Constructing a Constructivist Context

Micah has written about the link between synchronous e-learning and constructivism. In my last post, I suggested that educators need to create structures which ensure that asynchronous learning adheres to social constructivism. In this post, I’d like to define more clearly social constructivism and discuss how it relates to the construction or design of e-learning.

Ernest suggests that social constructivism ‘posits that human agreement is the ultimate arbiter of what counts as justified knowledge.’ So then, social constructivism goes beyond mere cognitive constructivism in the sense that new knowledge is created and agreed upon by the community. So perhaps we can consider again Micah’s comment on the object sorting activity in his last post where he suggests that ‘students not only work with their peers, they also listen and learn from them’. Do the students agree upon the new knowledge? Implicitly, they probably do. But, to what extent does the facilitator need to ask questions that help students come to agreement on new, constructed knowledge? My guess is that agreement on new knowledge – with some level of sophistication – is more likely to happen naturally as students get older, though it cannot be a given.

Let me use blogging as an example. Students in my History class may each write their own blogs about particular historical issues (let’s say social life in Nazi Germany). Students may read each other’s blogs and find themselves thinking about new ideas. Indeed, they may even leave comments and influence each other’s thinking through debate. But have they agreed upon new knowledge?

My intuition tells me that: 1) students almost certainly construct their own new knowledge; 2) will often, implicitly, agree upon this new knowledge; 3) will rarely reflect that they have, together, constructed new knowledge without the guidance of an educator.

This guidance could manifest in a variety of ways. It may be through carefully structured questions, or it could be through careful development of learning activity guidelines and it should involve careful consideration of how the technology can be used to gain the desired results. Muniz-Solari and Coats (2009) put this another way, suggesting that a ‘system framework, an e-learning “ecosystem,” must be developed that specifies the learning system architecture for pedagogical development’ and that this “ecosystem” ‘must allow flexible, learner-centered education’.

Furthermore, Matt Rota writes that ‘highly effective asynchronous eLearning begins with understanding the roles that fall into the realm of the eLearning instructional design process’. Thus it would seem that the role of the educator is paramount to ensuring effective learning takes place in an asynchronous environment. Indeed, it would appear that constructivism does not have a ‘mind of its own’ but needs to be expertly manipulated.

Increasingly, it seems to me that a truly rich learning experience online will require a combination of synchronous and asynchronous activities. Certainly, I’m not convinced that asynchronous learning on its own provides enough opportunities to allow for shared, agreed upon, newly-constructed knowledge. Muniz-Solari and Coats (2009) affirm this when they write: ‘A need exists to incorporate real-time synchronous technologies for text, visual, and audio communication.’ Specifically, in relation to the “togetherness” of the learning experience, it may be argued that synchronous technologies work to enhance students’ sense of belonging to what may actually be deemed as a learning community (McInnerney & Roberts, 2004). 

I wonder what the experiences of others have been in relation to e-learning and social constructivism. Have you found that synchronous technologies have contributed to a sense of community – learning from and with each other?

A Constructivist Classroom

In previous posts, I wrote about synchronous e-learning and its links with constructivism and postmodern educational theories. I believe that the theory of constructivism is inherent in a synchronous e-learning environment, but I realise it is important to see these theories in practice. It is also important to use a range of technologies and resources to cater for different learning styles. So, I have picked out a couple of short YouTube clips: the first gives a visual overview of constructivism and the second is an example of a constructivist activity in a primary school class. Through these clips we should see the strength of the relationship between constructivism and synchronous e-learning.

The first clip gives a brief overview of constructivism. The clip makes it clear that constructivism is about the teacher and students working together to construct new ideas, knowledge and understanding.



I hope you can see how this also has links with postmodern theories of education. In a previous post I described how the interaction between a teacher and student, in postmodernism, should be seen as a conversation – that is – the teacher and students working together.

The second YouTube clip is an example of a constructivist activity in a primary classroom. Students are given shapes of various colours, shapes, sizes and textures that groups of students will sort. Every time a student uses a word relating to the characteristics of the objects, the teacher writes the word in the ‘yes’ column.



How is this activity constructivist? Through this activity, students will transform their prior knowledge about the properties of objects into new knowledge – they are constructing knowledge. Students not only work with their peers, they also listen and learn from them. The teacher acts as a facilitator of the discussion.

What is the relationship between this activity and synchronous e-learning? Can anyone think of a simple synchronous e-learning activity (which utilises computer/www2.0 technology) that uses similar theories/ideas to the activity in the clip? (I will post my own learning activity as a comment to this post).