From: Louis Lory
Email:
Course: Psych101:Informal Learning and Technology
College: Cabrillo/UCSC
Instructor: Eugene Matusov
ClassWeb: http://www.ematusov.com/psych101
ChildrenObservations: Yes
Date: 17 Jan 1997
Time: 00:52:35
Remote Name: octal-lab-mac17.ucsc.edu
This paper entitled, Innovative Teaching Stratagies, Are They Working? describes a collaborative effort on behalf of a community-based program in Santa Cruz County and a local university which is working together to improve the quality of education for disadvantaged English/Spanish bilingual youth. This innovative program has been devised to promote computer literacy among the youth, and the question I have researched involves the evidence of learning within this computer center. My findings have proved that this innovative computer center indeed promotes learning for all those involved. I choose to investigate whether or not the computer learning center promotes learning because many of these children have little or no computer experience. Also, I wanted to know if the kids gained much from their within this newly created computer lab. I have drawn evidence from field notes, course readings, my own personal interacterations with the children, and Santa Cruz City Schools educational manuels.
The societal ills that plague our children are worse today than they were fifty years ago and these children are often met with frustration and despair while trying to pursue their educational endeavors. Fortunately, many people in the Santa Cruz community are working together to ensue that every child can succeed in school and in life which in turn will improve the quality of life for us all to enjoy.
Exciting change is taking place as we progress into the age of technology at a local community-based program for Spanish/English bilingual youth; devised to help stop the violence of gangs, drugs, poverty, and educational disparity.The community-based program along with the university Links Program have worked together to sponsor an afterschool informal computer learning center. The first computer learning center of it's kind at the community-based program.
The computer center offers many educational computer games,the opportunity to link up to the internet and access information from all over the world on any topic imaginable at the click of a button, and also offers a printer to make copies. Along with computers, there are also many games to choose from such as Monopoly, Connect Four, and the card game UNO.
The community-based program has also hired a coordinator to oversee every afterschool lab session held five days a week. There are also undergraduate university students studying informal learning and technology who provide the children assistance. These children who take part in the computer learning center do so on a volunteer basis. Also, after each computer lab session the university students along with the teacher assistant, hold a debriefing once the children have left. Impreesions and concerns are shared and collected for the entire class to discuss. Also, within twenty four hours, the students use a computer to post fieldnotes of the lab session on the class web site. Throughout the course, material relating to informal learning and technology from education, anthropolgy, sociology, and computer science articles are discussed in the seminar held twice a week.
The question I have researched is whether or not this innovative teaching strategy taking place at the community-based program promotes learning?
Vygotsky's theory of "guided participation" is evident throughout the interactions in the computer center between the university students-knowledgeable others, and the children taking part. This innovative approach of teaching differs from the "traditional" methods of teaching based on associated and behavioral views of learning proposed by Thorndike in the 1920's and B.F. Skinner in the 1940's. (Peterson & Knapp, 1993; Silverman,1985). The university students guide and assist the children's performance and push for the transfer of knowledge among the children. The children have the freedom to choose the activity they wish to learn and with whom. These are only a few examples of how this innovative classroom promotes learning in the computer center. Another important element that promotes learning is the social support they recieve. The social interactions at the computer learning center provided the kids with a greater sense of self-confidence, self-esteem, intellectual competence, and greater social skills. For example, the kids at first were capable of very simple social responses that tended to be brief, but over time, the kids began to distinguish between familiar and unfamilair peers and university students and began to interact cooperatively and in a more complex social interactions. For instance, the kids would take turns on computer games or they would play board games together such as Monopoly and Shoots and Ladders.
The games provided the children many different learning opportunities. The computer games built math, vocabulary and language skills, as well as art skills. the computer game Oregon Trail puts real-life scenarios into word problems which require the need calculation and problem solving. For example, using math skills to purchase equipment such as clothes, food, and bullets; or whether to wait, borge, or take the ferry across a river. The children learn the connection between the decision they make and the consequences. Also, the game Monopoly builds math skills when purchasing properties, paying rent and fines. The children learn basic addition and subtraction skills.
In addition, vocabulary and language skills improve with the computer game called "Just Grandma and Me" which allows the children to chose instruction in either Spanish, English, or Japanese. The children learn thru question and response and/or trial and error. The social interactions within the computer center also builds vocabulary when the children ask questions in English and Spanish and comprehend the instruction often reciting or observing.
Occassionally, a transfer of knowledge among the children takes place. For instance, in a fieldnote, a boy learned by modeling behavior when he asked a friend to help understand the game "Carmen and Diego". His friend took the cursor, and explained how to play. This coding system is known as a unilateral decision; when one child works while another observes. Then the child provided guidance by modeling instruction, and verbally explained instructions. And lastly, an example of how art skills improved with the computer game Paintbrush. This "buttom up approach" provides the purpose first- to paint, then the tool-paintbrush, to allow the child to click on to certain colors and brushes and promotes learning by repetition, trial and error, and self-motivation.
In conclusion, this innovative computer learning center held at the community-based program in Santa Cruz, does indeed promote many different types of learning- "a community of learners". The guided participation provided by the university students and the childrens peers promote learning by collaborating with one another and sharing these experiences. The children learn various computer and board games through repetition, question and response, trial and error, observing, comprehension, and cooperation. In turn, the children learn computers and games, build self-confidence, social skills, and self-esteem, which they can take with them to succeed in school and in life.
REFERENCES
Cole, M.&LCHC (1989). Kids and Computers:A positive vision of the future. Harvard Educational Review, 59, 73-86.
Mary K.Heuwinkel (1996). New Ways of Learning=New Ways of Teaching (pp.29-32).
Sharon Marshall Johnson (1992) Handbook- A Leaders Guide for Restructuring Schools to Accelerate High Risk Youth. Orange County Department of Education.
Susan Mclester (1996) mag. Technology and Learning (pp.36-38).
Rogoff, B. Matusov, E.,& White C.(1996) Model of Learning in a Community of Learners. In D.R. Olson & N. Torrence (Eds.) Handbook of Education and Human Development. New Models of learning,teaching, and schooling. London:Basil Blackwell.
Dr. David P. Sklarz (1995) Handbook Master Plan for Bilingual Eduacation. Santa Cruz City Schools.
Teles, L. (1993). Cognitive apprenticeship on global networks.
Vygotsky, L. (1987). Mind in Society. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.-Chpt.6 "Interaction between learning and development.