Teaching Roles for Instructional Software

1. Teaching Roles for Instructional Software Alan Shurling

2. Teaching Roles for Instructional Software • Drill-and-practice • Tutorial • Simulation • Instructional game • Problem-solving program

3. Drill-and-Practice Teaching Function • Drill-and-practice software functions are exercises in which students work example items, and receive feedback on their correctness (Rayber, 2016)

4. Types of Drill-and-practice • Flash card activity • Students answer questions that are presented one at a time • Program responds by giving positive or negative feedback • Chart fill-in activates • Students are asked to complete a chart to test for fluency • Branching drill • Students must answer questions correctly at a predetermined mastery level • Then students will be moved onto more advanced questions • Extensive feedback activates • Students receive more than correct/incorrect feedback

5. Which Drill-and-Practice Software Should I Use? • The software must have the following • Control over the presentation rate • Answer judging • If questions are short answer, program must be able to discriminate between correct/incorrect • Appropriate feedback for correct and incorrect answers • Characteristics tailored to young learners

6. Benefits of Drill-and-Practice • Immediate feedback • Increased motivation • Saving teacher time

7. Problems with Drill-and Practice • Can be misused or overused • Can be considered an outdated approach to teaching

8. How to Incorporate Drill-and-Practice Software • Replace worksheets and homework assignments • Use it to prepare for test

9. Tutorial Teaching Functions • Tutorial software is an entire instructional sequence on a topic (Rayber, 2016)

10. Categories of Tutorials • Linear tutorial • Gives instructional sequence of explanation, practice, and feedback to all learners • Branching tutorial • Directs learning along alternate paths depending on how they respond to questions and whether they show mastery of certain parts of the material

11. Which Tutorial Software Should I Use? • Extensive interactivity • Thorough user control • Appropriate pedagogy • Adequate answer-judging and feedback capabilities • Appropriate graphics and/or video • Adequate recordkeeping

12. Benefits of Tutorials • Same benefits of drill-and-practice • Plus it offers a self-paced experience

13. Problems with Tutorials • Criticism since tutorials use direct instruction • Lack of well-designed products • Reflect only one instructional approach

14. When to Incorporate Tutorial Software • Use for students who are slower to understand the material • Allows for self-pacing • Alternate learning strategies • Use when teachers are unavailable

15. Simulations • A simulation is a computerized model of a real or imagined system that is designed to teach how the system works (Rayber, 2016)

16. Types of simulations • Physical simulation • Allows users to manipulate things or process represented on their screen • Iterative simulations • Speeds up or slow down processes that usually happen either to slowly or to quickly for students to see unfold • Procedural simulations • Teach the appropriate sequences of steps • Situational simulations • Gives students hypothetical situ

17. Benefits of Simulations • Compress time • Slow down the process • Get students involved • Make experimentation safe • Make the impossible possible • Save resources • Allow repetition • Allow observation of complex process

18. Problems with simulations • Criticism since it replaces hands-on learning • Students may develop inaccurate or imprecise perspectives on the systems’ complexity • Teacher misuse

19. When to Use Simulations • To replace or supplement lab experiments • Supplement role-playing • Supplement field trips • Introduce a topic • Foster exploration • Encourage cooperation

20. Instructional Game • Are software products that add game-like rules and/or competition to learning activities

21. How Do I Select Good Instructional Games • Appealing and appropriate formats and activates • Instructional value • Physical dexterity is reasonable • Social, societal, and cultural considerations are addressed

22. Benefits of Instructional Games • Allows teachers to take advantage of students’ need to play in order to get students to spend more time on the topic

23. Problems with Instructional Games • Schools ban games since students feel they are escaping learning • Confusion of game rules and real-life rules • Inefficient learning • Classroom barriers

24. When to use Instructional Games • In place of worksheets • To teach noncognitive skills • Teach cooperative group working skills • As a reward

25. Problem-Solving • Problem-solving software functions may focus on fostering component skills in or approaches general problem-solving abilities (Rayber, 2016)

26. Two Views on Problem Solving • Content-area problem solving • Software focuses on teaching content-area skills • Content-free problem-solving skills • Problem-solving ability can be taught directly by specific instructions and practice

27. How Do I Select Problem-Solving Software? • Format should be interesting and challenging • Should have a clear link to developing a specific problem-solving ability

28. Benefits of Problem-Solving Software • Promotes visualization in mathematics problem solving • Improves interest and motivation • Prevents inert knowledge

29. Problems with Problem-Solving Software • Terms are used to describe the software, but their meaning are unclear • Software claims verses effectiveness • Lack of skill transfer

30. When to use Problem-Solving Software • To teach component skills • To provide support in solving problems • Encourage group problem solving • To provide practice in solving problems

31. Teaching Role Summery