A practice centered approach to instruct

In the context of instructional design, a practice approach stresses human agency and complex system dynamics to understand both the creation of instruction designs and their successful

(Eds.), Learning, Problem Solving, and Mind Tools: Essays in Honor of David H Jonassen Routledge (forthcoming, 2013 expected publication date)

Brent G Wilson, University of Colorado Denver, USA

brent.wilson@ucdenver.edu

A defining feature of the field of instructional design is a commitment to practice Often that commitment is toward reforming or improving practice This chapter presents a way of thinking about instructional design from a practice point of view The approach draws on practice theories from the social sciences that take practice as a fundamental unit or focus of study In the context of instructional design, a practice approach stresses human agency and complex system dynamics

to understand both the creation of instruction designs and their successful

implementation A practice approach also integrates human values and participant experience by seeing instruction from the “inside out,” that is, through the lens of participants themselves Greater focus and attention on practice is argued to have valuable implications for understanding instruction and how to support teachers

and designers as they seek to make good instruction happen The chapter does not

present an instructional theory in the traditional sense There is no list of

instructional principles or strategies offered for use in lesson development Instead the chapter offers a critique of traditional theories of learning and instruction – in their narrowness and neglect of important aspects of practice, particularly the enactment of teaching and learning activities An alternate way of seeing the work

of instructional design is presented that should lead to fruitful insights and

possibilities for strengthening the profession

Keywords

Practice theory: A theory that takes practice or human activity as a unit of study

Examples include: activity theory, actor-network theory, ethnomethodology, and Bourdieu’s theory of practices and dispositions

Practice-centered instructional design: Framing instructional-design work in

terms of activity mediated by tools and circumstance, where opportunities for innovation emerge from new technologies, ideas, and systemic tensions, as well as the craftsmanship, character, and agency of participants

Craftsmanship: A sustained dedication to excellence in the making of something,

requiring a honing of skill and cultivation of wisdom based on professional

experience

Agency: The human capacity to act in the world Agency suggests that people act

freely and not simply according to pre-established structures and expectations

Experience Direct engagement with the world that results of knowledge of that

world Experience is the “insider view” of human activity that dynamically

emerges through interaction with the world

A defining feature of the field of instructional design (ID) is a commitment to

practice In comparison to educational psychology and the learning sciences,

instructional design theories are more explicit in guiding practitioners through the process of creating courses and integrating media This is in keeping with its origins

in the mid-20th century, when behavioral psychologists used programmed instruction

as a means for implementing scientific advances (Reiser, 2001a) By determining which instructional strategies worked for particular learning objectives, the goal was a comprehensive science of instruction that could also serve as a prescriptive guide for practice (Lumsdaine & Glaser, 1960; also Reigeluth, 1983) ‘Practice’ in those days referred to an opportunity for students to apply a rule or procedure to a case (as in Rule-Example-Practice sequences)

Looking at the development of the field, the impulse toward reform of practice is

never far from the surface As Reiser (2001b) notes, founders in the 20th century sought to improve educational practice and enrich education through improved

learning interactions and enriching media Another reform impulse was to fully exploit the learning potential of emerging technologies

ID theorists often use the word ‘prescribe’ to talk about guidance to the practitioner

In contrast to applying best practices, prescribing in ID terms usually refers to

applying a model or theory Prescribe brings to mind a straightforward fix to a

well-defined problem Doctors prescribe a pill when the ailment is diagnosed and a

medicine is known to address the symptoms or cure the ailment We know, though, that education is one of the most complex and intractable problem area of study – what Berliner (2002) calls “the hardest science of all.” We have known for a very long time that complex problems are best understood systemically, because a

technical fix sends secondary impacts throughout the system, many of them

undesirable and unanticipated (Tenner, 1997) Adding an incentive to use social media, for example, can lead to contortions by designers to add social media

regardless of its appropriateness to the need An overly prescriptive mindset runs the danger of leading to overly simplistic approaches to complex, dynamic and atypical problem situations Our best thinking is needed to negotiate this path – to apply technical solutions to address obvious and compelling problems that demand

attention, while at the same time being sensitive to the health of the larger system and mitigating undesirable impacts to that system

The term practice is also used as a reference point for theory: Theory is the attempt to

model or understand practice; practice is where you apply a prescriptive theory to improve outcomes Since theorists tend to reify their constructs and reduce the

complexities of the world merely in terms of those constructs, encounters with messy and complex practice situations can have a humbling effect, reminding us of what is still unknown and requiring further inquiry Of course theory construction is itself an

important kind of practice, which sociologists of knowledge have shown to depend very much on social and cultural conditions

Practice theory denotes a family of theories in sociology, anthropology, and

organizational studies that examine human practice as a means of understanding human and organizational behavior Practices, according to John Postill (2010, p 1), are “the embodied sets of activities that humans perform with varying degrees of commitment, competency and flair.” Sherry Ortner defined practice in its broad sense

as pretty much “anything people do” (1984, p 149), with special attention to activity that is significantly related to power relations Practice theory includes any theory that

“treats practice as a fundamental category, or takes practice as its point of departure” (Stern, 2003, p 185)

Practice theory has roots in a number of philosophical traditions, including Marx’s historical materialism, German hermeneutic and phenomenological movements, American pragmatism, French poststructuralism, and Wittgenstein’s later philosophy

We would also include Emmanuel Levinas’s notion of confronting the Other and

honoring that obligation to respond to another person’s presence ((Child, Williams, Birch, & Boody, 2005) We are already in the world and connected to people who place demands upon us and invite our response

Practice theory focuses on the complexities of human activity and inhabit a space between social and organizational structures on the one hand, and individual

cognitive/neural processes on the other Practice theory sees human activity as

co-constituted by these macro- and micro-level forces, as well as by the agency of

individual actors within those structures Activity theory is an example tradition in this middle space, but there are others less well known to instructional designers, such

as ethnomethology (Garfinkel, 1967) and Bourdieu’s (1977) practice theory

emphasizing behavioral dispositions, meaning construction, and power relationships For accessible overviews of practice theories see Nicolini, Gherardi, and Yanow (2003), Huizing and Cavanagh (2011), and Postill (2010)

My use of ‘practice-centered approach’ in the context of instructional design is meant

to broaden the focus from individual cognition and instructional strategies toward the practices and experiences of people connected to the design of instruction – that is, designers, instructors, and students My intention is somewhat different from the social theorist however – rather than full-blown theory development, I am trying to generate more space and attention for practice at both theoretical and practical levels

Also note that this chapter does not present an instructional theory in the traditional

sense I am not specifying a set of instructional principles or strategies for use in lesson development Rather I am sketching out another way of seeing the work of instructional design that will lead to fruitful insights and possibilities for

improvement

Looking back on the titles of dissertations or research articles, instructional strategies are clearly a major thrust of research in the field Instructional strategies refer to the learning activities that are planned and implemented in an instructional development process Strategies may be selected or developed based on a particular theory of learning, and include such things as delivery system, media use, ordering and

sequencing or instructional elements, and specification of learning activities The focus on instructional strategies continues today, although with greater attention of other mediating variables such as student cognitive processing and individual

differences The so-called great media debate in the 1990s between Robert Kozma (1991) and Richard Clark (1994) about the relative merits of media and instructional strategies underscores the central role assigned to strategies in accounting for learning impacts

Yet concerns remain about how exactly strategies mediate learning The cognitive revolution in psychology suggests that it is thinking and cognitive processing, not strategies per se, that mediate learning Only as strategies reliably invoke certain forms of mental processing can they lead to desired learning outcomes Critics of cognition point to the problem resulting from the cognitive split between thinking and action upon which cognitive theories necessarily rely Not all action is pre-planned, and cognitive activity should not always be privileged above embodied actions within

a material world So much of life is improvisation based on emerging and dynamic conditions; identifying where, when and how learning happens is often difficult For example, a management flight simulation game typically involves a series of

decisions followed by a simulation of what results from those decisions followed by

an opportunity to reflect on the results and formulate and implement a new set of decisions Players often report that they gained important insights when talking with fellow players during the pauses between runs of the simulation rather when running the simulation If true, then the unplanned or unscripted interchange of players

between simulation runs becomes a significant locus of learning outside the bounds of the planned strategy.1

Instructional theories, even as they seek to prescribe, seriously under-specify the decisions and conditions needed to actually implement them in practice settings (Jonassen, Strobel, & Ionas, 2005) That is to say, the theories and models lack rules

of correspondence that convert the generalizations into specific actions In like

manner a planned strategy is different from an enacted activity This is parallel to the

construct of the enacted curriculum among curriculum theorists (Walker, 1990) Whatever is planned, the particular enactment is often the determining variable in the success of a lesson or program

The construct of fidelity of implementation (FoI) may be of value use here FoI is a

measure of how closely the enacted curriculum fits the specifications of the planned curriculum For curriculum that has been carefully validated by research to lead to desired outcomes, a delivery that matches up closely would be desirable if those same outcomes are expected My research with Jamie Hurley (Hurley & Wilson, 2012) indicates, however, that practicing teachers often have very good reasons for straying

from a research-based curriculum specifications, and generally make choices based

on competing goods and meeting needs of students based on local conditions

Figure 1 A planned instructional strategy can lead to enacted activities and lived

experiences on the part of participants

Figure 1 differentiates planned strategies from enacted activities and the lived

experience of participants A planned instructional strategy is typically based on a

model of the situation and what’s going on in that situation Strategies reflect the

intentions of the strategist: the designer, the sponsor, or the curriculum that itself is a compromise among interest groups By its nature planned strategies separate planning from execution – thus they transfer intentions from one context to another, across

time, space and people

When enacted, a strategy becomes a completed activity, typically with some variance from the original intention Under logistical constraints and emerging conditions,

participants re-interpret and re-negotiate plans in the completion of tasks and pursuit

of conflicting goals Activity unfolds within a particular time and place by individuals and groups of people pursuing various objects and ends Following Dewey

(1997/1938), people undergo experience as activities unfold Experiences are

transactional in that they are mutually co-constituted by participants and the world

they live in as conditions dynamically unfold over time (Parrish, Wilson, & Dunlap, 2011) Students and instructors submit or undergo on the one hand, and engage as

active agents on the other hand, co-determining emergent outcomes, including what is learned from the experience (Wong, 2007) Hence in contrast to instructional models focusing solely on problem solving (Jonassen, 2011), a practice-centered approach

sees value in both active and submitting responses as potentially conducive to

learning (Prawatt, 1993)

In light of these concerns, the field of ID is challenged to account for the conditions

that lead to learning in instructional settings We know that the choice of instructional

strategy makes some difference, yet so many other factors come into play, including instructor and student differences, situational variables, and organizational and

cultural background factors Indeed the quality of these things varies significantly

across cases – particularly the contributions of designers, instructors, and students Resources in the form of money, time, and talent are also distributed unevenly across projects and institutions These situational variables have enormous impact on the quality of instruction and the learning outcomes that result Our theory bases,

however, tend to favor the aggregate instructional strategies and learning processes, which form only part of the picture What seems to be needed is a broader framework that accounts for more of these quality variables relating to craft, emergence,

complexity, implementation, and tradeoffs in resources

Michael Hannafin’s work on grounded design (Hannafin, Hannafin, Land, & Oliver, 1997) takes a somewhat distancing approach to instructional strategies Different strategies will lead to different outcomes, but achieving a coherence within a program, with design elements fitting within a particular paradigm or theory of learning, can have a cumulative effect contributing toward quality and impact – more than the individual strategy being applied The way a theory is applied or implemented matters – not just which strategy is applied Because of the lack of specification of theory,

I carry this line of thinking further Programs indeed need coherence but not

necessarily around a theory of learning or instruction Rather, coherence can be

achieved in configuring an elegant response to a learning need, a problem of practice,

or curriculum goal Design elements may borrow eclectically from different theories,

in pastiche or bricolage form, similar to how a bird fashions a nest based on available sticks and twigs and wires The coherence and elegance of design does not reflect theoretical purity or consistency of origins, but rather in how elements hang together and support a coherent experience for learners (see Wilson, 1999) Practice-oriented designers face the same complexity in the situation, but they are more open to the paths and solutions afforded by the situation, not dictated by theory or ideology

What happens after a plan is made, after the curriculum is developed, is increasingly

of interest to educators and policymakers Implementation science is a term describing

a domain in the health professions that examines how evidence-based practices are implemented in the field Bill Penuel and colleagues (Penuel, Fischman, Haugan Cheng, & Sabelli, 2011) develop a similar construct for education, framing their approach as an expansion on design-based research While my emphasis is more on emergent practices and lived experience, their work illustrates the need for more attention to the details of implementation in the field

For our purposes a practice-centered approach to ID may be defined as:

A view of ID work framed in technical, craft, and critical terms, involving activity mediated by tools and situation, where opportunities for innovation emerge from new technologies, ideas, and systemic tensions, as well as the craftsmanship, character, and agency of participants

Our approach draws heavily on a construct of craftsmanship (Sennett, 2008) People

who master a craft show a sustained dedication to excellence requiring a honing of skill and cultivation of wisdom based on professional experience (Sennett, p 9)

Instructional design is a domain where craftsmanship plays a role, particularly in collaborative teamwork and the improvement of instruction over time Other key elements of a practice-based approach are briefly discussed below

Learning is construed in practice terms as change through activity and accumulated experience over time And all of this happens within a rich performative context

Practice-based approaches study how people use tools and resources and rules to envision, make sense of, and accomplish their work The tools and resources and rules

thus mediate the activity The context of action is fully considered, including the social, embodied, and temporal/historical contingencies of action The meaning of

activity is based on its context – so activity should always be examined with respect

to its unique circumstances

Narrative is the primary means by which this context can be told (Friesen, 2009;

Power, 2009) Narrative implies development over time – as a plot unfolds, so activity evolves over time, based on people’s choices and the constraints they face in working together Practice theorists are prone to use the gerund form of verbs – doing,

becoming, acting, developing – to suggest the ongoing dynamic nature of engaged activity Thus, activity can be seen both in stable, structural terms, and also as an emergent process, which serves as a test-bed for innovation and change (Davis,

Sumara, & Luce-Kapler, 2000)

Activity is mediated by the natural world, but also by culture and human

relationships Some practice theories (e.g., the educational theory of Holland,

Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998) stress the formation of identity through engaged action with the material world but also in collaboration with others Wenger’s (1998) work further illustrates how community forms and gives shape to human interactions

John Dewey was the chief advocate for an experiential approach to education

(Dewey, 1997/1938) Indeed ‘learn by doing,’ the phrase associated with Dewey’s progressive education movement, could very well describe a practice-based

pedagogy Robert Horn (1972) was among the first to talk about experiential learning

objectives – where the goal of instruction is to provide a certain kind of experience to learners Experience is the inward way of looking at activity – similar to how the inward looking construct of culture is different from the outward looking construct of society (Wilber, 1996) Experience as a construct is useful because of its relevance to education – and because of its mystery and undefined, subjective nature A

vocabulary that includes ‘experience’ opens the door for aesthetic considerations such

as ritual, myth, dramatic pacing of learning experiences, and so forth – which are increasingly important in today’s mediated worlds (Wilson & Parrish, 2011)

Aesthetic design plays an important role with new media, but also with traditional instruction I recently visited Thailand and learned that students place high value on the formal bestowal of certificates of completion, not just for degrees and programs but individual courses Such ceremonies complete with picture-taking serve as a rite

of passage for students, showing that they have acquired the expertise contained in the course Sennett (2008, p 177) argues for ritual-like repetitive learning experiences:

Rote learning is not in itself the enemy Practice sessions can be made interesting through creating an internal rhythm for them, no matter how short… We do a disservice to those who suffer from attention deficit disorder by asking that they understand before they engage

Narrative becomes doubly important when considering experience, because much experience is patterned or even archetypically based on established forms and scripts The rituals of life can help convey special meaning to activity, through a consecrating

of time and space As novices face induction into their chosen field, they typically take on a new name, new dress, or new language reflecting their new identity as a skilled or knowledgeable person This induction happens by a process of submission

to authority, sometimes embodied in a trusted master or guide (Steiner, 2003),

followed by a semi-scripted adventure requiring all the skills and knowledge (and fortune) available to obtain a life’s prize

As mentioned, learning is best construed as change through activity and accumulated experience over time Hence processes of learning and change are very similar

whether at the individual, group, or institutional level There are certain areas that are especially fertile in creating conditions for productive change I outline below five points that can be considered levers or hot points where change and innovation are likely to happen

As mentioned, practice theory arose from the tension observed between social or institutional explanations and those emphasizing individual cognition and neural mechanisms In between the various causative forces – the structures of institutions, cultures, and neural processes – lies the individual agent in the form of the instructor, the student, or the designer How any individual fills his or her role and engages others in the work can have a huge effect on learning This is analogous to the

supershrink effect in psychotherapy, wherein researchers found a significant therapist

effect independent of the therapy being administered (Bergin & Suinn, 1975)

Translating into ID terms, a master designer applying a direct-instructional strategy

may get better results than an average designer applying a constructivist strategy – even if the constructivist strategy were a more effective method There is some

research in support of the designer having some impact on quality: An experienced designed involved early in the planning process of a large project is more likely to create a realistic scope for the effort resulting in less rework and rescoping later (Grimstad Group, 1995)

Agency refers to the intentional, embodied capacity to act that is not so easily

captured and modeled by theory It is where the innovation, the disruption, or the surprise tends to happen Generally agency is thought to be a human quality, although actor-network theory examines how human and non-human actors are configured into networks within which actions and outcomes unfold I find the construct of agency very helpful as a marker for the human element in our designs: the difference that a master designer or instructor can make in a course, a program, or within an

organization – or a working group that achieves a synergy through collaboration, imagination, and effective division of labor Agency is “the sense that someone or something is not following some pre-established programme of action, is not simply expressing some pre-existing structure” (Middleton & Brown, 2002, as cited in

Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006, p 207)

An example in Wilson (2012a) illustrates how the agency of a designer or instructor can play a substantial role in learning outcomes I tell the story of a college professor who gives lip service to a constructivist philosophy, but in reality is leaving students

in the lurch with inadequate guidance and support Students are frustrated and

discouraged at the wasted time and effort, and less learning is achieved because of the ostensive adherence to inquiry learning In this case the instructor, through a lack of commitment to the class or willingness to carefully observe effects, is misreading the situation and misapplying constructivist theory He is failing to notice and take

needed action That this occurrence is fairly common suggests the importance of the issue Whether framed in terms of agency, professionalism, character, or commitment – the issue is worthy of serious consideration when looking for impacts of

instructional systems

In complex systems, the interface between competing sub-systems, when they come together, can lead to disequilibrium and instability This interface is a zone between order and disorder where meaning is generated If everything happens according to plan, the situation is routine and the learning is minimal.2 Fruitful tension is central to activity theory and fits ID very well because of our focus on learning and

development

The more ill-structured the problem, the greater the opportunity for conflict to arise through unforeseen pairings and border crossings Such problems are usually not solved; they are managed Table 1 compares static and dynamic systems, showing how dynamic system modeling can better accommodate the complexity found in practice Each part can potentially affect any other part of the system, and the goal is finding a compatible balance or harmony between elements that is sustainable over

time In reality, though, all natural systems exhibit both stasis and change at different

points A general pattern is:

Statis -> Disruption -> Repair -> Statis -> Etc

Table 1

Static Versus Dynamic Models of Systems

Additive causal model (analysis of

variance with interactions of variable

only inserted individually)

Multiplicative model (if any value approaches zero the output drops to zero)

Smaller scale, simpler systems Messier, more complex systems

Consistency and control Steering toward “satisficing” outputs

(Simon, 1969)

Predictable throughput Impacts vary according to tensions,

fissures, and contradictions

Repairing buggy algorithms/routines

– restoring to original or proper use

Reconciling relationships and redefining connections – leading to new uses and outcomes

Complex systems are more amenable to steering or guidance than full control – a process that Lindblom (1959, 1971) calls muddling through We understand complex systems better than we used to, particularly how certain local actions can

unexpectedly lead to systemic transformation at critical tipping points (Gladwell, 2000) This is the point of tension between competing systems

A practice approach also inhabits the world between order and disorder through its critical, often subversive stance toward orthodox practice To survive, a field must transmit a legacy of effective practices while at the same time integrating new

practices that challenge the established order Thus we are in a constant state of renewal, preserving some things and jettisoning others Because of its often

subversive stance, we would not expect a practice-centered approach to ever dominate the field, bur rather continue as a theme or thread over time, challenging the dominant traditions and encouraging alternative methods when needed

The willingness to transgress boundaries is associated with progressive positions, but

this is not always so Norm Friesen’s (2011) study of the lecture as a teaching form

subverts common thinking about active and passive learning and shows the resiliency

of what many take to be a regressive instructional practice