Student C again started at Intermediate level and achieved adequate grades, however his levels of concentration are poor, he is easily distracted and he often fails to complete his work. This is a concern as he is planning to progress onto the HND Computing course and will need to prove that he has the motivation and the ability to cope with the workload. He has worked part time in the computing section of Staples and shows a good understanding of hardware issues but struggles with the application side of computing and completing course work. He appears to be more ‘hands on’ student rather than academic.
Student D has chosen to do a computer related course to increase his prospects of employment in the computing field. He intends to continue his studies at Wakefield College in order to achieve a BSC in computing. Although not academically brilliant he is a very conscientious and independent worker who tries exceptionally hard to succeed and consequently achieves good grades. He work part time as a window cleaner.
Student E is the girlfriend of Student D and initially chose to do a computer related course to increase her prospects of employment and has no intention of progressing to University. The fact that she receives Education Maintenance Award (EMA) is the key motivation for attending the course and she gives the impression that doing this course is better than doing nothing. She lacks enthusiasm for the subject matter and at times the only thing that keeps her on track is the help and support she receives from her boyfriend.
4.3 Theories of Learning
Evidence suggests there are many theories of learning often one theory contradicting another, this is substantiated by Reece (2000, p.69) who claims “that for every piece of research that tells us to do something a particular way, there is another piece that suggests, not necessarily the opposite, but a different way”. This report concentrates on some theories on learning styles and learning taxonomies and how these can be applied to understanding and managing the learning process of a group of AVCE students.
4.3.1 Learning Styles
There is strong evidence to suggest that students learn in several different ways and planning to deliver curriculum to the AVCE group must consider the four main learning styles identified by Honey and Mumford (1986):
Activists – enjoy the present, like the immediate experience and respond to short-term issues.
Reflectors – prefer to think about things and explore all aspects before coming to a conclusion.
Theorists – like principles, theories, models and systems. Logic rules!
Pragmatists – look for new ideas and are keen to experiment.
The choice of learning strategies will therefore determine how much a student is motivated and a key aim must be to offer all learning styles some element within the lesson that enhances there learning experience.
4.3.2 Learning Taxonomies
In addition to the recognised learning styles, learning can be separated into three main domains, psychomotor, cognitive and affective domains. Within each of these domains there are specific levels identified by Honey and Mumford, Bloom and Kolb amongst others. Taxonomies usually refer to the classification of life into similar groups, but for the purposes of Bloom, a taxonomy was described by McLeod (p. 1029) as:
“…the science or practice of classification.”
Cognitive Domain
The Cognitive domain looks at the intellectual skills and abilities, considering knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation with knowledge being the easiest level. The cognitive domain suggests that knowledge allows someone to state something. Moving sequentially through each stage to higher levels, allows a student to learn the full range of cognitive skills i.e. to explain, apply, differentiate between, summarise and evaluate. Petty (1998, p.347) states that it is important to “…include the higher-order objectives in your teaching or these skills will not be developed…”
Simply gaining knowledge is the first stage of learning and is the building block for the higher cognitive levels, which without such could not be reached. Encouraging the student to comprehend, apply and evaluate, enhances their learning process. For example, a student may know what a mathematical formulae is, understand that it can be used to solve some mathematical problem, but may be unable to apply it and derive an answer.
Affective Domain
The Affective domain is concerned with attitudes and deal with feelings and emotions. Petty (1998) suggested that this means a student has the social skills, is able to listen to, be aware of, or is able to appreciate something.
Psychomotor Domain
The Psychomotor domain focuses on a student’s dexterity, and is predominately physical tasks that need practice. It is similar to the cognitive domain in that it progresses from the simple to the complex where physical skills are concerned.
Although all three domains could be considered appropriate to the teaching and learning experience of the AVCE group, Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain has been identified as the most relevant to the AVCE group and the theory has been studied in much greater detail and then applied to the case study.
4.4 Relevance of Bloom’s Classification of the cognitive domain within the learning process of AVCE students
Bloom defined the following areas in his classification of the cognitive domain, as knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
Knowledge is the ability of a student or person to be able to recall and recognise information. Child (1993) proposed that someone couldn’t operate cognitively without a basic amount of knowledge.
The AVCE students have demonstrated that they have a certain level of knowledge by being accepted on to the second year of the course. Some students have more knowledge than others, which is likely due to a greater degree of application on the first year and the motivation to work at home. Some of the students appear to have a slightly wider experience of relevant computing knowledge and are able to recall and recognise information more readily. Student C who is easily distracted and often fails to complete his work does show he has quite extensive knowledge in specific IT areas that are related to his work at Staples where he deals with the computing hardware side.
Comprehension is the ability to illustrate, explain or describe the reasons for something. This area of understanding can be fairly basic.
All the students have a generally equal level of comprehension in the subject areas, although Student A has more difficulty explaining reasons in written report format or under exam conditions.
Application is the ability to take the knowledge and comprehension of something and to utilise this in new situations. Using the mathematical formula example, knowledge is where a student is aware of or knows the formula, comprehension is the understanding that the formula can be used to solve a particular problem and application is having the ability to use the formula to actually solve it.
There was evidence of prior learning being applied to a new situation whereby the knowledge gained when produced a user manual for a spreadsheet unit was applied to producing a user manual for the database unit. Also Students explained that the group work undertaken in the multi media unit was a good way of pooling knowledge and comprehension. Consequently, the project management unit I am leading will include a group project to develop a web site. The intention is to team those students who demonstrate good organisational skills with those who show an aptitude for graphical design. Group work has shown that the knowledge, comprehension and application of a group can be higher than the individuals themselves would achieve, as not everyone is a specialist in every field.
Analysis is the breaking down of something into its component parts, differentiating between similar items and the ability to compare and contrast.
All the students interviewed for this report were able to use the knowledge and comprehension of information they have been given and apply this to new situations.
Synthesis is the ability to take the component parts and either rearrange or combine them to form a new or different whole. A particularly relevant example of analysis and synthesis is demonstrated when considering the rescheduling of tasks when a crisis situation arises during the project lifecycle. The project manager can study the critical path of the project and determine where resources can be reallocated or extra resources brought in order to ensure that the project is still delivered on time and to specification. The project plan can then be updated to produce a new schedule, which does not necessarily look like, or work in the same way as, the original.
In the Project Management unit they are able to look at the scheduling of other Project plans prior to producing their coursework assignment. Synthesis will then allow them to take individual processes from this analysis and combine them as they investigate a business problem and produce a Project Management solution. For the second semester unit students will be shown how to create a project plan for the websites development, and will gain an understanding of the importance of scheduling and resource allocation.
Evaluation requires judgements to be made as to what elements of the project went to plan and what lessons can be learned from the overall project experience. For example, the project manager will evaluate the finished product after implementation. This allows them to see if future projects can be managed more effectively and efficiently.
Using the Project Management unit as an example, once the project plan is implemented, an evaluation of the project will allow the students to check if the product they have designed was produced as planned, to specification, within budget and timescale.
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4.5 Aims, objectives and outcomes of the scheme of work, lesson plans and learning materials in relation to the cognitive learning taxonomy
The evidence gained during the research and interviews carried out facilitated the production of scheme of work, (Appendix A) lesson plans, (Appendix B) and learning materials (Appendix C) for the Project Management unit. The scheme of work identifies how each session builds on the previous session and each lesson plan shows evidence of how Bloom’s taxonomies has been incorporated into the learning process. The aim and objectives of the unit were to outline how to produce a project plan prior to the student producing their own project plan for the web development.
Knowledge – All lecture topics have been developed on the basis that students have no prior knowledge of each stage of project management. The only assumption was the students had completed the tasks in the preceding practical session, however, not having completed the tasks should not interfere with their learning of the lecture topic. The scheme of work has been written in a way that does not penalise a student for not having grasped any particular fragment of the course, being as it is, modular in design. Each lecture consists of a PowerPoint presentation followed by a brief demonstration on the interactive whiteboard. Each week previous learning is checked prior to and often during the lecture to check the learning. building upon the week before with the subject matter progressively gaining in complexity.
Comprehension – All the students will be encouraged to ask questions at any point during the presentation/demonstration if they require additional clarification. The intention is to check their comprehension by asking if they can provide examples to justify a point made and then opening up discussion to the whole group.
Application – Knowledge and Comprehension will be combined when attempting the task sheets written to accompany each week’s lecture topic. These sheets are not handouts in the usual sense, each one consisting not of information for a student to refer to at a later date, but tasks that will facilitate their learning. The tasks cater for individual interpretation of the problem statements, allowing each student to develop the subject matter with their knowledge and understanding.
Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation – Students will be actively encouraged to explore alternative project management software, breaking each one down into specific functions and comparing and contrasting how well they facilitate the task of managing a project and the application limitations. There will be a requirement to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the application.
4.6 Teaching and learning strategies deployed in the development of the project management unit
The project management unit was designed in line with the cognitive taxonomy described earlier.
Lectures/Group discussions
Students are given lectures whereby information is presented from which knowledge and comprehensive can be gained by interaction in group discussion. For Student A and Student B asking questions and providing answers to questions comes naturally as they are both confident members of the group. However Student D is a very quiet member and through a basic lack of confidence always appears reluctant to come forward therefore subtle probing is required to check his learning and ensure that he has fully understood the subject matter.
One to one tuition
Although Student C is usually willing to interact if directly questioned often, one to one tuition is needed as due to his lack of concentration he often lags behind the rest of the group and needs more thorough recapping of prior sessions. Whilst Student E often shows little interest in group discussions she will ask later in the practical session if she has not understood a certain element.
Tasks
In order to encourage students to apply knowledge and comprehension to a new situation the scheme of work includes a simple task to plan a birthday celebration and consider all the tasks involved, and the sequence with which they undertook the tasks and who would be responsible for each task. Students were then given the opportunity to apply this knowledge by completing the task sheets.
Demonstration
In the later weeks once the basic project management principles have been taught then students progress to using the project management software at this point demonstrations are included in the lesson plan to illustrate the use of the features of the project management tool. Students are at this point encouraged to part take in these demonstrations.
One of the main problems is that students progress at varying rates throughout the unit and to ensure that this issue is addressed I have built in further complexity to stretch the more able student by for example introducing more complex scheduling and updating techniques within the project plans. This provides an opportunity for the tutor to concentrate on an individual group member without restricting the progress of others, meaning that all students will be able to feel that they have accomplished something of value in each session.
However, the scheme of work does progress through a logical pattern. For example, the principles of project management precede the creation of a project plan. The students will then learn topics of progressive complexity before creating a project plan for a commercially acceptable web site.
4.7 The importance of language, literacy and numeracy
In today’s environment where employers are increasingly looking graduates that possess good communication and numeracy skills it is important that these elements of teaching and learning are incorporated into lesson plans and schemes of work.
Presentation skills are developed within the project management unit as students are required to present their website to their client in a professional manner by the use of a PowerPoint presentation.
Report writing skills are developed, as the assignment brief requires students to produce their evidence in report format.
Students are encouraged to communicate both verbally in group discussions and by written communication in the form of agendas and minutes of meeting they have held within their group and with their client. Student A who is dyslexic is supported by proof reading her assignment work prior to submission and understanding her anxieties about being watched whilst keying in information.
The application of numbers within the project management unit is limited to calculating the estimated duration of a task using the Program Evaluation Review Technique, a formulae that explores the probability, i.e.
optimistic duration + pessimistic duration + (3 x most likely duration) divided by 6
Other mathematical skills are using when determining the critical path of a project.
4.8 Evaluation of teaching and learning strategies
Detailed study has shown that Bloom’s taxonomy is relevant to all the students I teach. In particular, recent experience teaching the AVCE group has highlighted the need for students to have both knowledge and comprehension, and in order to achieve the higher grades students must also possess the ability to apply, analyse, synthesise and evaluate. As is evident in the study, if the lower levels of learning are not achieved i.e. the knowledge and the comprehension then students will be unable to achieve the higher levels such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Although these higher levels are not often required to pass the AVCE unit there is an expectation that they will need be achieved if they progress to Higher Education (HE). Student A, Student B and Student D are already showing signs of reaching the higher cognitive levels however in the case of Student C and Student E there will be a strong need to build on their knowledge and subject understanding in order to become proficient in analysing, synthesising and, most importantly, evaluating their work to ensure that they succeed at any higher education qualifications they undertake.
In conclusion the cognitive domain theory can easily applied to the development of the project management unit in order that students can learn to produce good project plans.
4.9 Evaluation of learning materials used
As a result of doing this research, I now ensure that basic knowledge and understanding of subject matter is achieved by recapping both in group discussion and on a one to one basis with individual students. I also plan individual lessons in greater depth and look for new ways to break up the learning process into more manageable chunks, by using tasks sheets and group work and the requesting agendas and minutes are taken.
I have explored the use of electronic tools such as Course Genie in order to provide a much interactive way of presenting information. I am now proficient at using the whiteboard and actively encourage students to use it during group discussions.
In conclusion I feel that by gaining a good understanding of the individual needs of my student I can adapt lessons to suit. This is substantiated by Stephens and Roderick (1971) who state, “that a failure to select methods that are appropriate to the real needs and interests of the students will weaken their educational achievement”
4.10 Evaluation of Student Learning
Assessment of student’s learning is two fold. Firstly work produced during each practical session, is checked and commented upon. Secondly more formal assessment takes place by marking the three assignments and feeding back on the PowerPoint presentation. As this is the first course for which I have been responsible for the complete management of the learning process, I am as yet unable to critically discuss the effectiveness of the strategies and materials. However, I am confident that the students will learn more effectively from this style of content delivery than they have from the previous project management material that was I asked to deliver last year delivered with the very limited material provided for me by previous unit leader.
4.11 Strengths and weaknesses of the sessions
As the scheme of work and lessons are not planned to be delivered until 24 January 2005 the strengths and weaknesses cannot at this moment in time be reflected upion.
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Reece, Ian & Walker, Stephen (2000) Teaching, Training and Learning a practical guide 4th Edition, BEPL, Sunderland.
Stephens. MD. & Roderick. GQ., (1971), Teaching Techniques in Adult Education, David & Charles, Newton Abbot.
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Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
