Teachers often labour to anchor learning in a realistic and applicable context and with firsthand experience I must say it is no easy task. In an effort to develop material to cater to the instructional needs of teachers and learning needs of students the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (CTGV) developed the Jasper Woodbury Problem Solving Series which focused on constructivist and emphasizes generative learning in mathematics.
This video series has potential to motivate students in solving complex problems in meaningful contexts and indeed CTGV’s research supports its use. Consisting of video-based narrative adventures and a support system of twice yearly assessments of attitude, word problem solutions and planning skills the series has been used in variety of mathematics classrooms both as the topic of study and as a commercially available product.
As a high school science teacher and lesson designer I must say CTGV’s research and materials bring to mind a few questions.
As an educator:
- How can instructors and students guarantee that they are meeting the intended outcomes of the program?
- How can instructors fit the Jasper series into their established teaching context while maintaining the organization and accountability of more structured learning environments?
- What professional development supports would need to be in place to support using the Jasper series within your average school?
- Can the benefits of the Jasper series be obtained without fully adopting the series into one’s classroom?
As an instructional designer with an interest in technology enhanced learning:
- Should learning objectives be overt in lesson design and delivery or is discovery learning a more realistic scenario on which to base learning?
- How can assessment and real-time feedback be built into the Jasper learning materials to support learning?
- Can the material be easily distributed to both teachers and students?
- What could modern Internet applications and tools do to enhance and further the goals of the Jasper series?
I will be posting back shortly after discussing these and similar questions with my classmates.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Here are some of the ideas and critiques that came out of our discussion.