What do design-oriented models look like, sound like, and feel like? I’ve been contemplating the answers to those questions for about two weeks now. Richard Schank’s book, Teaching Minds: How Cognitive Science can Save our Schools, as well as Katie Muhtaris and Kristen Ziemky’s book, Amplify: Digital Teaching and Learning in the K-6 Classroom have helped me to generate a few answers to those questions.
Looks like:
- models that support digital communities
- user-designers, (e.g. content users help to design their learning experiences)
- online learning and social media
- incorporation of new literacies
- develop digital citizens
- models that support the cognitive process
- making predictions
- building models of a process
- experimenting with information based on failure or success
- evaluating information on many different dimensions
- models that support the analytic process
- making a diagnosis of a complex situation
- constructing explanations
- learning to plan
- conducting needs analysis
- goal setting
- detecting causes of events
- making objective judgments
- models that support the social processes
- creating influence within a group
- working as a productive team member
- handling conflict
- practicing negotiation
- describing problems precisely
Sounds like:
prolific language used to
- compliment
- question
- coach
Feels like:
- an emphasis on student ownership and creativity
- student empowerment
- interdisciplinary learning
- personalized assessment
- authentic assignments and projects
- collaboration
- abundant access to resources
- continuous reflection
- divergent and convergent thinking
- envisioning, understanding, and communicating meaning
- inquiry and problem-solving
- content area experts
Schank reminds us that, “lifetime learning does not mean the continual acquisition of knowledge so much as it means the improvement in one’s ability to [employ cognitive] processes by means of the acquisition and analysis of experiences to draw on. Design-oriented models will help teachers to craft those experiences for their learners in a web-enhanced classroom.
Reference:
Muhtaris, Katie, and Kristin Ziemke. 2015. Amplify: digital teaching and learning in the K-6 classroom.
Schank, R. C. (2011). Teaching minds: How cognitive science can save our schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
