Conference Papers

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The idea of instructional technology is gaining increasing acceptance over time. As is often the case with new technology, however, our ability to use new media has developed faster than our understanding of it. Many well-intentioned computer-based or computer-aided instructional programs have been developed either atheoretically or with unexamined assumptions about the nature of learning. Also, instructional computing is still seen as subordinate or ancillary to classroom instruction, or is constructed in such a way as to mirror traditional, linear modes of classroom instruction.

The findings from recent studies on cognition, or how students learn, offer guidance for the design of instructional computing programs based on sound theory. One such theory, Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT), explains how learning best occurs in an ill-structured knowledge domain such as public administration. An instructional computing program based on CFT has been developed for a course in public administration. Using a hyper-text framework that incorporates multiple media (text, sound and video), the program allows students to explore the knowledge domain of public administration using a variety of study and learning strategies.

The intent is that students will construct their own flexible cognitive map of the discipline and develop active knowledge. Active knowledge is knowledge that is accessible through many different paths; is linked by multiple connections; and can be assembled into custom approaches to address a multitude of different public sector problems.

The development of non-linear tools for learning (i.e., hyper-media), however, has not been paralleled by a similar development of non-linear teaching styles. The usual direction of influence has been assumed to be from the teaching style to the software, but in this case the influence has been from the software to the classroom. I am finding that I am adapting my classroom instruction style to attempt to match the hyper-link capabilities of the software, and to accommodate student desires for both linear and non-linear learning. The use of new media technology can comprise the start to a new approach to the theory and methodology of teaching.

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Teaching Politics is published by William J. Ball (ball@tcnj.edu)