In the following, the elements of the didactic triangle as presented by Kansanen (2003) and the interrelations between them are taken as a starting point for further development of the triangle. The triangle presented by Kansanen is taken as a starting point since it brings into the foreground the didactic relation between the teacher and the students’
studying and learning processes. I perceive this relation as an important aspect of the instructional process that other versions of the didactic triangles failed to emphasise.
The development of the triangle has a concrete goal: to use the developed triangle as a starting point for a didactic focus based categorisation of educational research. This new categorisation system aims to highlight the didactic foci of studies in the field of computing education (CE) and computer science education (CSE). It thus serves as a tool to analyse which aspects of the instructional process are less studied and thus it has the potential to discover new and relevant research questions.
As an example of how the new categorisation system can be used an analysis of the didactic focus of research is executed on a delimited set of research. The analysis gives an example of how the didactic focus of research in the fields of CE and CSE, which has not been highlighted earlier, can be emphasised. The new categorisation system also
5 Blended Learning is a blending of different learning methods, techniques and resources. For instance, it is learning, which combines online and face-to-face approaches.
opens new opportunities for determining which areas of research have been thus far overlooked.
The triangle presented in Figure 9 (Kansanen 2003) visualises the interaction between the three elements (student, teacher, and content) and offers a base for categorisation.
However, the triangle in Figure 9 does not describe the richness of the reality in which instructional processes exist. The three main elements and their interrelations are inadequate as a base for categorisation of educational studies in computing education (CE) and computer science education (CSE). In my triangle in Figure 10, there is a dashed line arrow that describes the student’s or several students’ relation to the teacher’s or team of teachers’ pedagogical actions, such as giving a lecture. I added this arrow since the student’s perceptions of the teacher’s pedagogical actions may affect the student’s performance in the course. For instance, the studies of Xenos et al. (2002) and Meisalo, Sutinen et al. (2002) showed that the students’ perceptions of the lack of assistance from tutors or of tutor teachers’ negative attitudes towards giving advice were factors relating to the students’ decisions to drop out of the course. The added relation thus emphasises the student’s role in the instructional process. The addition of this relation aims at drawing the attention to the fact that there are two active actors present in the process (a teacher and a student). Actions and perceptions of both actors influence the instructional process and its outcome as the studies of Xenos et al. (2002) and Meisalo, Sutinen et al. (2002) exemplify.
Figure 10 The didactic triangle with an added arrow
The main restriction of Figure 9, however, is that all elements are situated in the context of a single course, whereas an educational system has a much larger scope. To set the triangle in a larger context, each of the three main elements of the didactic triangle can be understood as an instance of some larger entity. Hence, the number of possible viewpoints from which the instructional process can be seen grows significantly. For example, the teacher could be replaced by a team of teachers, the organisation in charge of a degree programme, or even the society at large. Likewise, the student could be replaced by a community of students or even by the citizens of a society. The content node of the triangle can also be seen as a part of a larger entity: the goals for the instruction. Here the goals are understood as a more comprehensive concept than just the taught content. For example, the goals of a course may include the knowledge, skills and attitudes that the student is expected to acquire. Goals can refer to the goals of a single course, a study module, a degree program, or even to the general goals of education that society provides to its citizens. In general, one can view the instructional process on the course level, the organisation level, and the society level. Figure 11 presents these new layers side by side. Note that on the course level the researchers have a choice whether they want to concentrate on an individual student’s or teacher’s
experiences or on the experiences of larger set of students (such as all students in the course) and teachers (such as a team of teachers and assistant teachers in a course). On the organisation level, the community of students refers to a large group of students, such as all computer science majors or even all students at the university.
Figure 11 The three levels of the didactic triangle: course level, organisation level and society level
The three viewpoints presented in Figure 11 increase the applicability of the didactic triangle as a base for categorisation of research since it does not confine us to the individual or course level. However, Figure 11 gives the impression that the three levels exist in isolation from each other, even though the different levels actually coexist and interact with each other. If we look at all three levels at the same time, the result could look like Figure 126.
The three levels in Figure 11 and Figure 12 can be analysed first level by level and second in terms of how the different levels interact. By applying the level-by-level approach, one can discuss the elements and their interrelations in the same manner as has been done earlier in this chapter when the didactic triangle was first introduced and the individual level (teacher-student-content) was brought into focus. The organisational level (organisation - community of students - goals and content of a degree programme) as well as the society level can be discussed in the same manner. Another approach is to see how different levels combine and intersect with each other. The nodes of the triangles are inclusive so that each student is a part of a larger community of students and hence has a relation to this learning community and also to the larger society.
Thereby this three- layered didactic triangle includes also the aspect of community that was introduced in Bergamin’s model (2006) as one essential characteristic of the instructional process. Correspondingly, the teacher as a member of the university personnel, has a relation to the organisation and to society, too. The teaching organisation (such as a university) can be seen as a part of an executive system that fulfils the society’s educational goals. Therefore, the organisation stands in relation to the society. In the same manner, the content of a course or a larger entity of studies is in relation, for example, to the goals of a degree program and finally to the general goals of the education system.
6 Note that this is not a geometric shape but a mental model.
Figure 12 Coexistence of different levels of the didactic triangle
The multi-level didactic triangle has parallels with the “dimension doughnut” approach to the instructional process, which was introduced in the first part of this chapter. First, the dimensions can be found in the three-layered didactic triangle. Dimension A (Student) is represented as the nodes that stand for the student/community of students/citizens in Figure 12. Dimension B (Teaching organisation) is represented as the nodes that stand for teacher/teaching organisation/society. Dimensions C (Content), D (Instructional entity) and E (Level of cognitive process) are represented in the nodes concerning the goals of a course/goals of a degree programme/general goals of education. Dimensions F (Didactic activity), G (Level of concretising) and I (Interaction) represent a large part of with the didactic relation between teacher/teaching organisation/society and students’/community of students’ studying and learning process (e.g., the arrow D in Figure 10). Dimension H (Study action) is represented as connections between the student/community of students/citizens and the goals of a course/goals of a degree programme/general goals of education (e.g., the arrow C in Figure 10). Second, a parallel between the triangle and the dimensions is that the three-layered didactic triangle highlights some of the dimensions’ categories. For example, categories of the dimensions A (a student, community of students, all students at university) and B (single teacher, team of teachers, teaching organisation) are visible in into the three- layered didactic triangle.
These two approaches to the instructional process, the three-layered didactic triangle and “dimension doughnut”, have their own strengths and limitations. The “dimension doughnut” highlights multiple viewpoints and the richness of reality. The dimensions enable detailed examination, for example, of the variety of human interaction during the instructional processes. The limitation of the dimensional approach is that it does not emphasise the interaction between the dimensions and the process nature of the
instructional process. The three-layered triangle, in turn, highlights the instructional process in context and the relations between the elements (actors and goal). On the other hand, the dimensions enable closer examination of the elements. For example, different aspects of goals can be divided into several dimensions (as has been done in Figure 7), which enables a more detailed analysis of the goals of instruction.