{"id":3042,"date":"2014-05-20T10:16:58","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T17:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ttinvent.com?p=3042&#038;preview_id=3042"},"modified":"2014-05-20T21:21:53","modified_gmt":"2014-05-21T04:21:53","slug":"what-if-those-instructions-arent-so-helpful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/?p=3042","title":{"rendered":"What if&#8230; those instructions aren&#8217;t so helpful?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My last post\u00a0<a title=\"Video \u2013 New Research Seeks to Find Out How Making Becomes Learning\" href=\"http:\/\/sylviamartinez.com\/video-new-research-seeks-to-find-out-how-making-becomes-learning\/\">linked to a video showing Dr. Paulo Blikstein of Stanford University<\/a>\u00a0showcasing the research going on in his department regarding how making becomes learning.<\/p>\n<p>The next question is what to do when faced with early research? Do we just wait until the research is done? Or maybe even validated with other studies?<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t believe this.<\/p>\n<p>I want to know, \u201cWhat if these early findings are true? Would it change my practice? What would it look like in my classroom or school?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s just take one of the research questions being asked \u2013 Do detailed instructions help or hinder student understanding? What is the difference between a learner who is given step-by-step instructions vs. being given time to explore a new technology? It is often assumed that the way to learn something new is to follow explicit directions for a couple of tries, and then eventually do it on your own.<\/p>\n<p>The early research is showing, however, that students who are given explicit instructions do NOT move to not needing those instructions. They stay \u201cstuck\u201d in a habit of depending on \u00a0instructions.<\/p>\n<p>Uh oh. As someone who works with teachers learning new technology, what should I do? Should I hide my handouts? Make them less explicit? I don\u2019t know, but I\u2019m sure thinking about it.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you are thinking about this with your students. Why not do a little experiment? If you give students detailed instructions \u201cjust to get them started\u201d on early project work \u2013 why not see what happens if you skip the tutorials and hide the handouts? After some early confusion (where you will have to refrain from jumping in with the rescue) you may see new patterns emerging.<\/p>\n<p>I know I\u2019m not waiting around for the perfect research to happen. I want to find out the \u201c<em>what if\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/em>sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<p><em><em>This post by Sylvia Martinez was originally published at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/sylviamartinez.com\/what-if-those-helpful-instructions-arent-so-helpful\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/sylviamartinez.com\/what-if-those-helpful-instructions-arent-so-helpful\/<\/a>. It is republished here\u00a0with permission of the author.<\/em><br \/><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My last post\u00a0linked to a video showing Dr. Paulo Blikstein of Stanford University\u00a0showcasing the research going on in his department regarding how making becomes learning. The next question is what to do when faced with early research? Do we just &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/?p=3042\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What if&#8230; those instructions aren&#8217;t so helpful?<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[126],"tags":[273,580,274,272,591],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9PzL0-N4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3042"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3042"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3045,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3042\/revisions\/3045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}