Differentiating Four Levels of Engagement with Learning Materials: The ICAP Hypothesis

Abstract: A conceptual framework that defines cognitive engagement will be described and defined in terms of overt activities that students can undertake, and these overt activities can be differentiated and classified into four levels: interactive, constructive, active, and passive. A hypothesis (ICAP) can be generated, based on the cognitive processes underlying each activity level, and ICAP predicts that interactive activities are likely to facilitate learning more so than constructive activities, which are better than active activities, which are better than passive activities: Interactive ≥ Constructive > Active > Passive.     Passive engagement is operationally defined as learners receiving information only. For example, merely listening to a lecture without asking questions is passive. The cognitive processes underlying passive activities can be postulated as the direct storing of information in an episodic way, resulting in inert knowledge. With active engagement, learners undertake observable manipulations, such as underlining sentences, selecting from a menu of choices, or reading out-loud. Overt actions allow learners to activate relevant prior knowledge and assimilate new information into an activated schema, resulting in more complete knowledge about the learning topic. Constructive engagement activities encourage learners to generate inferences and other externalized outputs that contain new content-relevant ideas, going beyond the information given. For example, drawing a diagram is considered constructive sincethe generated diagram goes beyond the presented learning materials. The cognitive processes of generating new knowledge allows learners to enrich, change, and repair knowledge, beyond just filling gaps in existing knowledge. Interactive engagement activities refer to discourse activities in which both participants constructively and (relatively) equally contribute to the dialog. The cognitive processes of interactive dialog subsume cognitive processes of construction, but carried out mutually, with the potential of emergent knowledge.     The ICAP hypothesis is supported by many studies from the cognitive science and learning science literature, as well as classroom studies. It also recommends appropriate control conditions for learning studies and ways that learning activities can be improved from one engagement level to another.

Professor Dr. Michelene T.H. Chi (C2) Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, USA

    Dr. Michelene T.H. Chi is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. Prior to Arizona State, she was a professor in the Dept. of Psychology and the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a cognitive and learning science researcher interested in issues of how students learn. Her early research investigated the role of knowledge in children’s competence as well as in differences in the representations between novices and experts. She also discovered an important phenomenon that self-explaining increases learning more than receiving explanations, and pioneered a method of analyzing verbal explanations that is both quantitative and qualitative. She has done seminal studies on many other learning methods, including learning from being tutored, from collaborating, and from observing and overhearing tutorial dialogues.

    Another area of her research focuses on the origin of scientific misconceptions and she has explored approaches to teaching emergent, robustly misconceived processes covered in middle school science. A forthcoming publication in Cognitive Science, titled “Misconceived Causal Explanations for Emergent Processes,” details her latest work on this topic.

    Recently, Dr. Chi has also introduced a framework that defines “active learning” in terms of students’ engagement activities. The engagement activities can be differentiated into four levels as passive, active, constructive or interactive, on the basis of the overtly expressed activities and the underlying cognitive processes. Moreover, based on the cognitive processes, a hypothesis can be generated regarding the relative learning effectiveness of the four levels of engagement. The hypothesis, called ICAP, predicts that interactive activities will most likely be better for learning than constructive activities, which are almost always better than active activities, which in turn are almost always better than passive activities; that is Interactive ≥ Constructive > Active > Passive, or ICAP. Her hypothesis predicts the learning results of many studies in the literature.

    She currently has four actively funded projects on the topics of: How students learn with deep understanding, especially for complex concepts of processes; how homework and seatwork assignments can be enhanced to engage students at a higher level of overt activities; how learning can be enhanced from collaborative interactions and overhearing tutorial dialogues; and how self-explanations can be generated by all students in a classroom, and consolidated and categorized computationally for teachers to see and address for further discussion.

    Dr. Chi has published well over 100 papers and edited volumes, and five of them each has over 1000 citations, including a “citation classic.” Two of her papers (asterisked below) are in the top 10 most highly cited papers published by the journal Cognitive Science. Dr. Chi is a Fellow in Cognitive Science, APA, APS; she was award the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award by the University of Pittsburgh in 2006, and inducted into the National Academy of Education in 2010.

Some representative publications

• Chi, M. T. H., Glaser, R., & Farr, M. (Eds.). (1988). The nature of expertise. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Chi, M. T. H., Feltovich, P., & Glaser, R. (1981). Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cognitive Science, 5, 121-152. (a citation classic)
• Chi, M. T. H., Bassok, M., Lewis, M., Reimann, P., & Glaser, R. (1989). Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems. Cognitive Science, 13, 145-182.
• Chi, M.T.H., de Leeuw, N., Chiu, M.H., LaVancher, C. (1994). Eliciting self-explanations improves understanding. Cognitive Science, 18, 439-477.
• Chi, M.T.H. (1997). Quantifying qualitative analyses of verbal data: A practical guide. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(3), 271-315.
• Chi, M. T. H., Siler, S., Jeong, H., Yamauchi, T. & Hausmann, R. G. (2001) Learning from human tutoring. Cognitive Science. 25, 471-533.
• Chi, M.T.H. (2005). Common sense conceptions of emergent processes: Why some misconceptions are robust.  Journal of the Learning Sciences, 14, 161-199.
• Chi, M.T.H., Roy, M., & Hausmann, R. (2008). Observing tutorial dialogues collaboratively: Insights about human tutoring effectiveness from vicarious learning. Cognitive Science, 32, 301-341.
• Chi, M.T.H. (2009). Active-Constructive-Interactive: A conceptual framework for differentiating learning activities. Topics in Cognitive Science. 1, 73-105.
• Chi, M.T.H., Roscoe, R., Slotta, J., Roy, M., & Chase, M. (In press). Misconceived causal explanations for emergent processes. Cognitive Science.

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  Bringing Ideas into Practice: An overview of ICT Masterplans for Education in Singapore

December 1^st, 2011
(17:00 - 17:30)

Abstract: We have witnessed 2 paradigm shifts in the last 20 years or so in the use of technologies for education. The advent of the Internet in the early 90s brought about a fundamental change in both the extent and the way information can be shared through an easily assessable platform. It dramatically reduced barriers to how people communicate globally, and more importantly, hinted at possibilities on how teaching and learning (T&L) interactions can move beyond traditional settings. However, the early promises of ICT did not quite match expectations as the lack of interactivity placed limits on T&L interactions. This was addressed through the introduction of web 2.0 capabilities, which brought about the 2nd shift in providing the interactive tools that allowed for true collaboration in cyberspace to take place. These capabilities have greatly enhanced and revised the potential to transform and redefine the environment for T&L.     The work of the ICT Masterplans for education in Singapore tracked and paralleled the development of web technologies. Since the 1st Masterplan in 1997, which aimed to level up the system in terms of physical infrastructure and teacher capacity, to the current 3rd Masterplan which started in 2008, the focus on the use of ICT for teaching and learning have not wavered from a pedagogy-centric perspective. In other words, the use of the technologies has been to support development in pedagogies as new possibilities and research evidence emerged. As such, this presentation will outline the policies and initiatives that are guided by a ‘ideas-to-practice’ framework anchored on this belief. It will also illustrate the work done and the structures built within this framework that can ensure sufficient systemness and coherence in the implementation of the plans. The presentation will conclude by looking at some of the key trends and pitfalls in the use of ICT for T&L, including a possible third paradigm change as tools that can make the thinking process of the learner explicit are coming to the forth.

Dr. Horn Mun CHEAH (C6) Director, Educational Technology Division, Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE), Singapore

    Dr. Horn Mun CHEAH currently serves as Director, Educational Technology Division, in Singapore's Ministry of Education (MOE). His responsibilities include planning and co-directing the implementation of the 3^rd IT Masterplan for Education. This covers initiatives such as the Future School programme, ICT mentor development and Edulab. Prior to joining MOE, he looked after e-learning needs and information services as a Divisional Director at the National Institute of Education (NIE). During that period, he implemented NIE's IT Masterplan in conjunction with MOE's 1^st IT Masterplan for Education, putting in place infrastructure, professional development, IT skills and pedagogy development, and R&D in IT for education within NIE. He was subsequently appointed as the Dean in charge of all initial teacher preparation programmes, where he led a comprehensive review of the programmes, bringing about curricula changes within a Values, Skills and Knowledge framework. The Group Endeavour in Service Learning component was introduced into the curriculum through this review. While at NIE, he sat in various MOE level committees, covering work ranging from TLLM (Teach Less Learn More), ICT implementation and national curriculum reviews. Dr. Cheah received a BA in Physics from Pembroke College, Cambridge University, as well as a Ph.D. for research work on High Temperature Superconductivity. His other previous work included leading consulting teams for ICT policy and computer science syllabus development in Bhutan and independent school policy formulation in Qatar. He is a member of the Horizon K12 Advisory Board, sits on the Executive Board of the ATC21S project, and is an International advisory panel member of the NEXT-TELL project.

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