Week 4 - DIGITAL - Collaborative, Constructionist and Constructivism

Week 4 - Research Informed Leadership (*My Comments/Reflections)

In this session we will consider the importance of collaboration as a central to contemporary educational practice. We will also consider both constructionist and constructivist learning.

This course reflects a "collaborative constructivist" view of teaching and learning. This view supports the relationship between personal contribution and social influence in shaping the education process. More specifically, collaboration and constructivism correspond respectively to teaching and learning responsibilities in the education experience. Philosophically, the approach relates to John Dewey's 1938 principle of "interaction" which unifies the subjective (personal) and objective (social) worlds.

Constructivism - constructing/making something

The dual purpose of education includes the need to construct meaning (reconstruction of an experience) from a personal perspective and confirmation of understanding within a community of learners.

With the introduction of technology there is even greater focus on the creation of cognitive and social conditions that allow us to approach learning in a meaningful way that enhances the learning experience and increases ownership of learning outcomes.

How might coding and electronics apply to these learning theories?

Scratch

The first activity of this session will be using Scratch, a visual programming tool with Makey Makey kits to make a musical instrument.

Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, and it helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. With Scratch you can program your own stories, games and animations and share and use other projects on the online library. When combined with a Makey Makey it can be used to respond to external events to create interactive programs. 

After the activity, we will reflect on how constructionist and constructivist theories apply to this type of learning.

Some other ways in which Makey Makeys can be used are:

• Building scientific instruments
• Flight simulators
• Power motors
• Lighting LED's
• Rain gauge
• Home security system
• Selfie switch
• Bringing code to life.

Learning Theories 

A learning theory is about changes in observable behaviour. It addresses: how such changes become relatively permanent, whether the change is immediate or potential, what role experience plays, and what aspects of reinforcement are present (Olsen & Hergenhahn, 2013).

These top ten learning theories are particularly relevant to digital and collaborative learning

• Conditioning
• Connectionism and the Law of Effect
• Progressive Education
• Constructivism: Social Development Theory
• Constructivism: Equilibration
• Social Cognitive Theory
• Situated Learning / Cognition
• Community of Practice
• Constructionism
• Connectivism

Constructionism

Constructionism argues that collaborative learning is particularly effective in environments where learners are required to actually produce what Seymour Papert refers to as a 'social product' - and this may be anything from a robot to a computer game or even a mathematical theory.

Papert & Harel (1991) state that constructionism is the idea of learning-by-making and that these activities display qualities of "learning-richness": 

"The simplest definition of constructionism evokes the idea of learning-by-making... I do not believe that anyone fully understands what gives these activities their quality of "learning-richness." But this does not prevent one from taking them as models in benefiting from the presence of new technologies to expand the scope of activities with that quality." Papert & Harel (1991)

What is learning richness? Can it be measured?
Key Competencies are essential skills required to produce something.
Papert had no way of knowing how much this would still be of relevance today.

Constructivism

Constructivism is based on a type of learning in which the learner forms, or constructs, much of what he or she learns or comprehends (Cashman et al., 2005). This means that knowledge is constructed, and transformed by students. The learning process must be understood as something a learner does by activating already existent cognitive structures or by constructing new cognitive structures that accommodate new input. Learners do not passively receive knowledge from the teacher; teaching becomes a transaction between all the stakeholders in the learning process. One of the ideas associated with constructivism is Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (what the learner can do with the guidance of a knowledgeable other).

ITL Rubrics

In this session we will be focusing on the 'Collaboration' rubric and the 'Use of ICT skills for learning’ rubric. 

The ITL rubrics can be found at https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

You can also view a student videos on collaboration and ICT for Learning on the portal (in this week's media) or look for other videos using the relevant hashtags in the Google+ community.

Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is a learning process that brings learners together (including the teacher) and enables students to be responsible for their own learning as well as the learning of their peers. Collaborative learning is aimed at having students fully appreciate the process of building knowledge together and improving learning outcomes by collective knowledge and collective capability. We might link these ideas with the concept of kotahitanga, as outlined in this week's in class video from Trevor Moeke

Walker & Daniels (2001) suggest several collaborative learning techniques, for example the "1-2-6" approach to discussing situation improvements. After each participant has developed an improvement idea, they discuss that improvement with one other person. Those two join four others and talk about each person's ideas for improvement.

Dillenbourg (1999) identifies the difference between collaboration and cooperation as defined by a degree in the division of labour. In cooperation, partners split the work, solve sub-tasks individually and then assemble the partial results into the final output. In collaboration, partners do the work 'together' (Dillenbourg, 1999). Similarly, Kozar (2010) uses the analogy of a pot luck dinner where cooperation is defined as the guests bringing separate dishes to contribute to the meal, and collaboration as a messier chaotic process where guests cook together to create the meal, but gain new knowledge or experience from the interaction.

Not Tool for Tool's Sake
ICT can help students to collaborate or communicate
Cooperative vs. Collaborative
Cooperative means all contribute to get the task completed but no new skills are necessarily learnt whereas collaborative means new skills are learnt as a task is completed.

References

Cashman et al. (2005). Teachers Discovering Computers: Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom (4th Ed.) Cambridge: Course Technology.

Dillenbourg, P. (1999). What do you mean by collaborative learning? In P. Dillenbourg (Ed.). Collaborative-learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches. Oxford: Elsevier

Kozar, O. (2010). Towards Better Group Work: Seeing the Difference between Cooperation and Collaboration. English Teaching Forum, 48(2), 16-23.

Olsen, M. & Hergenhahn, B. (2013). An Introduction to Theories of Learning (9th ed.) Boston, Mass: Pearson.

Papert, S. & Harel, I. (1991). Constructionism. Ablex Publishing

Walker, G. & Daniels, S. (2001). The Basics of Collaborative Learning. Retrieved from http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/comm440-540/CL2pager.htm