Naturalistic and Technological Approaches

Do you prefer the naturalistic or technological approach? Based on your content background, do you see any possibilities to adopt a dual approach in curriculum design and instructional delivery?

   The technological and naturalistic approaches to education both have their merits and their disadvantages. In the technological approach, the learning objectives take priority. First, the educator decides the objectives, and then assessments and learning experiences are crafted that will let students use and show their mastery of those objectives. Planning a student's education with backward design in this way has a lot of benefits. Firstly, planning a curriculum like this allows for a clear sequence to be followed. Students would be expected to learn certain things at certain times. This would make data collection fairly straightforward as the teacher can see who is meeting the objective and who is not. After the data is collected and analyzed, the teacher can adjust the curriculum to fit with student needs by adding new objectives. This approach seems practical and straightforward, though it does have its flaws. For example, if the objectives are the most important thing, real-world learning experiences could be neglected. Finding real-world and interesting learning experiences that fit each objective specifically can be extremely challenging and time-consuming for the teacher. It would be very easy to fall into the more traditional teaching strategies to ensure that each objective is being taught and assessed individually. Another issue with the standards being the priority is that student engagement might suffer. The curriculum would need to be more rigid to fit all the objectives and student agency might need to be an afterthought. 

  The naturalistic method, as opposed to the technological method, does not put the objectives as the main priority. Rather, the goal is to give the students high-quality and engaging learning experiences. In this method, teachers strive to hit several objectives, some that may be planned for and some that may be surprising. This method is great for student engagement. By not worrying so much about the objectives and focusing more on quality learning experiences, students will certainly have an enjoyable lesson that they will get something out of. The issue is that we cannot quite be sure exactly what they are learning from this interesting lesson. If an activity can have several different learning outcomes, some of which the teacher may have not even thought about, it would be very difficult to track. It would be unclear which students have learned which things. If the teacher does not have an easy way to track objectives, it would be easy to miss gaps in student knowledge. 

  Since there are large problems with each of these methods, I am not sure that I prefer one of them over another. I suppose I like the spirit of the naturalistic method more. I really believe in giving student choice and freedom in their assignments, but the difficulty of tracking objectives in the assessments is a glaring issue. That being said, a mix of both methods would be optimal to each on their own. A way to do this would be to use the technological three-stage backward design method but include assessments and learning activities that are authentic, measurable, and interesting. In the first stage of curriculum planning, the teacher can identify the objectives that they want the students to work with. Then, for stage two, the teacher can come up with an authentic and real-world assessment that shows those objectives while allowing for student choice. For example, if the objective is for students to learn how to write persuasively, the assessment could be for students to write a persuasive product about something they care about and then share that product with the school or the community in order to make real change. With an assessment like this, the student can produce a meaningful piece of work while the teacher is still able to see how well the student met the objective. As formative work, or stage three of the backward design method, the teacher could include more interesting and engaging learning experiences for the students, just on a smaller scale. The rubric of the objectives from stage one can be used to create the formative assessments, but a creative teacher should be able to come up with other engaging activities to prepare students for the summative assessment. 

  By focusing on both objectives and interesting learning experiences, we can get the best of both the technological and the naturalistic methods. Students will be able to participate in interesting and meaningful learning activities while still focusing on the objectives they need. The teacher will also be able to track the objectives more easily and adjust their lessons and curriculum accordingly. If the technological or naturalistic methods are done in isolation, both good and bad results may follow. To give the students an education that encompasses student agency, engagement, and objective tracking, a mix of both philosophies would be ideal.