Assignment:
Consider how schema theory might be applied in the design of other instructional situations. For instance how might you apply schema theory to the teaching of using a library database or the benefits of a learning management system or cooking or minecraft or making cider? Or how have you seen schema theory applied on a website, in a video, on a handout, in a group discussion….
I have chosen to answer this assignment by describing the use of schemata in the 1977 film by Charles and Ray Eames, Powers of Ten: A Film Dealing with the Relative Size of Things in the Universe and the Effect of Adding Another Zero.
I am going to rely on this part of our reading to inform the use of schemata in the design of the film –
Readers comprehend a text when they are able to bring to mind schemas that match the particular content and structure of the material. As they begin to read, readers search for a schema to account for the information in the text. On the basis of this schema, readers construct a partial, tentative model of the text’s meaning. This model provides a framework for continuing the search through the text. The model is progressively refined as the readers gather more information from the text. Reading comprehension thus involves the progressive refinement of a coherent model of the text’s meaning. According to schema theory, therefore, meaning does not reside in the text alone, but is a product of the interaction of reader and text. (Armbruster 1986)
for the purposes of this assignment, and with no permission whatsoever, I’m going to take the liberty of altering a portion of the text to suggest that when watching a good instructional film, especially one such as the Eames’s, that “meaning does not reside in the film alone, but is a product of the interaction of viewer and film,” by breaking down segments of the content in coherent schemes. Powers of Ten uses one schema (chunk) upon another to create an accessible and compelling piece of instructional design.
Movie still from Powers of Ten: A Film Dealing with the Relative Size of Things in the Universe and the Effect of Adding Another Zero
Powers of Ten: A Film Dealing with the Relative Size of Things in the Universe and the Effect of Adding Another Zero, uses narration, film effects, and a logarithmic scale based on the power of ten to explain the relative scale of the universe in both outer and inner space.
Watch the video and consider schema theory as you ponder the vastness of our universe within and without:
Armbruster, Bonnie B. “Schema Theory and the Design of Content-Area Textbooks.” Educational Psychologist (2009): p. 254.