Designing a learning curriculum and technology's role in it

Abstract This paper presents a case study of the design and implementation of a master’s level research course.Factors that de?ned the curriculum design problem included the subject matter,a view of learning as a change in identity,and the role of technology in curriculum design.Both the design process and results of research on the implementation of the course are described.The paper concludes with a retrospective discussion of lessons learned,including parallels of (a)user-centered technology design with our ?nal approach to curriculum design and (b)socially constructed views of technology with so-cially constructed views of learning.

Keywords Social constructivism ?Research education ?Technological determinism ?Mobile technology

This paper presents a case study of the design and implementation of an introductory research course developed for a new educational technology master’s program.Three factors de?ned the design problem from our per-spective.These factors were:(1)the role of research in the educational technology professional’s life,(2)a constructivist orientation toward learning,and (3)the role of technology in the curriculum.

This paper is organized in four sections.First,we explain these features more fully in order to characterize the design problem.With this as the context,we then describe the ?nal curriculum design and our experience developing it.Third,we describe the implementation of the course and S.Gerber (&)?L.Scott

The Informatics Program,University at Buffalo,354Baldy Hall,Buffalo,NY 14260-1000,USA

e-mail:gerber@https://www.wendangku.net/doc/415726769.html,

L.Scott

e-mail:slogan@https://www.wendangku.net/doc/415726769.html,

Education Tech Research Dev (2007)55:461–478

DOI 10.1007/s11423-006-9005-6

D E V E L O P M E N T A R T I C L E

Designing a learning curriculum and technology’s

role in it

Sue Gerber ?Logan Scott

Published online:16September 2006óAssociation for Educational Communications and Technology 2006

462S.Gerber,L.Scott research conducted with the?rst cohort of students.We conclude with a brief discussion of what we have learned in this process,hoping to contribute to the dialogue about pedagogy,technology,and curriculum.

De?ning the design problem

Research

The target audience for this educational technology program was individuals interested in careers as instructional designers,educational software devel-opers,instructional support persons,and the like.Typically,these careers are considered applied or practitioner oriented.As such,the majority of our graduates would not be conducting formal research studies on a daily basis(if ever).Despite this,an understanding of the research process can be a great asset to the educational technology professional.For example,educational technologists should keep abreast of current research as well as current theory and practice in the?eld.Thus,being able to read critically published research is an important skill.

On a more fundamental level,research and educational technology design/ development share a great deal in core skills and orientation(Lo¨wgren& Stolterman,2004;Reeves,2000;Scho¨n,1983;Winn,2002).Evaluation has always played an important role in technology design and development.The current trends in design,such as user-centered design,contextual design,and iterative design,integrate evaluation into the design cycle(Beyer&Hol-tzblatt,1997).The aim of these approaches is to ground the design in the work of the user.As a consequence,the user is now the expert of her own work,and the designer has to investigate and understand this work context.This requires the designer to develop a profound understanding of evaluation.Data gath-ering alone is not suf?cient.Rather,‘‘results are analyzed as a whole in order to establish a focus,interpret the information,structure the interpretations, and gradually approach a vision of the new system to be developed’’(Lo¨wgren &Stolterman,p.67).This contrasts sharply with earlier notions where eval-uation consisted of simple data collection as a?nal quality assurance step after the design was complete.

For these reasons,we wanted to encourage our students to develop the stance of a researcher in their design and development work.However,there are challenges associated with teaching research to graduate students.For one,we were concerned about whether the students would see the relevance of the course and thus engage with it.Our own anecdotal experience with graduate students suggested that individuals at the master’s level interested in applied occupations are often resistant to learning research.Our experiences are supported by scholars examining professions such as teaching and social work(e.g.,Green,Bretzin,Leininger,&Stauffer,2001;Metz&Page,2002).

In addition,it has been asserted that the current state of research-education for education students may do more to reinforce than to dispel the perception

A learning curriculum and technology’s role463 of irrelevance(Cizek,1996;Constas,1998;Howe,1985;Jackson,1990;Metz, 2001;Pallas,2001;Paul&Marfo,2001;Schoenfeld,1999;Young,2001).Re-search is often taught as if it were method.Courses tend to be organized around speci?c techniques and taught by methodologists as opposed to faculty in the student’s?eld of study.This decontextualized approach can eclipse the more fundamental elements of research,making it challenging for students to engage with the world of research from a researcher’s perspective.When research is approached only(or even primarily)as methodology,students are not given the tools to approach their work from a foundation of scholarly inquiry.

To address these shortcomings,scholars have called for research-education that fosters in students‘‘a sense of the big picture and how things?t together’’(Schoenfeld,1999,p.170).Research-education must explicitly address issues such as epistemology,achieving rigor through justi?cation of?ndings and interpretations,engaging in and seeking peer review,and developing research questions.These are all issues that are particularly germane to educational technology design and development.The majority of this dialogue has focused on doctoral students.However,for master-level students,the global under-standing of the research process is often more important than knowing how to conduct,for example,a multiple regression analysis.Thus,the argument is also applicable to master’s programs.

Learning

To address these instructional goals in research-education,Pallas(2001) proposes focusing on the essence of the?eld in the context of communities of practice(Wenger,1998).Underlying these recommendations is an under-standing of learning as social construction–as a process of enculturation and developing one’s identity.

From this perspective,the role of the educational research curriculum is to provide opportunities for the students to begin to see,think,and talk about the world as educational researchers do(Brown,Collins,&Duguid,1989; Bruner,1996;Dewey,1910;Lave&Wenger,1991;Salomon,2002;Wenger, 1998).Key factors in this process of identity development are the personal histories and perspectives of the learners.However,when it comes to instructional design,student perspectives,rather than being viewed as essential elements in the learning process,are often considered individual differences that must be addressed in order to reach a pre-set target.

This discrepancy has been noted to cause a dilemma for curriculum https://www.wendangku.net/doc/415726769.html,ve and Wenger(1991)characterize it as a tension between a teaching curriculum and a learning curriculum.The focus of a teaching cur-riculum is on the end goal,on the skills and knowledge the curriculum developer or instructor de?nes as targets for students to attain.Conversely, the focus of a learning curriculum is on where students are in their under-standing.However,the curriculum designer may?nd herself asking how one can focus on the learner’s perspective when,from the theoretical orientation

464S.Gerber,L.Scott of learning as interdependent with context and experience,it is not possible to know learners’perspectives in advance of course development.

Educators have noted that this tension between types of curricula has led many curriculum designers and instructors to focus on what are described as proxies,or mediating theories,of constructivism(Petraglia,1998a,1998b; Salomon,2002).A key issue here is that the principles of the philosophy of constructivism cannot be easily operationalized and translated into practice, whereas the proxies/mediators of constructivism can.Focusing on proxies, therefore,shifts the marker for success from fundamental principles to con-crete,but usually more super?cial,indicators.

For instance,collaborative learning is a mediating theory of social con-structivism because interaction is an aspect of the construction of knowledge. Collaborative learning is often equated with group work.Thus,the curriculum designer may deem it a success to have developed a course that includes extended group-work.However,‘‘the assumption that making students work with others replicates the natural processes of social construction demonstrates a thin appreciation for how meaning is negotiated’’(Petraglia,1998b,p.101). Technology

In recent years,constructivism and the tension between a teaching and a learning curriculum has become a focus of substantial dialogue in the edu-cational technology?eld(see,for example,Achtenhagen,2003;Jonassen, Campbell,&Davidson,1994;Kozma,2000;Merrill,2002;Molenda,1997; Reigeluth&Joseph,2002;Richey,2000;Salomon&Almog,1998;Shrock, 1994;Winn,2003).

However,scholars have noted that technology-enhanced curricula may be particularly susceptible to focusing on the proxies rather than the principles of constructivism(Petraglia,1998a,1998b;Salomon,2002).This may be due,in part,to history.As a?eld,educational technology has had a systems frame-work in which principles of design can,by de?nition,be applied to other design tasks.This orientation is more consistent with a teaching than a learning curriculum.In addition,unlike industry,education has held more ?rmly to a perception of technologies as having their own inherent develop-mental trajectories(Bijker&Law,1992;Kling,Crawford,Rosenbaum, Sawyer,&Weisband,2000;Lee,1996;Pannabecker,1991).A deterministic view of technology can lead one to put the technology?rst and to develop curriculum around it.In turn,by making super?cial connections between features of the speci?c technology and principles of learning,the curriculum designer can view successful technology implementation as a proxy for learning.As an example,hypertext is often equated with interactivity and active learning because it requires mores involvement and investment of effort among students than does,for instance,listening to a lecture.In turn,active learning is associated with construction of knowledge,and interactivity is associated with social learning.Through this series of associations,the web,in and of itself,comes to be viewed as a tool of social constructivism.

A learning curriculum and technology’s role465

These three factors—the role of research in the educational technology professional’s life,learning as a process of identity development,and the role of technology in a curriculum occupied most of our consideration during the process of designing this course.In the following section,we explain in more detail our design process and how technology was involved.

Designing the course

As described in the previous section,we had developed the broad framework of the design problem as one of identity.We then began to envision how the course might look.We turned again to Wenger(1998)and found assistance in the idea that learning involves both a process and a place.We began to think of the classroom environment as a place‘‘not only to support the process of acquiring knowledge,’’but also as a place‘‘where new ways of knowing can be realized in the form of[an identity of participation]’’(p.215).Awareness that the behavior of apprentices and that of‘‘Just Plain Folks’’(JPFs)are quali-tatively similar in that people are constantly adopting the behavior and belief systems of their peers(Brown et al.,1989)helped to guide our planning.That is,the classroom would be a place to which the students would bring their everyday,JPF,notions of and experiences with research.Working with these experiences would show the students‘‘the legitimacy of their implicit knowledge and its availability as scaffolding in apparently unfamiliar tasks’’(Brown,Collins,&Duguid,p.38).

The design task now involved questions such as:

?How could we structure the course so that the students are able to bring their JPF ideas of research to it?

?How could we work with these JPF notions of research to scaffold students to more formal understanding?

?Given that the nature of the students’ideas and histories could not be anticipated,how could we plan for that scaffolding?

?What could be the role of technology,if any?

In the next section of this paper,we?rst summarize the curriculum that resulted from working through these questions,and then describe our deci-sion-making processes during the planning.

The?nal curriculum design

The?nal curriculum included two main components;the?rst focused on everyday,JPF inquiry and the second on published research representing the results of academic,expert inquiry.In order to carry out their everyday inquiries,we gave the students cell phones and sent each person a text mes-sage at one random point between weekly meetings directing them to

466S.Gerber,L.Scott evaluate/research some aspect of a situation they were experiencing or wit-nessing at the moment.The students reported their evaluations as a voicemail. We transcribed the voicemails to a webpage,and color-coded any examples of research constructs contained in the text.In effect,we created a weblog(blog) with the transcribed students’reports as the content.We used this blog as the basis of discussion in the?rst portion of each subsequent class meeting.

The second portion of each meeting was devoted to reading research articles on educational technology.These articles served as?nished products of research;we hoped they would allow the students a window on what Gee(1991) describes as the‘‘identity kit’’of researchers,in that the writers of the reports ‘‘instantiate,give body to,a discourse every time they act or speak’’(p.5).

Our rationale for using the phones as the way for students to bring their implicit knowledge to the classroom was to facilitate natural and spontaneous reports.There were several factors supporting this rationale,foremost among them was using the phones in a manner consistent with everyday(non-academic)use.Other factors included:prompting the students at an unan-nounced point during the week;having them reply verbally rather than in a written format;asking the students to report their evaluation as it occurred rather than retrospectively.We hoped all these factors would encourage the students to construct reports in their JPF personas,and not try to anticipate what a good situation would be,or to phrase their response in a way that they perceived to be‘‘correct.’’

Our rationale for using the blog with color-coding was to facilitate dis-cussion that could scaffold the students from habits of‘‘ordinary affairs and conveniences’’to research habits of‘‘precise notions’’(Dewey,1910,p.179). The blog was published on the web shortly before the start of class each week. We wanted the students to see each other’s reports all at the same time in an effort to encourage individuality rather than groupthink(Esser,1998).We displayed the reports altogether and began discussion with students explain-ing and answering questions about their own reports.Our rationale was that they would be starting from something with which they had compe-tence—their interpretations of their everyday worlds.In this way,their per-spectives could be legitimized.Further,we wanted the students to see pieces of their texts color-coded as exemplars of the very same research concepts with which practicing researchers engage.We hoped that this might assist the students in seeing the possibility of attaining similar legitimacy in the world of research.

We structured the discussion of published research pieces so that it might feed into the discussion of everyday evaluation.For instance,we addressed the research concepts that were color-coded in the students’reports in the published articles,and vice versa.In addition,the everyday evaluation assignments became progressively more complex,leading to a mini-research study.In this mini-research assignment,the students used the previous week’s reports as raw data and were asked to analyze patterns,similarities and dif-ferences in the reports.This gave the students the opportunity to carry out analyses on something that they helped to develop(i.e.,the texts of their own

A learning curriculum and technology’s role467 reports).The reports of their analyses served as the catalyst for the following week’s discussion.

Choosing technology

During the development of the course,our choices about whether and how to incorporate technology centered on how the technology was used in the real world.That is,our goal was to encourage sharing of JPF notions of research by asking the students to use technology as JPF would.We wanted to minimize the extent to which technology might constrain or mediate their natural perceptions and activity.

We asked the students to report on their everyday evaluations using cell phones because both our own informal analysis and the research literature suggested that,when using cell phones in their daily lives,people consistently describe where they are and what they are doing,and comment on the events going on around them(Laurier,2001).Our use of the web only to display the student’s reports,using it purely as reading medium,has parallels with the everyday practice of blogging.Nardi,Schiano,and Gumbrecht(2004)describe blogs as online diaries or journals,‘‘often of the most confessional sort’’(p. 222).In a recent study,investigators found that70%of blogs were classi?ed as online diaries(Herring,Scheidt,Bonus,&Wright,2003).In the sense of being a one-way medium,blogs are as much about reading as about writing.

Our choices regarding the use of technology seem obvious to us now.In fact,our design is similar to the notion of mobile-blogging recently introduced by Google TM(Goad,2005).However,it is only with hindsight in the retelling of the design process that it seems fairly straightforward.In reality,the design path was neither simple nor direct.We considered and rejected several approaches during the process,often based on the manner in which the technology was to be employed.To illustrate the complexity of this decision process,we brie?y present our analysis of whether to use web-based bulletin boards for reporting and discussing the students’reports.

Bulletin boards appealed to us initially because substantial literature asserts that asynchronous bulletin board communication can be employed to facili-tate co-construction of knowledge,and the development of intersubjectivity and communities of practice(Bober&Dennen,2001;Bonk&Kling,1998; Lock,2002;Naidu,1997;Riel&Fulton,2001).Bulletin boards are also said to promote student-centered instruction,in which students’perspectives serve as the driving force of the discussion,with the instructor playing a mentoring/ scaffolding role.They are also said to assist with the quality of discussion because students have time to re?ect on and review their colleagues’contri-butions before posting way.

On the surface,this characterization seemed consistent with many aspects of our ideas for the course.However,through analysis of how the students and instructor would participate on these bulletin boards in our class,it became clear that employing them for discussion was not aligned with our course goals.Our goal was not simply for students to share their perspectives.Rather,

468S.Gerber,L.Scott it was to use their everyday perspectives on research as a bridge to an understanding of academic research.The instructor plays a crucial facilitative role in this enculturation process.When we examined the literature with a focus on the instructor’s participation,the research is more contradictory. Research suggests that discussion board communication may be fundamen-tally different from face-to-face,and that as a consequence,facilitation and enculturation must be conceptualized in a different way(Hewitt,2003;Jon-assen&Marra,2001;Kanuka&Anderson,1998;Khine,Yeap,&Lok,2003; Pincas,1998;Thomas,2002).This is due,in part,to the way people read and post on bulletin boards.Individuals tend to read from the bottom up,checking most recent threads?rst.The chances are small that any one student reads enough of a thread to identify and follow idea development,which is akin to walking in on the middle of an ongoing conversation.In doing so,it is easy to interpret a relatively minor aspect of the speaker’s statement as the main topic of discussion.The same is true in asynchronous web discussion.When all students in a class engage in this behavior,the effect can be compounded.The result of this situation can be a bulletin board?lled with abrupt shifts in topic or abandonment of threads.

Educators have attempted to address this by adding structure or constraints to interactions,such as assigning students roles,using problem-based learning, and grading individual contributions(Cho&Jonassen,2002;Hara,Bonk,& Angeli,2000;Hung&Chen,2003;Wu,2003).Although these have met with some success,we could not focus on students’JPF notions of research in the context of discussing well-developed research problems,where students were assigned roles,or where the quality of their contributions to discussion were to be graded.Thus,if we were to add such constraints in our curriculum design, we would in effect be shifting our focus away from establishing a JPF environment and toward developing curriculum around the features of technology.

Furthermore,when we examined informally how bulletin boards are used in the everyday world,the dominant use appeared to be as interest-group forums.In our experience of nonacademic Internet forums,constraints are not necessary for asynchronous bulletin board communication to function effec-tively for JPF.In the everyday world,such forums are often used as a means for?nding answers to questions.The subscribers to these forums compose a diverse group of individuals with a great range of skill,each with de?ned personal need or interest in obtaining and sharing information on the topic.It seemed to us that it was through social,rather than technological,con?gu-ration that the forums are successful for their purposes.However,it was not the social con?guration we were hoping to encourage.We wanted to encourage a community of equals among peers.As much as possible,we wanted to emphasis the legitimacy of each student’s perception of research.In short,the literature and our informal research suggested that asynchronous bulletin board communication was not compatible with the learning curricu-lum that we were attempting to develop.

A learning curriculum and technology’s role469 Implementing the course

As part of an ongoing evaluation of the educational technology program overall,we conducted research on the experiences of the?rst cohort of stu-dents to take the course.In this section,we brie?y describe our?ndings.

Participants,data collection,and analyses

Sixteen students were enrolled in the course,ranging in age from mid-twenties to mid-forties.There were slightly more males than females.The students had diverse backgrounds,including design,teaching,and business.None had a background in research.The closest they came was exposure to statistics.Two students had taken an introductory statistics course the previous semester,and one had had a course in business statistics during his undergraduate studies. All student names reported in this paper are pseudonyms.

Data were collected from three primary sources.First,the second author observed and took notes on all class meetings.The second source of data was the text of the students’everyday evaluations—the phone messages.Third, data were gathered from individual interviews.Thirteen of the16students participated in?ve interviews throughout the semester.The remaining three students,because of time constraints were not available regularly for inter-views.Ten of the students were also available for and participated in a follow-up interview conducted approximately3weeks after the end of the semester.

Data from these sources were analyzed for recurring patterns and emergent themes were triangulated across students and time.The focus of the analyses was on changes in understanding and perceptions of research.

Findings

The goal of the class was for the students to begin to see and think about the world as educational researchers do.This included both understanding the big picture of research(e.g.,research as a process of inquiry,as involving justi-?cation and explication of conclusions and interpretations,as being subject to peer review),and seeing research as relevant to the role of the educational technology professional.In the aggregate,data suggest that the course was successful.All students made strides in both these areas,although to varying degrees.To illustrate,we describe some of the changes the students exhibited throughout the semester.Our presentation is organized in two sections.The ?rst focuses on changes in the students’professed beliefs about the relevance and accessibility of research.The second involves changes in the nature of their understanding of and engagement with research.

Changes in perceived relevance and accessibility of research

To a person,the students’initial impression of research was one of truth,fact, method,and product.Students?rst described research as‘‘the scienti?c

470S.Gerber,L.Scott method,’’‘‘people in lab coats,’’‘‘perfect,’’and the‘‘right answer.’’For over one-half of the class,this impression also implied boredom and something not particularly relevant to their careers.Jeff captures the sentiment of this group of students:

...when I thought about going into the class,I thought it was going to be slow,boring...I’m just talking about just the surface level analysis,like oh gosh no.Numbers,you know,oh God evaluating procedures,struc-ture,you know all the things that,you know,almost,almost like zero creativity.

A smaller group of students,approximately one-third of the class,was more focused on inaccessibility than on irrelevance.Mary is representative of these students,stating that she thought all research was and all researchers were ‘‘perfect.’’Consequently,in her view,it was nothing she would ever be able to understand much less do.

The remaining three students were interested in learning about research. However,their reasoning was consistent with a view of research as truth and fact and as inaccessible to the masses.Jim,for instance,was looking forward to the class because he had always been interested in getting to the‘‘bottom’’of things and knowing the‘‘truth’’about them.Similarly,Fred saw parallels between research and the?lm The Matrix.He hoped to becomes a researcher like the Neo character in the?lm—someone who could‘‘see through the codes’’that baf?ed normal people.

In contrast to their initial perceptions,by the end of the semester,all of the students displayed an understanding of research as being a process rather than a product.Further,they saw it as a process that did not yield the indisputable truth or answer,but something that was open to interpretation by peers.For all but one student,this change in understanding was also associated with positive affect.We again quote Jeff to highlight the changes.Here,he describes his excitement at prospect of

...pursuing a really good question,you know,and support...and?nding that supporting evidence to either con?rm,or you know,uh,deny whatever your idea was or you thought you had an idea or maybe that the question becomes a better question or something.

Jeff’s enthusiasm was representative of the group of student who seemed very comfortable with the notion of engaging in research.Chris is another person in this category.In his post-semester interview,he described in some detail his plan to include an evaluation component to a training program he was developing for his workplace staff.

Just under half the class seemed to be comfortable with engaging with research.A slightly larger number of students appeared to be what we con-sidered in a state of?ux;that is,they were still exploring the researcher identity.Ken is an example of students in this group.During his post-semester interview,he described an evaluation he was considering doing on a website he had developed in one of his classes.Immediately after doing so,however,

A learning curriculum and technology’s role471 he expressed some surprise at his interest.When asked to explain why,he commented

I never really considered myself more of a research person.I considered

myself just build it,be done with it,and move on.So to actually take time and de?ne a problem...to de?ne a problem explicitly?rst and then de-velop a project and then look at it critically afterwards....those are kindof things that I didn’t expect that I would really want to do.

Yvonne was also in this category.She felt that she and her colleagues were ‘‘kind of on the way to becoming evaluation expert—to view things differently from other people.’’Although she liked thinking of herself this way,she admitted to not being completely comfortable with it.Recalling a feeling she had while watching television at home,and suddenly realizing she was eval-uating what the character on screen was saying,she stated

You know,so then I,I,when I thought um,be this way,I laughed and say Hey Logan and Sue you changed my thinking.You keep my thinking of evaluation of evaluation things.So,it becomes more...I said I hate it,it becomes more complicated for me to view this world....when I become, you know...I don’t know...I,I don’t know whether,um,that’s good or not.It’s a good thing or not a good thing,but I,I do see the changes in some way.

Almost all of the students were displaying some characteristics of actively integrating researcher into their identities.However,there was one student, Jim,who was having substantial dif?culty doing so.He knew it was important, referring to research as the‘‘backbone’’of his future professional work.At the same time,he did not think research‘‘agreed’’with him.The reason for his dif?culty was the realization that research did not produce the‘‘right answer,’’but rather involved judgment of ones peers and a non-ending process of knowledge generation.He saw the prospect of justifying one’s interpreta-tions and submitting to peer review as involving too much pressure.

In sum,by the end of the semester,all of the students had developed an appreciation for the place of research in their future professional lives.For most students,this appreciation was accompanied by a more positive affect toward the accessibility of conducting research.

Changes in engagement with and understanding of research

In addition to changes in perceptions of relevance,the students also began to develop a more complex understanding of the research process.We illustrate this growth with examples of the students(a)adopting the language and stance customary in research reports and(b)engaging in and seeking peer review.

Adopting the discourse.The way the students expressed themselves in their everyday inquiry reports changed from the beginning to the end of the semester.In brief,the reports moved from a simple,sequential story

472S.Gerber,L.Scott expressed in everyday language,towards a structured report of a line of inquiry written with research terminology.

Initially,reports contained a beginning,and either or both of two compo-nents:information related to making a decision,and the decision.Jeff’s report was typical of the?rst voicemails.It contained the three components in sequence(shown in italics),a beginning,information about a decision,and ?nally the decision.

OK,I just was witness to a little evaluation.It was pretty simple,but I’ll summarize what happened.Hopefully that’s correct,but it was um a decision that my girlfriend made to...decide um who was going to make dinner;either me or her,and when it was going to happen either at6pm or at8pm.Because she had some,some studying and reading to do,and once she gets started,it’s hard to stop her until she’s done.So she decided that she was going to make it,make dinner at8pm and um,I had two hours to um...get my own work done.

To begin his story,Jeff indicates that is‘‘just’’happened.Other students also noted the timing of their stories using phrases like,‘‘we were just actually evaluating’’or‘‘I just?nished’’or‘‘I am now in a meeting.’’The students’report structure also revealed some aspects of the nature of their initial understandings of research,particularly with regard to line of inquiry.For one,they seemed to equate research/evaluation with a decision. In Jeff’s example,it was a decision about when to make dinner.The idea of decision was present in some way in each student’s?rst report,even for students who phoned in their responses before the decision was made.In Nicole’s voicemail,for instance,she described having just?nished making low fat bacon for breakfast and waiting to learn what her children would decide about liking it.

The students’initial story structure also revealed that they had some sense of the importance of supporting information in research or decision-making. However,the manner in which they reported this supporting information was not as articulate as their report of the decision.Returning again to Jeff’s story, he explained more about the reason that the decision had to be made than the rationale used to make the decision.Other students’reports contained vague references to the existence of criteria.Evan described evaluating whether he would have a certain meal choice again for dinner in the future.He talked about how long he and his wife debated this,and he reported on their?nal decision,but he did not include the actual reason(s)for the decision.

Over the course of the assignments,the students stopped emphasizing time and sequence,and began to adopt a reporting style more that re?ected that of many research reports.Several individuals also began to include research terminology in their reports.The progress of the changes was not the same for all students.Some individuals displayed an understanding of the research stance before adopting the terminology,others appeared to be utilizing the terminology before having a full understanding of appropriate use,and the

A learning curriculum and technology’s role473 remainder of the students seemed to be developing their understanding of both in parallel.

As an example of using the terminology without a full understanding,Fred included the term‘‘objective’’in his report.However,he did not appear to have made a distinction between his statement of the objective and the information and process he used to determine the objective.That is,his subject’s goal was‘‘to have fun,’’and he determined the goal in part by noting that,‘‘she thought that it was fun.’’Fred does not indicate whether his con-clusion is an interpretation on his part or something the girl speci?cally stated.

My friend’s niece was asking him about how to play bingo.I think her objectives were she wanted to have fun and maybe get some prizes.The information I got to determine her learning goals was that...I think was very clear...that she was eager to participate in a bingo game and she would also like to get advice because she thought that it was fun. Adam’s changes were representative of individuals who seemed to have a more complete understanding of how to use the terminology.In his report below,the italics have been added to illustrate his use of research terms: My immediate supervisor at work was trying to?nd a way for myself, himself,and two other engineers to be able to all meet at the same time on Thursday.The data collection–he went to Microsoft Outlook and began to observe his schedule and then looked for data in their company intranet and then went and sent email to others to collect data on their schedules and the conclusion was that we were able to meet at noon on Thursday.The implications of the meeting are important,although they are different than what we are looking at here.They are to develop multimedia for a training piece that I am doing.

Evident in Adam’s report above was not just the use of language,but also the beginning of an organizational?ow in reporting starting from purpose,moving to data collection,then conclusion,and?nally implications.Adam’s discussion of implications is particularly interesting.It appears that he was not able to comment on implications that were consistent with those in typical research articles.However,he was aware that this was the case,and,rather than omit attention to implications,he explicitly changed the context for them in the current situation.

Engaging with peer review.As a group,at the start of the course,the students had an unfavorable impression of peer review.They seemed to understand peer review as a form of negative criticism by unknown experts. Over the period of the course,the class went from viewing the phones(as they dubbed this section of the course)as a means of‘‘looking at someone else’s diary’’to something that‘‘mirrored an evaluation cycle.’’Initially they engaged with the phones and the everyday evaluations only on a personal level.In their interpretation,the phones activity let them learn more about one another’s non-school lives,and take their relationships to a‘‘deeper level’’than that of‘‘just classmates.’’All of the students were initially resistant

474S.Gerber,L.Scott to interpreting someone else’s report.For the?rst two sessions,when as instructors we posed a question about one of the reports,the students invariably deferred to the author of the report.It appeared as if there was a sense of the author as the authority.

Slowly,they did begin to comment on one another’s reports.Initially it was in the non-research realm—debating the skill of an NBA basketball player whose name was mentioned in one student’s report,or discussing the quality of a newly released?lm described in another student’s contribution.By the end of the semester,with the exception of Jim,everyone was engaging in and seeking out peer review to some degree.For instance,in one interview near the end of the semester,Yvonne commented that she had just sent in one of her reports.She described eagerly anticipating learning what others had to say about her analyses.She wanted the help to‘‘jump outside of her own box.’’She knew that she could never really see things in a way other than the way she did,but she felt that getting feedback from her classmates and seeing how they viewed her interpretations would help her gain insight into the nature of her thought processes.

In sum,although we cannot make generalizations beyond this class,we consider this particular class a success.Further,we are suf?ciently encouraged by the results of this study to build from this basic curriculum design for future semesters of teaching this course,rather than considering an entirely new curriculum design.

Discussion

In this paper,we sought to describe the design of a learning,rather than a teaching,curriculum.For us,the most salient thing about this experience was the dif?culty we encountered maintaining focus on the learning curriculum. We naively assumed that because we believe strongly in the notion of learning as the development of identity,designing a curriculum consistent with this orientation would be natural.This was not the case.

In retrospect,we have identi?ed two primary changes in our way of thinking that enabled us to work through the design issues.The?rst involved adopting a mindset that focused on the speci?c case in hand rather than on general or abstract issues;the second involved iteratively articulating the design problem and our proposed solutions.

When we started the design process,we had dif?culty in deciding on how to do it.For us,trying to allow for the emergent left us without a starting point. We did not want to predict what our future students’perspectives would be. On the other hand,we did feel we could work backward because we did not have a set of speci?c instructional objectives to which to teach.We were only able to begin the design process when we realized that we were designing an environment as much as a curriculum.As with other user-centered designs, the process begins by examining the individual and the environment.Only when we were able shift focus from what we had tacitly thought of as general

A learning curriculum and technology’s role475 principles of curriculum design to the very speci?c case of this course—of creating a space and place for interacting with research—were we able to break out of the paralysis.What made the shift in mindset possible was rec-ognition that the relationship between teaching and learning is indirect,rather than direct.Keeping in mind the idea that learning is a response to,but not the result of,teaching,alleviated the pressure we had put on ourselves to codify the curriculum design.

In many ways,this mindset parallels the mindset required of the current user-centered approaches to technology design.In both cases,the designer has to be sensitive to emergent patterns of behavior among groups of individuals. In contextual design,rather than designing for a preconceived or stereotypical view of the user,the design emerges from investigating actual people in their own contexts.According to Beyer and Holtzblatt(1997),the design approach ‘‘de?nes activities focused on the customers and their work,rather than leaving team members to argue with each other based on personal opinion, anecdotes,or unveri?able claims about‘what customers would like’.’’(p.3). This approach emphasizes how the individual behaves in an environment and thus the design task becomes one of designing work practice.Similarly,we found that designing a learning curriculum emerged out of our observations of the identity of the individual student and what the student brought to the learning situation.However,as we mentioned,student perspectives are more typically considered individual differences that must be addressed,or designed for.But in so doing,the designer ignores the emergent.

The second change in thinking that assisted us in the design process was consciously articulating and rearticulating the design problem in light of each of our potential solutions.We believe that including technology in the design process was of great assistance in this area.As we have described,on many occasions we found ourselves in the midst of focusing on features of tech-nology as proxies for constructivism and designing the curriculum around the technology.We were,in essence,privileging technology’s place in curriculum design,and adapting pedagogy to the technology.Although awareness of the potential pitfalls of designing curriculum to include technology did not pre-vent us from falling into these traps,it did enable us to recognize when we had started down this path.Further,we were more vigilant about explicitly articulating our assumptions and our rationale for considering if and how to employ technology.

Important to note is that we were also vigilant about going too far in the other direction and completely subjugating technology under pedagogy. Indeed,?nding the harmony between these two extremes—in which consid-erations of technology and considerations of pedagogy were partners in the design process—was key.For instance,articulating the use of bulletin boards through the lens of pedagogy allowed us to see the shortcomings of using bulletin boards for our purposes.By the same token,articulating the idea of learning as identity through the lens of technology led us to more fully understand what actually constituted JPF use of technology.Thus,both worked together to de?ne the design problem.

476S.Gerber,L.Scott As a postscript,we are actively working to keep the perspective of tech-nology and pedagogy as partners in articulating the design problem as we plan for next steps.We are currently reviewing our?eld notes for indicators of the ways the students used and talked about the phones and the blog.At the same time,we are also consulting literature from industry and analyzing from a pedagogical perspective the rationale behind the design decisions made by Google in developing Blogger Mobile.

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Sue Gerber and Logan Scott are faculty in the informatics programs at the University at Buffalo.