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Strategy-Based Instruction: Lessons Learned in Teaching the Effective and Efficient Use of Computer Applications

Published: 01 May 2008 Publication History

Abstract

Numerous studies have shown that many users do not acquire the knowledge necessary for the effective and efficient use of computer applications such as spreadsheets and Web-authoring tools. While many cognitive, cultural, and social reasons have been offered to explain this phenomenon, there have been few systematic attempts to address it. This article describes how we identified a framework to organize effective and efficient strategies to use computer applications and used an approach called strategy-based instruction to teach those strategies over five years to almost 400 students. Controlled experiments demonstrated that the instructional approach (1) enables students to learn strategies without harming command knowledge, (2) benefits students from technical and nontechnical majors, and (3) is robust across different instructional contexts and new applications. Real-world classroom experience of teaching strategy-based instruction over several instantiations has enabled the approach to be disseminated to other universities. The lessons learned throughout the process of design, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination should allow teaching a large number of users in many organizations to rapidly acquire the strategic knowledge to make more effective and efficient use of computer applications.

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  1. Strategy-Based Instruction: Lessons Learned in Teaching the Effective and Efficient Use of Computer Applications

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      Fjodor J. Ruzic

      The strength of strategy-based instruction resides in its instructional practices and learning environments, especially when applied to teaching the use of computer applications. In addition, as practice shows, strategy-based instruction offers explicit, systematic, procedural development for assisting teachers in delivering instruction through gradual release; students learn through cognitive procedures that lead to metacognition. This paper presents the results of research supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and describes the framework used to organize effective and efficient strategies for using computer applications. The study is based on the strategy-based instruction of 400 students, over five years; it gives a solid basis for findings to be valid and useful for further research in the field. Throughout the introduction, Bhavnani et al. explain the reasons for strategy-based instruction and confirm its adequacy in the process of improving teaching strategies. The statements are based on the current literature in the field. The authors also pose the old question of what efficient and effective strategies really are. There is relatively little research on this approach for using computer applications. The section on the design of the strategy framework describes the specific work done in this area. The authors start from the idea of modeling the knowledge required to use the strategies before the instruction is designed; therefore, they describe a separate design component related to the strategy-based instructional framework. This framework is based on the 3com model (three-knowledge component) consisting of command knowledge, strategic knowledge, and application-strategic knowledge. Each of these components is well described and proven. The paper studies whether students recognize the opportunity to use strategy. The authors present the evaluation of the strategy-based instruction prototype, accompanied by an overview of the lessons learned in teaching strategy-based use of computer applications. The data used as the basis for the study is presented in separate appendices, and followed by a comprehensive list of references. Anyone involved in the development of teaching strategies and the practical use of strategy-based instructional models will find this work a valuable resource. Online Computing Reviews Service

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      Published In

      cover image ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
      ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction  Volume 15, Issue 1
      May 2008
      207 pages
      ISSN:1073-0516
      EISSN:1557-7325
      DOI:10.1145/1352782
      Issue’s Table of Contents
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Publication History

      Published: 01 May 2008
      Accepted: 01 August 2007
      Revised: 01 September 2006
      Received: 01 May 2005
      Published in TOCHI Volume 15, Issue 1

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      Author Tags

      1. Strategies
      2. strategy-based instruction
      3. teaching
      4. training

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