Laurilland et al (2000)

Laurillard et al. (2000)
Affordances for learning in a non-linear narrative medium
The first thing I had to ‘get my head round’ was the idea of ‘affordances’; how did I perceive this concept? Well…as how we can use something; what we can ‘take’ from an available set of tools; the value or equity of the way we use something? The affordance could also be a suggestion of how something could be used or be the method most suitable to lend itself to the task. I also saw here one of the key issues of a previous reading I had reviewed (Lave and Wenger, a ‘teaching’ versus a ‘learning’ curriculum) – the issue of the teaching may be designed in a certain way, but does this mean it is accessible (in all dimensions) and of most use to the student?
In reading this paper, I was also struck by the fact that I was carrying out a reading task as discussed by Crook and Dymott; I printed the reading out and viewed the diagram on page 4 with the text on page 5. If I had read this online, I would have been distracted by the technology and used a lot of time in trying to have these pages side by side on the screen. The diagram certainly made more sence when viewed here - http://www2.smumn.edu/deptpages/~instructtech/lol/laurillard/ (interactive CF diagram).
1. What are the central arguments? How do the authors intend to link these to the framework described?
The central argument is that learning is a process carried out between teacher and learner and a ‘narrative line’ is required for the learning to take place. The process of interaction and feedback is shown diagrammatically, as a conversational framework (although this seems to be cyclical in nature – ‘cycles within a sequence’, p5).
2. What are the key strengths of the CF in terms of what it highlights about the learning process? Can you see any limitations in this approach?
The strengths of the CF is that it is a clear, simple model and could be applicable to almost any learning situation. From the figure (1) on p4, the limitations are that the quantity and depth of interactions cannot be seen (the interactive version assists this understanding).
3. Re the sequence of teacher–student interactions; can you think of an alternative sequence, perhaps from your own experience, which could be mapped using the CF?
There is, of course, the problem of lack of interaction, which can occur at times. The teacher may ask for help from ‘stronger’ students and peer interventions in feedback have also aided learning. Some subject matter lends itself to greater group discussions and peer feedback; also, problem solving activities create different lines of feedback and interaction.
Data collection and analytical techniques – limitations, alternative methods, benefits?
The data collected included dialogue of lesson interactions, observational notes and transcripts of dialogue (video), assignment reviews and feedback on work carried out. Using short dialogue clips can be used to highlight project issues, but there may be a danger of bias, as the whole context is not available to the reader (e.g. prior experience of this type of learning, level of IT skills). It may have been useful to record the number of tasks/process interactions; does this have implications for learning taking place, or taking place at a deeper level?
The pros and cons of the two-stage design process?
If wider data is collected and analysed in the second design, how will it be possible to compare the ‘results’? The second design highlighted ‘testing’ as an integral component, which was not evident in the first design; however, the original design was used to see areas where improvement of the desing could take pace, so there must be an argument of why ‘waste time’ in carrying out the same process, when the potential design benefits have been identified?
I had some other thoughts on this paper.
On page 8, it appears that the author is almost ‘blaming the technology’ when the students did not seem to have goals or progress towards it; is this not just poor teaching practice, that the students were not completely clear on the session objectives? This is apparent on page 11, where the new design included ‘…a clear statement of an overall goal…’. I was unclear here why the use of a Notepad was included – was there not access to a Word or similar method of creating notes? Why use this? Did students already have the skills to use this or not? Would this impact on how students used this method of recording the task? I considered that the use of an audio summary (p 12) a much greater affordance to constructing their conceptual knowledge, rather than ‘writing’ tasks. Will ‘creating affordances’ mean that greater interaction, and therefore learning, will actually occur?