Random Thoughts on Info Process Models

I now see the benefits of Info Process models. When i first looked up the NSW process model in the very first week of this course I was amused at what appeared to me to be a mind map of common sense. I now realise that that was not far from the truth. Helping learners organise their cognitive processes and go one step further and engage in meta cognition, or thinking about their thinking, which doesn't happen automatically for most learners, is a great tool for them to control the stages or processes involved in their learning.

The staged process of help and its subsequent staged withdrawal is a useful attempt to engender these processes in learners even once the scaffold is no longer used, and a means to help ensure lifelong learning.

I see the potential of such models primarily if they are used beyond their compulsion. In evaluating these info process models learners were asked how the use of the scaffold made the process easier, more efficient etc. I think an important outcome needs to be whether using the model made the process more enjoyable to students. This didn't seem to be evaluated. Eg if the scaffold made the process more time consuming or tedious, it would be less enjoyable and the chance of students using this process when the mandatory use of the scaffold was taken away, would diminish. I think a worthwhile research study could involve the classroom use of a particular model over, say, 1 year and then at the end of the year a setting of a research project and an assessment of how many students actually choose to use the scaffold in whole or part, when they don't have to.

I also particularly like the mindmapping stage as in Herrings PLUS model, useful for collecting and organising, both ideas and possible info sources. Research is saying that todays learners are more visual, and mindmaping is therfore an increasingly relevant and useful tool.