THE POSTMODERN PARADIGM

Brent G. Wilson, University of Colorado at Denver

 

Abstract

The constructivist movement is changing the way many of us think about instructional design (ID), but still, postmodern critics of educational technology are often seen as too radical, too iconoclastic. Streibel (1986), for example, offers a devastating critique of computers in education that makes many educational technologists feel uncomfortable. Computers are our stock in trade, after all. Other postmodern writers offer critiques of practice, but relatively few directly address the interests of instructional designers. This paper suggests that (1) postmodern perspectives about the world underlie much constructivist writing, and (2) a postmodern stance can offer positive, constructive critiques of ID practice. After a brief introduction to postmodern ideas, a set of recommendations are offered for changing ID practice.

For more than ten years, a small clique of postmodern researchers and theorists has existed within the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). For years, they behaved like a small, persecuted minority-a "cult" of sorts. They complained that journal editors were biased, ignorant, and unwilling to publish their radical writings. They struggled to have AECT papers and symposia accepted on the program.

The main forum for the postmodern clique was an annual "foundations symposium," which year by year found its way onto AECT's program. I have attended these symposia for the last several years, and have noticed two things. First, the crowds are getting bigger and seemingly better informed. Second, I have noticed a change in the presenters. I see less defensiveness and fewer signs of being persecuted. Instead, I see a growing maturity of perspective and a growing confidence that a postmodern perspective has something hopeful and positive to say to our field. It is in that same spirit of hopefulness and honesty that I approach this chapter. I am not a member of the postmodern clique. I am an instructional designer-a moniker unpopular in many postmodern circles. But I approach the task of articulating postmodernism with a belief that there are some worthwhile ideas here, and that the field of ID can be improved by listening closely to "alternate voices" currently abounding in our field.

Three recent publications symbolize the growing acceptance of postmodern thinking within educational technology:

--Dennis Hlynka and Andrew Yeaman prepared a carefully written two-page digest of postmodern thinking for publication as an ERIC Digest (Hlynka and Yeaman, 1992). This is the first source I would recommend for instructional designers interested in a brief and clear introduction to postmodern thinking.

--In 1992, Educational Technology Publications published a collection of postmodern writing edited by Dennis Hlynka and John Belland, titled Paradigms regained: The uses of illuminative, semiotic, and post-modern criticism as modes of inquiry in educational technology: A book of readings This book serves as a valuable resource for educational technologists in search of alternative perspectives for interpreting their field.

--The March 1994 issue of Educational Technology was devoted to postmodern topics. The issue again made postmodernism more visible within the educational technology community, but also included some real dialogue, spurred by Barbara Martin's (1994) call for better communications between postmodern critics and the educational technology community.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a short guided tour of postmodern thinking for practicing instructional designers raised in the "old school" of Gagné, Briggs, and Merrill. I will assume that you have been exposed to some measure of constructivist thinking, yet postmodern philosophy remains a mystery. To help make a transition to postmodern ways of thinking, the second half of the chapter offers a set of recommendations for doing traditional ID steps in ways more sensitive to postmodern perspectives.

Also at the outset, please remember that labels such as "constructivist" or "postmodern" embrace a whole range of ideas and methods. This chapter is my best shot at elucidating postmodern philosophy for an ID audience, yet I approach the task as an admiring outsider, not really an expert. What I can bring to the discussion is my understanding of instructional designers and their preconceptions. The next step for any reader would be to consult original sources-either the educational technologists referred to above, or the postmodern philosophers and critics they rely upon in their writing.

An Introduction to Postmodern Thinking

I have decided that the best way to provide a conceptual overview is to tell a simple story. This story is not true, but it has some truth in it. It is meant to serve as a scaffold for making sense out of the word 'postmodern.'

 

A Story about Worldviews

The ancient worldview. In many ways, the ancients of Greece and Rome were a lot like us. They faced some of the same questions we face now-namely-How is it that we know things? How can we get at the truth? How is the world made up? The ancients recognized that appearances can be deceiving-that what looks reliable and stable on the surface may actually be in flux and changing. How can we get at the way things really are? To address this problem, the ancients differentiated between the world that we see with our eyes and the "real" world, which was perfect, whole, and divine. The divine, in fact, was what made it possible for us to catch glimpses of the "real," idealized world. Left to our own inclinations, we see imperfection, weakness, and lots of jagged edges. With the help of divine logic and mathematics, the jagged edges become smooth, and the perfect thing-behind-the-thing is made manifest to us. Concepts are divine revelations of the way the world really is-our everyday usage of "ideas" stems from the ideal forms sought by the ancients.

The modern worldview. The ancient view of things dominated our thinking for many years, in fact through the Medieval Era. Beginning with the Renaissance, however, we gradually shifted our focus. Taught to look to God for truth-and for God in the Church and in received texts-many bright thinkers instead started to believe their own eyes and faculties. Rather than God assuming the central role in the universe, man himself became the standard for judging the truth of things. Man's intellect was capable of discerning truth from error. Certain defined methods for discovering truth and evaluating evidence came to be considered reliable and sufficient for gaining access to the "truth." Superstition and tradition were replaced by rationality and the scientific method. Technology and the progress of science would signal a corresponding progress in society, until man perfected himself and controlled nature through his knowledge and tools.

Still, philosophers troubled themselves over the same questions of how do we know the truth? Kant realized that we will never really get at the way things really are, but that we can get pretty close-we create schemas in our mind that roughly match up with how things are. The word 'phenomenon' comes from Kant, and means essentially "close to the real thing."

Over the years, however, it became clear to philosophers that there remained an insurmountable gulf between ourselves and the truth. We live in a specific time and place, conditioned by a particular culture and set of experiences. Without God to connect us to the truth, how can we get there? How can we transcend our limitations and reach beyond ourselves to the way things really are? These are tough questions that have not gone away through the ages.

The postmodern worldview. 'Postmodernism', as the term implies, is largely a response to modernity. Whereas modernity trusted science to lead us down the road of progress, postmodernism questioned whether science alone could really get us there. Whereas modernity happily created inventions and technologies to improve our lives, postmodernism took a second look and wondered whether our lives were really better for all the gadgets and toys. Postmodernism looked at the culmination of modernity in the 20th century-the results of forces such as nationalism, totalitarianism, technocracy, consumerism, and modern warfare-and said, we can see the efficiency and the improvements, but we can also see the dehumanizing, mechanizing effects in our lives. The Holocaust was efficient, technical, coldly rational. There must be a better way to think about things.

So what about the age-old questions about truth and knowledge? A postmodernist might say, "Truth is what people agree on," or "Truth is what works," or "Hey, there is no Truth, only lots of little 'truths' running around out there!" Postmodernists tend to reject the idealized view of Truth inherited from the ancients and replace it with a dynamic, changing truth bounded by time, space, and perspective. Rather than seeking for the unchanging ideal, postmodernists tend to celebrate the dynamic diversity of life.

In their ERIC Digest, Hlynka and Yeaman (1992) outline some key features of postmodern thinking (liberally paraphrased for simplicity):

1. A commitment to plurality of perspectives, meanings, methods, values-everything!

2. A search for and appreciation of double meanings and alternative interpretations, many of them ironic and unintended.

3. A critique or distrust of Big Stories meant to explain everything. This includes grand theories of science, and myths in our religions, nations, cultures, and professions that serve to explain why things are the way they are.

4. An acknowledgment that-because there is a plurality of perspectives and ways of knowing-there are also multiple truths.

In a lovely section, Hlynka and Yeaman (1992) suggest (ironically!) four easy steps to becoming a postmodernist:

1. Consider concepts, ideas and objects as texts. Textual meanings are open to interpretation.

2. Look for binary oppositions in those texts. Some usual oppositions are good/bad, progress/tradition, science/myth, love/hate, man/woman, and truth/fiction.

3. "Deconstruct" the text by showing how the oppositions are not necessarily true.

4. Identify texts which are absent, groups who are not represented and omissions, which may or may not be deliberate, but are important. pp. 1-2.

Postmodern thinking grew out of the humanities tradition-philosophy, literary criticism, the arts. This helps to account for some of the misunderstandings that can occur between instructional designers and postmodern critics. As C. P. Snow argued in The Two Cultures (1969), people in science see things very differently than people in the humanities. The field of instructional design, evolving from behavioral psychology, systems technology, and management theory, sees the world through the "scientific" lens, whereas postmodernists tend to see things through a critical, humanities type of lens. The goal of an artist or critic is not so much to explain, predict, and control, but to create, appreciate and interpret meanings. Over the years, postmodern approaches have expanded to encompass science, feminism, education, and the social sciences, but the orientation remains that of interpretation rather than prediction and control.

 

An Example of "Deconstruction": Conditions-of-Learning Models

As an illustrative exercise, I have attempted a postmodern deconstruction of traditional ID models. Conditions-of-learning or "CoL" models are the type of models we find in Reigeluth (1983b). Gagné, Briggs, Merrill, and Reigeluth are the classic "CoL" theorists. Wilson and Cole (1991) described the basic conditions-of-learning paradigm:

[CoL] models are based on Robert Gagné's conditions-of-learning paradigm (Gagné, 1966), which in its time was a significant departure from the Skinnerian operant conditioning paradigm dominant among American psychologists. The conditions-of-learning paradigm posits that a graded hierarchy of learning outcomes exists, and for each desired outcome, a set of conditions exists that leads to learning. Instructional design is a matter of clarifying intended learning outcomes, then matching up appropriate instructional strategies. The designer writes behaviorally specific learning objectives, classifies those objectives according to a taxonomy of learning types, then arranges the instructional conditions to fit the current instructional prescriptions. In this way, designers can design instruction to successfully teach a rule, a psychomotor skill, an attitude, or piece of verbal information.

A related idea within the conditions-of-learning paradigm claims that sequencing of instruction should be based on a hierarchical progression from simple to complex learning outcomes. Gagné developed a technique of constructing learning hierarchies for analyzing skills: A skill is rationally decomposed into parts and sub-parts; then instruction is ordered from simple subskills to the complete skill. Elaboration theory uses content structure (concept, procedure, or principle) as the basis for organizing and sequencing instruction (Reigeluth, Merrill, Wilson, & Spiller, 1980). Both methods depend on task analysis to break down the goals of instruction, then on a method of sequencing proceeding from simple to gradually more complex and complete tasks. p. 49.

The critique below is an edited revision of an e-mail post I sent to some author-friends who are writing a chapter on "conditions-of-learning" models; hence the especially informal tone. In spite of the informality, however, the concepts are rather abstract and difficult. If this section proves too confusing, please skip to the next section!

Conditions-of-learning (CoL) models rely on a number of assumptions and distinctions, including:

Description versus prescription. The precise stance of CoL models is somewhat ambiguous-are they "scientific" models or are they "engineering" procedures? In some ways CoL models are descriptive-"There are these kinds of learning outcomes, these kinds of strategies"-but descriptive only of highly artificial activities and structures (cf. Simon, 1983). CoL models rest on a loosely defined knowledge base-a little psychology, a little instructional research, a little systems theory, a little information theory. CoL models also serve a prescriptive function for ID, but in a strange sense. Because of their difficulty, they are more than simple "recipes" or "hooks" for the novice to use and then grow out of. They are kind of saying: "Instruction should be like this, so do it this way." To complement instructional systems development (ISD) models-which focus more on procedures and processes-CoL models focus more on the product, saying "Good instruction should look this way; go and do likewise."

Another way of looking at this question is to consider what defines good instruction:

1. Craft/process definition. Instruction made by jumping certain hoops. Instruction made in a certain way-following ISD steps-is good.

2. Empirical definition. Instruction that demonstrably results in targeted learning. This is an assessment-based definition. This is a pragmatic, commonsense approach to it-if it works, it's good.

3. Analytic/scientific definition. Instruction that has all the desired attributes. This is the product definition of goodness. The product incorporates effective principles, contains certain features, looks a certain way. You can tell by examining the product, rather than the process used to create it or its effect on learners. This approach is most characteristic of CoL models, defining good instruction in terms of its use of certain instructional strategies and components. If the lesson has an advance organizer, clear writing, lots of examples, lots of practice, etc.-then it is good instruction.

Orthogonal independence of content and method. This is analogous to Richard Clark's claims about media and strategy-that they're independent and crossable. I may learn a concept via examples or via a definition or via a bunch of practice. In each case, however, I've learned the same thing-the target concept. An alternative view (that would need some defense) would be that different strategies necessarily lead to qualitatively different outcomes, even if some of the behaviors exhibitable by the person may be the same.

CoL models assume that there is a class of methods that fits a class of learning goals, and that I can reliably draw upon one in service of the other. But let's say your goal is to make a "Yale man" out of me. Can I accomplish those learning goals by attending Front Range Community College? Can I generalize the strategy used in one setting and replicate it in another setting? How transferable/generalizable are different "contents" and "methods"?

The "real" status of content and method. Trying to find "content" in the experiences of experts can be as hard as finding "method" in the experiences of teachers and designers. Where precisely is the content? Does it "exist" in the objectives list? In people's heads? Where is the "method"? Do I look it up in Charlie's books (Reigeluth, 1983, 1987)? Both content and method are rooted in the actual experience and practice of people engaged in instructional activities. Yet CoL models tend to treat textbook objectives and strategies as if they had a clear, unproblematic, unambiguous ontological status. I think that the challenge for designers is not so much in following the models properly, but in determining how a model relates to a practical situation. How can you make sense out of a CoL model when you encounter a messy real learning situation?

Instructional theory versus the practice of design. CoL approaches are all built on the conditions-goals-method framework that Charlie Reigeluth articulates in the "Green Book" (Reigeluth, 1983b): Depending on the conditions and your instructional goals, you "select" the appropriate instructional strategy to accomplish those goals. Such a view defines ID as adherence to a set of rules, and places the expertise or knowledge into the textbook-or the rule-based expert system. The advantages of this approach are that the knowledge can be codified, owned, controlled, and communicated unambiguously to others. Technician-level people can even do it, even if they don't really understand what they're doing, just following numbers. What an advance! The down side is that it doesn't work beyond a poor level of "output."

Schön (1987) calls this aspect of practice "technical rationality." He doesn't deny its place; all disciplines have a technical component. But he says that's only a starting point for design or for professional practice. Technical rationality is the formal, abstract statement of theory that gets all the attention of the researcher but which utterly fails to "capture" the real expertise of the practitioners' culture. When David Merrill first attempted to convert his theories into expert systems, he found a whole new layer of problems and decisions he had previously ignored. I am saying that between expert systems and real life, there is yet again a whole huge layer of expertise, and that expert systems are inherently incapable of capturing it. Hence the chasm between theory and practice, between researcher and practitioner. The theorist takes seriously this formalism, this set of algorithmic rules for practice; the practitioner depends on a huge "bank" of additional knowledge and values-including how to use the technical rules-that accounts for successful practice.

The situation is similar to research on cognitive strategies. Researchers (Butterfield & Belmont, 1975) found that retarded learners were perfectly capable of mastering the specific strategies-it was in knowing when and where to use those strategies, and how to adapt them to situations, that they failed. Our theories are like the strategy repertoires of retarded learners-of themselves they do not add up to true expertise because they are missing the intangible, unanalyzable ingredients that go into everyday cognition and decision-making.

Of course, the same criticism can be leveled at attempts to define content via standard objectives and task analyses. It can't be done. Over-reliance on objectives and analyses can easily lead to failed instruction for the same reason that dogmatic adherence to CoL models will lead to failed instruction: There's more to it than what's written down in the books. People need to have experiences that place them in positions where they'll learn important things. Who knows exactly what they'll learn, but one thing for certain: If you sterilize and control the learning environment and teach only your targeted objectives, learners will fail to learn how to be the thing you want them to be. They may learn some things you want them to learn, but they will fail at the role you're asking them to play in a real world of practice.

Design versus implementation. CoL models assume that intended learning outcomes and instructional strategies can be made in a context removed in time and setting from practice. Winn (1990) developed this argument fairly well. Following traditional ID procedures, designers and subject experts sit together in a room over a table and make decisions about how teachers and students are going to spend their lives. We can make these decisions out of context. Sometimes we may not know that much about the context of use. Marty Tessmer's (Tessmer & Harris, 1990) work on environmental analysis is an attempt to re-introduce some "systems" thinking back into instructional design, realizing that contexts of use are inexorably related to the design.

In an interesing self-analysis, Clancey (1993) noted that after years of work developing GUIDON and other expert systems for medical problem-solving, virtually no product ever achieved day-to-day use by medical practitioners. He faulted the design team's removal from the context of practice. The design team assumed that practitioners would welcome an expert system into their work; they thought the transition to the field would be relatively unproblematic. They failed to include implementation factors in their design, failed to achieve praxis-the interaction between theory and practice that keeps both fresh. There is a danger that when ID decisions are removed from the context of real instruction, similar problems will occur.

The role of the instructional designer. According to typical ID models, the instructional designer comes onto a new subject, gets fed the content by the subject-matter expert (SME), and spits it back out in the form of quality instruction. By contrast, Shulman (1987) found a whole array of different kinds of knowledge that an effective teacher must have in order to teach effectively. There is accumulating research to suggest that teachers who don't know the content inside out don't teach it as well. That's the problem with elementary math-too many elementary teachers are math phobic, don't really understand the concepts and underlying structure, and hence don't teach it well. It is amazing to me how we can expect designers who are neophytes to a subject to somehow design good instruction for it.

Instructional strategies (and types of learning outcomes) "selected" from a pool. Beside the problems of technical rationality stated above, having a finite set of strategies (or objectives types) carries a unique danger-that of locking ourselves into set ways of thinking and not being open to innovations or new solutions. Following a CoL model will likely "bias" me toward a certain defined class of strategies or learning outcomes and "blind" me to other possible ways of viewing learning outcomes or strategies. The examples are obvious-CoL models tend to view motivational variables as "add-on"; they tend to neglect social cognition and cultural variables; they still don't have a good language for metacognitive and problem-solving outcomes. On the strategy side, a variety of constructivist strategies-simulations, games, cognitive tools-were neglected in "classic" CoL models, with updating and revisions currently going on.

The point is that traditional CoL models grew out of a particular time and place and its attending ways of seeing the world. The two Reigeluth books reflect pretty much a 1970s psychology, translated into 1980s instructional theory. Any model or theory reflects a perspective of a defined time and place. In contrast, professional practice is never ending, always changing, just as our views are always changing. In the real world, change is the norm; unfortunately, we don't yet have a mechanism for continually updating our formal theoretical models in the same continuous way.

Of course, none of the assumptions above need be devastating to the use of CoL models. Each carries a set of risks (which I have emphasized above) but also yields a certain economy or efficiency in practice. The cumulative danger, though, is that use of CoL models will result in lowest-common-denominator, mediocre-at-best instruction rather than creative or genuinely good instruction. Certainly failure to even think about assumptions like these increases the probability that CoL models will be uncritically and inappropriately used.

 

Postmodern Roots of Constructivism

There may be some confusion as to how postmodernism is different from constructivism-certainly the more common term found in the ID literature. I confess to some confusion myself, and to occasionally mixing up the two terms (see Wilson, Osmon-Jouchoux, & Teslow, 1995). I think it helps to clarify the issue to think of postmodernism as an underlying philosophy about the world, and constructivism as a very general theory of cognition, suggesting how the mind works and how we know things. The roots of many constructivist beliefs about cognition are traceable to postmodern philosophies which depart from the rationalist, objectivist, and technocratic tendencies of "modern" society. Table 1 illustrates this relationship between constructivism and an underlying postmodern philosophy.

Underlying Philosophy

Theory about Cognition

Postmodernism Postmodern philosophy emphasizes contextual construction of meaning and the validity of multiple perspectives. Key ideas include: --Knowledge is constructed by people and groups of people; --Reality is multiperspectival; --Truth is grounded in everyday life and social relations. --Life is a text; thinking is an interpretive act. --Facts and values are inseparable; --Science and all other human activities are value-laden.

Constructivism (Situated-cognition Flavor) -Mind is real. Mental events are worthy of study. -Knowledge is dynamic. -Meaning is constructed. -Learning is a natural consequence of performance. -Reflection/abstraction is critical to expert performance and to becoming an expert. -Teaching is negotiating construction of meaning. -Thinking and perception are inseparable. -Problem solving is central to cognition. -Perception and understanding are also central to cognition.

Table 1. A situated-cognition flavor of constructivism and its underlying postmodern philosophy.

In truth, not all constructivists are postmodern in their orientation. In psychology, constructivism originally reflected the thinking of people like Piaget and Vygotsky, who were basically modern in orientation. The current instructional models of Spiro, Jonassen, Bereiter, Resnick, Lesgold, etc.-while definitely constructivist-show varying degrees of postmodern influence (although some may be postmodern without realizing it!). It is possible to have a constructivist view of cognition while still retaining a fairly traditional, modern view of science, method, and technology.

It should also be noted that postmodern thinking can lead to what I consider positive or negative outlooks on life. On the down side, some postmodernist theories can lead to despair, cynicism, moral indifference, wimpishness, and a kind of myopic self-centeredness. At the same time, other theorists are using postmodern ideas to fashion very positive, hopeful-even spiritual-approaches to life (Spretnak, 1991; Tarnas, 1991). My slant on postmodernism in this paper has been positive, as I believe it must be to have an impact on instructional design.

 

Guidelines for Doing Postmodern ID

In the spirit of subtly changing the meaning of traditional terms, I offer the following laundry list of tips for doing ID with a postmodern twist. The list should provide a clearer idea of how postmodern concepts can infiltrate and change designers' conceptions of their work.

 

General Methodology

Be willing to break the rules. Theories and models are meant to serve human needs. Wise use of these models implies when and where to use them, and where to change the rules or forget about them altogether.

Place principles above procedures, and people above principles. The skilled designer will find ways to follow the principles underlying the procedures. Procedural models of ID are seen as flexible and changeable. Even key principles should be continually tested against the real needs of the people involved in the project.

Include all interested parties in the design and development process. Incorporate participatory design techniques, with design activity moving out of the "lab" and into the field. Include end users (both teachers and students) as part of the design team. Make sure all interested parties-the "constituencies"-have some kind of voice contributing to the outcome of the project.

Don't believe your own metaphors. Be aware of the pervasive influence that labels and metaphors have on our thinking-e.g., "delivery" of instruction, memory "storage," learning "prerequisites," "systems" design, strategy "selection," instructional "feedback," and learning "environments." While such metaphors are necessary for our thinking, they each carry a certain connotative baggage that may blind us to alternative ways of seeing.

 

Needs Assessment

Make use of consensus needs assessment strategies, in addition to gap-oriented strategies. Gap models of needs assessment attempt to portray the "ideal" situation, compare it against the present state, leaving a need in the gap. The technical fix suggested by gap models of needs assessment may be appropriate for certain work settings. However, not all instruction is designed to improve performance in a specific work setting. Schools may develop curriculum based on a consensus among very different constituencies; the "ideal" situation may be a political compromise.

Do an "environmental impact" analysis. Gap analyses always need to be supplemented with consideration of the "environmental impact" of proposed fixes. After addressing the targeted needs, what kinds of unintended outcomes may be anticipated?

Resist the temptation to be driven by easily measured and manipulated content. Many important learning outcomes cannot be easily measured. It may or may not be possible to reduce value down to a number. The postmodern designer will be sensitive to subtle yet highly valued outcomes and effects.

Ask: Who makes the rules about what constitutes a need? Are there other perspectives to consider? What (and whose) needs are being neglected? These questions arise out of the postmodern notion that all human activity is ideologically based. The possible political and social consequences of our actions need to inform our decisions.

 

Goal/Task Analyses

Allow for instruction and learning goals to emerge during instruction. Just as content cannot be fully captured, learning goals cannot be fully pre-specified apart from the actual learning context. See Winn (1990) for a thorough discussion of this issue.

Don't sacrifice educational goals for technical training. Acknowledge that education and training goals arise in every setting. Schools train as well as educate, and workers must be educated-not just trained in skills-to work effectively on the factory floor. The postmodern designer will be especially tuned to the need for educational goals that strengthen conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills in a domain.

Use objectives as heuristics to guide design. There is no special value in operational descriptions of intended learning outcomes; in fact, these may constrain the learners' goals and achievement. Pushing goal statements to behavioral specifications can often be wasted work-or worse, lead to misguided efforts. The "intent" of instruction can be inferred by examining goal statements, learning activities, and assessment methods. Goals and objectives should be specific enough to serve as inputs to the design of assessments and instructional strategies.

Don't expect to "capture" the content in your goal- or task analysis . Content on paper is not the expertise in a practitioner's head (even if you believed expertise resided in someone's head!). The best analysis always falls short of the mark. The only remedy is to design rich learning experiences and interactions where learners can pick up on their own the content missing between the gaps of analysis.

Consider multiple models of expertise. Expertise is usually thought of as having two levels: Expert or proficient performance and novice or initial performance. Of course, a two-level model is insufficient for accurate modeling of student growth over time. A series of qualitative models of expertise may be needed for modeling students' progression in learning critical tasks (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, this volume; White & Frederiksen, 1986). Postmodern theorists would pose an even more radical thought: that expertise does not follow a linear progression of stages, but takes on different forms in different people. Instruction needs to respond to where a learner "is," and support their growth, regardless of their positioning in the expertise "universe."

Give priority to contextualized problem-solving and meaning-constructing learning goals. Instead of rule-following, emphasize problem solving (which incorporates rule-following but is not limited to it). Rules change according to context. But even problem solving is not all there is to cognition-perception is also central. Instead of simple recall and memory tasks, ask learners to practice seeing-making sense out of material and demonstrating their understanding of it (Prawat, 1993).

Define content in multiple ways. Use cases, stories, and patterns in addition to rules, principles, and procedures. Human memory, according to some theorists, is largely story- or narrative-based (Schank, 1991). Other theories, such as situated cognition (Brown, Collins, and Duguid, 1989; Clancey, 1992, 1993) and connectionism (Marshall, 1991), emphasize pattern development and learning from authentic cases. Rich cases, stories, and patterns of performance can be alternative metaphors for finding and representing content. These multiple modes of representation can then find their way into instruction, providing richer, more meaningful experiences for students.

Appreciate the value-ladenness of all analysis. Defining content and goals for learning is a political, ideological enterprise. Valuing one perspective means that other perspectives will be given less value. One approach is given prominence; another is neglected. Somebody wins, and somebody loses. Be sensitive to the value implications of your decisions.

Ask: Who makes the rules about what constitutes a legitimate learning goal? What learning goals are not being analyzed? Whose interests does the project serve? What is the hidden agenda (Noble, 1989)? Twenty-five years ago, a designer using 'understand' as a verb in a learning objective would have been laughed out of the office. 'Understanding' was fuzzy; it was forbidden. Are there other expressions of learning outcomes that remain taboo? Are there other dimensions of human performance that remain undervalued within ID discourse? The cultural? The spiritual? Good postmodern ID would pursue answers to these questions and be unafraid of reexamining current practice.

 

Instructional Strategy Development

Distinguish between instructional goals and learners' goals; support learners in pursuing their own goals. Ng and Bereiter (1991) found that students showed signs of having three kinds of goals: (1) student task-completion goals or "hoop jumping," (2) instructional goals set by the system, and (3) personal knowledge-building goals set by the student. The three do not always converge. A student motivated by task-completion goals doesn't even consider learning, yet many students' behavior in schools is driven by just such performance requirements. Postmodern instruction would nourish and encourage pursuit of personal knowledge-building goals, while still supporting instructional goals. As Mark Twain put it: "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

Appreciate the interdependency of content and method. Traditional design theory treats content and the method for teaching that content as orthogonally independent factors. Postmodern ID says you can't entirely separate the two. When you use a Socratic method, you are teaching something quite different than when you use worksheets and a posttest. Teaching concepts via a rule definition results in something different than teaching the same concepts via rich cases and class discussion. Just as McLuhan discerned the confounding of "media" and "message," so designers must see how learning goals are not uniformly met by interchangeable instructional strategies.

Allow for the "teaching moment." Situations occur within instruction at which the student is primed and ready to learn a significant new insight. Good teachers create conditions under which such moments occur regularly, then they seize the moment and teach the lesson. This kind of flexibility requires a level of spontaneity and responsiveness not usually talked about in ID circles.

Be open to new ways of thinking about education and instruction. The postmodern designer will always feel somewhat ill at ease when "applying" a particular model, even the more progressive models such as cognitive apprenticeship, minimalist training, intentional learning environments, or case- or story-based instruction. Designers should always be playing with models, trying new things out, modifying or adapting methods to suit new circumstances.

Think in terms of designing learning environments and experiences rather than "selecting" instructional strategies. Metaphors are important. Does the designer "select" a strategy or "arrange" a learning experience? Postmodern designers would usually think of instruction in interactive, experiential terms rather than as a simple product or presentation.

Think of instruction as providing tools that teachers and students can use for learning; make these tools user-friendly. This frame of mind is virtually the opposite of "teacher-proofing" instructional materials to assure uniform adherence to designers' use expectations. Instead, teachers and students are encouraged to make creative and intelligent use of instructional tools and resources. In some respects the designer is surrendering control over the use of the product, but in so doing participates more meaningfully in the total design of the experience.

Consider strategies that provide multiple perspectives that encourage the learner to exercise responsibility. Resist the temptation to "pre-package" everything. Let learners generate their own questions and goals, then seek out information and experiences to address those questions. Of course, this runs the risk of not giving the learner enough guidance, or of exposing too much confusion and complexity. Certainly there are times to simplify and reduce complexity; the designer needs to exercise best judgment and find methods for support in the midst of complexity.

Appreciate the value-ladenness of instructional strategies. Sitting through a school board meeting is enough to convince anyone of this. Instructional strategies grow out of our philosophies of the world and our value systems. Not only the content, but the strategy can be a threat to particular ideological positions or to learner motivation. Good designers will be sensitive to the "fit" between their designs and the situation.

 

Media Selection

Include media biases as a consideration in media decisions. Different media send different "messages" to an audience, independently of the instructional content. A TV show means something different to a child than another worksheet. Look for any "hidden curriculum" elements in different media choices. Avoid negative stereotypes and cultural biases. Consider the rhetorical goodness of fit between media choice and overall instructional purposes.

Include media literacy as a planning consideration. Designers should be sensitive to an audience's media sophistication and literacy, paying particular attention to humor, media conventions, and production values.

 

Student Assessment

Incorporate assessment into the learning experience where possible. Skilled teachers will be assessing students informally all the time. Also, technologies are available for incorporating continuous, "dynamic assessment" into learning materials (Lajoie & Lesgold, 1992). Assessment should be seamlessly integrated into meaningful learning experiences and not tacked on at the end.

Critique and discuss products and performances grounded in authentic contexts, including portfolios, projects, compositions, and performances. Product and performance reviews can complement more traditional measures of knowledge acquisition and understanding (Cates, 1992). Include different perspectives in the critiquing process.

Use informal assessments within classrooms and learning environments. Informal assessments refer primarily to teacher observations of eye contact, body language, facial expressions, and work performance. These observations can complement formal assessments as a basis for instructional adjustments.

 

Conclusion

If my purpose has been accomplished, you will have gained an appreciation of postmodern ideas and how they can relate to ID practice. As we continue to grow professionally, the same old terms begin to take on different meanings. At the same time, I hope you are cautious and critical in evaluating these ideas. Avoid any bandwagon phenomenon. Test any of the ideas in this chapter or book against the reality of your practice. All theories and ideas need to be put into the service of real-world practice and usability. Remember the postmodern slogan: "Question authority (before they question you!)"

 

Author Notes

Brent Wilson is an associate professor of instructional technology at the University of Colorado at Denver and may be reached at bwilson@carbon.denver.colorado.edu. Brent's research interests include instructional-design theory, constructivist learning environments, and technology in the classroom. Parts of this chapter are adapted from one published in B. Seels (Ed.), Instructional design fundamentals. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1995. That chapter, "The Impact of Constructivism (and Postmodernism) on ID Fundamentals", was co-authored by Jim Teslow and Rionda Osman-Jouchoux. The former chapter focused on constructivism, whereas here the focus is on postmodern thinking that underlies much of the constructivist discussion. A special thanks goes to Charles Dills for his encouragement and patience in the production of the manuscript.

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