CONSTRUCTIVISM NEW CONSTRUCTIVISM NEW IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPLICATIONS FOR

INSTRUCTIONAL LEARNININGINSTRUCTIONAL LEARNININGwhat are the assumptions we make what are the assumptions we make about our learners when designing?about our learners when designing?

LEARNING AND TECH• learning theories & how they inform the design of

instructional materials & moments

• Communication Technologies across time

• Education across time

• Education & Technology Today?

The Shift from…• content to competencies• teaching to learning• teachers to learners• Mr./Ms. know it all to Mr./ Ms facilitator• teaching to coaching• right answers to right questions• making questions to posing questions• Education in the classroom to education across life time• fixed curriculum to learner-centered plan, prompted to be changed • Prescriptive content to descriptive learning• Situations to Experiences• ready-made objects to objects in the making• Assessing Content to assessing competencies

What learners see as a goal…• not to master pure content, but also to • understand and use information to solve

OBJECTIVIST TRADITION• the world is completely and correctly

structured in terms of entities, properties and relations prior knowledge may lead here to misunderstandings

• knowledge exists independently of instruction

• learning involves the acquiring of information and the production of rules.

CONSTRUCTIVISM• does not deny there IS a real world, but it

argues that the meaning to this world is given by us, thus, there's no correct

meaning.

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

• meaning is rooted and indexed by experience

• cognitive experiences need to be situated in authentic activities

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

• Planning is part of the subject matter for purposeful action

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

• There is not one ultimate reality. • Reality is the consequence of • a making-meaning process.

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

• Human behavior is situationally determined and no machines can replicate this.

• We need to honor the unformalized background experiences of each individual.

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

• abstraction v/s meaning• learning outcomes as products

• learners as designers

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

• plausible interpretations of a complex world and its challenges

• Emphasis on right questions rather than on “right answers”

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

• assessment…emerges naturally

from task-performance activities

CONSTRUCTIVISMKEY CONCEPTS

• the 'active' learner• WIG and BIG

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

• variety of contexts and examples.• different understandings on the part of the learner

• a criss-crossing landscape of contexts

CONSTRUCTIVISM KEY CONCEPTS

• Situated learning, STin macro-contexts ST allows for

sustained exploration - generative learning, ie. getting home safely-

Learners work on contexts for an extended period of time.

How does constructivism… • Inform our classroom pracitices• Shape the activites we design • Describe group assignments• Help us design individual tasks• Support assessment of tasks for our

English lessons

Are we willing and ready to give up the objectivist power and

become co-learners and co-designers

in our classroom?

CONSTRUCTIVISM makes CONSTRUCTIVISM makes teachers become learners, teachers become learners,

learners become designers...learners become designers...Teachers and students become Teachers and students become

partners indeed and in deed.partners indeed and in deed.