Taxonomy of Interactivity

Sep 11th, 2008

Pedagogy, Professional Development, games, learning-style, reflection, website

Clark Aldrich isn’t some one I knew about or had met before a quick twitter comment. The link interested me it was about interactivity and games. Clark in this blog post has outline a taxonomy of interactivity ranging from level 0 (children should be seen and not heard approach) to level 6 (The students are running the show) .

http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2008/08/taxonomy-of-interactivity.html

This is something that I like and could relate to. While Clark is looking specifically at the taxonomy of interactivity as it refers to games I see parellels to interactivity with teaching. The first link is the learning pyramid.

Clark Aldrich’s Taxonomy of Interactivity	Teaching and learning Taxonomy of Interactivity
Level 0: The instructor speaks regardless of audience. This is the proverbial talking head, often supplemented with PowerPoint slides. Most books fall here, and some lectures.	Level 0: Lecture 5% retention and Reading 10% Retention This is classic teacher centric chalk and talk.
Level 1: The instructor pauses and asks single answer questions of the students. “What year did the Spanish Revolution start?” When the question is correctly answered, the class continues. Many traditional e-learning courses fall here, as well as workbooks.	Level 1 to Level 3:Audio Visual – 20% Demonstration – 30 % Discussion Group – 50% The teacher starts with closed questions and progresses to open ended questioning. Starts with individual involvement and progresses to whole class . I often wonder with individual directed questions if these are in fact a control measure rather than a learning feature. By this I mean how often does the teacher maintain classroom control by asking questions at students who may be off task, misbehaving or are potential trouble makers.
Level 2: The instructor tests the audience and based on the collective response, skips ahead or backtracks. A good preacher might poll his or her audience (”Amen!?”), and based on the collective enthusiasm (”Amen!!”) or lack thereof (”…Amen…”) of the response, decide to linger and make a case or assume agreement and move on. This might require preparing three hours of material for a forty-five minute sermon.
Level 3: The instructor asks multiple choice questions of the audience, where a student might have the opportunity to defend different answers, or the instructor asks real time polling questions for data. Or there may be an open-ended student chat rooms in parallel to the presentation, which periodically surfaces an issue that the speaker addresses. Most branching stories fall here.
Level 4: Students engage labs or other activities that have a single, typically process solution, such as putting together an engine. Mini games are often here. The role of the instructor is starting to be more coach-like.	Level 4 to 5:Practice by doing – 75% retention I feel that in Clark’s taxonomy of interactivity levels 4 to 6 - Practice by doing, simulation and modelling represent a sliding scale here. Obviously some activities are going to be more effective and pertinent and will achieve better learning outcomes. Most of the approaches detailed in levels 4 to 6 are represented in practice by doing
Level 5: Students engage labs or other activities and create unique content; however, most solutions will fall into fairly common patterns if done enough times. This includes the analysis of case studies, the use of interactive spreadsheets, practiceware, and the playing of most complex games, including real time strategy (RTS) and tycoon games.
Level 6: The students engage in long, open ended activities, such as writing a story or creating and executing a plan, and where the class “ends up” is unpredictable. The instructor is now almost completely an enabler, a coach/facilitator, a resource. This includes the use of blogs and microcosms, and longer (multi-day) role-plays, including the use of virtual experience spaces. This column is copied directly from the blog post for comparision. Source: http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2008/08/taxonomy-of-interactivity.html	Level 6:In classroom interactivity, the highest level interaction is represented by the students teaching their peers and for that matter their teachers. Games obviously do have limitation in regards to this.But opportunities using virtual environments like second life’s education Island do exist

Clark Aldrich’s

Taxonomy of Interactivity

Teaching and learning

Taxonomy of Interactivity

Level 0: The instructor speaks regardless of audience. This is the proverbial talking head, often supplemented with PowerPoint slides. Most books fall here, and some lectures.

Level 0: Lecture 5% retention and Reading 10% Retention

This is classic teacher centric chalk and talk.

Level 1: The instructor pauses and asks single answer questions of the students. “What year did the Spanish Revolution start?” When the question is correctly answered, the class continues. Many traditional e-learning courses fall here, as well as workbooks.

Level 1 to Level 3:Audio Visual – 20%

Demonstration – 30 %

Discussion Group – 50%

The teacher starts with closed questions and progresses to open ended questioning.

Starts with individual involvement and progresses to whole class .

I often wonder with individual directed questions if these are in fact a control measure rather than a learning feature.

By this I mean how often does the teacher maintain classroom control by asking questions at students who may be off task, misbehaving or are potential trouble makers.

Level 2: The instructor tests the audience and based on the collective response, skips ahead or backtracks. A good preacher might poll his or her audience (”Amen!?”), and based on the collective enthusiasm (”Amen!!”) or lack thereof (”…Amen…”) of the response, decide to linger and make a case or assume agreement and move on. This might require preparing three hours of material for a forty-five minute sermon.

Level 3: The instructor asks multiple choice questions of the audience, where a student might have the opportunity to defend different answers, or the instructor asks real time polling questions for data. Or there may be an open-ended student chat rooms in parallel to the presentation, which periodically surfaces an issue that the speaker addresses. Most branching stories fall here.

Level 4: Students engage labs or other activities that have a single, typically process solution, such as putting together an engine. Mini games are often here. The role of the instructor is starting to be more coach-like.

Level 4 to 5:Practice by doing – 75% retention

I feel that in Clark’s taxonomy of interactivity levels 4 to 6 - Practice by doing, simulation and modelling represent a sliding scale here.

Obviously some activities are going to be more effective and pertinent and will achieve better learning outcomes. Most of the approaches detailed in levels 4 to 6 are represented in practice by doing

Level 5: Students engage labs or other activities and create unique content; however, most solutions will fall into fairly common patterns if done enough times. This includes the analysis of case studies, the use of interactive spreadsheets, practiceware, and the playing of most complex games, including real time strategy (RTS) and tycoon games.

Level 6: The students engage in long, open ended activities, such as writing a story or creating and executing a plan, and where the class “ends up” is unpredictable. The instructor is now almost completely an enabler, a coach/facilitator, a resource. This includes the use of blogs and microcosms, and longer (multi-day) role-plays, including the use of virtual experience spaces.

This column is copied directly from the blog post for comparision.

Source: http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/2008/08/taxonomy-of-interactivity.html

Level 6:In classroom interactivity, the highest level interaction is represented by the students teaching their peers and for that matter their teachers.

Games obviously do have limitation in regards to this.But opportunities using virtual environments like second life’s education Island do exist

So here are some key questions:

Do you agree with this table? Where does your teaching practice fit on the teaching interactivity scale?

Does your teaching like mine fluctuate up and down the scale. This is I think natural, but if you were to average its position where would it be? Which slot do you fit most confortably into?

andrewch posted this entry on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 9:29 am. Posted in the category Pedagogy, Professional Development, games, learning-style, reflection, website You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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