The idea that “…knowledge is less likely to remain inert when it is acquired in a problem-solving mode rather than in a factual-knowledge mode,” is at the heart of these pedagogical models.
As an educator, reading and thinking about these approaches to learning is both interesting and inspiring.
In Goal-Based Scenarios, it is critical that the teacher identify areas of student interests; of course, every good teacher knows that you have to get to know your students. Once the teacher is aware of student interests (and they are varied), then a learning scenario can be devised to involve the student with the curriculum. The optimal Goal-Based Scenarios embed curriculum and create goals that require students to develop a specific set of desired skills. The planning of a Goal-Based Scenario will begin with desired skills in mind, then develops goals that interest students (context). The seven steps can be followed when devising Goal-Based Scenarios:
1: Learning Goals
• content and process goals
2: Mission
• a relevant and realistic mission that will motivate students
3: Cover Story
• a plausible and important task that will create the context for learning
4: Roles
• students have specific tasks
5: Operations
• the activities students conduct to reach their goal
6: Resources
• necessary, even conflicting, resources to complete goal are provided to students
7: Feedback
When students are motivated and interested, real learning will inevitably take place. Goal-Based Scenarios take into account student needs and interests; in addition, students practice valuable 21st century learning skills: using various means of communication, meaningful collaboration with peers, creativity, and critical thinking.
Adherents of Situated Cognition & Cognitive Apprenticeships hold that knowing is inseparable from doing and all knowledge is situated in authentic activities in relevant contexts. Skills are acquired through these authentic experiences in context and through communicating with peers and experts about those experiences. Like the Goal-Based Scenarios mentioned above, student learning activities in the Situated Cognition model should be focused toward a relevant outcome. In the classroom, the teacher is advised to model, coach, and fade. This is an excellent description of the teacher as facilitator model desired by many educators. Knowledge and learning comes from creative problem-solving and “thinking on the fly” rather than the storage and retrieval of conceptual knowledge; therefore, learn by doing can be considered the motto for this educational model.
Anchored Instruction
In the two learning models above, students learn desired, specific skills as they work to creatively to solve meaningful problems, problems often related to the real world and designed with student interests in mind. Anchored Instruction presents, often through a narrative, a realistic (but fictional) situation which raises an over-arching question or problem. As contrasted with Goal Based and Situated Cognition, the problems to be solved in Anchored Instruction are formulated and solved by the students. In the Jasper series, for example, students glean the necessary facts, often having to discern and discard irrelevant or superfluous information, from the narrative. This model seems to me, so far, the most difficult to create for the classroom. That’s why I’m working on one.
The STAR Legacy model also poses an interesting, real-life problem for students to solve in a series of specific steps. This problem is open-ended and provides opportunities for student reflection; this is Step 1: The Challenge. Students begin by activating prior knowledge through brainstorming exercises; students will revisit these thoughts later in the process; this is Step 2: Initial Thoughts. In Step 3: Perspectives and Resources, students use provided resources to work through the challenge. In Step 4: Assessment, students are formally assessed to find out what they have learned and what they can do with this knowledge. During Step 5: Wrap-Up, students return to their initial thoughts in Step 2 to compare them and reflect on what was learned as a result of the activity.
MOST Environments
The MOST model would help students improve reading comprehension skills through improving listening comprehension skills, an important, yet often overlooked, component of literacy. In addition, digital literacy skills can be enhanced through the inclusion of interesting, and therefore, motivational, audio, video, and interactive media. In addition, subtitles and captions can be used to support literacy and reading comprehension skills. The MOST model may be of interest and use to educators integrating Common Core, especially with its emphasis on the use of texts in increasing complexity.
