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Landamatics

Learning Theory of Lev Landa

Explained by Chris


Contents
Abstract
Resources
Key concepts

Landa's algo-heuristic theory of designing instruction
Landa's algo-heuristic theory learning and performance
Algorithmic processes
Heuristic processes
Algo-heuristic prescriptions for efficient instruction
Fundamental principles of Landamatics
Teaching the algo-heuristic process
Automatisation of cognitive operations

Links


Abstract
Landamatics provide some tools for more efficient learning and teaching approaches.

up - Abstract - Resources - Concepts - Theory 2 - Theory 1 - Algorithmic - Heuristic - Prescriptions - Landamatics - Teaching - Automatisation - Links


Resources
Lev N. Landa
(1993)
Landamatics ten years later.
In: Educational Technology, 33(6), 7-18

(1983)
The algo-heuristic theory of instruction.
In: C.M. Reigeluth, ed. (1983): Instructional-design Theories and Models: An Overview of Their Current Status.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Hillsdale, New Jersey, 163-211.

(1977)
'Cybernetics methods in education', Educational Technology, vol. 10.

(1976) Instructional Regulation and Control: Cybernetics, Algorithmization, and Heuristics in Education.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications

(1974) Algorithmization in Learning and Instruction.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications

up - Abstract - Resources - Concepts - Theory 2 - Theory 1 - Algorithmic - Heuristic - Prescriptions - Landamatics - Teaching - Automatisation - Links


Key concepts
- Kinds of knowledge: images, concepts, propositions
- Algorithmic and heuristic processes
- Snowball principle

up - Abstract - Resources - Concepts - Theory 2 - Theory 1 - Algorithmic - Heuristic - Prescriptions - Landamatics - Teaching - Automatisation - Links


Landa's algo-heuristic theory of designing instruction
Interacting outcomes of instructional activity Outcomes of instruction are e.g.:
- knowledge
- skills
- abilities

In interaction
These outcomes interact with each other during the process of their formation:
- Skills draw upon certain knowledge.
- Knowledge is pre-requisite of skills, but alone does not amount to skills.
- Each skill is an ability to apply knowledge.
- A skill manifests itself in actions on knowledge and/or its objects.
- Knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of a skill.
- To develop a skill, one has to teach the operations on objects, on their images, and on concepts - in addition to teaching images and concepts themselves.

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Landa's algo-heuristic theory of learning and performance
Breaking down for better handling This theory deals with understanding and describing specific processes and operations:
- objectives
- tasks
- cognitive processes

Teaching it reliably by making it small
The theory recommends to break down:
- complex tasks into elementary tasks,
- ambiguous objectives into observable and unambiguously assessable behaviours,
- complex unobservable cognitive processes into elementary steps,
- unobservable cognitive operations into relatively elementary operations in order to execute them by the learners unambiguously.

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Algorithmic processes
Regular,
uniform,
defined
Examples
- making a phone call
- starting a car

Definition
The algorithmic process is a process that consists of a series of relatively elementary operations that are performed in some regular and uniform way under defined conditions to solve problems of a certain class.

A prescription determining these operations is an algorithmic prescription or an algorithm.

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Heuristic processes
New,
selected,
developed
Examples
- searching for a new tool (capable of solving some technical problem when no available tools can solve the problem)
- choosing an attribute of a geometical figure among existing or known attributes while solving a problem of proof

Definition
The heuristic process is a process that consists of a series of non-elementary operations (not known to a performer beforehand) or of elementary operations that are not performed in a regular or uniform way under the same conditions.

A prescription determining these operations is a heuristic prescription.

It is not true
that only simple skills have an algorithmic nature and all complex skills are heuristic.

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Algo-heuristic prescriptions for efficient instruction
Three types of algo-heuristic prescriptions increase efficiency in instruction

  • Prescriptions for performers:
    indicate what to do in order to perform at mastery level.

  • Prescriptions for learners:
    indicate what to do in order to learn how to perform at mastery level.

  • Prescriptions for teachers/instructors:
    indicate what to do in order to develop algo-heuristic processes in performers and/or learners.

    up - Abstract - Resources - Concepts - Theory 2 - Theory 1 - Algorithmic - Heuristic - Prescriptions - Landamatics - Teaching - Automatisation - Links


  • Fundamental principles of Landamatics
    A system of techniques for
    - penetrating unobservable, non-conscious, and intuitive mental processes underlying expert performance,
    - breaking those processes down into elementary component operations;
    - describing those operations explicitly - both manual and cognitive;
    - composing algorithmic or heuristic prescriptions for non-experts: what they should do to perform at an expert level.

    The significance of this approach
    to learning and performance lies in the realisation that it is possible to analyse complex cognitive processes into relatively elementary operations in all subject areas.

    The algo-heuristic theory of instruction is a theory for

  • Uncovering
    conscious and unconscious processes underlying abilities of expert learners to perform at mastery level.

  • Explicitly describing
    the uncovered processes in the form of hypothetical-descriptive models.

  • Testing out
    the correctness and completeness of the descriptive models by designing prescriptions.

  • Improving the models.

  • Optimizing the models.

  • Designing
    final algorithmic or non-algorithmic ideal procedures enabling non-experts to perform at a mastery level.

  • Identifying
    the learning procedures leading to the development in learners of performance algorithms or heuristics.

  • Designing
    algo-heuristic teaching procedures capable of effective development of algo-heuristic performance and learning procedures in students.

  • Designing
    algo-heuristically based training courses and materials.

  • Creating
    computer-based or other media based programs on the basis of algo-heuristic training programs.

  • Designing
    methods for evaluating the efficiency of Landamatic methods of learning and instruction.

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  • Teaching the algo-heuristic process
    The snowball method

    The snowball principle of developing multi-operation procedures - step-by-step:

    1 Presenting
    an algorithmic or non-algorithmic procedure and demonstrate how to solve problems

    2 Developing
    the 1st operation in students.

    3 Presenting
    problems that require application of the 1st operation and have students practise the operation until mastered.

    4 Developing
    the 2nd operation in students.

    5 Presenting
    problems that require application of both operations.

    6 Developing
    the 3rd operation in students.

    7 Presenting
    problems that require application of all 3 operations.

    And so on . . .

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    Automatisation of cognitive operations
    Automatisation
    by connecting subsets of operations to the already existing sets and thus creating bigger blocks.
    The snowball principle of formation of cognitive operations develops the ability to perform several operations as one operation.

    The heart of the method
    is not how to flowchart operations when you already know them, but how to discover them when trainers and performers are unaware of them, and may not even know about the existence of the processes that should be identified, broken down into component operations and algorithmically described.

    up - Abstract - Resources - Concepts - Theory 2 - Theory 1 - Algorithmic - Heuristic - Prescriptions - Landamatics - Teaching - Automatisation - Links


    Links
    USQ University of Southern Queensland, Australia
  • Unit 88031: Instructional systems design for open and distance learning. Module 5: The Algo-heuristic Theory: Landa

    Greg Kearsley

  • Algo-Heuristic Theory (L. Landa)

    Interview 1993

  • Landamatics Ten Years Later: An Interview with Lev N. Landa (abstract ERIC)

    Lev N. Landa

  • Landa, Lev N. (1984): Algo-Heuristic Theory of Performance, Learning, and Instruction: Subject, Problems, Principles (abstract ERIC)
  • Korelyakov, Yu. A.; Landa, L. N. (1982): On Parametric Approaches to the Analysis and Description of Thought Processes (abstract ERIC)
  • Landa, L. N. (1976): The Ability to Think --How Can it be Taught? (abstract ERIC)

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  • tidBits 111-18


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