Integrating Instructional Software Into Teaching and Learning

1
Chapter 4

• Integrating Instructional Software Into Teaching
  and Learning

2
Five Common Types of Courseware
3
Drill and Practice
4
Drill and Practice

• Provide students with work example exercises
• Give feedback regarding student correctness
• May adjust toughness or ease of questions with
  the rate of a students learning ability

5
Issues Related to Drill and Practice

• Control over presentation rate
• Students should have as much time as they need to
  answer and examine feedback
• Appropriate Feedback
• Stress importance of positive feedback for
  correct answers
• Not so elaborate that it detracts from lessons
  purpose
• Reinforcement For Correct Answers
• Programs may inadvertently motivate students to
  get wrong answers

6
Using Drill and Practice in Teaching - Benefits

• Immediate feedback
• Students know when they are right or wrong
  immediately
• Helps students to identify problems so they dont
  repeat the same mistakes on consecutive problems
• Motivation
• Computer-based drills may encourage students to
  do the practice they need
• Time
• Drill programs offer more time for teachers to
  address other students needs rather than
  presenting practice material

7
Guidelines for Use

• Set time limits
• Limit drill assignment time to 10 to 15 minutes
  per day
• Assign Individually
• When available assign students to individual
  drill stations
• May assign students into groups if resources are
  limited
• Use learning stations
• Stations can be used as a form of learning for
  students that may benefit most from this type of
  media
• Other stations can provide students with
  different types of courseware

8
Example - Money Count
http//www.edu4kids.com/money/mcount.php
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
Tutorials
12
Tutorial Activities

• Computers deliver instructional sequences
• Expected to be complete enough to stand alone
  without need for outside reference material

13
Considerations for Tutorial Activities

• Extensive Interactivity
• Should require frequent thoughtful responses to
  questions and problems
• Thorough User Control
• Tutorial progress should be at student discretion
  
• Should provide flexibility to review explanations
• Frequent opportunities for students to exit the
  program
• Adequate Answer-Judging Capabilities
• Tutorials should accept all correct answers and
  possible variations of correct answers
• Should supply corrective feedback after one or
  two incorrect entries

14
Using Tutorials in Teaching

• Self-contained, self-paced presentations
• Students may review a teachers initial
  presentation
• Alternative learning strategies
• Advanced students may structure their learning
  activities and proceed on their own
• Students may gain background material prior to
  class meetings
• Instruction without a teacher
• Well designed tutorials can teach students
  subject material where teachers are not available
  for instruction

15
Guidelines for Use

• Designed primarily to serve individuals
• May form a classroom learning station or be
  available for anytime use in media centers
• Expense of developing efficient tutorials should
  be a consideration for average classroom learning

16
Example - Interactive Health Tutorials
http//www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/tutorial.html
17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
Stimulation
22
- A stimulation is a computerized model of a
real or imagined system designed to teach how a
system works.
- Learners usually must create their own
sequence for using simulations
- There are two main types of simulation
23
1. Those that teach about something
Iterative
Physical
Speed up or slow down processes that usually
either take so long or happen so quickly that
students could not ordinarily see the events
unfold
Users manipulate objects or phenomena represented
on the screen.
24
2. Those that teach how to do something
Procedural
Situational
Activities that teach the appropriate sequences
of steps to perform certain procedures.
Give students hypothetical problem situations and
ask them to react.
25
How to use simulations in teaching
Compress time
Slow down processes
Get Students involved
Make experimentation safe
Make the impossible possible
Save money and other resources
Repeat with variations
Make situations controllable
26
Classroom applications of simulated functions
In place of or as supplements to lab experiments
In place of or as supplements to role playing
In place of or as supplements to field trips
Introducing a new topic
Fostering exploration and process learning
Encouraging cooperation and group work
27
Example - Eye Simulator
http//cim.ucdavis.edu/EyeRelease/Interface/TopFra
me.htm
28
(No Transcript)
29
(No Transcript)
30
(No Transcript)
31
Instructional games
32
Instructional games are courseware whose function
is to increase motivation by adding game rules to
learning activities.
33
How to use instructional games in teaching
In place of worksheets and exercises
To foster cooperation and group work
As a reward
34
Example - Oochina the Archeologist
http//www.kidspsych.org/pyramid.html
35
(No Transcript)
36
(No Transcript)
37
(No Transcript)
38
(No Transcript)
39
?
?
?
?
Problem Solving
?
?
?
?
?
?
40
All problem solving involves three components

• Recognition of a goal
• (an opportunity for solving a problem)

• A process
• (a sequence of physical activities or operation)

• Mental activity
• (cognitive operations to pursue a solution)

41
Problem solving ability depends on

• Knowledge

• Prior Experience

• Motivation

42
Subskills for problem solving
Metacognition
Observing
Recalling information
Sequencing
Analyzing
Finding and organizing information
Inferring
Predicting outcomes
Making analogies
Formulating ideas
43
Two Views on Fostering Problem Solving
2
1

• Placing students in problem solving
  environments and, with some coaching and
  guidance, letting them develop their own
  heuristics for attacking and problem solving.

• Problem solving is a high-level skill that can
  be taught directly, at least in part, by specific
  instruction and practice in its component
  strategies and subskills

It is necessary to combine these two elements in
teaching for students to learn

• Directed more towards motivating students to
  attack problems and to recognize solving problems
  as an integral part of everyday life

• Directed more towards supplying prerequisite
  skills for specific kinds of problem solving

44
Two types of problem solving courseware for
directed instruction
Concentrates on general, content-free skills such
as recalling facts, breaking a problem into a
sequence of steps, or predicting outcomes
Teaches content area skills, primarily in
mathematics
45
Six steps to help teachers integrate courseware

• Identify problem solving skills or general
  capabilities to build or foster
• Solving one or more kinds of content-area
  problems (building algebra equations)
• Using a scientific approach to problem solving
  (identifying the problem, posing hypotheses,
  planning a systematic approach)
• Components of problem solving such as following a
  sequence of steps or recalling facts.

2. Decide on an activity or series of activities
that would help teach the desired skills
3. Examine courseware to locate materials that
clearly match the desiredd abilities, remembering
to not judge capabilities on the bias of vendor
claims alone
4. Determine where the courseware fits into the
teaching sequence (for example, to introduce the
skill and gain attention or as a practice
activity after demonstrating problem solving or
both)
5. Demonstrate the courseware and the steps to
follow in solving problems
6. Build in transfer activities and make
students aware of the skills they are using in
the courseware
46
Most software is designed for implementation
using more constructivist models
These models give students no direct training in
or introduction to solving problems rather they
place the students in highly motivational problem
solving environments and encourage them to work
in groups to solve problems
Constructivists believe this kind of experience
helps students in three ways

• They expect that students will be more likely to
  acquire and practice content-area, research, and
  study skills for problems they find interesting
  and motivating.

2. This kind of activity helps keep knowledge
and skills from becoming inert because it gives
students opportunities to see how information
applies to actual problems.
3. Students gain opportunities to discover
concepts themselves, which they frequently find
more motivating then being told.
47
Example - Frustrated Farmer
http//www.vtaide.com/png/puzzles.htm
48
(No Transcript)
49
(No Transcript)
50
(No Transcript)
51
Evaluating and selecting instructional software
52
Each teacher must determine which specific
curriculum needs and specific grade levels the
package addresses and whether or not courseware
functions fit with planned teaching strategies
Courseware must must match clearly identified
instructional needs
53
Courseware Evaluation Procedures

• Begin with an identified need
• know what topics and skills you want to address
  and how you think you will use technology.

• Locate titles
• teachers should probably not base their
  courseware purchasing on descriptive reviews,
  rather colleagues and professional magazines and
  journals.

• Complete hands-on reviews
• Teachers should avoid reviewing demo packages. A
  typical hands-on review two or three passes
  through a program

• Collect student reviews
• Students sometimes encounter unexpected
  problems, or they may not seem to get out of the
  activity what they teacher expected they would.

54
By
Eric and Barbara
55
The End
Just Kidding
Go to
http//www.photohunt.com
56
It should look like this
And play the demo