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Minimalist Educational Materials for Distance

DeliveryKen McKee - BEd, BSc, PTC

Northern Alberta Institute of Technology

www.GetToThePoint.ca

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Minimalism / Education

• I hear, I forget• I see, I remember• I do, I understand

~ConfusciousEducation should be useful. If it is not, what is it?

~Whitehead

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Overview

• Traditional delivery problems

• Distance delivery problems• How does Learning occur?• What is Education?• What is Minimalism?• Minimalist Solutions

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Traditional Delivery Problems

• Books– Too thick– Not directly applicable

• Students– Very busy with time

restraints– Don’t, won’t, can’t read

• Technology– More time requirements– Different platforms

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Problems with Traditional Delivery

• Teachers– Lecture– Control concerns– Class size, ability levels,

interest– Content applicability

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Distant Delivery Problems

• Materials make or break technology solutions

• No teacher in sight• Technology to overcome• Texts too thick, where do I

look?• Questions via email can be

numerous

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What is Education?

• “Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilization of knowledge” ~Whitehead

• "Develop the best pedagogy you can. See how well you can do. Then analyze the nature of what you did that worked."   ~ Jerome Bruner

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Who decides what is usable?

• Students should experience the joy of discovery and understand the application here and now in the circumstances of his/her life.

~Whitehead

• Appreciation by use

• The external connections of the subject drag thought outwards

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• Ideas, which are not utilized, are positively harmful (inert)

~Whitehead

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• The problem of keeping knowledge alive, of preventing it from becoming inert, is the central problem of all education. ~Whitehead

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• Education is the evocation of curiosity, of judgment, of the power of mastering a complicated tangle of circumstances, the use of theory in giving foresight in special cases

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Romance Stage of Education

• First stage of apprehension

• Appreciation of connections

• Education must essentially be a setting in order of a ferment already stirring in the mind

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Precision Stage of Education

• Represents an addition to knowledge

• Analyzing the facts, bit by bit

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Generalization Stage of Education

• Return to romanticism with the added advantage of classified ideas and relevant technique

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What is Minimalism?

• Brevity of materials• www.GetToThePoint.ca • Materials that work and

work well• Self paced• Applicable

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Minimalist Solutions• Create the best applied materials

you can• Work as if you were a student• Test the materials with students• Questions indicate areas to adjust• Rework, test materials again• Could students write an

introduction at end of chapter?• Rework, test, rework, test

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Minimalist Strategies

• All learning tasks should be meaningful and self contained

• Learners should be given realistic projects ASAP

• Instructions permit self-directed reasoning and improvising

• Increase the number of active learning activities

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Minimalist Strategies

• Training materials and activities should provide for error recognition and recovery

• Close linkage between the training and the actual system (job)

• Minimize instructional materials which obstruct learning

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Applying Minimalist Principals

• Action centered tasks• Focus on what user needs• Omit long introductions• Omit repetition and

verbiage• Exploit what user already

knows• Rely on users to think and

improvise

References• Carroll, J.M. 1990. The Nurnberg

Funnel• Carroll, J.M. 1998. Minimalism Beyond

the Nurnberg Funnel• Eiler, M.A. 1997. Minimalism and

Documentation Downsizing• Reddish, J. 1999. A Practical Guide to

Useability Testing• Reddish, J. 1999. Building usability

into your documentation, Interfaces and websites

• Whitehead, A.N. 1929. The Aims of Education

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Minimalist Websites and Links • Minimalism (J. Carroll):

http://tip.psychology.org/carroll.htmlhttp://dabcc-www.nmsu.edu/bis/comtec/RC/carroll/  

• Minimalism and Documentation:http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/3.1/reviews/eiler/minimal.html 

• Cognitive Approaches to Instructional Design:http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~bwilson/training.html 

• Achieving Minimalism Through Interactive Multimedia:http://www.stc.org/51stConf/sessionMaterial/dataShow.asp?ID=137 

• Technical Writers of India (TWIN):http://www.twin-india.org/Minimalism.html

• Usability Testing: http://www.usability.gov http://stcsig.org/usability