Seven educational assumptions you can abandon
with DTA-supported instruction in a virtual (digital) world
Having the Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) available as a personalized mentor for the student affords big changes in the way schools work.
Collaborative planning
- The Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) for MUVES (virtual worlds): Summary
- Computer-supported instruction
- Scholarly articles for computer-supported instruction
Some assumptions
- All students learn at the same rate.
- Students learn best with a hour or 90 minutes of new information at one time.
- Students have adequate knowledge if they can answer 70% of the questions on the test.
- You just need to tell students what they should do and they will do it.
- Students know how to study effectively and will devote enough time to do that.
- Students know how to manage their time effectively for study and class assignments.
- Students know how to cooperate to carry out a project on time.
- If you believe these, do you also believe in fairies?
Debunking
All students learn at the same rate
- Nobody really believes that, but mass production needs to assume uniformity.
- Why high schools teach tolerance for boredom and what they can do about it
- Since we have to teach students in classes, they all have to progress at that rate.
- Any teaching the DTA does can be at the level that fits the student.
- The DTA can work 24/7, has as many copies as needed and has no time limits
- The only limitation is how much time it takes the student to learn and how much time the student can spend on learning.
Students learn best with a hour or so of new information at a time
- INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN: ENGAGEMENT ACTIVITIES AND STRATEGIES
- If you think 10 minutes of study is a better pattern, the DTA can encourage that.
- If a student will spend 40 minutes in study, the time could be spread over 4 courses.
- Or students can spend whatever time suits their interests.
Students show adequate knowledge by 70% of the test questions.
- If adequate means passing the test, that is true.
- If adequate means using what they are learning, it is rarely true.
- What job would you hire somebody for if they were going to do 30% of it wrong?
- That is the difference between student thinking and breadwinner thinking.
- You want schooling to prepare students for more than student thinking.
- If some students need more time, the DTA can provide it at negligible cost.
You just need to tell students what they should do and they will do it
- The Secret of the Instruction Manual
- Digicoach can support homework in virtual worlds with JIT learning, immediate feedback.
- The DTA can coach students while they are doing homework.
- It can ask for intermediate products and sometimes evaluate them.
- The DTA can always show the products to the teacher for evaluation.
Students know how to study effectively
- Obviously not, or people would not write articles on how to study effectively.
- Of course you can give students some of these articles and tell them to study the articles.
- I hope you see the humor in that suggestion.
- The DTA can act as a study coach and talk the through study periods.
- It can follow them step-by-step, getting and evaluating intermediate products.
- As with any coach, you would want it to work itself out of a job.
- But only when the student is studying effectively.
Students know how to manage their time effectively
- No teacher believes that. Colleges offer write instructions in time management.
- Without assurance that students read it, much less learn about it.
- But DTA can monitor homework time and homework achievements.
- DTA can monitor daily accomplishments..
- It can remind students of what they need to get done and when.
- Or it can give a suggested schedule and let the students rearrange as they wish.
Students know how to cooperate to carry out a project on time
- Project-based learning with work-groups: Not just the content: project skills, team skills, self-confidence
- I think back to 25 years of faculty meetings and...
- The DTA can provide some of the services a trained facilitator would provide.
- A trained facilitator would be better, but too expensive for most schools.
- The DTA can provide guided practice.
- Some students would develop enough skill to help out.
- Perhaps some students would want to practice facilitating.
- Computer-supported collaborative learning (Wikipedia)
*********************************
Visit me on the web
- Drop by my web offices Weekdays: 12:-12:30 pm Central time (US)
- I am available for free consulting on any topic in this blog.
- Cybalounge and 3DWebWorldz (Orientation room)
- I will be in both places, so you may need to speak to get my attention.
- Web-worlds, 3D virtual worlds running in a browser. Summary
- And we can visit the Writer's Workshop on the Web
- Don't register -- enter as guest.
************************
License
- Original text in this blog is CC By: unless specified public domain.
- Use as you please with attribution: link to the original.
- All images without attribution in this blog are CC0: public domain.
- Second Life, Linden, SLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc.
- Annotated screenshots made with Jing
- This blog is not affiliated with anything. Ads are from Google.
- Selby Evans in Kitely and hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.