XplanaZine

In many distance learning programs, teaching has tended to follow the information transmission model. This is where the instructor simply selects the material to be learned, organizes it into a course package, and transmits it to students in a one way flow of communication from the lecturer to the student (Brown, 1997). Unfortunately, this method promotes passive learning and rote memorization (Brown, 1997). In many online courses, the format tends to be characterized by long pages of text presented in a linear format, with minimal amounts of interaction.
To encourage more effective and meaningful learning, it is suggested that instructional developers in museums (and otherwise) implement a variety of cognitive learning strategies into the design. According to Laurillard (1993), and Jonassen (1993), to encourage meaningful learning, active participation should be promoted. Through active participation, the learners can arrive at and articulate their own personal understandings, new ideas, and concepts.
According to Piaget, children learn from actions rather than passive observations, and so construct knowledge and understanding for themselves (Caulton, 1998). The role of the teacher, according to this theory, is to create environments where learning might take place most effectively, rather than to impart their own knowledge. Teachers should encourage children to ask questions rather than to accept information unquestioningly. Similarly, Piaget’s developmental theory of learning has contributed to the spread of hands on exhibits in museums, with interactive exhibitions providing the foundation that follows Bloom’s “taxonomy of learning”: cognitive learning; affective learning; and psycho-motor development (Caulton, 1998).
Learners need opportunities to reflect on the new material, discuss their understandings and concepts with others, and build conceptual connections to their existing schema. Piaget defined schema as structures or mental units that represent a class of similar actions or thoughts (Ormrod, 1995). Students need to have their preconceptions challenged to bring out inconsistencies and to reveal incompleteness or gaps in their knowledge (Ormrod, 1995).
Piaget refers to a couple of related processes that he termed assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation involves modifying one’s perception of the environment to fit a scheme, and accommodation involves modifying a schema to fit the environment (Ormrod, 1995). Similarly, Anderson (1993), stresses the importance of practice with feedback to advance from declarative to procedural knowledge.
Another theory by Gardner (1983, 1991), proposes that the brain supports at least seven different abilities or intelligences, and that these develop at different rates and to different extents in individuals. Gardner’s view is that these different types of intelligence dominate in different individuals, and the formal school environment doesn’t necessarily promote their potential full development. Caulton (1998), argued that interactive museums are important learning environments because the “rich variety of interpretative techniques can stimulate a multiplicity of intelligences (p.20).” Thus, to have successful distance learning programs in museums, they must somehow incorporate interactive learning.
Distance learning programs should also apply other methods of facilitating meaningful learning, because meaningful learning promotes more effective storage and more successful retrieval than rote learning. In addition to tying in new information with existing schema, distance learning programs should attempt to present material in an organized fashion. For example, information can be presented in hierarchical structures, cause-effect relationships, etc., so that learners are more likely to store it in a similar organizational network (Ormrod, 1995). Ormrod (1995), noted that when students don’t see the interconnections among the things they learn, they sometimes try to pull those things together in a constructive, yet often inaccurate manner.
Researchers such as Doolittle (2000), have explored the role of cognition and constructivism in online learning.
In museum distance education as well as in online learning, instruction should have clearly defined learning/performance objectives, and incorporate cognitive learning theories such as human information processing theory, which suggests that learners build upon previous schema, and have opportunities for feedback.
Another cognitive strategy that can be used to good effect is mastery learning, where information is provided in chunks, and learners are allowed to conquer each bit of information before going onto the next level. Included in mastery learning is the opportunity for remediation. Instructional strategies used in the design of instruction are contingent upon the type of learning desired.
Technology:
Over the last thirty years, museum educators have focused on developing appropriate teaching methods for both face to face teaching (workshops, talks, drama, etc.) and distant learning methods (teacher’s packs, loan boxes, and kits). Hooper-Greenhill (1996), noted that currently, existing technology enables museums to exist in virtual form over the Internet or on CD-ROM, while virtual reality enables building to be reconstructed over archaeological remains, without damage to the site itself. With the aid of various technological advances, museums now have the opportunity reach out to larger populations. Instead of relying upon the public to come to museums, museums can now come to the public via the Internet.
At its most basic form, distance education takes place when a teacher and student(s) are separated by physical distance, and technology is used to bridge the instructional gap. Different forms of delivery have been used to provide distance education. In its most primitive form, distance education meant “correspondence study,” and mail delivery of print material was the principle format. Now, with technological advances, distance education can be delivered via audio, video, and computer. However, the most dramatic changes in delivery systems in the field of distance learning are the World Wide Web. There are many advantages of using the Internet over other forms of delivery, such as televised instruction or CD-ROMs, and one of the biggest is the cost.
According to Roberts (1994), there are three major areas that combine to produce low costs of the Internet: Internet architecture, Internet Services, and the economic structure of the Internet. Another advantage of the Internet is that it allows the publication of a wide variety of learning resources. In addition, with topics presented in hypertext, the learner has a degree of control over the type and amount of information accessed. Furthermore, learners become more active participants in the construction of knowledge building depends upon learners making connections with and between new and old concepts, and hypertext is highly suited for facilitating this process. In the past, museums have been underutilized educational resources, but with the development of distance learning programs, that may change.
Bibliography
American Association of Museums website. http://www.aam-us.org/public.cfm
Andersonon, J.R. (1993). Rules of the mind. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bowen, J. , Houghton, M., & Bernier, R. (2003). Online Museum Discussion Forums:What do we have? What do we need? Paper presented at Museums and the Web 2003 Conference. Available online at: http://www.archimuse.com/mw2003/papers/bowen/bowen.html
Breithaupt, Brent H. Museums: The Underutilized Resource. University of California, Berkeley. Available online at: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/fosrec/Breithaupt3.html
Brown, A. (1997). Designing for learning: What are the essential features of an efective online course? Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 13(2), 115-126.
Caulton, T. (1998). Hands-on exhibitions. New York: Routledge.
Cornford, Ian R. (1997) Ensuring effective learning from modular courses: a cognitive psychology-skill learning perspective. Journal of Vocational Education and Training. Vol. 49, No. 2. pp 237-251
Creswell, J.W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Perennial.
Deci, E.L. & Ryan, R.M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Press.
Do, J. & Lee, I. (1999). World wide web in the virtual classroom. [On-line}. Available: http://computed.coe.wayne.edu/Vol3/do.html <http://www.nova.edu/~duchaste>.
Doolittle, P. (2000) Constructivism and Online Education. 1999 Online Conference in Teaching Online in Higher Education. http://edpsychserver.ed.vt.edu/workshops/tohe1999/pedagogy.html
Duchastel, P. (1996). A motivational framework for web-based instruction. [On-line}. Available: <http://www.nova.edu/~duchaste>.
Gardner, H. (1983). The frames of the mind: The theory of multiple intelligence. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1991). The unschooled mind: How children think and how schools should teach. New York: Basic Books.
Hein, G.E. (1998). Learning in the museum. New York: Routledge.
Hofstetter, Fred. (2001). Internet Literacy. Second Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
Hofstetter, Fred. (2001). Multimedia Literacy. Third Edition. Textbook and CD-ROM combination. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.
Hooper-Greenhill, E. (1994). Education, communication and interpretation: towards a critical pedagogy in museums. In Hooper-Greenhill (Ed.), The educational role of the museum (pp. 3-27). New York: Routledge.
Kanaoka, Masao. (1999) “A technical writing course aimed at nurturing critical thinking skills.” Language Teacher Online. http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/tlt/99/sep/kanaoka.html
Keller, J. (1987). Development and use of the ARCS model of instructional design. Journal of Instructional Development, 10(3), 2-10.
Keller, J. (1983). Motivational design of instruction. In C. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional design theories and models: An overview of their current status. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kolb, A. and Kolb D. A. (2001) Experiential Learning Theory Bibliography 1971-2001, Boston, Ma.: McBer and Co, http://trgmcber.haygroup.com/Products/learning/bibliography.htm
Kolb, D. A. (1976) The Learning Style Inventory: Technical Manual, Boston, Ma.: McBer.
Kolb, D. A. (1981) ‘Learning styles and disciplinary differences’. in A. W. Chickering (ed.) The Modern American College, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kolb, D. A. (with J. Osland and I. Rubin) (1995a) Organizational Behavior: An Experiential Approach to Human Behavior in Organizations 6e, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Kolb, D. A. (with J. Osland and I. Rubin) (1995b) The Organizational Behavior Reader 6e, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Kolb. D. A. and Fry, R. (1975) ‘Toward an applied theory of experiential learning;, in C. Cooper (ed.) Theories of Group Process, London: John Wiley.
Luchow, Rob (2003). Taking Education Outside of the Classroom: NYC Museum School. Education Update Online. Available online at: http://www.educationupdate.com/archives/2003/aug03/issue/cov_talking.html
Maehr, M.L. (1984). Meaning and motivation: Toward a theory of personal investment. In R. Ames & C.Ames (Eds.), Research on motivation in education, Vol 1: Student motivation (pp. 115-144).
Malone, T. (1981). Toward a theory of intrinsically motivating instruction. Cognitive Science, 4, 333-369.
McDade, S. (1995). Case study pedagogy to advance critical thinking. Teaching of Psychology, 22 (1), 11-12.
Mason, J. (2002). Qualitative Researching. London, Sage Publications.
Oklahoma Museums Association. Available online at: http://www.io.com/~tam/smanet/Oklahoma.html.
Nicholson, A., & Ngai, J.Y.K. (1996). Managing the development and production of interactive multimedia courseware in education. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 12(1), 35-45.
Ormrod, J.E. (1995). Human Learning (2nd ed.). New Jersey, Prentice Hall.
Roberts, M. (1994). Why is the internet so cheap? Educom Review. 29 (6), 1-2.
Sterman, N. and Brockenbrough, A. (1990). The mediated museum: Computer based technology and museum infrastructure. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 19 (1), p. 21-31.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Weinstein, C.F. & Mayer, R.F. (1986) The teaching of learning strategies, in M.C. Wittrock (Ed.) Handbook of Research on Teaching (3rd edn). New York: Macmillan.

Weinstein, C.F. & Meyer, D.K. (1994) Learning strategies, teaching and testing, in T. Husen & T.N. Postlethwaite (Eds) The International Encyclopedia of Education (2nd edn). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Zvacek, S.M. (1991). Effective affective design for distance education. Tech Trends, 36(1), 40-43.