How do you become a constructivist teacher?

How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Glenys Hanson -
Number of replies: 12

Hi everyone,

I've never had to make the big changeover from believing that knowledge and know-how can be transmitted from one person's mind to another's by presenting content. I was brought up to believe that we all have work things out for ourselves in order to create our own skills and our own understanding of the world around us. However elegantly a teacher presents content: orally, in a book, on the blackboard, in a PowerPoint, a video presentation or whatever, it doesn't just jump into the learner's mind without them carrying out mental and often physical actions to integrate new skills.

I'm not trying here to argue in favour of the constructivist theory, but one of the points I've heard made in relation to the new file picker system in Moodle is, given that it is based on constructivist and socio-constructivist principles, Moodle's main objective is not to be a file repository.

My question is, has anyone actually moved from a transmission mode teacher to a (mainly) constructivist teacher because of having used Moodle? I know of Martin's 10 stage Progression, which is intuitively attractive, but is there any evidence that people actually move through these stages?

I have only anecdotal evidence, but the constructivist teachers I know often describe quite a rather different process. They get more and more dissatisfied with the results they're getting from using the transmissive mode and start searching from something different. One day they stumble upon a demo or walk into a colleague's classroom and see something that makes them exclaim: "That's what I was looking for!"

Did Moodle give you a "Ah, ha!" moment like that? Or did it gradually change the way you functioned?

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Derek Chirnside -

Glenys, I may post more on your broad point, it's  rich question, but this detail intrigued me:

"one of the points I've heard made in relation to the new file picker system in Moodle is, given that it is based on constructivist and socio-constructivist principles, Moodle's main objective is not to be a file repository"

Where is the reference for this, where is your source for this statement?

Are you saying Moodle is not making file picking easy to encourage C or S-C principles?  Surely not!!  It's more to do with security.

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi Derek,

I knew someone was going to ask me that question but didn't feel like rereading all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the file picker.

I have tracked it down, though, and it's part of a very useful blog post written by Marc Drechsler: Moodle 2.0 file mangement in July 2010 just after the Australian MoodleMoot.

"Another partially related problem

I never really thought about this until Martin’s discussion with the group yesterday, but, and I’ll say it loud and clear now – Moodle is not meant to be a file repository. When I look back at Martin’s original pedagogical drivers of social constructionism then it makes perfect sense that storing files should be low on the list of priorities. Learning in a social constructionist world isn’t about downloading and reading files, its about collaboratively constructing them with others – a critical distinction.

Learning in a social constructionist world isn’t about downloading and reading files, its about collaboratively constructing them with others

The problem though is twofold:

    1. Many online learning courses are nothing more than places to download lecture notes, i.e. a files repository; and
    2. Moodle has always supported this quite happily in the past, even with the limitations given above."

And I understand Mark's article much better now than when I first read it.

Though I'm more of a constructionist myself than a social constructionsist. Sure, working on a task in a group can help, but every individual in that group has to have their own personal sequence of "Ah, ha!" moments to master the new skill.

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Derek Chirnside -

Ah, now I understand a little Glenys.  This  to me is Marc's attempt to make sense of the global Moodle entity's actions and priorities.

I do not see easy file uploads=support transmission teaching model.  Just to take one aspect:

File picker + constructivism at the activity/resource/posts level: For me, MOST activities with uploading files are attaching documents to forum/blog posts, inserting images, linking/uploading video. 
I do not think the measure of constructivist vs non constructivist is in how many files you use.  In a former life I worked with several people who had courses that consisted of three files: course readings, course outline and link to departmental web page. (Low files upload, low C) and others that uploaded a lot and also used interaction (High files, high C)

This is the upload a file once, don't bother where it is, just do it scenario.  Making this easy and quick to do this IMO will not unsupport constructivist/interactive approaches.  I do see what Marc is trying to say however.

Back to the core topic:

My first of several AHA moments: 2001, online forums in a closed class environment (rather than a public list), very sensitive and well chosen questions.  The tool we had was much like the ForumNG:

  1. Subscribe at the thread level
  2. students able to insert images (ie real power)
  3. tag posts for followup
  4. Admin overide of student subsriptions (so you could say "Send copy to everyone, even if not subscribed")
  5. One click "Promote student to admin"

By the end of May 2002 I had had experieince in online classes both really good and really bad and lots in between.  I came to see that support of the learner and the teacher with powerful tools that are not inconvenient to use is a great boost to improving interaction in the classroom.

Later on in our LMS we had:

  1. Blogs at the private, teacher, course, site and world level
  2. Groups: with full self signup options, and the ability IN a group to give full admin rights to any member.
  3. A one page wiki.  Actually a 'page' with edit rights for everybody, with track changes ON.

This toolkit of functionality provided a lot to effectively share, interact and communicate - with simlicity and compactness. For 8 years I both taught sometimes and was involved in staff deveopment - as well as on the development team for our LMS.  Since then, I have been very sensitive of the power of tools.  They can make it easy or hard. One question I think about: what functionality do we need to make interaction and constructivist teaching easier?

Cheers!!
-Derek

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

"Moodle is not meant to be a file repository. When I look back at Martin’s original pedagogical drivers of social constructionism then it makes perfect sense that storing files should be low on the list of priorities. Learning in a social constructionist world isn’t about downloading and reading files, its about collaboratively constructing them with others – a critical distinction.

Sorry, this kind of talk is totally wrong.  Social constructivism is all about files.  This forum post is a "file".  The speeches that my students create are recorded in "files" and shared. The photos, slideshows, and blog posts are files that students and teachers create. Every image is a .jpg file, every video is .mov or other format file, every audio recording is a .mp3 file.  Handling files is indeed poor in Moodle, and 2.0 begins to make it better.  Think of your whole world as a file repository, even the paper files of diaries, posters and art work that are not digitized but could be. The trick is getting files in the hands of students so they can quickly and effortlessly rate them, peer-assess them, collect them, pass them on (think how Facebook makes photo file sharing, tagging and commenting so effortless).  Files also have to be protected, because outside of your class, our students may not want others using them.  So there is a lot of sophistication needed in designing the file structures/permissions/processing.  You are right that social constructivism is not like a library, where you check out files by experts and "learn" them. Rather the key part of the 2.0 file picker is how we make classroom repositories of created materials. And how teaching teams can share and reuse created materials. In other words, 'internal' repositories are more important than 'external' repositories. We all create files and manipulating those files in our learning communities is the heart of social constructivism.

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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Using statements about what sort of pedagogy Moodle tries to promote as an excuse for a filepicker UI that sucks is just a silly argument.

The filepicker should make uploading files easy for everyone.

I suppose it is particularly important for social constructivist people that students should be able to upload all sorts of media to their forums, wikis. But even for people who just want assignments and quizzes, students still need to be able to upload files easily.

Student uploading is particularly worth thinking about, because while one might imagine all training school/college/university staff to use Moodle, students really need to be able to use Moodle with no, or minimal training.

The new features letting users grab files from all sorts of repositories, as well as just simply upload them, is a great new feature. I think that is worth the one extra click that adds to simply uploading a file.

The problems with the old course files system was that it was

  1. very teacher-centric,
  2. made it impossible to apply specific access control to specific files,
  3. made it impossible to know which files were used by which bits of the course, which made it impossible to implement reliable backup/restore, etc.

I don't think the current UI problems are un-solvable. We just need to work on them.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Derek Chirnside -

I'll start the bidding Tim.  Three thoughts.

  1. Can we reduce the number of links in the System file repository?
    Why not Course>One list of files.
    (I don't mind which activity or resource they are associated with: let Moodle take care of the details)

    Aim: to make the file picker less convoluted, reduce the clicks needed.
  2. Can we reduce the number of clicks when we
    1. add a file in Add a resource>File (Ie NOT choose an existing file)
    2. insert (By uploading) an image in the editor
      Bonus: crunch the size of bigger mages like wordpress.

      Aim: maximise the speed of doing common operations.
  3. Inside Moodle, if there is a File system repository set up, can we find some way to upoad files to it.

    This is an equity issue.  I've been told clearly by both suppliers I work with "Sorry, this is a security issue, we can't give you these repositories since access is not secure".  You have a powerful tool here.  But you can't use it unless you run your own server.
    If this CAN'T be done, I'd like to know.  Then I'll move on.

And maybe move this discussion?

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Mark Hilliard -

Tim,

You may have the best line of all 49 posts...your quote below just made my day.  May I have permission to quote you...smile.   (what a zinger of a line!)

"Using statements about what sort of pedagogy Moodle tries to promote as an excuse for a filepicker UI that sucks is just a silly argument."

amen!    So lets get this fixed...Moodle is way too fine a product to bear this "totally un-necessary crisis"

Mark H.

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Glenys,

I, too, feel constantly dissatisfied and always search for constructivist (task-based) activities to teach with. My "ah-ha" happened not with Moodle-per-se but with seeing students reflect rather deeply on a forum--something I could not get them to do in class. So it was the right activity used in a timely manner (not the tool). Actually, Moodle can be used for both transmissive and conatructivist learning.  So I would change your question just a little to...

"Did an activity in Moodle give you a "Ah, ha!" moment like that? Or did it gradually change the way you functioned?"

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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Frankie Kam -
Picture of Plugin developers

Glenys

I had an "Ah-ha" moment (I think) when I gave my students a Reflection activity. Maybe it was because I had never used the Reflection activity before. But anyway, it was a nice feeling. Kinda warm and fuzzy.

It was after they had presented a mindmap book review (1 week ago) and a poem recital from memory (4 days ago). So I thought that it would be good for them to reflect on what they had gone through or had achieved from the two presentations (or ordeals) that I had put them through.

They actually spent more than 15 minutes to type out one or two paragraphs. I could see that they were actually thinking before typing and so it was quite rewarding to see each one silently typing out their thoughts.

Frankie Kam

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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Derek Chirnside -

Don: you say:

"So it was the right activity used in a timely manner (not the tool)."

I know what you mean, BUT: no tool, no activity.  We create our tools and our tools shape us.  (To misquote Churchill)

The key idea is affordance: what outcomes, zeitgiest, space, place do our tools create? Tools are important.

Counter argument: re-Name your fantastic forum tool "Assessment feedback" to "Further conversations" and things will change. OK, so it's just a tool HOW you use it is greater impact on result. 
Counter-counter argument: Rename forum as above with a grand old or young sage/knowitall in there who thinks they are God's gift to the students and: back to scratch. Less of a good place for the students.
Call your forum "Grade comments and Marks" with certain positive and open attitudes in the teacher and - could go either way.

Enough for now - Derek

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by William Hamilton -

"Ah, ha!" ... an educator who would be "techie"! I am starved for this kind of talk and stretching as a lecturer and techie... this type of pedagogy talk should -- in my opinion, drive the technology! The technology of what can be done should drive us as teachers, lecturers or what have you. Where to get more of this?

I learned in the military something called KISS (keep it simple stupid), no offense. As an illustration, when our new ships had the "latest technology"-- I was reminded to stop looking at the computer screen to tell me what to do and look out the window for the contact in plain view and act accordingly...

So back to your point about making the learning occur within the student is extremely relevant here and for Moodle. In my maritme industry, a decision seems to have been made to strap a whole competency system because "it doesn't work," vice even consider that the teaching/ instruction methodolgy (old school) might need major tweaking... thanks for the topic!

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: How do you become a constructivist teacher?

by Tomaz Lasic -

Some wonderful, valuable insights here.

One does not need to learn the finer theoretical points of what construct**** is to actually do it (well). I for one think social constructivism or rather constructionism (difference neatly explained) make an awful lot of sense BUT can and should be questioned in the context of application. While they can be useful, I always have and will remain suspicious of strict definitions ("Is this constructivist (enough)?" "Is this the right progression?" kinda thing) and blind proselytising of a particular edu-psych theory as the panacea.

Roughly, I (and I dare say most of us here in this conversation... echo chamber anyone wink ) stand in the camp of (nebulously, yes) termed 'progressive' education as opposed to 'traditional' - a difference explained eloquently in this article by A. Kohn, recommend a read.

While Moodle is certainly built with 'construct***' (dare say progressive) in mind, it contains a heap of tools to amplify an educator's progressive, construct**** or traditional*** or whatever pedagogical bend.

And it is often in the fine interplay of affordances of tools (thanks Derek) and our idea(l)s and circumstances of educational process that those a-ha!!! moments Glenys initially asks for occur. Mine happened with a simple forum (still, with wiki, my favourite Moodle tool), lead to 'let's see what else can we do here with Moodle...'

As far as file management UI (and yes, I have read Don, Derek & others insights on this thoroughly) goes - can improve, for sure. I for one wouldn't like to see the tail of File management wag the dog of Moodle.

To paraphrase Tim, 'Moodle promoting a particular pedagogy by designing a crappy UI' is a silly argument. +1 for that. Let's take this (important) conversation about file mangement somewhere else (Glenys merely glances at it in her great starting post...) and perhaps hear some more of those fantastic A-HA ! moments that we all rememeber so fondly.

My 2c ... thank you moodlers for your insights!

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