I would contend that the cookie cutter approach is not only more
efficient, but I would say overall is far more effective for both training
& education than the present on-campus approach where untrained content
experts do whatever they want without reference to pedagogical research.
Most cookie-cutters usually base their templates on one or more
pedagogical approaches or techniques.
A cookie cutter approach also does not preclude individualization,
especially now with mass customization possible using technology.
Teachers can also use templates as starting points to either form the base
of a course or simply as enhancements. They need not limit the teacher's
options. Does a textbook limit the teacher? Somewhat.
Could someone please point me to research, anecdotal evidence (academic or
not) or anything that supports the widely held assumption that
cookie-cutter solutions are inferior to whatever other solutions that
might be proposed? I am not married to the above proposition, but I have
not seen any evidence to convince me that it is invalid.
Thanks to Rob & Steve for bringing this up. I believe that this is an
important issue for this list.
Rory
Rory McGreal, Executive Director/Directeur general
TeleEducation NB
Box 6000 470 York Street, Fredericton, New Brunswick E3B 5H1
CANADA Tel. (506) 444-4230 Fax: (506) 444-4232
Email: rmcgreal@unb.ca OR mcgrealr@nbnet.nb.ca
For instance, the "cut out" for teaching Mathematics should have a
computer algebra system like Mathematica or Maple with it, to give
students the neccessary experimental potential needed to learn
mathematics.
The Geometry "cut out" should be contained in something like "Geometers
sketchpad".
The "cut out" for learning electronics should have a graphical based
circut builder to teach and learn with.
The Chemistry "cut out" should have a 3-d molecule building and binding
program.
The current problem with the cookie cutter approach is that in
order to be useful to a wide array of teachers and topics they must
pander to to Lowest Common Denominator. From what I have seen they are
very limited in the interactivity. They are designed with the TEACHER
in mind and NOT THE STUDENT. They have some sort of grade keeping
area and forms, quiz taking forms, a newgroup and perhaps a chat. The
delivery of the subject matter is usually very poor. The courses are
extremely unbalanced favoring communication over exploration.
We should be exploring new ways of getting students involved in
their learning by adding student centered interactivity, and even better
an environment for students to create, explore and experiment in.
The 'danger" of the cookie cutter approach is that since it is easier and
cheaper to develop these "online courses", we will lower our expectations
of the possibilites of computerized anywhere-anytime learning. This is
basically what is wrong with our current educational system. The
industrial revolution created efficient ways of mass producing products
and testing them...this philosphy carried over into our educational system
into a mass producing machine that now sees from 30 to 600 students in a
classroom "efficently" bored out of their minds. Once a "system" prevails
in our educational system it is very hard if not impossble to get rid of.
Scott Mills Gray
scotty@cm.math.uiuc.edu
http://www.useractive.com
"I hear and I forget, I see and I forget, I do and I forget" -- confused.
On Sun, 5 Apr 1998, Rory Mc Greal Com College wrote:
> Steve & Rob and I am sure many others seem suspicious of cookie-cutter
> approaches to education. I am sure at this stage, none of us believe that
> there is a one-size-fits-all solution. However, I would suggest that this
> does not mean that there is no value in cookie-cutter solutions. Most
> people keep a range of cookie cutters for their baking needs, some
> suitable for specific occasions, some for specific people, some for
> specific cooking strategies.
>
> I would contend that the cookie cutter approach is not only more
> efficient, but I would say overall is far more effective for both training
> & education than the present on-campus approach where untrained content
> experts do whatever they want without reference to pedagogical research.
> Most cookie-cutters usually base their templates on one or more
> pedagogical approaches or techniques.
>
> A cookie cutter approach also does not preclude individualization,
> especially now with mass customization possible using technology.
> Teachers can also use templates as starting points to either form the base
> of a course or simply as enhancements. They need not limit the teacher's
> options. Does a textbook limit the teacher? Somewhat.
>
> Could someone please point me to research, anecdotal evidence (academic or
> not) or anything that supports the widely held assumption that
> cookie-cutter solutions are inferior to whatever other solutions that
> might be proposed? I am not married to the above proposition, but I have
> not seen any evidence to convince me that it is invalid.
>
> Thanks to Rob & Steve for bringing this up. I believe that this is an
> important issue for this list.
>
> Rory
>
>
>
>
>
> Rory McGreal, Executive Director/Directeur general
> TeleEducation NB
> Box 6000 470 York Street, Fredericton, New Brunswick E3B 5H1
> CANADA Tel. (506) 444-4230 Fax: (506) 444-4232
> Email: rmcgreal@unb.ca OR mcgrealr@nbnet.nb.ca
>
* What problem(s) do cookie-cutter approaches address?
* Whose needs are being served by this model, the instructor or
the learner?
* Information (facts) exists in isolation of political, cultural,
social, regional and personal contexts and can be taught this way.
(Can information be learned in this way?)
* Training and education serve the same goals and purpose
(is there no difference between information and knowledge?)
Education equates to pedagogy (to the exclusion of learning, to
the exclusion of learners)
* Efficiency is a goal worthy of both training and education
Efficiency of what? The acquisition of facts? Or a more
effective/efficient science of teaching? What is the product of
efficient instruction? How does such a corporate model serve
learners?
* University instructors are content experts untrained in pedagogy
Theories of pedagogy offer us scientific approaches to teaching;
in the absence of training in pedagogical theory and techniques
professors know little about teaching.
We can understand teaching as a technique to be perfected
in isolation of our understanding about what prior understanding
and experiences students bring to the learning context.
Perhaps we begin down this slippery slope when we start to make assumptions
about the similarity of training and education. The 'baking' metaphor seems
not to to apply well to education, if at all.
To quote Andy Feenberg:
How we do things determines who and what we are.
Technological development transforms what it is to be human.
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/feenberg/talk4.html
We need to consider carefully the models of teaching and learning we choose
to adopt, since undoubtedly both instructors and learners will be
transformed by them, perhaps in ways that are unanticipated.
Best regards,
Bobbi Kerlin
kerlinb@pdx.edu
>Steve & Rob and I am sure many others seem suspicious of cookie-cutter
>approaches to education. I am sure at this stage, none of us believe that
>there is a one-size-fits-all solution. However, I would suggest that this
>does not mean that there is no value in cookie-cutter solutions. Most
>people keep a range of cookie cutters for their baking needs, some
>suitable for specific occasions, some for specific people, some for
>specific cooking strategies.
>
>I would contend that the cookie cutter approach is not only more
>efficient, but I would say overall is far more effective for both training
>& education than the present on-campus approach where untrained content
>experts do whatever they want without reference to pedagogical research.
>Most cookie-cutters usually base their templates on one or more
>pedagogical approaches or techniques.
>
>A cookie cutter approach also does not preclude individualization,
>especially now with mass customization possible using technology.
>Teachers can also use templates as starting points to either form the base
>of a course or simply as enhancements. They need not limit the teacher's
>options. Does a textbook limit the teacher? Somewhat.
>
>Could someone please point me to research, anecdotal evidence (academic or
>not) or anything that supports the widely held assumption that
>cookie-cutter solutions are inferior to whatever other solutions that
>might be proposed? I am not married to the above proposition, but I have
>not seen any evidence to convince me that it is invalid.
>
>Thanks to Rob & Steve for bringing this up. I believe that this is an
>important issue for this list.
>
>Rory
>I would contend that the cookie cutter approach is not only more
>efficient, but I would say overall is far more effective for both training
>& education than the present on-campus approach where untrained content
>experts do whatever they want without reference to pedagogical research.
>Most cookie-cutters usually base their templates on one or more
>pedagogical approaches or techniques.
>
>Could someone please point me to research, anecdotal evidence (academic or
>not) or anything that supports the widely held assumption that
>cookie-cutter solutions are inferior to whatever other solutions that
>might be proposed? I am not married to the above proposition, but I have
>not seen any evidence to convince me that it is invalid.
>
>Thanks to Rob & Steve for bringing this up. I believe that this is an
>important issue for this list.
>
Cookie Cutter thinking belies a point of view that Education is
something "delivered" and parcelled up.
Whereas I am not going to deny the need for the effective and efficient
design and publication of learning resources or that we can not be
systematic (if not sytematised) in our planning and implementation of
learning, however I am sure learning is a social process whose
effectiveness is conditioned by the social context in which it exists.
There can never be anything that is "unindividual" about learning for it
is something done by the learner. That does not mean that teaching does not
exist (good and bad), but that teaching is part of that social context. I
have learned a lot from what would be pedagogically bad design ( some books
are just hard to read because that is the way the author is).
So if you are looking for a critique of what have been historic "ed-tech"
approaches, I would start by looking at those who are making cases for
socially situated cognition and a particularly useful source is the work of
Lave.
Sue Berryman has a particularly good summary:
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/k12/livetext-nf/docs/berry1.html
regards
martin
Martin Owen
T.M.Owen@bangor.ac.uk
Director, Project REM
School of Education Yr Ysgol Addysg
University of Wales, Bangor Prifysgol Cymru, Bangor
Normal Site Safle'r Normal
Holyhead Rd Ffordd Caergybi
Bangor Bangor
Gwynedd
LL57 2PX
Voice/Llais +44 1248 382 943
Fax/Ffacs +44 1248 38 36 40
URL: HTTP://weblife.bangor.ac.uk/rem/rem.html
REM is a EC DGXIII Telematics Education and Training Project
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"Technology is nothing more or less than a natural phase of the creative
process which engaged man from the moment he forged his first tool and
began to transform the world for its humanization"
Paulo Freire : Cultural Action for Freedom
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