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|storemode=property
|title=Exploring Learning Objects under Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-70/paper4.pdf
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|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/pgldb/BarbosaMR03
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==Exploring Learning Objects under Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-70/paper4.pdf
Exploring Learning Objects under
Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives
Ellen Francine Barbosa1 José Carlos Maldonado 1 Ivan Luiz Marques Ricarte 2
Inst. Ciênc Matemáticas e de Computação Fac. de Eng. Elétrica e de Computação
Universidade de São Paulo Universidade Estadual de Campinas
{francine, jcmaldon}@icmc.sc.usp.br ricarte@fee.unicamp.br
Abstract
The idea of Learning Objects – “any digital resource that can be reused to support
learning” – is emerging as a way to reuse learning materials in different settings and
contexts. Standardization efforts have also been conducted, especially related to the
establishment of learning object metadata, describing the relevant characteristics that a
learning object should present. This work aims at exploring learning objects according to
the conceptual, instructional and didactic perspectives, which have been investigated in the
context of domain modeling for the development of learning materials. Our goal is to
investigate the impact of these perspectives into the set of characteristics specified by the
standards for Learning Objects Metadata under development.
Keywords: Learning Object, Learning Object Metadata, Conceptual Object, Instructional
Object, Didactic Object.
1. Introduction
Technology information advances, especially the advent of the Internet and the
expansion of WWW, have produced a paradigm shift in terms of learning and
education. As a result, changes in the way people learn and how learning materials are
designed, developed and delivered have been observed.
Instructional Design theories ([1], [2], [3]), dealing with aspects such as learning and
teaching styles, learning objectives and goals, learning strategies, and methods for
assessment and revision, are now beginning to be considered into the development of
educational contents. The activities and tasks proposed by Instructional Design have
been investigated and applied as part of systematic processes aiming at the development
of richer and more significative materials, capable of motivating the students and,
consequently, to make learning experiences more effective.
Supporting the notion of small instructional components, Learning Objects ([4], [5],
[6], [7], [8]) have also emerged as a way to structure learning materials and reuse them a
number of times, in different settings and contexts. The fundamental idea behind
learning objects is concerned with reusability - content must be reusable, interoperable,
and easily manageable at many different levels of complexity throughout the
educational environment [7]. However, in attempt to enable them in promoting a
positive impact on actual learning, several aspects still must be addressed. The
Instructional Design implications of learning objects, standardization aspects, and
granularity and combination problems are examples of relevant issues that need more
investigation.
Domain modeling also plays a fundamental role into the development process of
learning materials. This activity helps the author to determine the main concepts (and
their relationships) to be taught, providing a systematic way to structure the relevant
parts of the subject knowledge domain. In a previous work we investigated the
PGLDB’2003, pp. 33-39, 2003.
PUC-Rio, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil
Exploring Learning Objects under Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives
development of educational contents under three domain modeling perspectives [9]:
conceptual, which refers specifically to the content description; instructional, which
deals with the instructional elements used to perform teaching and learning processes;
and didactic, which aims at relating the conceptual and instructional elements in order
to achieve the learning objectives previously established. Although each perspective
addresses a particular aspect in the learning material development, they are intrinsically
related and should be considered in an integrated way.
This work aims at investigating the impact of the conceptual, instructional and
didactic perspectives into the context of Learning Objects, more specifically in terms of
the current standards for Learning Objects Metadata (LOM) [10] under development.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents an overview
on learning objects, mainly in terms of the standardization efforts that have been
conducted and the related problems that still need to be solved. Section 3 discusses the
conceptual, instructional and didactic aspects into the scope of the LOM’s standard. Our
conclusions and further work are presented in Section 4.
2. Learning Objects: An Overview
In attempt to promote the adoption of learning objects as well as to assure the
interoperability among them, significative efforts on standardization have been
conducted. Several standard organizations, namely the IMS Global Learning
Consortium (http://imsglobal.org), the Advanced Distributed Learning Network – ADL
(http://www.adlnet.org), the Dublin Core Group (http://dublincore.org), and the IEEE
Learning Technology Standards Committee – LTSC (http://ltsc.ieee.org), have
contributed in this perspective.
The multi-part standard specified by the IEEE LTSC Learning Objects Metadata
(LOM) working group defines a learning object as “any entity, digital or non-digital,
that may be used for learning, education and training” [10]. In practical terms,
however, some researchers argue this standard definition is extremely broad and, within
its scope, more restricted definitions have been proposed. In this paper, we adopt the
Wiley’s proposal, which defines a learning object as “any digital resource that can be
reused to support learning” ([4], [7]).
The establishment of learning object metadata, i.e. the descriptive information about
the object, also plays a fundamental role as part of the standardization efforts that have
been conducted. The draft standard for Learning Objects Metadata (LOM) [10] specifies
a metadata instance and describes the relevant characteristics of the learning object to
which it applies. According to the standard, such characteristics may be grouped in
several categories: General, Life Cycle, Meta-Metadata, Educational, Technical, Rights,
Relation, Annotation, and Classification.
Besides the standardization aspects, other issues should be considered when
designing learning objects. Wiley, for instance, poses the “sequence problem” ([4], [7]):
how to take individual learning objects and combining them in a way that make
instructional sense? This discussion also leads to another connection between learning
objects and instructional design – the “scope problem”: how big should a learning
object be?
In the next sections we investigate the impact of the conceptual, instructional and
didactic perspectives into the IEEE’s LOM standard, more specifically regarding the set
of characteristics specified in the Educational category.
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Exploring Learning Objects under Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives
3. Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives
In order to explain the Learning Objects idea, Wiley proposed the Atom Metaphor ([4],
[7]): an atom is a small “thing” that can be combined and recombined with other atoms
to form larger “thing”. In terms of properties: (1) not every atom is combinable with
every other atom; (2) atoms can only be assembled in certain structures prescribed by
their own internal structure; and (3) some training is required in order to assemble
atoms.
Wiley also states that atoms are combinations of smaller bits (neutrons, protons, and
electrons), which are combinations of smaller bits (baryons and mesons), which are
combinations of even smaller bits (quarks, anti-quarks, and gluons), and so on. It is the
particular way in which these top-level bits (neutrons, protons, and electrons) are
combined in an individual atom that determines which other atoms a particular atom can
bond with [7].
Based on this metaphor, considering a learning object as an atom, our idea is break
the learning object into smaller pieces of information: conceptual, instructional and
didactic objects (corresponding to the idea of neutrons, protons, and electrons).
Actually, conceptual objects would be related to the content description, in terms of the
core concepts and their relationships, while instructional objects would deal with the
supplementary information (questions, examples, further explanations, problems to be
solved, and so on). The manner in which these objects are combined would be
established from the didactic purposes associated to them.
In this sense, the conceptual and instructional objects, related by means of didactic
objects, determine the way in which the learning object could be combined with other
learning objects to originate the learning material. Next we explore each kind of
information related to conceptual, instructional and didactic objects into more details.
3.1. Conceptual Objects
In our previous work on domain modeling we defined a conceptual model as a high-
level description about the knowledge domain, where the domain elements were
characterized in terms of concepts and could be represented by means of a concept map,
an ontology, or other technique for knowledge representation [9].
Also, concepts could be associated to each other by means of two classes of
relationships ([11], [9]): structural and domain-specific ones. Structural relationships
represent a generic category of relations, which can be applied on any knowledge
domain. Taxonomy (type-of) and composition (part-of) relations are representatives of
structural relationships. On the other hand, domain-specific relationships have their
meaning associated to a particular subject, carrying their own semantics. They are user-
defined and represent specific relations, whose interpretation depends on the knowledge
domain.
Applying these ideas into the context of learning objects, conceptual objects would be
responsible for dealing with concepts and their relationships, corresponding to the core
information of a learning object. Based on the relationship in which it participates, a
conceptual object can be classified in:
Atomic: the object is indivisible.
Hierarchic: the object correspond to a set of other conceptual objects associated
by means of a taxonomy relationship.
Composed: the object correspond to a set of other conceptual objects associated
by means of a composition relationship.
35 Proceedings of the PGL DB Research Conference
Exploring Learning Objects under Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives
Collection: the object correspond to a set of other conceptual objects associated
by means of domain-specific relationships.
The categorization above reflects the structure of a conceptual object. Analyzing the
IEEE’s LOM standard, more specifically the Educational category, we can observe that
the concepts that compose a learning object are not specified in terms of their internal
structure. Thus, none characteristic related to the concepts structure is described in this
category. It is also important to notice that even though the characteristics Structure and
Aggregation Level described in the General category deal with a similar idea, they are
concerned with the learning object as a whole and are not applied to its concepts in
separate.
Regarding the content, a conceptual object can be specified in terms of a definition,
an enunciate, a description, phases, activities, tasks, and so on. Actually, the kind of
“constructor” to be used is defined according the type of information the conceptual
object refers to (principle, theorem, axiom, method, criterion, technique, procedure,
process, model, etc). Also, different kinds of media (such as text, image, audio, video,
and animation) can be combined to describe the object.
3.2. Instructional Objects
Learning materials usually include a content description together with questions,
examples, further explanations, problems to be solved, suggestions for further study,
and so on [9]. In other words, a diversity of supplementary information should be
associated with the concepts to better assimilate them. An instructional object
corresponds to the elements used for illustrating and practising the concepts, and for
evaluating the learner’s apprenticeship. In this sense, they can be classified as follows
[9]:
Explanatory objects: deal with the complementary information used for
explaining a conceptual object. Examples, hints, comments, and suggestions of
study are representatives of explanatory objects. Also, they can play a number of
different roles depending on the learning context. An example, for instance, can
be associated with a given conceptual object to motivate the study of the object, or
to illustrate its use.
Exploratory objects: allow the learner to navigate through the knowledge domain
and to practise the related concepts. The proposition of a given problem, which
enunciates an exercise to be solved and indicates a reference material for its
solution, corresponds to an exploratory object. A variety of exploratory objects
can be defined, such as simulations, experiments, reading and/or composition
assignments, and so on.
Evaluative objects: allow to assess the learner’s proficiency on the subject of
learning. A simple problem statement, in which the answer is not provided to the
learner in advance, is an example of evaluative object. An exam composed by
objective and/or subjective questions, each one representing small problems with
a number of possible answers, can be considered an evaluative object as well.
According to the object purpose, the evaluation can be:
Diagnostic: applied before starting using the learning material as a way to
measure the learner’s current level of knowledge and expertise.
Formative: applied during the use of the learning material as a way to obtain
data in order to revise the learner’s apprenticeship to make it more efficient
and effective.
Summative: applied after the use of the learning material.
Proceedings of the PGL DB Research Conference 36
Exploring Learning Objects under Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives
Analyzing the LOM’s Educational category, although the characteristic Learning
Resource Type specifies the kind of learning object (exercise, simulation, questionnaire,
diagram, figure, graph, and so on), it does not take in account whether the object is
explanatory, exploratory or evaluative, or even conceptual or instructional.
Furthermore, even that most of the characteristics specified in the LOM’s Educational
category are appropriated to the scope of the instructional objects (Interactivity Type,
Interactivity Level, Context, Typical Age Range, Difficult and Typical Learning Time),
other relevant instructional information, derived from the Instructional Design theories,
should also be specified:
Learning Domain: refers to the learner's skills that can be stimulated by using the
instructional object. Based on the Bloom’s Taxonomy [12], three different types
of learning can be identified:
Cognitive: involves knowledge and the development of intellectual skills.
Affective: includes the manner in which the learner deals with things
emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms,
motivations, and attitudes.
Psychomotor: includes physical movement, coordination, and use of the
motor-skill areas.
Learning Style: specifies the type of learner for which the instructional object is
more appropriate [13]:
Visual/Verbal: people who learn best when information is presented visually
and in a written form.
Visual/Nonverbal: people who learn best when information is presented
visually and in a picture or design format.
Auditory/Verbal: people who learn best when information is presented
aurally. They benefit from participating in group discussions and interacting
with others in listening/speaking activities.
Tactile/Kinesthetic: people who learn best when doing a physical “hands-on”
activity.
Regarding the content, the core information related to instructional objects can be
specified in terms of a description, phases, activities, tasks, and so on. Supporting tools,
establishing the specific tools (related to the subject of learning) and educational tools
(supporting collaboration, content delivery, learner’s assessment) should also be
specified. Similar to the conceptual objects, different kinds of media can be grouped to
describe the content of an instructional object.
3.3. Didactic Objects
As we said before, one of the main ideas behind learning objects is their capability to
reuse the same content in a variety of educational settings and contexts. When defining
the conceptual and instructional objects, we are interested in the content of the learning
object – what kind of information (basic and supplementary, respectively) it deals with.
How to combine these objects depends on the information provided by the didactic
objects:
Learning Goals and Objectives: establish what the learners are expected to know
after exploring the concepts and the related activities specified in the learning
object.
Sequence: specifies the precedence order among conceptual and instructional
objects.
37 Proceedings of the PGL DB Research Conference
Exploring Learning Objects under Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives
The LOM’s Educational category does not specify any characteristic related to the goals
and objectives of the learning object. The internal order in which concepts and
instructional elements should be explored is not described as well. In terms of
precedence order, the LOM’s Relation category defines some characteristics to describe
the relationships between learning objects. However, these relationships are specified in
general terms, not dealing with the internal sequence among the learning object
components.
3.4. Metadata
The specification of the other characteristics of a learning object follows the LOM's
descriptions, but in a more simplified manner, dealing with some of the categories and
characteristics defined by the standard [10]:
General category: specifies the general information that describes the learning
object as a whole. Characteristics: Title, Language, Description, Keyword.
Life Cycle category: describes the history and the current state of the learning
object and those entities that have affected the learning object during its
evolution. Characteristics: Version, Status, Contribute.
Technical category: describes the technical requirements and characteristics of the
learning object. Characteristics: Location, Requirement, Installation Remarks,
Other Platform Requirements.
Rights category: describes the intellectual property rights and conditions of use
for the learning object. Characteristics: Cost, Copyright and Other Restrictions.
4. Conclusions and Further Work
In this work we analyzed learning objects under three related perspectives – conceptual,
instructional and didactic. The fundamental idea is that a learning object correspond to
small units of instructionally sound content (represented by instructional objects), based
on a learning objective or outcome (defined by didactic objects), intended to teach
focused concepts (corresponding to conceptual objects).
We also investigated the impact of the conceptual, instructional and didactic
perspectives on the IEEE’s standard for Learning Object Metadata (LOM). In short,
based on these perspectives, we identified some additional characteristics that can be
considered into the scope of the LOM’s Educational category.
As a further work, we intend to specify a set of learning objects, structured in terms
of conceptual, instructional and didactic objects, for dealing with the Software Testing
knowledge domain. The additional characteristics here identified should also be
considered in the development of these objects.
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Proceedings of the PGL DB Research Conference 38
Exploring Learning Objects under Conceptual, Instructional and Didactic Perspectives
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