October 2007 Volume 10 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...

Problem-based learning
Designers must strike an important balance between allowing autonomy for students as problem-solvers and
providing needed scaffolding to the same students, who can only be described as nascent in their problem-solving
abilities. Within this project, a shift from complete autonomy (the initial design) towards strong scaffolding (the
refined design) can be seen. At each extreme of this shift, I was taxed by questions about the educational viability of
my design. As I embraced the laissez-faire approach of the initial design, I recognized that the preservice teachers
may not know how to solve problems. Would they understand, for example, that articulating the problem is more
important than offering solutions, a commonly-accepted principle of problem solving (cf., Abel, 2003)? Would they
intuitively understand the inefficiency of rushing toward a solution without collaboratively exploring and analyzing
alternatives based on their individual experiences (cf., Beckett & Grant, 2003)? Based on their use (or, better said,
“the lack of use”) of the CMBB, I saw no evidence of positive answers to such questions—thus, the need for the
intermediate design.
As I began adjusting the assignment guidelines to better allow the preservice teachers to methodically solve
problems, I felt that I perhaps was not doing justice to the potential of problem-based learning as a design
framework. By articulating strategies, for example, was I not forcing a narrow view—my view—of how to articulate
the problem space? Was I allowing the power of social interaction as a natural phenomenon to emerge, or was I
creating something contrived that forced an artificial codependence among the preservice teachers?
This tension can be framed more theoretically. Some constructivists claim that learning is “internally controlled and
mediated by the learner” (Jonassen, 1991, p. 12). Yet, pedagogically, constructivists seem to focus on tools,
environments, and interaction with others—all of which are external. To what extent within a PBL framework can a
designer dictate the external requirements that will result in internal learning? Throughout this project, I felt
dissonance regarding the balance between activity that was based on a teacher-centered design and activity motivated
by the preservice teachers’ true cognitive dissonance that compelled them to pursue a consistent understanding of
content.
Have I set up a false dichotomy here by pointing to, on the one hand, a teacher-centered design and, on the other
hand, student initiative? Perhaps I should have taught the preservice teachers a problem-solving methodology.
Perhaps it was not an unwillingness to alleviate their own cognitive dissonance, as much as it was a lack of
understanding about how to achieve this alleviation. As a design framework, problem solving does seem to be
robust, but designers would do well to consider whether the robustness lies in guiding learners through the design
process or teaching the problem-solving process as a generalized cognitive tool.
Asynchronous discussion
As one of my most prominent co-authors lives some five states away, I understand purposeful use of computer-based
communication and the power that it has in representing ideas. Designing an artifact to help others see the power can
be difficult, however. The power lies in one’s desire to engage in a collaborative dialogue; true “dialogical
participation” is a higher-order type of learning through asynchronous discussion. It transcends the type of
“generative participation” that can simply shape one’s individual thinking; dialogical participation moves
asynchronous discussion participants toward principles of distributed learning (Knowlton, 2005).
The initial design depended on the tool simply being available, which did not produce viable results. It is only when
instructional strategies were added (in the intermediate design) and revised (in the refined design) that more
participation and evidence of engagement began to appear. My experiences here seem to confirm Clark (1983,
1994a, 1994b) and others’ assumption that computers do not create learning. Rather, it is the careful design of
strategy that creates learning.
There was a contradiction within asynchronous discussion as a design framework that I needed to reconcile.
Designing strategies to “force” dialogue seemed necessary for promoting learning, yet I was committed to the idea
that there must be some commitment on the part of the preservice teachers to want to engage in an academic
discussion. Do the design of strategies mitigate against helping students see the need for dialogue? As I added the
necessary characteristics that would allow asynchronous discussion as a framework to “achieve a particular set of
217