Tech Minds - Lauren Schwartz

Module 2 – Invariant Tasks, focuses on designing instructions.  Reigeluth (2012) Stated that “Invariant tasks require memorizing factual information or routine procedures. They do not require any understanding, nor do they require learning how to deal with variation.”

Review the project you created from CSTE 5336 – Alice or Scratch interactive game project. From the Alice or Scratch project you created, let’s review the invariant tasks which you had applied.

1.   What principles for learning invariant tasks had accomplished in this Alice or Scratch project? Explain the reasons with references.

The three principles of learning listed in Module 2 (Reigeluth, 1999) are creating links which are strong, chunks of about 5-7 items, and relating to meaningful prior knowledge. I feel that when learning the invariant tasks for the Alice and Scratch project, I think all three principles needed to be accomplished.

When learning the Alice and Scratch software to complete the project, I remember having trouble at first associating the things I would learn in the models and tutorials and connecting them to on the programming. It is stated “that getting information into memory is easy, that the only real obstacle is retrieval from memory” (Reigeluth, 1999). I believe this to be true, because as I knew the things I was learning from the tutorials, retrieving them when necessary was difficult and someone garbled. This connects both the first and third principles to the project. It was difficult to create strong links to the information I had learned and how it fit with my project as opposed to the project I had learned. Since the projects were similar (one I was creating and one I learned from), it was possibly, eventually to create strong links that allowed me to accomplish the task at hand. With relating to prior knowledge, I had to take in what I already knew about programming, combined with what I was learning, and create a program. I can remember with both Alice and Scratch that my project ideals changed often with new connections I made to the software. As for chunking of about 5-7 items at a time, since our minds can “productively work on memorizing up to about seven items at a time” (Reigeluth, 1999), I had to make adjustments to Scratch. With the Scratch project, instead of attempting to learn everything at once, I broke it up into sections and only worked on one color at a time. This helped me to make sure that I was learning all I could and needed from each color, as well as focusing on just one thing at a time, since each color had at least 5-7 parts.

2.   What principles for teaching invariant tasks had accomplished in this Alice or Scratch project? Explain the reasons with references.

Reigeluth (1999) listed the principles for teaching invariant tasks as routine tactics, enrichment tactics, motivational tactics, and review. In the games that I created for Alice and for Scratch, I think that they included all four of the principles listed above. My Alice project involved the students finding shapes. The students were to find the correct shape by helping a farmer “round up the shapes”. This project included routine, enrichment, and motivation by telling them if they had received the correct answer (motivation), using the same method for the different shapes (routine), and allowing them to learn and prove what they had learned through the choosing of the correct shape (enrichment). Finally, after the student had gotten the shapes correct, there was a review that took them back through the shapes they had learned and identified.

My Scratch project also taught these principles as it was counting astronauts in space. Routine was used as the same method was used throughout the game (something of importance with younger students), enrichment with learning about space and counting, motivation with the astronauts doing a dance when the students clicked them, and review when the student was able to go back and complete the game again, reviewing the material they had already done.

The games I invented also went through the formal that Reigeluth lists as features of a good drill-and-practice game: Creating a Scenario, Designing a Score-Keeping Mechanism, and Designing the Instruction. (Reigeluth, 1999).

3.   If you are required to redesign this project with Alice or Scratch, how would you apply the Development Process to complete this task? (Analyze, Design, Develop/Produce, & Implement)

If I had to redesign either of my projects, I would start by analyzing the levels the students are at by pre-assessing them on the material prior to creating the project. Next, I would design different levels of the projects, for the more advanced learners, as well as for the lower-level learners. I would then develop/produce a better scoring ability in each of the games. The games that I created were more of a continuous game, without being scored, but the teacher could tell if they had answered correctly by where they were able to get to in the game. I think that a better score-keeping mechanism would be great additions to both projects. In implementing it, I would allow the students to do the game once and record their scores, then I would have them complete it again the following day and see if there was any improvement after more teaching on the subject was done. If the students weren’t improving, then instruction would need to be altered (using them as both pre-assessments and formative assessments).

Resources:

Reigeluth, C. (1999). Principles for learning invariant tasks. Instructional-Design Theories Site. Retrieved from  http://www.indiana.edu/~idtheory/methods/m2c.html  

Reigeluth, C. (1999). Principles for teaching invariant tasks. Instructiona-Design Theories Site. Retrieved from http://www.indiana.edu/~idtheory/methods/m2e.html