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Best Teachers Summer Institute, June 20-22, 2012
Goal Based Scenarios
People are most likely to learn deeply when they are trying to solve problems or answer questions they have come to regard as important, beautiful, or intriguing
Click on image to see a brief film on a GBS
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Example Please

Goal Based Scenarios are useful for scientific subjects as well as liberal arts subjects. Let's take biology as an example. Bill Purves, Professor of Biology at Harvey Mudd College, reconsidered the biology curriculum from a GBS perspective. He developed GBS missions that would cover the entire set of skills he feels are most important for a college biology major to have at graduation. Suprisingly, he needed only three GBSs to do the job:

• Biology GBS 1: Feed the world. Develop a proposal to cope with the world food crisis along with an explanation of why your proposal would be effective.

• Biology GBS 2: Pick one of the following patients. Figure out what caused his or her disease. (The student is given five patients suffering from different diseases, including a nutritional deficiency, a venereal disease, a microbial infection which is not a venereal disease, a hereditary disease, and one caused by an environmental hazard such as a radionuclide or toxic substance.)

• Biology GBS 3: Develop a mutant bacterial strain capable of producing human insulin in sufficient quantity to meet the needs of a diabetic person.

Considering that college students usually need to sit through twenty or so separate, usually unintegrated, courses in their majors, the notion that three GBSs can cover the required ground is heartening. Considering that these GBSs sound like so much fun is downright rousing.

Taken from Engines for Education, by Roger Schank and Chip Cleary found here (http://www.engines4ed.org/hyperbook/nodes/NODE-246-pg.html

In a goal based scenario, teachers identify a specific set of skills (including intellectual skills) to teach via a goal-based scenario, then "embed" that skill learning in a task, activity, or goal that the student will find interesting or motivational.

Goal-based scenarios often take the form of multimedia learning environments in which students undertake authentic roles. Roger Schank designed the "Broadcast News" multimedia environment, in which students managed a virtual newscast, developed story lines by accessing and organizing a large resource database, and eventually delivered the news as professionals. Students learned historical facts by organizing and re-presenting provided data. To design such goal-based environments, Internet web sites can link to a diversity of resources. Alternatively, authoring programs will allow an instructor to create a multimedia environment for interacting with resources or perhaps mock-interviewing virtual persons.

When creating a GBS, a designer goes through these six steps:

1. Identify a set of target skills

2. Develop Missions which require the target skills

3. Choose a Focus

4. Create a Cover Story which envelops the Mission

5. Plan the Operations

6. Build learning environments to support the target skills

 

Go here for more on these steps:  http://www.engines4ed.org/hyperbook/nodes/NODE-233-pg.html

For additional information and links on Goal-based Scenarios, click here

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