Meta-Analysis and Problem Processing

Computers in Education

"..if we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow." John Dewey

    Look (Concepts)

    After the study of many chapters, it is time to conceptually summarize the whole of the prior investigation of cyberspace including the work's use of different learning theories and the new principles and tools for thinking provided by cyberspace. The interface between our intellectual biology and our tools links in many ways. As in the above image, this is beginning to occur at even the cellular level. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Where can our heightened perspective take us?

    Learning Theory

    The ideas and experiences provided by this online book have drawn most heavily on the learning theories of Vygotsky and social cognition, constructivism, neuroscience, Piagetian theory, brain-based learning, learning styles theory, and communities of practice. You may find it an interesting challenge before you read further to review the linked summaries of these learning theories and to try to find the relationship of the parts of each one to different concepts and activities of the curriculum of this experience.

    Social cognition

    I accept with Vygotsky that culture teaches children both what to think and how to think. As cyberspace culture has grown, so has the culture's tendency to set teaching standards that pass this knowledge along. However, every theory has its missing link, its inherent blind spot. Vygotsky's model suggests an underlying linear model of relationships. In this view culture models behaviors, and hires administrators who hire teachers who teach children who grow up to continue the culture. Because of its linear blind spot the theory fails to complete the relationship. How did the culture get there in the first place? How does it change? What I find missing from Vygotsky and other learning theories with their emphasis on individuals and groups is a reflection on and an understanding about the dual nature of the relationship between a culture and its members. Cultures learn too. Cultures can be taught. We, all of us, teach the culture to various degrees. Different cultures do a better or poorer job of accepting this teaching by its members. Culture teaches children and children grow up to teach the culture new discoveries that change the culture. This pattern is a nonlinear model, in particular a recursive one. A widespread understanding of the models of nonlinearity is one of the great missing links of our culture. At its core, nonlinearity introduces a new and well defined set of models for one of the most critical facets of teaching and learning, interaction. However, in depth exploration of nonlinearity goes beyond the reach of this publication.

    What causes cultures to change? Among many factors, cultures change based on the inventiveness of its members, on their degree of caring for each other and their sense of responsibility for that culture. Over the history of the human race, one of the most significant inventions has been our various systems of expression. Systems of expression must also be thought of as tools for thinking. These systems of expression have not only changed culture, and changed our cognition but it can be argued that over time they have even changed our biology down to the depth of our genetic code. Accepting evolutionary theory, one can conjecture that the first systems of human culture were dependent on perceiving smells and communication by sound and by a gesture of hand and body movement. There would have been a time in which the sense of smell was perhaps our dominant sense, not vision. Then, at some forever unknowable date millions or tens of thousands of years back in human history, speech was invented and vocabulary began to grow. Speech is an incredibly fluid and changeable technology. As we wrestle with new and undefined problems, humans invent new words to have a way to be able to retain and examine an idea and to better solve a problem. Language is still being invented today. The very nature of growth in the nest of neurons in our brain has led to explosive developments, some so striking that they are visible in archeological record. During the "great leap forward"  around 50,000 years ago the first cave paintings, statues, musical instruments and more began to appear.

    Other intellectual changes have been much hard to see. Geneticists studying the vast amount of data that computers have helped assemble from the human genome project find that humans have around a thousands genes for the sense of smell. Further, a large percentage of these genes have decayed, that inactive material has filled in parts of these gene sequences.  Language development and other factors including a likely increase in the importance of vision may have led to the demotion of our sense of smell. Because of our ability to talk, groups could more safely enter larger open spaces with its members more widely dispersed which could have led to an increased importance of vision. What actually happened is open to speculation. What can be said is that our inventiveness in creating new tools for thinking led to changes in not only our cognitive ability and in our creation, but also in the biological core of our DNA. These intellectual tools, of oral composition and more, were used by people to teach their culture how to move to much higher levels of social development.

    The very meaning of history is dependent on the invention of another technology for thinking, visible composition, the recording of an image. People's recording on stone led to inventions to make compositions more portable, leading to the use of skins and then paper. From these images came ever smaller and more flexible sets of symbols. Eventually these symbols come to stand for words and then letters. The earliest known alphabet appears with the Cannannites in 2000 B.C. It has been well established that as cultures and individuals move from oral and nonliterate to written and literate status, the patterns of talking and thinking change. Writing and reading changed the cognition of cultures as well as individuals.  Important facts could be stored for long periods of time. Higher and more complex levels of thinking could occur. However, reliance on personal memory and the social patterns that reinforced memory went the same way as the sense of smell.

    In the last one hundred years numerous new technologies for expression were invented, refined and then stored using a variety of media: radio, photography, film, television and so forth. Today, all those technologies and media can be managed by one technology or media, computer technology. The focus of this online book has been an examination of this latest cognitive and culture changing technology. We have found that the computer technology enables us to manage and work better with many basic facts once managed by the old technology (paper). But computer technology also enables us to more clearly handle and plan for the next level of thinking, to plan for and carry out procedures. Computers can handle not only many simple procedures but many complex ones as well. This enables individuals to focus on other important elements of problem processing, such as finding the problem or question in the first place. It is unclear what cognitive changes in learning are taking place and what cognitive skills are being lost with these latest developments. However, numerous new social organizations and structures are being built on this cyberspace foundation. In summary, our inventiveness can change us from our social systems to our genetic code.

     Part of helping culture change is finding and better supporting the new forms of expression that enable new ways to understand and progress. Some tools enable us to teach and express what we could not before and use some concepts that cannot be so easily expressed in other tools. Mathematics is a longstanding example of this. Most recently, the concept of nonlinearity and the interactions that are part of mathematics has provided fresh insight and revelation into the nature of change. Cyberspace technologies were essential to the discoveries in nonlinearity. Cyberspace technology has enhanced all prior media in numerous ways. But its real contribution lies elsewhere.

    Cyberspace's major new contribution to human expression has been what are called programming languages. Fifty years after the creation of programmable computers, their educational integration is still reserved for specialized classes, for specialists. This knowledge is critical to the composition and understanding of numerous types of procedures as well as the invention of new procedures. This includes both programming in software as well as in electronic design. We should not be surprised that this change has come so slowly. It was thousands of years after the invention of alphabet and text literacy that universal text literacy was widely considered both an important and reachable goal and this has only been in the last century. What is interesting is that the "computer literacy" standards of many of the state curriculums in the United States I have seen to date do not include even introductory exposure to programming concepts. Some other countries are adding cyberspace knowledge to their national curriculums that includes programming. The effort to teach and change the culture in this regard is clearly in its earliest stages.

    Observational learning theory

    With Bandura and observational learning theory, I accept the need for models, especially models for learning and problem solving that can be easily recalled and called into the action of thinking. The CROP model represents  a streamlined and therefore more memorable model of the problem processing procedure. With each chapter of study, different elements of a model for problem processing were introduced, explored and experienced. The CROP model has three major branches of which two, Problem Sharing and Problem Solving are the direct action phases of the model. The third branch, Think, offers numerous models for higher order thinking, which acts as a kind of quality control on the two branches of problem processing actions.

    Review. Which model for higher order thinking has been adopted by the state of North Carolina? How do its steps compare with the five step model taught in this class? What are those steps are levels of thinking? Beyond the higher order models, what were the other three categories of higher order thinking provided in the THINK section of the model? Can you give an example of a teaching activity that would support each of these other three categories?

    The Sharing phase of the CROP model was invoked in several ways. Every week participants were asked to create questions for themselves in their online notebooks, pages open to sharing by anyone in the course, providing questions that would also be used to contribute to team questions and problem solving through the SUP database.

    Review. Describe four models or systems of interaction used and/or demonstrated in these chapters and their assignments.

    The Solving phase of the model provided the structure for the organization and problem solving of every chapter: Look for information; Evoke a response through the selection of some type of composition or editing tool and then complete a personal composition; Assess progress through different forms of feedback; and Publish or Perform the type of composition that was finished. In each of these four stages or steps, additional models and and numerous tools and sub-procedures are provided.

    Review. How many categories of composition tools are listed in the Internet and Desktop tools part of the Evoke section? Which has more?

    Communities in practice theory

    The question ambassador (QA) work brings the CROP model to a level of great social power. This level of use of the CROP model is allied with John Seely Brown and others at work in developing Communities in Practice theory. "People organize their learning around the social communities to which they belong. Schools are only powerful learning environments for students whose social communities coincide with that school." The power of this social interaction depends on the quality of the question(s) that students bring or recognize from their community and their degree of interest in doing real care for their community. Are they trivial recall questions? Are they more interesting higher order thinking questions? Are they questions of real importance to the community member and the community at large? But this community service process takes time. It takes time to build trust in sharing questions and it takes time to realize an individuals questions deserve the pursuit of others. Like all brainstorming processes, the easy ideas, like easy questions, come out first. It will take a while before the question askers dig into deeper questions. Communities in Practice theory addresses the blind spot in Vygotsky's perceptions and helps to create an organic set of interactions which understands the nature of nonlinear interaction.

    Constructivism

    Constructivism was invoked throughout these chapters. One of the most critical acts of teaching is the designing and planning of a course of study, building a collection of lessons into a larger whole, sometimes called a unit plan, an IEP, or a course of study. Having made such a project a central experience, every chapter expanded and enhanced the construction of a design that would have real use and value in the near future for those creating it. Constructivism shares importance elements with neuroscience theory. The more it is perceived of real use and value, the more motivational and powerful the constuction becomes. "When educators take neuroscience into account, they organize a curriculum around real experiences and integrated, "whole" ideas." Each chapter activity, such as the newsletter, played a real role in the future activities of the unit plan. Further, the CROP model provided a wholistic way to address the nature of problem solving. "Plus, they focus on instruction that promotes complex thinking and the "growth" of the brain." Both the emphasis on higher order thinking skills and the inherent complexity of working with computer applications promoted complex thinking.

    Review: Summarize the principles of constructivist thinking.

    Piagetian theory

    The challenge and newness of elements of each chapter created an environment in which troubleshooting was common. Though there were many bits of knowledge that could easily be assimilated into participants current cognitive structures maintaining "equilibrium", there were also many that were not. Greater growth in learning comes from stimulating accommodation, of achieving a loss of equilibrium which enabled the creation of more and more useful cognitive structures.

    Brain based learning

    Brain based learning was invoked in several ways, certainly by the level of challenge of the class which enfolded students in the challenge, an "orchestrated immersion". An open, friendly, encouraging teacher sought to eliminate fear and anxiety while maintaining a highly challenging situation for learning. Further, great emphasis was put on a variety of calculation, composition and communication tools and resources which emphasize spatial memory. With nearly every class session, learners used the presented information to actively process ideas, skills and procedures by trying them out with assistance in class.

    Spatial memory activities included: the web site storyboard; outlining's expand, collapse, promote, demote and move; paint and draw applications; newsletters merging text and still image; the classroom layout drawing; electronic slideshows (Powerpoint); numerous tools for capturing still images; graphing in spreadsheets; video editing and animation, 3D and virtual reality demonstrations.

    Learning style theory

    All four learning styles of learning style theory were used in course activity. There were numerous opportunities for hands-on experience and the promise of direct experience in implementing the created unit plan in the months ahead. The reflection phase was encouraged through the weekly journal and diary notes and inter-classroom team communication through the SUP database. Though basic guidelines for the unit plans were provided, there was ample requirement for conceptualization of what would occur and be used in the unit plan and lab activities. As many of the experiences were relatively new, there was much opportunity for experimentation in the context of computer technology which emphasizes and highlights the capacity to quickly make and undo changes. The online course materials themselves also included many experiential elements into the classroom, such as sound, music and visuals and a fair of amount of talking among each other to solve in-class problems. Greater activities that involve physical movement will await a time when more portable computer technology, such as hand-held computers, is available.

    Interaction theory

    Perhaps what is needed is a new and much simplified learning theory. What all these discussed learning theories share is an understanding that the nature of interaction is critically important to learning. An underlying principle can be derived from all of them that one might call interaction theory. Its directive is simple. Interact. Interact with all the depth and frequency that time will allow. The nature and products of interaction are far more complex and wondrous than most might expect (Houghton, 1989). From this view, the goal for educators is clear. The best learning situation is one in which teachers and learners build systems that maximize the frequency and depth of their interaction. This includes interaction with teacher and other learners, with curriculum materials, with oneself through reflection, and with the larger community beyond the immediate social group. Therein lies the importance of these chapters of learning. Cyberspace culture and its media provide the richest harvest yet of ways for the human species to interact.

    In light of the idea that not only does culture teach people, but people teach culture, the concept of democracy takes on new meaning.  Democracy is built on the principle that citizens have the right and the responsibility to initiate solutions to problems, to teach the culture. Hovering over all these learning theories is the refined educational philosophy of John Dewey. His writings emphasize the overarching responsibility of us all to teach others to become empowered participants in democracy. Growing democracy is one of the most important outcomes of the interaction of educated humans.
     
     

    Bibliography

    Brown, John Seely & Duguid, Paul  (1991). Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. The Institute of Management Sciences ( now INFORMS) [Online.] Retrieved on December 10, 2003 from http://www2.parc.com/ops/members/brown/papers/orglearning.html

    Huberman, Bernardo A.  & Hogg, Tad  (1995).  Communities of Practice: Performance and Evolution. Dynamics of Computation Group, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [Online.] huberman@parc.xerox.com Retrieved on December 10, 2003 from http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/62416.html

    Houghton, R. S. (1989). A Chaotic Paradigm: An Alternative World View of the Foundations of Educational Inquiry. Retrieved on November 5, 1994 from http://ceap.wcu.edu/houghton/thesisM/chaosthesis.html

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