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DC-EDUCATION  August 2004

DC-EDUCATION August 2004

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Subject:

Re: Proposal for an instructional methods element

From:

Stuart Sutton <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Stuart Sutton <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 25 Aug 2004 06:25:18 -0700

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (292 lines)

Phil, thank you very much for posting the URL to the CETIS Pedagogy list
and the discussion of the proposed "instructionalMethods"  property.  I
have taken the liberty of cutting and pasting the posts into a single
text and included it below so the DC-Education community can read what
was said.  I thought the posters would not mind since you provided us
with a link to the texts.  I'll just post the text of the thoughtful
(and very helpful) comments on the proposal here and give my personal
responses to the issues raised in a separate email.

Again, thanks, Phil, so much for forwarding the link to the DC-Ed
proposal to the CETIS list and pointing us to the subsequent discussion.

Stuart

==========<text from CETIS list>============

Subject: Re: Proposal for an instructional methods element]
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 08:56:01 +0100
From: Helen Beetham <[log in to unmask]>
To: Phil Barker <[log in to unmask]>
CC: CETIS  Pedagogy Forum Mailing List <[log in to unmask]>
References: <[log in to unmask]>

Hi Phil

Thanks for circulating this to the list.

My comments follow.

Helen

Small points
The definition has a strong instructivist bias ('instructional method',
'knowledge, attitudes and skills are deliberately conveyed') which by
implication limits the controlled vocabularies that might be applied.

Grammatically and semantically, the first line of the Comment ought to
read 'Ways of *presenting* instructional materials or conducting
instructional activities...' (or better still, for clarity) 'This
element describes ways of presenting...'). For similar reasons the
second sentence should begin 'Instructional methods include aspects
of...'. Logically it is the DC element that does the representing, not
the instructional methods - though this is an interesting confusion
given my 'large points' below!

The 'Why needed' statement is also grammatically incorrect (agreement of
number i.e. should read '*are* a primary means' and '*provide* the
end-user')

Large points
Both statements assume that the way in which an educational resource is
incorporated into a learning session or activity is in some way a
property of that resource, which can be determined or suggested in
advance - either by the author of the resource or by the author of the
metadata. This element is presumably recognising that 'context is king'
when it comes to use and re-use of content. But defining educational
context as a feature of the resource actually makes context less rather
than more important.

There are aspects of teaching practice that are inherently contextual,
emergent, interactive, negotiated in response to learners' needs, and
un-representable. These are the aspects that are of first importance to
teachers and learners. Being able to bring interesting new resources
into that context is a huge advantage, but it is only that. The
resources serve the context. The context does not serve the resource by
bringing it to life according to a pre-determined script.

An imaginative teacher will have a wide repertoire of learning
activities at her disposal and will support those with all kinds of
resources, including 'pedagogically bad' resources and resources that
have been produced without any educational aim at all. Metadata should
give that teacher access to resources that have been produced in
hundreds of contexts, including contexts completely different from the
one in which she plans to use it.

There is research in the UK so suggest that re-use of resources depends
not on the context of re-use being tightly constrained and described,
but rather on the resource being:
* adaptable
* componentised or -isable
* owned by the community of users (including its metadata descriptions)

Of course it can be useful to know how other teachers have used a given
resource, but this is a question of repertoire rather than
determination. i.e. in order to be useful the relevant information would
be provided by more than one user, and in a *language of practice* that
supports contextualised re-use, rather than in terms from a controlled
vocabulary. If there were some way this element could be used to provide
annotation and comment on how resources were being (re)used, rather than
to designate how they ought to be used, then I would find it more
valuable.

What would it actually mean for a teacher to search for resources based
on the kind of vocabulary suggested in the element definition? Suppose I
decide to open a session (as I did recently) with 'brainstorming' what
my students knew about postmodernism. (This is the first term in the
controlled vocabulary and is incidentally no longer acceptable in many
UK contexts.) Since I was using this as a diagnostic technique I did not
use any resources as input, but I could imagine giving hand-outs about
postmodernism and then asking students to draw mind-maps of the most
important points.

Would it help me to search for hand-outs that other teachers had used in
a similar way, to 'brainstorm' other quite different topics? No. Does it
help me to know that this technique exists as a possibility? Yes, but if
I didn't know it existed I wouldn't get that information from the
metadata.

Of course having an element in existence doesn't mean either that
authors will use it or that users will necessarily search on it, but I
think the implications of trying to pre-determine contexts of use need
some very careful examination. Incidentally, if IMS LD (and simple
sequencing) recognise that learning activities and sequences of
activities need to be defined quite separately from content, why are IMS
LOM and DCM still expanding the contextual elements in their content
metadata?

===========<next in tread>===========

Date:         Wed, 25 Aug 2004 10:40:26 +0100
Reply-To:     Phil Barker <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       CETIS  Pedagogy Forum Mailing List
<[log in to unmask]>
From:         Phil Barker <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: ICBL, MACS Heriot-Watt University
Subject:      Re: Proposal for an instructional methods element]
Comments: To: Helen Beetham <[log in to unmask]>
In-Reply-To:  <005d01c48a78$f82290e0$488d403e@GPI07KDBWAYO0K>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

Hello Helen, thanks for your comments, I'll make sure that the Dublin
Core community know where to find this discussion in the Jiscmail
archives. 

I agree with you about the language, I always have difficulty reading US
English and understanding just what they mean by words like
"instruction". After all the example controlled vocabulary used in the
examples has everything from "programmed learning" through to
"Montessori method". 

I also agree that for many resources and many users this element won't
be helpful. But I also think that there will be some resources that are
designed with a particular educational rationale in mind (for example a
"unit of learning" as defined in the IMS Learning Design information
model), and some people who want to find resources for a particular
pedagogic approach. As for where the balance between the two lies, well,
your guess is as good as mine!

 Helen Beetham wrote: 
> Incidentally, if IMS LD (and simple sequencing) 
> recognise that learning activities and sequences of activities need to
be 
> defined quite separately from content, why are IMS LOM and DCM still 
> expanding the contextual elements in their content metadata? 
> 

Well, this is a proposed element from Dublin Core, and IMS don't have
much direct influence on what DCMI do. I've not been involved in the DC
Education working group which proposed this element, but see the above
comment on "units of learning". Also, personally, I think an IMS
Learning Design is an educational resource that people will want to
share, and so we need to have the metadata to describe it. 

Phil -- Phil Barker Learning Technology Adviser 
ICBL, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences 
Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 
EH14 4AS 
Tel: 0131 451 3278 
Fax: 0131 451 3327 
Web: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/

===========<next in tread>===========

Date:         Wed, 25 Aug 2004 13:20:42 +0100
Reply-To:     Lorna Campbell <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       CETIS  Pedagogy Forum Mailing List
<[log in to unmask]>
From:         Lorna Campbell <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: Proposal for an instructional methods element]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

Hi there, (Apologies for cross posting...) 

I think this is an important debate and I agree with Helen and Phil's
comments. Helen is right that it is not necessarily helpful or useful to
assume that "instructional method" is an inherent property of
educational content and she provides considerable justification for this
argument in her original post. However Phil is also right to suggest
that we need metadata to describe learning designs or units of learning
and that instructional method / educational rationale / pedagogic
approach is one of the characteristics of a learning design that it
would be useful to describe. 

Aside from the issues already raised by Helen and Phil I have two main
concerns: 

1. What kind of vocabulary(s) would be associated with an element of
this kind? 

2. I'm not intimately familiar with DC but I'm guessing that the
standard does not distinguish between the resources that it may be used
to describe (in the same why that LOM defines a learning object as being
"any entity - digital or non digital - blah, blah, blah.") If this is
the case, is it appropriate to include an element that is appropriate
for describing one type of resource (a learning design) but not another
type of resource (educational content)? Not sure if I'm making myself
very clear here :-} 

I think Pete Johnston is going to Shanghai so we could ask us to keep us
posted on how this work develops. 

Bye Lorna

==========<end CETIS-Pedagogy thread>===========
  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: DCMI Education Group 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Phil Barker
> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 4:16 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Proposal for an instructional methods element
> 
> Hello Stuart, all,
> I took the liberty of forwarding your message to a couple of 
> UK-based email lists that deal with educational standards in 
> order to see whether that would stir up any feedback. So far 
> there have been a couple of comments-- one sort of positive, 
> one sort of negative (and, honestly, it's not just me talking 
> to myself). See the most recent messages in the archive at 
> <http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind0408&L=cetis
> -pedagogy&O=D>
> 
> (The people on the CETIS-Pedagogy list aren't necessarily 
> interested in metadata, the other list I forwarded your 
> message to was the CETIS-Metadata list, but there has been no 
> reply from there.)
> 
> Phil.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Stuart Sutton wrote:
> 
> > All, as promised over a month ago, here is a link to the 
> DCMI Working 
> > Draft of a proposed element from the Education Working Group to 
> > contain statements regarding the instructional methods of an 
> > educational resource.  The draft documentation of the 
> proposal can be 
> > found at the following URL:
> >
> > http://www.ischool.washington.edu/sasutton/8-21-04/
> >
> > In order for the proposal to be on the agenda of the Usage Board in 
> > Shanghai (October 9-10, 2004) the official one-month public comment 
> > period on DC-General must begin no later than September 1, 2004 (10 
> > days from today).  So, the next ten days are the last few 
> days we have 
> > to make any revisions to the proposal before that more 
> general comment 
> > period begins.
> >
> > IT IS IMPORTANT that you express your approval/concerns 
> over the next 
> > ten days so we have a better sense of community approval for the 
> > proposed element.  So, please send your comments (even if 
> it a simple 
> > expression that you'd find the element useful) here to the 
> DC-Ed list.
> > Please do not send them to us privately since it is 
> important in terms 
> > of DCMI processes that there be a public expression of need and 
> > approval.  Of course, suggestions that will improve the 
> proposal will 
> > be greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Stuart Sutton
> > Diane Hillmann
> > Co-Chairs, DC-Education Working Group
> >
> 
> --
> Phil Barker                            Learning Technology Adviser
>       ICBL, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
>       Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University,
>       Edinburgh, EH14 4AS
>       Tel: 0131 451 3278    Fax: 0131 451 3327
>       Web: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/
> 

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