Microlearning and (Micro)Didaktik

Abstract

In research associated with curriculum and cognition, questions of content and context have been both important and problematic. Cognitivism has traditionally seen cognition, content and context as separate; and recent attempts to overcome this separation (e.g., situated cognition) have been criticized for being insufficient (e.g., Lave, 1988). Curriculum designs in North America have conventionally sought to be "teacher-proof" (Westbury, 1998) especially through integration with standardized testing, and have attempted to restrict instructional and contextual adaptation. Although more recent developments in cognitive science and curriculum development (e.g., design-based research, learning objects) attempt to address these issues in various ways, the ongoing proliferation of forms and opportunities for learning (e.g., mobile learning, micro-learning) invite a more radical re-thinking. This paper explores the possibilities for such a re-thinking presented by Didaktik, an area of research familiar in the Germanspeaking world, but little known beyond it. The paper begins by presenting a historical overview of the term "didactic' from both English and German-language perspectives. It then explores through comparisons and examples, how connections between content, context and learning made in this research tradition point to the possibility of a "microdidaktik." This is a didactic approach in which the intertwining of practice, content and context are understood and fostered between learner, teacher and content, on a "micro" level, and in terms of the relationships of what is known as the "didaktik triangle."

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