Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference
Teaching, Learning, & Technology
The Challenge Continues
March 30-April 1, 2003
Working Backwards to Work Forward: Supporting a Technology-Based Curriculum with Theory
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By: Justin Schakelman |
Abstract
This research explores how an online interactive case study program integrates with educational theory. University of Delaware Nutrition and Dietetics interns use the case studies as a required component of public health training. The technology provides various authentic activities, including a library of simulations. To improve the system?s effectiveness, the authors are re-considering aspects of pedagogical and functional design. The topics of situated learning theory and video media in education are presented as in-roads to understanding innovation.
Description
The product, known as interactive case studies, is an online learning environment created by a team of nutrition and dietetics experts and educational technologists at the University of Delaware. Its purpose is to provide the UD Department of Nutrition and Dietetics? interns access to public health case studies anytime, anywhere via the Internet. Furthermore, the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics uses the technology to bridge classroom theory with real world practice in the field of public health. The value added over the traditional paper-based case studies is the learner interacts face-to-face with simulated clients. This improvement exposes students to the realities of various public health settings. Interacting with clients, the online user makes his or her way though a series of consultation decision points and faces the consequences of each choice. In effect, the learner is immersed in a simulation of workplace realities. From dealing with frustrated, angry patients to serving undereducated, low-income, single mothers, each case is thick with detail. Thrusting students into a rapid-fire simulation tests their ability to research topics, analyze theory, read charts, number crunch, and, most importantly, deal with people. The case study outcomes, designed to reflect the real world, largely rely on the emotional reactions of each carefully constructed client. Imparting future practitioners with the highest level of preparedness, in this way, is an overreaching function of the interactive case studies system.
This technology, however, currently is holding our attention in a different way. After the rush three years ago to deliver a working product, the design team is now reproofing its own work in an effort to examine the pedagogical theory that makes this system tick. Our rationale for evaluating the theoretical workings stems from the ongoing development of new cases. Originally, the interactive case studies were designed as a pilot concept, a test product. Now the design team faces the challenge of making the system even more effective. Innovation, as the designers see it, will emerge only after scrutinizing the theoretical framework that made the prototype a success.
Two key theoretical issues, the instructional effectiveness of video media in education and situated learning, underpin the system?s pedagogy. A litany of studies suggest that optimal educational uses of motion picture and video media occur when the content has contextual relevance, and subsequently is delivered to the student in a multidisciplinary, socially interactive way. Situated learning theory supports the interactive case studies by explaining why engaging and assessing students in an authentic, problematic context is important.
Potential systemic improvements emerged from this research. Design constraints, time, and resources are identified as barriers to applying theoretical insights to practice.