CHAPTER VI: INSTRUCTIONAL SOFTWARE FOR CLASSROOM USE Lesson 14: Instructional Software Drill-and-Practice Software Selecting © Control Over the Drill-and-Practice - answering the given questions or Problems are given time, however, a good drill-and-practice software still gives users enough time to think and answer before proceeding to the next question. User may be given signal to the software if he/she is ready to'the next question by pressing/tapping a key or clicking on a mouse button. o Answer Judging — a good drill-and-practice program must be able to discriminate correct answers from incorrect ones, especially if the user is required to enter a short answer rather than simply choosing from a selection. © Gives Appropriate Feedback - two errors must be avoided when programs feedback. First, program display sample, readable and understandable feedbacks, not to overly design the feedback. Second, programs carelessly give more interesting feedback when the user answers incorrectly. This, therefore, encourages users to give false answers to see the interesting response from the program. Benefits: o Jmmediate Feedback - paper and pencil drill-and-practice gives delayed feedback, thus, students would not know immediately how much they performed in their drill-and-practice. Having drill-and-practice software, students would know instantly their results and would be able to do immediate corrections if they gave incorrect answers. o Motivation -students are not simply motivated doing their paper and pencil drill-and-practice for reasons that they do not like writing or they have poor writing skills. In drill-and-practice software, students get motivated not only because of the idea of being in front of the computer that they love to operate and manipulative.© Saving Teacher Time -teachers can attend to other student needs while their students spend time doing drill-and-practice. Some areas that benefited the drill-and-practice are: Math, typing . skills, English and foreign language vocabulary, countries and its capital. Limitations and Problems © Perceived Misuse - Some teachers make use f the drill-and-practice as part of lesson introduction and not really for practicing the students’ skill. ° Ciiticism by Constructiveness -People consider this drill-and-practice as an outmoded approach to teaching for this contradicts the aim of restructured curriculum. Tutorial Software Selecting o Extensive Interactivity - Regular and thorough response to questions must be regularly given along the tutorial to continuously guide students’ learning. © + Thorough User Control — Navigation buttons must always be presented to allow students to go around the program and give them freedom to return or - move forward or even end the program at their own pace. °° Appropriate Pedagogy — the instruction must provide complete and sufficient explanation, examples, and demonstration when necessary to enable the students to understand the lesson well. The lessons, examples, and exercises must be arrange logically and sequentially. ° Adaquate Answer Judging and Feedback Capabilities - when students are asked to answer in short response, all possible answers must be included in the program. Appropriate feedback must likewise be present wherein answers will be provided by the program after 2-3 tries rather than frustrating the students of requiring them to supply the answer which they do not know. © Appropriate Graphics — Graphics should always support the topic being discussed. These should always be in line and appropriate for the instruction.© Adequate Record Keeping — Summary of progress report of students must be Present can be easily accessed by the teacher to enable them to keep track of the students performance. Benefits © Tutorials are self-contained and self-paced instruction which allows students to learn at their own time. Limitations and Problems o Criticism by Constructivism - Tutorial contradicts the objective of constructivism learning since tutorial software delivers instruction rather than allowing students to construct and generate at their own knowledge through hands-on-projects. : , o Lack of God Products —This is being encountered due to the difficulty and expense of designing and developing tutorial software. Difficulty in Programming and including of suitable graphics to give appropriate pedagogy in teaching and demonstrating the concepts well are the dilemmas in producing weli-packaged tutorial software. : o Reflect Only One Instructional Approach What should be taught for a given topic, how to teach the topic or lesson effectively, in what sequence the learning tasks will be presented are always the questions in producing effective tutorial software. Simulation Software Selecting © There is a realistic and accurate representation of a system. Clear set of directions must be present in the software; models a real or imaginary system, Can model physical phenomena, procedures, and hypothetical situations. The impact of actions must be clearly seen.© Accuracy of Models Simulation software may give inaccurate or imprecise Perspectives of the subject matter. Real experience is still better than being replaced by substituted learning experience. © Misuse of Simulations - There is a possibility that students would unlikely to develop effective problem-solving skills due to plainly mastering the aciivities given simulation. Instructional Software Selecting ° Appealing Formats and Activities = adventure and levels of complexity that Much learners’ abilities make fun learning. © Instructional’ Value — Instructional game should serve as educational and ‘motivational tools which give importance to the value of learning. © Physical Dexterity is Reasonable - The purpose of motivating the students should be evident on the instructional game and not the other way around, however, if the object of the game is to learn physical dexterity (e.g. for * students with physical challenges), the focus of the game should be learning Content-area skills, rather than physical dexterity. The physical dexterity for content-area games should be untroublesome to all students. © Social, Societal, and Cultural Consideration - Instructional games should highlight positive Messages, rather than war and violence among peoples of different nations, beliefs, and cultures. Benefits © Games are more interesting than traditional instruction © Retention of information is longer © Assist teachers to get students to focus on the topic © Makes learning more engaging and motivationalLimitation and Problems ° Learning versus Having Fun — Some schools disagree in incorporating games in instruction for they believe that games draw away the attention of the students from the real purpose and that is learning the lesson. The focus of the students is toward winning the game instead of instruction/learning. Confusion of Game Rules and Real-Life Rules — Rules in games differ from rules in real life. Game rules may give students difficulty in transferring the skills learned through games to real-life situations. Inefficient Learning — Balance between motivation and learning must be maintained in the classroom so not to lose the value of education when using instructional.games. Qassroom Barriers — Instructional games sometimes cannot be implemented in the classroom due to some difficulties encountered, such as requirements of the game software do not match with the specifications of computers in schools, some. teachers have negative views toward computer games, time _Needed to complete the game is longer than the normal class hours, and others. Problem-Solving Software Selecting Teachers should see to it that the software should be able to develop the skills of the students in solving various kinds of content-area problerns. The software should also have the feature that would keep the interest of the students in moving on in solving problems. The problems should be challenging to bring out the level best in the students. . Benefits ° ° ° Promotes visualization in mathematics problem solving. Fosters better understanding in visualization of abstract concepts. Improves interest and motivation in doing problem-solving activities. This allows students to become more active and impulsive problem solvers. ,Limitations and Problems 0 Effectiveness of Problem-Solving Software - The problem-skills, that students Supposed to be developing through the use of the software May not actually be helping them to learn these skills though software catalog claims that it can foster problem skilis. © Suitability in Learning Strategy of Students - The instructional strategy of the problem-solving software May not suit the learning strategy of the students, thus, will limit their learning and developing of problem-solving. The kind of Instructional strategy of the software may bring negative effects in directed instruction. Software Supports Tools This time, you learn other software support tolls that would likewise benefit teachers in teaching and students in learning in various classroom situations. These ‘software Support tools offer the following advantages: *Improved efficiency and Productivity *Enhanced product appearance *More precise and aptness of information *More support for collaboration Software Support Tools Categories 1. Materials generators .. Data collection’ and analysis tools . Graphic tools . Planning and organizing tools . Research and reference tools . Content-area tools Aaprwn