The Language of Teaching Well with Learning Objects

1. The Language of Teaching Well with Learning Objects Carla Meskill and Natasha Anthony Educational Theory and Practice State University of New York at Albany

2. Information is a shockingly limited form of knowledge.Andrea diSessa, Changing Minds, 2000 Education happens in conversations where the combined mental resources of teacher and learner are focused on developing the learner’s understanding. Neil Mercer, Words and Mind. 2000:169

3. Assumptions: • Teaching and learning is about mastering disciplinary discourse and becoming a literate member of that community. • It is not about students repeating back easily grasped absolutes. • It is about learners grappling with messy and ambiguous realities and learning to critically and articulately make sense from a variety of perspectives. • To do so, students master the disciplinary discourse as their primary tool.

4. Assumptions As experts, masters of our disciplinary discourse, we initiate learners into disciplinary ways of knowing and communicating. • Draw student attention to target terms and concepts • Guide and mentor students’ mastery of this language.

5. Language and Learning Objects How can the attributes of learning objects be linked to the linguistic, be incorporated into instructional conversations, to affect learning?

6. Instructional Discourse vs Natural Discourse InstructionalNatural Roles: Fixed Negotiated Tasks: Teacher-oriented Group- oriented position-centered person- centered Knowledge: Focus on content Focus on process Accuracy Fluency

7. Instructional Conversation Strategies Thinking and speaking that is • joined in a dialectic way • dynamic, generative, process-oriented • cumulative with the goal of shared, mutually generated understanding WITH LEARNING OBJECTS AS ANCHORS

8. Learning Objects Until very recently – in most of our lifetimes - learning object referential talk consisted of things like “on page 66 of your textbook” and pointing to overhead slides.

9. Learning Objects Designed to be • under student control • open to exploration not for static referring like work sheets, pages of texts, and overheads.

10. Learning Objects • Public • Anarchic • Malleable • Unstable • Provide Anchored Referents

11. Learning Objects eighth note hydrogen Panama Canal prothorax nucleus

12. Learning Objects Learning objects are composed of elements to which we can make reference as part of productive, generative instructional conversations. Draw attention to. Incorporate term/concept in productive conversation.

13. Some possible sites for visual demo • Russian verbs of motion animation http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/java/uxodit.html • Arabic talk show http://larcdma.sdsu.edu/beta/user/index.php?lang=Arabic&topic=Talk%20Show&id=406 • Protein Explorer http://molvis.sdsc.edu/protexpl/efhandm.gif

14. Instructional Conversation Strategies • Linguistic Tools • Referring/Anchoring • Hyperlinking • Modeling • Saturation • Corralling • Encouraging Synthetic Responses • Implicit Feedback

15. Instructional Conversation Strategies with Learning Objects • Psychometric studies of learner satisfaction underscore the importance of instructor engagement, caring, and promoting a sense of learning community as essential to successful learning – ICSs can help accomplish these

16. Instructional Conversation Strategies with Learning Objects • Anchors for cross-disciplinary dialog about teaching and learning • Conceptual aspect of teaching with learning objects that you can throw into the pot as you make informed ID decisions • ‘Metapedagogical awareness’ • ID folks can assist faculty in ICS-approach • Read more in our forthcoming book

17. http://youtube.com/watch?v=1RUBP5e0_js&feature=RecentlyWatched&page=1&t=t&f=bhttp://youtube.com/watch?v=1RUBP5e0_js&feature=RecentlyWatched&page=1&t=t&f=b