Constructivism in Practice

Constructivist and constructionist learning theories are rooted in the principle that real learning occurs when learners actively construct meaning for themselves through active experience (Laureate, 2009). Constructionist learning theory suggests that this experience should result in the building of an external artifact (Laureate, 2009; Han & Bhattacharya, 2001). Although the validity of these theories has long been accepted, practical impediments have traditionally interfered with their widespread implementation. Now, digital information, communication, and collaboration tools are facilitating teachers’ ability to realize these principles in classroom instruction.


There are many ways to use computer technology to implement constructivist and constructionist learning theory in practice. Dr. Michael Orey suggests that PowerPoint can be used to create the final artifact of a project-based, constructivist lesson (Laureate, 2001). Students are given a challenging topic to address in their presentation and encounter, through their preparation, situations that create disequilibration, a state that occurs when existing schemata do not account for unexpected situations or new information. Students must then either assimilate new information into an existing schema, or create a new schema to accommodate it. Either way, because they immediately apply new knowledge or skills to the completion of a meaningful task, they are more likely to be fully engaged in the learning experience and to retain new knowledge and skills. This process is fundamental to all constructionist learning situations.

In Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology, Han and Bhattacharya (2001) describe a workshop on effective Web-based instruction in which the facilitator uses a constructionist learning model. She begins by eliciting background information about participants and their goals for the workshop. She previews activities and opens the floor for questions, asks for ideas about the topic to tap participants’ prior knowledge (which she records on a flip-chart), highlights common themes and significant points in their responses, and integrates them into a PowerPoint presentation representing the collective knowledge of the group. The then presents the PowerPoint to the group with illustrating anecdotes before introducing participants to Web-based instruction examples. When they have examined these models, she records the group’s reflections on their experiences, which they share in a whole-group debriefing. With these experiences, participants individually construct their own Web-based instruction with lists of required components to guide them. These components are learner analysis, timeframe, interface metaphor, multiple presentation modes, assessment strategies, a variety of learning tasks, and a learner centered environment. They then form groups that discuss and select plans for presentation. Presentations are followed by comments and questions from the audience and reflective discussion. The workshop is followed by ongoing online communication through participant facilitated chat sessions. Final individual projects are shared and critiqued online. This process illustrates constructionist learning theory by holding to the principle that “instruction is only effective when the learners can relate personally and take something away from it” (Han & Bhattacharya, 2001, p.2). It moves through planning, implementing, and processing phases with active participant involvement at every stage. The activity is learner-oriented, interactive, based on understanding of learners and their contexts, centers on construction of an artifact, and uses multiple presentation methods (Han & Bhattacharya, 2001).

Ideally, a constructionist learning environment uses rubrics to establish expectations, discussion of and interpretation of assignment parameters, exploration of multiple strategies for the assignment, inquiry and learning during development, presentation of work, revision and development of the idea in the project, learner collaboration, collaboration with experts, and authentic tasks to provide a meaningful context (Han & Bhattacharya, 2001). A good example of problem-based instruction that reflects these standards is the Nikron example Glazer (2001) describes, in which a group of students collaborate with stakeholders in their community in an attempt to determine whether pollution from an important local industry is responsible for recent fish kills. Students are given a personally relevant, real world problem, they formulate research questions, assign questions to groups, evaluate available information resources, devise various forms of final products to present their findings, propose and negotiate projects with their teacher and media specialist, devise methods for research, conduct research, experiment, observe, share and compare research with other teams, analyze evidence, surmise the cause of the kill, return to the hypothesis and develop a presentation, present for whole-class review, and finish with a mock trial as a final assessment of their efforts and findings. This illustrates Glazer's (2001) assertion that “learning is most meaningful and is enhanced when students face a situation in which the concept is immediately applied” (p. 2). Answers to the question come from the learners’ knowledge and experience, rather than from texts or curricula, and the learning community is an integral part of the mechanism of knowledge construction.

Glazer (2001) also suggests other types of problem-based learning projects, such as anchored instruction, in which the problem comes from a learning context such as a story, adventure, or other situation with a problem that students can resolve through inquiry. He recommends online resources such as Web quests and an online desert race simulation. In Web quests, the design includes a task or problem, a process description, resources, evaluation tools, and concluding summary and debriefing.

In Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski (2007) discuss technology enhanced activities in which students are called upon to generate and test hypotheses. In one activity, students are given a sum of money to invest. They use spreadsheet software to predict how various investment strategies will turn out over the course of thirty years. In other examples, students use probeware to examine the relationship between light and color in art, or to determine if the students’ community has acid rain. He also examines an online video game developed by a teacher that helps students discover the causes of World War II through a simulation. In each case, students are actively involved in solving a real problem or constructing an authentic product in a personally significant context.

Many online resources support and describe constructivist and constructionist learning. Edutopia: Project Learning offers several examples of project-based learning experiences. In “Immersing Students in Civic Education,” Richard Rapaport (2007) describes a project in which a class of students was called upon to propose tile designs for a real renovation project for the San Francisco Port Commission. A valuable part of their learning experience was rejection by their evaluator, urban designer Dan Hodapp. This feedback, although painful, drove home the reality of the project and communicated higher expectations than would be expected in ordinary school projects. Students revised their designs to reflect a more focused theme and eventually won approval. This first step led to the difficult discovery process of learning how to actually produce the tiles. Despite many episodes of discomfort, disequilibration, and struggle in their zones of proximal development, the team ultimately prevailed. Now every student on that team can see and show an authentic artifact of their learning experience at the city’s renovated Pier 14.

Apple Learning Interchange offers several examples of online project-based learning activities (Apple, Inc., 2008). In “March of the Monarchs,” students track the northerly migration of monarch butterflies in a project entitled Journey North, funded by the Annenberg/CPB project. Students in states visited annually by the butterflies create a digital map marking sightings to document their migration. In this complex, interdisciplinary collaborative project, student groups measure the growth of plants on which the butterflies feed, calculate the growth time of larvae, analyze weather conditions that affect the migration, observe interrelated species, explore cultural references to monarchs, study other states they pass through, explore and document their life-cycle, take and post photographs, and explore every conceivable aspect of this insect’s life. While they become experts on the monarch, they also develop expertise in many other learning disciplines, all while working collaboratively to address a locally relevant, real-world issue and create an authentic product for a wide audience.

Another interesting project on Apple Learning Interchange is the International Education and Resource Network's (iEARN) First People's Project, which involves indigenous students around the world in creating and sharing artifacts of their local cultures with the global community (Apple, Inc., 2008). Students present stories, interviews, digital photographs, poems, and artwork representing their indigenous cultures, often creating the only widely available information sources on their communities’ ways of life. They share packages with other indigenous participants around the world, providing the genuinely valuable service of preserving and sharing their cultural traditions while developing their own skills and understanding of their heritage.

Problem-based, project-based, and inquiry-based learning experiences put constructivist and constructionist learning theories into practice in ways that engage students and produce cognitive and concrete results, and digital information, communication, and collaboration tools have made these projects more accessible and practical than ever before. Making use of these opportunities, teachers can help their students develop the confidence and abilities they will need to compete, and triumph, in the twenty-first century global marketplace.



REFERENCES


Apple, Inc. (2008). Online project-based learning. Apple learning interchange. Retrieved November 24, 2009, from http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=598&version=341&page=2

Glazer, E. (2001). Problem based instruction. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved , from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/


Han, S., and Bhattacharya, K. (2001). Constructionism, Learning by Design, and Project Based Learning. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved , from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.

Lever-Duffy, J. and McDonald, J. (2008). Theoretical Foundations. In Teaching and Learning with Technology (3rd ed. pp. 2–35 ). Boston: Pearson.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Rapaport, R. (2007). Immersing students in civic education. Edutopia. Retrieved November 24, 2009, from http://www.edutopia.org/intelligent-design