Master of Science in Communication, Major in Education and Training
Instructional Design
Instructional Design Plan Participative & Interactive programs on radio - Module 11 Unit C : The participation of the listener
Andrea Caprara, Laura Piccardi, Manuela Travan Bednarz Academy year 2005/2006
Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
Index 1.
Introduction: Hear and See project.......................................................................................... 2 a.
Module 11 – Unit C.............................................................................................................. 4
b.
The objectives of Unit C – Module 11, in the framework of the course................................. 5
2.
Curriculum plan: intended learning outcomes or objectives for the course ............................ 7
3.
Instructional plan ..................................................................................................................... 9
4.
Evaluation plan...................................................................................................................... 14
5.
a.
Step 1 – Assessing requirements and focusing the learning task, using a pretest strategy 15
b.
Step 2 – Intermediate assessment of fundamental knowledge .......................................... 16
c.
Step 3 – Final formative evaluation of the learning outcomes ............................................ 17 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 19
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
1. Introduction: Hear and See project Our task is to collaborate in designing and implementing an onLine module of Hear and See course, a blended learning course for the analysis of audiovisual media content, whose pedagogical purpose is to develop the capability of students to analyze autonomously audiovisual documents and to learn to contextualize them into their original historical environment 1. The typical target audience of this course are Bachelor students. Modules will be integrated into Communications and Media science courses on such subjects as the history and sociology of mass communication, and the history of radio and television. Audio-visual documents will be used, as well as tools for their de- and re-construction. The course will therefore give a new slant to university teaching in this field, moving away from a largely passive and theoretical approach in a classroom environment to a hands-on approach in which students will learn by working directly on original documents. The project has been developed by four communications and media sciences institutions, with the help of the USI support centre for the technical aspects, and the Lucerne School of Art + Design for the graphics. The necessary documents will be provided by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation’s radio and television archives. The project is supported by the radio and television of SSR SRG idée suisse, which will provide audiovisual materials. The course will be organised in Blocks and Modules, according to the following scheme. Each module will be composed around the following educational activities:
classroom lectures to present the fundamentals, using audiovisual materials as support
autonomous study of content materials and of examples
exercises with regards to the analysis of an audiovisual document
1
See “Detailed proposal for new swiss virtual campus projects, third call (official Forum sheet)”
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
tutoring onLine
discussion in class of exercise-related experiences (knowledge assessment)
final comprehension test
The course will be articulated in 21 modules divided in 4 blocks:
Contents
Documents
Resp.
1) Electronic media as media for the 20th century
written source material
USI
2) The beginnings: Radio as history of technology
audio, visual material
USI
3) The propagandistic era
audio material
USI
4) Two ways of radio development: America / Europe
audio, written documents
USI
5) Program schedule versus format
schedules, clocks
USI
6) The beginnings of television in Switzerland
press
A. Historical context
clippings,
audio Berne
material 7) Towards the television era
audiovisual material
USI
B. Media Analysis Modules 8)
Analyzing
audiovisual
documents:
decoding transcriptions, protocols
USI
audiovisual material 9) Informational programs on radio
program examples
USI
10) Informational programs on TV
program examples
USI
11) Participative and interactive programs on radio
program examples
USI
12) Entertaining programs on TV
program examples
Fribourg
13) Musical programs on radio
program examples
USI
14) Advertising on TV
TV ad examples
Neuchatel
15) Individual and collective memory
multimedia examples
USI
16) How to make memories talk
multimedia exercises
USI
17) Media memories: Radio and TV
multimedia examples
USI
18) Individual media biography
multimedia exercises
USI
19) Collective media biography
multimedia examples
USI
20) New structures, new functions
multimedia examples
USI
21) New uses and convergences
multimedia examples
USI
C. Media Biography Modules
D. Web-Based Radio and Television
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
a. Module 11 – Unit C The Module we have chosen to design and implement is the number 11, dealing with participative and interactive programs on radio. Its structure is the following: Historical contents
the communication from a point to another point, from a point to a multipoint and from a point to the broadcast.
relationship between phone and radio (talk radio) and between phone and television.
wireless telegraphy, cellular telephone, sms and the spectator.
Sociological contents
analyse the “open microphone” programs from a sociological point of view.
history of participative programs in the United States during the period between 1930 and 1940, and the European theories.
birth of free radio and the audience.
kind of today’s participative programs (political talk radio programs, psychological programs,…).
Interactive exercises In this part we will create some interactive exercises. As in the module 11 you have to analyse and work on texts, students can change something, intervene and reason on the participative programs meaning in the modern media system. It will be interesting that students also suggest a participative programs categorisation (psychological, talk radio…). The Module is composed of 4 Units: A. Technological premises B. The history of participative programmes 4
Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
C. The participation of the listener D. The conversation of the listener These four Units are mainly theoretical. We have decided to consider more in deep the Unit C because it implies more general and comprehensive learning outcomes, linked not only to the transmission of knowledge but also to skills and attitudes that the students are asked to mobilise to perform an actual categorisation of radio programs using the paradigms defining the participation of the listener. This Unit deals with the issues related to participative programmes, considering: -
the aspects of a historical point of view
-
the construction of a typical listener
-
the kind of participative programmes
At the end of this Unit a student of a Bachelor programme of Media & Journalism should know the kind of interaction between a radio listener who call to the programme and the speaker. Which kind of relation do they have? How does the speaker manage the calling? Does the “caller” be censured or not? After the Unit C the student should be able to correctly answer these questions.
b. The objectives of Unit C – Module 11, in the framework of the course The objectives of the Unit we have decided to analyse in deep, have to be positioned first of all in the framework defined by the project goals, considering the hierarchy of instructional goals and instructional objectives. As we have already mentioned, the aim of Hear and See is to let the students analyse autonomously audiovisual documents learning to contextualise them into their original historical environment. The goal of Module 11 refers to this general aim, considering the particular category of participative and interactive radio-programs. Considering Unit C, we
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
focused particularly on the capability to identify and categorise participative programmes under the lens of the different modalities of participation of the listener. The expected performance implies the mobilisation of:
Knowledge: the course purpose is that students will know the different kinds of radio programs, the technological premises, the program elements and the characteristics of participative communication. The students will also acquire specific knowledge concerning historical and social evolution of the context in which participation has been developed
Skills: the learners should be able to define and distinguish the specific criteria of participative communication, through phenomena observation. They also have to distinguish what messages have to be censured and more in general to manage a critical and systematic analysis of the audiovisual materials, documents and codes from a historical and social point of view. They have to interpret the correctness of the participative communication, by using the adequate instruments learned during the theoretical lessons
Attitudes: students have to be sensitive towards participative opportunities of the wireless canal The instructional goal we have focused considering Unit C refers to the capability of the
learner to understand the typologies of programmes, and then to categorise them. To reach this goal, the learner should achieve some instructional objectives: -
learn to listen and to analyse a program
-
learn to identify a target
-
learn to contextualise the program from an historical cultural and social point of view
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
2. Curriculum plan: intended learning outcomes or objectives for the course As said in chapter 1, the student who learn on the Module 11, in particular on the Unit C, at the end of the course should know a lot of the theoretical topic because they are university’s students, a target who needs more theoretical materials (as we have said in out topic analysis). But in Unit C, the more “practical” one, they will also be able to do something. In fact they will be able to analyse different radio programmes, recognize different typologies of listener and categorize them and they will be able to catch the element of a radio conversation. For make sure that the learning will be efficacious we have chosen learning-related sequencing as strategy because it is based on the needs of our target (Bachelor students). We have considered the prerequisites of the learner (who doesn’t know in a specific way this content), the familiarity (we have just supposed that there is no familiarity with this domain and so we will start asking to the student if they know what participative programmes are?), difficulty (we have considered to give the information which permit to the student to achieve the goals), interest (through multimedia materials we will create the interest and connect theory to reality), development (we supposed to put intermediate self assessment quiz so we can verify if the learner has reached the single step). But we have also considered the logical prerequisites of the content of the concept-related sequencing. As we can see on the map below the different contents that the learner will meet in Unit C are in a logical consequence (for example we can’t teach about new media without teach what the media are).
The students, in fact, need a linear process because they are at the
beginning of their university career (so It is necessary to create a solid basis knowledge on this content).
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
Daily advicesconsumer pubblic
Contextualize The partecipation of the listener
Programmes tipology and imaged community
Dedicationfamialiar pubblic
Other…
Changes in a social and political way
Change on the target Changes on the other Media (ex. Magazines)
Analize The kind of partecipative programmes
Participative programmes UNIT C
Choice of the programme and the simulation target
Caracteristic analisys of the different target
Focus on privat topic
The management of the programme changes
Public reaction
Identify The construction of a typical listener
Management style, attitudes
Informal language Courtesy forms
Listener and imaged Compare between american and european context Reconstruction of a programme related to the target Tipical questions and language tipology
As said before, our target is composed from Bachelor student, so student who have little knowledge and ability on the content (in our case radio history, etcetera). So we will use "pretests" for introduce the student to the topic and the "behavioral objectives" for clarify the commitment expected. This because in an onLine courses is better to explain at the most what the student have to do, otherwise he could feel isolated and confused. We will that the contents are clear and well exposed. So it is better to be also redundant and boring rather than be too concise. The content structure is classified into discrete categories (see our assignment 2): facts, concepts, principles and rules, procedures, interpersonal skills and attitude. But not every single instructional objectives (learn to listen and to analyse a program, learn to identify a target and learn to contextualise the program from an historical cultural and social point of view) is structured with all these six categories. As we said, the course remains in any case more theoretical and so “rule and procedures” are the majority.
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
The exhibition of the contents, images and exercises will be very “frugal”. The content will stay on a html page (to save us from the boring “scrolling), we won’t have images but outline to print, examples of radio programmes and an interview of a radio speaker. Finally the exercises (which will be go to into in chapter 4) will be very few. Moreover we can’t forget that the student who will follow this course could not have familiarity with onLine courses. So we can’t pretend to be too much sophisticated. As our objectives is to give basic notions we have chosen the simplicity.
3. Instructional plan To realize the instructional plan we also used the information received form our SME. In detail the unit C (The participation of the listener) of the Module 11 is structured in this way: Unit C: The participation of the listener – Getting started: the introduction to the Unit follows the approach of a pretest pre-instructional strategy. The learning outcome of the unit (see previous chapters) is that the learners achieve an autonomous capability to analyse and to categorise participative radio programmes under a specific typology. This task implies a solid “background” knowledge of the historical evolution of electronic media during the last decades (Block A of the course, or by the way other forms of prior learning), and specific knowledge provided by Unit A and B of the same Module, but it implies also the capability to put knowledge in action. This is not an easy task for Bachelor students, as we noticed also in our task analysis. According to Morrison, Ross and Kemp example (they include a “getting started” section at the beginning of each chapter, providing the students with a an actual case study asking them to focus on the learning task and on their “representations” on it), we will prepare an introduction to the Unit encouraging the students to analyse a radio 9
Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
programme (using one of the available stored documents) answering to some key questions, related to the historical and social context in which the programme should be situated, to the characteristics of the audience and to the quality of the interaction realised between the listener and the speaker. This first “test” will be used above all as a “pretest” pre-instructional strategy, using a set of questions directly relevant to the instruction to foster students’ “alertness” on the key questions to be considered in learning.
Sub-unit 1: The construction of a typical listener: this sub-unit is essentially theoretical and is clearly useful to satisfy his objectives. Introduction: the learner finds a general presentation of the changes in the participation of the listener in the 20 century. In particular, in the introduction, it is described that this changes is linked to historical, social and political changes of the 20 century: passage from a public mass media communication to a private mass media communication Theoretical part: the learner finds some information about the construction of the audience or about the “imaged community”. In particular, this part speaks about the European and American audience. Audio examples of current programmes: in sub-unit 1, the learner also finds some audio examples of current programmes that represent a support of the theoretical part: these examples help the learner to clarify the theoretical part and help to understand better how these participative programmes are characterized. These audio files will perhaps provided in Windows Media format. Sub-unit 2: The Phone-ins functions: this sub-unit is essentially theoretical and is clearly useful to satisfy his objectives.
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
- Theoretical part: the learner finds some categorisations about the functions of the telephone calls to the radio (fatic or metalinguistic, emotional, expressive, exhibitionist, confidential, recreational phone-ins functions). - Interview of a participative programmes expert: this interview is useful to the learner to understand better the phone-in functions: in fact the expert (a speaker of participative programmes) illustrates some particular episodes of a communication between the speaker and the listener. Moreover he describes the typology of the listeners and what they told. This interview will perhaps provided in audio (Windows Media format) or video format (AVI format) At the end of sub-unit 1 and 2, the learner has the possibility to self-assess his / her learning achievements, through a multiple choice test (see Evaluation plan) Scheme of participative programmes typologies: after the learner read sub-unit 1 and 2 and after he made the quiz, he can download a scheme of participative programmes typologies in PDF or Word format. This scheme is a summary of the different participative programmes and it helps the learner to place better the theoretical contents and the participation of the listener. Sub-unit 3: Exercise: research of some participative programmes and their categorisation. The aim of the sub-unit is to let the students perform an actual radio programs analysis and categorisation, reflecting on this task, and on the results achieved, discussing them in a Forum. The development of the Unit is more in deep described in the Evaluation plan. For helping the student doing the exercise they will arrange of an “observation paper” (see below) which provide an outline to follow.
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
Observation paper PROGRAM PAPER: Name of the program Radio station of the program Kind and theme of the program (musical dedication, topic of the political actuality or cultural topic, “psychological” or “ordinary advices” programmes,…) Time slot of the program Duration of the program Background and characteristic of the speaker (sex, age,…) Program setting (precedent and subsequent programmes) Advertising Key words in the conversation AUDIENCE PAPER: Background and characteristic of the speaker (sex, age, language…) Are there indications that make understand that those listeners are preselected? How intervenes the listener? By telephone? By sms? Are there indications on the reasons of the telephone call? How is the listener addressed? EXERCISE: Is it possible to insert this program in the five phone-in categories? In conclusion, how you can notice, the three sub-unit are connected among them. We agree with the SME in putting some audio programmes examples, audio or video interview and some exercises in the Module C, because they are useful to understand better the theoretical contents. Moreover is a way to exploit technologies advantages at most, to diversify the education and to fulfil to the different learning styles. Finally, considering the kind of course and the fact that it counts theoretical lectures in class, audio and video format contents are necessary.
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
Course outline UNIT C - The participation of the listener – Getting started
1. The construction of a typical listener • Introduction • Theoretical part • Audio examples of current programmes
2. The Phone-ins functions • Theoretical part • Interview of a participative programmes expert
multiple choice test
Scheme of participative programmes typologies
3. Exercise: research of some participative programmes and their categorisation$ + observation paper
Learning objectives of the sub-unit: Sub-unit 1: be able to detect the modalities where the listener participate, modalities that mark him from the imaged community. Be able to detect what are the elements of the programming that make understand what is the kind of audience. Sub-unit 2: be able to recognize the different phone-in functions Sub-unit 3: the aim of this sub-unit is to evaluate the learner learning related to the Module C. More precisely this sub-unit verify the learner knowledge and if he is sensitive towards participative opportunities of the wireless canal. Scheme of participative programmes typologies: how said previously, this scheme helps the learner to place better the theoretical contents and the participation of the listener.
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
4. Evaluation plan In order to define the evaluation plan for Unit C – Module 11 of the Hear and See blended course, we should carefully bear in mind the context in which learning assessment, and more in general evaluation procedures, will take place. We should above all consider: -
the positioning of the Unit in the framework of a wider learning pathway (see previous chapters) articulated in Blocks and Modules, implying that summative evaluations of learning achievements occurs at the end of each module / block, and at the end of the whole course, in the form of a final exam 2;
-
the experimental nature of the pathway, that is now at the first edition;
-
the characteristics of the learners, expected to be in the majority Bachelor students
-
some difficulties embedded in the complex learning task required to these students, implying the capability to mobilise knowledge, acquired both in Block A (Historical context – Modules 1 - 7) and Units A and B of the same Module 11, analytical skills (provided by the Unit itself and by other parts of the course) and attitudes
-
the specificity of the learning unit we are dealing with, and its limited duration.
Considering these elements we would propose an evaluation plan for the unit adopting a formative evaluation perspective3, linked to some fundamental statements: -
an approach based on a formative evaluation scheme, even if articulated from the point of view of methods and tools, seems us appropriated to support the students; they should be encouraged to assess their readiness in transferring knowledge in the analytical task of radio programmes characteristics, detecting in this way gaps
2
More in details, the course includes an evaluation unit - where students are invited to test their skills on different levels – and different sommative controls of students’ performances, organised in three steps: a self-assessment exercise at the end of each module, allowing students to evaluate their degree of understanding; an onLine test evaluated by the responsible at the end of each course block; for students following only part of the course the test will grant the ECTS credits; a presence exam in the respective partner university at the end of the course.
3
See Morrison, Ross and Kemp, Designing effective instruction, pag. 240
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
and difficulties encountered on field and reflecting on the task in order to define step by step their own model of analysis; -
at the same time a formative evaluation could allow the Instructional Designer to collect useful information about successes and failures of the students, that should be considered to better the definition of the learning task, and of sequencing and contents of the unit (above all because we lack feed-backs deriving from previous editions of the course)
-
finally a formative evaluation, articulated in quick self-assessment procedures, but implying also the development of a more complex project work at the end of the Unit, could fit well the characteristics of the expected learning outcomes and the limits (duration) of the unit, allowing the students to use the assessment phase as a proper reflective learning tool.
Moving from these considerations we would define three important steps of the evaluation plan, easy to generalise as a “model” transferable to many other units and modules of the pathway.
a. Step 1 – Assessing requirements and focusing the learning task, using a pretest strategy As already explained, we have decided to include a “getting started” section at the beginning of the unit, providing the students with a an actual case study. This first “test” will be used above all as a “pretest” pre-instructional strategy, but we have decided to include it also in the evaluation plan because it could provide both the students and the instructors with important information related to the representation of the task that the
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
learners have (in a formative evaluation perspective), and also to the solidity of the prerequirements and to the expected difficulties they will be probably faced with in learning.
b. Step 2 – Intermediate assessment of fundamental knowledge Unit C is articulated in 3 sub-units; the first two of them are mainly theoretical and deal with the historical evolution of participative programmes (mainly considering the construction of a typical listener from time to time) and the analysis of the “open microphone” programs from a sociological point of view (evolution of the functions of the telephone calls to the radio). This sub-units aims at providing the students with the knowledge needed to analyse and categorise radio programmes, that is the aim of the third sub-unit. At the end of subunit 2 is for sure useful to allow the students self-assessing their achievements (going eventually back to some issues). Evaluation could be realised using a simple multiple choice test, proper to be used in an e-learning environment. The multiple choice test could for instance include questions such the following ones (validated by our SME):
1) Both deriving from telegraphy, in which sense telephone and radio distinguish one from each other? a) telephone is a communication tool “point to point”, radio is a mass media b) telephone is a casual discovering, radio the product of a research and development path c) radio is a communication tool “point to point”, telephone is a mass media d) telephone has been discovered in America, while radio has been developed in Europe
2) When telephone and radio meet one each other? a) During the’30thies, due to the diffusion of statistic polls in America 16
Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
b) During the historical phase dominated by totalitarian regimes c) During the ‘70thies, due to the success of Free Private Radios, fostering direct involvment of the listeners d) During the last decade, linked to the diffusion of cellular phones 3) What of the following definitions fits to the means of concepts such as the Hörmodelle of Walter Benjamin or the radio-dramas played by Bertolt Brecht in Germany, during the ’20thies? a) they anticipated the propagandistic style of Hitler’s broadcasting of the following decade b) they used a very popular and attractive broadcasting style for low educated people c) they were very exclusive and not interactive broadcasts, avoiding any contact with the audience d) they were a first pionieristic example of a partecipative radio programme
(The right answers are in red – normally the test will be prepared with an automatic editor by the instructor, and will be self-corrected by the software).
Looking to the contents of the previous test example, is easy to notice that it could provide the students both with a self-assessment opportunity (to be intended in a formative way), and with a sort of summary of key contents included in the sub-units, preparing them to the third experimental sub-unit.
c. Step 3 – Final formative evaluation of the learning outcomes The aim of the final formative evaluation is to allow the students performing an actual categorisation of participative radio programmes, reflecting on the achieved results and on the analytical process, in order to verify, through self-assessment and through the feed17
Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
back of the instructor, their competences in action, detecting eventually gaps and issues to be better understood. In addition this final evaluation will provide instructional designer with information allowing him to update and better instructional design looking to further editions of the Module.
The final evaluation goes like this: 3.1 the instructor will assign the students the task to analyse 5 short heterogeneous radiodocuments, using the “Observation Paper” to record their information and comments 3.2 the students will be asked to categorise the analysed radio-programmes using the scheme of participative programmes typologies and the phone-in categories introduced in sub-unit 2; the result of this categorisation will be posted in a Forum, allowing instructor and the other students to comment it 3.3 the students will be also asked to provide some personal comments concerning the difficulties encountered performing the analysis and the strategies they have adopted to solve understanding and interpreting problems; also this self-reflection will be posted in a Forum 3.4 the instructor will provide the students with a feed-back concerning the results of the analysis and their reflective work; at the same time he/she collects and analyses information concerning difficulties and failures found on field, and uses this information to implement a better instructional design of the module.
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Assignment 3 – Instructional Design Plan
5. Conclusion This assignment is the logical consequence of a linear process. Without doing the two first assignments we were not be able to do this third assignment. Obviously the forum discussions and the weekly readings have done their “duty”. So we can say that is a process formed by a mix of elements without a single one it could not be possible to do this work.
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