Model, Coach, Fade = Authentic learning: My Love affair with Cognitive Apprenticeship

You know that phrase/realization that young couples make early in the honeymoon period that they learn to love each other more and more with each passing day? (I'm not being cynical - because I do believe this is true!)

Well - this pretty much feels like my experience with all of these learning theories. I know we've only just scratched the surface of what we're going to learn this semester (actually, I think we're at halfway now that I really think about it) but it seems like with each passing week I like/love that week's theory moreso than the previous weeks'. And here we have my love affair with SL/CA (Situated Learning/Cognitive Apprenticeship). I say love affair because love is confusing and complicated and messy and deep ... and that's how I'm feeling right now about SL/CA. :)

One the one hand I was pseudo-relieved that all of this research had been completed providing a true, theoretically based alternative to "formal" schooling. (If you've read any of my previous posts you'll know that I have quite a bone to pick with traditional modes of education.) On the other hand - I was kind of pissed! Why hadn't I thought of all of this... dismissing, of course, the fact that I was in elementary school when all of this research was being done. Ha!

I just love this theory. Normally every week I carve out a few hours for my 517 reading and I dutifully peruse, skim, highlight, pencil my thoughts in the margins the articles that we are to read for the week. Not so with this theory - I (for lack of a better expression) inhaled the articles this week. Couldn't get enough of it. I'm thinking about being Lave or Collins when I grow up.

Even the name - cognitive apprenticeship - it just sounds sexy! And it makes so much SENSE. In the Collins piece they open their conclusion with "Apprenticeship is the way we learn most naturally." Thank you, God, for someone else putting this into print. But they don't totally discount other traditional, information transmission models - because (drum roll....) There is no one right way to do anything. Whew. Just had to get that out there.

Another interesting reflection is the cognitive dissonance that I'm experiencing as I try to "fit" the SL/CA model in my brain (thank you, Piaget). I consider myself to be a pretty good teacher/educator. And I'm one hell of a storyteller when it comes to direct, information transmission instruction. But I also feel like there are pieces of the SL/CA process that I used... for lack of a better way of putting it... naturally - meaning I was never "formally" trained to use these processes. I'm thinking in particular about the Model, Coach, Fade trilogy. But then something interesting happened as I was trying to figure out whether I was living the theory all this time or I was trying to make my own teaching fit the theory... I realized that how I learned the Model, Coach, Fade process was by observing it in other master teachers. Throw in the reflection and the post-game analysis as well - I never realized the value in the conversations I used to have after class with my teachers/professors where I became privy to their background and rationale for doing what they did in the classroom. I was a wee little apprentice!

Another component/observation that I found fascinating was that in each of the articles (realizing that I'm not going to realistically be able to talk about each one of them here) there is not that air/feeling that grades and "high achievement" (whatever that means) are lurking in the shadows. (The, "Oh yes, this is a nice theory alright... but what about the grades? What about the test scores?") I also appreciated the depth of the Collins article in particular for its providing detailed examples of the theory in action, thoughts on intrinsic emotion, as well as a framework for future study.

I do have some questions about the De Bruijn article's methodology - but I think some of there statements are fascinating. (Adult learners that are lower educated have a harder time self-directing their learning for instance.) Mainly - they were concerned that students (the adults) didn't take the "coaching" help by clicking the help button to get assistance. I wonder if assuming/imposing the structure of computer help button = coaching might be the problem... not that the students didn't want or wouldn't accept coaching. Also, they make a huge, broad, sweeping claim about lower-educated adult learners being generally passive. Um, if you sat me down with that program I'd probably be pretty "passive" as well. How much of this passiveness that they saw in their participants was culture driven/bound? How much was due to (maybe) a poorly chosen task? (I don't feel particularly motivated by being able to make change, for example.) I have more, but getting away from the point here.

Integrating this into a computer-mediated environment. Hrm. The two examples we read about (the money problem, the business course project) sounded like the software that was produced was costly and time-consuming. So I've been stuck trying to think of ways to get around having to "build" or create a whole other learning environment. Maybe SecondLife could be used as one of the tools to help students? YouTube could surely be used to store videos of relative material. I think it would largely depend on the nature of the skill set and the domain that we're talking about (duh, context) as we're considering possibly technologies to support the instruction. For online instruction, there would need to be a sort of hub... the availability for the student to "observe" (maybe via YouTube or a video-chatting software) the teacher/model... some form of two-way communication like chatting or conferencing to encourage the coaching... and then fading would come naturally... reflection and acquirement strategies could be used via a blog or Twitter account.

I've written too much - but this is pretty much a love note, so I'm okay with it. I'll have to continue to reflect on ways to use technology for SL/AC... but I think that might be a career-long problem. :) Wonder if I'll be as in love next week with Goal Based Scenarios...

Have a great weekend, all!