Every time I read one of these articles I am so glad that I teach children and not adults. My goodness these articles are dry! Education-ese is not easy to digest. I learn best by doing and watching. Reading is last on the list and non-engaging reading is even farther down the list. Not that you picked bad articles Kevin. It’s just all that way for me.
I don’t see a lot of difference in many of these teaching styles we’ve covered. It seems that PBI and PBL are very similar to GBS except for the “expectation failure” that Schank speaks of. Since I can’t whack a kid in the back of the head when they experience an expectational failure, feedback more aligned to this teaching style would be giving examples of personal instances where similar outcomes happened in the instructors past. Since this class is concerning online modules making personal feedback difficult, and GBS is all about giving timely feedback, this would be my chance to embed videos that play instantly when a learner makes an incorrect choice. I could dress up like a crotchety old woman and scratch out my favorite words, “Why Sonny, back in my day, we (fill in the blank) and WE LIKED IT! Now come over here by old granny and listen to what you should have done.” Or maybe I could rig up the computer to give the kid a mild electrical shock when they make an expectational failure. That way the learning could be categorized two ways, one as what worked/didn’t work, and one Pavlovian. Oh the possibilities!
I liked having the examples much more that having to read the 2nd and 3rd articles. I felt a little suicidal trying to get through them, but regained my lust for life when I got to the sickle cell module. (That’s weird!!)
I would love to create modules like that but would want/need help to get them done.
I don’t know about you, but bring back the ability for teachers to whack and shock as needed.
I used to tell me students I was going to get the seats of their chairs hot wired so they’d all be attentive… all the time.
(Totally and completely kidding!)
But still – I’m with you on the articles.
And thank you for your comment on my post!
LOL Too funny. I’m SO glad you regained your lust for life.
I do I agree with you about the dryness factor for some of the articles, but I did appreciate some of the approaches and findings in the text. During my undergrad days as a Biology student, I spent a semester searching for and reading research articles on the Ebola virus. After reading those, these articles seem so much more appealing.
I also agree that the complexity of some of the modules would mean that some instructors would need some assistance or special software outside of your basic Dreamweaver or free website tool. That probably would take some effort. However, I do think some of those complex modules could have been created using basic tools and possibly could have been much more user-friendly.
LOL (literally!) I agree with you on the articles…I have been struggling to get them all because they are just so dry! (Sorry Dr. Oliver!) Each week I try to do additional research to find info on the week’s theory so that I can find explanations in layman’s terms. Like you said, the Education-ese gets to me after while.
As for the design of the courses, that’s what we Instructional Designers are for! We’re here to assist instructors in taking their curricula and making awesome multimedia out of it. I know most teachers don’t have the luxury of having an Instructional Designer on hand, so there’s definitely a need for assistance at the elementary-high school levels.