Compare to PSI and AT approach, Guided Design Process includes more interactions and practices higher thinking level skills. For me, this approach is like a hands-on activity because students are learning by solving some real life problems. This concept is the same as what I think a foreign language teacher should teach her/his students. If students can apply what they have learned in class to their lives, students can retain the knowledge longer. When they face the similar situation, they will know how to respond to it. With the teachers’ guidance and the step-by-step process, I believe that students’ fear of learning new things will be eased and gain more confidence by completing the task.
When reading the articles, I came up with an idea using guided design process in foreign language instruction: Give students a scenario (maybe in a supermarket looking for specific product or traveling in China) and then ask them to discuss what kinds of conversation may happen. Which means students have to think about the possible Q&A as thoroughly as they can to deal with any situation. And ask them to actually go outside to see if their conversation works or come to the classroom for role-play. I love the part that students prepare first as a small group, compare their answers to other groups, and finally listen to what experts may do. I think after this whole process, they will learn more than the class that receives the traditional lecture. I am very excited about this idea and really want to try it out. In addition, I think this process could be easily applied to the online environment. It just needs more detailed description to give students appropriate guidance as well as timely assistance by the instructor. But as what I have indicated in previous reflections, I still believe that language teaching gets best outcome with face-to-face instruction.
I was shocked when I first see that foreign language was pointed out as one area where this approach is not effective. But after consideration, I think that might because of the inappropriate design of the activity or might because that the goal and process of language learning is rather obvious, the step-by-step process might be trivial to students and eventually lose their motivation. But these are just my guesses; I would like to read the detail of those two foreign language studies to find out what happened.
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From Jennifer Knott: Miya, I appreciate what you said about how students retain what they learn through Guided Design in school in order to use the rest of their lives. That, in taking things step-by-step they can better absorb the material, with a minimum of teacher involvement. This increases self-efficacy for the student, which helps them to quickly and permanently assimilate the learned material.
ReplyDeleteMiya - I think it's great that you're finding ways to apply this method to foreign language even though it wasn't included as an effective method. I think we can usually mold and combine different aspects of these learning models to create beneficial and meaningful e-learning - don't get discouraged - it sounds like you found a way to make it work!
ReplyDeleteMorgan
Hi Miya,
ReplyDeleteGreat point about students gaining confidence and not being afraid to learn new things. Once they see how they can practically use the steps provided by the instructor to accomplish a task, they will be more likely to try it again and even apply what they have learned to new situations. We must adapt to survive and the guided design model is a great tool reinforcing this fact.
Also, great idea for implementing this model for teaching foreign languages!
Mary Ellen
Jill Sipe
ReplyDeleteMiya, I agree that one of the greatest aspects of using Guided Instruction is that the student gains confidence along the way as he expands his world of influence. A student who is first successful in a small and safe environment will not hesitate (as much) when the boundaries expand and the audience broadens. What a gift to give a student!
Hi Miya,
ReplyDeleteAs you have mentioned, I too beleive that when student apply their knowledge to the real world problems, they really understand it well and they retain the knowledge well.
I liked your idea of using the guided design approach for study of forign language. You may need to change few things to accomaodate this approach with forign language.
Hi Miya, are your foreign language students adults or younger students? If younger, do you see any drawbacks to utilizing this approach with younger students?
ReplyDeleteI was wondering what you were going to say about the note from the Trivette article about foreign language learning and the GD method/theory. I think it could also be a matter of differing opinion with instructional models and educational goals versus the "official" GD theory.
ReplyDeleteTo thelifeandtimesofcandy,
ReplyDeleteI'm not teaching right now, and I used to teach adults. But it's a good question, actually I thought it might be a good way to teach younger student. Since it's guided step by step, younger students should feel comfortable with it. On the contrary, I think that adults may get annoyed by some of the detailed steps because it's so trivial. So I was thinking that I may need to consider the different steps for different age groups. Hope I answered your question. :)