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Example 1 What designers do developing the
workplan

• Interview data evaluations of typical tasks
  card sorts task designers, teachers.
• Design process data concurrent thinkalouds while
  designing tasks design brief specialist (S)
  designers and non-specialist teacher (NS/T)
  designers
• Differences in the ways that S and NS/T designers
  approach design process? (Johnson, 2003)
• Design outcomes data tasks produced teacher
  evaluations of tasks produced
• Differences in the tasks produced? (Samuda, 2005)

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Selected findings differences in the ways that
specialist designers approach the design process
(Johnson, 2003)

• concrete visualisation capacity
• simulate and rehearse ways task might unfold
• envisage and troubleshoot problems
• consequence identification
• awareness of potential knock-on effect of
  changing one element of the task
• maximum variable control
• attention to wide range of variables relating to
  overall task and the details of its parts

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Selected findings differences in tasks produced
(Samuda, 2005)

• Differences in surface level features
• S tasks titles, summarising statements (task
  goal pedagogic purpose) structured
  stationery jointly supplied task data
• Differences in internal structuring
• S tasks proleptic design features anticipate
  how the design might unfold in action points in
  the task where there could be a change in
  attentional focus

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EXAMPLE the staging of a task

• Movement through the task chunked via steps and
  sub-steps, with step boundaries corresponding to
  shifts in interaction, sub-topic and/or task
  focus
• Outcomes of one stage of the task used as input
  for the next
• Iterative opportunities for different types of
  language use at different stages of the task
• Closures
• -stage closures
• -final closure in plenary mode

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Cumulative pedagogic effects?

• use of advance organisers
• staging
• pacing
• variety in interaction type
• recycling
• closure
• . built into task design
• Designer as teacher?

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Example 2 teachers implementations of the
workplan

• How do teachers appraise the potential strengths
  and limitations of the original workplan?
• Does varying an element of the workplan, whether
  prospectively or dynamically, have a knock-on
  effect on other aspects of the task?
• How do teachers anticipate and manage those
  effects, both prospectively and dynamically?

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Data base

• Teachers with different levels of classroom
  experience planning and teaching the same unit of
  material from a widely-used ELT textbook in a 50
  minute lesson.
• (Source LATEX Research Group archive, Dept of
  Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster
  University)
• Present example Two teachers planning and
  implementing a task that formed part of those
  materials

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Participants

• The teachers
• Teacher V over 20 years ESL and EFL teaching
  experience
• Teacher N TEFL diploma limited teaching
  experience.

• The students
• Two classes young adults, from China
• One-years foundation course, at UK college of
  education, prior to entering university  

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Procedures

• Pre-lesson interview each teacher talked through
  a 50-minute lesson plan based on the same
  textbook unit
• Video-recording of lessons taught
• Two stimulated recall sessions
• 1) teacher-nominated points of focus
• 2) researcher-nominated points of focus
• Tap into different dimensions of the
  task-as-workplans?

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Analysis

• Based on practitioner construals of task as a
  frame
• Track teachers macro- and micro-framing of the
  task prospectively and dynamically
• Example proactive/reactive framing moves
  relating to theme, content, procedure, goal,
  timing

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Variations to original workplan prospective
workplan
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Both teachers vary the original workplan in
different ways..

• Teacher V
• Changes to task content? cumulative changes to
  task structure and procedures
• Re-tasks elements of original workplan

• Teacher N
• Omitting part of task procedure ? removal of task
  outcome
• De-tasks elements of original workplan

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De-tasking and re-tasking Teacher N and Teacher
V
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Some elements of Teacher Vs re-tasking

• Demarcation of beginning/end of task, and the
  stages within the task
• Use of student-generated data arising out of one
  stage as springboard for next
• Variation of interaction types
• Keeping the frame of the task constant ?
• enables changes in task procedures and changes
  in task demands as the task unfolds?

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Staging the task macro and micro-framing
Teacher V
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Factors enabling Teacher V to re-task,
prospectively and dynamically?

• Robust schematisation of the architecture of the
  task overall task frame, and micro-frames within
  it?
• Capacity for envisaging and troubleshooting
  problems?
• Awareness of effects of changing one element of
  task on others?
• Highly proceduralised repertoire?
• ?Teacher as designer?

36
Are sharks predictable?

• Research on shark behavior day to day helps us
  understand the space and resources they need for
  survival. And research gives insight into
  potential interactions between sharks and humans.
• Tracking sharks
• Scientists in Hawaii attach a lightweight sound
  producing tag to track a sharks movements.
  Researchers listen to the sounds the tag produces
  and record the sharks location.

37
Some conclusions

• Not all tasks are created equal
• The use of tasks implies design prospective
  and dynamic, with fluid boundaries between
  workplan and process
• Further empirical studies that look at design
  in terms of how teachers construe the pedagogic
  potential of different tasks, and how they work
  with them in the classroom ?
• richer understandings of task as a pedagogic
  tool within a context of use, and richer
  conceptualisations of the scope of design?
• ? insights for teacher development?

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An end

• .and a beginning..

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TBLT 2009 Lancaster

• landscapes and sweeping panoramas
• friendly locals
• literary and cultural heritage
• rain
• pubs and well-kept real ales
• local produce
• Lancaster Axe
• A longstanding association with tasks

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See you in 2009
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Advice to novice architects, (Potter, 2002)

• Enter old buildings alertly, on the prowl for
  trouble. Note any evidence of smell, subsidence,
  cracking, rot, woodworm, damp, loose plaster,
  stuck doors, pattern staining, damaged fittings.
• Always note the superficial nature and conditions
  of surfaces, but..
• Always go beyond surfaces, to structure, and to
  an awareness of materials.

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Framing the task examples

• Teacher N
• So weve got just short of a quarter of an hour
  left and theres a task on the back about talking
  about greatest achievements. Its on the last
  page and its number 1. In your pairs Id like
  you to decide which you think is the greatest
  achievement ever made

• Teacher V
• Now were going to do an exercise in pairs. If
  you could just take some paper (handing out
  sheets of poster paper). . Were looking at
  achievements and so far weve been looking at
  achievements of people. But countries could also
  have great achievements. Now you all come from
  the same country. I want you in 5 minutes to
  write down the greatest achievements that China
  has experienced in its long long history. What
  great things have happened in China? OK?

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What makes a good street bollard?
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Reprise What makes a good street bollard?

• Height?
• Geometry?
• Surface?
• Spacing?
• Articulation with the ground?
• Fitness for purpose (Gropius, 1936)

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What makes a good task?

• Real world relationship?
• Engages holistic language use?
• A non-linguistic outcome?
• Focuses attention on meaning?
• Gives rise to different kinds of language
  processing?
• Planning time?
• Clear instructions?
• Feedback on success?

• ..vis a vis fitness for purpose?

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Differences in the tasks produced (Samuda, 2005)