The paper.

The Value of Color: Learning Scenario Analysis

Section 1: The Scenario

1.      Context/Environment: The context is a vocational college (the Vancouver Film School) in a bridging program for English as an Additional Language learners. The bridging program, English for Creative Arts (ECA), prepares learners for their professional program of choice, acting as a preparatory program designed to improve learners’ English skills as well as their academic skills. The lesson is ‘Color Theory’ which takes place in week 12 of the 16-week program and is positioned at the end of the animation unit, before the game design unit. The lesson is delivered primarily synchronously online over Zoom, with time spent offline to work independently.

2.      The Learners: Eight mixed level English language learners between the ages of 18-25. Five are from South Korea, two are Chinese, one is Mexican. The two Chinese learners study from China, and the Mexican student is studying from Mexico. All others are studying from Vancouver. Some are experienced media artists seeking further schooling, some are pre-experience learners interested in media arts.

3.      Learning Objectives:

a.      Reflect on and research colors and their psychological/socio-cultural meanings.

b.      Recognize and apply key color-related vocabulary.

c.      Identify and describe three different color systems (RYB, RGB, CMY) and their purpose.

d.      Describe and apply 5 different color relationships (monochromatic, analogous, complementary, split-complementary, triadic, tetradic) to a scene.

4.      Timeline: The lesson takes place from 9am-1pm the third lesson of the week, and is self-contained (one lesson, one topic).

5.      Learning Activities: Detailed descriptions of the learning activities are provided in the analysis section below.

6.      Assessment Activities: Formative during and after the lesson. A summative test is offered in a later week which incorporates this lesson, among others.

a.      Formative: Hue acuity game

b.      Formative: Color relationship neighborhood

c.      Formative: Color relationship neighborhood revisions & reflection (homework forum)

Section 2: Theory-Based Analysis - A Screenplay

Bush (2006) describes that the current trend in design for learning is for designers to accommodate strategies that promote cognitive learning. Successful design strategies are those that fit the learner and the context and, “promote textured construction of meaning” (Bush, 2006, p. 17). In the learning scenario presented below, a variety of activities take place that attempt to teach for transfer and promote metacognition (Bush, 2006). Each activity can be seen through a theoretical lens; the theories explored are behaviorism, social cognitivism (with a bit of information processing), and cognitive and social constructivism. Allow us to step into the past and join our class and narrator to discover how theory guides the lesson as the scene unfolds.

INT. WEDNESDAY, JULY 28th, 2021. A ZOOM CALL - MORNING.

9am: We open on a small group of eight tired term 2 students. The instructor checks in with them and checks the small homework completed from the previous lesson. The instructor points out the learning goals (on Moodle) for the lesson to the students. The students are invited to ask questions about the goals to clarify their understanding.

NARRATOR

The learning goals are each framed with an action verb that is both observable and measurable. Learning goals can be considered as inherently behaviorist since they are actions learners take to show their learning (Standridge, 2010). Additionally, if we view the experience from a social cognitive perspective, setting goals and anticipating outcomes is seen as forethought and provides the lesson with a direction (Bandura, 2011).

9:15am: Students are asked to consider their favorite color and what it means to them. After a discussion about colors and their meaning to them, learners discuss the social-cultural meaning of specific colors in the world.

NARRATOR (CONT’D)

These lessons usually begin with a warmer that connects the topic to the students’ prior knowledge. Preparing to learn new information by activating what is already known about a topic is based on findings from cognitivism, neuroscience, and constructivism that describe how learning takes place. In this activity, the constructivist idea that learners construct knowledge with their own schema and that knowledge must be brought out of learners from their own experiences is particularly relevant as we are witnessing an eliciting task (Powell & Kalina, 2009).

9:30am: Students are given a color and asked to research and compile a short fact sheet, infographic, or media of their choice to describe the commonly held psychology of the color with visuals. They seem excited to work independently and offline.

NARRATOR (CONT’D)

Both cognitive and social constructivism value the inquiry method of instruction in which learners are encouraged to solve a problem using their own skills and ideas (Powell & Kalina, 2009). Piaget’s cognitive constructivist perspective might especially apply in this situation as learners are taking real actions wherein self-regulation is taking place. New experiences (the research) are being assimilated and accommodated into learners’ existing framework concerning the color at hand (Good et al., 1978).

10am: Students are nominated one color at a time to show and describe their findings. Students are invited to share feedback and other ideas throughout the discussion.

NARRATOR (CONT’D)

From a cognitive constructivist perspective to a social cognitivist perspective, learners now take their experiences and share them with others. Learners share their findings using the language and visual symbols they learned while investigating their color (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). Through the shared feedback process, these socially shared activities become internalized knowledge as learners question and add to the information shared about each color (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996).

10:30am: Students are introduced to six new vocabulary items on Moodle with a verbal explanation by the instructor alongside written explanations and visual examples. Students are asked to take notes throughout the process.

Once the full explanation has been provided, students are invited to play a game testing their hue acuity. They order colors by their degree of saturation and share together which of the colors in the hue acuity test are tints, tones, shades, or are fully saturated.

NARRATOR (CONT’D)

In this scene, the instructor has modeled the vocabulary using visual examples as well as providing a text and verbal model for spelling, use, and pronunciation. Modelling, or observational learning, is a key component of social cognitive theory (Bandura. 2011). Social cognitive theory is also related to the practice task as learners absorb the guiding principles of the vocabulary use and go beyond what they saw and heard to describe their own hue acuity test results – a circumstance which has changed the learning and is unique to each learner (Bandura, 2011).

In the hue acuity test, behaviorism is back in the form of gamified learning. The possibility of achieving a good score on the test is motivating and the fact it is a no-stakes test might be considered a well-ordered problem (Gee, 2005). Receiving positive reinforcement in the form of a good score also increases motivation and provides immediate feedback (Figuera-Fiores, 2016).

11:00am: Students are asked whether they know what color is. A student reveals that color is simply light wavelengths reflected from a surface. Additional knowledge is provided by the instructor about which colors appear at which wavelengths and how the colors are interpreted by the eye and brain through video multimedia (on Moodle).

Students are asked to recall if they know what the primary colors are. They reveal that the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. The instructor describes the artists palette and how it is only one system to understand color.

Red-Green-Blue and Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Key Black systems are introduced by the instructor as additive or subtractive systems regarding screen and print media with visual examples (on Moodle). Students discuss in groups when or if they should shift systems, or if they should be using one over the others in their personal practice. They all agree that they will be most often working with the RGB system.

NARRATOR (CONT’D)

In the second input, the instructor again elicits information and provides further direct instruction using verbal instruction, text, visual, and video media. Given the time constraints in the lesson, this is the most efficient way to getting the information to the students. However, the primarily social cognitive format of modelled input might not be the best way to guarantee long term retention. The information has been broken up into parts sufficiently, and the number of new items introduced at one time is low enough to be processed from the short-term to the long-term memory (Orey, 2010). But it has been shown that more elaboration, or linking to existing knowledge, might further aid retention (Orey, 2010).

In a more constructivist ‘flipped’ model of learning, learners could have been given one color for homework and asked to relate to it personally, added to their interpretation with research, and then provided scientific information about its wavelength in the same web-quest/media creation task from earlier in the lesson. During this research, they would have come to realize that color is reflected light wavelengths, knowledge that the instructor could have checked during the conversation. This is an appropriately scaffolded approach that considers what learners already know about color and extends their knowledge in consideration of their zones of proximal development (Powell & Kalina, 2009). The experience is what is supporting the learning and sharing in the group enables cooperation and a deeper understanding (Good et. al., 1976; Powell and Kalina, 2009).

In this class’s context though, two students are studying at night from China. Constructivism might help us design a lesson that relies more on active learning, but those students in different time zones often have trouble planning for and completing homework because of their difficult, and frankly unhealthy, waking hours. Information for them might best be delivered directly, in class. The instructor would ideally allow them to study asynchronously offline via the Moodle LMS but is constrained by the institution.

11:45am: Students learn about color relationships in the RGB system. The instructor guides students through the relationships within the system by drawing an analogy to a neighborhood. A monochromatic color relationship is different values of the same hue living in the same apartment building (the ‘start’ color), while analogous color relationships are the neighbors of different hues alongside that building, and complementary colors live across the street, for example. The teacher models the neighborhood and the use of Adobe Color to select the colors.

Students use Adobe Color to create their own versions of the color relationships and to create their own color neighborhood as a drawing or mock-up. This is an independent activity that takes place offline.

NARRATOR (CONT’D)

Constructivism is the main theory at play in this scene. As we have seen in earlier scenes, the instructor depends on modelling to provide direct instruction in their lessons. Students must learn the color relationships and practice with them well enough to understand the principles behind creating the relationships and generate new examples of the activity with their own colors (Bandura, 2011). This is also a constructivist activity that reflects the ideas of situated cognition (Schrader, 2015). Constructing a neighborhood is related to environment design in both game and animation while building an entire neighborhood that will ultimately based on the ‘start’ color is reminiscent of how art departments build color keys. The learning is therefore situated within authentic, real-world experiences that highlight the importance of the learning (Schrader, 2015).

12:45pm: Our students come back online to share their color neighborhoods together in small groups. They are happy to give and receive feedback from peers and the instructor on the appropriate use of color relationships based on their ‘start’ color. There is some confusion for some students about split-complementary relationships and differences in values.

1pm: Our class is over! Students are given their homework and say goodbye. The homework will be to revise their color neighborhoods and reflect on their choices. Students will post their final neighborhoods and a short reflection on why they made their color choices and what was workable or challenging. They are asked to comment on 1-2 other posts in the forum with comments or questions.

NARRATOR (CONT’D)

Our time together has finally ended. In this end scene, we see our brave students come back together for a final synthesis, review, and reflection. Self-reflection is a pillar of cognitivism and occurs when learners reflect on their own self-efficacy, consider the accuracy of their ideas, and try to make corrections (Bandura, 2011). Some of the learners’ ideas were not accurate if we are strictly following color relationships. In the feedback, it was pointed out how students might improve, and advice was given to address the pain points in their knowledge.

Reflection is equally important in constructivism and here, students can express, explain, and evaluate what was learned (Schrader, 2015). The use of a discussion forum furthers our constructivist aims by continuing the class discussion asynchronously after the synchronous class has ended to facilitate the continued co-construction of knowledge about color relationships (Schrader, 2015). How will you continue your construction of knowledge, dear viewer?

– END –

References

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