Reuse, instructional design and learning objects

Miguel-Angel SiciliaInformation Engineering Research Unit

University of Alcalá

msicilia@uah.es

We live the age of open sharing

●Fact: a clear trend towards sharing educational resources openly– But what is a resource?

A definition for “ learning object”

●To avoid endless discussions, we will consider a LO to be a piece of (content + metadata) created with an educational purpose and living in a permanent URL.– This includes OCW elements: courses, individual

notes, etc.– This includes also resources packed according to

standards as ADL SCORM or IMS LD.

Learning designs (IMS LD)

●Shared language for recording activity-based instructional design●Specifies the basic elements:– Objectives– Arrangement of activities (sequencing)– Resources (objects, services) used per activity/role

●Allows the automated distribution of activities through the Web●Allows for recording of activity execution

Where is the (instructional) design?

●It is of course embedded in the resources themselves.

●But little information is shared regarding the rationale of the design of learning objects, e.g.:– which instructional theories were used, – why the design of the activities fit a concrete

instructional approach

Where is the design?

● Why the project was considered important?1. “It is traditional or common in database courses .”2. “Project-based learning is good for practical subjects everybody –

says that”3. A general method: We follow Jonassen (1997) method“ ”4. A specific method: We follow Grisham, Krasner and Perry (2006) “

guidelines ”Grisham, P. S., Krasner, H., and Perry, D. E. 2006. Data Engineering education with

real-world projects. SIGCSE Bull. 38, 2 (Jun. 2006), 64-68.

Open LMSs and open repositories (e.g. .LRN and Paloma respectively)

What is being shared?

learning needs

instructional design

activity structure

resourcesresources

use in learning situations

IMS LD Unit of Learning

activity structure +reference to LO

and servicesmetadata

Is it possible to represent ID methods?

●Instructional models (Reigeluth) – practice-oriented theories offering explicit

guidance on how to help people learn that offer situation-specific methods, that in turn are described in terms of components, and that are know to be effective for learning under some conditions (to some extent).

Ontologies and rules

●“TheoryOne”– “give abundant examples of the concepts treated”– We assume a IMS LD ontology in OWL.

lr:LearningObject(?lo) lr:hasPart(?lo, ?lo2) lr:hasPart(?lo, ?lo3) lr:ExerciseLO(?lo2) lr:ExerciseLO(?lo3) hasAbundantExamples(?lo, true)

lr:LearningObject(?lo1) lr:hasPart(?lo1, ?lo2) lr:hasPart(?lo2, ?lo3) lr:hasPart(?lo1, ?lo3)

Usage

… and search: give me LD that complies with inst. “theory X .”

For each of the concepts identified in the objectives, generate in the IMS LD method an activity to teach the concept, which contains an activity that is specific for exercising, and has in its Environment a KnowledgeObject of type exercise.

Check that the appropriate number “ ”

of resources of type exercise are included as part of the Environment of the activities.

Contrast that those examples illustrate the same concept expressed in the objective of each activity.

“give abundant examples”

generatingcheckingMethod

Elaboration theory

●“Teach broader, more inclusive concepts before narrower, more detailed concepts that elaborate upon them”

ld:Learning-Activity(?a1) ld:Learning-Activity(?a2) ld:Activity-Structure(?as1) ld:execution-order(?a1, ?o1) ld:execution-order(?a2, ?o2) ld:execution-entity-ref(?as1, ?a1) ld:execution-entity-ref(?as1, ?a2) swrlb:lessThan(?o1, ?o2) ? COMP_showsBefore(?a1, ?a2)

COMP_showsBefore(?a1, ?a2) ConceptLearningActivity(?a1) ConceptLearningActivity(?a2) ld:Activity-Structure(?as) ld:execution-entity-ref(?as, ?a1) ld:execution-entity-ref(?as, ?a2) concept-learning-objective(?a1, ?c1) concept-learning-objective(?a2, ?c2) KnowledgeItem(?c1) KnowledgeItem(?c2) concept-includes(?c2, ?c1) ? COMP_Reigeluth_ElaborationTheory(?as, false)

Other models…

●Think on a ontology for project-based learning. Some constraints might be:– There is a Learning Object of type project and its duration “ ”

spans a large part of the course.

– The project is done in groups of learners.

– The project accounts for an important part of the grading.“ ”

– There is a provision of Web tools for collaboration.

– …etc.

● … these could be controversial, but it is always possible to represent multiple types of PBL that address the differences.

What if everything was stored?

●Example questions/queries:– Did the outcomes changed (significantly) with the variation from

ID A to ID B? [no change in the resources or syllabus assumed]

– Find database courses that provide a project-based learning (PBL) approach

– How do the outcomes compare between PBL and non-PBL courses worldwide?

– Find the ID methods used in courses with good outcomes.

semester 1’ 05 semester 2’ 05 semester 1’ 06 semester 2’ 08…

ID A ID A ID B ID B…

learning outcomes

learning outcomes

learning outcomes

…learning outcomes

Why recording the design is important?

●Enables the linking of theoretical hypotheses to practical learning designs – they somewhat trace to the source of the decision-making in the

process of crafting learning programs or activities.

●Useful resources for education or training of learning designers.

●Explicit assumptions may eventually lead to finding patterns in design situations, – useful to inform new designs, contrast hypotheses or even to build

decision-aid tools.

●Detailed comparisons between the effectiveness and adequacy of learning designs are facilitated by the more precise descriptions of the design methods used.

Outlook

●We are in the age of sharing learning resources.– Is now time for sharing design artifacts?

●Would it be possible that educators move to the practice of digital design data collection?– (as it is done for example in molecular biology and

genetics)

●Which tools and languages do we need?– ID models, ontologies, databases, metadata editors…