A GUIDE FOR TEACHERS TO INTEGRATE 3D PRINTER SKILLS IN THEIR CLASSROOM
In today’s world, we see numerous objects designed with 3D technologies, in our smartphones, buildings and in everyday objects that became indispensable in our daily life, yet most of the times we even do not recognize the 3D skills in them.
No matter we might be out of the spectacular world of 3D design it seems that this new concept is this or that way entering our educational environments. However, for those who are new to the 3D world might easily assume that 3D models are simple objects comprised by only geometrical shapes. For educators, the truth is that 3D technologies and skills have the potential to enrich their teaching process to the good of learners. In this regard, this guide offers educators the basic steps of planning the educational process.
PLANNING
Planning step is an important part of the integration of the developed material into the teaching process. Three questions should be answered at the planning stage:
1. Where do I want to go?
2. How do I get there?
3. How do I get to where I want to go/have I arrived?
Where do I want to go?
The analysis step of an instructional design is the answer to this question. The analysis step is mostly related to collecting information. The training stage should not be planned until you understand why the participants should take the related training. The main purpose of this process is to prepare questions that will assist in the preparation of educational materials by using the right learning objectives for the right target group.
There are a few key questions you should ask to get started. The answers given to these key questions will probably lead to more questions. As the number of questions increases, the needs of the planned training process will be met more strongly.
Critical questions to be asked:
Who are the target groups of the course? What do they know about the subject?
Are they newly recruited, already exprienced employees or a mix of these two groups ?
Which demographic information is available about your target group? (Take into account to your target groups age, gender, education level, and computer literacy level.)
What are the expected learning outcomes ?
What do you want students to be able to do after completing the courses ?
The following points should be examined in the analysis step:
Exploaration: This process defines realizing an exploration study by providing materials and documents describing the practices and procedures related to education in order to determine the current status of the educational institution. In other words, in this analysis step, materials, documents and content data have to be collected in order to follow up the project and its current status. The missing parts of the project are identified during the data collection step. At this stage, the process is further inquired by asking questions related to unclear issues. Thus, a sketchy information about the project will be collected. Compatibility with the target: The questions such as what kind of experiences should students live, what kind of organizations are needed, what is the degree of accuracy and effectiveness of the desired behaviors related to education and what kind of changes have to be realized on the current program constitutes the content of the training objectives.If a long-term efficiency for the relevant training is expected, this training process should be related with measurable targets. Education specialists assist the educators in identifying business targets that can be enhanced by the educational activity. An educational project cannot solve all of the business problems faced. Therefore, an educational project should contain measurable targets.
Target group analysis: In this analysis, the current knowledge and the abilities of the participants are analyzed. If participants are not analyzed, assumptions have to be made about each participant. However, these assumptions lead to negative results when the project is implemented.
Content analysis: Content analysis seeks answers to the questions such as whether the data obtained meet the user's overall needs ? Are all the information available that the participant wants to receive? This stage covers all the activities carried out by the education experts to provide the participants with a roadmap for education.
For the roadmap:
The starting point is the control analysis, The target point is the educational goals.
The training needs analysis shows the stages step by step from the beginning to the desired point. Education specialists determine the subjects that students need to learn in order to achieve the educational goals. These may be the subjects that students need to develop their knowledge, skills, and behaviors.
It is necessary to ensure that the training provides:
It contains all the information that students need to get, Students do not repeat what they already know,
It does not include topics that students do not need to know.
Analysis of the learning objectives:
At this stage, whether the user has reached the desired level with the existing data is checked. If it is reached, it is determined by which stages it has been reached.
Learning objectives usually include the following topics:
The student can perform an observable task at the end of the training. Knowing the ways she/he used while fulfilling this task
Criteria to be used in order to measure the success of the student
Types of the Analysis
There are two types of analysis:
Content analysis
Needs analysis
Content Analysis: They are the formations obtained from the systematic combination of knowledge such as concepts, facts, principles, approaches, values, criteria, theories and generalizations envisaged by the basic elements and philosophies on which the education programs are based. During the preparation of the content analysis, relevant field experts should be asked for support, especially target groups.
Needs Analysis: In order to achive a task, related needs should be determined first. This process includes collecting information and developing solution proposals by analyzing the problem according to the collected information to determine the differences between the existing and the desired situations.
Need can basically be defined as the difference between the expected and current conditions.
The stages of determining the training need are as follows:
Identifying of the problem situation and what kind of information should be collected about this problem.
Identifying the information sources
Developing the information tools.
Method(s) that will be used to collect data varies depending the amount and the type of information requested, features of the resources that the data will be collected from and how urgent the results are needed.
The most commonly used information collection tools are; Interview,
Questionnaire, Observation, Examination of Archives,Identifying the source of the problem and related possible solutions
Setting priorities
Analyzing the resources and the limitations.
Summarizing the results.
Target-Group Analysis:
Targets perform three important functions. Firstly, it guides the instructional designer and teacher to effectively planning, selecting and organizing the appropriate resources for instructional activities. Secondly, it provides a framework for the assessment of learning. For this reason, writing and using the objectives facilitates a healthy evaluation of the teaching process. Finally, this process guides the student. Furthermore, students may have prior knowledge of what they will have learned and what they will have gained at the end of this process. The targets have to be determined according to the realities of the society, the readiness levels of the individuals and the contemporary knowledge in the related subject area. It can finally be stated that achieving of a target which is not based on social reality, people and project education will be difficult.
Work-Task Analysis:
Task analysis used in the instructional design process is an approach that analyzes the learning process that students exhibit in learning environments. Basic teaching staff consists of cognitive, psychomotor and affective behaviors. Basic teaching elements consist of cognitive, psychomotor and affective behaviors. A task can be defined as a set of continuous works and behaviors required in order to reach the goal. Due to this feature mentioned, task analysis is frequently realized through observable steps.
The purpose of task analysis is to achieve the following:
Statement of teaching objectives
Determining and explaining the tasks and sub-tasks in detail that the students will effort for, Determining the information type that will shape the task,
Determining the priority and order of the tasks, Selecting appropriate media and learning environments,
Performance evaluation and structuring of this evaluation.
Task analysis methods have different approaches and processes. In instructional design, target group, instructional strategies, subject area, etc. It is recommended to choose the appropriate task analysis type according to the variables. It is proposed to choose the appropriate task analysis type according to the variables such as the target group in instructional design, instructional strategies, and subject area.
Performance Analysis:
The performance problem observed and its effects in the work environment should be stated. In addition, it should also be stated how this situation affects the mission in general and the differences between these two factors should be analyzed. The basis of this analysis consists of an effective needs and target group analyzes.
SWOT Analysis:
SWOT analysis is a technique used to determine the Strengths and Weaknesses of the institution, technique, process, situation or person and it also can be used to identify Opportunities and Threats arising from the external environment. The main purpose of the SWOT Analysis is to take advantage of the strengths and opportunities at the highest level by taking into account internal and external factors, and as a result, to develop plans and strategies that will minimize the effects of threats and weaknesses.
SWOT analysis not only allows us to focus on areas where we are strong and where there are great opportunities but it also helps us see possible threats.
In other words, the SWOT Analysis includes the following factors:
Examination of environmental factors, Searching for opportunities Understanding threats,
Identifying your strengths and weaknesses.
In SWOT Analysis, we sholud ask ourselves the following questions and answer them realistically:
In identifying Strengths, What are my top points? What do I do well?
What do others see as my strengths ? What types of work do I better ?In Identifying Weaknesses, What am I doing badly? What do I need to improve?
At which subjects are others better than me? What weaknesses do I have in terms of others?In Identifying Opportunities.
What interesting developments are taking place around me, what is going on? What are the current opportunities?What are the sources resulting opportunity?
Changes in technology and market, Changes in government policies, Changes in socio-cultural structure, Local events.In Detection of Threats.
What obstacles do I have around me? What are my competitors doing?
Are there any changes in business, product or service standards? Does changing technology threats me in any way?
Do I have financial problems, if not, under which conditions it may occur?
Media Analysis:
In this analysis, it is necessary to determine the factors such as educational environment to be given in order to solve the problem, the student channel (auditory, visual or tactile), the limitations and resources, and the type of media to be used.
How can I reach to the target?
The Design and Development step of instructional method constitutes the answer of this question. The design phase occurs when the outlines of the teaching process. The answers of the questions to be asked during the analysis phase constitute a source for this section.
Things to be considered at the design stage can be stated as follows:
How much time can participants spend time for training?
Does the method of the education engage students with strong audio and visual elements?
The development stage is also the construction stage. At the same time the development stage can also be defined as the level at which the design plans put into action. At this stage, you can also see if your design needs modification to be more effective. Testing your training level is the most important part of the development stage. If your training scenarios are not correctly determined, effective results cannot be obtained during the development stage.
IMPLEMENTATION
After the planning stage has been structured successfully by the teachers, they should move on to the implementation step. At this stage, you need to make a pilot study of the training program you prepared. This study will give an opportunity to see the deficiencies in education and make changes before revealing the final version of education. The implementation stage can also be called by the same name in instructional design.
The steps expected to be done by the teachers in the implementation stage are as follows. In general, this stage can be structured as introduction, development and conclusion sections. In particular, Gagne's 9-stage Situational Learning Model can be used. According to this,
Introduction:
Gaining attention : In order to optimize the learning process, materials that will attract the attention of the student should be designed. The teacher can benefit from visual (picture, film, etc.) and verbal (anecdote, etc.) elements in order to achieve this goal. Majority of people can only focus on one subject at any time. Therefore, the entire attention of the student should be focused on the subject to be taught. The most effective way to achieve this is to use new materials that will attract the attention of the student. Firstly, teachers should correctly determine the academic and social aspects of their students and then should ask questions to the students that will interest them so that they are not distracted. Thus,students will also be allowed to share their questions and opinions on the subject and as a result of this the learning process will ideally be carried out.
Informing learners of the objective: Before the teaching process began, general information about the content of the course should be given to the students. Thus, the student will be motivated about what to learn and will avoid getting out of the scope of the relevant course. Having prior knowledge about the target activates the management mechanism and helps to create expectations. If the student knows the targets aimed to be reached in the course, she/he will design in advance what methods and techniques have to be applied in order to achieve these targets.
Stimulating recall of prior learning: In order for the information in the short-term memory to be successfully transferred to the long-term memory, the information in the short-term memory have to bestrengthened with some prior knowledge. In order to achieve this, some prior knowledge should be revealed before giving information to the student.Thus, the student will be able to establish the cause-effect relationship more easily. The teacher can reveal the knowledge that the students have gained previously by asking questions, making explanations, and discussing. The learning process will become more faster and easier by means of this method.
Development :Presenting the stimulus: Strategies should be used to provide a more effective and efficient teaching process while presenting the course content. Materials should be chosen so as to help the student reach to the target and facilitate learning. The developmental characteristics and grade levels of the student group play a very effective role in the organization of the material. The Grade Level is one of the most crucial criterion which should be taken into account in the regulation of stimulus situations.
Providing learning guidance: Guiding the student is very important in terms of learning process. In the learning environment, students should be guided so as to not showing inappropriate behavior and ensuring a successful learning process. For this, the student should be clearly taught what to do, where to do, when to do and how to do and in addition some important clues should be given about which prior knowledge will be combined with the new information. The best mentoring strategy is to move forward by providing small amounts of help at each step of the process. Thus, each student will have the opportunity to receive as much support as she/he needs. While a single example will be sufficient for a student who has the ability of fast learning, several examples may be required for a slow learning student.The student should be ensured to find the information by herself/himself by providing clues. Thus, the learning process will become more permanent.
Eliciting performance: After the students are taught new behaviors, it should be checked whether they adapt this behavior to their lives or not. The behavior of the student should be tested by asking written and oral questions.By giving commands such as do, draw, say to the student, she/he is asked to transform what she/he has learned into behavior. Thus, the student is also ensured to see her/his current academic level. If the desired behaviors are not observed in the students, the teaching environment should be enriched and new clues should be given to the students.
Providing feedback: At this stage, the student is expected to behave in accordance with the acquired behaviors. If the student sees that her/his behavior is correct, she/he reinforces that behavior and increases her/his motivation towards learning. On the other hand, if she/he learns that the behavior is wrong, she/he corrects her/his mistake and takes care about not repeating that behavior. As a result, the student is expected to do whatever behavior is required.
Conclusion:Assessing performance: At the end of the learning process, it is necessary to determine the extent to which each student acquires the desired behaviors. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the teaching process, it should be determined whether the expected goals have been achieved or not. As a result of the evaluations, the extent of learning is observed and the students are informed about the results. In this stage, completion trainings can be given if required. The evaluation process is carried out in order to measure the level of development of students' thinking, understanding, questioning, relating, and analysis-synthesis skills.Comparisons should not be realized among students at the end of the evaluation process.
Enhancing retention and transfer: In order to develop the expertise owned in a subject, theknowledge acquired have also to be applied to other fields. After the first stage of the learning process, some homework activities such as exercises, examples and projects should be given to the students in order to strengten the learning process.Repetition of the learned behaviors periodically will positively affect the permanence.
CONTROL AND PRECAUTION
In this section, the answer of the question of "How do I reach the place I want to go or have I reached to there?" will be analyzed. This question which was previously mentioned in (3) corresponds to the Evaluation and Improvement steps of the instructional design step.
How do I reach the place I want to go or have I reached to there?
At the beginning of the evaluation phase, we seek an answer to the question of how far the educational targets and learning targets we have set have been achieved through the activities we have created. If our evaluation criteria do not reflect the learning objectives, we revise our measurement and evaluation tools so as to be compatible with the learning objectives.
The following concepts should be mentioned in relation to evaluation process:
Usefulness: can be defined as to produce information in order to meet the needs of a specific target group.For this concept, the evaluation must be informative, have to be completed in a timely manner, and should have a beneficial effect. The key criteria that must be met for usefulness can be defined as: evaluators have to know the target group adequately, the information needs of the target group have to be correctly identified, sensitivity should be shown to the requirements, have to be believable and finally, the information collected should be reported in an easy-to-understand language and in a timely manner.
Feasibility: defines a realistic, diplomatic, completable and economical evaluation process. In the application of this criterian, natural conditions should be emphasized rather than experimental conditions and resources should be evaluated carefully.In other words, during the evaluation process data should be collected in real conditions and minimum number of resources should be used to achieve the objectives. In addition, attention should be paid to matters such asbeing practical, collecting information from all stakeholders and keeping the costs low.
Suitability: defines carrying out of the evaluation process on a legal and moral basis. According to suitability, the evaluation process should be carried out in a way that does not harm the participants and the relevant group. This means that many people participate in educational evaluation or many people are affected by the results. The suitability criterion, as a whole, requires respect for the rights of individuals. Namely; participants have to be agree on their responsibilities, conflict of interests have to be addressed fairly and transparently, results should be reported honestly, boundaries should clearly be defined, participants have to adhere to the ethical rules and financial responsibilities should be defined fairly and transparently.
Accuracy; can be defined as the evaluation results being largely compatible with the facts. In order to reach to the high accuracy rates; the evaluation process has to be comprehensive, the information gathered has to be technically correct, and the comments has to be defined based on the findings. Furthermore, the approaches used in collecting information, the data analysis processes and the comments have to be valid and reliable.
Evaluation can be realized for both process-oriented and result-oriented. Evaluation should be planned in the Analysis step and designed in the Design phase. It should not be forgotten that alternative evaluation approaches can also be used in addition to existing approaches if they are suitable for the purpose. Finally, improvement activities should be carried out by operating the take action process and the improved actions has to be applied as an input to the next cycle.
Summary:
Ask the following 3 questions to yourself:
Where do I want to go ? How can I go to there?
How do I reach the place I want to go or have I reached there ?
Plan the teaching process:
Realize analyzes Collect data Determine the targets
Perform target group analysis Perform content analysis Perform task analysis
Perform performance analysis Perform SWOT analysis Perform environment analysis Perform technology analysisDesign and improve the teaching process
Determine the learning goals Determine the learning approaches
Determine the methods, techniques and strategies Determine the measurement and evaluation tools
Develop materials, environments and technologies that serve to the purposeRealize your applications
Structure your course in three phases as Introduction, Development, and Conclusion.At the Introduction section
Take the attention of the students
Inform students about the course objectives Remind students of the course's pre-knowledgeAt the Development section
Present the stimulating material you have prepared Lead to the students, namely, guide them
Support students to reveal their real performance and behavior Give feedback to the studentsAt the Conclusion section
Evaluate the performances of the students
Relate the newly learned information to the future lessons to ensure effective retention and transfer of the information.Control the learning process
Improve the learning process