Instructional Technology Software

Instructional Software

Instructional Software is software that is intended as a stand-alone product that can be used by teachers or students for the purposes of engaging in a specific type of learning activity.  There is a fairly significant difference between instructional software and tools which can be used to enhance instruction.  Tools are things that are not necessarily intended for the classroom and that do not generally have instructional value outside of being integrated specifically for instructional purpose.  For example, a word processing program is a very useful tool for English teachers.  The program itself does little to instruct users on how to write or compose.

There are five types of instructional software:

1. Drill and practice
2. Tutorials
3. Simulations
4. Instructional Games
5. Problem-Solving Software

Each of these has their place in an effective instructional setting and each offers a relative advantage in physics instruction.

Click on each to see a more in-depth description and examples:

Type of Software	Relative Advantage
Drill and practice	Eventually students need to be able to solve problems.  This is a quick and easy way of engaging students in demonstrating learning.  Some programs also give feedback to students and teachers to facilitate formative evaluation and inform progress.
Tutorials	Students can move at their own pace and can go back to interact with lessons multiple times. Some tutorials include drill and practice and can direct students to additional instructional resources
Simulations	Supports student inquiry.  Cleaner, safer, quicker than standard lab activities.  Allows students to see and interact with processes that are too small, too large, too dangerous, or that occur too quickly or too slowly to observe in the classroom.
Instructional Games	Fun and engaging for many students.  Interactive.  Students tend to persist longer in these activities.
Problem-Solving	Helps to strengthen skills for learning.  Students can become better equipped to solve problems and engage in learning.

Drill and Practice: The Siren’s Song….

Discussion:  Drill and practice is what most people recognize as education, which is probably why we rely on it so heavily.  Without a doubt, if a person were to engage in repeated drill and practice exercise they would significantly raise their score on a standardized test.  Since that is often the goal of educational systems, teachers rely on drill and practice methods.  The question is whether drill and practice results in lasting learning or any real change in the cognitive development of the student.

Teacher perspective:  The allure is strong.  It is well understood by students, parents, and administrators as a goal orientated method of instruction.  It is easy; generally simple answer or multiple choice response.  Software that can make this type of instruction even easier is likely to be used.

Student perspective:  Easy.  I know what is expected of me.  I go through the exercise, I get the answer and if I do it enough times I know what the questions will be like and I will pass the test.

Reality: Very little learning actually takes place.  A little drill and practice might be ok, just to make the students more comfortable when they get to a standardized test.  Examples for Physics:

Problem Attic: http://www.problem-attic.com/ This is an excellent resource for teachers interested in creating drill and practice exercises.  The site contains an archive of different state and other standardized test question banks.  The questions are arranged by subject and category.  Teachers can choose from multiple choice and short answer questions to build question banks.  The “tests” can be given on paper or online.  The online option can be set to allow students to repeat attempts and will give teachers annotated results and graphs about student and global (whole class) performance.

Minds on Physics:  http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mop A multifaceted resource.  One portion of this site serves as a drill and practice question bank.  Teachers can assign in class or for homework problem sets.  Students work through them and get a score at the end that they can have reported to their teacher.  This also can allow for repeated attempts and will link students to tutorials if they are having difficulty being successful.

Tutorials:  Teacher on tube….

Discussion:  Tutorials are self-paced learning units.  Students guide themselves through complete instructional units that may also include some drill and practice.  Similar to drill and practice, most would recognize this as traditional classroom education.  The instructional units involve some reading although some programs will read the text aloud. They also may include videos, examples and solved problems, and problem sets.  There are two type of tutorials: Linear and branching.

Linear behave very similar to a traditional classroom experience.  In a linear tutorial students will traverse through an entire tutorial at their own pace and solve all of the provided problems.  Each student completes the same tutorial and when they reach the end, they would move on to the next instructional unit.

A branching tutorial is more like a differentiated classroom where students are guided through the unit based on their performance on question sets.  Each student gets a slightly different learning experience based on their perceived needs.  It takes students varying amounts of time to complete the unit.

Teacher Perspective:  Again, tutorials are a safe bet because they mirror traditional education. Often the online course offerings of some high schools are simply a sequence of tutorials with drill and practice.  Tutorials can also be assigned for students to complete as homework or suggested for remediation.

Student Perspective:  Tutorials offer a varying degree of engagement for the student.  As a student, I like tutorials because they are self-paced and I can skip through sections I find easy and spend extra time on things I find challenging.  They are easy for a student, because the course becomes a series of checkboxes of tutorial completion.

Reality: Positive and negative.  Tutorials are a good way to learn new things or reinforce current knowledge.  Some tutorials are better than others.  Just as with other traditional methods, they may or may not result in cognitive development and are often dependent on what a student chooses to gain from it.

Examples for Physics

The Physics Classroom: http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class  this section of the physics classroom site is dedicated to tutorials.  This includes animations, links to other resources in thephysicsclassroom, solved problems, and practice.

Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/ap_physics_b this site is a series of individual lessons about advanced placement physics.  Excellent tutorials with problems, problem solutions, video and verbal discussion of physics concepts.

Simulations:  Virtual Lab, clean, safe, distant

Discussion: Simulation software is a product that provides students and instructors with a digital representation of a system.  There are different levels of interactivity of simulations.  In general the user is presented with a system and set of variables that can  be adjusted.  Changing the variables changes the behavior of the system.  There are different types of simulations that represent different types of instructional needs and different types of systems.  A simulation can teach about a system or it can teach how to be a part of a system.  So instructional lab simulations teach about a system and how-to videos teach how to be a part of a system.

Teacher perspective:  Simulations are valuable tools and are especially useful for instruction in the science classroom.  A simulation can make a lab easier, safer, more manageable, take less time, and more engaging.  Some systems cannot be observed without a simulation software.  Geologic processes for instance take far too much time for humans to observe, the movement of charges in a wire is too small to observe, and placing Francium metal in water is far too dangerous.  Simulations can be used as stand-alone products for students to engage with or can be used in the course of instruction.

Student perspective:  This is a mixed-bag.  Some simulations are very engaging and make the system very easy to understand some are not.  They all support visual learners who like to be able to see what the system is doing and how it is behaving.  It can help to expose the simple interactions within a complex topic.

Reality: Simulations are valuable tools.  As a tool, what comes out of it depends on how the tool is being used. Simulations can lend themselves to inquiry.  Often simulations end up being used as nothing more than a cookbook lab where the students follow a set list of procedures and come out with a predictable answer.  Also, a simulation can possibly be misconstrued as a game by students.

Inquiry supported: All levels.  Level 3 and level 4 inquiry may be more difficult to engage in and may only work for more self-motivated and independent students

Examples for Physics:

Phet:  https://phet.colorado.edu/  This site is a treasure trove of simulations.  It is an interactive site for teachers and students.  Educators contribute activities with lesson plans to be used with simulations or teachers can develop their own.  Very supportive of digital inquiry activities.

The Physics Classroom:  http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Physics-Interactives  The physics classroom is a valuable resoource on several levels and has instructional software that spans several of the types.  This link is specifically for the simulation section.

Instructional Games: play, learn?, play…..

Discussion:  Instructional games are usually drill and practice or simulations that have been embedded into a game platform.  Students “play” the game by engaging in the learning activity and then they get a “score” dependent on their performance in the game.  Sometimes simulation software is used by the general population as a game.  The “Sim” series for example is intended to simulate cities, zoos, amusement parks, etc… and is engaging enough to be considered a game.  

Teacher perspective:  This is an easy way to get students engaged with learning.  If the game is fun enough, students will persist and continue to work until they are successful.  Games can also help with classroom management and can be used as a reward for students who finish other work or progress independently.  A teacher can also use games to get students to engage with each other.

Student perspective:  Yay! Games!  

Reality:  Everybody likes to play games.  The instructional outcome is sometimes debatable.  The game may or may not be based in reality and may actually lead to misconceptions.  Also, some students like video games more than others.  One student might play 1 or 2 iterations of the game and then either give up or feel as though they had been successful enough.  A different student might play the game many times trying to find a way to win or get the highest score possible.  In each of these cases, the student is probably not getting the intended instructional outcome.

Examples for Physics:

http://physics.ucsc.edu/~snof/Game/index.html

http://www.theuniverseandmore.com/

http://www.iop.org/education/teacher/resources/sim/page_41572.html

Problem Solving Software: learn to learn...

Description:  Problem-solving software claims to teach students specific or general problem-solving skills. The software may be content specific or content-free.  The general idea is that “Problem Solving” is a set of behaviors or skills that can be learned.  This type of instructional software focuses on helping students to exercise each of these identified behaviors either in isolation of or conjunction with others.  For example, sequencing may be considered a problem solving skill.  A software product could focus on leading a student through different types of sequencing activities.  The idea is that the student will improve their ability to sequence events.

Teacher perspective:  Problem-solving software can be used to teach skills.  Students can engage with this software independently or with groups.  This type of software is generally not a stand-alone product.  Teachers would make a decision about when to use it and in what context based on the specific skill they were trying to reinforce.

Student perspective: These types of software are often similar to games.  They generally have to be more engaging than a game in order to get students to persist.

Reality: It is not clear that learning a skill in isolation will transfer.  An analogy might be deciding that part of knowing how to build a shed would be understanding how to use a hammer and part of knowing how to use a hammer is knowing how to swing the hammer.  So then you could spend an hour or so learning to swing a hammer.  It is unlikely that this will improve your ability to build a shed.  Though… it worked for the Karate Kid.

Examples for physics:  Physics is a systems-thinking process.  Understanding how systems work and determining how to mathematically represent systems are very important pieces of understanding physics.

Stella:  Systems- thinking software.  Instructional units and interactive, open-ended activities and the ability to create new systems using learned concepts and understandings.

From the Steall website. http://www.iseesystems.com/softwares/Education/StellaSoftware.aspx

Use STELLA to:

• Simulate a system over time
• Jump the gap between theory and the real world
• Enable students to creatively change systems
• Teach students to look for relationships – see the Big Picture
• Clearly communicate system inputs and outputs and demonstrate outcomes

Vensim:  Technically a simulation software and listed as such on the website.  The simulations are set up as systems-thinking problems and reinforce systems-thinking. The description from the Vensim website reinforces its value as a “problem-solving” software application.

“Vensim's rich feature set emphasizes model quality, connections to data, flexible distribution, and advanced algorithms.”  http://vensim.com/