Useful Theorists and Support Guides for the edTPA

Robert Mills Gagné

1916 - 2002

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Summary of Theory

Gagné's Nine Conditions of Learning were created from his years training pilots in the American Air Corps during World War II. He stipulated that there were many types of learning and that needs have to be met in order. Gagne argued strongly for human centered learning and designing instruction with human thinking at the core of structure. His framework focuses on intellectual skills.

Higher order learning is built upon lower levels. It is important that learners master the needed skills prior to going on to the next level. Furthermore, the instructor should make sure that each level is being fulfilled.

Gagne had also characterized five domains of the learning process. He indicated that effective learning theories will lead to change and improvement in the five domains of motor skills, verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, and attitudes. His nine conditions observably span all these domains.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

Robert M. Gagné's conditions are paired well with setting learning objectives. They are currently used for creating and analyzing instruction used for training in the military. Students must have obtained competency in lower levels to be able to continue to the next step. Furthermore, they must use those lower level skills in order to be able to complete tasks on the higher levels. Positive transfer is needed for success. Positive transfer can be illustrated when students successfully apply the skills in assessments and projects. For learning that involves physical execution of such tasks, describe the successful positive transfer of students carrying out the performance tasks. We want our students to be able to see and know when to apply what they learned.

This list offers a useful checklist of processes for instruction. Make sure that your instruction is organized for such success. We recommend that you cite the earlier steps as part of your planning process and the later steps as justification for why you chose the assessment and generalization methods you chose. Throughout the process, Gagne illustrates that you should use various stimuli and directions. Indicate what those stimuli are in your edTPA. Gagne also developed good evaluation criteria in his instructional design process. When you evaluate what you did, make sure that it follows his guidelines.

Beatriz González-Fernández

Year of Birth Undisclosed - present

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Summary of Theory

Beatriz González-Fernández is a linguist who worked in the field of vocabulary and worked with Norbert Schmitt. She holds multiples professional degrees in linguistics and education. One research focus was on second language acquisition, formally referred to as L2 acquisition and a lot of her work is specifically on L2 vocabulary knowledge acquisition. This research includes work on the order of acquisition of vocabulary knowledge components (also referred to as word knowledge components).

Four Levels of Vocabulary Knowledge

Some terminology Schmitt and González-Fernández researched includes four levels of vocabulary knowledge, form recall, meaning recall, form recognition, and meaning recognition. Form recall knowledge refers to seeing parts in the word, and automatically knowing how it is pronounced and spoken and the word's part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) and other attributes. Form recognition is being able to recognize and deduce such properties of the word. Meaning recall regards knowing the definition of a particular word after having learned it. Meaning recognition is being able to recognize the appropriate definition in a given context.

In her research, there is a clear distinction between recall and recognition. She distinguishes recall as immediately knowing the definition, use, or other language aspect (likely from already learning about it). She used fill-in-the-blank questions without any word banks to test form recall. She also used open-ended questions such as short-response to test whether the learner recalled the knowledge.

Recognition involves recognizing which definition was correct or which use of the word was appropriate. These were tested using multiple choice questions. For example, learners were asked to choose which sentence has the appropriate use of a word.

Components for Recognition and Recall

She split this knowledge into four components to measure in her research. They were Form-Meaning, Derivatives, Multiple-Meanings, and Collocations. For each of these, she split them into recall and recognition.

Form-Meaning is understanding the meaning.

Derivatives refer to words derived from or formed from another word and root.

Polysemy also called Multiple-Meanings refers to many different meanings of such words. For example, the word season has meanings referring to the four seasons in the year, to a longer period of time for an annual activity, to adding flavoring to food.

A collocation is a series of words or terms that appear next to each other more often than by chance.

In her studies she showed that recognition knowledge of the four components was mastered before recall knowledge was. L2 recall knowledge was harder than recognition knowledge across the range of components. Her research is used to create guidelines on which order to teach the components of a new language.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning and Analysis

Recognition Before Recall

González-Fernández's studies show the importance of recognition before recall. For L2 acquisition, it is important that students develop conceptual understandings of word roots and deducing meanings from context. There may be differences between learning cognate languages and noncognate languages.

With cognate languages, languages that share a more recent ancestry and root words, learners should try to recognize words as well as be careful with false cognates and misleading loan words. In an interesting example with some Spanish learners, learners confused "nave espacial" for "nothing special". However, with deeper thought, this Spanish term for "spaceship" has clues that indicate its meaning as space and espacial are close and "nave" implies navigation which is definitely associated with a ship or spaceship. Noncognate languages do not share a history and will have a different series of challenges.

For language teachers, the implications of the importance of recognition prior to recall can be discussed. This also applies to teaching EL students. If you have knowledge of the language, do not just translate words but rather help them build vocabulary knowledge for recognition.

If you want to focus on building vocabulary, you can analyze the four elements in the vocabulary that you teach. Discuss how your activities help them build knowledge of those vocabulary words and how they develop skills using those four components of vocabulary. Vocabulary is the foundation of a language as without words, there would be nothing to communicate with. Learning a second language also helps the learner understand his/her native language even further. Especially for cognate languages, with deeper understanding, the learner can start to make meaning of word origins and the deeper roots of the language.

Anthony Gregorc

Year of Birth Undisclosed - present

Image source: www.anthonyfgregorc.com

Summary of Theory

Gregorc developed a model of learning styles based on how individuals acquire and process information. It is referred to as the Mind Styles Model. The perceptual qualities form the foundation of the person's strengths. In the model, Gregorc divided perceptual qualities into concrete and abstract. He also divided ordering abilities into random and sequential. Concrete perceptions refer to information that you can obtain from seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting (the five senses). Abstract perceptions involve understanding ideas and concepts that cannot be observed with the five senses. Sequential ordering refers to being able to order or arrange information in a logical, linear, or measurable by comparable quantity way. Random ordering refers to collecting information into "chunks" that have no specific order. These form the axes which then divide the styles into quadrants.

They are categorized into the following four quadrants (abbreviated with CS, AS, CR, and AR), which represents the learning styles.

Concrete Sequential (CS): These learners prefer order and logical sequence and work best in a structured environment. They prefer predictable situations and when others are reliable with their tasks. They prefer right or wrong answers without "gray areas". They are less likely to prefer situations and environments that lack organization and structure. Using their imagination can be more difficult. Handling the unpredictable can also be difficult.

Abstract Sequential (AS): These learners prefer to analyze thoroughly before reaching conclusions and decisions. They assert their points. They work best with access to experts and environments that stimulate. They are less likely to prefer working with people with differing views. They also do not prefer to express their feelings and tend to be franker and more direct when speaking with others. Subsequently, diplomatically convincing others when speaking can be difficult.

Concrete Random (CR): These learners like experiments to find results. They are risk takers who use intuition and work independently. "Trial and error" approaches favor their thinking. They also like competition. They also prefer working through a problem by themselves first. Restrictions and limitations create some difficulty for them. They prefer having more choices. They do not like detailed work and showing their work.

Abstract Random (AR): These learners like to listen to others and work in harmony. They work best in group activities and prefer broad and general instructions. They generally do not like competition, and they do not like micromanagement. Because of their preference for broadness, they have difficulty concentrating on one thing at a time. They also do not like restrictive environments and focusing on exact details.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

Qualifying Perceptual Qualities and Ordering Requirements

It is healthy practice to look at the perceptual qualities and ordering requirements of an activity when you analyze it. Concrete perceptions pertain to those that require using the senses to explore and understand. Abstract perceptions require thinking about intangible concepts. While it is also likely that activities will involve both perceptions, you can differentiate the sections of the activity based on whether it requires more concrete or abstract perception. The ordering abilities will also apply differently for different content. The order of which objects are drawn on a picture (usually) do not matter but the order of operations in mathematics or order of steps for brushing your teeth do matter. Humans have sequential ordering and random ordering wired into their brains pertaining to different contexts. When you analyze these aspects of the activity, consider how this may not always match up to learning styles and at times why you must address the importance of following sequential or random ordering to learners.

As mentioned, the descriptions provided for each of them in this passage are cursory. You should look at complete lists of the four learning styles by searching up "Gregorc's Mind Styles Model" or "Gregorc's Thinking Styles". These are mainly guidelines on what to expect from learners based on the observed preferences. The content just gives a general overview. Remember this is a generalization and each individual is different. Furthermore, learners can and will divide their skills among multiple quadrants. In fact, Gregorc pointed out that nobody has a pure style but rather a unique collection of strengths and preferences.

J.P. Guilford

1897 - 1987

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Summary of Theory

Guilford is most well-known for developing psychometric studies of human intelligence and for his development on divergent thinking and creativity.

Divergent Thinking

Guilford championed divergent thinking, which he associated with creativity. The following four abilities of divergent thinking are fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Fluency and flexibility are further branched into subaspects.

• Ideational fluency is the ability to rapidly produce a variety of ideas that fulfill specified requirements.
• Associational fluency is the ability to generate a list of words associated with a given word.
• Expressional fluency is the ability to organize words into larger units, such as phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and short essays.

• Spontaneous flexibility is the ability to demonstrate flexibility at a specific moment.
• Adaptive flexibility is the ability to produce novel and high-quality responses.

He later used these four aspects to create intelligence tests for divergent thinkers. He argued that intelligence tests of the time generally favored convergent thinkers. Note that divergent thinking and convergent thinking are operations of the operation dimension described in the Structure of Intellect Theory.

In comparison, convergent thinking refers to solving to one solution or giving single answers that do not require much creativity. Multiple choice and recall questions rely on convergent thinking.

Guilford was among the earlier psychologists to describe intelligence was a multitude of entities and modularized. His work was eventually superseded, notably by Howard Gardner.

SI Theory

In 1955, he published the Structure of Intellect (SI or SOI) Theory which purported that mental abilities and factors of intelligence directly affect intelligence tests. Note that Divergent Thinking/Production and Convergent Thinking/Production are discussed in the SI theory. There are 3 dimensions as described below.

The SI theory includes six operations in the operation dimension.

In content dimension, there are four broad areas.

The last dimension is the product dimension.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

Divergent Thinking: Creativity

If you wish to champion the aspects of divergent thinking in your classroom, it is something to consider. In the world, many solutions often exist to a problem. Resourcefulness is a useful skill in learning and in life. Have students take what they have and know and work to solve a problem. If you experiment with building something (physical or abstract), have the students explore. It is very unlikely that any two students will come up with the same solution. In fact, for more complex computer programming, it is practically impossible for two people to solve the same problem in the exact same way.

In activities and situations where there are multiple ways to resolve a problem, you can describe and characterize the actions taken with Guilford's descriptions of divergent thinking. In sessions of brainstorming, discuss what you hear students say or write down. Discuss how they pertain to the four aspects of creativity as described by Guilford. Notice that fluency has a lot of focus on words and associations. Having students brainstorm and write down words that they can associate with something can really jog their thinking. For example, if you wanted students to eventually come to the word and concept of "surface area" for a math class, have them brainstorm what they see in terms of mathematical terms they already know when you wrap a rectangular prism giftbox. Discuss the notable words that you hoped they managed to associate. If they didn't get the word you were looking for, discuss what steps you would eventually take to have them brainstorm to it. Can they use their creativity and their knowledge of adding and areas of rectangles to figure out how to obtain the surface area?

Look at how they generate solutions to problems. Repurposing is also an aspect of creativity, drawing on flexibility and elaboration. Look at how they appropriately repurpose what they create. (For example, the inventor of post-it notes was originally hoping to create a stronger tape but ended up creating something that only sticks temporarily and comes off easily, but this invention was repurposed for post-it notes usages.)

Guilford discussed testing and how it often unfairly focuses on convergent thinking. He eventually analyzed, researched, and proposed ways to test divergent thinking. In your assessments, consider writing questions that allow students to take their recall knowledge and bring out their divergent thinking skills. When providing feedback, if some students have not brought out their creativity, give them a nudge in a direction. If it is a more pragmatic endeavor, guide them in the right direction with useful factual information about what they are using and encourage them to take the step using that factual information. If it is a more artistic endeavor, urge them to think about what they like and enjoy; push them in that direction.

SI Theory

Guilford's work under the SI theory has been useful for research and understanding of the human brain but may be overwhelming to adopt and utilize into the edTPA or other direct use. The SI Theory is probably best used sparingly for writing these reports. Nevertheless, if you wish, you can find ways to incorporate it.

Linda Harasim

1949 - present

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Summary of Theory

Linda Harasim is a pioneer of online learning. In her career she focused on concepts of connecting, communicating, and collaborating over the Internet. Since the 1980s, she had developed concepts of creating global communities over an online "platform". The Internet was in development during this time but was more limited, but ultimately came to what it is today.

Harasim helped develop Online Collaborative Learning Theory. This theory is based on constructivist theories. It is built on knowledge construction in the discourse of a group. Learners engage in collaborative discourse and learn from working together to solve problems where computer technology is a medium and the teacher is a member of the knowledge community who actively regulates, monitors, and analyzes that core concepts, practices, and discipline standards are integrated into the curriculum. Computers and technology are tools for teaching and learning and the curriculum is guided by the teachers. Idea generating, idea organizing, and intellectual convergence are the main constructs of Online Collaborative Learning Theory.

Idea generation is the first step: coming up with ideas. From there, idea organization comes from categorizing, analyzing, and discussing those ideas. Idea organization then flows into intellectual convergence where these ideas are synthesized and brought together. In this final phase, there is shared understanding and mutual contribution to shared knowledge.

Collaborativism emphasizes the process of working together in contrast to cooperative learning where work is divided (jigsaw learning is a form of cooperative learning) and brought together. It is also distinct from constructivist learning but nevertheless these theories coexist in the students' learning world. Notice how in an online learning environment, there will be physical distance between learners and often the learners will be on separate individual devices. The nature of collaboration is something to characterize carefully however Harasim's characterizations indicate that all learners are putting something together around the same time.

Harasim's work is encompassed in computer-supported collaboration learning.

In today's world, artificial intelligence is on the rise and AI has become a major topic she is researching. AI as well as augmented reality and virtual reality are all aspects that are to be explored. These are still areas of development. Harasim has written papers about their potential roles in education. Her contributions on these topics became part of online collaborative learning theory.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

Linda Harasim's work is mainly focused on online learning. If you are writing from past work during distance learning during the pandemic, this may be a good time to discuss any collaboration assignments you had students working on as part of your lessons. However, if you currently have assignments based on computer work, you should use this theory as foundation to incorporate them.

Harasim's constructs in Online Collaborative Learning move in a flow chart. They intend to be stages taken in order but also move in continuum. Discuss how your lesson planning and lesson executions follow the OCL model and how they are taken in proper order and fulfill those constructs. Remember that this theory involves collaborative learning on computers. There should be online exploration and interactions. Students should most definitely interact in person, but it is important that they are storing and synthesizing their work with technology. Identify the goals of using the technology. Then illustrate how the students go through all of the constructs of the flowchart.

Google Slides, Docs, and More

You can envision all students contributing to a Google Doc or Google Slides presentation. Because they are all on the document at the same time and are contributing simultaneously. This is a possible illustration of collaborativism.

Technological Limitations

In the technological world, remember that computers still have their limitations. The famous Halting Problem/Halting Paradox is proven to be unsolvable. Humans are still required to resolve many computational difficulties. Computers are also not able to write mathematical proofs or understand sentences with Winograd schemas. These types of situations are great for the classroom and you as a teacher can look into applying them into your lessons.

Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele

Year of Birth Undisclosed - present
and
Year of Birth Undisclosed - present

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Summary of Theory

The Himmele husband and wife couple are both associate professors at Millersville University in southeastern Pennsylvania. Both of them are highly experienced with teaching English Learners. They have compiled their experience and wisdom to create many teaching methods. They are authors of several books and articles, namely on content that focuses on student engagement and participation.

Among the techniques Persida and William created is the "Total Participation Technique". According to Himmele and Himmele, it is a teaching technique that allows a teacher to collect evidence of active participation and cognitive engagement from all students at the same time. They aim to boost higher order thinking which boosts a synergistic effect with cognitive engagement. Students get more comfortable sharing with each other. Connection and rapport are more present in the classroom when teachers adopt this technique into their teaching. These techniques can also function as formative assessments, instead of just the traditional quiz or exit slip.

The Himmeles created the Cognitive Engagement Model, which divides learning into four quadrants based on the axes of participation on the horizontal axis and cognitive depth on the vertical axis. While learning does happen in three less desired quadrants, the aim is for students to work in the quadrant of high participation and high cognition in class.

There are 37 participation techniques described in their book "Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learning". Many techniques are useful for English Learner students. Students may end up interacting with every other student in the classroom at some point in their work. We recommend reading about their activities and practices and see what works in your classroom.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

There are many ways to apply Himmeles' total participation techniques into the classroom. A lot of the techniques work better when students have had some practice with the approaches so it may be better to try them out first and have students be somewhat familiar with what to do so the process is more efficient. If it is hard to set up something entirely new, choose ones that are easiest to adapt to the classroom setup, environment, and schedule. Indicate that the practices are enjoyable and urge students to really process what they are learning about. If working with EL students, walk around and observe them interact in English. A lot of their original work focused on helping English Learners, so giving the Himmeles recognition would be a nice tribute to their work.

One example of a technique they use is an "Appointment Agenda" where students have a different classmate assigned for each "hour of the clock". As a teacher, you choose which "appointment partner" to discuss with. (If this sounds confusing, don't worry, it's easier to understand when you read their works and create and adopt this practice, in multiple steps, according to their instructions.) For example, the teacher will say "Go speak with your 4 o'clock appointment partner about your answers to question 5." The students will then walk to the person assigned to their 4 o'clock slot as determined at the beginning of the school year. This practice gets students to move around and engage with others. They end up engaging with different students as you switch around the hours. It also allows students to speak with or work with every other classmate at some point in the school year.

The cognitive engagement model can be useful for your analysis of your teaching and your students' interactions. In your analysis, measure the engagement and explain how and why they are engaged in both the activity and the content. The quadrant method allows you to qualify and quantify the amount of engagement and measure and evaluate how your lesson engaged students. Describe how they are reaching higher levels of cognition and how the synergy that is observable when students are engaged in higher order thinking and finding their passion in the interaction and content.

Edwin Hutchins

1948 - present

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Summary of Theory

Edwin Hutchins was a cognitive anthropologist who became a major developer of Distributed Cognition Theory. In this theory, mental representations are not solely in the individual mind but in sociocultural systems. In his research, he observed that natives of the Carolina Islands are able to use their constellations that their culture has created to navigate at night. These constellations were not similar to constellations that most astronomers use today.

Because many people were involved in the "creation" and agreement to the constellations, Hutchins argued that creating mental representations is a social process. The group follows these unified mental representations and uses the same constellations, Hutchins argued that sociocultural systems are necessary to create these useful representations. Distributed cognition (abbreviated DCog) is seen in many environments ranging from work environments, in workplaces, in communities, on farms, localities, nations, and international society. DCog is described as a product of the interactions of several people with a complex suite of tools.

Cognitive processes involve transmission and transformation of information and social organization in the structure in the context of the activity that reflect a cognitive architecture. The social organization itself can be a cognitive architecture. For example, in some fields of work or fields of study the highest authorities ultimately approve of the "terminologies" and structures created by lower members of the social organization. That terminology is then transmitted throughout the field and even into adjacent fields for usage. With distributed cognition, external artifacts, work teams consisting of many people, and cultural systems for interpreting reality are components. It sets a framework for group decision making.

Social organization (as mentioned earlier) in a community allows for distribution of understanding. In more recent studies, there has been discussion on the role of the Internet as an example and source of distributed cognition. I.E. The protocols, .com, .org., .net, and .gov are all agreed upon for access to this vast encompassing web of information. They also provide key information for the user of the site to understand as well as for the hierarchy of the creator. Throughout the world, humans have developed a shared understanding of how the Internet works and regularly use it for daily life and managing their living. Universal structures are recognized, and online navigation follows paths everyone agrees upon. All browsers are designed to accommodate this. All users follow these useful structures.

One example that Hutchins used is his study of the distributed cognitive processes in a US Navy Vessel. He analyzes the group aspects, management, delegation, and distribution of tasks and the individual understandings and executions of work on a US Navy Vessel. In Hutchin's studies on the ship, navigators would communicate bearings (angle measures relative to the North/South axis) to each other in numbers of degrees and directional notations. Each person working had the same internalized spatial recognition of what each measurement (i.e. a 40 degree bearing to the west) meant. Mentally, they all adapt to the same representative thinking and understand the terminologies and values represented on the navigational and management tools of the ship. Several people were necessary, along with clear and understandable communication while managing complex equipment and engineering systems to steer, navigate, and maintain the ship.

Embodiment refers to the fact that as humans, distributed cognition was built into our brains and the work materials were stimuli for humans to inevitably create a working system for communication and cooperation. The materials used inevitably become embodied into the system. Tools for analyzing nature and conducting field experiments are embodied into the work of field scientists. Magicians' gimmicks, tools, stage knowledge, terminologies, and jargon are intricate to their understanding of the field and are featured in conventions, websites, and performance. (Penn and Teller speak in "magicians' code" that typically only members knowledgeable of the field would understand, when explaining how a trick is done.)

With embodiment, distributed cognition is also illustrated by the distribution among different materials used by the participants involved. For example, several people working on a laboratory report will have to work together to obtain their goals. In the pre-lab, they will gather the materials they are supposed to use(i.e. flasks, beakers, burets, graduated cylinders, etc), work out chemical formulas and equations, write down and work out the theoretical yields, use their knowledge to determine what procedures to carry out, execute the lab, and then work on the synthesis, and write out the results and compare with their colleagues, and work out the post lab. In this situation, cognition is distributed between the participants and the embodied materials and elements, the lab tools, the writing on the lab journals, the equations, the physical representations (the measurements and reactions in the lab), and the post-lab. All of the tools are embodied into the cognition.

Cognitive ethnography is the study to investigate the functional properties of distributed cognitive systems through historical and present-day society. Cognitive ethnography involves cultural immersion and social distribution at its foundation. Members are immersed in a culture and learn and adapt to the workings in the social environment. Studies in this field focus on event-centered ethnography rather than a sole focus on individuals. DCog produces culture, context, and history that is passed down through generations.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

Distributed Cognition in the Classroom and School

The classroom and the school to a good extent are cultural systems. Mental representations are constructed in such settings. Nationally and internationally, we already follow certain procedures and habits and certain traditions such as how everyone in the US follows a roughly 8 am to 3 pm school schedule. Work schedules, while of course flexible to the type of work, still follow similar structuring too. Students know the procedures for entering school, following a schedule, buying lunch, accessing the computer lab etc. They understand the depth of terms related to their own schools. For example, the "quad" may refer to a place on campus for gathering but if students in a club are requested to gather there, they know it is likely an activity that will require more space and be publicly visible and less likely to exclude others not in the club. Other examples include how classes know how to differentiate assigned equipment for recess and PE and other equipment assigned to their classes or grade levels. These are examples of mental representations and embodied tools and items in the school.

In your classroom, as the teacher, you head and guide the social organization and you decide the policies and procedures (for turning in homework, asking to use the bathroom, technology usage, etc) and you also end up determining new practices based on how your students interact. With learning materials, you make the final decisions on what is to be learned and students accommodate but ultimately set their understanding based on their experiences. The students themselves will end up developing their own representations and processes based on "agreements" on what they realize works best for them when working and coexisting with others. You want the students to succeed not just in the classroom but in life. Their minds develop the ability to adapt to and create the distributed cognition they will immerse themselves into.

Distributed Cognition in Academic Fields

DCog sets the foundation for the creation of academic vocabulary and industry, subject, and research standards. Subject and content areas have communities that set the mental representations for the users. Academic vocabulary, shared meanings, unified structures, and more, are all mental representations that are in your subject area that you followed in your training, and you will teach your students to use. For example, for the field of mathematics, all the mathematical notations we use are set by international agreement (even if not formal) and all the mathematical terms (in English, possibly different for other languages) we use are generally agreed upon throughout the country. As a teacher, you are training your students to understand and follow the distributed cognition in your subject and what they eventually will use if they choose the further their education and applicational uses of that subject. Students will develop the mental representations that make sense to them that are used throughout the subject. The AP exam system is also an example of such a system. Mental representations throughout the systems, embodied tools including online tools and shared understandings on many levels are all critical parts of the distributed cognition in this system. Students who take the classes and engage with the program develop shared understandings and ultimately colleges and universities that look at those scores also utilize this knowledge. In your assessments, make sure you assess that students are properly learning the distributed cognition in the academic fields.

Difficulties of Transfer

One difficulty described by distributed cognition is "transfer" of knowledge to different environments. The distributed cognition developed in the classroom and school often differs from that in the work world and society. Some successful students follow the teacher's expectations by relying on specific features of classroom activities that are alien and different from activities in the other settings. Students may leave the classroom or school feeling unprepared for the world around them. While every teacher will develop his/her own routine, expectations, and activities, one way to alleviate this for students is to aim to teach students to develop skills in adapting to the different distributed cognitions they may head to. If you teach ROP classes, industrial tech, automotive tech, sports medicine, etc., a good practice is for you to simulate the actual work world and the skills, verbal jargon and communication, notations, and practices used for that world. (For example, for video and audio production classes, students learn to follow the verbal signal "quiet on set" to reduce all speaking and noise producing activity when in recording studios.)

While the difficulty of transfer will always exist simply because we as teachers cannot know what the distributed cognitions of all the systems around us that our students will enter or partake in, teaching students to be able to adapt to the distributed cognition of the field of work or the system or society they wish to enter is an ultimate goal for teachers and skill we want them to have. Helping students develop that competency, even if very slowly, is an amazing and vital role that teachers take on.

Spencer Kagan

1944 - present

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Summary of Theory

Kagan's vita spans many years of research and contributions to the field of psychology and education. He has done extensive studies on cooperative learning. During cooperative learning, students will gain significant personal growth skills. They learn through dynamic processes of working together and learning from each other.

Kagan developed the structural approach to cooperative learning. This approach is based in situationism. Situationism explains human behavior given the situation. Kagan argues that individual personality alone will not illustrate overall behaviors and to an extent, individual behaviors; the situation presented to them also determines their behaviors on the individual and group level. Kagan has cited cooperation versus competition situations and illustrated how different behaviors ensue. Kagan describes that when children are placed in situations in which cooperation is necessary to get rewards, they become extremely cooperative. Likewise, if competition is necessary to obtain rewards, children become very competitive. The structural approach focuses on implementing carefully sequenced instructional strategies in situations that promote student cooperation.

Kagan Structures are the core of cooperative learning. (Think-Pair-Share is very famous example of a Kagan Structure.) Consider purchasing his books to obtain these hundreds of structures that he and his team have created. These structures work best where the contextual elements of the 7 Keys to Success.

1. Basic Principles (PIES) - The basic principles are abbreviated with the acronym PIES.

The four principles of cooperative learning are as described by Kagan.

These four principles set the foundation for cooperative learning. Kagan also indicates that classroom management has to be fully established and structures and rules have to be in place for cooperative learning to work. He believes groups of 4 are optimal for many activities. Groups should be blended and represent and reflect a diverse group of students. He also advises partitioning time for activities and setting up routines that students will get used to.

2. Structures - Structures are aligned with brain research that are used in learning. For example, retrograde memory enhancement is incorporated in many structured activities. Retrograde memory enhancement shows that anything associated with emotion is better remembered. Kagan defines structures as "repeatable, content- free instructional strategies that produce predicable outcomes by creating situations that determine how students interact with their academic content, each other, and the teacher." The activity is defined by the structure + content. For example, his activity Sage-N-Scribe, partners take turns describing things, solving problems, or practicing etc. One partner, the "sage", verbalizes his/her thinking process and carries out the activity, while the "scribe" writes down his/her thinking. The "scribe" coaches if the sage needs help. This structure can be applied from Kindergarten (for activities such as learning to tie shoes) to Middle School, to Higher Education. It can be applied for practicing dribbling maneuvers with a basketball, to rehearsing scenes, to writing summaries, to solving first-order differential equations.

3. Teams - Kagan defines four types of teams, heterogeneous, random, homogeneous, and student-selected. He recommends heterogeneous groups of four for activities. Four is optimal for time purposes and individual attention between the members. He recommends grouping them heterogeneously by academic achievement which a high achiever, high middle achiever, low middle achiever, and low achiever.

4. Management - Management refers to the stimulus and routines built into your classroom. For example, your signals to bring the class to attention, to discuss with their group, etc. It also refers to handling behaviors.

5. Teambuilding - Teambuilding is step built in to help students get to know each other and get to work together. They need to find commonalities and build a team identity. They look at each other's interests and strengths and share the experiences they have. They build identity together and maybe form a team name.

6. Classbuilding - Akin to teambuilding, classbuilding fosters the same environment where students get to know each other. Oftentimes, activities based on favorite items (ie favorite poems, favorite seasons, favorite foods etc.) are useful for such activities. During this time, students not only get to explore academic content but also get to know each other and learn to value and appreciate individual differences.

7. Social Skills - Social skills are embedded in Kagan Structures. For example, active listening is embedded in Timed Pair Share and the teacher will gently remind any student not giving full attention to his/her peers to give undivided attention. These skills are embedded into the activities and the students practice and give them full attention.

There are many types of cooperative learning activities and games invented by Kagan. He has written books for activities at a range of age levels. Think-Pair-Share, commonly used in classrooms is a structure that Kagan developed in cooperative learning. An interesting example is "Guess the Fib". Students learn new knowledge and then tell two truths and a fib and have students guess which one is the fib.

With his team, Kagan has created over 200 Kagan Structures, some that you likely already use in your classroom.

Kagan has also created a publicly available website (https://spencerkagan.weebly.com/) about classroom and behavioral management. On his site, he establishes foundations on how to establish classroom order. He also explains in detail why students may misbehave and what difficulties they may have. This may be useful for classroom management.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

Cooperative learning is a classroom practice that you can adopt. Take situationism into thorough consideration. Individual personalities do not always end up in the worst when placed in situations where cooperative behavior is the best choice. Make sure that you have set up the classroom for success and have management practices in place. Remember that you as the teacher and leader, set the situations for the classroom and the situationism can set the behaviors your students exhibit. Describe your management plan and how it sets up the environment for student success.

If you use Think-Pair-Share, give credit to Kagan's structures. Consider purchasing Kagan's books and adopting these structures. They are based on brain research and how humans react to situations and stimuli. You can cite the specific research he cites in his writings. Describe how you adopt these proven structures to your specific content and class. Illustrate how you build the 7 keys to success into your classroom.

Cooperative learning can definitely be observed on video. As you plan your filming, look at images of your classroom and ponder what such an environment would and should look like. Describe all the steps that went into creating such cooperation in your classroom.

Illustrate that you have followed the four principles. Describe that the work you created for each member of the group is equally distributed and that each student will have gained a meaningful experience from the activity. Foster communication, collaboration, and joint decision making. Explain how students learn from each other in your activities. If you chose to implement one of his activities into your subject, discuss how it benefits the students. Video footage should reflect some of these activities. Describe the student interactions and how they illustrate learning from each other and are each contributing to group learning.

Kagan has also elaborated on all the benefits of cooperative learning such as preventing violence. Explain how your cooperative learning activities foster peace and ensure conflict resolution in your school environment. We recommend you look at the benefits he describes and discuss how using cooperative learning solves those problems.

Kenneth Koedinger

1962 - present

Image Source: hcii.cmu.edu, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

Summary of Theory

Kenneth Koedinger is renowned for his work on human-computer interaction and development of learning and cognitive tutor software. His research groups have won numerous awards at regional conferences. Koedinger developed the Knowledge-Learning-Instruction Framework, abbreviated as the KLI Framework. Frameworks are general sets of learning and instructional concepts that can be used to help explain student learning. Theories are at a higher level and are held by frameworks.

The conditions set by frameworks help yield robust student learning which is defined as learning that lasts over time and generates long-term retention and transfers to new situations and contexts. Specifically, accelerated future learning is a type of transfer. It is defined as learning in a new domain that can utilize prior learning in a domain. Accelerated future learning can include learning how to learn and set your mind for success as well as in depth conceptual learning that is can be transferred to a new domain. For example, learning the concept of grammatical gender in Spanish sets up for understanding the general linguistic concept of grammatical gender throughout languages that have this property. Another example is transferring understanding the concept of factoring polynomials to find zeros of polynomial functions to applying this concept to rational functions to find zeros, asymptotes, and holes.

The four components of the KLI Framework are as follows:

Instructional Events are described as observable changes to the instructional environment, such as the classroom or computer screen, controlled by instructional designer or instructor. They produce learning events, as described below.

Learning Events are changes in cognitive and brain states that can be inferred from obtained data but cannot be directly observed or controlled by experimental manipulation. These are not observable, although some research has been put into MRI imaging of the brain during such events.

Assessment Events are events where student responses are evaluated. Student knowledge is inferred from performance during assessment events either at that moment or later. They are observable changes. These include assessments of both immediate performance and robust performance. Immediate performance is assessed immediately with the learning event. Robust performance comes from long term retention and transfer of knowledge.

Knowledge Components (KCs) are acquired units of cognitive function or structure that can be implied from performance on a set of tasks. Knowledge components describe mental processes and therefore similar to learning events are not observable. They are further characterized based on time for human action. KCs range from simple to complex. An example of a simple KC is identifying and recalling a specific vocabulary word from another foreign language to English (ie sol in Spanish means sun in English). A more complex or "integrated" KC is more internal and can involve a what and when to use that knowledge (ie knowing to add areas of shapes to find total area).

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

Koedinger's work is heavily research oriented and used for creating learning software, but it provides a nuanced way to characterize events in the classroom and in the individual. It is observable that he included focus on long-term learning as well as retention which are especially necessary for some topics and subjects. If your subject in particular has a lot of applicational uses and future units that require retention of knowledge and skills from the unit you are teaching. You would like your work to yield robust student learning. As a teacher, you want to prepare them for future learning and self-guided learning. When discussing preparing students for college, the workforce, and/or the world, accelerated future learning, which includes focus on transferring into different domains, applies. The current domain in your situation, is in the curriculum, the classroom, and subject learning. The future domain will be in higher education, in research, in the work world and specific industries, or in their daily lives.

KLI Framework

Instructional Events are under your guidance. When you transition events in the classroom, you are creating instructional events. Learning Events are not observable but are happening in the human brain. In the activity you do in the classroom, you can make inferences on such events. Assessment Events include exit slips, quizzes, performance tasks, and more. Knowledge Components compose everything you teach. You can break down the key parts of your classroom activities to identify the KCs. Using your judgment, you can separate out the simple KCs and the complex KCs. Make sure your assessment events illustrate the students obtaining the KCs. There has been thorough research on KCs; if it interests you, you should consider researching more on Koedinger's work.

David Kolb and Alice Kolb

1939 - present
and
Year of Birth Undisclosed - present

Image Source: learningfromexperience.com

Summary of Theory

David and Alice Kolb developed theories centered on learning styles and experiential learning. David Kolb is an active author and Chairman of Experience Based Learning Systems (EBLS). His wife Alice is the president of this research and development organization. The Experiential Learning Cycle emerged from this research and theory. The four steps of this cycle are concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. It is not a flow chart but rather an endless cycle with four stages.

The second experience from Active Experimentation sets the stage for the next cycle. This cycle thus continues.

David Kolb also developed two continuums that describe learning styles. The processing continuum is along the horizontal axis and refers to the level of how directly engaged the learner is with the experience. The perceiving continuum is along the vertical axis which refers to the emotional response or how the learner feels about the learning. Learning is a function of these two choice inputs. A specific style is in each of the quadrants. However, please note that this is very generalized, and people are very complex with when and how they will engage and perceive.

The following descriptions are cursory but they give an idea of the four learning styles of the matrix. Descriptions of the words, watch, feel, do, and think are just general representations of personalities and following learning styles.

There is a lot of detail that is not included in this description; We encourage you to further research on Kolb's learning styles.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

Explorational Learning

For explorational learning, it is appropriate to use Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle. With curiosity and exploration, these students engage in these steps of the cycle. Have students experience something. Make sure you give them time to synthesize and process what they experienced. Then help them create representations of what they learned. Preparing a challenge question for more advanced students. Stimulate the cycle to continue.

Sometimes you can try to find a stimulation point to start a learning cycle for a less engaged student. If you introduce something that relates what you are teaching to what they are interested in. Engaging students who are disinterested can be difficult. But sometimes if you can spark a point in the cycle for them, they may begin to engage. Furthermore, appealing to the learning styles may set the starting point.

If you intend for a lesson or group of lessons to focus on explorational learning, for every activity in class, make sure that you can just justify which aspects of the cycle suit the students. For example, if you are doing a lab activity, the concrete experience is doing and seeing the activity. Answering questions and having group discussions are in the phase of reflective observations. Drawing conclusions are in the abstract conceptualization phase. Finally, setting next questions or further thinking, is in the active experimentation phase. Even if the student cannot actually carry out the next steps or the experiments they think of physically, they are reaching this phase if they are actively thinking about this.

Learning Styles

You can analyze learning styles on the individual level and the group level. As a teacher, make sure that you take proper measures to accommodate for the different learning styles of the students in your classes. You should gauge the level of engagement in the classroom and how the students are feeling about the topic. Choose activities and assignments that give them different ways to view what they are learning. Especially for lab assignments or other hands-on activities, you should discuss in your analysis how the pre-labs, lab activities, and post-labs look into how the questions allow the different learning styles. Consider the questions that the worksheets ask. Different visuals, questions, diagrams, and accommodate the different learning styles.

If they are working in groups, consider that the students can help each other shape responses based on their learning styles and understandings. Sometimes in groups, people with different learning styles can compliment and help each other. For concepts that one person struggles to put together, someone else can make up for and help them out with and vice versa.

Discuss how your assessment suits the different learning styles. You can gear it to the majority of the class or have multiple assessment components that suit each of the learning styles. In this unit, for the ones that are more difficult to suit, consider discussing what other assessment methods you may use for past or future units. When discussing how you will develop professionally, talk about how to fairly assess the learners with different styles.

Major Additional Considerations on Learning Styles and Personalities

We do not argue that either of the four learning styles is better or worse than others. They also exist in a continuum and are not perfectly pigeonholed. We also acknowledge that each of the learning styles has strengths and pitfalls. However, we do highly encourage developing and strengthening logic-based learning and thinking and carefully considering the consequences of certain actions and inactions. We encourage teaching students to develop the logical thinking skills needed for wellbeing and success. Logical thinking is still a crucial component of learning and societal existence. We do not want our students to lack that aspect because it is not their learning style or personality. Heavy focus on emotions can encourage them to become impulsive and reckless. We discourage jumping to feelings and making decisions solely from our emotions. Refusing to look at and accept fully proven facts is also harmful. Acting without consideration of facts and living solely based on how one feels about a situation can and often results in harm. Situationally, we want people to understand that there are dangers of reckless behavior without thinking about consequences. Furthermore, we want students to realize the further implications of their actions and behaviors.

For example, a young teenager is so happy to be able to legally drive that he/she disregards the rules and drives recklessly to show off his/her newfound privilege. Feelings cannot override logical considerations. Being too happy is not grounds for impulsive and reckless behavior. This type of behavior does begin at elementary school ages, and we really encourage teachers to consider ways to discourage it. Feelings should not stop a person from considering consequences for themselves and others as well as larger societal implications of behaviors.

Gunther Kress

1940 - 2019

Image Source: Wikipedia.org

Summary of Theory

Gunther Kress worked on the studies of multimodality encompassed in the Department of Culture, Communication, and Media. He has also contributed work to the fields of linguistics and semiotics.

Kress argued that in the 21st century, writing is not the most important means of communication and sets the case for multimodality. Multimodality is the theory of how people communicate with each other and emcompasses the multiple literacies within one medium of communication. Some examples include watching a news report, a commercial, or going to a store. Kress defined modes as socially and culturally shaped resources for understanding. There is so much communication in one action. For example, when you go to a store, you read the aisle labels, the prices, the discounts, and more. Reading, estimating, and calculating are forms of literacy. You also recognize brands by logo and items by the shape and placement of the item. You may listen to the promotions on their loudspeaker announcements. The products and aisle structures are designed to communicate with you to make you want to buy the items. So, as you "interpret" the signals, you make your decisions on which items you want and how many of them you want or need. If you find a new item that you have never seen before, your brain goes about processing what it is, how to consume or use it, and whether or not it is worth spending the money on it. Furthermore, if something seems ridiculously expensive, you will likely (but not always) reject buying that item. You will likely interact with store employees and even interacting with a self-checkout stand requires literacy. You must have literacy to know about the barcode and to scan the barcode with the machine. You interact with the machine to show what you purchase and how to pay for your purchase and obtain your receipt.

Multiliteracy refers to the ability to understand information through many forms of communication and develop fluency with such skills. Literacy is making meaning from letters, words, and symbols. In the classroom, many literacy skills are required for success. Whether it is reading instructions, passages, equations, or even self-written instructions, literacy is built from pre-understood knowledge and grows on top of it.

For example, your brain has pre-understood knowledge when you go into the store, such as knowledge and trust of brands and items that you want to buy, but you also process more information. For example, grocery stores rarely, if ever, sell jewelry, but if you suddenly found a promotion that your local grocery store was selling 24K gold ring jewelry, you would be really surprised and question whether that is real or not. You also develop new knowledge if you discover something new at the store.

Multiliteracy Pedagogy

Literacy pedagogy is the teaching practices of such literacies. Under this pedagogy, curriculum is a design for social futures because ultimately education is about preparing learners for the future. Multiliteracy pedagogy has four crucial dimensions.

Incorporation into Instructional Planning, Assessment, and Analysis

If you wish to illustrate the plethora of skills used by students as well as the skills that you are helping them develop, multimodality is a good theory to cite.

On the surface, it may be difficult to break down all the required literacy for a task but if you take the time to think about what you are teaching and all the prerequisite knowledge you need to understand it, it becomes doable. For example, being able to understand a word problem about the level of snowfall on the ground requires understanding words, measurements, and visualizations. If it doesn't snow where you live and you have never directly experienced snow piling up, you will still understand snowfall based on what you have seen and heard about. You also have to be able to do the mathematical operations. On closer look at any task, a lot of literacy is required for success. It is also important to acknowledge that students have to have and retain previous knowledge in order to have literacy in the topic and succeed.

When teaching, regardless of your subject, you are teaching students to develop literacy. Every subject taught involves teaching learners to input information through a sense, process it, understand it, and utilize it. They are training their brains to intake knowledge to process and understand it. Sensory information allows us to perceive the world. We want students to eventually understand and perceive the subjects taught to the level of expertise. Literacies are also transferable. The skills developed from understanding and using the order of mathematical operations can help with managing the steps of a procedural project. The skills developed from being able to understand the texts of Shakespeare are used to comprehend financial reports.

You can apply the four dimensions into your lesson planning and execution. Situated practice is perfect for letting the learners learn in the environments they would work and be a part of. Overt instruction involves cherishing students' existing experiences as well as execute collaborative activities. Critical framing involves expressing their own meanings in the different learning practices. Metalanguage may go hand in hand with metacognition and other practices for learning. Transformed practice involves taking all the skills, knowledge, and abilities developed from the other three dimensions and transform learned knowledge into different contexts.

21st Century Skills and Multimodality

In the 21st century, many modes of communication are absolutely going to be necessary for success and comfortable living. Creating an infographic will involve communicating in many modes. It will have to include images, layouts, words, often content specific vocabulary, symbols, graphs, charts, and/or tables, as well as color schemes that either attract the viewers or draw their attention to specific details. Creating a video to communicate something will involve a totally different set of communication methods. Digital applications will abound in the future of the world as well. Through new skills and technology, we have developed a series of skills that will keep evolving and that students will need to obtain for their future.

Teaching the skills of communication and understanding communications will be crucial as a teacher. Content specific knowledge is only one aspect of learning. You are providing them transferable skills and literacies that they can use in other aspects of their lives.

Furthermore, some literacies are universal. For example, in any class, chances are, you may have to learn how to read a table or chart. It will also be necessary for any career. These skills are transferred across disciplines. If you are knowledgeable about how to transfer skills across disciplines, write about the particular skills and how you aim to help them develop these skills and transfer them.

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