Paper Presentation at the SITE2002 13th International Conference

Nashville, Tennessee, USA, March 18-23, 2002

Steven Coombs

Assistant Professor

Department of Curriculum Studies & Secondary Education

School of Education

SonomaStateUniversity

1801 East Cotati Avenue

Rohnert Park

Ca. 94928-3609

USA

Tel: 1-707-664-3270 Fax: 1-707-664-2483

Email:

and

Vivien Lee Looi Chng

Lecturer

Temasek Polytechnic

21 Temasek Avenue 1

Singapore 529 757

Tel: 65 - 780 5870 Fax: 65 - 789 7413

Email:

Educational Technology Learning Plans for Student Scaffolding

We all know that lesson plans are introduced to initial teachers as an initial management tool for self-scaffolding organizational learning, but little work has been done to identify what defines the critical thinking process underpinning the instructional design of Educational Technology-assisted scaffolds for individualized student learning. Our research project has investigated and developed a pedagogical protocol for the practical classroom implementation of Learning Plans as a personal task-management scaffold for student-centred learning. The teacher's role in enabling self-organized learning for large groups of students can be achieved through the deployment of Technology-based Learning Plans, which converts teacher-centered curriculum management into student-centered learning tasks suitable for application both inside and outside of the classroom. This paper briefly considers the pedagogical practice behind this innovative curriculum reform initiative in the context of a recently completed research project in Singapore.

Overview of Learning Plans as Critical Thinking Scaffold Templates

Many countries throughout the world are currently investing heavily into implementing Educational Technology policies across the elementary, high school and tertiary sectors. The general belief is that computer learning resources can be a beneficial method toward implementing a more student-centred curriculum (Coombs & Wong, 2000). Many countries in south-east Asia, including Singapore, have national educational policies for implementing both Information Technology (IT) and critical thinking into the high school curriculum. The Singapore Ministry of Education considers that one way of achieving both these targets is through the curriculum adoption of student-centred project work (Ministry of Education, Singapore, 1999). The pedagogic quality and rationale of IT project-based courseware as a learning resource to support and improve the educational National/State curriculum is thus of considerable importance. It is our contention that project work can be delivered through a critical thinking schema that we call Learning Plans (LPs). These Learning Plans can be combined with a Personal Learning Contract (Coombs & Lee Looi Chng, 2001) and used to deliver a student-centred S-o-L curriculum - see figures 1 & 2.

When LPs are combined with an online learning environment that scaffolds learner thinking, we have what Coombs refers to as a "Knowledge Elicitation System (KES)" (Coombs, 1995, 2000 & 2001) and what Jonassen (1996) describes as a "Mindtool". Critical thinking scaffolds are explained by a pedagogical process called conversational constructivism (Coombs & Smith, 1998) and is derived from a conversational pedagogy called Self-organised Learning (S-o-L) (Harri-Augstein & Thomas, 1985 & 1991). A recent action research study (Lee Looi Chng, 2001) was completed in Singapore, which investigated Learning Plans as critical thinking scaffolds (Coombs, 2000) for delivering project work in Primary Schools and concluded that:

"As a content-free technology, S-o-L conversational tools are easy to use and findings from the mathematics and science groups do indicate that the conversational tool of the LP is indeed easy to apply across disciplines and cultures. The easy application of S-o-L tools is based on the process of reflective learning ,,,, [which has] wide appeal, being easily adaptable to the specific needs of each user" (page 99).

Learning Plans have been designed as a critical thinking scaffold process that can be delivered within Educational Technology supported learning environments. Such Learning Plans are designed as IT-based critical thinking scaffold templates and operate as what Coombs (2000 & 2001) refers to as a reflective learning technology. This paper seeks to explain the process of how Learning Plans operate as critical thinking scaffolds for improved student learning (Lee Looi Chng & Coombs, 2001) and argues that Educational Technology content-free templates assist in that goal. Curriculum examples similar to those exhibited in figures 1 and 2, of both paper-based and online student Learning Plans, will be shared with the conference delegates, along with other conversational tools that operate as a user-friendly reflective technology (Coombs, 2000).

Conclusion

It is from the systems-thinking psychological model of self-organized learning that we can understand how to enable the conversational fluency of learner self-interaction through organized schemas of reflection. These reflective schemas can be designed as technology-assisted critical thinking tools (Coombs & Smith, 1999). The S-o-L instructional design process provides criteria (Coombs, 1995) for implementing knowledge elicitation tools that operate as a reflective learning technology. In practice, this calls for the design and development of an activities-based project work curriculum that recruits online Learning Plans as Educational Technology scaffolding tools, which empowers students with S-o-L skills that ultimately lead to greater personal retention and transfer of knowledge.

References

Coombs, S. (1995). Design and conversational evaluation of an IT learning environment based on self-organized learning, PhD thesis - London: CSHL, BrunelUniversity.

Coombs, S. (2000). The Psychology of User-friendliness: The use of Information Technology as a Reflective Learning Medium. The Korean Journal of Thinking & Problem Solving, 10(2), 19—31.

Coombs, S. (2001). Knowledge Elicitation Systems: Reflective Technology for personal learning. Conference paper presented at the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Ed-Media2001, Tampere, Finland, June 25-30, 2001.

Coombs, S. & Smith, I. (1998). Designing a self-organized conversational learning environment, Educational Technology,38(3), 17—28.

Coombs, S. J. and Smith, I.D. (1999). Integration of critical and creative thinking skills into Singapore's IT post-graduate teacher training program. Change: Transformations in Education, 2(2), 80-92.

Coombs, S. & Wong, P. (2000). Supporting Student-Centred Learning with IT, Ch.12 in Integrating Technology into Teaching and Learning: An Asia-Pacific Perspective (Ed.) Mike Williams, 1st. Ed. Singapore: Pearson Education Asia.

Harri-Augstein, E. & Thomas, L. (1985). Self-organized learning: Foundations of a conversational science for psychology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Harri-Augstein, E. & Thomas, L. (1991). Learning conversations: The self-organized learning way to personal and organizational growth. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Jonassen, D. (1996). Computers in the classroom: Mindtools for critical thinking. NJ: Prentice Hall.

Lee Looi Chng, V. (2001). Evaluating critical thinking pedagogy to support primary school poject work using an action research approach, MEd thesis - National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Lee Looi Chng, V. & Coombs, S. (2001). The Application of Self-Organised Learning for Educators and Students in a Knowledge-Based Economy: A Reflective Experience. Conference paper presented at the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Ed-Media2001, Tampere, Finland, June 25-30, 2001.

Ministry of Education, Singapore, (1999). Project work guidelines. Singapore: Curriculum Planning and Development Division, Research & Testing Division, Ministry of Education, November, 1999.

SC_VL/CoombsLeeSITE2002.doc/Feb-02

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