Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Theory Based Web
Theory Based Web
The web-based course may be the new college textbook. Only it’s potentially better, better than a
book or even a book with a CD and a supporting web site. Web courses are more interactive than
books. Not all are good of course, but many are lovingly and creatively, if not scientifically,
designed. They are perpetually updateable and expandable. They also can be very adaptable.
Our evolving web course (eSTEPweb.org) is associated with a theory-based research and
development effort called the Secondary Teacher Education Project (STEP). One goal of our
work is to achieve a design good enough to virtually insure that prospective teachers acquire
current scientific knowledge about human learning and development in educational settings -- a
field of study designated as the “learning sciences” -- in a form that will be useful to them in
professional practice. Insuring that professional students acquire usable, transferable knowledge
from classroom instruction is a difficult order; research has shown repeatedly that non-trivial
forms of transfer are difficult to achieve. This chapter will tell a story about our efforts to develop
such a design. We will discuss the theory behind our work, key design decisions, and some early
lessons learned from the experience so far. We begin with accounts of the course’s three main
technical components. Two of them are contained in the STEP Knowledge Web (“KWeb” for
short): An online hypertextbook of learning science theories and research (“Theories”) that is
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Many have been involved in conceptualization and development of the STEP system and its research
program. The ideas in this paper build especially on work and discussions with Rand Spiro, Cindy Hmelo,
David Woods, Matt Delmarcelle, Constance Steinkuehler, Chris Fassnacht, Kate Hewson, John Stampen,
and others.
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interlinked with a library of video cases depicting stories of teaching and learning in actual
through lesson-design and other problem-based learning activities that make use of the KWeb in
various ways. The discussion of these components will be followed by data from formative
evaluations of our course. We end with a brief discussion of the research issues raised by our
The STEP KWeb is an evolving hypermedia resource library on line, intended to support
professional development that aims to help teachers acquire knowledge about learning sciences
and the ability to use it to think flexibly and analytically about instruction, learning, and the
design of learning environments. The design of KWeb was based in the belief that the conceptual
systems of advanced professional expertise are semiotic and “ill-structured” (e.g., Spiro et al.,
1992), largely because they are repeatedly pulled apart and flexibly reassembled in practice. The
conceptual knowledge of the expert practitioner differs from that of the novice practitioner in that
it is more intertwined with and shaped by many varieties of practice, and is less tightly embedded
in simplifying structural devices, such as hierarchies, through which the subject-matter was
probably originally taught and acquired. The problem of developing teachers as expert users of
the learning sciences is one of designing a system that can accelerate the process of acquiring
conceptual knowledge in a form that interpenetrates activities of professional practice (e.g., the
intertwining of learning sciences with the design and mentoring of classroom instruction).
This way of thinking about web-based instructional design was partly inspired by Cognitive
Flexibility Theory (CFT; Spiro et al., 1991a; 1991b; 1992), a theory of advanced knowledge
that emphasizes, not hides, the complex interactions among conceptual knowledge and the
professional activities that utilize that knowledge. The CFT design hypothesis is as follows: After
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acquiring a basic body of principled foundational knowledge (e.g., the physical science of
medical practice; the learning science of teaching practice), students’ development toward
particular, intensive forms of case-based instruction. The instructional goal is a sophisticated form
of transfer called cognitive flexibility, and it is a kind of learning that can only partially be
instruction combined with supervised practicum or internship placements. CFT is concerned with
creating instructional systems that maximize the effectiveness of limited classroom time by
making it possible for students to systematically encounter and study a larger, more selective
body of real-world cases that are tied to specific instructional goals, than would ordinarily be
encountered in the field in the first few years of practice. Similarly, Derry and Lesgold (1996)
argued that the full range of real-world opportunities to employ important foundational principles
that students learn in class would not be encountered repeatedly during limited field placement
time, or even during the first few years of actual work experience. Hence, there is need to design
and develop instructional systems that accelerate experience by providing students with guided
instruction in the context of a broader range of problems and cases than would otherwise be
possible. Derry and Lesgold cited evidence that systems-based classroom training with Sherlock,
an intelligent tutor for avionics test station troubleshooting that provided students with tutoring on
a library of representative cases, reduced learning time by several years relative to actual job
guidance in helping students solve the problems, examples of expert problem solutions, and
opportunities and prompts that helped students use the expert solutions to reflect on their own
problem solving.
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In CFT instructional systems students: 1. Examine many instantiations of foundational concepts
over multiple cases, usually video cases, representing real-world practice (Figure 1); and 2.
Practice interpreting complex (video) cases in alternative ways that require assembly and
reassembly of multiple domain concepts (Figure 2). While design strategies may vary, CFT
instructional systems use various methods for helping students see connections and interactions
among previously learned foundational concepts (in STEP, ideas from a learning sciences course)
and the real-world cases embodied in the instructional system (such as stories or parts of stories
of lessons in classrooms). Theoretically, such methods help speed students’ evolution of memory
potentials, enabling flexible and creative use of domain knowledge in new settings (Figure 3).
(KWeb) composed of web pages of instruction in learning science concepts that are interlinked
with real-world cases of teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms that instantiate these concepts
in various contexts. Using this network in a CFT way involves devising instructional activities
that encourage students to reflectively explore the conceptual landscape represented by the
network (Spiro et al., 1991a/b), studying multiple cases that illustrate a range of instantiations of
key concepts and themes, and viewing individual cases and case segments (minicases) through
multiple, interacting conceptual lenses. For example, one type of activity we use to encourage
students to interact with the KWeb in this manner is a form of collaborative learning that
represents our own adaptation of problem-based learning (pbl, using lower-case letters to
distinguish our approach from PBL, a widely know instructional method developed by Barrows
(e.g., 1988)). “pbl” is a small group, student-centered from of instruction that is supported by a
suite of specially developed online tools that are part of the STEP site. Students receive a real-
world case to study and a related problem to solve (such as the case of an instructional unit that
must be redesigned to incorporate standards), and they investigate and learn subject-matter
knowledge in the context of discussing the case and design solutions. Students employ and
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explore the STEP KWeb in their pbl activity and thus are encouraged to “criss-cross” the
theoretical landscape of the learning sciences. Students in our program also study CFT and thus
• Case Library: Video stories of real lessons in real classrooms representing the landscape
of practice
• pbl online: Step-by-step scaffolding to help groups carry out authentic design challenges
and other problem tasks that a course manage might design that engage learners in case
The following will discuss design of these components and their theoretical psychological
grounding.
Learning through case study has recently surged in popularity within teacher education programs
(Merseth, 1996; Putman & Borko, 2000 -- add references from Lampert). Yet there are many
open research issues regarding case-based learning, particularly case-based learning with video,
including the question of what students learn from case study, how to facilitate such study, how to
design case-study exercises, and how to design both cases and case libraries to facilitate case-
based teaching and learning. CFT views the case library as representing the landscape of practice
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and suggests testable hypotheses relating learning to the design and use of case libraries. As
previously discussed, one hypothesis is that systems-based classroom instruction can be designed
combined with field-based professional placements. The goal for such system design should be
cognitive flexibility -- the flexible, adaptive combining and use of domain concepts as
frameworks for interpretation and action in real professional settings – which can be attained by
combining two types of instructional activity: domain criss-crossings and small multiples.
distinction between two kinds of domains: the domains of professional practice (such as
domains that shape domains of practice (such as physics and art for architecture; biological
sciences for medical practice; learning psychology for teaching, etc.). It assumes that students
come to the instruction with prior knowledge of important, previously-taught (perhaps at a basic
level) subject-matter concepts or themes for which more enduring and sophisticated
understandings are required. This instructional approach guides them in studying a large number
of varied real-word cases that represent the landscape of contexts in which those themes or ideas
might be encountered in relevant domains of practice. In agreement with Wiggins and McTighe
(1998), we propose that the subject-matter themes for intensive study be a few carefully selected
concepts that are of central importance to the domain of practice. Also, the cases selected from
the domains of practice should represent the landscape of important types of contexts in which
those themes or ideas are likely to be encountered. The strategy is intended to help students
develop patterns of understanding representing varied ways in which practice is intertwined with
key subject-matter concepts. This basic idea of domain criss-crossings is illustrated in Figure 1.
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Enabling this type of activity requires a flexible case library. Our developing online STEP library,
currently containing eight cases for five sub-matter disciplines at the time of this printing, is a
collection of stories about learning and instruction in actual classrooms. A case’s components
include approximately 15-20 minutes of edited video plus supplementary materials, such as
teacher commentary, examples of student work, class handouts, test scores, information about the
school, etc. Our cases range from examples of problematic classroom instruction that could be
improved (redesign cases) to examples of exemplary instruction we would like for students to
To enable thematic criss-crossings, our development process involves editing video footage in a
way that captures major to-be-taught themes in small segments of video called minicases. In
STEP, cases are stories representing a collection of such minicases; however, minicases can also
be extracted from their case contexts and reassembled in different groupings for instructional
purposes. For example, a lecture or other presentation for the STEP course might use an assembly
of multiple minicases, drawn from various case contexts, that illustrates a course topic, such as
social knowledge construction. Or, students redesigning an instructional unit on static electricity
can access the library and look at multiple minicases illustrating, for example, instances of
Learning with the Cross-Crossing Strategy. What type of learning does the criss-crossing
activity afford? From the perspective of case-based reasoning (e.g., Kolodner & Guzdial, ), cases
(in this immediate context “cases” is broadly defined to include STEP cases and minicases)
represent possible templates for action and thought, old friends that, if learned, might later be
recalled and adapted and combined to guide action in a new situation. The belief is that new
events in the real world will trigger a “reaching backward” (Salomon & Perkins, 1989) to find
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relevant cases in memory that can be recalled, combined, and applied to the new situation. From
this perspective, transfer occurs through a process in which helpful previously-learned cases are
recalled, combined and adapted to fit a new situation, a memory process that may resemble an
iterative analogical case-mapping process (case memories are mapped to the current situation,
case representations are adjusted through recombinings to improve the mapping, etc.).
The approach we are implementing for STEP is intended to create theme-based assemblages, or
idea “families” (e.g., Derry, 1996), of (mini)case memories, where the themes represent the most
important enduring understandings that instructors want a STEP course to promote. For example,
a fall course for secondary teacher education at UW-Madison emphasized five themes
recommended by the National Academy of Education as important areas of study for prospective
teachers: 1. Knowledge transfer; 2. The constructive nature of knowing; 3. The social nature of
learning; 4. Cognitive and sociocultural views of motivation; and 5. The importance of providing
students with the opportunity to learn and perform in environments where they receive feedback
and revise their work. The steps in the learning process can be outlined as follows: First, an
“transfer”) creates, within students, some kind of embodied memory representation for one or
more themes. Next, through more advanced instruction involving domain criss-crossings using a
case library, the students’ thematic memory representations are enriched and updated with
exposure to cases that exemplify the theme; hence, for each student individually and for the group
of students in the class as a whole, the assemblage of ideas and related cases associated with a
theme increases in complexity and range, creating a family of memories that is more likely to be
However, unlike Kolodner and Guzdial (2000), for example, we do not assume that over time and
given many experiences with a single theme in many case contexts, that memories of cases
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encountered remain intact and unchanged. Students are not expected to recall all specifics of how
a teacher promotes (or fails to promote) transfer as illustrated in the many different cases
encountered. Our assumption is that both constructive and reconstructive memory processes
promote active memory change over time, leading to integration, abstraction, and loss of case
details in the memory representations of the case families that result from study within a CFT-
type system (not only during case-based learning, but also during later recall and use of case
families). We believe this process tends to strengthen memory and later perception for situational
aspects that tend to occur repeatedly across contexts and cases. In the Bartlerian (1932) tradition
we may use the term “schema” to describe these evolving, dynamic, distributed, situationally-
activated, thematically organized case-family memories, although we contrast this use of the term
schema with computer-science views of schemas as relatively static structures with parameters
In summary, the kind of individual (and, where applicable, community) learning that the “criss-
crossing strategy” aims for is the creation of schematic attunements to the environments. These
patterns, representing concepts from a subject domain, as they are experienced through study of
instructional cases representing a range of ways those patterns will be encountered within a
domain of practice. Here it is important to re-emphasize that the studied cases must be video
cases, since we make several important bridging assumptions related to the transferability of
psychological analyses showing significant overlap between the perceptual processes stimulated
while watching an activity on film compared to those stimulated during physical participation in
an activity (e.g., Gibson, 1979; Zacks & Tversky, 2001), as well as Barsalou’s (e.g., Goldstone &
Barsalou, 1998) research-supported theory concerning the role of perceptual simulators that
create conceptual understanding through mental enactment, is that embodied memories created
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during video study using the criss-crossing strategy are likely to be activated later during real-
world professional experience. Such memory activations associated with both conscious and
unconscious, intuitive response to environmental patterns might include attitudes and other
and propensities toward particular sorts of actions that have been observed in video. Hence, the
transfer and acceleration. Both are tested when one demonstrates that, compared to mentored
field-based experiences of equal time and controlling for differences in students’ entering
transfer situations in which a thematic schema, and consequently the particular interpretations and
The Small Multiples Strategy. The goal of STEP instruction is not merely increasing the
availability of thematic schemas that will be activated to serve as interpretive contexts for guiding
certain types or modes of experience and action, but also on creating new habits of mind
associated with enhancement of tendencies and abilities to view and consider the world
simultaneously from a broad range of multiple perspectives. That is, a goal of STEP instruction is
to enhance the schema assembly process that underlies interpretation of complex instructional
cases and ultimately real-world experience, making this process more fluid, flexible, creative,
complex, automatic and effortless. In Derry’s (1996) terms, this amounts to organizing
instructional experiences toward the goal of enhancing the array of “situational model schemas,”
as well as the speed of activation of such schemas, that a person or group is able to construct and
consider as a basis for understanding and interpreting cases within a domain such as classroom
teaching, whether the case is an instructional video story or a situation encountered as real-world
experience. The small multiples approach as deployed in STEP aims to enhance students’ ability
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to create, discuss, judge, and recreate multiple situational models that represent valid, intelligent
To promote this ability, instruction should afford and scaffold prospective teachers in discussing
and otherwise studying cases (and minicases) such that the teachers are encouraged to examine
each case from multiple thematic perspectives. Depending on the sophistication of the students
and the difficulty of the subject matter, the multiples approach may begin with activities in which
students examine complex minicases, considering multiple themes sequentially. For example
students may view a case and then be asked to consider a short segment of that case (a minicase),
finally as an example of formative evaluation. From this strategy of sequential viewing in which
themes are considered one at a time, the instruction would proceed to a more advanced phase in
which students are required to construct more complex analyses in which alternative case
interpretations are constructed by combining and recombining multiple themes, and the resulting
analyses are discussed, compared and evaluated. The basic idea is represented in Figure 2.
To facilitate this process, Spiro (personal communication; Spiro et al., 2001) has proposed the
idea of using metaphorical experiential symbol systems (MESSes), the procedure of tying to-be-
learned themes to symbols or other perceptual enhancements, both auditory and visual, that are
then overlaid on instructional videocases for the purpose of directing students’ attention to the
conceptual themes and thematic interactions as they occur in action. In early learning stages, such
enhancements might help students more easily visualize or notice complex “messes” of ideas in
action. These enhancements could be faded as students gain more skill at identifying targeted
instructional themes within complex cases and interpretive exercises. Spiro has suggested that
such enhancements might be combined with special editing and system design effects to create
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MTV-type case presentations that help compact and accelerate experience in advanced perceptual
Acquire some basic knowledge of foundational concepts through readings, lectures and other
“efficient” classroom activities. If thematic overlay treatments are to be used in later stages, this
initial instruction should also introduce students to the symbols associated with each theme. 2.
For each theme taught, criss-cross the domain landscape using the CFT system (in STEP, the
KWeb) to support instruction, supporting students as they examine multiple situational contexts
(cases) representing a range of ways in which each foundational theme is instantiated within the
professional domain of practice; 3. Again criss-cross the domain, choosing cases that combine
foundational concepts in various ways, and study these as instantiations of multiple theme sets.
Depending on the sophistication of students, this third step might be divided into two phases: In
the first phase (3a), students might practice interpreting cases, considering foundational themes
one at the time over several re-viewings of each single case. In the second phase (3b), students
are supported in interpreting and reinterpreting cases, integrating multiple themes in each
interpretation. In both phases 3a and 3b of the small multiples instruction, thematic overlays
might be employed initially to assist students in identifying presence of themes and thematic
interactions.
There are a variety of instructional practices that might afford this form of sequencing and type of
instruction. For example, students in a class might receive reading assignments supplemented by
lectures and discussions on the topics of transfer and knowledge construction, to help them
acquire foundational knowledge at a beginning level. Next, the class might together view an
instructional case (a fifteen-minute story of a classroom lesson), then focus on discussing selected
segments of the case (minicases), one at the time, considering for each how the topics of transfer
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and knowledge construction are exemplified. Third, this activity might be followed by an
assignment requiring students to use the case library for a domain criss-crossing homework
assignment in which they are required to find and analyze 10 minicases illustrating the themes of
transfer and knowledge construction combined. Other approaches, including those that employ
The theories section of KWeb, which is still growing and under constant construction, currently
consists of about 100 densely conceptually interlinked pages that contain explanations and other
instruction for selected learning sciences concepts related to teaching. These pages are
intertwined with about 100 video segments (minicases) in the case library (also growing) that
illustrate instances, uses, or illustrations of learning science ideas at work in the classroom. The
tool chosen (with the input of Chris Fassnacht) for developing and maintaining the system was Z-
complex web sites. This tool requires a pragmatic structural metaphor for setting up the site and
specifying relationships among theory pages and case nodes in the network. Such structures
impose constraints upon domain representation and are necessary for updating and maintaining a
website that must, as we describe below, constantly evolve in support of both instructional and
research goals. Again with Fassnacht’s input, the STEP team chose a loose family metaphor, such
that every page, or node, in the Theories Web is linked with other nodes in the web that are
designated as its ancestors, parents, children or “other relatives.” When a new node is added, only
its parents and relatives need be specified, then its position in the network with respect to all other
nodes is automatically generated, and any content that is input to new pages is automatically
formatted.
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The Theories Web is organized into three interlinked idea families: Cognitive Theory;
Sociocultural Theory; and Cross-Theory Ideas. The Cognitive Theory family has two main
branches: Information Processing and Sociocognitive (Developmental) Theory. Each idea family
and its main branches also have several major family branches. This structure has a hierarchical
feel at its highest levels, seemingly in conflict with the basic tenets of CFT, which opposes
reliance on overly simplified structures during advanced instruction. Yet making such structural
context visible to users is a navigational aid that facilitates introductory learning and helps
prevent disorientation in hyperspace (Dias, Gomes & Correia, 1999). Thus, from any entry point
within the Theories section of STEP KWeb, the user can identify the major theory and idea
While the theory family relationships metaphor is an apparent hierarchy at superordinate levels, it
is a loose family metaphor that affords creation of partially non-directional graph structures
specifying complex interrelationships among pages (there can be three or more parents, for
example, and relational links can be either directional or non-directional). This structure is
capable of representing complex, conceptually valid and instructionally useful relationships that
permit meaningful navigation regardless of where in the network -- from which conceptual
vantage point -- the user explores the system. From any page in the network, any point of entry, a
context is created whereby the user can move easily to pages discussing higher-order (parent)
ideas, another conceptually related page of equal status in the same or any different family
(relatives), or a page on a more specific derivative idea of the current concept (child nodes). In
addition, links within the page encourage the user to access video minicases that can be partially
interpreted in terms of concepts discussed on the user’s current page. An example Theories page
is shown as Figure 4.
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Designing the conceptual structure for the theories network originally proceeded from a rational
historical and conceptual analysis of the learning sciences domain, without, at first, giving deep
consideration to the structure of the domains of professional practice. However, because web sites
are highly adaptable and potentially widely used, various use contexts have provided natural
mechanisms for ongoing domain analyses. Such analyses are shaped in interesting ways by the
constraints and affordances of the organizing metaphor, the needs of courses and instructors that
the web site supports, and the structure and capabilities of the web-based technology itself.
For example, the content of the Theories section has been influenced recently by the teacher
which have chosen to emphasize five key learning science concepts promoted by the National
Social Learning, Student Motivation, and Formative Assessment. Although most of these
concepts were already embedded as pages at appropriate points within the existing network, they
are gradually being expanded through the addition of child and relative nodes, and new cases are
being selected and edited and added to the case library to support these conceptual emphases.
Another example of how use context shapes web content is illustrated by the recent adaptation of
web content to serve learning science courses for kinesiology and music. These majors have
spawned development of pages for concepts such as expertise, giftedness and talent.
How the technology itself shapes conceptual analysis is illustrated by our rule of thumb for
minicase size: A video less than two minutes long can be downloaded quickly with a fast
connection and, if downgraded in quality, with a 56K modem. Hence, the two-minute (or less)
minicase was born. Yet our experience indicates that this is a sufficiently large grain size for
illustrating meaningful and complex instructional events that require complex interpretations
using multiple concepts. Video segments of two minutes or less nicely support conceptual
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presentations of learning science concepts in various instructional formats, including lecture,
face-to-face, online case discussions in small groups, and individual study using KWeb.
Clearly, then, it is not necessarily the top-level hierarchical structure of the network that makes
some ideas structurally (Meyer, 1975) and instructionally more important than others. Rather,
instructional importance of ideas is largely determined by frequency of links to pages that are
created as the system naturally and dynamically evolves through development and use. It is also
created by frequency of visits students make in specific instructional contexts. For example, both
directed (by assignments and activities) and undirected (student explorations) searches through
the net frequently encounter the NAE nodes. They are, as a result, highly visited nodes and in
many ways structurally more important than the so-called superordinate concepts that provide
In sum, domain analysis has proceeded simultaneously and been shaped by system development
and use and by development of cases. This process has re-taught us first hand that learning
theoretical intermingling: similar but subtly different ideas with similar names are claimed by
different theories. A good example is the term “constructivism,” which is uncomfortably shared
by the sociocultural, sociocognitive, and information processing theories and is used in reference
confounding of theoretical knowledge. For example, the body of knowledge that is often taught
and represented as information processing theory presents concepts derived from early versions
of the theory side-by-side with those derived from later versions. Hence, from the student’s
perspective, one theory may seem to be explaining phenomena in very different ways, a situation
that frequently leads to serious misconceptions that must be challenged, such as the idea that
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transmission” perspective. Another source of messiness was the absence of good analyses and
basic scientific knowledge about the relationships between domains of real-world professional
practice and the theories that are traditionally taught in professional schools with the intent that
they be “transferred” as interpretive frameworks for practice. Such observations simply confirm
one premise of CFT, that many professional domains are messy and ill-structured and that the
organizational schemes imposed upon them for instructional convenience can often be
characterized as efforts to tame through over-simplified structural metaphors that do not map onto
real-world practice.
The Theories part of the STEP KWeb affords many instructional formats, including those
consistent with advanced CFT instruction for ill-structured domains. For example, when students
are first introduced to a learning science concept, such as knowledge transfer, the theories page
that introduces and discusses that concept can be assigned as reading. When students access the
assigned page, the format of that page invites and encourages them to explore other parts of the
STEP KWeb in a CFT way. As shown in Figure 4, from the assigned page they are able to access
multiple video minicases that offer classroom examples of that concept (criss-crossing the
landscape of the instructional domain for examples of transfer). Or, they are able to move from
the assigned concept page (transfer) to the parent idea(s) for that concept (e.g., prior knowledge
use), to the child ideas of that concept (e.g., analogy and cognitive flexibility), to related ideas
(e.g., knowledge construction, adaptive expertise, etc.), or to various minicases representing the
concept in action. Each page invites and enables further movement through the STEP knowledge
web and beyond, inviting criss-crossing of the conceptual landscape of the “learning sciences.”
Taken together, the Case Library and Theories sections of STEP KWeb offer two different types
of entry points for supporting two different forms of instruction: Theory-based and case-based.
Because minicases can be accessed, viewed and studied in (or out of) sequence within the context
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of the larger narrative cases of which they are a part, the instructor can select and assign cases or
minicases and organize instruction from a case-based perspective. In STEP KWeb, links between
concept pages and cases are reciprocal, so that every case also points to the concept pages within
the knowledge web that can be used to help students analyze and think about cases. However, this
is a pointing toward a possible subset of useful ideas for thinking about cases, not an explanation
of the case. Students who use links to guide their study and thinking about cases are still required
to construct self-explanations for why a particular set of concepts applies to a particular case.
Thus the system scaffolds but does not supply case analyses for its users, and is designed to
prompt questioning and discussion about why certain links apply to certain cases, and about other
links that might also apply and provide additional valid viewpoints. In this sense the system
supports small multiples instruction. As discussed in the next section, an additional way in which
small multiples instruction is supported in the site is through guided case discussion: An online
environment for guiding case analyses in pre-service courses has been incorporated into the
system and is described in a later section of this chapter. First we turn to several interesting
theoretical issues regarding the bringing together of the domain of practice, represented by the
case library, and the conceptual theoretical world of the learning sciences, represented by the
systems (e.g., the learning sciences) that can flexibly be assembled and imposed as interpretive
lenses upon practice (e.g., classroom teaching) in order guide and inform it. And issue that has
not been addressed in previous literature is how the events of professional practice are naturally
segmented and structured by the physical world, including the physiological systems of human
event perception. This issue is important, for event perception in professional environments is a
cognitive process influenced by both the “top-down” conceptual systems acquired through formal
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and informal educational experience, and by the “bottom-up” mechanisms of human perception
that have evolved to reflect how humans interact with events in situ. Because top-down and
bottom-up processes constrain and support one another during event perception and
domains of practice should consider how humans connect with their environment through the
meshing of perceptual patterns triggered by the environment and those triggered by conceptual
memories that are learned through courses and other experiences and presumably recalled and
The classroom landscape teams with hundreds of complexly interwoven events occurring
simultaneously in three-dimensional space and continuously over time. The teacher at the center
must refine, select, edit and otherwise impose order on what would otherwise be an
overwhelmingly complex experience. Fortunately there are features of the physical world that
form patterns and gestalts, and human perceptual systems have evolved means of taking
advantage of them. Zacks and Tversky (2001) synthesized a large body of literature concerned
that are partially generated in response to correlated physical input received from the
such as change in an actor’s behavior or direction of movements, and thus have beginnings and
endings that are reliably detected across observers. These perceived patterns very often
agent (e.g., the teacher) acts on objects (e.g., writes on a transparency) with particular, usually
multiple, physical consequences (e.g., a display appears and students stop talking and look toward
the display). There is evidence that such episodes are perceived as bounded objects that have
parts (agent, action, ground, direction) and are located within hierarchical event structures (Zacks
& Tversky, 2002). For example, the transparency event is part of a larger daily activity that is a
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part of a lesson that has particular event outcomes in the context of a larger instructional unit and
course, all associated with learning goals and expected outcomes for students.
Although event structures are perceptually cued by objective physical properties and are often
individuated on the basis of physical properties of motion and causality, they are also inferential
constructions cued by prior knowledge. Teachers interpret events and give them meaning,
drawing inferences about classroom plots, students’ understandings and motives, problem solving
processes, subgoals, goals, long-term ambitions, expectations of principals and parents, etc. Not
surprisingly, the ordinary language that people use to talk about, and draw inferences regarding
the meaning of events, also, like the physical properties of events, has hierarchical causal
structure. Zacks and Tversky (2001) suggest that the basic syntactic and semantic structures of all
languages reflect the hierarchical and causal nature of events. Both informal and professional
discourse about practice reflects a universal human tendency to impose structure, including causal
This fact has several implications for professional education. One implication is that
practitioners’ comfort with a new conceptual discourse such as the learning sciences, which is
interpretation, will likely be tied to how realistically instruction is able to map that language onto
naturally occurring event structures in the world of work. Those involved in teacher education are
well aware that teacher learners often expect and gain little from the theories to which their
curricula expose them (e.g., Simon, 1992). One source of that resistance may derive from the fact
that scientific theory talk is too far removed from the events of classroom practice, either because
the foundations of educational science were not historically grounded in classroom practice in the
first place, or because even grounded theories have evolved away from practice through out-of-
classroom professional discourse (e.g., talks and discussions at academic conferences, in journals,
20
in university classrooms). If theory isn’t well matched to student teachers’ perceptions of the
practical talk about their practice may seem to them more informative than scientific theory?
However, an event that can informally be described as the teacher talking and students
responding by listening can also be seen as the teacher talking in a way that uses instructional
tools and artifacts that help direct students’ attention to what is most important for them to
cover material or pass a test, but as a goal of helping students construct understanding of
important concepts in a way that will help them transfer that understanding into new situations
within communities of practice outside of school. These sentences are examples of using learning
sciences terms (underlined) in a way that expands and deepens event perception in a useful way.
And teachers who understand these terms in depth can unpack them further for even deeper
insights into the causal nature of instructional goals and actions, including hidden “thinking”
actions that facilitate goal achievement. For example, knowledge construction is a process of
helping activate students’ relevant prior knowledge and use it to interpret new experience. In sum,
learning sciences (and other professional discourses) can and should be taught in ways that
expand natural language and perception, not work in conflict with it. Thus, the selection of what
concepts to teach teachers should honor both the causal and hierarchical aspect of natural event
perception in classrooms, as well as the causal and hierarchical aspect of what the science of
The goals of teaching learning science through video case study include expanding and deepening
teachers’ perceptions of practice, meshing practice with theory, and promoting flexible use of
learning science concepts in considering multiple interpretations and hypotheses about how to
21
achieve learning goals. An event-perception analysis allows us to understand more precisely what
this means and how to do it. Such an analysis has implications for selecting and presenting the
content of the conceptual domain (e.g., learning science) curriculum, the design and structuring of
cases of teaching practice to which that conceptual domain is mapped, and the design of the
instructional activities that mesh the domain of practice with the conceptual domain.
Meshing conceptual domains with practice is not a straightforward matter, for both the world and
the perceptual systems that see it are complex, dynamic systems, never at rest. Even while the
human perceptual system strives to impose order on a complex and changing world, that order
order can be learned and imposed. At any given moment in the classroom, multiple events are
occurring simultaneously, and the teacher is selecting actions, from among many possibilities,
with multiple goals in mind (Lampert, 2001). These actions have consequences that help mark
each event as a unit of perception, but there are both intended and unintended consequences,
planned and serendipitous successes, and failures. Together, the environment and the human
perceptual system shape the happening, episodic world into shifting patterns representing
patterns impose structure and constrain what would otherwise be too much interactive confusion
to manage.
In this sea of complexity, the ability to perceive causal mechanisms is helpful and should be
taught and developed in teacher preparation programs. Classroom events, and perceptions of
events, influence and are influenced by teachers’ and students’ goals and the actions they initiate
in pursuit of those goals. One type of goal-based system that can help focus perception and
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Greeno (1991) the instructional routine is a socially scripted schema for guiding classroom
activity so that important goals are achieved. Routines are normative classroom procedures, often
designed and shared by teachers, who adapt them to their purposes, that are taught to students and
that represent standardized practices that both teachers and students understand. After a
classroom community acquires them, routines manifest themselves in daily activity with little
need for verbal communication regarding what is expected. Pinups and gallery walks are
examples of types of routines frequently used in design-based classrooms, in which students learn
subject matter by designing and/or creating artifacts (e.g., Kolodner & Guzdial, 2000). During
pinups and gallery walks, student design teams display work in various stages of completion and
take turns explaining their ideas and viewing and commenting on others’ work. Another example
is scripting during collaborative learning (e.g., O’Donnell, 1999). Capable, experienced teachers
have perfected many detailed routines (Leinhardt & Greeno, 1991) and use them frequently,
learning sciences are incorporated into teacher education, they should help teachers understand
how to design and manage instructional environments, and their perceptions of them, through
instructional routines that promote multiple learning outcomes for multiple students.
Instructional Planning
Routines are “plugins” for flexible instructional planning. Teachers who enter the classroom with
well-conceived plans and a repertoire of routines for implementing them are oriented toward
particular learning goals and goal-related activities for students, toward seeing evidence regarding
goal achievement, and toward perceiving events as things that contribute to or interfere with goal
achievement. However, constructing an environment to achieve even one goal (much less
from among many possible plan components (e.g., Simon, 1996). Also, plans are not writ in
stone; they must be adapted in practice and hence place only soft, anticipatory constraints on
event perception and development (e.g., Suchman, 1986). An unpredictable outcome for one or
23
more students may require a rethinking of next steps. A discipline problem may arise and cause
temporary suspension of the current goals and plans. Yet long-range and short-range instructional
planning helps pull order from a potentially unmanageable chaotic sea, placing (heavenly)
An important role for learning sciences, then, is to furnish a rich language of cause and effect, of
goal-based activity structures, for instructional planning. That is, the learning science knowledge
taught in education courses should be that which helps define goals and the tendency and ability
to see actions that lead to or thwart those goals. For example, the goal of achieving an “enduring
photosynthesis (etc.) must be considered simultaneously with learning science topics that shed
instructional materials, forms of discourse, instructional routines and assessment, etc. are possible
within existing institutional, physical and social constraints and can be brought together in a plan
to help afford and cause the signs of understanding. Thus, preparing to teach requires learning the
skill of adaptive plan construction, in which goals and assessments and activities as routines are
flexibly assembled and reassembled in the process of achieving a satisficing instructional design.
This is an important form of cognitive flexibility, and it is the goal of the instruction that takes
The STEP pbl system scaffolds instruction in which small groups of students deepen their
understanding of learning sciences as they work together on instructional design problems. The
system permits a course manager to create and modify problems in various ways, so the example
provided below merely illustrates a characteristic instantiation representing one way that
24
Problem based learning (PBL) is an instructional method developed for medical education (e.g.,
Barrows 1989) that has made its way into many other types of classrooms, including K-12
classrooms. The purpose of PBL is to help students acquire domain knowledge, usually scientific
knowledge, in the context of a solving a real-world problem that is based on a real-world case.
What we know about this method is largely gleaned from wisdom of practice, both from its
developer, Howard Barrows, and from the widespread PBL community that uses this method and
has begun to conduct research on it. In this community there is a standard PBL procedure, and
some members feel strongly that it shouldn’t be messed with. This procedure takes students
through a facilitated small-group, student-centered process in which students discuss and “solve”
a problem case (e.g., a case of medical diagnosis) as they fill out a whiteboard that has been
structured to facilitate their inquiries. In filling out the whiteboard, students proceed through
stages in which they observe facts in the case, formulate hypotheses, identify learning issues for
further investigation, conduct research, and revisit and discuss hypotheses until a problem
solution is reached. The main purpose of this activity is to learn about a conceptual scientific
Several years ago, PBL was introduced into the STEP course as a face-to-face small-group
method that was practiced once a week in the classroom. It was introduced simultaneously with
the STEP KWeb (which did not at that time have a site supporting online problem-based
learning). PBL presented cases of instruction to be improved, and the instructional design projects
lasted several weeks. Between classes, students conducted research using the STEP web site and
other resources. One group that we have studied and reported on previously (e.g., Derry,
Seymour, Feltovich & Fassnacht, 2001; Derry, Seymour, Steinkuehler, Lee, & Siegel, in press)
consisted of five science education majors and their tutor. Their four-week task was to use
25
learning science concepts to help them redesign a traditional science unit on static electricity that
was based on video and other case materials available in the STEP KWeb.
Our studies of this group and our observations of the STEP course as a whole led us to several
conclusions. First, students solving a case together in a PBL format do examine and argue the
case from many points of view, and their arguments incorporate learning science concepts from
our course as well as life experiences and ideas from other courses. And, some of the same
learning science ideas do resurface in multiple cases over time, giving students chances to see
multiple examples of key concepts in action. So PBL does in fact help our course meet some
Second, students do appear to learn from the course experience. A preliminary evaluation by
Siegel (2002) and another by Stampen (unpublished) provided evidence that students may
increase their tendency to use learning science concepts when viewing instruction, activate more
of the concepts that experts think are relevant to cases, and from the learning science perspective,
build more sophisticated situation models and theories to describe what is happening in videos of
classrooms. Whether it improves them as teachers we cannot say with certainty, although students
A third observation is that PBL is a difficult instructional method, unlike any that most people
have experienced. The facilitation of PBL is important to its success and the unseasoned TA’s
who served as facilitators for PBL groups struggle with it. Student teachers are often initially
resistant to the unfamiliar method, and there are larger institutional and program contexts that
make it likely that conflicts will arise (Derry et al., in press). Also, PBL is resource intensive
since on facilitator is required for every 7-10 students. In large courses, tutors must monitor
26
multiple groups. This is a substantial burden for TA’s, but we felt this was a problem that might
Hence we created and added to our website the STEP pbl system for online support of problem
based learning. We use lower-case letters (pbl) to distinguish our version from the standard
approach that has evolved from Barrow’s work, since, through use and experience, we have
evolved and changed the approach significantly. The STEP pbl system is a collaborative
environment that is integrated with other eSTEPWeb.org resources. We decided that pbl should
go on line for a number of reasons (Steinkuehler, Derry, Hmelo-Silver, & DelMarcelle, 2001).
First, we knew that an online system could be designed to distribute some of the tutoring
responsibility to the system and the students themselves, lightening the responsibility for tutors.
Second, the STEP community is growing, and an online system facilitates larger course
management. Finally, an online system would enable us to eventually offer the course as distance
The STEP pbl system supports either online small-group instruction or a hybrid model in which
students meet face-to-face in small groups during class and then extend their work outside of
class through online interaction. In both online and hybrid models, students are guided by a
human facilitator, typically a teaching assistant, and are required to complete and submit
individual and group artifacts, products related to and documenting various stages of instructional
design, through the online system. The online system collects and displays data on student
performance and affords detailed monitoring of work by individuals and small groups, permitting
detailed (and powerful) formative assessment of individuals and groups throughout the course.
This is both a bane and benefit of online courses, for this monitoring capability makes them
powerful learning tools that place substantial performance demands on both students and
27
Although they can be set up in different ways by the course manager, STEP instructional design
activities in pbl typically involve a phase of individual study and preparation, followed by a phase
of facilitated small-group design work, followed by a final phase in which the individual
analyzes, extends, and reflects upon the group’s work and how much the individual gained from
it. These phases are scaffolded online by the STEP system, which guides students through a series
of steps. The number of steps and required activities for each step may vary from problem to
problem, as desired by the course manager/designer. Here we describe one of the activities
created for the fall, 2002, course at UW Madison, which took students through a four-week, nine-
step design challenge. All students in this course completed two pbl activities on line. The
example to be described is the second activity that was completed by the English majors. Similar
design problems were created for students in secondary science, mathematics, social studies, and
foreign language.
When students entered the STEP pbl system to start their design challenge, they saw a “sidewalk”
with nine steps, each step associated with a particular due date for completion (insert Fig 6 about
here). Each student began the task by mouse-clicking on step 1, which opened a page of
instructions and a design problem appropriate to that student’s academic teacher certification
area. The design problem for English majors, Huckleberry Finn at Midwest High, is shown in
Figure 7. Previously, each student had been assigned to a small discipline-based work group that
Like design problems for other disciplines, the English problem referenced and linked to a
particular video case in the STEP video library, a classroom story that students were asked to
analyze in preparation for their design work. Students were asked to draw lessons and ideas from
the case under study and then apply those lessons and ideas by working with their group to design
28
or redesign a similar type of instruction. All design problems for all disciplines required students
to warrant their instructional designs through learning science research. This research was
facilitated by availability of the STEP KWeb and other online research resources integrated with
Pbl activities required students to apply a process of “backward design” leading to the creation of
a “group product,” a plan for an instructional unit. The unit to be developed in the English
teachers’ groups (see their problem) was to employ a controversial text of the students’ choice
and address instructional objectives related to themes of equity and diversity (similar to the case
the students were required to study), as well as literary topics, such as satire. Students learned
about backward design through readings in the KWeb and an assigned text, Understanding by
Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). Adhering to the steps in their pbl “sidewalk,” students first
completed their reading assignments and studied their case, entering their thoughts and reflections
about the case into an online notebook (see Figure 6). After completing initial assignments by the
date due, students were at Step 4, where they joined their group of 4-5 other students and began
group design work. Groups were allowed to choose whether to work online at all times or
whether to supplement online work with face-to-face meetings during class. Most groups
During group design, steps 4-6, the pre-service teachers were scaffolded though a process in
which they first carefully considered what “enduring understandings” their unit would teach.
Next, they developed ideas for how they would assess their students, to determine whether goals
for understanding were being acquired. Finally, they worked together to design goal-related
activities. Each step in the process involved submission and discussion of the various teacher-
learners’ ideas for goals, assessments, and activities. Ideas were refined online through discussion
and voting, with ideas receiving strongest group support becoming part of the final group product.
29
Group activity was supported online by a group whiteboard (Figure 8) and a supplementary
discussion board. As shown in Figure 8, the whiteboard contained sections (marked by “tabs”) for
each stage of the groups’ work. For example, during the design of assessments the group
members were in the assessment section of the group whiteboard. During each major phase of the
group activity, such as the assessment or activities design phases, students entered their
“proposals” for what the group’s design should include, plus a learning-science justification for
their proposals, onto the group whiteboard. Students also used the group whiteboard to view and
comment on others’ proposals and justifications, read comments about their own proposals, and
modify their own proposals in response to group feedback. Students controlled what the system
put into their final product with a voting mechanism through which proposals receiving group
Thus, the group whiteboard “forces” students to design an instructional unit, thinking about
assessments and activities in a certain order and in terms of how they would lead to enduring
understandings. Thus the group whiteboard represented the course manager’s epistemological
commitments (e.g., Suthers, 1999) regarding what kinds of goals, knowledge and evidence the
course manager wanted students to consider and discuss during learning. Parenthetically it is
noted that the group whiteboard in STEP pbl is a general tool that allows course managers to
change these commitments from problem to problem and course to course, by altering the number
Upon completing the group product -- a justified plan for an instructional unit specifying goals,
assessments and activities -- individual students completed steps 7-9 individually. In step 7
individual students wrote their own critique and analysis of the group product. In step 8 students
reflected on their learning, and in step 9 provided anonymous feedback on the activity and site. A
30
TA facilitated all steps online. Each TA in the fall course managed four small groups of about
There were two instructional design pbl activities in the fall course, similar to the one described
above. Based on a class size of 60 and a response rate of about 97%, the following ratings of
components of the two pbl activities (Table 1), and the system tools used during the pbl activities
(Table 2), indicate that while there is room for improving the design of STEP pbl, the activities
were valued and generally well received. Several patterns in these responses can be observed.
First, from pbl-1 to pbl-2, there was a substantial increase in student satisfaction. This is likely
due to a number of factors, including student and TA experience with the method and system, as
well as the use of discipline-specific cases and problems in pbl-2 (rather than the generic
which was employed in pbl-1). Second, a decrease in ratings for TAs likely reflects a deliberate
fading of scaffolding. Since TAs were trying to decrease their involvement in student work, it is
not surprising that students perceived their input as less important. Finally, it is notable that the
most rewarding activities for students were those involving collaboration rather than
individualized work. Also, a highly rated tool was the hypertext information resource, the STEP
KWeb.
31
View others’ proposals 4.24 4.33
The following are some characteristic quotes from students, taken from their reflections about the
experience:
32
. . . this lesson that we have designed as a group is definitely something I could see
myself using down the road when I have my own classroom. I feel it is a well thought
out lesson that can be easily modified to meet the needs of whatever type of class
I will attempt to use this method when creating lessons plans for next semester. I
think it is a valid model that helps the teacher keep objectives clear and plan
I would use the unit itself. It was a good final product. I would also use this method
The plan that we made up as a group will be something that will be extremely useful
for me as a teacher. I also learned the value of input from others’ viewpoints on the
same unit because you are able to see different perspectives that can give you some
With future refinement, we are confident that online design activities in the STEP pbl site will
Future Directions
Research with eSTEPWeb is proceeding in two general directions: Experimental and Evaluative.
In the experimental program we are conducting controlled studies that closely examine learning
and learning processes promoted by alternative instructional methods that can be set up,
supported, and tracked through the web site. One interesting contrast to the CFT instructional
33
approaches, discussed earlier, is suggested in recent work by Schwartz and Bransford (1998),
which implies that novices should participate in detailed study of contrasting cases in the domain
of practice prior to introducing them to related topics within the conceptual domain. Their
findings show that contrasting cases treatments prepare students for future meaningful learning
from direct instruction. “Knowledge differentiation” was the learning mechanism Schwartz and
Bransford proposed as responsible for the mental preparation. In STEP, the analog of the
Schwartz and Bransford treatment involves using the pbl environment to set up controlled, in-
depth comparative examinations of small parts of the landscape of practice (e.g., contrasting the
is that giving contrasting-cases pbl exercises before providing lectures or assigning KWeb pages
on conceptual topics, would enhance novice teachers’ ability to learn ideas that relate to that
practice because it would give them a more differentiated knowledge structure to build upon. This
approach can be contrasted with the one based on CFT theory described earlier, the approach of
providing students with basic themes in the conceptual domain though direct instruction with
symbol systems, followed by exploration within the domain of practice through video study
symbol system (MESS) overlays. In fact, given the flexible nature of the human cognitive system,
it is likely that both approaches, if perfected, will be successful. But they might be successful in
different ways, enabling the testing of theory. And, given different contexts and learners, one
might be more feasible than the other to implement. The important point for now is that the STEP
system can support in-depth exploration and detailed comparisons of these and other related
instructional approaches, which will enable us to perfect them and uncover important details
Evaluative Research
Our other line of research is more evaluative, informed by design experiments conducted in situ
as courses are offered through STEP. Assessments in these contexts require a framing definition
34
of what each STEP course is attempting to accomplish. In this regard, it is helpful to discriminate
between a. the goal of developing teachers as thinkers about and planners of instructional
environments, versus b. that of also developing their ability to manage and productively interact
with students within the classroom environments they design or adapt from externally imposed
curricula. This distinction is made because, in the context of pre-service teacher education, it
more feasible to focus on the first goal, since pre-service teachers often do not have sufficient
control over the instructional environments in which they observe and practice teach and thus
may not be able to implement their designs. In these courses, therefore, the primary goals relate to
creating competent instructional planners and analyzers of instructional plans and practices who
flexibly and reflectively use learning sciences to inform their designs and analyses while still
operating within constraints imposed by local standards and curricula. Assessments for these
criteria include judging the course in terms of whether it improves students’ abilities to reflect on
and analyze the teaching they observe in video cases, as well as their ability to craft good
instructional plans that specify goals, assessments and activities that are warranted by learning
In actual professional practice it is impossible to draw such a clear-cut distinction between design
and commitment to certain forms of classroom interaction. And, the instructional design cycle is
iterative, so knowledge drawn from interactive experience within a certain design should lead to
teacher learning, modifications and improvements to that design. Clearly, planning and
implementation knowledge interact with one another and are important, mutually implicative
development, which we are in the process of doing, we want teacher professional development
courses in STEP to focus on broader, more ambitious objectives. Not only do we wish to improve
in-service teachers’ abilities to thoughtfully plan and design good learning environments, given
35
standards and other social, institutional, physical and curricular constraints, but we also want to
help them operate intelligently within them “on the fly,” and collect and use data from
flexibility within constraints, based on the insight that cognitive flexibility, including flexible use
of the learning sciences, occurs within a complex, constraint-based classroom system. Constraint-
based cognitive flexibility includes the ability to flexibly assemble satisficing plans to achieve
goals even in difficult environments, and to demonstrate an ability to adapt those plans as events
unfold. This requires a rapid, intuitive, flexible “seeing” of the classroom landscape at different
stages in instructional design and implementation and at multiple levels of abstraction and
specificity.
For example, in challenging circumstances, such as when discipline problems occur in the
classroom, the teacher’s event perception must switch temporarily from higher-level plans related
to long-term instructional goals, to the immediate concerns of maintaining classroom order, but
without losing site of the long-term goal. The relationship between immediate actions and long-
term goals is also important. For example, a successful inquiry science classroom is not an
accident but the result of weeks, perhaps months of preparing students to work productively in
learning communities with appropriate routines and norms that structure group activity even
when the teacher’s gaze is averted. Thus planning requires that teachers’ perception switch
flexibly between visions of what is possible later and what must be done first (and second and
third) to set that up. The ability to adaptively see and causally connect events at multiple levels of
abstraction is yet another form of cognitive flexibility required for teaching. Assessments of
teachers and teacher development programs should include assessments based on the concept of
36
and plan adaptation in a range of environmental conditions. The primary focus of professional
development programs and systems should be to help teachers develop constraint-based cognitive
transfer. We believe that STEP illustrates the kind of research-based development project that
will eventually make possible this type of professional development goal and programming.
References
Barrows, H. (1988). The tutorial process. Springfield IL: Southern Illinois University
Press.
Derry, S. J. (1996). Cognitive schema theory and the constructivist debate. Educational
Psychologist 31,163-17
Derry, S. & Lesgold, A. (1996). Toward a situated social practice model of instructional
design. In D. C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee (Eds.) Handbook of Educational Psychology (pp. 787-
806) New York: Macmillan.
Derry, S. J., Seymour, J. Feltovich, P., & Fassnacht, C. (2001). Tutoring and knowledge
construction during problem-based learning: An interaction analysis. Paper presented at the
Annual Conference National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), St. Louis
MO.
Derry, S. J., Seymour, J., & Steinkuehler, C., Lee, J. & Siegel, M. (in press). From
ambitious vision to partially satisfying reality: Community and collaboration in teacher education.
To appear in S. Barab, R. Kling & J. Gray (Eds.) Designing Virtual Communities in the Service of
Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Goldstone, R. L. & Barsalou, L. W. (1998). Reuniting perception and conception.
Cognition, pp. 230-262.
Kolodner, J. L., & Guzdial, M. (2000). Theory and practice of case-based learning aids.
In D. Jonassen & S. M. Land (Eds.), Theoretical foundations of learning environments. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Lampert, M. (2001). Teaching problems and the problems of teaching. New Haven &
London: Yale University Press.
Merseth, K. K. (1996). Cases and case methods in teacher education. In J. Sikula (Ed.),
Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 722-744). New York: Macmillan.
Meyer, B. J. F. (1975). The organization of prose and its effects on memory. Amsterdam:
North-Holland.
Putnam, R. T. & Borko, H. (2000). What do new views of knowledge and thinking have
to say about research on teacher learning. Educational Researcher, 29(1), 4-15.
Schwartz, D. L. & Bransford, J. D. (1998). A time for telling. Cognition and Instruction
16, 475-522.
Siegel, M., Derry, S. J., Steinkuehler, C. A., Kim, J.-B. & Seymour, J. (2001). What and
how preservice teachers learn: designing a course that fosters development of useful theoretical
knowledge and the assessment methods to capture it. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of
the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Seattle WA.
Simon, H. A. (1996). The sciences of the artificial, 3rd edn. Cambridge: MIT Press
Simon, R.L. (1992). Teaching against the grain. Texts for a pedagogy of possibility. New
York: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Spiro, R. J., Zaritsky, R., Feltovich, P. J., Coulson, R. L., Theta, J. (April, 2001).
Teaching for transfer with digital video cases. Symposium paper presented at AERA Annual
Meeting, Seattle, WA.
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Spiro, R. J., Feltovich, P. J., Jacobson, M. & Coulson, R. L. (1991a). Cognitive
flexibility, constructivism and hypertext: Advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured
domains. Educational Technology, 31(5), 24-33.
Suchman, L. (1987). Plans and situated actions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
The STEP Research Group* (2000). Promoting teachers’ flexible use of the learning
sciences through case-based problem solving on the WWW: A theoretical design approach. In B.
Fishman & S. O’Connor-Divelbiss (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of
the Learning Sciences (pp. 273-279). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. (*M. Siegel, S. Derry, J. Kim, C.
Steinkuehler, J. Street, N. Canty, C. Fassnacht, K. Hewson, C. Hmelo, & R. Spiro)
39
Figure 1: Criss-crossing in CFT instruction
40
CFT: APPLY COURSE IDEAS TO MULTIPLE
CASES
CASE 2
IP SOCIO
VIEW COGNI
CASE 3 TIVE
CASE 4
CASE 5
41
CFT: COMBINE MULTIPLE COURSE IDEAS IN
MULTIPLE CASE ANALYSES
LEARNING SCIENCES
IP SOCIO
VIEW COGNI
CASE 1 TIVE
CASE 1
42
CFT: Reorganization of Knowledge
(A Knowledge Representation “Mess”)
IP VIEW
COGNITIVE
THEORY
SOCIO
COGNITIVE
X-THEORY
IDEAS
SOCIOCUL
TURAL
THEORY
43
Figure 4. A Web Page from the Theories Section
44
Figure 5. A Web Page from the Case Library
45
Figure 6. The pbl Site at Step 2, Showing Part of Individual Student Notebook With
Prompts
46
Teaching "Controversial" Texts
Teachers who address controversial and sensitive topics through literature studies take a risk and sometimes meet disapproval
from parents, administrators, students, even colleagues. The case you will study as part of your STEP pbl activity is based on
the English classroom of a popular high school teacher, Mr. H, who is now in his fifth year of teaching. For the past several
years Mr. H has gone out on a limb in teaching a controversial seven-day unit based on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
A "classic" in American literature, this book is taught in many high schools. However, over the years it has also appeared on
several lists of banned books, due to its controversial racial content.
The video case, Huck Finn at Midwest Hi, is based on a high school honors English class that is being audited by
one student who is the only African-American student in the classroom. You will see video based on the first four days of
instruction, although the unit continued for about seven days. In this unit, Mr. H poses the question for the class, "Should the
book be banned?" Throughout the unit, Mr. H and his students approach the issue from multiple perspectives, connecting what
they are discussing to their own environment and simultaneously delving deeply into important literary concepts, such as
satire, which are fundamental to intelligent reading and social criticism. Thus, the instructional goals for the unit pertained to
critical thinking about a controversial social topic, as well as development of domain-specific expertise in the field of English
literature.
Mr. H's discourse style, teaching and assessment methods, and choices for how to handle various topics and issues
in this classroom environment should be of interest. Through reading, questioning and discussion Mr. H and his students seem
to reach a higher level of understanding, although (as noted in Mr. H's interview), not all ideals are achieved. However, by the
end of the book, students ironically see Mark Twain as one of history's greatest opponents of racism, and a brilliant writer who
was able to deal with the issue at a time when few other writers would or could.
Notice there are yellow "keywords" placed throughout the video. These keywords are based on Mr. H's own description of
how he thought about his teaching when he viewed and helped edit the video.
Your Group's Task
Carefully study the video case of Mr. H's classroom plus the inquiry materials related to the case, in order to develop ideas for
how you would teach a similar unit. Your group's task is to follow the online pbl steps (based on the Wiggins and McTighe
approach to instructional design) in planning a 1-2 week unit focusing on race and diversity issues present in this novel, or a
different novel of your own choosing which also focuses on race or diversity issues. You may also choose to plan your
instruction for a very different teaching context. For example, you may develop ideas for teaching in a rural high school, in
middle school, in a racially heterogeneous classroom, or in a non-honors classroom. The choice of teaching context, as well as
which novel you use, is your group's decision.
Watching the video case closely is important. As you are watching, identify some learning science principles that are (or
are not) at work in the video and that may be influencing the success of the instruction. Some questions you will wish to think
about while watching the video case and in discussions with your group include:
-What do you think the teacher is trying to accomplish?
-How does he know his students are achieving what he intends for them?
-Why is he teaching as he does and how successful are his instructional activities?
Following examination of the video case, your group will follow the pbl steps to generate proposals for goals,
assessments and instructional activities for a similar unit of instruction. You may use the case to inform your own unit plan, or
you may also have different ideas that you would like to put forward. During your pbl activity, your group will articulate: 1.
the enduring understandings you hope your students will achieve, 2. how you will use assessment to insure those
understandings are acquired, and 3. the activities and methods of instruction and classroom/discourse management you will
employ. Your approaches should be framed and justified in learning science terms when possible.
While designing your unit, think about the following in relation to the case:
-Can you build on what seemed to work for Mr. H?
-What changes would you make and why?
-What types of assessments did Mr. H use and what would you use to evaluate your own teaching and your
students' progress?
-Which of Mr. H's instructional activities would you include and what would you do differently?
The information you enter into your STEP pbl online notebook and the Group Whiteboard should provide a synopsis of
your individual and group thinking on these kinds of issues.
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Figure 8. Part of a Group Whiteboard (Viewed from the Facilitator’s System)
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