LXD readings

1/24 Ambrose: Upon first glance, content is presented in a fairly common format: a principle or claim is made and various case studies are offered to back up the claim. The use of the anecdotes at the beginning of the chapter was interesting when compared to the research used to support the principle; throughout the chapter, Ambrose would ask the reader to recall the anecdotal situation and suggest how findings from more controlled research can be applied, bridging the gap often found between research and application. The anecdotes act as a good framing device, offering up situations that educators may often find themselves in. As they read the chapter, they have a better idea of how and in what situations are the principles applicable.

Dirksen: I appreciated the scenario exercise at the end of the chapter. I was to test my understanding of the reading. Often times I find it easy enough to read and remember most of the content but applying information isn’t as easy. At this point, it feels a bit awkward to rattle off the various types of gaps, but it providers an easy first step to understanding the learning problem space.

1/31 Dirksen:

• important to note the learner’s motivation (intrinsic v. extrinsic)
• learning can be structured as “low investment that has a huge return;” don’t ask for right answers but for wrong answers
• novice → expert learner // “lots of guidance” → “full autonomy” suggests increasing intrinsic motivation
• use of scaffolds: 1. reduce complexity (e.g. in rowing, learn on ergs first) 2. walkthrough (pick drill, tanks) 3. provide support (varsity helping at novice practice, experienced stroke seat)
• facilitator v. lecture model seemed a bit problematic; facilitator model seems to require low student to instructor ration (flipped classroom model seems to fall under this model). Lecture model’s success heavily relies intrinsic motivation, whether it is innate within learner or to be fostered by lecturer. I would argue that the two models aren’t mutually exclusive and that there’s a happy medium, smaller lectures where instructors switch between facilitating and lecturing.
• instead of “facilitator,” think of it as two way communication: use learner feedback to branch path/separate into silos for more personalized content
• intelligence/learning style inventories apparently lack strong scientific research, which I find kind of comforting because I’ve always been skeptical. It’s good to know maybe what medium one learns best through but it really shouldn’t be a hard and fast rule. The type of content, learning objectives, and content are just as important in determining the best medium. More than anything, variety and constant reinforcement seem to be more important.
• talk to learners, follow them, and prototype– I laughed a bit reading this because I feel like most e-learning modules really don’t do this. I haven’t had a ton of experience using or making them but most seem to be general purpose tools for instructors to create their own lesson plans. Unfortunately, due to their experience (mostly in person, classroom environment teaching) and lack of resources and time, e-learning modules tend to be lacking.
• problem v. goal: identify the gap (knowledge, skill, motivation, environment, communication) gap ⇆ objective
• map goals to measurable actions
• WHY do learners need to know something?
• identifying gap allows for more context in creating solution and a more targeted and effective solution
• breaking problem down and translating into learner objective is helpful; would do (practicality, build motivation) v. can tell (measurability, assessment)

• I liked that the two scales could combine on axes to create allow for more nuanced understanding of mastery. I also liked that Bloom’s taxonomy could be reversed in terms of the order of learning. I’m a bit confused between apply and create, though. Is it like apply is filling out a worksheet and create is actually conducting a lab experiment? Levels of agency and responsibility in a learning situation?
• 1. Focusing objective/Instructional design objective (high level goals) 2. Performance objective/Instructional evaluation objective (evaluation, grading rubric)
• fast/slow learning and foundation (really hard to move, slow moving prior knowledge of sorts)

2/7 Ambrose:

• How to represent content — information architecture
• Flexibility of knowledge related to how one organizes info (mental models) and depth of knowledge; deep functional model
• Organization should be based on method of measurement/evaluation
• Organized information → Mental model
• Knowing learning goals (evaluation) influences framework to organize info in
• Experts tend to organize around “meaningful features and abstract principles”
• Associations made based on patterns: temporal contiguity (flipping switch → light), similar meaning (equality and fairness), perceptual similarities (shape of ball and globe)
• Organizational structures will be well matched or poorly matched to a situation (e.g. recognize vs recall vs integrate & use usage cases)
• Type of activities and experiences learners engage in will influence mental model development
• Number or density of connections among concepts, facts, skills, etc point to mastery level
• More nodes linked in a simple chain (B), slower/difficult to navigate/retrieve

• Chunking improves memory, offers categorizing information to assist in memorization
• Advance organizer (principles/propositions that provide cognitive structure to guide new information incorporation) improve learning gains
• Expert ability to classify information related to ability to recognize meaningful patterns
• Provide learners with appropriate organizing schemes or teach how to abstract relevant principles
• Experts should create concept map to analyze own knowledge organization
• Identify tasks more appropriate to knowledge organization
• Explicitly display course/lecture/lab/discussion organization
• Contrasting/edge cases highlight certain organizational features
• Highlight deep features (point out patterns) and explicitly state connections
• Work with different organizing structures (deeper understanding)
• Learners that draw map can expose own thinking/understanding
• Review/understand learner progress to highlight issues in their understanding

Dirksen:

• Memory is encoding and retrieval (sounds a lot like coding dictionaries/lists)
• Sensory memory → Short term (working memory) → Long term
• Sensory memory subject to habituation/blindness
• Have to be deliberate and meaningful with usage of consistency; could end up being too much (blindness) or too little (extra cognitive load)
• Decisions are based often on long and short term (quickly discarded) information
• Factors that affect retention: unusual info, important info, familiar format
• Supposedly 7±2 objects in working memory but dependent on said factors
• Chunking organizes info, easier to information
• If overload working memory –/→ long term memory
• Encode info with associations for later retrieval (shelf metaphor)
• “Poorly constructed shelves” lack strong associations (prior knowledge?)
• “Crowded shelves” not well organized; not deep understanding
• In context learning results into stronger shelves (physical/environmental or emotional (pressure, awkwardness, etc.)
• Recognize vs recall vs integrate & use; evaluation should reflect one of these usages
• Declarative (facts, ideas) vs episodic (event specific) vs conditioned (Pavlov) vs procedural (1, 2, 3…) vs flashbulb (emotionally charged)
• Episodic memory works bc we have a framework for stories, is sequenced (method of organization), had characters (memorable, good for shelves)
• Conditioned responses are implicit memory (not explicit, not directly retrievable)
• Automated procedural related to muscle memory (really jut no noticeable conscious effort)
• Flashbulb recollect a lot at a certain moment, filter of working memory opens up, take in a lot more info
• Repetition allows for stronger connections in brain but
• Blunt memorization is lacking bc only one shelf, lacks context, is sequential (not random access)

2/9 Ambrose

• Developing mastery requires learning skills, integrating them, and knowing when to apply said skills
• Unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, unconscious competence
• Expert blindness needs to be accounted for
• Seemingly simple tasks (e.g. analyze case study) comprised of many skills (problem framing, solutioning, calculating strategy, evaluating)
• Unpack/decompose complex tasks to teach learners
• Next step is to “recompose” skills into contextual practice
• Not all cognitive load reductions are effective/efficient, depends on learning goal
• Near (stats in stats class) vs far transfer (stats in public policy class)
• Explicit explanations of purpose are often necessary
• TA, colleague, non SME, etc can help eliminate expert blind spot
• Learners should focus on key aspects of task (reason for learning)
• Isolate practice of weak/missing skills, can decrease cognitive load
• Discuss conditions of applicability to help with transfer
• Ask learners to generalize to larger principles (expert mental model of larger conceptual groups)

Dirksen

• Haight suggests brain is like rider (conscious, controlled thought) and elephant (gut, visceral, emotion, intuition) fight for control
• Self control is finite and limited; can’t control the elephant nonstop
• Can also try to attract and engage elephant; appeal to gut, visceral, etc.
• Stories are good tools (shelves, logical flow, suspense, not boring)
• Make the learner the hero (show before/after–how learner will change, concrete outcomes/achievements)
• Create urgency through a compelling story, showing (not telling)/context, constrain time/resource, immediacy, interesting dilemmas, talk about actual consequences (a lot of context building)
• Constrain time/resources, immediacy other forms of urgency
• Interesting dilemmas (good/good, bad/bad, good/better/best, mix of good/bad options)
• emphasize consequences
• Decisions are never truly rational; emotions help make decisions by providing greater context
• Unexpected rewards, dissonance (purple dog), curiosity (clickbait) create emotional response
• Ask interesting questions, be mysterious, leave information out, be unhelpful (to an appropriate extent)
• Social learning: collaboration, social proof (others are doing it), competition (problems: not everyone is competitive, emphasis on winning, not good long term strategy)
• Visuals: intention of visual (decorative, progression, conceptual/metaphorical), lighten cognitive load, build shelves (periodic table), provide context (scenario, emotional), contextual trigger (see a, think b)
• Engage other senses, use humor (subjective), offer prizes/rewards
• Extrinsic rewards can demotivate (becomes work), focus on stating intrinsic rewards (though intrinsic is personal)’

2/21

Dirksen

• By having learners work backwards, learners can activate and catalog existing shelves, deepen/strengthen channels
• Awareness of own knowledge allows for missing from solving a problem; recognize gaps
• Content less easy to understand, force learners to actively reconcile misconceptions, create friction allows for more effective learning; active engagement and/or interest (intrinsic/extrinsic motivation)
• Showing allows for learners to draw conclusions from result by themselves, as opposed to telling (no friction)
• Understanding requires right amount of content, just enough content, relevance, fitting into existing closet (with some minor change)
• Combat misconceptions with examples and counter-examples
• Guidance can’t be too easy (step by step), no learning
• Guidance should allow learner to apply knowledge in multiple circumstance, troubleshoot, and be confident
• Concept → example lacks context for concepts to live within, example → concept exercises contextual application
• Giving just enough information, slightly less, allows learners to independently identify gaps
• Confidence and independence are related; actual tasks (not exercises), early success, working on personal problems/contexts, allowing to practice by themselves
• Context, challenge, activity, feedback
• Context: general context, emotional context, cause/effect context (what are triggers, hints), physical context (resources, interactions)
• Challenge should be appropriate real world challenge that learner would realistically encounter
• Activity can be pre-activity (e.g. before main activity bring in examples from own life/work), e-learning, role play, blended learning, follow up activity/job aids (extend life span of learning)

Ambrose

• Too many specific learning goals aimed at one goal (e.g. practice policy memo, brief, editorial writing for sake of general writing) results in lowered performance
• Learners often need significantly more guidance and structure than expected
• Time is often biggest constraint, focus on efficiency, which feedback can aid
• Goal-directed practice couple with targeted feedback are critical
• Practice (brings learner closer to goal) provides observable performance (based on goals) which allows for targeted feedback (shaped by goals) which is reapplied in practice
• Observable performance is opportunity to gather information, targeted feedback becomes a set of parameters/triggers
• Practice should focus on a specific goal, be of an appropriate challenge level, and be of sufficient quantity and frequency
• Goal centric practice is more efficient, more likely to be observable performance, smaller gap to bridge
• Difficulty– Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development: optimal level of challenge is a task that cannot be performed alone but can be successfully done with the help of another or a group
• Right level of challenge is a key predictor of flow (level of active engagement & deep enjoyment)
• If no rest is given, learner will take a break anyway
• Sufficient practice deepens & strengthens connections

• Early and late phase can be susceptible to drop off
• Measures that are commonly used such as accuracy tend to be less sensitive at extremes; instructors need to provide refined and appropriate goals and criteria
• Effective feedback: what learners are/are not understanding, where performance is good/bad, how to move forward
• Formative feed back given to provide insight on how to move forward, more effective than summative, given at end like grade
• Formative more likely to show than summative, timing also important
• Space must be given to practice feedback (e.g. rewriting essay)
• List of strategies

1/28 Dirksen:

• Skill = something that requires practice
• Practice and feedback allow for developing a skill
• Either give space to practice or learner ends up practicing on the spot (see: confluence pitching)

• Perfectly linear x=y would be too simple, risk of boring learner quickly; constant uphill of learning is exhausting
• Information needs to be spread out, learner will take their own breaks: burn out, distracted, quit, etc
• Spaced out also allows for active feedback over time
• Distributed practice tends to allow for better retention
• Use feedback schedule as way for learners to set goals; be specific and explicit and standardize it
• Follow up coaching helps move learner forward
• Repeatedly practicing skills leads to automation, introduce new challenges to fail skill, create need to learn again
• Short term goals and long term goals should be related

Ambrose

• Motivation is a “personal investment that an individual has in reaching a desired state or outcome”
• Motivation “generates, directs, and sustains what [learners] do to learn”
• Learners need to understand value of content (subjective value of a goal) and feel able to succeed (expectations of attaining goal)

• Goals act as compass
• Learner goals and instructor goals may be mismatched; aligning goals is necessary
• Performance-approach goals focus on attaining competence by meeting normative goals, while performance-avoidance goals focus on avoiding incompetence; different cognitive frameworks
• Learning goals tend to result in deeper understanding than performance goals
• Work avoidant goals mean most time efficient and low effort result; little interest in learning but also may be context specific
• Fulfilling multiple goals may result in higher motivation, goals can also be at odds with each other (becomes a judgement call)
• Subjective value, a goals importance, influences the motivation to pursue said goal
• Attainment value (satisfaction from completion of goal), intrinsic value (satisfaction from doing task, not completion, tied to intrinsic motivation), instrumental value (degree a goal accomplishes another goal, often one with extrinsic rewards (money, praise, etc))
• Learners must hold positive outcome expectancies
• Efficacy expectancies mean learner believes they are capable
• Success attributed to internal or controllable causes means likely to expect future success
• Failure often results in lowered motivation, but being able to explain failure though controllable or temporary causes can remedy loss
• Environments exist on a spectrum of supportive to unsupportive

• Rejecting learners are prone to disengaging, apathy, passivity, alienation, anger; supportive environment becomes pressure
• Evading learners are often distracted and perform minimum amounts of work
• Low confidence in an unsupportive environment results in hopeless, little expectation for success and low motivation; supportive environment results in fragile, often value task and want to succeed, but seek to protect self esteem (excuses, denial, avoiding difficulties)
• Defiant sees value and has confidence but lack support; support creates motivated learner
• Have to address multiple dimensions to ensure success
• Connect material to learner interests; provide real, contextual tasks; awareness of learner’s priorities, connect instructor goals to student goals; identify value and reward instances of value; alignment of objectives, assessments, and instructional strategies;
• appropriate challenge of material and evaluation exercises; offer early success opportunities; clear expectations/goals and feedback, can be in the form of a rubric; discuss success vs. failure
• offer study strategies; empower learner with flexibility and control and opportunity to reflect.

3/7

Dirksen

• Motivation to do differs from motivation to learn
• People have difficulties comparing immediate & delayed consequences
• Technology acceptance model examines variables that affect whether or not someone adopts new tech
• Is new behavior genuinely useful? How will the learner know? Is it easy to use? If not, can something be done?
• Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations: relative advantage (perceived improvement over existing product), compatibility (to existing values, past experiences, needs of potential adopters), complexity (perceived difficulty of use), observability (of results to others), trialability (ability to experiment on trial basis)
• Are learners going to believe new system is better? Compatibility issues? Reduce complexity? Chance to see it used? Try it out themselves? Opportunity for success?
• Support for self efficacy is important
• Learning from direct experience (building/creating habits) is effective
• Social proof requires the target audience to care about the “social”
• Visceral experiences sway opinions
• Changing behavior is a process and require reinforcement

Ambrose

• Intellectual learning is affected by social and emotional factors
• Chickering model of development contains seven dimensions or vectors: Developing competence (intellectual, physical, interpersonal), Managing emotions (awareness, management, expression), Developing autonomy (emotional and instrumental independence), Establishing identity, Freeing interpersonal relationships, Developing purpose (who am I → who am I going to be), Developing integrity (self interest vs social responsibility)
• Early stages of reasoning tend to be binary, a duality; right v wrong, absolute; eventually leads to multiplicity, learning becomes personal; relativism involves matching evidence to opinions, not all opinions are equal; commitment to an understanding/opinion is last
• In regards to minorities, developmental stages are naive (lacking recognition), acceptance of certain messages, resistance (develop awareness, shame/guilt in majority parties, pride in minorities), immersion (preference for socializing with similar identities), disintegration (minorities question societal oppression, majority feels overwhelmed), redefinition/internalization (less anger, move past dominant/minority dichotomy)
• Climate is a spectrum: explicitly marginalizing, implicitly marginalizing, implicitly centralizing, explicitly centralizing
• A chilled climate will affect performance esp self reported
• Stereotype threat is fulfillment of stereotype due to tension of being judged/compared to a certain stereotype; can be cognitive or motivational
• Tone, punitive/encouraging, will affect learner’s perception of instructor, may be less likely to reach out
• Perception of instructor involvement or availability affects learner retainment
• Content can represent dominant voice, token perspective, or inclusive/transformed curriculum; affect identity development
• Make uncertainty safe; there is no singular right answer
• Examine assumptions about students (blockbusting)
• Model inclusive language, behavior, attitudes
• Use multiple and diverse examples