If you can’t play, at least don’t take the ball away.
A good playground game is fun. It allows us to try something new. If we are successful in the game’s challenge, we can change our position in the game itself. We can transform into a member of another team, from the have nots to the haves. But cheating our way to that moment is self-serving at best, and at worst, ruins the game for everyone.
Teaching and learning are the same. Our playground games are all grown up and moved inside to the pages and pens of our adult selves. Teaching and learning is a tug-of-war between the keepers of knowledge and those wishing to grow. And like the sand and slide outside, in this playground, cheating is not acceptable.
What are the ways to cheat on the playground? We can change the rules midway by fiat, we can disregard the rules and win through force, or we can undermine the community’s etiquette and take advantage of our shared reliance on goodwill.
When we speak with our grandparents, a socialized person listens and maps the experiences of our ancestors upon the challenges we face today. This ability to listen allows us to place ourselves in their shoes and undercover how much we are the same before exploring, together, how we may consider making careful improvements in the future. Speaking with others is the key to this process. Social etiquette reminds us to award those we are listening to the benefit of the doubt. It allows each party in the conversation to see past the emotional load we each bear from our experiences and craft common ground.
However, removing this social element and interacting with the past through just the written word makes it so easy to cheat in this game of knowledge.
This blog post explores how the current academic discussion has lost its way and works too hard to undermine one another instead of role-modelling the pedagogical methods we write about and wish to see. For this assignment, let’s examine just one example for our recent readings on instructional design methods.
The Pebble in the Pond instructional design method has been discounted as a culturally insensitive and behaviourist method and is irrelevant in the post-war era (1945-present) (Heaster-Ekholm, 2020). This is similar to the ADDIE model that Heaster-Ekholm (2020) argues fails to articulate an operational failsafe that satisfies the need of the post-modern left and acknowledges the student’s lived experiences and how that may impact their learning experience. When post-modern authors attempt to discredit generic language like analyze, design, and evaluate, stating that they feel that these words do not meet the needs of today’s society, they need to offer equally succinct guiding principles.
Applying this concept to the Pebble in the Pond (PITP) method, whereby instructional designers create learning experiences that match their teaching capacity at the time, does not represent a method so poorly crafted it should be wiped from the records book. Instead, it is a valuable learning tool that, if used appropriately, can provide transformative learning experiences for students. The PITP model uses behaviourism and cognitivist learning theory to suggest educational designers articulate a central problem and create content that helps learners create knowledge (Merrell, 2002; Thomas, 2019). When Heaster-Ekholm (2020) claims that the PITP model falters because the “content rather than learner need or preference determines instructional strategies,” it begs the question of what words Merrell should have used to accommodate the author’s worldview (p. 56). How does the problem-based approach directly propagate systemic culturally insensitive modes of educational practices?
In the hopes of reframing the discussion and proposing a helpful way forward, I suggest exploring how educational designers can best match various methods with specific scenarios.
The PITP model encourages stakeholders to craft a response to a problem and share it with the world, like dropping a pebble in the pond. The resulting ripples represent the effectiveness of the intervention. For example, we know that inviting students into ‘the game’ of teaching and learning is one of the most effective ways to create lasting knowledge. We also know that role-modelling is a powerful way to encourage new behaviours. I suggest that the PITP model is a very effective learning process when the student is crafting and dropping the pebble!
When teachers create environments that help students ‘just start’ and try their best, they can participate in the game. When teachers encourage students to develop resources based on their current understanding, it role-models a growth mindset and the patience involved in life-long learning. As students grow and mature, their ability to accommodate the needs of others may expand, and the effectiveness of their creations, and the ripples they create, may travel further than before. Framing the PITP’s program-based approach as a student-led project activates elements of all four learning theories (behaviourism, cognitivism, social constructivism, connectivism). Creating open education resources and using evaluative schema to refine their constructions allows students to learn at their optimal rate of cognition. This is encouraging. This is inspiring. This is role-modelling.
How is this mode of being reflected in the current academic dialogue? Dron (2014) and Dousay (2017) both suggest a more ‘holistic’ learning method. Instead of using just one of the four prominent learning theories as a lens that guides the thoughts and actions of educators, we must see the benefits of each theory equally, like tools in a toolbox, and understand when and how to match these tools to our unique learning environments. I rest assured that this new ‘holism’ lets us step out of the intellectual playground and see the learning theories not as competitors to cheer for but as participants to encourage. As supervisors of the knowledge game, we must now encourage participation, reward excellence, and facilitate fair play.
Because after all, if you aren’t able to play the game, at least don’t take the ball away.
References
Dousay. T. A. (2017). Chapter 22. Instructional Design Models. In R. West (Ed.), Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology (1st ed.).
Dron, J. (2014). Chapter 9: Innovation and Change: Changing how we Change. In Zawacki-Richter, O. & T. Anderson (Eds.), Online distance education: Towards a research agenda. Athabasca, AB: AU Press.
Heaster-Ekholm, K. L. (2020). Popular Instructional Design Models: Their Theoretical Roots and Cultural Considerations. International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology, 16(3), 50–65.
Merrill, M. D. (2002). “A pebble‐in‐the‐pond model for instructional design”. Performance Improvement, 41(7), 41-46. Retrieved from http://learninginnovationlab.com/uploads/1/2/0/0/12000341/merrill-pebble_in_pond.pdf
Thomas (2019, Sept 20). Pebble-in-the-pond Instructional Design model in Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction. Mybrainisopen. https://www.mybrainisopen.net/pebble-instructional-design-model/