Anchored Instruction

Anchored Instruction
Presented by Denise Engberg

What is Anchored Instruction?

Anchored Instruction was developed by the Cognition & Technology Group at Vanderbilt.  The leader was John Bransford.  “Bransford is the principal spokesperson and hence the theory is attributed to him.” (Kearsley 2014 para 1)  The group was trying to find a way to remedy the suggestion that “students’ knowledge often remains ‘inert’ and cannot be used in response to many different changing situations or problems.” (Fried 2005 para 1)  Its focus was on using interactive videodiscs to present situations for students to solve.  These videos were the anchors for instruction.  The videos are in story form not lecture, but include the steps needed to solve the problem in the situation.  The problems are meant to be realistic and complex.  “Anchored modules typically embed all of the information need - embedded data or hints are used as scaffolding - to solve the problem,” (Fried 20005 para 5)  

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Anchored Instructions Family Tree

Anchored Instruction comes under the constructivism theory and is related to Situated Learning and Cognitive Flexibility Theory . (Kearsley 2014 )  It has also been said to be related to Problem Based Learning, but lacks the research component that is done outside the story, and Case Based Learning with the added exploration and discussion component added to it.  ( Fried 2005 para 8)  There is now an offshoot of Anchored Instruction which is called Enhanced Anchored Instruction.  Enhanced Anchored Instruction adds hands-on related problems.  “In addition, EAI extends AI by affording students additional opportunities to practice their skills as they solve new but analogous problems in applied, motivating, and challenging hands-on contexts.” (Bottge 2009 para 9)

Examples in Education

The Cognition & Technology Group created a series of videos for middle school math where there was a character, Jasper, who had situations in which he had to solve math problems.  In order to solve the problems, the students had to go through multiple steps.  (Bottge 2009 para 5-8)

I have used something similar to introduce the students to the Periodic Table.  I have put a story about aliens invading earth in a Google Presentation.  The aliens fit together based on 7 traits.  If the students figure out the patterns, they have the original Periodic Table.  I have seen a version of this where they give the aliens names and extra hints, but I have found that the students will figure out the table with the information in the story without the names and descriptions.

References

Bottge, B. (2009). Anchored Instruction. Retrieved from

www.education.com/reference/article/anchoredpinstruction

Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. (N.D.). Case-based and Problem-based

Learning. Retrieved From www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tscbt

DeGallow, D. (2014). What is Problem-Based Learning? Retrieved From

www.pbl.uci.edu/whatispbl.html

Fried, A, Cortez, J., Lee, Y., Wheeler, D., & Zannini, K. (2005). Theory Name: Anchored
Instruction. Retrieved from web.cortland.edu/frieda/ID/IDtheories/41.html

Kearsley, G. (Oct. 12, 2014). The Theory into Practice Database. Retrieved from

http://InstructionalDesign.org/anchor.html

Kearsley, G. (Oct. 12, 2014). The Theory into Practice Database. Retrieved from

http://InstructionalDesign.org/cognitive-flexibility.html

Learning-Theories.com (2014). Situated Learning Theory (Lave). Retrieved from

www.learning-theories.com/situated-learning-theory-lave.html