A Learning Theory for the Net Generation

Marie Sontag, PhDCLMS Monterey, CA Dec. 2008

Can you guess what this puzzle says?

Go to this URL to put the puzzle together: http://tinyurl.com/6r29n4

What do you think this means?

Educational (Instructional) Technology Magnifies and Mirrors Pedagogy

Instructional technology can only mirror (reflect)

and/or magnify our pedagogy.

If our pedagogy is good, then instructional technology will make it even better. If our pedagogy is poor, then our ed tech will only make it worse. Sound pedagogy must come first!

Sound pedagogy must come first!

What is Pedagogy?

The method and practice of teaching

The art or science of being a teacher

The correct use of teaching strategies for a given group of students

Do you have a favorite?

i.e. - Tell/Show/Try/Do

- Activate/Acquire/Apply

- Hook/Book/Look/Took

http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/6013C7E5CC1?z=10&m=DF2509AC180CWhat is the best strategy for your group of students?

The key is to find - - -

What is t

he best

pedagogy for

the N

et Genera

tion?

Paradigm Shifts in Culture and Pedagogy

A paradigm is a pattern or typical example. We have experienced at least three major paradigm shifts in culture and education.

Industrial Age - 1820

1. Agrarian Age

1st Paradigm Shift in Culture and Pedagogy

The first paradigm shift, from the agrarian age to the industrial age, placed a greater emphasis on standardization, centralized control, autocratic decision-making, and conformity (Reigeluth 1999). Education followed suit with an emphasis on rote memory, direct instruction, and behaviorist learning strategies that emphasized repetition and reinforcement as the learner responded to specific stimuli.

Agrarian Age Industrial Age - 1820-1950’s

2nd Paradigm Shift in Culture and Pedagogy

In the 1950’s, when the number of white collar workers in the US began to exceed blue collar workers, we moved into the Information Age.

2. Industrial Age - 1820 to late 1950’s

Information Age – 1950’s to 1990’s

2nd Paradigm Shift in Culture and Pedagogy

2. Industrial Age - 1820 to late 1950’s Information Age – 1950’s to 1990’s

Education in the Industrial Age - standardization- conformity- centralized control- repetition and reinforcement

Education in the Information Age - standardization- repetition and reinforcement- behavioral objectives- systems approach to instruction

3rd Paradigm Shift in Culture and Pedagogy

3. Information Age – 1950’s-1990’s

Education in the Information Age - standardization- repetition and reinforcement- 1970’s, cognitivism (psychology of 1950’s)- internal mental representations(Gagne, Bruner, Piaget - cognitivim)

Education in the Connected (Digital) Age - standardization- repetition and reinforcement-cognitivism- 1990’s, constructivism & situativityConnected* (Digital) Age – 1990’s-

present

*Zelenka, 2007

Paradigm Shifts – Education Always a Step Behind

and continue to use Information Age strategies in the Connected Age (behaviorism,

We continued to use Industrial Age instructional strategies in the Information Age… (behaviorism)

cognitivism, constructivism, often in isolation)

2

The Blind Men and the Elephantby John Godfrey Saxe

behaviorism cognitivism

constructivism

situativity

A Learning Theory for the Net Generation – SCCS Social and Cognitive-Connectedness Schemata

Premise 1: Today’s students have a new:

1. Social-connectedness schema

2. Cognitive-connectedness schema

A Learning Theory for the Net Generation – SCCS Social and Cognitive-Connectedness Schemata

Premise 2: Students’ immersion in the digital (connected) age has contributed to changes in their social and cognitive-connectedness schemata. Daniel Pink (2005) calls it the “Revenge of the Right Brain”.

Information Age Connected Age

Today’s students “do not just think about different things, they actually think differently” (Prensky 2001, 42).

SCCS: Students’ New Social-Connectedness Schema

1. Link

2. Lurk

3. Lunge

SCCS: Students’ New Social-Connectedness Schema

1. Link – Students link up with others who have the digitalknowledge they would

like to obtain.

SCCS: Students’ New Social-Connectedness Schema

2. Lurk – Students “lurk” or observe the digitalexpertise of others. Notice the circled teen’s face in this picture.What doyou thinkhe’s lookingat?

SCCS: Students’ New Social-Connectedness Schema

3. Lunge – Students lunge at new technology. They eagerly jump in to try new things, usually without reading a manual.

SCCS: Students’ New Cognitive-Connectedness Schema

1. Digital navigation literacy

2. Preference for interactive, discovery-based learning

3. A desire to make reasoned judgments based on their exploration of digital resources

SCCS: Students’ New Cognitive-Connectedness Schema

1. Digital navigation literacy: includes a variety of technical, cognitive, social and emotional skills, as well as the ability to think visually, and develop a sense of how to navigate the hypertext environment of the Internet” (Berger 2007, ¶1, 3).

Due to the nature of the Internet, Millennials have learned to "search for, rather than simply look at, information" (Tapscott 1998, 26).

SCCS: Students’ New Cognitive-Connectedness Schema

2. A preference for interactive, discovery-based learning: Technology tools such as interactive white boards appeal to students’ new cognitive-connectedness schema.

Creating “communities of practice” (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder 2002, 4), and implementing situativist (Barab and Duffy 2000) instructional strategies can also meet the needs of students’ new cognitive-connectedness schema.

SCCS: Students’ New Cognitive-Connectedness Schema

3. A desire to make reasoned judgments based on their exploration of digital resources

Final assessment projects that allow students to demonstrate what they have learned by creating a technology project will tap into students’ new cognitive-connectedness schema.

SC

CS

Inst

ruct

iona

l Des

ign

Mod

el

1. Wiggins & McTighe

2. Mayer’s SOI

3. 4C/ID Model

4. Elements of Game Design

www.timetrek.org/index2.htm

2. Mayer’s SOI

3. 4C/ID Model

4. Elements of Game Design

www.timetrek.org/index2.htm

ww

w.ti

met

rek.

org/

inde

x2.h

tm

http://timetrek-sontag.blogspot.com/

ReferencesBarab, S., and T. Duffy. 2000. From practice fields to communities of practice. In Theoretical foundations of learning environments,

ed. D. Jonassen and S. Land, 25-55. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Berger, P. 2007. Learning in the Web 2.0 world. [Weblog entry, April 2007.] Infosearcher. http://infosearcher.typepad.com/infosearcher/2007/04/learning_in_the.html (accessed October 31, 2008). Archived at http://www.webcitation.org/5c47GndYr.

Pink, D. 2005. Revenge of the Right Brain. Wired Magazine. 13 (2). http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/brain.html (accessed December 3, 2008 ).

Prensky, M. 2001. Digital game-based learning. NY: McGraw-Hill.

Reigeluth, C. 1999. What is instructional-design theory and how is it changing? In Instructional design theories and models, vol. 2, ed. C. Reigeluth, 5-29. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Schaller, D., and S. Allison-Bunnell. 2003. Practicing what we teach: How learning theory can guide development of online educational activities. Paper presented at Museums and the Web 2003, Charlotte, NC, March. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2003/papers/schaller/schaller.html (accessed March 31, 2008). Archived at http://www.webcitation.org/5WkUc0MF3.

Tapscott, D. 1998. Growing up digital: The rise of the net generation. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Wenger, E., R. McDermott, and W. Snyder. 2002. Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business Press. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=m1xZuNq9RygC&dq=communities+of+practice&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=ZS3aeLdbeZ&sig=p6W2-FexFmrHxMbM-mCkbPFPszw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result - PPA4,M1 (accessed November 9, 2008.

Zelenka, A. 2007. From the information age to the connected age. [Weblog entry, October 6.] GigaOM, Giga Omni Media. http://gigaom.com/2007/10/06/from-the-information-age-to-the-connected-age/ (accessed November 1, 2008).