Notes-Anchored Learning

Cognitive Constructivism & Social Constructivism:

Anchored Instruction

The anchored instruction approach is an attempt to help students become more actively engaged
in learning by situating or anchoring instruction around an interesting topic. The learning
environments are designed to provoke the kinds of thoughtful engagement that helps students
develop effective thinking skills and attitudes that contribute to effective problem solving and
critical thinking.

Principles of anchored instruction:

• Learning and teaching activities should be designed around an "anchor" which is often a
story, adventure, or situation that includes a problem or issue to be dealt with that is of
interest to the students.
• Instructional materials should include rich resources students can explore as they try to
decide how to solve a problem (e.g., interactive videodisc programs).

Anchored instruction emphasizes the need to provide students with opportunities to think about
and work on problems, which is an emphasis of cognitive constructivists. Anchored instruction
also emphasizes group or collaborative problem solving, which is an emphasis of social
constructivists. Much of the collaborative problem solving that is at the center of the Jasper
Woodbury programs is an example of applied social constructivism.

The sections below explain several popular types of anchored instruction. The explanations are,
however, very brief. You may want to explore the links in each section that take you to examples
of the different types of software. "Playing" with the software will give you a much better feel
for what anchored instruction is.

Examples

Jasper Woodbury Problem Solving Series

The Jasper Woodbury series of adventures, which were created by a group at Vanderbilt
University, tell interesting stories in which there are problems to be solved.

The series is designed for middle grades, and the problems require and understanding of math
concepts that are generally taught in the middle grades. Currently The Adventures of Jasper
Woodbury series consists of 12 different videodisc-based adventures (plus video based analogs,
extensions and teaching tips).

Jasper series represents an example of anchored instruction (and also of problem-based learning).
The Jasper adventures go well beyond the "word problems" typically found in math textbooks
for the middle grades. Jasper adventures use a visual story format to present problems. Students
watch video segments from a videodisc to understand the situation and the problem. The

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materials available to the students also have "embedded data" and "embedded teaching" to seed
the environment with ideas relevant to problem solving.

The General is Missing is one of the episodes. In this episode, Larry, Emily and Jasper find a
note saying Grandpa has been called away on business, but Grandpa doesn't have a business.

They rush to solve the algebra equations Grandpa enclosed with his note. They graph the
equations and place the resulting shape over Grandpa's letter. The kids finally find out that the
letter says that Grandpa has been kidnapped. Grandpa asks the teenagers to prepare SMART
Tools created using algebra so they can easily interpret the data and use it to find his location on
the map. The challenge for the students in the classroom is to design the SMART Tools to
decipher the directions that Grandpa sent to Larry, Jasper and Emily. In creating the SMART
Tools, students learn how to measure the speed of sound, compare various rates of travel, show
the relationship between a circle's circumference and its diameter, and determine the height of a
hill by the horizontal distance traveled and the rate of the hill's incline.

URL: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/projects/funded/jasper/Jasperhome.html

The Voyage of the Mimi

The Voyage of the Mimi, which was developed by Bank Street College of Education, involves
students as the crew on an ocean voyage of the 72-foot ketch, Mimi, a converted French tuna
trawler outfitted as a modern ocean-going vessel.

The purpose of the voyage is to study whales. It is also intended to help students develop science
and mathematics skills. To successfully complete the first voyage, students must learn and use
navigation principles, map reading, and many other skills.

The First Voyage of the Mimi series consists of twenty-six 15-minute programs. In the adventure
story, two scientists and their teenage research assistants embark on a seagoing expedition to
study humpback whales. Each drama (episode) is paired with a 15-minute documentary
(expedition) that develops a scientific or mathematical concept presented in the drama. Seven
videodisks support this program with video clips that illustrate different phases of the voyage as
well as simulated trips to museums, aquariums, and other places where scholars study the marine
life.

The Second Voyage of the Mimi, which involves a voyage to Mexico. It continues the adventure
with Mimi wintering off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, chartered by archeologists intent on
studying Maya civilization. It combines dramatic episodes and documentary expeditions to
develop mathematical and scientific concepts in grades 4-8. This series consists of twenty-four
15-minute programs. The Second Voyage of Mimi also uses laser disks.

Many types of support materials are available from the distributor, Sunburst. They include
language arts activity guides for the voyages as well as theme guides, a whales database, student
books, a social studies resource kit, wall charts, posters, and much more. The following screen

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capture is Sunburst's we page (http://www.sunburstonline.com:80/mimi.html) for The Voyage

of the Mimi.

URL: http://www.sunburstonline.com/ports_call.html

Click here to view detailed The Voyage of the Mimi Program Descriptions
(http://www.ket.org/Education/Videos/Science/VoyageoftheMimi.html).

Additional Information

John Bransford & the CTGV

This web page provides an overview on anchored instruction. It first describes anchored
instruction as a major paradigm for technology-based learning that has been developed by the
Cognition & Technology Group at Vanderbilt (CTGV) under the leadership of John Bransford. It
then continues that the initial focus of the work was on the development of interactive videodisc
tools that encouraged students and that the video materials serve as "anchors" (macro-contexts)
for all subsequent learning an d instruction. It emphasizes that the anchors of anchored
instruction are stories rather than lectures and were designed to be explored by students and
teachers.

URL: http://www.lincoln.ac.nz/educ/tip/13.htm

Learning Mathematics In Real-Life Context: A Case Study in 2 Schools

This study introduces technology-based anchored instruction materials to classrooms in two

primary schools in Singapore. This study also seeks to study how local teachers and students will
react to these anchored instruction materials. The materials include but not limited to "The
Adventures of Jasper Woodbury". The researchers asked the teachers to develop their own lesson
plans, and then studied how they customized instructional materials developed in the US for their
own teaching objectives. Qualitative as well as quantitative research methodologies were
included in the paper.

Anchored Instruction

This web page provides for beginners the general information on the originator, overview,
applications, examples, principles of anchored instruction.

URL: http://www.oltc.edu.au/cp/04a.html

Using Videotape Vignettes to Teach Problem-Solving Skills

This paper discusses the development and use of videotape vignettes, portraying real-life
problem scenarios, to teach concepts and problem-solving skills in environmental education.
Videotaped vignettes offer an unique interdisciplinary advantage for teaching environmental
problem solving by combining different areas such as drama, art, language arts, mathematics and
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science. Such problem-solving macrocontexts offer a richer and more complex environment than
text by itself. They are also more representative of actual real-world problem solving
experiences. The author also argues that the cognitive-networking process can be achieved by
combining teaching strategies based on cooperative learning, and anchored instruction.
Cooperative learning offers strategies for students to interact with their peers such as structured
peer-group discussion, problem-solving team pairs, peer coaching, and role-based laboratory
activities, while anchored instruction provides a motivational focus that "anchors" students to the
learning task. Videotape anchors can be used as a learning environment within which students
seek out and apply relevant knowledge, establish new connections, and build cognitive structures
that result in more efficient problem-solving and better conceptual understanding.

URL:
http://www.edu.uleth.ca/ciccte/naceer.pgs/pubpro.pgs/Pathways/pubfiles/IV.ConfPres/StrandII/D
errickL.htm