Education traditionally focuses on acquiring skills and knowledge on isolated subjects. As a result, the learners find it difficult to integrate and apply the knowledge, skills and behaviours when they start in the job.
In contrast, Four Component Instructional Design (4C-ID) is used to design training that centers around complete and meaningful tasks relating to the daily life of a professional. It focuses on developing complex skills and professional competencies. The method was pioneered by Prof. van Merrienboer and colleagues from the Open University and Maastricht University in the Netherlands. It is now widely applied to develop curricula in schools for higher education as well as in companies.
The core of this model is a "whole task approach". Students are from the beginning working on complete and meaningful tasks which are comparable to what they could encounter in their professional life. These learning tasks are grouped on basis of equivalent complexity in so called task-classes. Within a task-class the level of difficulty or complexity stays the same. For the first tasks in a class-task the learner will get a lot of support from the teacher or from the material in order to complete the task. For instance it can be a so called Worked out Problem in which the learner studies a problem togehter with a model solution, the input from the student could be limited in arguing why the solution is a good one, or other simple questions. Within a task class the level of support is decreasing going from one learning task to the next. Tasks at the end of a task class have only very little or no support and the students will have to solve a case on their own. The principle of decreased support or decreased scaffolding is shown in the figure below where the solid green box indicates the support.
The complexity of the tasks is increasing when going from one task-class to the next. This is demonstrated in the figure below. Please note that not every task class does not necessarily have the same amount of tasks related to it.
The training material relating to this whole task approach consists of 4 components, hence the name of the methodology. The four components are: 1) learning tasks as discussed above 2) supportive information 3) part-task practice 4) procedural (Just In Time) information.
ad 1) Learning tasks within a task-class should have as much variation as possible. Further as indicated above they should give an authentic task experience, be organised in task classes according to complexity. Within task-classes the tasks are ordered on basis of decreased scaffolding.
ad 2) Supportive information can be considered as "theory", it belongs to all the tasks of one task class, is always available to the students and consists of mental models, cognitive strategies and cognitive feedback. In practice it takes the form of manuals, power point hand outs, text books etc.
ad 3) Part Task Practice is mixed between the learning tasks to train routine skills. Often the purpose is to increase fluency or speed in a routine aspect of the work.
ad 4) Just in Time information is information relating to recurrent aspects of the tasks. This info is required to perform the tasks. Often it takes the form of job-aids or other forms of information display. The idea is to only provide it until the learner has acquired sufficient expertise to perform without.
The figure below demonstrates the interrelationships between the different components within one task class.
In my professional life I am very satisfied with the results of the 4C-ID method and its use in curriculum design. In case you're interested, I used the following sources and I can recommend them for further reading.
Books (Dutch):
A.M.B. Janssen-Noordman, J.J.G. van Merrienboer,
Innovatief onderwijs ontwerpen, 2002, Wolters Noordhoff,
ISBN90-01-43246-8
B.Hoogveld, A.M.B. Janssen-Noordman, J.J.G. van Merrienboer,
Innovatief onderwijs in de praktijk, 2011, Noordhoff
ISBN 978-90-01-78931-2
For Non-Dutch readers: on the web you can find many English language articles on the topic by searching in Google on "4C ID", such as:
Blueprints for complex learning: the 4C/ID model
No comments:
Post a Comment