The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt is an interdisciplinary team that strives to use technology to develop improved instructional tools for teachers since 1984. One of their projects includes The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury series (http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/projects/funded/jasper/Jasperhome.html). This series is designed to help foster the development of mathematics problem-solving skills for students in grades five and higher. As simple as this task may sound, the Jasper project is unique in many ways.
First, the project strictly follows the standards outlined by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). The NCTM encourages math teachers to design math activities that place more of an emphasis on complex, open-ended problem solving, communications and reasoning; more connections from mathematics to other subjects and to the outside world; and more use of calculators and powerful computer-based tools, such as spreadsheets and graphing programs, for exploring relationships. The NCTM is concerned that mathematics curriculum engage students in problems that demand an extended effort to solve, involve group activities, require students to use multiple available technologies, and engages the students in cooperative problem solving and discussion, and are interesting to the students.
The development team writes, "The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury consists of 12 videodisc-based adventures (plus video based analogs, extensions and teaching tips) that focus on mathematical problem finding and problem solving. . . . In particular, each adventure provides multiple opportunities for problem solving, reasoning, communication and making connections to other areas such as science, social studies, literature and history."
The team explains that the Jasper project is unique in that it's different from traditional educational videos that are simply lectures transferred to a video and different from math activities in traditional classrooms. The video lectures" usually include information unrelated to the students' views, experiences, and ways of knowing the world. A high number of classroom learning environments do not rely on natural or "contextualized" ways of learning that stem from the real world of the student. Thus, the tasks are usually superficial, and the students do not view the knowledge or skills they use as transferable to their everyday life. Therefore, it's important for students to share a context, or a common frame of reference, in which learning can take place and for the task to be authentic so that the students care about the outcome and the skills and knowledge learned as useful for new situations.
However, The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury materials were designed to bridge the gap between natural learning environments and school learning environments. Designed to be used in typical classroom situations, they provide teachers many of the advantages of natural learning environments. They provide a common context for instruction, an authentic task, and a chance to see that school knowledge can be used to solve real problems.
The development team explains, "the Jasper laserdisc adventures are unique in that they present a believable story that has interesting characters, a complex and important challenge, and extensions to a variety of curricular areas. To solve the challenge, the students use problem-solving skills, mathematics concepts and skills, and the laserdisc to find information that was presented as part of the story. The laserdisc provides instant access to any part of the story and perfect image clarity when an image is frozen on the screen."
In addition, the series was developed with a set of principles that the designers believe are important in developing problem-solving skills. One of these principles is an "embedded data design." In other words, the data needed to solve the overall problem are found in the story. Students must go to the laserdisc for data they will use to solve the various subproblems and eventually, the overall problem. Secondly, the overall problem is a complex one that the students must solve by generating and solving the interconnected subproblems in order to solve the overall problem.
The team writes that "Jasper adventures are designed for students in grades 5 and up. Each videodisc contains a short (approximately 17 minute) video adventure that ends in a complex challenge. The adventures are designed like good detective novels where all the data necessary to solve the adventure (plus additional data that are not relevant to the solution) are embedded in the story. Jasper adventures also contain embedded teaching' episodes that provide models of particular approaches to solving problems. These episodes can be revisited on a just-in-time' basis as students need them to solve the Jasper challenges."
The students can construct their own knowledge as they use the Jasper series by following their own ways of solving problems and following their detective inclinations. They don't have to follow a formulaic approach that the teacher has provided for them.
In many ways, the Jasper project reminds me of my son's currently favorite CD-ROM game, "Where in Time Is Carmen Dan Diego?" As a detective, he needs to use problem-solving skills to find criminals as he travels through time. He also learns math and organizational writing skills along the way.
If you would like to read more on the Jasper Project, try out the following links:
The Jasper Experiment : An Exploration of Issues in Learning and Instructional
Design (written in French): http://tecfa.unige.ch/~lintz/staf15/articles/jasper.html
To learn more about the learning technology center at vanderbilt and the people who developed the project, look at: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/ltc/general/
To order Jasper Woodbury books: http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/BookSearch/results.asp?sourceid=00000114760024898291&bfdate=
07-13-1998+01:32:21&match=partial&options=and&anotherlevel=Y&keyword=Jasper%20
Woodbury&userid=5V6P12SXMY
To order the Jasper Woodbury series: http://www.erlbaum.com/jasper.htm