The help which is offered to teachers and designers in the Think Tank workshop involves the use of four decision-making aids. The aids, or referents as I would prefer to call them (because of how they function), are shown in Fig. 3. Continue reading 2.2 What might this ‘something’ be?
Tag: Referent
2.4 Referent 2: The nth generation of the specified needs
Think about designing a course for teaching six-year-olds to tell the time. Let digital watches, cuckoo clocks and every other sort of clock chase each other through your mind . . . . Have you ever had to teach a child to tell the time? If so, what were the difficulties? What strategies would you think of using? Continue reading 2.4 Referent 2: The nth generation of the specified needs
2.5 Referent 3: An appropriate model (an existing design)
Thinking up a design takes time: before the optimum design is found a lot of mental effort will be demanded.
It can be nice to have something to accelerate the process. This is what referent 3: an appropriate model is for. Continue reading 2.5 Referent 3: An appropriate model (an existing design)
2.6 Referent 4: A response environment organizer
Sometimes in thinking up a design, you can have the best didactical intention (referent 1) in mind, your specification or databank (referent 2) filled with the right needs, an existing design (referent 3) sending out interesting signals, and yet you are still waiting — waiting for that ‘click’ as the parts of the puzzle fall into place and your decision-making goes racing and tumbling to its conclusion. Continue reading 2.6 Referent 4: A response environment organizer
2.7 Case study no. 2: Fighting forest fires safely
On repeated occasions in 1964 on the shuttle flight between La Guardia airport New York and National airport Washington DC, I was struggling with a course design problem. It seemed relatively simple and yet the solution (the choice of a plan, structure and strategy of instruction for the course involved) eluded me time and time again.
At the time I was assigned by the consulting company for which I worked in New York to an account in the US Forestry Service (Fire Control Division) in Washington DC. The service was concerned about the loss of life and injury to personnel that had occurred in some large forest fires in the western states of America. A directive on the subject, formulated years earlier, was re-issued for urgent attention.
The directive was crystal clear. It referred to Ten Safety Orders for strict observance when fighting forest fires. ‘These orders’, the directive ran, ‘are to be committed to memory by all personnel with fire control responsibility’. The directive to me was also unequivocal: to Washington, work with the US Forestry Service Training Department (Bert Holtby) and with the Fire Control Division (John Pierovich) and make an effective, valued (etc) course to teach the ten orders.’ Continue reading 2.7 Case study no. 2: Fighting forest fires safely