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Procedure Learning: Introduction

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this component, students will be able to:

  • Understand what a procedure is;
  • Understand the nature of procedure learning;
  • Understand the importance of procedural tasks;
  • Know the difference between linear and branching procedures;
  • Name two approaches to teaching a procedure;
  • Choose an appropriately-scoped procedure to teach in project 1.

Topic Overview

Procedures are things you do or tasks you perform. Synonyms include: method, technique, skill, process, etc. Knowing what parts make up an essay is concept knowledge; knowing how to write an essay is procedural knowledge.

Procedural learning is different from learning other things (concept classification, heuristics) for a number of reasons. The brain stores learned procedures in a different way and in a different place from the learning of facts and other declarative knowledge. Some theories suggest that procedures are constructed from declarative or propositional knowledge in the form of production rules
(ACT and Soar:http://www.hfni.gsehd.gwu.edu/~tip/proced.html)

Procedures can be divided into physical (e.g., doing a slam dunk in basketball) and mental (e.g., calculating the tip on a restaurant bill). Most procedures, however, are a combination of both physical and mental activities.

Every daily task has at least some part of a procedure embedded in it. Brushing your teeth, preparing breakfast, driving to work - these are all procedures. Although these seem like silly things that everyone knows, at one point, we all learned them. Someone taught us how to brush our teeth and how to drive (sometimes the same person - a patient parent!). It is therefore important to know how to effectively teach procedures.

Procedures can be branching or linear. Branching procedures require decisions at various points. For example, in order to light a fire, you need to make decisions about where to start the fire, what materials to use, what order to light the materials, and how to maintain the flame. Each decision will lead you on a potentially different path. Deciding to start a fire with a magnifying glass and a stick of wood will mean a different series of tasks than using matches, gasoline, and paper.

Another example of a branching procedure is baking bread: at various points, the baker must decide if the bread is ready for the next step (shaping after rising), if she should continue to wait for the bread (to rise, to bake, etc.), or if she should intervene in the process (put the bread in a warmer location to encourage rising; take the bread out of the oven). Other decision points in baking bread include deciding what size and shape the loaves should be, what kind of topping or coating the bread should have, etc. Depending on the decision made at each point, the procedure will take a different direction, often looping back to the main procedure stream, but not always.

A linear procedure has no decisions and is done exactly the same way every time. Many linear procedures are simple, straight-forward and often performed. Tying your shoe is a linear procedure: there are few decision points, and the procedure will almost always take the same general direction and end in the same way.

Another thing to consider with the idea of procedural learning is the order of the steps. In some procedures, order is very important (start the car, then put it into gear, then step on the gas). In others, it doesn’t matter very much (to clean the bathroom, you need to wash the sink, dust the shelves, sweep the floor and vacuum the rug, but it doesn’t matter in what order you do it). In yet other procedures, order is important for some parts (when getting dressed, it’s important to put your shoes on after your socks, but socks can be put on either before or after underwear, shirt, or pants).

Procedures can be of different sizes: although "how to drive a car" is a procedure, it is also a series of many smaller procedures, such as "how to start the car," "how to put the car in gear," "how to accelerate," "how to stop," "how to signal and execute a turn," etc. Sometimes you will need to teach all the mini-steps leading up to your procedure. In other cases, you can assume some prior knowledge (for example, students in a college class on how to write an essay probably already know how to read and to write in English).

POINTS ON PROCEDURE LEARNING

What is procedural task? Something that you need to learn "how to do." They can be physical or mental or a combination of both.
What is the nature of procedure learning? Procedures are learned in a different way from other knowledge (concept classification, fact memorization, rules- and heuristic-learning etc.) and are stored in a different part of the brain.
Why are procedural tasks important? We perform hundreds of procedures every day, all of which we had to learn. Effective instruction of procedures means less error and more efficiency in performance.
What is the difference between branching and linear procedures? Branching procedures have some decision points that require the learner to make a choice on what to do next. Linear procedures have only one way of doing them.
What are two instructional approaches to teaching procedures? Reigeluth’s Approach to Procedure Learning and Carroll’s Minimalist approach.
  First, make sure it really is a procedure. Is the idea of "how to" imbedded in it (how to set up a tent, how to bake a cake, how to iron, how to wrap a gift, etc.)?Next, make sure the procedure is appropriate for this project. Three things to keep in mind:

  1. Scope: Ensure that the procedure is something that can be taught in about one hour. Teaching how to clap your hands is probably too little; teaching how to use all the functions of MS Word is probably too much.
  2. Feasibility of creation of material: Make sure that your topic is appropriate to the materials and resources you have available. If you live in a land-locked state, do not attempt to teach how to survive a shark attack. If you live somewhere tropical, do not attempt to teach how to build an igloo.
  3. Decision points: Make sure that your procedure has a certain number of moments when the learner will have to make a decision. The procedure should not be completely linear and one that the learner can perform almost without thinking.

Resources

http://www.hfni.gsehd.gwu.edu/~tip/proced.html

Review and Discussion Questions

  1. How will you design instruction for branching procedures differently from linear procedures?
  2. How will you design instruction for procedures where order is critical differently from those where order isn’t important?
  3. How can you determine what "mini-procedures" (e.g., they don’t know how to write a critical essay, but they do know how to read and write, how to form sentences, and how to brainstorm ideas) your students already know?
  4. How many decision points should a procedure have in order for it to be appropriate to use in project 1? What kinds of decision points are necessary (e.g., is it enough to decide whether you’ll add walnuts or pecans to the cookies?)?


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