It’s getting late in the week, but at least this didn’t get moved to next week. Here are my thoughts on Clark’s blog on Gagne.
Before I get started with quotes and reflections, I have to say that this was one of the theorists that I studied during my master’s. This theory never resonated with me because while prerequisite knowledge can be important, I have seen many cases in which prerequisite knowledge can be a barrier to critical thinking and problem solving. I feel like the theory blows up based upon this factor.
Quote: “
Gagne’s theory has five categories of learning:
1. Intellectual Skills: Demonstrated by classifying things and problem solving
2. Cognitive strategies: Demonstrated by their use and appropriate application
3. Verbal information: Demonstrated by stating the information accurately
4. Motor skills: Demonstrated by physical performance
5. Attitudes: Demonstrated by preferring options”
Reflection: Reading this list I can’t say that I have any criticisms or see gaping holes.
Quote: “This instructional process was to be the recipe for good instructional design. You were expected to move through them, step by step.
1. Gaining attention: Get the learner into an expectant state
2. Stating the objective: Get the learner to understand what they will be able to do as a result of the instruction
3. Stimulating recall of prior learning: Get the learner to appreciate that they posses existing relevant knowledge
4. Presenting the stimulus: Expose the learner to the content
5. Providing learning guidance: Get the learner to understand the content
6. Eliciting performance: Get the learner to demonstrate what they have learned
7. Providing feedback: Inform the learner about their performance
8. Assessing performance: Reinforce the learning
9. Enhancing retention and transfer to other contexts: Get the learner to indulge in varied practice and to generalise the new capability“
Reflection: I have used this process, but it is a rather dry and dull methodology. Not sure why it has to be so structured and nine steps seems like such a large and cumbersome approach. I would need to have the steps pinned to the wall just to be reminded.
Quote: “‘Gaining attention’ is often reduced to clich�d ice breakers or overlong animation in e-learning and rarely a truly engaging interactive event.”
Reflection: These are Clark’s words, not mine. Definitely something to consider when designing these activities. More than the approach, we need to consider the purpose of the approach.
Quote: “‘In ‘Stating the objective’ the learner is often presented with a dull list of objectives (At the end of this course you will…). This works against the attention and arousal, necessary for learning. There is a strong argument for emotional engagement at the start of a learning experience and not a dull list of objectives. “
Reflection: I see this approach all over the content that we have in our program. There are definitely other ways to accomplish objective statements without the blandness that is present. But this takes time, energy, and effort. Most of these are needed to accomplish the whole scope of our jobs. Templates would be nice here.
Quote: “‘Stimulating recall of prior learning is fine but not if the content is truly new to the learner who has no real past experience to draw on and ‘Presenting the stimulus’ betrays behaviourist tendencies. “
Reflection: Completely agree with Clark here. There is too much behaviorism present in this theory. It’s great if you have limited time and resources and have low-level skills to train for. But for real learning, this cannot be the approach we use.
Quote: “‘Providing learning guidance’, ‘Eliciting performance’, ‘Providing feedback’ and ‘Assessing performance’ are all sound strategies, as is ‘Enhancing retention and transfer to other contexts’. In practice, much of this is reduced to exposition.“
Reflection: This is a checklist that many go through that accomplishes basic work. It represents the least common denominator or Instructional Design.
Quote: “Learning and instructional designers often use Gagne’s nine steps and there is much to commend if it is seen as a checklist. However, it can be argued that his instructional ladder leads to predictable and over-structured learning experiences, a straightjacket that strips away any sense of build and wonder. It is also inappropriate for all learning strategies, as he claimed. Scenario-based learning, many types of simulation, games pedagogies and sophisticated adaptive learning are just a few techniques that do not fit readily into this step-by-step recipe.“
Reflection: That paints a picture that is hard to shed. I think that we can template different approaches which will work much better than the Gagne approach. We can always use these types of strategies for basic concepts, but for those that involve any type of critical thinking, problems solving, or lateral thinking, we need to go elsewhere.
Quote: “Gagne has influenced much of what has appeared as self-paced e-learning over the last 30 years. This has served designers well for simple self-paced e-learning, but the step-by-step approach is now seen as inappropriate for alternative informal learning, especially informal learning and more advanced pedagogies. Some see this approach as producing formulaic, often uninspiring and over-long courses.“
Reflection: This pretty much sums it up.
