Transgenerational Problem-based Web Development Learning Experience

William E. J. Doane and Joette Stefl-Mabry
University at Albany, State University of New York

Abstract

Planning courses is a difficult task that can be made easier by appealing to explicit models of learning and of educational planning processes. This chapter presents a model of educational planning first developed by Mauritz Johnson that distinguishes between the products and processes involved in sound educational planning. The model allows intentional educators to refine their thinking regarding the goals, the intended outcomes, and the planning of instruction. In turn, these inform teacher evaluation, student assessment, and program evaluation. Two courses at the University at Albany, State University of New York, are presented using Johnson's model as a framework to understand the educational design processes and the resulting course designs (the products). The courses are an undergraduate Web development course and a graduate-level school library media course that involve K–12 students and in-service teachers in a collaborative Web design process that culminates in the development of Web sites tailored to the learning needs of the K–12 students. The participants engage in a problem-based learning experience that requires them to actively identify their own learning needs and to work collaboratively to meet those needs. The experience allows the participants to link the theories learned to real-life applications.

Introduction

Many instructional design models call for the development of the curriculum¹ and assessments to precede instructional planning, and they assume that instruction is something that can be planned well in advance of teaching and is largely determined by the curriculum. Problem-based learning (PBL) poses a significant challenge for these models in that instruction in a PBL context is often dynamic, changing rapidly as circumstances and learners' needs come into focus. That is, instruction in PBL could be seen as a function not only of previously identified learning outcomes but also of evolving problem contexts and emerging learners' needs. Such a learning environment demands an instructional design process that responds to the unique constraints of PBL.

Curricula designed for this environment must reflect those learning outcomes that are at the heart of the learning experience. PBL designers are challenged to identify those learning outcomes that are likely to emerge from any method of instruction that might be used. We may think of these as emergent learning goals. Similarly, assessments must be designed so as to focus both the teachers' and the learners' attention on the central knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are emerging through the PBL experience. Curriculum and assessment take on greater design importance, then, as driving forces within a dynamically evolving instructional context.

This chapter describes the processes and products that have evolved from a transgenerational problem-based Web development learning experience over the past five years at the University at Albany, State University of New York.² These are considered in the light of Mauritz Johnson's model of intentional education, which delineates and defines the elements of a comprehensive educational endeavor.

¹ Here, we assume Johnson's definition of curriculum, namely, a structured set of intended learning outcomes or, more succinctly, learning goals.

² In addition to the authors, other faculty members have also collaborated with Stefl-Mabry in this partnership, including Barbara Lynch (in 2004), Jennifer Powers (2004–2005), Carol Doll (2005), Michael Radlick (2006), and Pamela Theroux (2006).

The Johnson Model

Mauritz Johnson, in his seminal work Intentionality in Education (1977), distinguishes carefully between the processes and products of the educational endeavor. An instructional plan is a product, for example, while instruction is a process. Each key aspect of education has products and processes associated with it:

• Macro goals and goal setting
• Curriculum and curriculum planning
• Instructional plan and instruction
• Learning goals and learning
• Assessment plan and assessment
• Evaluation plan and evaluation

By making explicit the distinction between the products and the processes, Johnson allows us to consider the quality and the desired properties of each element taken separately. A flawed process does not necessarily result in a flawed product. Each exists on its own and can be improved and evaluated independently. Further, by focusing our attention on the role of evaluation (in comparing plans and their implementation), Johnson offers a rational basis for considering the effectiveness and efficiency of education. Figure 14.1 presents a streamlined interpretation of the Johnson evaluation model. Each pre-instructional construct (macro goals, curriculum, and instructional plan) is paired with an outcome (results, learning outcomes, and instruction respectively) for purposes of evaluation (see Table 14.1 for the definitions of these elements). The evaluation of the curriculum and the learning outcomes attained is traditionally referred to as assessment, whether formative or summative. The evaluation of macro goals and results is often referred to as program evaluation, while that of instructional plans and instruction as teacher review, both of which are beyond the scope of this chapter.

Johnson's model provides a framework for considering instructional design choices and for evaluating the effects of those choices. What are the macro goals? What are the specific learning goals and how will they be fostered? To what degree are the intended outcomes being attained? To what degree is instruction associated with success in goal attainment? A comprehensive instructional design process will incorporate all of these considerations and align the planning and implementation processes and products to reflect the intent of educators, learners, and society at large.

The remainder of this chapter considers our PBL experience with a Web development and a school library media course. We present the background on the evolution thus far and examine how Johnson's model informs our practice.

The University Experience

Each semester, graduate and undergraduate students are brought together with in-service educators from local K–12 school districts to explore issues of pedagogy, theory, curriculum, information literacy, technology, multimedia, and assessment to foster the development of "more powerful learning environments" (borrowing the phrase from Segers & Dochy, 2001). K–12 students, their teachers, preservice graduate students training to be school library media specialists (SLMS), undergraduate Web development students, and university faculty work together to design, implement, deploy, and assess Web sites developed for use in the participating K–12 schools.

Two university courses—IST 361: Web Development and IST 673: Technology and School Library Media—are run at the same time in adjoining classrooms. Students in the courses are grouped into project teams that each include a K–12 teacher and a library media specialist. Each team is responsible for developing one Web site intended for use in that K–12 teacher's classroom. By scheduling the two courses at the same time, both groups of students can meet during class time to design and test their Web sites. These "transgenerational" project teams allow individuals at various stages of professional development to interact and support one another in their common effort to produce meaningful and useful educational Web sites.

Macro Goals

Vygotsky (1978) suggests that students perform at higher intellectual levels when asked to work in collaborative situations than when asked to work individually. Bruner (1985) contends that cooperative learning methods improve problem-solving strategies because students are confronted with different interpretations of the given situation, which in turn encourages the sharing of diverse knowledge and experience. In our transgenerational PBL model, learners' divergent skills and expertise are collectively shared as project teams actively work to identify K–12 learners' needs; design a project informed by learning, information literacy, and design theory to address those needs; develop formative assessments for use during project deployment; implement the project in the K–12 setting; and, finally, assess attainment of the project's intended outcomes (summative assessment) from the perspectives of all stake-holders. This model is most successful when each stakeholder acts as both contributor and recipient of expertise and resources within a learning network of collective social capital (Nogeura, 1999).

The courses are designed to provide real-world experiences for both Web developers and preservice educators. These university students are expected to develop an understanding of the needs of the end users (i.e., K–12 students) as well as the potential of technology to enhance learning. They further benefit by being better prepared to participate in a collaborative group workspace and learning to coordinate and address complex goals. K–12 students, on the other hand, benefit from exposure to the learning materials developed for them and through their engagement with university students—an experience that we hope will make them ponder their own future in higher education and beyond.

Curricula

Each of the student populations (undergraduate, graduate, and K–12) has distinct learning goals appropriate to their area of study. Students bring a mix of backgrounds and personal goals to the classes but share a common goal: to become better information producers and consumers.

Undergraduate students in the Web development course are expected to develop skills in Web development, project management, and collaboration. Students enter the course with a basic understanding of Web technologies such as HTML and client/server, but they are expected to move beyond the boundaries of Web pages to larger management and development issues related to Web-site development. Working closely with others of varying degrees of technical sophistication to develop a full Web site, students get to explore their disposition toward teamwork and collaboration. They are also challenged to learn Web development best practices and apply them to a real-world development project.

For graduate students attending the school library media course, they are expected to develop skills related to learning, instructional planning, assessment and evaluation, information literacy, learning in a technological context, reflection, and collaboration. These students typically enroll in this course during the last year of their graduate studies, before they seek employment as SLMS. In this course, they are challenged to enhance the existing K–12 curriculum by applying theories learned from their SLMS course to the real-world practice of a K–12 environment. At the same time, they explore their disposition toward teaching, learning, educational technology, teamwork, collaboration, and critical reflection as they create a standards-based instructional software tool.

The learning goals set for K–12 students vary according to the instructional and pedagogical goals of individual teachers, the diverse learning needs of the students, and the academic and instructional priorities of their school administrators. Past projects have included a wide range of topics such as American history, weather, states of matter, oceanography, graphing concepts in mathematics, and journalism.

Instructional Planning

In PBL, students engage in ill-structured learning experiences and discover for themselves what needs to be learned in order to address the presented problem successfully. This is a challenge to models of instructional design in which assessment planning precedes instructional planning, since in the PBL context instruction itself is largely dependent upon the learning path selected by students. We contend, however, that the nature of PBL requires the educator to consider what learning goals are essential to a course of study and to plan assessments without the benefit of knowing a priori what instruction will take place. This focuses the educator's attention on articulating, setting, and measuring important learning outcomes while leaving instructional planning fluid and contingent upon the real-time, authentic learning experiences that unfold for students and educators during the course.

Planning courses should involve both formative and summative assessments that are integrated into all facets of the coursework and iteratively reviewed and revised, since

learning is not a thing. Learning is a process that occurs in an interpersonal and group context, and it is always composed of an interaction of factors to which we append labels such as motivation, cognition, emotion or affect, and attitude. Neither singly nor in their interactions is the strength of these factors ever zero. (Sarason, 2004, p. vii)

Embedded formative and summative assessment and evaluation strategies are developed to encourage learners at all levels (kindergarten to university) to reflectively gauge personal, group, and project progress and to allow teachers to improve teaching and learning as it occurs, rather than waiting until the project ends, when, as is usual in most educational environments, a test is administered. "Test scores have their uses but knowing scores tells you absolutely nothing directly illuminating of the content and contexts of learning … [and] to understand, grasp, or intuit what's 'going on' in the mind of a learner is no easy task" (ibid., p. 37).

Typical end-of-course (or end-of-unit) assessments come too late for their results to improve instruction for that particular cohort of learners; and even if assessments are modified for future classes, the learning needs of those later cohorts might be very much different. If we wish to discriminate between productive and unproductive testing practices, we need to think and rethink how we assess students (see Sarason, 2004; Zachos, 2004). Assessment is a critical piece that is factored into the design of all parts of our curricula because thinking about assessment forces us to articulate what it is that we value, how we know that learners have mastered it, and what evidence we accept that learning has indeed occurred. These are difficult but absolutely critical questions, and they need to be at the forefront of all instructional planning efforts if we are to understand how teachers teach and how learners learn.

Assessment as Process Not Product

A comprehensive assessment plan includes both formative and summative assessment. Whether an assessment is performed at a time that informs instruction or not determines whether it is formative or summative.

Formative assessment

Formative assessments are typically performed at the beginning and throughout the duration of our courses. These assessment instruments provide us with the opportunity to understand what students know at the outset of the course and what they need to know in order to achieve specified learning outcomes (as well as what we, as faculty, need to know in order to achieve our instructional goals). The results from the formative assessments that we administer during the semester help us to provide "just-in-time" learning experiences for the students currently enrolled in our classes.

The following were the assessments incorporated into the courses during the spring 2007 semester for the Web development students:

1. Weekly Wiki reflections. Students were asked to reflect on readings, class progress, and course topics each week and to post the reflections onto a Wiki space established for them. In their reflections, they were required to draw connections between the new material being introduced and past experience working with groups, Web technologies, and so on.
2. Weekly self-assessment. Each week, students completed an online self-assessment that required them to consider such issues as progress of project planning and development, interpersonal dynamics, and significant events in the project development process.³
3. Weekly group assessment. One member of each project team also completed a group evaluation each week. This task was rotated among team members to instill the spirit of division of labor and sharing of responsibilities. Self- and peer assessments provide university faculty with a better understanding of the

³ For samples of this and other referenced materials, contact the authors.

1. collaborative dynamics of the groups and an opportunity to intervene or mediate before anxiety and tension escalate (Stefl-Mabry et al., 2008). This aligns with the call for more investment in self- and peer assessment in peer-teaching environments (Parr et al., 2004).
2. Midterm self-assessment. Following the midterm break, students were asked to complete a holistic assessment of their progress with respect to the stated course goals and expectations, and to reflect on their effort and contributions toward making the class a successful learning experience for themselves and for other class members.

For the SLMS graduate students, the assessments were as follows:

1. Philosophy of teaching and learning statement. Students were asked to complete a philosophy of teaching and learning statementat the beginning and end of the semester. The purpose was to determine whether students' philosophical views of teaching and learning changed after participating in a transgenerational PBL experience.
2. Transgenerational research paper. Students were required to complete different sections of a research paper (introduction, literature review, methodology, etc.) throughout the semester. The idea of breaking the paper up into more manageable portions is to reduce anxiety.⁴ Additionally, it allows the instructor to determine whether students are having difficulty with the PBL project as they progress (e.g., with the design, implementation, assessment, analysis, and interpretive components of the project) and offers the faculty opportunities to redesign and realign instruction to meet learners' needs as they emerge.
3. Weekly individual and group evaluations. Students completed the same online self- and group assessments as for the Web development group.

⁴ For a description of and the requirements for each section of the paper, see http://www.albany.edu/faculty/jstefl/673sprg07/transgenpaper.htm.

1. Weekly Wiki research contributions. Understanding the contributions of learning, technology, and information theorists was an important aspect of students' coursework. Students were required to conduct a comprehensive literature review of relevant theorists' work. Instead of writing standalone research papers, students shared their research findings on a Wiki site. A format for presenting Wiki contributions and a scoring rubric were provided to help students understand the expectations for these postings.
2. Mid-semester self-assessment. The midterm self-assessment provided students with an opportunity to evaluate their performance in the course with regard to the expectations outlined in the course syllabus and schedule. Students were advised to be honest and not to inflate or deflate their performance or contributions since, we stressed, assessment is not the same as grading.

Other formative assessments

Classroom assessment is the most common formative assessment technique that we employ. The purpose of this assessment is to improve the quality of student learning; it is never intended to be evaluative or as a means to grade students. Ongoing classroom assessment helps us to improve our instructional design and to select appropriate instructional strategies. As we teach, we ask ourselves what is working, what is not and for whom, and what we can do to improve (and positively impact) student learning.

We keep a teaching/impact log and meet each week prior to each class to share our reflections (even if we are only observing). We ask ourselves questions to guide our discussion: Do the students enjoy what they are doing? What types of instructional activities do they seem to dislike? What areas of technical or interpersonal difficulty can we identify? What are the best practices employed by teams that are succeeding? What can we do to involve more of the learning partners in more aspects of the experience?

This type of formative assessment data can contribute to a comprehensive assessment plan by enabling us to identify particular points during the semester to assess learning (e.g., at the beginning of a lesson, after introducing a particular section of study, or after adopting specific instructional practices). We strive to avoid blaming students for not wanting to learn, instead asking ourselves what we can do as teachers to engage, to motivate, to encourage, and even to challenge students to want to learn.

Summative assessment

Summative assessment is comprehensive in nature, provides for accountability, and is often used to check the level of learning achieved at the end of a program. Program goals and objectives often reflect the cumulative nature of the learning that takes place in a program. Just as a variety of assessment strategies should be used to collect formative assessment data, so summative assessment should involve a variety of methods and measures in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of student performance (Central Michigan University, 2006) and teacher performance (in their instruction).

We employ two methods of summative assessment. First, we engage students in a whole-class discussion about the semester, their experience, and what has worked well for them as learners and what has not. This discussion allows students to review the experience while giving instructors insight into potential areas for program improvement. Students often marvel at how much they have accomplished in the course when they are called upon to recount the full experience in one discussion.

Second, we host an end-of-term Web learning symposium that is open to the public where teams give short presentations describing the work they have done and offer explanations of the underlying theories and processes involved. The Web sites that they develop are made available for attendees, who include K–12 educators, community leaders, and other interested parties, to try out and provide feedback directly to the project teams. The symposium offers the transgenerational partners (K–12 and university students and teachers) an opportunity to share, discuss, and reflect upon their projects with the greater learning community (the university and the local community). The event highlights how PBL partnerships permit K–12 schools to benefit from research-based best practices while at the same time offering opportunities for university students to engage in real-world professional activities.

Instruction

Each of the student groups receives instruction separately from the other groups; for example, the undergraduates meet for the majority of their class time separately from the graduates and the K–12 students. Additionally, each week the undergraduate and graduate students meet together for a portion of their class time to facilitate project planning and development activities.

The Web development students receive instruction on Web development issues and tools as well as project management techniques, including Web-site management, image manipulation, sound editing, and other Web-related software applications. Additionally, they learn about interface design best practices, prototyping methods, and development cycles. Much of the class time is spent addressing common development pitfalls and answering student queries about the use of particular tools.

The SLMS graduate students receive instruction related to teaching, learning, information literacy, educational technology, reflection, and collaboration. Much of the class time is spent clarifying educational objectives and understanding theories and models and what they mean within the context of practice in the real-world educational setting of each transgenerational group. Students learn to select traditional information resources (books, magazines, newspapers, etc.) as well as nontraditional sources (electronic, DVD, video, pod cast, etc.) for learning based upon the developmental and instructional needs of K–12 students and not just because the technology is available.

K–12 students receive instruction from the SLMS graduate students as well as their own teacher and school library media specialist related to the instructional software tool that has been specifically designed with their instructional needs and curriculum in mind. The teachers often instruct alongside the graduate students; at other times, the graduate students alone teach the K–12 students as a class, in small groups, or even one-on-one.

Learning Outcomes

Each student population has distinct learning goals that can be either intended or unintended outcomes of the program. Unintended does not, however, imply undesirable. When students share what they have learned, often we find that they have discovered some valued outcomes that we had failed to identify explicitly. Those outcomes then become part of the learning goals for future classes. For example, during spring 2007, as part of their journalism Web-site project, high-school juniors came to the university campus to interview undergraduates about their college experience. While we expected the high-school students to be excited about the visit, we had not anticipated how pleased the undergraduates would be to share their impressions of college. We learned that we, as faculty, need to involve learners at all levels more fully in more aspects of the learning experience.

With regard to learning outcomes, students taking the undergraduate Web development course demonstrate their understanding of core concepts in Web development: the client–server architecture, the integration of multiple media types, and the interplay of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Through the products that they create and demonstrate, students reveal what they have learned about design and Web technologies. Additionally, despite their frustration with not knowing the "right" answer to design questions during the course, students often express an overwhelming sense of pride and ownership in the Web sites that they have created. Having seen their creations being used by K–12 students, they realize the impact of their work and express an interest in the academic future of the K–12 students with whom they work.

Many of these undergraduates ask to continue working on their projects over the summer or in later semesters as independent study. In any given semester, 3–6 undergraduates who have previously taken the course continue to refine their past projects and contribute to the current students' development efforts. Several of the undergraduates have entered the school library graduate program as a result of their collaborative experience with other student groups.

The SLMS graduate students demonstrate their understanding of theory, pedagogical practice, instructional design, information literacy, and assessment through the products they create during the semester. For many students, even those with prior educational experience, this is the first time they are asked to think deeply about how their philosophical beliefs about teaching and learning impact their practice. During the semester, they come to understand that what they create is a reflection of their philosophical beliefs about pedagogical practice informed by their level of theoretical knowledge.

Many students in this course struggle early in the semester, flustered by not knowing what the end product will look like. For some, this uncertainty provokes anxiety; for others, it is an opportunity to be creative and think outside the box. By the time the projects are deployed in the K–12 learning environment, most of the students understand that the power to teach and assess is within them if they are willing to ask themselves what the learning goals are. They learn that frequent conversation with in-service educators helps them articulate and identify learning goals. Sometimes, even in-service educators profess difficulty in articulating learning goals. These conversations help the SLMS graduates understand that learning is indeed a process and not a product.

Even though the SLMS graduates often voice discomfort in not having a precise blueprint to follow when first asked to think about developing instructional software tools, most realize that the PBL experience mirrors their real-life professional responsibilities as SLMS, when they will be called upon to be a collaborator, change agent, and leader and to develop, promote, and implement a program that will help prepare students (and teachers) to be effective users of ideas and information.

Finally, K–12 students, in engaging with the project teams, enjoy interacting with the instructional software tools because their instructional needs, and sometimes preferences, have been at the forefront of all content and design decisions. Younger students (K–3) are usually surprised to see images on the Web site that are related to their class and what they have been studying. Older students are usually excited to see their recommendations incorporated into the design and content of the site and are eager to offer more suggestions and share their learning experiences with the project teams. Formative and summative assessment instruments are embedded within both Web-site and class activities to allow SLMS graduate students (and in-service educators) the opportunity to reflect upon student and class progress and to improve teaching and learning as it occurs.

Results of Learning

Inert knowledge does little to prepare university students for their professional careers. As Berg (2003) points out, "Students often lack an understanding of connections among concepts and therefore have difficulty in applying knowledge" (p. 88). Instead of teaching theoretical content and technology skills in isolation from the professional arenas in which they will be used, our PBL model provides authentic learning opportunities and promotes the idea of learners as social problem solvers actively engaged in the manipulation of their environment (Dewey, 1929). Our model aligns with Dewey's (1938) proposal that school should serve as an apprenticeship for civic life and his recommendation that schools develop ordinary life experiences into learning possibilities for learners: "education in order to accomplish its ends both for the individual learner and for society must be based upon experience—which is always the actual life-experience of some individual" (p. 89). Immersing university coursework in the real-world context affords us the opportunity to promote learning in context, the complex professional context that is K–12. "Education through occupations consequently combines within itself more of the factors conducive to learning than any other method" (Dewey, 1916, p. 309), but understanding that learning itself is critical. Taking our cue from Sarason (2004), we seek to continually ask ourselves before, during, and after each class what we mean by learning.

Our design methods are consistent with the intentionality in education called for by Johnson. By considering carefully the core learning goals and aligning assessment strategies to identify the attainment of those goals, we have created an iterative instructional design framework that encourages us to be thoughtful practitioners and makes our teaching efforts incrementally more effective. Incorporating improvements into the course design based not only on our own observations but also on feedback from participants at all levels of the partnership, we consistently revisit and focus the curriculum and maintain a student-centered approach to teaching, learning, and instructional design.

Our students benefit from the authenticity of the experience, often referencing their creations in their résumés and future work. They gain practical knowledge from developing Web sites for real users and experience the thrill of seeing their work make a difference to the lives of children.

Finally, our K–12 partners benefit by engaging with the university environment, exposing students and teachers alike to the possibilities that exist for them within higher education. The K–12 students, although living just miles from the university campus, rarely have the opportunity to visit the campus or experience a college learning environment. Through this experience, they begin to envision themselves as part of a larger learning community and draw connections between their present studies and what they might do in the future.

In Conclusion

Our work over the past five years underscores the importance of understanding that PBL is "an approach to education that opposes the dominant culture of teaching and learning in our universities … [as] cultural norms are turned upside down and those who choose to do so need a good deal of courage" (Harland, 2003, p. 264). In our PBL environment, the traditional role of the teacher is transformed and "teaching becomes more like research supervision or mentoring" (ibid.). In fact, one project team presented findings from their transgenerational work at the 2007 Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education annual meeting (see Laczack et al., 2007). Another team presented a paper at the ED-MEDIA 2006 conference describing aspects of the PBL experience itself (see Doane et al., 2006). At the time of writing, several groups from the spring 2007 semester were readying their papers for journal submission.

There is little doubt that "this change enriched students' learning and the freedom we gave students to work within this environment sustained new levels of energy, excitement, and commitment" (Harland, 2003, p. 268). It is apt to close this chapter by sharing some of the comments our students offered when asked how the course affected their awareness of and their ability to use good teaching and learning practices:

"Before this course I knew nothing at all about learning theories or information seeking theories or educational technology theories … watching our collaborating teacher with her class has helped me become aware of good teaching and learning practices … I am now able to think about the theories when I am teaching, whereas before I didn't even know that all of these theories existed."

"This course has made me realize that it isn't as simple as it looks to teach students. The amount of theory that is involved never really crossed my mind."

"Theory and practice are important subjects in two of my courses right now. It has made me realize that whether teachers know it or not, they are putting theory into practice."

"This course has inspired me to be proud of the strong role a school librarian can play in a school setting. It has also highlighted the needs of certain students and the benefits they can achieve through good teaching practices that allow for interactions and active learning."

"I have gotten to know the students in the elementary class on a personal level to best develop the project in ways that are meaningful and relevant to their everyday lives."

"The course forces you to think about every angle of teaching; and helped me to become more open to all ideas and to accept that you do not have to agree with everything, that it is all a learning process."

"I am much more aware of the need for educational technology to be designed appropriately. Simply having it in the classroom does not mean much if it is not tied to curriculum and designed with developmentally appropriate practices in mind."

Having an explicit model of educational evaluation processes and the resultant products allows us to structure our thinking regarding instructional design decisions and to bring our best intentions to the task. By being intentional, we can engage students and challenge them to be active, productive contributors to the iterative improvement of course designs and to contribute to society, even before completing school.

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