EDC

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EDCI 510July 12, 2005.

• Psychological Theories and
• Educational Technology
• Ideas and Applications.
• Bill Winn

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Learning

• The only thing that occurs when someone learns
  something, about which we can be absolutely
  certain, is that the operation and/or the
  structure of the brain changes.
• An understanding of Cognitive Neuroscience is
  therefore necessary (though not sufficient) if we
  are to understand how people learn things.

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Behavioral Theories Non-Associative Learning

• Learning about single stimuli through multiple
  exposures
• Habituation Learning to ignore it.
• Background noises.
• Hunter Hoffman's work with pain and phobias.
• Sensitization Learning to detect it.
• Eskimos and snow.
• London cab drivers.
• Beer tasters.

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Habituation
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Distraction for desensitization. Using VR during
wound care courtesy of Hunter Hoffman.
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Hoffmans Snow World, used with burn patients.
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Behavioral Theories Associative Learning

• Learning connections between two stimuli.
• Classical conditioning (Pavlov)
• Dogs salivate (natural behavior in presence of
  food) when bell rings (artificial stimulus).
• NOTE Youre not trying to shape a behavior.
• Operant conditioning (Skinner)
• Animal's (or student's) behavior is reinforced by
  a reward, or discouraged by a punishment.
• NOTE Youre trying to get the animal to do
  something it may not naturally do.

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Operant Conditioning applied to Education
(Skinner).

• Students learn when correct behavior is
  reinforced, or incorrect behavior punished -
  shaping.
• Even complex learning (e.g. language) can be
  explained by (reduced to) strengthening S-R
  connections.
• But see Chomskys critique.
• Operant conditioning can be implemented through
  technology as programmed instruction,
  computer-assisted instruction.

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Behaviorist assumptions about design (Dick and
Carey)

• With sufficient information from needs assessment
  and task analysis, making decisions about how to
  teach can be proceduralized, even automated.
• If things don't work as expected, get more
  information do more analysis.
• Decisions can be no better than the information
  upon which they are based.
• Prescriptive theory is valid and reliable.

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Gagné's Prescriptive Theory

• Events of instruction
• Get attention
• State objective
• Recall prerequisites
• Present material
• Give guidance
• Elicit performance
• Give feedback
• Assess performance
• Retention transfer

• Type of learning outcomes
• Intellectual skill
• Concepts, rules
• Cognitive strategy
• How to solve problems
• Verbal information
• Facts
• Motor skill
• Doing things
• Attitude
• Choosing to do things

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Instructional Strategies
Intell. skill. Cog. strat. Verbal info. Motor
skill. Attitude
Attention Objectives Prerequisites Present Guidanc
e Performance Feedback Assessment Retention
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Evolution of the ID Process
Input ? Process ? Output
Input ? Process ? Output
Input
Output
Process
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Cognitive Theory

• Theory of Learning changed a lot.
• Concern for mental activity that mediates
  stimulus and response.
• Concern for intellectual differences among
  students.
• Concern for how stimulus format affects learning.
• Design practice changed little generally.
• Still driven by prescriptive theory
• But changed more in application
• Systems dynamics of ID (Tennyson).
• Direct application of Cognitive Load Theory
  (Sweller).

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Questioning the Assumptions of ID

• Instructional theory is incomplete.
• Humans neither act predictably not think
  logically.
• The spatial, temporal, social contexts of
  learning and thinking are lost through a
  reductionistic approach.

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The Alternatives

• Constructivist theories of learning.
• Situated (contextualized) cognition with
  authentic tasks and assessment.
• Distributed cognition, including people and
  artifacts
• Acknowledging the complexity of how memories are
  made, in both the practice and study of
  education.
• Ethnographic approaches to inquiry.
• Systems modeling of cognitive processes.
• Cognitive Neuroscience.

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Learning is knowledge wisdom, not just
information.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in
knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in
information? T.S. Eliot Wisdom consists in ones
ability to see beyond individual uniqueness into
structures that relate us in our common humanity.
Gisela Labouvie-Vief Wisdom is a virtue
providing a compelling guide to action. Robert
Sternberg
Learning leads to knowledge integration and
usefulness, not just changes in observable
behavior.
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Learning Environment
KNOWLEDGE What we have learned.
WISDOM How we use it.
INFORMATION What we find or are given.
Processes Connect new information to existing
knowledge. Change old knowledge.
Processes Synthesis, Growth of expertise, Use in
context.
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Building Knowledge and Wisdom from Information
occurs in different Learning Environments.

• The natural world
• Non-formal learning
• Apprenticeships, learning on the job
• Formal schooling and training
• In fact, the exception rather than the rule.
• Technology can let us operate successfully within
  and between these.

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Learning in Natural Environments.

• Interacting with the natural world.
• Cognitive and social development.
• Knowledge acquired may not be correct.
  (Misconceptions)
• We seek patterns in data.
• Superstition and denial (Gell-Mann, 1994).
• Apprenticeships.
• Some structure given to natural world
• Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave
  Wenger, 1991)
• Technology can provide guidance and other support.

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Learning in Formal Environments.

• Education has its own time and place.
• Third-person experiences are interpretations of
  the natural world.
• Abstractions.
• All you learn is how to be a student! (Brown,
  1994)
• Technology can provide context.

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Definition Umwelt Von Uexküll

• Each person has their own environment and their
  own way of understanding it.
• This is constrained
• Biologically, by the limitations of the senses.
• Cognitively, by mental processes.
• Culturally, by what one is typically exposed to.
• A person is tightly coupled to their Umwelt.
• Engagement, presence, flow.

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Technologys Roles1. Providing information

• Access to information at any time and place.
• Breaking the biological barriers imposed by the
  human sensory system.
• Transducers change what we normally cannot detect
  into forms that we can.
• Reification gives perceptible form to ideas that
  have no form.
• Both processes rely on metaphors, which can be
  dangerous!

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Technologys Roles 2. Building knowledge.

• Instructional systems that learn about the
  learner.
• Externalizing cognition
• Expressing and reflecting on your own ideas.
• Sharing your ideas collaborative learning.
• Reducing cognitive load
• Offloading cognitive processes
• Good instructional design
• Providing guidance
• Explicitly, by human or machine.
• Built-in (intelligent, agent-based) scaffolding

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Technologys Roles 3. Fostering wisdom.

• Development of expertise in simulations
• Supporting practice and mastery
• Supporting transfer of knowledge and skill
• Contexts for rapid decision-making
• Contexts for integrating and situating learning
• Ability to simulate cultural and social
  phenomena. (MRE)
• Extending the boundaries of communities. (SCOPE)

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Intelligent Agents Mission Rehearsal
ExerciseInstitute for Creative Technologies, USC.
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Learning Communities SCOPE(Phil Bell)

• Science Controversies Online Partnerships In
  Education.
• Online community of students, scientists,
  teachers, science writers, dealing with
  scientific controversies
• Declining amphibians.
• Re-introducing DDT to control malaria.
• Genetically modified foods.

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Projects Virtual Puget Sound
Seattle
Tacoma
Mount Rainier
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• Demo

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Original immersive (and currently broken) version
of VPS.
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(No Transcript)
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A less successful metaphor for tidal currents.
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Knowledge-building activities.

• Students work with authentic information.
• Students are given real problems to solve
• Find an invasive species of fish.
• Choose a site for a new sewage treatment plant.
• Predict pollution from an oil spill.
• Help an Orca get home.
• Oceanography courses
• The learning environment, courses and cruises,
  instructors and scientists provide tools and
  scaffolding.

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Building pre-requisite knowledge in class before
work at sea.
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Planning activities.
Group planning and problem-solving
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Performing the same tasks at sea Context,
transfer, motivation ...
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a link to the class ...
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and a classroom on board.
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Some findings(all ps lt .05)

• VPS and cruise helped students learn, pre- vs.
  posttest.
• Engagement in water-related activities made it
  easier to learn. Some students had prior context.
• Cruise helped students who did not do
  water-related activities, but not those who did.
  Cruise provided context.
• VPS improved students' spatial understanding of
  tidal currents, revealed from sketches. Broader
  view.
• VPS transferred better to what students studied
  in class than the cruise did. Abstraction and
  transfer.
• Experience with computer games helped students
  learn from both VPS and cruise. The medium
  affects the message!

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Study 2004 Dyslexic children.

• Twelve dyslexic and twelve normal children
  worked on a unit about the marine environment,
  based around the adventures of Luna, the Orca.
• Emphasized student activity and spatial skills,
  and de-emphasized language.
• They worked three hours a day for two weeks, of
  which 45 minutes each day was spent using VPS.
• Each day had a theme and associated exercises in
  VPS drawing on different cognitive abilities and
  strategies.

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Findings (all p's lt .05).

• Pre- to post map drawing improvement for both
  groups of children.
• Non-dyslexic rated higher on wholistic map score,
  but not on analytical score.
• Language scores improved for both language
  training group and VPS group.
• Evidence for mental model development

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Movements of a dyslexic child in VPS.
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Movements of a normal child in VPS.
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Same, showing underwater navigation skill.
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Project Multi-User VR at Big Beef Creek (BBC).
GIS course.
Two students visit Big Beef Creek to plan
their field work and leave messages. (As many as
9 students can work together.)
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Selecting sites to sample at BBC
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Sampling in the field using GPS and measuring
devices.
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Project Islandwood Environmental Education
Center.
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Islandwood

• Children, mostly from the inner city, visit for a
  week to study science in the field.
• Completely self-sustaining facility.
• Formal (and appropriately opportunistic)
  curriculum.
• Technology
• Mobile - PDAs
• Lab for analysis and experiments.
• Close ties to teacher preparation program.

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Extensive field work
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PDAs extend lab. into the field.
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Summary Design

• Use student-centered strategies to turn
  information into knowledge and wisdom.
• Relate to prior knowledge and experience.
• Dont expect novices to become experts
  immediately
• Relate classroom, context, and application.
• Provide guidance and scaffolding. (Mayer, 2004)
• Distribute cognition over machines and other
  people to reduce cognitive load.

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Summary Assessment

• Do students need to learn or just find
  information?
• Standard techniques tests, etc.
• Test in context for application and transfer.
• Performance
• Knowledge
• Monitor while they learn
• Event logs
• Think-alouds, video
• Have them explain to others.

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Current and coming state of affairs.

• The growing reach and transparency of information
  technology.
• The merging of technologies, their symbol
  systems.
• Their acceptance as a matter of course.
• The inequality of access, within and among
  nations.
• The merging of human minds, bodies and
  information technologies.
• Two examples.

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New technologies allow observation of
student-Umwelt coupling directly. Hoffmans
MRI-friendly VR system.
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New technologies allow observation of
student-Umwelt coupling directly.
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The Post-Human condition.

• Ours are chameleon minds, factory-primed to merge
  with what they find and with what they themselves
  create What matters most is our endless weaving
  of biotechnological webs the constant two-way
  traffic between biological wetware and tools,
  media, props, and technologies. The very best of
  these resources are not so much used as
  incorporated into the user. They fall into place
  as aspects of the thinking process. They have the
  power to transform our sense of self, of
  location, of embodiment, and our own mental
  capacities. They impact who, what and where we
  are.
• Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborgs.

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Questions. billwinn_at_u.washington.edu http//hitl.
washington.edu http//www.psmem.org