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TECHNOLOGY & THE 3 D'S OF PEDAGOGY
WHAT TECHNOLOGY CAN DO TO & FOR EDUCATION
Pat Latham and Michael Raggett
There is a lot of hype surrounding the subject of what technology can do for education. There's no doubt it can do a lot but unless it's used wisely it can create more problems that it solves.
How to use it wisely? First you have to decide what you mean by "education." We would suggest a simple definition.
Education is any situation in which people learn something.
Next we need to look at HOW people learn.
We would suggest there are three basic ways - the 3 Ds:
- Didactics (example: a university lecture)
- Discovery (example: a school project)
- Discourse (example: a class discussion)
The difference between the three lies in the nature of the communication between the teacher (if any!) and the taught.
In didactics, the communication flows in one direction from the teacher to the learner, and the learner passively accepts information. The active partner in this type of interaction is the teacher.
In discourse, the communication flows in two directions - to and from teacher and learner(s). The learner is now taking an active part in the interaction and becomes a more equal partner in the learning process.
In discovery, communication can flow in any number of directions and the learner is in complete control of the interaction. The teacher, if any, has become a passive resource who may or may not be consulted by the learner.
How are these methods of learning affected by technology?
Because technology enables teachers and taught to be freed from each other in time and space, it tends to shift the emphasis from didactics to discovery. Is this a good thing?
Yes and no. There are advantages and disadvantages in all three methods, which technology can alleviate or exacerbate.
Didactics can be the most effective method for transferring a lot of information in the shortest possible time. Its disadvantage is that it may not engage and motivate all the learners. It is also heavily reliant on the talent and skill of the individual teacher.
Discourse may engage more learners by involving them more actively in the educational process, but it may lengthen the time taken for the transfer of essential information to the average learner and it still may not involve all learners to a sufficient degree.
Discovery may ensure that ALL learners become actively involved but may be an even more time consuming method of information transfer. It may also be inefficient in other ways. The learner may NEVER discover some of the essential information. They may only learn a great deal of irrelevant information. To set against that, learners may discover new and useful information that is beyond the original learning aim.
How does technology help or hinder these processes?
It can help to solve one of the biggest problems associated with didactics: not all teachers are good lecturers. If technology, say videotaping, is used to expose more learners to teachers who are good at lecturing, a scarce resource is optimized in use. But if technology is simply used to expose more bad teachers to more learners, the problem is multiplied.
If technology can free discourse from time constraints, by using asynchronous computer communications such as e.mail or bulletin boards, learners can engage in dialogue with other learners or teachers at times convenient to all. But if synchronous chat lines are used without some prior training and agreement about communication protocols, this can result in poor quality communications, such as non sequential questions and answers, and poor language presentation due to lack of fast enough keyboarding skills. In addition, long times spent at computer keyboards and screens are not good for the eyes or the back!
As for discovery, technology has made enormous information sources available to learners, but searching the web does not automatically teach search skills. Poorly conducted web searches are unstructured research that is of little value. Carefully structured web searches (for which teacher input may be necessary) can produce well- researched projects in much less time than otherwise.
As with many things, a judicious mixture of methods will usually be best. For example, if you want a gifted speaker to reach more students, videotape him/her and provide this to students to play back in their own time. Then engage the students in a dialogue about the information, ideas and implications posed by the speaker, by using an electronic bulletin board on which they can post comments. They can also be asked to research specific points raised using the Internet, and share their findings with other students via a listserv group and/or participate in synchronous discussion with other students via a chat line.
If used in this way technology can enhance learning, not create more problems.
And don't forget good old print! It may not be the sexiest of technologies but it's sometimes hard to beat, especially if you're trying to do two things at once. It's not so easy to relax in the bath with your laptop!
Copyright
Users of this material are permitted to make a copy for their own research/study purposes. However, no part of it may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the copyright holders.
© 2001 Sims Latham Associates
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