CODE Portal and David Jonassen

First I want to point you towards the PDF a lot of my research is based on. This great PDF is where I read about David Jonassen’s “five essential aspects to learn in a meaningful and effective manner”.

http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/CASPrimaryComputing.pdf (See pages 19 and 20)

David Jonassen’s five essential aspects to learn in a meaningful and effective manner (ACIAC) can be applied to the tasks and modules in the CODE Portal.

• Active – discussion and research.
• Constructive – blog findings, create a prototype, deliver a presentation.
• Intentional – allow a choice of the final solutions approach.
• Authentic – allow pupils activity to be shared, seen, used, extended.
• Co-operative – working together, includes remotely.

Modules would be designed to target these “essential aspects” i.e. a module may ask the student to do some “Active” research and then present their finds in a “Constructive” manner. We would aim for pupils to grasp these five aspects by Primary 7 and adopt methodologies as tools for future problem-solving.

Task Clarity

It will be a design requirement to display what computer science elements each task teaches. Tasks can be categorized by type but they also need to clearly show what level, common age group and key stage they focus on. This will allow course building for individuals, entire classes, small groups, and staff.

Module Clarity

A course of tasks would make up a module. It may be important to show clearly where a module’s activity type changes and encourage the learner’s mind setting to change dynamically. We might use prompts to encourage a certain mindset along the way i.e. encouraging a pupil to step away from their computer and conduct research or gather with a team. I have created categories of tasks and assigned David Jonassen’s ACIAC to them.

• Discussion (Active)
• Research (Active)
• Prototyping (Constructive)
• Blogging (Constructive)
• Coding (Constructive)
• Decide Methods (Intentional)
• Select Software (Intentional)
• Decide Required Skills (Intentional)
• Choose Supporting Knowledge (Intentional)
• More Uses (Authentic)
• Testers (Authentic)
• Upload (Authentic)
• Sell (Authentic)
• Demonstrate (Authentic)
• Team (Co-operative)
• File Share (Co-operative)
• Delegate (Co-operative)
• Hire (Co-operative)

We can how to use this list to design lessons that focus on specific ACIAC or a range of them.