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Welcome to Buena Park Notebook, a site where students can let their ideas practice. The site is part of an instructional design project called "Meaningful Mass Repetition.”

The idea for this project began development in 2012 and has been implemented since 2014. Special thanks to Janet Young, Ed.D and Jayne Petrich, MS Ed. for finding financial support for this project.

The project draws from John Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory, which ties closely with Richard Meyer’s Cognitive Multimedia Theory. It’s closely aligned with Daniel Kahneman’s book, Think Fast, and Slow, and Robert Marzano’s book, Questioning Sequences in the Classroom.

The project is implemented in a blended learning environment, using recent flip and flex classroom strategies and ideas developed by Diana West of Buena Park School District in the early 1990s. Using up-to-date curriculum computer strategies, the project mirrors successful charter and progressive public education school programs using similar technology and techniques in the SF Bay Area.

The main tech feature of this project is cooperative group learning centers based around three 46” HD screens cabled to Apple Computers which allow student groups to work around a single computer. Students also use one-on-one iPads to work together and independently. The technology allows students to evaluate their own work and group work through conversation that leads to individual and group evaluation.

Cooperative group learning is a recommended and effective way of learning. Large-screen cooperative group computers are not found in many computer-assisted instructional design projects around the country and comprise an important and original element of the design.

Input and assessment are processed through Google Docs. Teachers and may use the free Google programs as a way to grade and evaluate their students in seconds. Attractive templates are provided.

Participating teachers have linked their Google doc indexes to this web site. Each teacher is responsible for their own content, and the site serves to organize the teacher’s index as an easy access point for students to find their teacher’s assignments, forms, and multimedia material.

As the project name suggests, learning occurs when education events are meaningful and occur frequently. The goal of the project technology is to provide meaningful repetition that provides students with more depth of knowledge. Educational and the psychology community is in agreement on this strategy.

Research shows working memory is limited. Research also shows long-term memory it built into cognitive schema by mass repetition as noted by Nobel-prize winning researcher Daniel Kahneman in his examination of System One and System Two thinking. This acquired schema helps students conquer larger cognitive workloads by providing more depth of knowledge.

When extraneous cognitive load is reduced, and learning events are more meaningful, students have a greater opportunity to solve complex problems. These mental models allow students to develop extensive capabilities within specific domain categories, rather than a sole reliance on means-ends analysis that often misses the forest for the trees.

Such mental capabilities are necessary in Common Core activities where complex tasks require greater skills sets. Such skills sets are found in a student’s cognitive schema. Such schema is only built through repetition and reteaching. And that is the purpose of this instructional design project.

The goal of building large-memory cognitive schema is critical. And this goal is the reason for this instructional design project.

For more information, contact Tim Jones at tjones221@mac.com.

This project is graciously hosted by Buena Park School District, who neither endorses or promotes this project at this time.

References:

Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning:

http://www.learning-theories.com/cognitive-theory-of-multimedia-learning-mayer.html

Cognitive Load Theory (Instructional Design):

http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/cognitive-load.html

Think Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman (Summary):

http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/11/13/24-a-summary-of-thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman/

Questioning Sequences in the Classroom, by Robert Marzano:

http://www.marzanoresearch.com/questioning-sequences-in-the-classroom