A ‘well-structured’ system is able to provide learners with pointers or conceptual relationships between topics. This is especially useful for ‘initial learning’ by novices who have a low prior knowledge and may require goal-appropriate structures (Shapiro, 1998). They often could get overwhelmed by the complexity of a system that doesn’t offer conceptual relationships.
An ‘ill-structured’ system is useful for learners with higher prior knowledge. In these cases, there is more scope of ‘active learning’ occurring where learners could be forced to forge connections between topics related to their learning goals. This leads to ‘deep learning’ (Shapiro & Niederhauser, 2004)
In addition, ‘ill-structured’ systems are also useful for ‘ill-structured’ knowledge domains like history or psychology (Spiro et al., 1987, Shapiro, 1998). It’s not clear if even novice learners would benefit from ill-structured systems in these cases.
For learners new to a domain this is useful to know. As a graduate student, I know I can apply this when approaching a new domain and perhaps use more structured systems (‘Plug and Play’ for article critique helped out initially)
For teachers, this distinction between systems is also important to note. ‘Well-structured’ and ‘Ill-structured’ systems perhaps aren’t perhaps a part of a dichotomy as much as a spectrum. Indeed, one of my favorite articles on instructional design talks about how instructional systems can be made to lead students from ‘knowing what’, to ‘knowing how’, and finally ‘reflection in action’ (Ertmer & Newby, 1993). This would ensure that novice learners have ‘initial learning’ opportunities in well-structured systems but ultimately progress to more complex systems for ‘deep learning’.
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Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance improvement quarterly, 6(4), 50-72.
Sukanya,
The Ertmer and Newby (1993) progression is helpful. It made me think of Lee et al.’s (2011) Use, Modify, Create framework for teaching kids to code. Something I’ve been thinking about, though, is the role of making the structure transparent to novices. For example, when I took a beginner’s Javascript course on Khan Academy, I felt the activities progressed well from structured to unstructured. But when I tried to create something outside of the online course, I realized there were many other layers of structure now missing that had not been apparent to me before, such as the libraries of functions available in the course. My point: It’s worth thinking about different layers of structure and which are made clear to students as they progress.
Lee, I., Martin, F., Denner, J., Coulter, B., Allan, W., Erickson, J., Malyn-Smith, J., and Werner, L. (2011). Computational thinking for youth in practice. ACM Inroads, 2(1), 32-37.
Sukanya – I liked your emphasis on well- and ill-structured domains falling on a spectrum that moves students from “knowing what” to “knowing how.” It makes sense to me that this progression could move students from novice toward expert. If this appears to be a beneficial progression, do you think literacy must progress in this manner as well? For example, is the proper progression traditional text, online text with no hyperlinks, online text with minimal hyperlinks, etc. or is this unnecessary? This is almost like a well-structured introduction to ill-structured domains. Or can a novice be successfully navigate an ill-structured domain and interact with hyperlinked texts (i.e., go straight to the “knowing how” before explicitly covering the “knowing what”?)
Hi Sukanya, I agree with you that ill-structured activities seem to be most beneficial for advanced stages of learning. However, I believe that there is a distinction between ill-structured activity and ill-structured domains. Ill-structured domains such as psychology and history could benefit from teaching with ill-structured activities at the novice stages. As you’ve mentioned, many problems or activities all along a spectrum of “ill-or-well” levels of structure– perhaps for novice learners, an appropriate ill-structured problem can draw upon the learner’s previously acquired “knowing how” from another domain (as in Kimberly’s example, the “knowing how” would be reading skills) to help the novice connect with the”knowing what” in the new domain.
richkat3 said
Sukanya,
The Ertmer and Newby (1993) progression is helpful. It made me think of Lee et al.’s (2011) Use, Modify, Create framework for teaching kids to code. Something I’ve been thinking about, though, is the role of making the structure transparent to novices. For example, when I took a beginner’s Javascript course on Khan Academy, I felt the activities progressed well from structured to unstructured. But when I tried to create something outside of the online course, I realized there were many other layers of structure now missing that had not been apparent to me before, such as the libraries of functions available in the course. My point: It’s worth thinking about different layers of structure and which are made clear to students as they progress.Lee, I., Martin, F., Denner, J., Coulter, B., Allan, W., Erickson, J., Malyn-Smith, J., and Werner, L. (2011). Computational thinking for youth in practice. ACM Inroads, 2(1), 32-37.
Hi, Katie. Nice extension of the conversation with introduction of Lee et al. (2012). I like the way you relate your own experience as a learner to the research.
albertsk said
Sukanya – I liked your emphasis on well- and ill-structured domains falling on a spectrum that moves students from “knowing what” to “knowing how.” It makes sense to me that this progression could move students from novice toward expert. If this appears to be a beneficial progression, do you think literacy must progress in this manner as well? For example, is the proper progression traditional text, online text with no hyperlinks, online text with minimal hyperlinks, etc. or is this unnecessary? This is almost like a well-structured introduction to ill-structured domains. Or can a novice be successfully navigate an ill-structured domain and interact with hyperlinked texts (i.e., go straight to the “knowing how” before explicitly covering the “knowing what”?)
Hi, Kimberly. Good question. Can you add any research around this idea to the discussion? Perhaps you could look also at research around educational toy systems for toddlers, such as Webkinz or LeapFrog. It seems like they address this question by incorporating lots of tactile buttons that are sort of steps towards hyperlinks.
zhumengd said
Hi Sukanya, I agree with you that ill-structured activities seem to be most beneficial for advanced stages of learning. However, I believe that there is a distinction between ill-structured activity and ill-structured domains. Ill-structured domains such as psychology and history could benefit from teaching with ill-structured activities at the novice stages. As you’ve mentioned, many problems or activities all along a spectrum of “ill-or-well” levels of structure– perhaps for novice learners, an appropriate ill-structured problem can draw upon the learner’s previously acquired “knowing how” from another domain (as in Kimberly’s example, the “knowing how” would be reading skills) to help the novice connect with the”knowing what” in the new domain.
Hi, Marissa. Interesting ideas. These opinions would be stronger if you backed them up with evidence accompanied by a research citation.
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