CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

CLAUS BRABRAND© BRICS / DAIMI 2006

Department of Computer Science

University of Aarhus, Denmark

DIDACTIC SITUATIONS

"Teorien om didaktiske situationer"Carl Winsløw (Kap. 7)

[ 2 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Outline

Presentation of TDS: Knowledge: transmission vs. active construction Personal knowledge vs. Official knowledge "The puzzle" (example of a didactic situation) The 5 main phases (in the didactic game) The didactic contract Pitfalls and dangerous side-effects

Exercise (design a didactic situation): Devolution Action Formulation Validation Institutionalization

[ 3 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

"Learning-by-transmission" is dead:

Learning: active construction in concrete situations(and always wrt. personal knowledge and experience)

Constructivism

TEACHER'sperspective (x-y-z)

LEARNER A'sperspective (x-y)

LEARNER B'sperspective (y-z)

An Elephant is soft and mushy

[ 4 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Personal vs. Official Knowledge

Personal knowledge: "erkendelse" (dansk) "connaissance" (french) individual informal implicit subjective (can be) unstable (wrt.) specific situations

Official knowledge: "viden" (dansk) "savoir" (french) shared formal explicit objective stable (esp. natural science) general

Two processes (opposite directions):

Personalknowledge

Officialknowledge

Officialization

Personalization

[ 5 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Communication (of Knowledge)

Speak-Listen:

Write-Read:

Personal

knowledge

Official

knowledge

Personal

knowledge

OfficializationOfficialization

Per

sona

lizat

ion

Personalknowledge

Official

knowledge

Per

sona

lizat

ion

tion

Personal

knowledge

OfficializaOfficializa

[ 6 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

New (usable) Knowledge...

...is constructed in 2 steps: 1. Personalization of the new knowledge

(in relation to a concrete task or problem) 2. Officialization of this new personal knowledge

(which may then be shared with others)

Teacher's role (plan teaching so as to): 1. Facilitate personalization (via didactic situations) 2. Officialize results (subsequently)

Personalknowledge

Officialknowledge

Officialization

Personalization

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Product: personal knowledge

Process: same, but supervised by a teacher

(and carefully planned by the teacher) w/o a teacher, the student may go astray...

The Quest for Knowledge

Product: official knowledge

Process: produced based on personal knowledge

(e.g. intuition) result often excludes idea-sequence to goal knowledge!!!

new knowledge(?)

new knowledge???

RESEARCHER

STUDENT

May loose. :(

(result unknown)

(result known by teacher)

(controlled by the researcher)

(controlled by the teacher)

knowledge(!)

[ 8 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

"The Puzzle" (6th - 7th grade)

"The Puzzle"(in groups of 5 students):

Each student gets a piece to scale 7:4 Additive vs. multiplicative scaling(?)

Reassemble using new scaled pieces

One (forståelsesbetinget) winning strategy: Wrong (additive) strategy

the puzzle will not assemble common realization To overcome the situation, diffference in methods

(additive vs. multiplicative) has to be made explicit

7

4

[ 9 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

The 5 Main Phases (didactic game)

Devolution: presentation of game, rules, goal, expectations, & success criteria

Action: (passively) observe as the students explore

Formulation: the students will form hypotheses (help by need)

Validation: validation of hypotheses (supervised by need)

Institutionalization: the teacher officializes the new gained (personal) knowledge

as new official knowledge for the students

adidactic(primary)learning-situations

[ 10 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

misc.....

Tempting (and dangerous) alternative: Institutionalize knowledge directly (w/o exercise)

will be based largely on the student's memory (will not be integrated with student's personal knowledge)

DEFINITION:"adidactic": when the students work with a didactic environment (w/o teacher intervention)

[ 11 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Didactic vs. Adidactic Situations

Didactic/Adidactic situations (the 5 phases):

Devolution

Action

Formulation

Validation

Institutiona-lization

Initiate + explain

Observe + reflect

Organize + ask

Listen + evaluate

Present + explain

Receive + understand task

Act + reflect

Formulate

Argument + reflect

Listen + reflect

Didactic

Adidactic

Adidactic or didactic

Normallydidactic

Didactic

Teacher's role

Student'srole

Situation

[ 12 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Fagdidaktisk arbejde (~ TDS)

Develop + document didactic situations: Thorough planning + description of didactic variables:

Devolution Action Formulation Validation Institutionalization

...incl. knowledge-preserving transformations of the exercise (harder/easier, alternatives, ...)

DEFINITION:"fundamental situation": when the intended knowledge is a crucial winner-strategy

[ 13 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Fagdidaktisk arbejde (...fortsat)

It is not about spectacular teaching methods, but about:

chosing and constructing didactic situations (that make student learning possible)

reflecting on the student learning outcome of them

"Man kan sige at et hovedelement i lærerens didaktiske eks- pertise består i at kunne oversætte (eller bruge oversættelser af) officiel viden til fundamentale situationer."

-- Carl Winsløw

[ 14 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Ideal vs. Reality (trade-offs)

Didactic situations: Planed towards acquisition of new official knowledge

PRO: effective! CON: expensive!

Cost/benefit: Unrealistic to do this for every aspect of teaching

Thus: identify and focus on particularly important aspects (that aren't enough to just institutionalize)

[ 15 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

The didactic rules

The didactic game...: ...is won when the students learn rules?

The didactic contract: Students:

must accept the didactic environment

Teacher: must design the game (with simplifications) so that the

students can actually win

= contract (between teacher and student)

otherwise, effective teaching is simply not possible

[ 16 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Uheldige effekter

"The Topaze-effect" (spoon-feeding): Gradual af demands for exercise (to avoid

students loosing), until teacher is "giving fish"

"The Jourdain-effect" (monkey-exercise): Students can win by following a step-wise plan

("head under the arm") without needing to understand content or conclusion

[ 17 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Uheldige effekter

"Meta-cognitive shift" (over-simplification): Simplification of assignment, so the

institutionalization becomes a "heuristic"version of the intended official knowledge

"Type-assignments": Students can identify variations (compared

to previous exercises), which are then mimicked (without a need for understanding)

[ 18 ]CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Uheldige effekter (...fortsat)

"Need for variation": Exercise reusage spontaneous need

for variation (according to teacher), but: a (non planned) variation will most likely

affect the 5 phase-variables beyond intention!

"Teacher interference":

~ quantum mechanics: "modification by observation"

CLAUS BRABRAND DAIMI SANDBJERG AUG 23, 2006

Exercise:(design a didactic situation)

Devolution Action Formulation Validation Institutionalization