rogerSchank

roger schank

"fearless" - Sylvia Martinez

[|Engine for Education] site

principles:
 * learning by doing
 * goal based scenarios
 * story centred curriculum

critique of school: This [|satire on the art of dragon slaying curriculum] is very funny :-)

[|the 7th P] //the problem with professors//

[|wrong problem, wrong solution] //"We don’t need more math and science. We need more people who can think.//"

[|does the business community give a damn about kids?] beware of toy worlds that promote the latest trends to make money - he attacks some very sacred cows along the way:
 * 1) User-created content;
 * 2) Social networking;
 * 3) Mobile phones;
 * 4) Virtual worlds;
 * 5) New scholarship and emerging forms of publication; and
 * 6) Massively multiplayer educational gaming.

cognitivist? schema theory as a modernisation of symbolic programming?

"Schank on the other hand stated that memory was in the form of meaningful 'stories' (not merely inert decontextualized information) and that problem solving progressed by using 'cases' or examples stored in memory. So for example, in the 'classical' view, when we walk to the store, we accomplish this because we have access to a stored algorithm that tells us 'step one, open door, step two, step into street' and so on. In Schank's view on the other hand, we accomplish this because we have access to a stored 'schema' based on previous experience of what it is like to walk to the store, and we don't need rules to describe this." - wikipedia entry on [|Roger Schank]

principles of quality software (from Engine for Education)

From our experiences building the programs described in this book and others like them, we have learned a core set of principles about how to design quality educational software. Interestingly enough, these principles turn out not to be specific to software, but to pertain to teaching in general. As you read them, ask yourself whether you would have enjoyed school more and gotten more from it if it had followed these principles. Principle 1 - Learn by Doing: Learning should center on a task. The task should require those skills or knowledge we want to teach. The task should be challenging, but within the student's ability. Principle 2 - Problems, Then Instruction: Students respond best to instruction when they see how what they are told relates to problems with which they are struggling. Instruction must clearly and directly address the real needs of students. Principle 3 - Tell Good Stories: Students respond to well-told stories. Educational software must contain interesting cases and tell them when and only when they relate to students' problems. Principle 4 - Power to the Students: Student should be in control of the educational process. Software may recommend what path to take, but students should always be able to stray from it to pursue their own interests. Principle 5 - Provide a Safe Place to Fail: Reality is not always the best teacher. In some situations, it is unrealistic or dangerous to allow novices to practice in real situations. Computers can offer novices realistic simulations that provide a safe environment in which to make and learn from mistakes. Principle 6 - Navigation to Answers: Software that instructs but does not let students ask questions removes control from students' hands. Students should be able to ask questions of the educational software they are using, and expect reasonable replies. Often, however, students do not know what question to ask. In this case, it should be possible for students to navigate through an information base so as to easily discover what is there. Principle 7 - The Software is the Test: Teachers want to know how much their students have learned. This is reasonable goal, but, unfortunately, it usually leads to a multiple-choice test. Since the software we are talking about enables students to do certain things, or to discover certain answers, the test is in whether the student demonstrates a new ability or makes a discovery. As long as the program can monitor what the student has been doing, no test is necessary. Instead, software can be thought of as having various levels of achievement and various gates that have to be opened to get to the next level. In order to reach a given level, the student must have been able to do the tasks leading to that level. No explicit tests need ever be given if the software has been correctly designed. Principle 8 - Find the Fun: Learning should be fun. An instructional designer's single most important job is to make learning fun. No matter how well educational software is designed, if it is not fun, it will not work well. - [|principles of quality software]