Often when reflecting on pedagogical practice that
incorporates the use of technology
it seems like I am on the subway getting hustled in a game of Three Card
Monty. There is so much going that it is difficult to follow what is really
important. The cards move back and forth and the brain just can't quite make
sense of what has happened. It is refreshing to know that there are educational
researchers that are sorting through the tools being created to seek their
impact on student learning. Ultimately it is about the impact on the student’s
ability to build capacity for further learning.
Assessment of student capacity is difficult. “We cannot
directly inspect what students know or do not know. Like Sherlock Holmes
solving mysteries, assessment involves indirect reasoning from evidence –
developing a model of cognition reflecting the knowledge a learner is to
master, collecting observations of statements and behaviors match the expert
model.” (Clarke-Midura, Dede
2010) Indeed, educators can only make a general prediction about the skills
that students will need for their futures. More than ever educators should
focus on the development of student capacity and not measure content knowledge.
On this, most educators agree.
I am interested in the “five designing principals for
‘designing a learning environment for a classroom’: integration, awareness,
empowerment, flexibility, and minimalism” ( Cuedet, Bonnard, Dillenburg 2013)
in terms of how they work together to provide an effective learning
environment. It is not any one aspect of the design that is paramount but
rather how they are synchronized into a real life learning experience.
Augmented reality(AR) delivered via a tangible user interface(TUI) is only as
effective if the learner experience is sensible. The AR experience cannot be
isolated from the overall experience. “Take a large number of simple actions
and add them up, and the overall result can be complex and confusing: the whole
is greater than the sum of the parts.” (Norman, 2011, p64) The role of the
educator must be to provide a learning experience that allows the student to
focus on the core learning and not be distracted by the learning environment. They
should not fall prey to the distraction card.
An effective learning environment is when the student is
focused on the learning and is able to reflect on that learning. “Games make
learning easier and faster, as they provide real-life feedback and help players
succeed in the different game activities.”(Berns, Gonzalez, Camacho 2013) The
role of purposeful designed instruction is to provide experiences that scaffold
the difficulty and scope of the learning so that students can grow to gain
greater capacity for understanding and interacting with the real world. We must
be cautious to always keep this as the ultimate goal and not use the most
entertaining tool because it is entertaining. The creation of fun and easy to
use games in education is only a tool and should not be one of the distraction
cards of the hustler.
The teacher must make sure that the student is growing in
their capacity to understand how the game is being played,, difficult as that
is. Science games and simulations may motivate informational learning in
similar ways, if they allow the user to modify the game or situation, similar
to modifying one’s robot.” (National Academy of Sciences) Experts are created
when a deeper understanding of how a system functions is obtained. Giving
students the ability to modify the game is like showing them how to execute
three card monty. Once they are empowered with understanding the rules of
interactions they have the capacity to think critically, create, communicate,
and collaborate on new systems capable of representing models of the real world
which are effective in accomplishing prediction and correlation with complex
problems that need to be solved. These problems include disease, environmental management,
and cognitive science. These are the realities, not augmented, that our
students must understand and have the capacity to impact positively.
