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Commentary: Technology-Based Instruction: Proceed Without Systematic Planning At Your Own Risk
In 1994, Rebecca Barr and I published an article in The Community College Review. In it we looked at curriculum and planning at a community college, focusing on the strategies employed by vocational and arts and letters instructors. While up front planning has always been important to educators, it is even more critical today, five years later. Why? Technology is almost too good for our own good. Both potent and seductive, technology can lure instructors towards it, allowing them to be distracted from their ongoing and pivotal role in education and performance improvement. Threaded discussions is an example that comes to mind. I was immediately attracted to the opportunities afforded for continuous reflection, discussion, and community building. In my initial view, all I needed to do was to seed the discussion with questions, a case, or a problem, and my graduate students in educational technology would do the rest. Not exactly. Not only do my students haltingly participate, and they’re not the only ones, they don’t like it unless they are truly geographically distant. Much of the literature puzzles on this topic. For those eager to see more learner centered options where time and place are reduced to bit players, technology does have much to offer. But there is a down side that deserves our attention. In the good old days, effective instructors in the classroom fixed any lessons that had bad aim, and encouraged students whose interest flagged. When people are learning on the web, however, who is around to tweak the lesson, add an example, coach a slower student, or tailor a case or problem? When the programs miss the target, users can and will elect to disappear, taking advantage of the freedom afforded by technology-based training. There is literature (see Williams (1996), for example, in David Jonassen’s Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology) that questions the ability of all to profit from independent learning, pointing to students who have had school success as most able in independent circumstances. Currently, technology-based learning programs are available with whatever scope, sensitivity, and trajectory their designers built in when initially introduced. All this brings us back to analysis because that is where instructors can gain the wisdom they need to anticipate their students’ reactions to the technology-based materials. During analysis, we define and tailor efforts. Hard decisions must be made about the nature of the audience and need, the heart of the subject matter, what’s in and what’s out, identifying which information resources, not education, are appropriate, and how ready, willing, and eager the students will be. What sources should we turn to as we attempt to make these decisions? What questions should we ask? What strategies should we use to gather this data? Should we do analyses that vary depending on the nature of the subject matter or student? Where can we shave time off the planning process? Is it really education and training that will make a difference? Contact: |
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