schwartz et al

8/8/2019 Schwartz et al

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/schwartz-et-al 1/22

Software for Managing Complex Learning: Examples from an Educational Psychology CourseAuthor(s): Daniel L. Schwartz, Sean Brophy, Xiaodong Lin, John D. BransfordSource: Educational Technology Research and Development, Vol. 47, No. 2 (1999), pp. 39-59Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30221079

Accessed: 12/11/2010 11:22

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Educational Technology

Research and Development.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30221079?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp



http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30221079?origin=JSTOR-pdf




S o f t w a r e f o r Manag ing

C o m p l e x L e a r n i n g : Exampl e s f r o m a n

Educational PsychologyC o u r s e

DaonelL Schwartz

Sear Bropny

Xicodong Lin

John D Bransford

Inquiry-basednstructionincluding roblem-,

project-,ndcase-based ethodsoften ncorpo-ratecomplexetsoflearning ctivities.The

numerousctivitites un theriskof becomingdisconnectedn themindsoflearnersnd

teachers.STAR.Legacysasoftwarehell hat

canhelpdesigners rganizeearning ctivities

intoaninquiry ycle hat seasyto under-

standandpedagogicallyound.Toensure hat

classroomeachersanadapt

heinquiry

ctivi-

tiesaccordingo their ocalresourcesnd

needs,STAR.Legacyasbuiltupon our types

ofdesignprinciples:earnerentered,nowl-

edgecentered,ssessmententered,ndcom-

munitycentered.Wedescribeowa

STAR.Legacyonstructedoran educational

psychologyoursehelped reserviceeachers

designand earnabouteffectivenquiry-basedinstruction.

Z New developmentsin learningtheory sug-

gest that many teachers-the present authors

included--can improve student learning by

changing their teachingpractices(e.g., Cogni-tion and Technology Group at Vanderbilt

[CTGV], 996).Ascollegeteachers,we often find

that our predominantmethod of teachingis to

assignchapterreadingsandthen togive lectures

and demonstrations of points we think are

important(see also, Nunn, 1996). We assess

learningby askingstudents to answermultiple-choice questions, give presentations,or write

essays that paraphraseand elaborateon what

they have learned. These methods of teachingand assessment "work" n the sense that most

studentscandemonstrate hattheyhave learned

something. Nevertheless, the quality of their

learning is often less than satisfying. Reading

assignmentsandfollow-up ecturescanproduceevidenceof learning hat ookssuccessfulat first

glancebut missesmanyelementsof understand-

ing when analyzedin moredetail (Bransford&

Schwartz, npress;Schwartz&Bransford, 998).

Students, orexample,often failto use spontane-

ously what they have learnedin a new setting

despitethe fact thatit is highly relevant.White-

head(1929)referred o thefailure oapplylearn-

ing as the "inert knowledge" problem. A

number of studies show that traditional

approachesto instructionoften produce inert

knowledge (e.g., Bereiter& Scardamalia,1985;Bransford,Franks,Vye,&Sherwood,1989;Gick

&Holyoak,1983;Perfetto,Bransford,&Franks,

1983).

ETR&D,ol.47. No.2, 1999,pp. 39-59 ISSN 042-1629 39



40 ETR&D.ol.47 No. 2

Instructional nnovations such as problem-

based, case-based and project-based earninghave been designed to combatthe inertknowl-

edge problem (for precise distinctionsamong

these approachessee Barronet al., 1998;Wil-liams, 1992). Instead of simply assigning fact-

based readingsor providing lectures,students

begin their inquiry with challengingproblems,and they learn information relevant to those

challenges as the need arises. Instructional

approaches that are organized around cases,

problems and projects have been used for a

number of years in professional schools for

trainingin medicine (e.g., Barrows,1985),busi-

ness (e.g., Gragg, 1940), law (e.g., Williams,

1992), and educational administration (e.g.,

Bridges&Hallinger,1995).Theseapproaches o

instructionare also being used with increasing

frequencyin K-12education(e.g.,Barron t al.,

1998;CTGV, 1992; 1997;Krajcik,Blumenfeld,

Marx,Bass,&Fredricks,1998;Penner,Lehrer,&

Schauble, 1998). Williams (1992) provides an

excellent review of problem-basedand case-

based learning. Data on the effectiveness of

these approachesfor student learningare dis-

cussed in Barronet al. (1998;see also, CTGV,

1997; Hmelo, 1998;Michael,Klee,Bransford,&

Warren,1993;Vyeet al., 1998).

There are risks associated with the use of

case-based, problem-based and project-based

learning.A majorrisk is thatengagementcan be

mistakenfor learning.Forexample,when com-

pleting a hands-on activitysuch as building a

modelrocket,

studentsmay

be active and

enthused, yet assessments of the systematic

understandingmay yield disappointingresults

(examplesare discussed in Barronet al., 1998).

Another risk comes from the assumption that

these are constructivist activities that requireteachers to eliminate traditionalactivities such

as assigning fact-basedreadings or providinglectures.Assumptionssuch as these fail to dif-

ferentiateconstructivismas a theoryof knowing

from theories of pedagogy. Constructivist heo-ries assume that people always use their prior

knowledge to constructnew knowledgeeven if

they are sitting through a lecture (e.g., Cobb,

1994).Lecturesare often not the bestway tohelpnovices learn because their knowledge is not

sufficiently differentiated to understanda lec-

ture at a deep level. However, if students are

given opportunitiesto develop well-differenti-

atedknowledge,lecturescanbe a powerfulwayto help students organizetheirknowledge and

experiences Schwartz&Bransford, 998).Thereare times for lectures and readings, but theyneed to occur when students are prepared to

appreciate he insightsthattheycontain.

Inour experiences,case-,problem-and proj-ect-based learning are most effective when

teachers,students and other interestedpartiesform learning ommunities,where there is indi-

vidual accountabilityyet people collaborate in

order to achieve important objectives, and

where there is access to expertisethatoften lies

outside the classroom community (e.g.,Bransfordet al., in press). Frequentopportuni-ties for formatively assessing individual and

group progress are also importantfor helpingstudentsachieve(e.g.,Barron t al., 1998;Vye et

al., 1998).

In this article we describea software shell,

STAR.Legacy,hat s designedtoguide attemptsto

helpstudents learn fromcase-,

problem-,and

project-based earning. STAR.Legacy upportstheintegrationof fourtypesof learningenviron-

ments that we believe are especially importantforenhancing earning(CTGV,npress):

1. Learner-centerednvironments hat focus on

knowledge,skillsand attitudes thatstudents

bringto thelearningsituation

2. Knowledge-centered environments that

focus on knowledgethat is organizedaround

coreconceptsorbig ideas thatsupportsubse-quent learning in the disciplines (e.g., see

Brown &Campione,1994;CTGV, n press)

3. Assessment-centered nvironments hathelpstudents' thinkingto becomevisible so that

both they and their teachers can assess and

revisetheirunderstanding

4. Community-centerednvironments hatcap-

italize on local settings to create a sense of

collaboration-both among students and

with othermembersof thecommunity

Integrating hese fourtypes of environments

requires what we call flexiblyadaptive nstruc-

tional design (Schwartz, Lin, Brophy, &

Bransford, n press). As teachers use problem-,

project-,or case-basedmaterials,they need to



SOFTWAREORCOMPLEX EARNING 41

tailorlearningactivities to the uniquequalitiesof their settings while maintaininga focus on

coredisciplinaryknowledge.Toadapta curricu-

lum (knowledge-centered) to their setting,

teachersneed to work with thepriorknowledge,skills, and cultural resources that a specific

group of students brings to a situation. To

accomplishthis, students need opportunities o

bring their knowledge and beliefs to bear on

school subjects(learner-centered),nd teachers

need frequent opportunitiesfor assessing stu-

dent progress toward knowledge standards

(assessment-centered).And, because commu-

nity is a powerful and variable property of

learning settings, teachers should be given

opportunities to maximize communityresourcesto motivate and enablecollaboration

and achievement community-centered).

STAR.Legacy promotes flexibly adaptiveinstructionaldesign in two primary ways. It

helps teachers adapt complex curricula by

includinga model of inquirythat draws atten-

tiontoeachof thelearningenvironmentswithin

a single software shell and that provides a

framework for making pedagogically sound

modifications. tsupports lexibility y includinga suite of softwaretools thataresimple to learn

and use,and thatmakeiteasy to modifya given

STAR.Legacy.

Figure 1 provides an overview of the

STAR.Legacynquiry model. This figure is a

screen shot of the software'sprimaryinterface.

Theinterfaceorganizesstudentactivity ntotyp-ical phases of inquiry and helps make their

learningprocessesvisibleto themselves and the

teacher.By clickingon thedifferent consof the

interface, the software branches to the corre-

sponding "pages"of resources and activities.

Thesepages provide opportunities orstudents

to complete progressively complex challenges(theChallengemountains n Figure1),to gener-ate their own ideas on how to meet the

Figure1 D STAR.LegacyHomePage"

Look Ahead"&Reflectack

Reflect Back

The Challenges

1ps

Help

Go Public

Test YourMettle

a?aorn;nZb

GenerateIdeas

MultiplePerspectives

Research& Revise



42 ETR&D,ol.47, No. 2

challenges (GenerateIdeas), to compare their

ideas to others and reflect on the differences

(Multiple Perspectives),as well as to develop,

assess,andrevise theirunderstanding Research

& Revise,TestYourMettle)beforetheypresenttheir final solutions to each challenge(GoPub-

lic). Toconvey these multipleopportunitiesfor

learning,assessing, and makingmodifications,

we use thenameSTAR,anacronym or software

technologyforactionand reflection.

In addition to the explicit inquiry cycle,which guides decisions about adaptation,

STAR.Legacyncludessimplesoftware tools for

modifyingthe resourcesavailablen

eachphaseof inquiry. Typically, teacherswork with and

modifya STAR.Legacyhat has been filledwith

activities and resources designed for inquiryinto a specifictopicsuch as ecosystemsor elec-

trical circuits (see Border Blues.Legacyin

Schwartz,Lin,et al., in press;and DC.Legacyn

Schwartz,Biswas,et al., in press). STAR.Legacymakes it easy for teachers o addnew resources,

including texts; patches to other programsor

websites; and video clips of themselves, theircolleagues and their previous students. For

example,video clips of colleaguescommentingon variouschallengesmightoccurin the Multi-

ple Perspectives part of the inquiry cycle. This

allows teachers to introducetheirstudents to a

larger learning community; for example, to

other professorson campus (or teachersin a

school) who have expertisethat is relevant to a

particular ourse.STAR.Legacylsoenablesstu-

dents tocontribute o thelearningenvironment.Afterdeveloping sufficientunderstanding,stu-dents canleavea legacyfornextyear'sstudents

by adding theirown insights or lessons (hence

the name Legacy).This can be very motivatingforstudents,and ithelpscurricula volve so that

theybestfitlocalneeds.

In the following sections we describe

STAR.Legacyn more detail. Wedescribe t in a

context where it was used it in an attempt to

improveour own practicesascollege professors.We developed a STAR.Legacy alled Learning

By Doing Legacy (LBD.Legacy).LBD.Legacywas designed to informeducationalpsychologystudents about problem- and project-based

learning.Our objectivewas to help preserviceteacherslearn to design and adapt this type of

instruction o the needs of theirstudents and the

resources of their community.One measure of

whether we achieved these objectives comes

from the legacies the students created to teach

next year's students. Later in the article, wedescribe how students'legaciesnaturally ncor-

porated many of the important pedagogical

principlesof STAR.Legacy s well as resources

from the local community. Unfortunately,becauseLBD.Legacywas new to us and the stu-

dents, we were not preparedto experimentally

comparestudent learningand behaviorin this

context with learningin more traditionalcon-

texts.Nevertheless,ourexperiencesand theleg-

acies the students created provided informaldata thatarequitevaluableandsuggest research

issues that are worthyof subsequentinvestiga-tion. In the remainderof thearticle,we describe

these observations in the process of detailingfouraspectsof STAR.Legacy:

1. Theexplicitnessof theinquirymodel

2. Thecomponentsof a single learningcycle

3. Themultiplelearningcyclesthathelp people

progressivelydeepentheirunderstanding4. The importanceof reflectingon the overall

learning process and creating legacies for

otherpeople to use

We conclude with a discussion of the soft-

ware tools that makeSTAR.Legacylexible and

theprospectsfor furtherdevelopmentof flexibly

adaptiveinstructionaldesign.

MAKING HENQUIRYODEL XPLICIT

Every STAR.Legacy, including LBD.Legacy,uses the basic interfaceshown in Figure1. The

interfaceis meant to providean explicitmodel

forstructuringnquiry nproblem-,project-,and

case-basedlearning.Themodel includes a num-

ber of componentsthat we describe more fullybelow. Forexample,there is the Look-Ahead&

Reflect Backcomponentthatstudentscompleteat the start and finish of any STAR.Legacy.Thereare themultiple Challengemountains that

students are encouraged to "climb" one after

another to progressively deepen theirexpertise.

And, there is the basic learning cycle that stu-

dents complete as they engage in inquiry for




each one of the multiple challenges of a

STAR.Legacy.

Thesecomponentsofferone possibleformal-

ization of insights gatheredthroughcollabora-

tions with teachers, trainers, curriculum

designers,and researchers.Thespecificcompo-nents of STAR.Legacywere chosenbecausetheyhave repeatedly appeared as important, yetoften implicit, components of learning and

instruction---componentssuch as continually

makingformativeassessments of studentprog-ress, and continually lluminatingways forstu-

dents to situate and think about a topic.

AlthoughSTAR.Legacyries to formalizethese

components, t is notintendedtoreplaceon-the-

spot, expertdecisions.Rather,t is meanttoaug-ment local expertiseby helping teachers(and

students)develop an understandingof learningevents. Teachersandstudents,forexample,maychoose to jump around the learning cycle

dependingon their assessments of their current

learningneeds.Tohelp peopleunderstand hese

options, context-sensitive "Tips" provide the

rationale for a particularcomponent of the

inquirymodel,alongwithsuggestionsforusingthespecificactivities ncludedwith thatcompo-nent. Figure2, forexample,shows theexplana-

tion thatappearswhen an individual clicks onthe Tips apple on the Look-Ahead & Reflect

Back page of LBD.Legacy. Hopefully, such

explanations help people understand the pointof an instructional design feature, and this

understandingwill, in turn, help them adaptinstruction o theirown ends.

The explicit inquiry model of STAR.Legacyhas been in response to our observationthat

learnings enhancedwhenteachersandlearners

can"see wherethey are" n acomplexsequenceof inquiry. This became apparent during the

implementation of an integrated model of

instruction and assessment called SMART,an

acronymfor "Scientificand MathematicalAre-

nas for Refining Thinking" Barron t al., 1998;

CTGV,1997).Using the SMARTmodel, class-

rooms progress from problem-basedlearningthat develops a solid knowledge foundation to

Figure O ASampleTipor he LookAhead-Reflect ackPage

Look Ahead

&Reflec

Reflect i.

Begin Here

Look Ahead &Reflect Back

IRs

The Look Ahead component includes a task that helps students

develop a concrete model of the sorts of things they will belearning about. The Look Ahead serves a numberof purposes:

* Learners preview where they are going in their learning andthe sorts of things they will come to understand.

* Students and teachers can pre-assess the things theyalready know about the domain and what they need to learnmore about.

* It can be motivating for students as it develops both theircuriosity and their aspirations about what they will know.

In this Look Ahead, students are asked to write what theythink is aood and bad about an actual hands-on pDrolect that

ps

IP

ook

Conmas Hand*OnProjet



44 ETR&D,ol.47, No. 2

more open-ended project-based learning.Withinthe model, therearemanyopportunitiesforstudentsto generate heir own ideas,consult

knowledge resources, share thoughts, and

assess and revise theirunderstanding.Bymov-

ing through cycles of learningand revision in

the context of related problem and project

challenges,students progressivelydeepen their

understanding(Barronet al., 1998;Vye et al.,

1998).

We knew from prior implementationsof

SMARTthat students (and teachers)often felt

lost in the details of thespecificactivities Barron

etal.,

1995).They

did not know howparticularactivitiesfittogetheror how theactivitieswould

contribute o their overallunderstandingof the

problemor theirabilityto completetheproject.Students and teacherswere at risk of viewingthe curriculumas a "humongous compilation"of learningactivitiesthat were not particularlyconnectedor dedicated to any larger goal. To

avoid this, we started to post "SMARTMaps"thatstudentsandteacherscould consultto mon-

itorlearning (Vyeet al., 1998).Theseprecursorsof the STAR.Legacyvisualizationshowed how

different learning activities joined to make a

sequence that supported the ultimate goal of

completing the final project. The explicitSMARTMaps helped students. For example,because the activityallotteda time forrevision,

students learned that revision is a naturalcom-

ponentof learning,rather han a punishment or

not learning(Schwartz,Lin,et al., inpress).

One of the goals of presenting an explicitinquirymodel is to help teachers and students

transfer inquiry practices from one topic to

anotherbecausethey can see similaritiesacross

the activities.Forexample, duringthepast yearwe have had the opportunityto introduce the

STAR.Legacy rameworkto a numberof K-12

inservice teacherswho had been using various

non-Legacycurriculumunits,such as ourprob-lem-based JasperAdventure and Scientists in

Actionseries(fordescriptions, ee CTGV,1997).We showed themhow these units looked when

placed in the STAR.Legacyframework. The

response was extremelypositive. Teachersfelt

thattheycouldinstantly"see" heimplicit earn-

ing cyclescommon to much of their instruction.

Moreover,the teachers found it easier to talk

with teampartnerswho teachother disciplinesbecause they could see that their instructional

techniquesactuallyshareda common structure

of inquiry.

TRAVERSINGHE ASICSTAR.LEGACYYCLE

In this section we traverse the elements of the

STAR.Legacy ycle. We focus primarilyon the

LBD.Legacythat was designed to help pre-service teachers understand the strengths,weaknesses,and differenthow-tos of

problem-,project,and case-basedapproaches to instruc-

tion. The LBD.Legacybegins with a preview in

Look Ahead (&ReflectBack).Afterwards,stu-

dents meet theirfirstinquiry challengeby click-

ing on the smallest mountain. To completethis

challenge, they complete each of the compo-nentsof the learningcycle.Whendone with the

first challenge, students click on the second

mountain to meet their second inquiry

challenge. They again completethe

learningcycle,usinga new set of resources ailoredto the

second challenge. After completing the same

process for the third challenge, students con-

clude LBD.Legacy y revisitingthe LookAhead& Reflect Back. In the following sections, we

trace hissequenceanddescribethose classroom

observationsthat seem most promising for fur-

therresearch.

LookAhead

The Look Ahead & Reflect Backis represented

by thebinoculars n the upper-leftcorner of the

maininterface(Figure1).Studentscomplete the

Look Ahead before they meet any of the

challenges.Clickingon thebinocular conbringsstudents to a screen that is designed to helpthem preview the knowledge domain and

develop learninggoals.Nearlyall models of learningand instruction

emphasize the importanceof goal setting (e.g.,Newell &Simon,1972).Often,goals forlearningarepresentedasspecificobjectives,primarily or

the teacher'seyes. For educationalpsychologythesemightinclude,"studentswill list three rea-




sons that problem-based learning improves

transfer,""studentswill compareand contrast

summative and formativeassessment,"and so

forth. Many attempts to list specific objectives

fallshortof the ideal becausetheyarefrequently

perceived as a discrete list of statements that

often seem vagueand unrelated.Ourpreferenceis to help teachersand studentsdevelop a more

coherentand concrete model of the topic that

theywill learnabout and the sortsof thingstheywill be able to accomplish by completingtheir

Legacy ourney.

The LookAhead& ReflectBack orLBD.Leg-

acy beginswith an audio narratorwho

explainsthat one of the benefits of expertise is the

increasedability to notice significantevents in

the environment.As an example, the students

are shown an eight-second,digitizedvideo clipof a single play in a footballgame. Afterwards,

they watch protocolsof two women who were

askedto recountwhat theyhad seen in theplay.The firstwoman,anovice,states,"I'm o embar-

rassed.I think... Ithinkthequarterbackanthe

football." The second, a relativeexpert,states,"OK, he defensive backsjumpedoffsideduringa blitz. Thequarterback andedthe ball toone of

the running backs who broke two tacklesand

was on his way to a touchdown."Thestudents

then get a chance to watch the football play

again to assess their own expertise.After this

example,the narrator xplainsthatLBD.Legacywill increasetheir ability to notice and under-

stand importantaspectsof a type of instruction

calledlearningbydoing,

n which students com-

plete problems, projects,and hands-on activi-

ties.To get a sense of theirown expertise n this

domain, the narratorsuggests that the students

evaluate theprovided exampleof a prototypicalhands-on projectthat involves makinga com-

pass frommagnets.The studentsdo not spendtheir time studying this particular project in

LBD.Legacy.Thecompass projectsimplyoffers

a brief and relatively familiarexample of an

activitythatfalls

under the rubricof

learningbydoing. The students' task is to notice what is

good about thecompass projectand what could

be improvedand how.

Currently,we see five potential benefits to

the Look Ahead. (a) It helps students to situate

theupcominglessonsandlearninggoals in their

priorknowledge, interests,and communitiesof

practice. b) Itprovideslearnersan opportunityto see their destinationin a domain of knowl-

edgeandto see the sortsof thingstheywill come

to understand. (c) It helps develop a shareddomain model that facilitates discourse and

communitywithin the classroom.(d) Itoffersa

learnerandteacherpre-assessment.As learners,

students can identify what they need to learn

moreabout.Forteachers, hisactivitycanoccur

ataclassroom evel so thatteachers anappraisetheirclass'sinitialdomainknowledge.This can

help teachersanticipate earningneeds, as well

as help them design and tailor their use of

STAR.Legacyand other classroom resources.Forexample,with the LBD.LegacyLookAhead,we were able to see that few of the education

students saw anything wrong with an activitythatprovidedno contextforlearningaboutcom-

passes, and no information hatexplainedwhy

compasses work, or why they are useful. This

indicated mportantgapsin thestudents'under-

standingof how to transformlearningby doinginto doingwith understanding.e) Finally, the

LookAhead can serve as a benchmarkorreflec-tion and self-assessment. In particular,after

completingthe learning cycles, students return

to ReflectBackon what theyhave learned com-

paredto their firsttryat the LookAhead. As we

documentlater,this can help students see how

muchtheyhavelearned.

TheChallenges

Aftercompletingthe LookAhead, students are

prepared to work on the STAR.Legacy

challenges. To access the first challenge, stu-

dents click on the smallest mountain. In

LBD.Legacy, hallenge1asksstudents togener-ate and explain reasonswhy they might want

people to learn by completing projects. To

anchortheirinquiry nto thischallenge,the stu-

dents watch a clip of a movie that shows a high-schoolhistoryteacherwho is givingastultifying

lectureon the chronologyof the Depressionera

(fora discussion of anchors, ee Bransford, her-

wood, Hasselbring,Kinzer,& Williams, 1990;

CTGV, 1994). Afterwards, a "narrator"in

LBD.Legacy uggests that the students use this



46 ETR&D, ol. 47, No. 2

example of instruction as a foil to help them

thinkaboutwhy projects an be a useful alterna-

tive. The remainderof the learningcycle pre-

pares the students to complete this challenge.

Aftercompletingthelearningcycleandpresent-ing their final answer to Challenge 1, the stu-

dentsrepeattheprocesswithChallenges2and 3

(describedbelow).

GenerateIdeas

After students understand a challenge, they

progresstoGenerate deas wherethey explicitlymaketheirfirst

attemptat

generatingssuesand

answersrelevant o thechallenge.Typically, he

Generate deaspageincludesa text that reminds

students of the challenge (e.g., justify project-based learning)and that instructs students to

record their initial ideas. Figure 3 shows the

ideas that one groupof education studentsgen-eratedforChallenge1 afterwatchingthe video

clip of the excessively passive classroom.The

students' thoughts were entered into an elec-

tronic notebook where they could be subse-

quentlyrevisedandimprovedupon.

In acomputer-rich lassroom,one way touse

thenotebookfeature s tohave eachstudentgen-erate ideas into a separatenotebook. Alterna-

tively, for the LBD.Legacy, he challenge was

watched as a whole class, and students gener-atedtheir nitial deasonpaper.Afterwards, tu-

dents offered their ideas in the whole-class

context, and the teachercombined those ideas

into the collectivenotebookshown in the figure.The notebook served as a focalpoint for further

discussionof thegenerated deas.

Thereareseveral reasons thatGenerateIdeas

is an explicit component of the Legacy cycle.One is that tencouragesstudents to shareideas;

everyone has an opportunityto hearwhat oth-

ers think.For the teacher, his complementsthe

Look Ahead by providing a more specificassessment of what the students understand

about the topic. For example, Figure 3 reveals

that students primarilythink about a project'sbenefits n termsof motivation.For hestudents,

Figure 0 TheClass'sNotebookEntriesor heGenerateIdeaPhaseofChallenge1

GenerateIdeas

Projectsnsurekidsworkat own level. This sgoodbecausetheycanunderstand omparedto a lectureover theirhead.

Professorwon'thave to lecture. Kids'llpayattention.

Canaccomplishmore n 45minutesof projectthan listening o a lecture.

SWhyPeojct

Help

Notebook




it provides an opportunityto learnwhat other

students think.Toofrequently, tudentshaveno

idea about theirpeers' knowledge.As a conse-

quence,itbecomesdifficultfor studentstobuild

community by takingadvantageof knowledgedistributedthroughouta classroom.

A second reason to have students generateideas is to make thinking explicit rather than

allowing it to remaintacitand vague.Theactof

specifically recordingtheir views abouta topic

helps students discover what they think and

know. This awareness is facilitated when stu-

dents contrast their ideas with other ideas.

Appropriatecontrasts, much like setting two

wines side by side or seeing two ideas juxta-

posed, can help students notice importantdis-

tinctions they might otherwise overlook or

dismiss (Bransfordet al., 1989; Bransford&

Nitsch, 1978;Gibson & Gibson, 1957;Schwartz

& Bransford,1998).Forexample,most instruc-

torsin the behavioral cienceshaveexperiencedthe frustration f students'statingthataparticu-lar point is just "commonsense,"when in fact,

the students would never haveappliedthe com-

mon sense on their own. When students areasked first to generate deas, theybecomemore

appreciativeof the contrastbetweentheir nitial

observationsandensuingobservations hattheyhadoriginallyoverlooked.Thisappreciation an

help themgraspwhat is new about ideasrather

thanmerely assimilate them into old ideas and

gloss overwhat is new and important.

MultiplePerspectives

Following the initial generationof ideas comes

Multiple Perspectives.There are many situa-

tions where multipleperspectivesarea natural

componentof learning(e.g.,a conferencepanel,

cooperativejigsaw groups,differentvoices in a

novel). In STAR.Legacy,his important eature

of learning is made explicit.ForChallenge1 of

LBD.Legacy, tudents hear the ideas generatedby four educationalexperts who also saw the

video of the Depression-era lecture. These

experts introducestudents to vocabularyand

perspectivesthat are quite different from their

own and thatcharacterize xpert approaches o

the topic. By focusing attention on contrasts

between what the studentsgeneratedand what

the experts generated, students are helped to

grasp the significanceof new informationand

understand ts relevanceforhelpingthemthink

differently Bransford&Schwartz, n press).

Recall, orexample,thatthestudentsprimar-

ily generated deasabout themotivationalvalue

of projects see Figure3).Contrast his with the

observationsgeneratedby the fourexpertswho

comprise the Multiple Perspectives for

Challenge1. Oneexpertpointsout that he origi-

nally thought motivation was the only signifi-cant issue,but then as he investigatedthe issue

of learninghe found out that the way students

are expected to learn in this formatoften has

profoundeffectson theirsubsequentabilitiesto

use that nformation.Anotherexpertnoticesthat

the students are all individually seated in the

video segmentand thatthere is none of the nat-

uralsocial interaction hatoften facilitates earn-

ing. A thirdexpertpointsout that it is importantto remember hatthere s a time forlecturesand

that they can be very effective-the trick is to

prepare people to be told. The fourth expert

explains that the tests that usually accompany

lecture-stylenstructionoftenfindno parallel n

the realworld.Consequently tudentsspend an

inordinateamountof time learninga skill (e.g.,

preparing for multiple-choice tests) that

becomes obsolete immediately upon leavingschool.

Aftertheeducationstudentslistenedto thesefour perspectives, the class was silent. The

instructorparenthetically

commented, "It is

amazing to find out what you never even

thoughtabout,"Thewhole classnodded vigor-

ously in agreement.A useful line of research

might formally document whether producingideasabouta topicbeforehearingdifferentper-

spectiveson thattopic increases earners' ntel-

lectualengagementwith the ideasat hand.

In addition to complementingthe Generate

Ideas phase, the Multiple Perspectives phase

serves a numberof purposes.First, he perspec-tives provide guidance into the topics that the

students should explore to learn about the

domain. The perspectives do not give awaysolutions; nsteadtheydirect the students to rel-

evant domains of inquiry.In the LBD.Legacy,these domains are cognition,social interaction,



48ETR&D.

ol. 47. No 2

and assessment.Second, the MultiplePerspec-tives feature ndicatesthatagivensituationusu-

ally has multiplevantagepointsand that this is

acceptable.This is differentfrommuchinstruc-

tion that provides only one model for how tothink about the material. Learning multiple

entrypointsintoa given topicincreases he flex-

ibilityof futureproblemsolving (Spiro&Jehng,1990).Third,there is greatadded value in hav-

ing expertscommenton thetypesof demonstra-

tion tapes that are currently used in manyclassrooms. Experts,for example, often notice

what is missing n the videotape and why that

absence s theoretically ignificant.

One of theexcitingpotentialsof MultiplePer-

spectives is thatit cancombineand makeavail-

able distributed expertise among people who

cannot easily be brought together.This has a

profound impact on the instructor'sability to

adapt and tailor instructionby capitalizingon

local resources.And, it servesas a way to create

an intellectualcommunity among people who

are too busy to meet formally.A good instance

of these benefitsmay be had by jumpingahead

for a moment to Challenge 2 of the second

inquirycycle.InChallenge2 ofLBD.Legacy,tu-dentsareasked todevelop a set of design princi-

ples for project-based earningand to organizethoseprinciples ntoa helpfulvisualization.

To help students make headway on this

challenge,we recruited ocal facultyand master

teachers for the Multiple Perspectives. Each

expert received a video cassette containinga

short segment that served as the anchor for

Challenge 2. The tape shows a local TV news

reportin which children launch model rockets

as partof a schoolproject.The teachersand fac-

ulty were asked to watch the videotapeat their

leisure.A weekor so later, heywerevideotapedas they gave short commentarieson what theyhad noticed relevant to design principles for

learning. Complementing their brief commen-

taries,theywere asked to suggesta readingthat

would help students who wantedto learnmore.

Students also watched the videotapeas partof

theirdesign challenge,and they generatedtheir

ideas in the notebook prior to hearing the

experts'perspectives.

Recruiting ocalexpertsto makeup the Mul-

tiple Perspectiveson the news broadcasthelped

to build the local intellectualcommunity.When

students saw one professor,for example, they

stated,"Hey,we've readstuffby him.So, that's

who he is. I'veseen him around."Severalteams

ofstudentstookadvantageof learningaboutthescholarly resources in their neighborhood.As

we describe later, they decided to interview

these facultyas a componentof the legacy theyleft for next year's students. This approach to

MultiplePerspectivesalso helps to build com-

munity among the experts themselves. The

experts were curious to see what the other

experts, theircolleagues, had to say. Although

they knew one another through college func-

tions, they rarely had a chance to hear oneanother'sexpertise.Like hestudents,afterhear-

ing their colleagues' insights, they often com-

mented, "I hadn't even thought of that."One

worthwhile question for future research is

whetherthis asynchronousgatheringof peoplehas a meaningfulimpact on the local commu-

nity.A secondquestionis whetherteachersfind

it sufficientlycompellingthattheywill add their

own expertsto adapta Legacyto their local cir-

cumstances.

Research&Revise

InResearch&Revise,studentsmaytakepartin

many different activities including collabora-

tions, consulting resources,listening to just-in-

tinr. lectures,completingskill-building essons,

workingwith legaciesleftby students frompre-vious years, and conducting simulations and

hands-on experiments. This component of

STAR.Legacyis very inclusive and supportsmost instructional designs. For example, for

Challenge 1 of LBD.Legacy, he resources are

primarily extual.Thestudents readarticlessug-

gestedby experts,and theyuse theirtextbookas

a resource orcompletingsimple tasks thathelpthem understand the potentialbenefits of proj-

ect-based learning. For Challenge 2, however,the students analyze video cases, practiceinstructionaltechniqueswith one another,and

evaluate Websites that offer project-based es-

sons. In eithercase, the key criterionfor includ-

ing a resource s thatthe instructionalmaterials

should help students reach the goals of explor-




ing a challenge and of revising the ideas that

theyoriginallygenerated.

We have found it useful to organize the

resources according to the Multiple Perspec-

tives. Figure4, forexample,shows the resource

topics available for Challenge 2. Each of the

images is keyed to one of the six expertswho

commented on Challenge2. By clickingon an

image, studentsmove to a page with resources

specificallyassociatedwith the ideas generated

by the relevantexpert.This organizationhelpsstudentsand teachersfollow thoseperspectivesthatseem particularly uited to theirneeds;we

do not assume that students and teacherswill

necessarilyuse all the resources availablein a

STAR.Legacy.

TestYourMettle

When students thinkthatthey have developedtheir understandingof the original challenge,

they are asked to complete Test Your Mettle

beforetheycan Go Publicwith their solutionto

the challenge.The "test"can takea number of

differentforms, includingmultiple-choice ests

with feedback,rubrics for evaluating products

they plan to make public, and "neartransfer"

problems.Test YourMettle s meant as a forma-tive instructionalevent, not a final exam. It is a

chancefor students to bump againstthe world

to see if theirknowledgeis up to the task.If it is

not, they should return o Research&Revise to

improvetheirunderstanding.

For the first cycle of LBD.Legacy, he Test

YourMettle asked the students to evaluate the

reasons they had generatedfor using project-based

learning.Eachstudent

preparedfive rea-

sons. The students met in small groups and

selected their best reasons from among their

group. They were told that the reasons from

each group would be compiled and the class

would vote on the top ten reasons.These rea-

sons would then be posted on the WorldWide

Web through Go Public, and they would be

evaluatedby studentsatStanfordUniversity.As

the studentsmet in theirgroups, they began to

Figure4 F Research&RevisePage forChallenge 2

Research

MeetingStandards

Doingwith

UnderNanding

Social Nornms

Culture

CoguitionAssessment

PreparedneforColIaamating

Tips

Help

Notebook

Legacies

Task

Reminder

Home-SchoolConmnecions

Learningn Context



50 ETR&D, ol. 47, No. 2

question what made a good reason, and theywanted examples. Test Your Mettle providedthis information.It stated, for example, that a

good reason might explain the conditions

needed to achieve a benefit fromproject-basedlearning.Forexample, they received a sampleframethat stated, "Projects an provide excel-

lent opportunitiesfor assessing student under-

standingBECAUSE... But,this canonly occur

IF... ."Eventually, hedifferentgroups sponta-

neously beganto ask or demandthatthey get a

chance to rewrite their reasons. The students

returned to Research & Revise to help them

develop an improvedset of five reasons.

Test YourMettleshould makethinkingsuffi-

ciently visible so thata teacher,knowledgeable

peer, or even the student,can identifythe need

for further learning. The preceding examplerelied on thecollegestudentstoassesstheirown

work relative to general standardsand to one

another. This had substantial effects on their

evaluationsof the qualityof their own learningand performance.An importantresearchques-tion is how to

supportless

sophisticatedstu-

dents so they can effectivelylearnto self-assess

(foran approachthat uses contrastingcases,see

Lin&Bielaczyc,1998).This is an important kill

to develop. Ideally, people should be able to

make estimations of their own understandingand make needed course correctionsbeforeheytake a big exam or turn in a big projectat the

office.

Test YourMettleshould serve as a powerful

formative assessment event that guides andmotivatesstudents to revise and improvetheir

work.Inbothmath and science,we have found

that formativeassessmentcoupledwithrevision

opportunities significantly increases achieve-

ment among secondary school students (e.g.,Barron t al., 1995;CTGV,1997;Vyeet al.,1998).

Although it seems obvious that formative

assessmentcoupledwith revisionshould lead to

betterperformance,t is strikinghow few class-

roomsactually encourageformativeassessmentand revision, especially formative self-assess-

ments undertakenby students. Most classroom

scienceprojects, orexample,areonly evaluated

by the teacher at the end (Towler& Broadfoot,

1992).Students never have the chanceto "alphatest"andimprovetheirprojects Gardner,1991).

Go Public

AftercompletingTestYourMettle,students are

preparedto Go Publicwith theirthinkingand

makeavailable to others theirbest solutions tothe originalchallenge.Go Public for Challenge

1, for example, requiredstudents to post their

solutions on the Web forevaluationby an out-

side audience.Thereareseveralreasons that we

ask students to Go Publicwith theirknowledge.One is that public presentationsof knowledgeadd a highstakescomponentthatmotivates stu-

dents to do well. Forexample,we suspect that

asking VanderbiltUniversity students to post

their"reasons orproject-basedearning"on theWebforevaluationby Stanford tudents had an

appreciableeffecton theirwillingness to revise

forChallenge1.Anotherreason forgoing publicis to make student thinkingvisible so otherstu-

dents and teachers can appreciatehigh qualityelements of understanding.Considerthecase of

thedesign-principlevisualizations thatstudents

produced forChallenge2. Manystudents were

annoyed by the unusual nature of the task. Yet,

when students publicly presented their solu-tions in GoPublic,the students in theclass were

uniformly mpressedbythecreativityanddepthrevealed in the visualizations-visualizations

that ranged from the jigsaw puzzle shown in

Figure5 to a three-dimensionalmobile to a Jeo-

pardyTM-typeamewithcolumnsof index cards

that had principleson one side and reasonson

the other. The opportunity to see each other's

ideas is importantif for no other reason than

thatstudentsoftendo not have a chance to learn

or appreciatethe more complex ideas of their

peers.

There are many different ways that one

might encouragestudents to Go Public. In our

work,we haveexploredaskingstudentsto pub-lish to the Internet, o presentwithin theirclass-

rooms, to meet with a panel of outside experts,or simply to write in a collectivenotebook. One

approach hat we find especially excitingcan be

done in the context of open-ended challengeswhere there is little concern about copying of

answers. Studentspublish to the STAR.Legacyitself and help adapt it for future generations.An example of this approachmay be found in

Challenge3 of LBD.Legacy.Thischallengeasks

students to writea college-style essay thatpres-




Figure5 O- A Design-PrincipleVisualizationMade Public nResponseto Challenge 2

low

ilk

, J d 3 \ ~ : e ;0 , 4 6 t e

q~t~h0(tYwA

entsagood andbadversion of a projectanduses

the class readings to explain the differences.

These essays have been added to LBD.Legacy,and thereforehave been made public.Students

from the class can take home a CD-ROM hat

includes theseessays,andstudentswho takethe

class in subsequent years will be able to read

these legaciesto help guide their own work.We

say more aboutleavinglegaciesbelow.

MULTIPLEEARNINGYCLESORPROGRESSIVEEEPENING

As illustrated n Figure1,STAR.Legacyncour-

agesmultiplechallenges,representedas increas-ingly tall mountains. (STAR.Legacy urrently

supportsup to fivechallenges.)Thesechallenges

provide opportunities for students progres-

sively to deepen their knowledge of the topic

being explored. The early challengescan pre-

pare students for more ambitious later

challenges.Elsewhere,we have found that it is

often advisable for students to begin with more

circumscribedproblemsbeforethey takeon the

complexity and open-endedness of projects(Barron t al., 1998).Forexample,in one study,

6th-gradestudents in one of two conditions

designed business plans for a booth at their

school's fun fair. For this project,students in

each condition received the same directive to

show how theirplanssatisfied variousfinancial

and logisticconstraints. n the Problem-to-Proj-ect condition, students firstcompleted a prob-lem-basedactivityby workingon a video-based

adventurecalled "TheBig Splash" romtheJas-

perAdventureseries.In theProject-Onlyondi-

tion,students did notcompleteany preparatory

activity prior to designing theirfun fairbooth.The differenceswere definitive.Students n the

Problem-to-Projectondition developed plansthat mathematically valuated the feasibilityof

differentboothplans in termsof cost and likelyincome.Incontrast, tudentsin theProject-Only



52 ETR&D, ol. 47, No. 2

condition spent most of their timedebatingthe

frillsthat would make thefun boothappealing.For LBD.Legacy,we used three challenges

that were intended to help the students first

noticevaluablepsychologicalaspectsof project-based learning,then considerhow to design for

those aspects, and finally actually develop les-

sons accordingto principlesof psychologyand

instructionaldesign. Challenge1asked students

to create reasons why project-based earning

may be useful. Challenge 2 asked students to

create and organize design principles for

implementing problem-and project-based ur-

ricula. Challenge 3 asked students to design

good and bad projectsand to explain why theywere good and bad in light of their previous

readingsand activities. For each challenge,the

students moved throughthe usual sequenceof

generating deas,hearingdifferentperspectives,

consulting resources that included scholarlyarticlesas well asactivities,assessingthequalityof theirwork,and thengoing public.

Thismay seem like a lot of timeto spend on

one idea, namely, learning by doing. However,

along theway, the studentsprogressivelydeep-ened their understandingof importantthemes

in educational psychology. Unlike traditional

classes, the themes of cognition,social interac-

tion,andassessmentwerenottaughtasself-con-

tained topics, presented in modular chapters.Instead, LBD.Legacy introduced importantfields and scholars n the service of helpingstu-

dents understand an important method of

instruction.

REFLECTINGACKON LEARNINGNDLEAVINGEGACIES

Reflect Back

We noted earlierthatSTAR tands for software

technology for action and reflection.One waythat we encouragereflectioncomes throughthe

ReflectBackthatoccurs aftercompletingall the

challenges. Students revisit the original LookAhead activity and compare their new,

informedresponses to theiroriginalwork. This

gives the students a chance to see how much

they have learned and to further extend their

knowledge about the domain and their own

learning.

To demonstrate that Reflect Backhelps stu-

dents appreciate their own learning,we ran a

small experiment with an LBD.Legacyclass.

Half (11)of thecollege sophomoresin one class

were randomly assigned to the experimental,

self-comparisoncondition.At the beginning of

instructionwith LBD.Legacy,hey completeda

Look-Ahead hatrequiredthem to evaluate the

compass-buildingprojectdescribedearlier.The

other half of the students completed a filler

activity.Two monthslater,aftercompletingthe

three challenges of the LBD.Legacy,all 22 stu-

dents evaluated thecompass-buildingprojectas

partof ReflectBack. At this time, the self-com-

parison students were given their original

responses. An hour later, masked as part of a

differentactivity,the studentswere askedto rate

how muchthey felttheyhad learned inthe class

on a 7-point scale with 7 being the most. The

self-comparisonstudents ratedtheirlearningat

5.3 whereas the control students rated their

learningat 4.1, a reliabledifference; (20) = 1.9,

SE= .63,p < .05,one-tailed.Ofcourse,we cannot

provethat the self-assessmentstudents'evalua-

tions were more accurate.Even so, besides the

obvious implicationfor how to increasecourse

ratings, he results indicatethattheopportunityto contrastpresent and past knowledge helpsstudents appreciate how much they have

learned.

Studentsrarelyhave a chance to appreciatehow muchthey have learned.Eventhough stu-

dentsusuallyreceivegrades, gradesare indirect

measures of knowledge growth and do notdepend on the student's recognizing-specific

knowledge gains. The lack of opportunities to

reflect on knowledge growth may be problem-

atic,especiallyforlower-achieving tudents.It is

importantfor students to recognizewhen theyhave been successful learners. Reflecting on

growthis especially mportantafterlearningsit-

uations that seemed confusing and perhaps

frustrating.We want students to develop a "tol-

erance for ambiguity" (Kuhn, 1962) and

"healthy courage spans" (Wertime,1979).See-

ing their perseverancerewarded with knowl-

edge gains is important to this end (Dweck,

1989). The Reflect Back feature encourages

observationsabout one's learning.




LeavingLegacies

STAR.Legacycapitalizeson technologicaldevel-

opmentsforeasily pressingCD-ROMs. tudents

can receive a CD of a STAR.Legacy fter it has

been adapted and modifiedby the teacherand

by the class. This CD provides an excellent

reviewof the course content. It can also include

the students'solutionsto the challengesas well

as the legacies theyand theteachershave left for

the next cohortof students.The students cansee

that they have createda usefulproductfor oth-

ers. We believe this can be very motivatingfor

thestudents as theyrealizethattheirinsightsare

valuable.

Not only do the legacies serve the students

who create them, they also benefitsubsequentstudents who use the modified Legacy. For

example,we arestudyingthebenefitsof havingmiddle-school students leave legacies that

describelearningstories.Thestudentsnarratea

personal event or realizationthat they believe

may help the next cohort of students do a good

job of learning.We predict that hearinga stu-

dent from a priorclass explain somethinglike,"thechallengewas initially frustrating utstick-

ing to it was worthit,"will havepositiveeffects.

Another way the legacies can help subse-

quent students is that they can provide exam-

ples of what a good challenge response looks

like. For the LBD.Legacy,we have alreadydescribed how the students left examples of

theiressays for futuregenerationsof users.As

anotherexample,

wevideotaped

a few students

who described the design-principlevisualiza-

tions they createdforChallenge2. Byincludingthese as legacies, next generationstudents can

get an idea of the creativity that is possiblewithinChallenge2 (e.g., Figure5).

Legaciescan also add new domain content.

This, of course, is part of the idea of flexibly

adaptive instructional design-instructionalresourcescanbe supplementedwith new mate-

rials thatcome fromteachers, tudents,and thelocal community.The first students who used

LBD.Legacy eft materialsthat now constitute

importantresources.We describethese legaciesnext because they bear on the question of

whetherLBD.Legacyan facilitate eachers'abil-

ities to design instruction. nprevious years,the

instructors f educationalpsychologyhadasked

students to teach the class fora given topic.The

number of "stand-uplectures"was surprising.The students who worked with LBD.Legacy

behavedquite differently.ForChallenge2 of LBD.Legacy,tudentshad

to develop a visual representationof design

principles. The Multiple Perspectives for this

challengeincludedsix expertswho eachrecom-

mended relevant readings. Consequently,Research& Reviseincludedsix sets of readingson six topics(seeFigure4). Requiringall the stu-

dents to read all the articleswould have taken

too long. Therefore,small groups of students

were asked to become expertsin a topic.Theirtask was to develop a firm understandingof

their readings and then to create 30 min of

instruction hatwould help the rest of the class

learnwhattheyfelt were theimportantpointsof

the material.They were told they could teach

any way they wanted,but that theirinstruction

eventually had to be "programmed"nto their

respectiveResearch&Revisesubsection.

Two aspects of the students' work suggestthat furtherdevelopmentand researchon flexi-

bly adaptive instructionaldesign is warranted.

The first is the students' capitalizationof local

resources.The second is their developmentof

instructionthat tacitlyincluded importantele-

mentsof theSTAR.Legacyycle.

Capitalizingn LocalResources

The students took advantageof local resourcesin two ways. (a) They spontaneously tracked

down the local experts shown in the Multiple

Perspectives.Somestudentssimplytalkedto an

expertto deepen their own understandingand

gather more readings. Other students inter-

viewed andvideotapedtheexpertsforinclusion

in theirinstruction.In one case, they even bor-

rowed the raw footage discussed in one of the

expert'sarticles,and used it to createa noticing

activitywhere other students tried to find exam-ples of the theoreticalpointsmade in the article.

Ineach of thesecases,one can see how the Mul-

tiple PerspectivesaspectofSTAR.Legacy elpedto create ntellectual ommunity.(b)Theyfound

local experts who did not appear in Multiple

Perspectives.In one case, for example, the stu-



54 ETR&D,ol.47, No. 2

dents createda lesson that comparedthe case-

based and clinicalmethodsof legal instruction.

To do this,they interviewedlaw professorsand

students,as well as lawyerswho reflectedback

on the relationshipbetween their legal educa-tion and theirpractice.In tandem,the two uses

of localresourcesprovideaniceexampleof how

STAR.Legacy supports the development of

instructionthatadaptsaccordingto opportuni-tieswithin the localcommunity.

IncorporatingheInquiryModel

The students'legacies naturally ended to incor-porateelementsof the learning cycle in flexible

ways. Previously,we found that many peoplewho have seen short demonstrations of

STAR.Legacyhave tended to worryaboutpro-ceduraldetails.Theyasked how Test YourMet-

tle differs froma Challenge,wondered whether

students could GenerateIdeas in Research &

Revise,and questionedwhether students could

go backwards in the cycle. This worried us

because we do not want to imply that learningevents can only occurin a given sequence.We

want people to think about these important

learningevents and to use themflexiblyin theirown instruction.Generating deas, forexample,is fundamentalto all learningand it should cer-

tainly"beallowed"in Research&Revise.Fortu-

nately, afterhaving seen the students' legacies,we believe that some of people's confusion

stems from their short exposure to the

STAR.Legacyframework and the novelty of

flexiblyadaptiveinstructionaldesign.

The students who usedLBD.Legacy daptedits inquiry model for their own legacies. The

majority of the students adapted the inquirymodel in a similarway. First,they beganwith a

challenge.Forexample, Figure6 shows the leg-

acy that one group of students developed to

teach about home-school communication. In

their legacy, they included four family profilesin written form (one is shown in the figure).

Figure6 O TheLegacy One Groupof StudentsLeftas a ResourceforLearningAboutHome-SchoolConnections

Research

What you should do.

Ms. Jones Mrs. Smith

Mr.Rodriguez Mr.Chang

InstructionsThomasFamilyLupton FamilyLione FamilyChavez Family

0Tips

Help

Notebook

You rerandmotherand-grandfthrioneYouWae

hadustody.fyourwo,.,

grandchilidren.sinetheir

parents :ied oyears g .You aveowedetlakehbestcarepossibleotfyourgrandchildrenndprpoydehebet .educetiohaa'e6iblebleo

ur.sources-ofincomea-dre:sociaalsecurity enefits

etirement.pay,

ndocciaalndija aideijobsniordercm.ak~urehe:chil&den eveytling'heyneed. Youareactivelyinvolved

extracrnicularectigitUies.ou,-

spendIsailytihmeadh ightandhelpithhomework nd

projects.ouwo.uld[enioyt

.keepregularconitactithheteacherandeas nolve aspossible.

Go Back




They also included four videotapedinterviews

with teachers. The challenge was to decide

which familyshould go with which teacherand

to explain why. A second commoncomponent

of the students' legacies was the instruction othe class membersthat they explicitlygeneratetheirsolutionsto thechallenge.So,in thecase of

the family-teacherconnection,the class gener-ated its solution to the challengeof matching

parents and teachers. Third, the students

includedtheview of anexpertorseveralexpertswho explainedtheiranswers and reasoning.In

the family-teachercase, the expert viewpointwas simply a written statementthat had been

craftedby the students. In the case of a legacy

featuring legal education, the students video-

taped an expert who wrote an articleon legaleducation.In eithercase, the studentsused the

experts as a combinationof MultiplePerspec-tives and Research& Revise.Thisis becausethe

expertspointedout what the students hadover-

looked,buttheyalso deliveredtheprimarycon-

tentabout what is important o know aboutthe

domain. Finally, as the fourth component of

theirlegacies,the studentsincludeda TestYour

Mettle that allowed the class to extend the

knowledge to a new context and to self-assess

whether they had learned the intended con-

cepts.Forexample,one groupof studentsasked

the class to apply its knowledgeto a previouslyunseenvideoof aclassroom.Theclasshad to see

if itcouldnoticethetheoreticallymportant on-

ceptsatplay in thisclassroomsetting.

All told, the students naturally ncorporatedthe ideas of a challenge,a periodof generation,the delivery of expertresourcesfromthe com-

munity,andtheopportunity o test understand-

ing. Some of the students seemed to be aware

that they were explicitly adapting the Legacy

cycle, whereas otherssimply thoughtthey had

comeup with a neatway to teach.Ineithercase,

the resultsare encouragingbecausethey show

that the STAR.Legacyframework provided

enough of a design theory that the studentscould create original instruction and could

adapt STAR.Legacy o their own instructional

goals.A worthwhile line of research,n addition

to formalizing the preceding observations,

mightbe to follow teachers nto theirclassrooms

to determinewhether, when, and how theycon-

tinue to adapt or create instructiononce theyleavetheluxuryof theuniversitysetting.

SOFTWAREOOLSHATROMOTEFLEXIBLYDAPTIVE

INSTRUCTIONALESIGN

Our surveys of professionaldesigners indicate

thatacommoncriterion or agood designmodel

is whetherit helps designersmakedesign deci-

sions as efficiently and smoothly as possible.

STAR.Legacy, owever, requiresmanyinstruc-

tionaldecisionsthatdependon an understand-

ing of learning theory (and on havingknowledge of the domain under instruction).

We try to scaffold the applicationof learning

theory by including the explicit inquiry cycleand the Tips described earlier. We are also

exploring a more inductive scaffold where

designersreceivea templateLegacythat houses

severalexamplesof prior designs foreachcom-

ponent. The designers can choose one of the

examples as a model to guide theirdesign for

thatcomponent,andtheycanslowly adaptitbyswapping in theirown content (Bell,1998).At

this point, however, we are primarily ryingto

maximizecreativityin design rather than pre-

maturely constraining people's designs. Our

experienceswith the LBD.Legacy uggest that

over a more protractedperiod of time peoplebecome comfortable with the STAR.Legacyframework.Additionally,in work with profes-sional instructionaldesigners(Schwartz,Lin,et

al., in press), we have noticed how differentcomponents,such as TestYourMettle, ncreas-

ingly help designers think explicitlyabout the

contentthey expectstudentsto know.Similarly,we have found that when designers begin to

sequence multiplechallengesratherthan use a

single one, they begin to consider what ideas

theyexpectthe learners o generalize.

We assume that an understandingof learn-

ing goals and events is an excellentway to help

designers to adapt to and capitalize on localneedsandresources.To thisend,we havedevel-

oped the explicitinquirycycle. Wealso assume

that thesimplicityof authoring n STAR.Legacy

encourages flexibility. STAR.Legacydoes not

include many authoringtools. Those tools that

are included areprimarily orhelpingdesigners



56 ETR&D,ol.47, No. 2

accesscontentthatis developedandstoredout-

side of the STAR.Legacyshell. For example,

LBD.Legacy ists articles that students should

consult; it launchesvideo and audio as in the

case of MultiplePerspectives; t launchessuchapplicationsasa WebBrowserand asimulation;

and it suggests activitiesthat can be completedin theclassroom.Inthis regard,STAR.Legacys

more of an organizational"launchpad"than a

placeto program argeamountsof originalcon-

tent.

Ourgoal is toprovidesimple ways forpeopleto authorand adaptSTAR.Legacyn pedagogi-

cally sound fashion. Consequently, we have

kept the authoring capabilities quite simple.Thereis a single tool pallet thatpeople use to

include content for any of the componentsof

STAR.Legacy.We have also designed the tools

toencouragereflectionon learninggoals.Thisis

important because we found that when we

introducedprototypesof STAR.Legacy, eopletended to organize differentlearningmaterials

according to types of media. For example, in

Research& Revise,they organizedthe learningresourcesaccordingto useful Internet ocations,

suggestions for hands-on activities, textual

resources,video segments, simulations,and soforth. This is a fine organizationalscheme fora

merchandisecatalog, but ideally, like instruc-

tional materials hould be organizedat theped-

agogical level (Murray,1998)or by the concept

they serve, rather than by the media they use.

Consequently,we modifiedthe tools to encour-

age designers to "justify" he learningfunction

for a particular nstructionalactivity. Figure7

shows an example of the main programming

tool thatencouragesthisjustification.Users add a learningevent to STAR.Legacy

by clicking on a design tool from the palletshown at therightof Figure7.The toolopens the

dialogboxshown at the upperleft of the figure.This box asks the designerto define various fea-

tures of the learningevent, including physical

appearance,a descriptiveaccount of its learning

Figure7 Z TheProgrammingTools orAddinga LearningEvent o STAR.Legacy

4 File Edit Tools Uiew Objects TeHt Tips 00 00 00Q.

Action Name: Parent-Teachernteraction

Re Action:O Movie @ Go to card

O Sound 0 OpenURL

a Launch O Launch application

( Clear ] info Help

Details: Card Name -SShow Parent-Teacher Interaction

Name

(Description CardName FSelect Card EditCard Notebook

SDmageone

* Youwill try toconnectamiliesand eachersonthebasisofimportant ropertieshatyounotice n each.

* Youwill learn that here areseveral distinct eacher

styleswhen t comes o makingonnections iththehome. Paret-Tea lnter.ctiori* Youwill also learn thatfor parents hereareseveraldistincttypesofexpectationsor being nvolved n their GO Back

child's chooling.

.................




function,and its action.The actiondefines what

type of interactiveevent occurswhen a student

or teacherclicks on the interface.These events

include playing a movie or sound, opening a

browsertoa specific ocation,showingtext,sim-ulations,and so forth.Inthe figure,the selected

actionopens a new page (shownin Figure6).

Toencourageattention o instructional oals,

designersareexpectedto provideeachlearningevent with a captionand a learningdescription.Thecaptionis meantto tell studentswhat topicor issue is covered by that particular earningevent. Duringinstruction, he descriptionof the

learningevent appearswhen the user rolls the

mouse over the caption. The description is

expected to preview how the activityrelatesto

accomplishingthe challenge.Thisprovides the

dual functionsofencouragingdesignersto think

about meeting instructionalgoals and helpinglearners recognize the intent and content of a

learningevent as it relates to the largergoal of

meeting a challenge.The descriptivebox at the

lower leftof Figure7 beginsto meetthesegoals,

although it does not directlymap the learning

activitybackto the challengeof creatingdesign

principles orproject-basedearning.

CONCLUSIONS

Ourdiscussionwas foundedon a basicassump-tion:to optimize the effectivenessof an instruc-

tionaldesign, it is important o make thedesignconformto importantprinciplesof learningand

assessment, and to fit the requirements, kills,and resources of teachers, learners,and their

community. We, among others, are workingtoward a learning theory for instructional

design that can help teachersadapt or designinstruction ortheirclassrooms. n acoursesuch

as educational psychology, the theories of

Piaget,Bandura,and Vygotskyprovideimport-

ant psychological insights into learning.How-

ever, those theoriesdo not easily translate nto

instructionalpractices.We believe a more "userfriendly" theorycan help people know enough

about the process of learning to make sound

instructional decisions and adaptations ofinstructional materials. We also believe that a

technologicalenvironment hat makesit easy to

implementthis theoryis usefulin thisregard.

To support improved pedagogy as we

researchearning heory,we havecreateda mul-

timedia, instructional design environment

called STAR.Legacy.STAR.Legacyoffers one

exampleof how to organizeand facilitate earn-

ing in "challenge-based"nvironmentssuch as

case-, problem- and project-based learning.

STAR.Legacy upports the design of environ-

ments that are simultaneouslylearner,knowl-

edge, assessment and community centered

(elaboration fthispointis available nCTGV,n

press).

An especially important feature of

STAR.Legacys that it is designed to be flexibly

adaptive.Instructionaldesignwould beeasier f

we could assume that we are aimingat a fixed

target. Assumingstudent and classroomhomo-

geneity, however, is analogous to the common

assumptionthatall thepeople from a particular

foreigncultureare the same. It is easy, forexam-

ple, to read about theJapaneseeducationalsys-temand assumethattheyhave only one way of

doing things. Anthropologists,however, note

that culture does not impose homogeneity;instead, it provides ways for organizing the

diversityinherentwithin its population(Sato&

McLaughlin,1992).Ratherthan assuming that

diversity s theexception,STAR.Legacys based

on the assumption that settings, teachers,and

learnershave importantvariability n terms of

local practices and standards, learningresources,styles, and prior knowledge. Conse-

quently, we want teachersto be able to adaptinstructional materials flexibly to fit their cir-

cumstances.

Our discussionof STAR.Legacyocusedpri-

marilyon our uses of it to improveourpracticesascollegeteachers whichoften includeteaching

preservice teachers). The data gathered are

informal for the most part, but informative

nonetheless. In particular,people have consis-

tentlyreactedextremelypositivelyto theabilityof STAR.Legacyto help them visualize the

inquiry process. We also found that students

(many of whom were preserviceteachers)and

designerswere able to reflecton learningandto

break ree fromprevious ways of doing things.

Ourultimategoal is to use STAR.Legacy s a

platformfor further research-not so much to

study STAR.Legacy ut to inquireinto general



58 ETR&D, ol. 47, No. 2

questions relevant to the design of complexinstruction.For example, what are the advan-

tages of beginninga unit with a clearoverview

(includingapretestthathelpsstudents visualize

the kinds of environmentsin which they musteventually use theirknowledge)versus simply

jumping into a challenge?To what extent do

opportunitiesfor studentsto firstgeneratetheir

own ideas help them better appreciate the

insightsofferedby theexpertsfeatured n Multi-

ple Perspectives?What is the effect of seeingone's own teacher as a videotaped expert?To

what extent mightcase-,problem-,and project-based lessons benefit from a summarizinglec-

ture designed to help students organize thediverse experiences that were part of their

inquiry (see Schwartz & Bransford,1998)?Our

simple study on how to increase students'

appreciation of their learning shows how

STAR.Legacyreadily supports research into

these questions and more. Our plan is to con-

tinueto collaboratewith teachersanddesigners,and to submitourquestionstoempirical est. OW

DanielL.Schwartz,eanBrophy, iaodong in,and

JohnD. Bransfordrewith heLearningechnologyCenter tVanderbiltniversity. aniel chwartz

[email protected] supportedby grant#R305F60090

fromtheDepartment f Education.Theauthors

thankthe educationalpsychologystudentsfortheir

contributions o thispaperand Amy Ryce or her

editorial alents.

REFERENCES

Barron,B.J.,Schwartz, D.L., Vye, N.J., Moore, A.,

Petrosino,A.,Zech, L.,Bransford, .D.,&Cognitionand TechnologyGroupat Vanderbilt.1998).Doingwithunderstanding:Lessons romresearch n prob-lem-and project-basedearning.JournalftheLearn-

ingSciences, , 271-311

Barron,B.J.,Vye, N.J., Zech, L., Schwartz,D.,Bransford, .D.,Goldman,S.R.,Pellegrino, .,Morris,

J., Garrison,S., & Kantor,R. (1995).Creatingcon-

texts for community-basedproblem solving: TheJasper hallengeseries.InC.N.Hedley,P.Atonacci,& M. Rabinowitz(Eds.),Thinking nd literacy:Themindat work.Hillsdale,NJ:Erlbaum.

Barrows,H.S.(1985).How odesign problem-basedur-

riculumforthepreclinicalears.New York:Springer.Bell, B. (1998).Investigateand decide learningenvi-

ronments:Specializing task models for authoring

tooldesign.JournalftheLearningciences, ,65-107.

Bereiter,C., &Scardamalia,M. (1985).Cognitivecop-

ingstrategiesand theproblemof "inert"knowledge.In S.F. Chipman, J.W.Segal, & R. Glaser (Eds.),

Thinkingndlearningkills:Current esearchndopen

questionsVol.2, pp.65-80).Hillsdale,NJ:Erlbaum.

Bransford,J.D., Franks,J.J.,Vye, N.J., & Sherwood,

R.D. 1989).New approaches o instruction:Becausewisdom can'tbe told. InS. Vosniadou &A. Ortony(Eds.),Similarityndanalogical easoning. ew York:

CambridgeUniversityPress.

Bransford,J.D., & Nitsch, K.E. (1978). Coming to

understandthings we could not previously under-

stand. InJ.F.Kavanagh& W.Strange(Eds.),Speechandlanguagen thelaboratory,chool ndclinic.Cam-

bridge,MA:MITPress.

Bransford,.D.,

&Schwartz,D.L. inpress).Rethinkingtransfer: A simple proposal with multiple

implications.To appear in A. Iran-Nejad& P.D.Pearson(Eds.),Review f Researchn Education 24,xxx-xxx. Washington DC: American Educational

ResearchAssociation.

Bransford,J.D., Sherwood, R.D., Hasselbring,T.S.,

Kinzer,C.K., & Williams, S.M. (1990). Anchored

instruction:Whywe need it andhow technologycan

help.InD.Nix & R.Spiro Eds.),Cognition,ducation,and multi-media:Exploringdeas n high technology.Hillsdale,NJ:Erlbaum.

Bransford, .D.,Zech, L.,Schwartz,D.L., Barron,B.J.,Vye, N., & Cognition and Technology Group atVanderbilt. (in press). Design environments thatinvite and sustainmathematicalthinking.Toappearin P. Cobb (Ed.), Symbolizing,ommunicating,nd

mathematizing: erspectivesn discourse, ools, andinstructionalesign.Mahwah,NJ:Erlbaum.

Bridges, E.M., & Hallinger, P. (1995). Implementingproblem asedearningn leadershipevelopment.ni-

versity of Oregon:ERICClearinghouseof Educa-

tionalManagement.Brown,A.L.,&Campione,J.C. 1994).Guided discov-

ery in acommunityof

learners.n K.

McGilly Ed.),Classroomessons:Integrating ognitivetheoryand

classroom ractice pp. 229-272). Cambridge,MA:

MITPress

Cobb,P.(1994).Wheres themind?Constructivistndsocioculturalperspectiveson mathematicaldevel-

opment.Educationalesearcher,3, 13-20.

Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt.

(1992).TheJasper eries as an exampleof anchored

instruction: Theory, program description, and

assessment data. Educational sychologist, 7, 291-315.

Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt.(1994).Generativelearningand anchored instruc-

tion:Design,research ndimplementationssues. In

B.P.M.Creemersand G.J.Reezigt(Eds.),Newdirec-

tions in educational esearch:Contributionsrom an

internationalerspective. roningen: CO.


(1996).Lookingat technologyin context:A frame-




work for understanding echnologyand education

research.In D.C. Berliner& R.C.Calfee(Eds.),The

handbookfeducationalpsychologypp.807-840).NY:

Simon& SchusterMacMillan.


(1997). The Jasperproject:Lessons n curriculum,instruction, ssessment,ndprofessionalevelopment.Mahwah,NJ:Erlbaum.

Cognition and TechnologyGroup at Vanderbilt. in

press).Adventures nanchored nstruction:Lessons

frombeyondtheivorytower.Toappear n R.Glaser

(Ed.),Advances n instructionalsychologyVol. 5),Mahwah,NJ:Erlbaum.

Dweck, C.S. (1989).Motivation.In A. Lesgold& R.

Glaser(Eds.),Foundationsfor a psychologyf educa-

tion.Hillsdale,NJ:Erlbaum.

Gardner,H. (1991).Assessment n context:The alter-

native to standardizedtesting. In B. Gifford& C.O'Connor Eds.),Future ssessments:hanging iews

ofaptitude, chievement,ndinstruction(pp. 77-120).Boston:Kluwer.

Gibson,J.J.,&Gibson,E.J. 1957).Perceptual earning:Differentiation r enrichment.Psychological eview,

62,32-51.

Gick, M.L.,& Holyoak,K.J. 1983).Schema nduction

and analogical ransfer.CognitivePsychology,5,1-

38.

Gragg,C.L.(1940,October19).Wisdomcan'tbe told.

Harvard lumniBulletin.

Hmelo,C.E. 1998).Problem-basedearning:Effects nthe earlyacquisitionof cognitiveskillsin medicine.

JournalftheLearningciences, ,173-208.

Krajcik,.,Blumenfeld,P.C.,Marx,R.W.,Bass,K.M.,&

Fredricks, .(1998).Inquiry n project-basedcience

classrooms: Initialattemptsby middle school stu-

dents.JournalftheLearningciences, ,313-350.

Kuhn,T.S.(1962).The tructure fscientficrevolutions.

Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress.

Lin,X.D.,&Bielaczyc,K.(1998).Supporting etacogni-tiveactivitiesnlearning bout omplexubject omains.

Manuscriptubmitted orpublication.

Michael, A.L.,Klee, T., Bransford, .D.,&Warren,S.(1993).The transition rom heory otherapy:Testof

two instructional methods. AppliedCognitivePsy-

chology, , 139-154.

Murray,T.(1998).Authoringknowledge-based utors:Tools for content, instructionalstrategy, student

model, and interfacedesign.Journal f theLearningSciences, ,5-64.

Newell, A.,&Simon,H.(1972).Human roblemolving.

EnglewoodCliffs,NJ:Prentice-Hall.

Nunn, C.E. (1996).Discussionin college classrooms:

Triangulating bservationand surveyresults.Jour-nalofHigherEducation,7,'23-26.

Penner,D.E.,Lehrer,R.,& Schauble,L. (1998).From

physical models to biomechanics:Adesign-basedmodelingapproach.Journalf theLearning ciences,

7,429-449.

Perfetto,G.A., Bransford,J.D.,& Franks,J.J.(1983).Constraintson accessin a problemsolving context.

MemoryndCognition,1,24-31.

Sato, N.E.,& McLaughlin,M W.(1992).Contextmat-ters:Teaching nJapanandin the UnitedStates.PhiDeltaKappan,3,359-366.

Schwartz,D.L.,Biswas,G., Bransford, .D.,Bhuva,B.,Balac,T., & Brophy,S. (in press).Computertoolsthat link assessment and instruction:Investigating

what makeselectricityhardto learn.Toappear nS.LajoieEd.),Computersscognitiveools:Thenextgen-eration.Mahwah,NJ:Erlbaum.

Schwartz,D.L.,&Bransford, .D. 1998).Atimefortell-

ing.Cognition&Instruction,6,475-522.

Schwartz,D.L.,Lin,X.D.,Brophy,S.,&Bransford, .D.(in press). Towards the development of flexiblyadaptive instructionaldesign. To appear in C.

Reigeluth Ed.),Instructionaldesign heories ndmod-

els,VolumeI.Mahwah,NJ:Erlbaum.

Spiro, R.J.,& Jehng,J.C.(1990).Cognitiveflexibilityand hypertext:Theoryand

technology

orthe non-linear and multidimensional raversalof complexsubjectmatter. n D. NixandR.J. piro Eds.),Cogni-tion,education,ndmultimedia:Exploringdeasnhigh

technology. illsdale,NJ:Erlbaum.

Towler,L.,& Broadfoot,P. (1992).Self-assessmentntheprimary chool. Educationaleview, 4,137-151.

Vye, N.J.,Schwartz,D.L.,Bransford, .D.,Barron,B.,Zech, L.,and Cognitionand Technology Groupat

Vanderbilt. 1998).SMART nvironments hatsup-portmonitoring, eflection, ndrevision.InHacker,

Dunlosky,& Graesser Eds.),Metacognitionn educa-

tionaltheory

ndpractice.Mahwah,NJ:

Erlbaum.

Wertime,R.(1979).Students'problemsand "courage

spans."InJ.Lockhead ndJ.Clements Eds.),Cogni-tive process nstruction.Philadelphia:The FranklinInstitutePress.

Whitehead,A.N. (1929).Theaimsof education.NewYork:MacMillan.

Williams,S.E. (1992).Puttingcase-basedinstruction

intocontext:Examples romlegaland medicaledu-

cation.JournalftheLearningciences,,367-427.

schwartz et al

Documents