so if you will just tell us your name and
where you're at and just a little bit of biographical
information to get us started, okay. Dave Johnson
. I'm a curator's distinguished professor at the University of
Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. I've been I've had
previous positions at at the Pennsylvania State University and the
University of Colorado in Denver and University of North Carolina
, Greensboro. Ironically enough, it was with a
part time job. I was undergraduate at the University
of Delaware, working my way through school. I
worked summers and worked during the year and worked in
the library, worked in registration, so on those
became somewhat boring. So one day I respond to
an advertisement in the placement office for a job of
a television cameraman. Uh huh. And for the
Educational Television Network, we were producing a lot of
educational television programming in those days. Mainly courses official
formal courses, way different setup. We used to
have a big studio. 15,000 lots of lights,
um, two inch quadruple x tape, uh,
you know, control room, the whole thing like
that. I did lighting. I did television camera
work. I did directing a got involved More video
work with Television Repertory Workshop, and we started a
campus radio station. So I became kind of a
media hog as it were, and had a good
friend and a mentor at the university there who had
just two, received a master's in educational media.
And so I thought that was a pretty cool nothing
to do. I knew that ultimately that I would
need, uh, some educational experience because I was
my undergraduate degree. Of all things was in finance
, had having nothing to do but with with media
. But so I I went off and got a
masters in elementary education and taught for two years,
uh, as an elementary middle school reading language arts
teacher all the time continuing to work on, uh
, media projects and also beginning to take courses in
psychology, which I'd never had. As an undergraduate
in the middle of my master's program, I sort
of became acquainted with the job of a professor and
thought that might be a really neat thing to do
. And so I, after my complete my master's
degree and then working for a couple of years as
a teacher, decided to enroll in a doctoral program
at Temple University in Philadelphia, where I began studies
. I took a year off from that program to
work on an educational television program for the Office of
Migrant Education in New Jersey during television product, primarily
television production, uh, and then went back and
pursued my my remainder of my doctorate at Temple University
. And so those days were really quite different.
Uh, those were the days of media, media
studies and media comparisons. We were looking at a
lot of television work, educational, television, work
. Radio is still a little bit in. Their
films were being used a little bit, but the
dominant media and those particular days was educational television.
And so I worked with that through that for considerable
period of time. After graduating, I took a
job at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and a
library science and educational technology department, and one of
the reasons I got the job was they wanted someone
to teach educational television, which I had done extensively
. But, uh, in the early days,
actually, I started doing a lot of text design
research. Um, probably because it was cheap.
All you needed was a mimeograph machine and or a
Xerox machine and you could actually administer, uh,
lots of treat, different treatments. I I suppose
I was born empiricist. I started doing empirical studies
almost immediately, continue to do a little bit of
of video work and video research, but mainly moved
over into more instructional design, text design, kinds
of research, sort of in that period of time
, I suppose. I, you know, I
learned that I was always a constructivist and always,
uh, interested more in the kinds of things that
people do with media rather than from media. The
study that I did one of my first studies I
did at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro is
looking at the effects of video self confrontation. Look
at yourself on video for a period of time and
the effect on self concept and got some wildly,
uh, significant results. Uh, my early career
was a little slow in getting started publishing, although
I have always been a writer. And so I
started I started doing some publishing. I was not
mentored, uh, in my doctoral program, nearly
as well as what we do for students now in
terms of the publication process. However, in those
days, it wasn't as imperative. Nowadays, if
you want to be successful in academia, either published
or literally or you perish. And so, um
, I, you know, continue to do a
little bit of research on video as a self as
a modelling and self confrontation tool, which was really
, really fascinating stuff. But then again moved move
more directly into the text design research where I published
a couple of books and conducted a number of studies
. So our next question is, could you please
describe how your interests and aspirations have evolved and changed
? Right. Okay, um, that was kind
of that's an interesting question. Again, I started
doing the text design research and doing, um,
uh, doing more traditional instructional design work and trying
to learn learn the field of instructional design better than
I had been taught. Um, and I moved
. Um, I suppose I moved well again most
of the 19 eighties I I spent with the text
design research, and in the late 19 eighties we
had these funny little machines called microcomputers that began to
show up in the in the building. We actually
started out with some old CPM machines, saw less
100 microbus machines that had came stuck with four kilobytes
of Ram and four kilobytes of Ram. And we
can install for four kilobyte RAM board so we could
bump it up to 16 kilobytes and thought we were
pretty invincible. There wasn't much we couldn't do with
16 kilobytes, which which is humorous, obviously,
in today's in today's. But that began you certainly
computers change the nature of our discipline. A great
deal of forced the issue. I designed various curricula
around how to use microcomputers. I developed, like
20 to 1 hour one credit hour courses to meet
the needs of a whole wide variety of people within
the college. It was really at that point that
I began to think about the computer not as a
teaching medium, because in the early days of computer
race instruction, that was that was the norm.
We tried to embed the knowledge in the computer and
and asked the computer to do the teaching Well,
computers are really lousy teachers. Uh, and so
I began to think about better uses and sort of
, uh, in the in the mid to I
guess, the mid 19 eighties too late, 19
eighties, sort of, uh, came up with
this notion of mine tools that compelled my work for
a number of years. The idea of using computer
off the shelf computer tools as knowledge, representation tools
, thinking tools, critical thinking tools. Uh,
and so I ended up publishing a three different editions
of, uh, books on mine tools, and
we did lots of research, and I went around
preaching that particular gospel all over the world, and
I still think it's a powerful medium. Unfortunately,
in the late 19 nineties, this thing called the
Internet came along, and that's that's sort of that
sort of took the interest away from that sort of
thing. People now are. I mean, certainly
. Certainly virtually everything we do is so Internet based
, with particularly with Internet, too. And soon
, Internet three. Um, we're looking at how
to to to utilize that that particular technology more effectively
. Uh, and it wasn't until the mid 19
nineties, when I was at Penn State teaching there
that had dawned on me. That and the entire
instructional design literature. There was virtually no discussion of
problem solving. I think in all of the instructional
design textbooks, there was perhaps one chapter devoted to
problem solving. And so for whatever reason and whatever
compelled me, I don't know. But except the
absence, I suppose, of any literature in that
area, I decided that that would be something I
would I would tackle. And so, for literally
the past 15 or so years, I've I've virtually
all of my research has been focusing around what problem
solving is what kinds of problems there are, how
to support, engage and assess different kinds of problem
solving. And so that's that's That's probably gonna be
my legacy to the field if there is one,
because I've pushed. Although although one of the other
phenomenon that occurred beginning in the early 19 nineties,
my my friend and colleague Tom Duffy from Indiana University
and I started pushing the instructional design field in a
constructivist direction, we had a lot of time.
We had a lot of fun perturbing the field,
and and you could tell, over a period of
a decade that the issues and the topics of they
had conferences like a C T. Was rapidly changing
the nature of the questions that were being asked rather
than looking at instructional methods or instructional media. We
were beginning to look more at not only computers,
but all technologies as tools for helping students, you
know, construct their understanding of the world. And
so that kind of orientation still compels me. Yeah
, you know, in the in the seventies,
it was we were looking at media and looking at
the effectiveness of media as conveyors, the dominant paradigm
than was what we call message design the ideas.
And we could design a message more effectively to communicate
an idea than students would learn better. Uh,
and that's what we are essentially were doing was trying
to refine the age old method of direct instruction where
the teacher tells you about the world. Well,
the teacher tells you more effectively using a variety of
instructional strategies than, uh than the effectiveness of the
learning. What should be more should be more effective
. I began to think a lot with the mind
tools work about learning strategies rather than instructional strategies.
What can the learner do to better understand things,
irrespective of what's being taught? And so those media
days, uh, the message design media days really
pretty much, I think, went through the 19
eighties, and then it was really beginning in the
early 19 nineties that we begin and with the advent
of the microcomputer as a more of a personal tool
that students could use that we began thinking in a
much more constructivist direction. And clearly I think a
lot of people are are convinced that in fact knowledge
is constructed whether or not you believe it's true.
The major misconceptions that have occurred, of course,
is relates to the notion of constructivist instruction, which
is an oxymoron. Uh, yeah, you know
, you people, regardless of what happens regardless of
what you do, people will construct whatever meaning they
can from a particular situation. Oftentimes, irrespective of
what it is you do to them. Uh,
they've got their own personal experiences and personal needs,
and they're going to make sense out of out of
what they experience in their own way, regardless of
what we do. Uh and so I think,
you know, with the with the advent of the
Internet and sort of ubiquitous sources of knowledge or excuse
me, ubiquitous sources of information. And now,
with the new mobile technologies, you've got ubiquitous access
to information. I think the nature of the of
the questions are changing substantially. And certainly with the
advent of social networking, really, as as a
communication tool, uh, is having profound effects,
I think, on on the world witnessed. The
recent revolutions in Northern Africa, which are which were
mediated by social networking, just shows the phenomenal impact
. Um, and so I think there are other
issues that are possibly good or possibly bad. I
don't regard around social networking. Um, that are
not necessarily. I mean, I think I'm concerned
about the social psychology of identity and and responsibility and
issues like that in certain social networking environments. I
think technology is Technology has provided instantaneous access to two
different, uh, different support systems, like mom
or Dad or friends or whatever. And that,
unfortunately, has made a lot of people unwilling or
unable to actually take responsibility for their own activities in
their own charge. And that can have fairly serious
impact. But But the reality is that the Internet
and social networking has have become so dominant that it's
going to change our society in a in a significant
way, and that's probably going to be the future
of research for some time to come. Heaven knows
what else You know what else may come along?
I think a lot of people are looking longingly toward
the potential of virtual reality for for engaging students in
ways in which ways that we otherwise cannot do now
. Phenomenal impact. I still think we're an integration
or two away from being able to really do that
sort of thing effectively. But I suspect within the
next couple of decades we're going, we're going to
see some really, really powerful environments. Well,
you know, in the early days of structural design
, I was studying very traditional structural design. Actually
, Dave Merrill was one of my heroes. I
studied his stuff and actually had working models of some
of his instructional designed to ideas before he did,
uh, so again, it was It's a very
coherent theory of instructional design. But again, really
, In the early 19 nineties, I began to
move in a very strong constructivist direction, which sort
of, you know, took me off in a
substantively different tangent than Dave's work or traditional instructional design
work. Uh, but so much of my work
has really been I think, instructional. A lot
of The books that I've written have been basically focused
around teaching students in the instructional design community things that
had not been articulated yet. I've done a couple
of additions of task analysis book, which is really
the heart and soul of any kind of design.
Unfortunately, it's a skill that's underdeveloped, I think
in most programs, and so students ultimately end up
learning one or maybe two methods of instructional design.
So which means that you know their instructions all gonna
look, if you only have one method of analyzing
learning, then their methods, all their methods gonna
look the same. Um, I tell my students
all the time if you aren't able to articulate how
your learners are supposed to think and you really have
no business designing instruction for him. Uh, that's
not a very, you know, satisfying response for
them, but I mean, so those kinds of
those kinds of skills. But again, the the
constructive stuff really took me through most of the 19
nineties, and then I became focused on problem solving
as certainly one of the ultimate constructive activities. I
mean, when you have a problem to solve and
you've got, it's imperative that you you construct and
understanding representation in some understanding of the problem before you
were able to solve it. And so, uh
, when you look at the many quote unquote constructivist
innovations, the simulations and the games and the,
uh, the multi user inverse, uh, immersive
environments and all of those kinds of activities at the
root of all of those is problem solving. That's
what they're doing in those environments. And then I
began to work a lot with engineers and engineering education
, and we've done a lot of research in that
field. And, uh, when you go out
and analyze what people do, what engineers do,
but virtually what anyone does is solve problems. Nobody
gets paid for writing an examination booklets. Yeah,
In fact, that's how we continue to assess student
understanding, which is unfortunate. But so, you
know, schools and universities, I think, especially
do a really woefully poor job of actually engaging student
in problems all anyway, my interest in problem solving
really from a cognitive perspective, though, has sort
of transmogrified over under problem based learning. So we
were working with a number of entities, organizations and
institutions around around trying to embed or engage problem based
learning. And they're in there in their education,
very problematic kind of effort because students have learned to
do to do traditional school. And when you ask
them to start solving problems that that really violates all
their scripts for for learning all their schemas are about
how do I study for the test? How do
we get the right answer on the test and and
then and then move on? So that's been a
challenge and continues to be a challenge and will continue
to be a challenge. Although, as I tell
people all the time, I truly believe that problem
based learning is the most significant pedagogical innovation in the
history of education. It's not sexy like computers or
technology, but but its substantive in terms of how
learners are supposed to think. And that's really the
That's the key to the whole thing. As far
as I'm concerned, um, too many people have
always assumed, or I believe, I think believe
that students learn from the technology and that's just simply
not true. People learn from thinking, and if
the technology can help people think better than so be
it, At least that's my particular philosophy. Well
, as I mentioned Dave Merrill earlier, I think
he really is. I mean, in terms of
traditional theories of instructional design. His, I believe
, has always been the most coherent. Uh,
I was also very always very enamored of very impressed
by the work of Gavriel Salomon at the University of
Tel Aviv. Brilliant guy, done. He's done
just absolutely brilliant. Research has always been at the
forefront, I think of of, uh, of
our field. And so, even though he's not
normally associated with with the field of instructional design that
closely, I think he's probably done as much or
more for for the field is as, uh as
anyone. Um, after that, you know,
I I began to read widely and situated learning,
and I think the work of Jean Lave has been
Barbara Rogoff has been particularly influential in my thinking.
Uh, Jim, watch at Think you should wash
you in ST Louis right around down the road.
People like that, I think, have been,
But also then by you know, by the 19
nineties I had actually identified my own agenda and began
to pursue it and hopefully somewhat influenced myself. But
but historically the you know, those are some of
the people I think that have really been. Bob
Hynek are very one of the old guys in the
field was also very influential. He I did a
philosophical paper in E. C T. J back
in the early 19 eighties, and Bob was even
though he had no reason to. He was the
editor, the general for awhile. He really mentored
me. In a way. We went through six
or seven iterations on the paper, and he would
. He would write these seven page longhand letters in
response to my latest draft, and so we finally
got it good enough to publish. So my hat's
off to him, and it's certainly a number of
a number. I've had a number of friends and
colleagues in the field who have on whom I've I've
lent leaned a little bit, but in terms of
intellectual stimulation, I, most recently by buy more
by the Constructivist. I'm a big fan of a
woman named Deanna Coon at Teachers College in Colombia.
She's done years and years and years of work on
argumentation, just absolutely brilliant work. So, um
, and so many other colleagues from whom I've drawn
inspiration and work, but not in a really consistent
manner. Well, the thing I mean, obviously
the the only part of my career will be the
field was still dominated by direct instruction. And so
we were trying to figure out how to get it
done. Better, uh, and that, you
know, that was an important one. And I
and I again I chose text designed as a method
for doing that. I spent half a year at
the University of Kiel with a good friend of mine
, Jim Hartley, who was really one of the
best known text design researchers in the in the world
. And we had a lot of fun doing doing
research and, uh, hanging out at the pub
. Uh, that was a good time, but
then, you know, But then my work beginning
in the early 19 nineties, really shifted into the
sort of the constructivist direction. I think I think
people, For a while I thought I had a
big C plastered on my chest or something. Not
so it was really more. It was really more
fun. I don't know, uh, and and
the purpose was not to suggest an alternative or was
the suggestion alternative but not a replacement? I think
we still have these immature and dualistic debates about which
model is better right now. It's direct instruction versus
unguided instruction, which is both are really miss numbers
. I think that kind of dualistic thinking, it's
really destructive of our field. Clearly, you know
, the ability to accommodate multiple beliefs and multiple perspectives
is, I think, actually important for any field
of endeavor. There's no there's no unified theory of
learning. I think a lot of people have looked
for that, and a lot of psychologists over the
years have promoted their particular theories. Is that this
is, you know, this is the theory that
that's that's all we need to know for how to
design good instruction. Well, that just doesn't exist
because the variety of learning outcomes is so vast and
so diverse that there is no single method of instruction
that can work. And a lot of people misinterpret
my my beliefs as I'm totally against direct instruction,
which is just not true. I think there are
times there are many times during during complex problem solving
processes that I want to learn something and that's the
teachable moment, you know, teach me how to
do this now and you'll save me a lot of
time, an effort. So, you know,
I'm not advocating. I'm not advocating any particular methodology
. Even with the mind tools work, I said
, This is an alternative way of actually using computers
. It's not gonna save schools. Um, it's
not going to change the nature of the course of
education, but but But in fact, it's a
It's a way of, I think, more productively
and constructively using using the technologies that we have.
And so, um, and clearly then, over
the last decade and a half, um, the
Constructivist orientation has really kind of morphed into the problem
solving stuff. And so I'm pretty much gonna ride
that horse until the end of my career right now
, largely because I think I've scratched the surface in
terms of articulating a meta theory of problem solving.
But I don't pretend that I, you know,
no near enough. There's so much we don't know
about problem solving, and there are so many unanswered
questions, and the outcome is so important that,
you know, there are literally thousands of studies that
I can conceive of that really need to be done
. And unfortunately, we have enough years to do
those interesting question. You know, I was sort
of hope I haven't made again. Uh, but
I'm not sure. Probabilistic Lee, that's that.
That's necessarily the case. I am actually very proud
of the book I just published on Problem solving.
I think it's sort of a compilation of the work
I've done over the last 15 years. Couple with
that, I would say. I edited two versions
of the Handbook of Research on our field. They
were both large 1500 page tomes, which I pretty
much single handedly took on both times. Uh,
and so they were, I think, in terms
of in terms of contributions to the field, people
perhaps recognize those as the most important and quite legitimately
. So, um, you know a number of
other books that I've done, I think that I'm
really proud of because their tools, their handbooks,
I really, for some strange reason focused my career
on handbooks. Basically teaching, you know, teaching
the field things. Barbara Grabowski and I wrote back
in the early 19 nineties wrote a handbook of individual
differences learning instruction. It's still quite a useful handbook
, even though it's it's significantly dated by now.
But so for some reason, you know, utility
has always sort of compelled me for whatever reason.
So, you know, I suppose the hand.
But the big research handbooks are probably that which I
perhaps will be most recognized for, I think the
research on problem solving the body of research that we've
done on problem solving because I think they have provided
a unique, unique perspective. Just as I think
our work on Constructivism, uh, sort of push
the field in a different direction, as evidenced by
the nature of the papers that are submitted to this
conference and other conferences, I now see the problem
solving as being much more strongly represented in the topics
that people are researching in our field, both in
terms of the papers that I that I review for
publication and the conference presentations here at this conference,
Uh, I see a lot more people looking into
problem solving. I don't think they completely understand it
yet. Not that any of us really do.
Um, but that's very gratifying, you know,
when you know that you've had an effect on a
field, even in some small and subtle way.
I think that's that's a pretty good testament to your
career. They're not all pretty. Uh, honestly
, you care to be right, Right? Right
, right. I came from a broken home.
My parents were divorced when I was four, and
we live with my mother in Southern Indiana, and
I think What really? Mm. The most significant
effect on our lives was the fact that we were
all both positive and negative was the fact that we
were pretty much raised as young adults. We had
to be pretty much independent and self reliant throughout our
childhood, and we always pretty much excelled in school
. We never caused problems. We never because my
our mother had a difficult enough life trying to trying
to deal with that. So So I think.
I think the sense of of adulthood and self reliance
Is there some negatives there as well? But perhaps
didn't have the childhood that we could ever should have
. But But you know that, for me,
is really I think the whole notion of self reliance
and personal responsibility is just so endemic and and my
belief system. I think it's a real significant problem
in our society. I think personal responsibility has just
been mitigated so much by entitlement and and more frighteningly
, I think the whole notion of social responsibility is
just gone by the wayside. I've I'm somewhat pessimistic
about the future authority of the country in the world
. Hopefully, you know, those values will change
. But when I see the political discourse in our
country these days, I get I'm not giving a
great deal of hope. Mhm, uh, for
me. Uh, well, I've always been physically
active. My wife and I are very active.
We run and we work out. And so,
um, my passion is mountain climbing. We live
in Colorado in the summer, and so I I
just I love to climb mountains. Uh, i'll
do technical mountains with a guide with on rope.
Uh, you know, or just even easy mountains
. I There's just something for me spiritual about going
up a mountain. I mean, if you actually
look at all the so many of the Old Testament
and even New Testament references, they were always going
up to the mountain, so I figured there had
to be something good going on up there? Uh
, just just a spiritual refreshment that you get from
standing on top of the mountain is just really for
me, is compelling. So I love, uh
, and and just being out in nature when I
, uh, for 10 years I was the University
of North Carolina at Greensboro and every chance I got
to be up in the Blue Ridge Mountains hiking or
backpacking or whatever. And so I'm also compelled by
ski, which also requires mountains. Uh, and
so I love to do that as well. And
other than that of the traveling, I've been blessed
, I suppose, because of my because of whatever
success I've had academically, I've been invited many times
to deliver talks and workshops and activities around the world
. And so I've visited a lot more of the
world than most people ever get to. And and
that's been a real blessing. And and it's been
very eye opening. Um, I really crave those
those kinds of otherworldly experiences. What I what I
call you ain't in Kansas anymore. Toto experiences this
place is really different. Yeah, like going to
Borneo or whatever. You know, it's just the
culture is so different from anything we know that it's
, you know, that it's that I find I
find it really, really compelling. Although more recently
my wife and I have really been focusing our energies
on Italy. It's a wonderful my wife is Italian
, and so and we love the people and the
culture and the food. It's really a wonderful place
to visit. Well, yeah, interesting question.
I mean, my wife and our Catholic and so
that that impels you in a particular direction. But
and and for me, religion. I mean,
religion is not so much about dogmas. About how
you live your live, Um, it's it's really
interesting when you get into church politics how petty and
vindictive people can actually be. And I just sometimes
want to shake him and say, you know,
aren't you listening to the Gospels? Come on,
folks. So the most compelling to me is is
really how you live your life and, uh,
and the manner in which you do so in the
manner in which you relate to other people. Uh
, and again, that whole idea of self reliance
and personal responsibility, I think, is just absolute
. That's from a personal perspective. I know,
I understand. I've been asked that question many times
, and frankly, I don't know the answer to
it. I guess it's just not that hard.
Um, writing is, you know, for many
people is a difficult endeavor. I've always been fairly
successful and found writing to be a fairly easy task
. Uh, and I've got a head full of
ideas. Uh, and when I look at the
world, I you know, I always look at
not only the implications but also the, you know
, the research needs. I typically, every time
I read a paper, I I invariably come up
with three or four other research topics related to that
paper that really ought to be done. Could be
done. So I'm an implication all thinker in that
, in that sense, uh, in terms of
advice, it's really hard to say, Um,
I think the only advice I can give us time
management. Uh, and by that I mean,
as as a young academic, you've really got a
carve out time for doing those sorts of things,
whether you whether you work in the office successfully or
work more successfully at home. Gosh, and my
first job at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro
. Uh, I had a carol, a closed
door academic carol in the library, and no one
ever found me there so I could go and and
work without any kind of interruption. Um, so
I think it's a matter of carving out significant portions
of time where you can work. I think effectively
working on ideas is not something you can do in
15 or 20 minutes. Bits you've got to you've
got you've got to apply, um, yourself over
a longer period of time. And so and And
fortunately, uh, in most situations, academics have
the flexibility to be able to do that. I
tell people all the time that I've certainly committed my
share of mistakes in life. But career choice wasn't
one of them. I can't imagine doing or having
done anything other than what I've done. There is
no job in the world that is, I think
, more fulfilling. That has more autonomy. Um
, and so I find it fulfilling press because I've
done a lot. But, you know, personal
satisfaction is achieved in many many ways. Uh,
and so I just felt compelled to do that.
I suppose I'm neurotic in some sense. You know
, at least I'm I'm impelled to do these sorts
of things and yeah, really, really stopped to
ask why It's just there. And I do it
because I enjoy it. Um, yeah. Great
. So the last question is just Is there anything
we haven't touched upon that you feel you'd like to
address? Don't, can I? You know,
I'm sure I can think of lots of things,
but, I mean, but I think we've pretty
much covered covered the ballpark. Great. Well,
thank you so much for agreeing to do.