Cognitive Flexibility Theory Matt Koehler CEP 909 Nov

Cognitive Flexibility Theory Matt Koehler CEP 909 Nov 7, 2001

Why Non-linearity • Not all domains require the use of potentially confusing non-linearity • Simple domains are best left to simple presentation modes • Reserve the use of non-linearity for “complex, ill-structured domains” [More in a bit about this] • Propose Cognitive Flexibility Theory as a way to avoid the pitfalls of teaching and learning in an ill-structured domain

Complex, Ill-Structured? • Domains that are not easily compartmentalized • Domains that are not easy to understand • Domains that require “deep understanding” between principles and practice • Domains that require a lot of experience to learn well

Pitfalls to Avoid • Singular representations -Students learn only one way to represent ideas (electricity is like water flowing through a pipe) • Students over-simplify the domain (presenting a complex domain as a linear progression of ideas can make the domain seem simpler than it is). • Compartmentalizing knowledge (seeing ideas in isolation). • Presenting boundaries of learning (knowledge in complex domains is continual) • Failing to understand the active process of learning • Failure to transfer knowledge to new problems of practice

Cognitive Flexibility Theory to the rescue • Represent knowledge in it’s smallest elements that still have meaning (e. g. “mini-cases”) • Represent knowledge in multiple ways • Never hide complexity from readers • Mini-cases represent more than one idea, and represent the complex, ill-structured connections between multiple ideas • Criss-cross the cases to produce flexible, rich understanding

Criss-Crossing the Conceptual Landscape • “The best way to come to understand a given landscape is to explore it from many directions, to traverse it first this way and then that (preferably with a guide to highlight significant features). Our instructional system for presenting a complexly ill-structured “topical landscape” is analogous to a physical landscape exploration, with different routes of traversing study-sites (cases) that are each analyzed from a number of thematic perspectives” [Spiro et. al, 1987, pp-187]

Claimed Advantages of the Approach • Students don’t: – Compartmentalize knowledge – Oversimplify – Rely on a few canonical cases • Students do: – Develop multiple representations – Develop connections between knowledge – Are better able to transfer to new problems – Come away with a better overall understanding of complexity, multi-faceted knowledge, and learning (Mishra, et al) – Have accelerated learning experience

Remaining Questions? • What counts as complex, ill-structured? • How do you make a CFT hypertext? • How would you go about proving any of these claims?