Guided Design

Listening to the Camtasia presentation by Dr. Oliver and reading Wilson and Cascada,I realized this is by far my favorite model of instruction that we have studied thus far this semester. I am a huge believer in group work, especially when the students are given a problem and they are to somehow decide on a solution and then discern how to actually achieve that solution. I believe that students are able to learn more from each other through problem-solving rather than constant direct teacher instruction. The students are much more likely to learn the material from real world applications with themselves than in a classroom. There many parallels between this model and the audio-tutorial, specifically the barriers of the two models. The two big barriers I see with the guided design model are time and preparation. As with the audio-tutorial model, the time and preparation is needed to create the audio tapes and here with the guided design, the barriers are the time and preparation to get the material ready to utilize in a class setting. Now, if there is a strict organizer and authentic facilitation by the teacher then these barriers are easier to overcome for which the results speak for themselves, with the studies from WVU in the mid-1970's and the 90% passing rating in the Wilson reading.


I would gladly use this model in the future and I think it would work wonders at the high school level. On a psychological note, students in high school are trying to learn how to build relationships while working with other people under specific conditions, and this model is a perfect medium for that type of learning environment to exist. Again I tell my students all the time that they learn more about social cues and how to work with others more than the content I am trying to teach them. Therefore, I have always been a major proponent of student-centered learning where I am more of a facilitator; and this model it couldn't be better for that role. I would not have to change much of this theory's practices or guidelines to have it adapted into the traditional classroom, which is good from the planning perspective of the traditional classroom. However, placing this on the Web would be a different issue.


Again another reference into my discussion of the audio-tutorial approach is that I can see much of this guided design model being put into practice in the framework of this class, with the group projects where students are given a choice of a couple templates and then choose one and come up with theirown solution(s). The reason why I am referencing back to old posts is that, as I have said before, that to make this model work in the online environment, there are aspects that need to modified to fit the specific environment that you are trying to create. There are many  web-based tools that could be used to help create a more guided purpose for their small groups to use, such as Skype (which could provide immediate feedback), Google docs, Elluminate, Blackboard, etc.




References


Wilson, P. N. (2004). Mutual gains from team learning: A guided design classroom exercise. Cardon Research Papers in Agricultural and Resource Economics (No. 2004-07). Tuscon, AZ: University of Arizona.