Social Constructionist pedagogy

Social Constructionist pedagogy

by Jonathan Benjoseph -
Number of replies: 7

I am a high school student and I was reading all the various articles on Social Constructionism on this and Martin's website and I very into the ideas behind it. I think that using social constructionist principles in the classroom in general could greatly help learning. I've seen examples of real life projects that utilize social contructionist principles (such as "Wikipedia") and how sucessful they are. One idea I had was that social constructionism could be used in a classroom to form their own WikiWiki of a specific subject. Students could write entries to it, modify other student's entries, etc. Some kind of WikiWiki module for Moodle would rock (is this similar to "workshop")? By the end of the year you'd have a very complete study guide for something that would be useful for an AP test. 

Anyone have any ideas on how to get the word of social constructionism out to teachers?

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In reply to Jonathan Benjoseph

Re: Social Constructionist pedagogy

by Bryan Williams -

Young Jedi, you are the future!  I can only hope there are several million more Jonathan Benjoseph's in this world.  Study the posts for how Forums are being used, and how some have (as you correctly guessed) are using the Workshop and Glossary modules.  Set up your own Moodle site (I will help you with server space if you need it), and SHOW your teachers what the future looks like.

Bryan

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In reply to Bryan Williams

Re: Social Constructionist pedagogy

by Richard Treves -

Set up your own Moodle site (I will help you with server space if you need it), and SHOW your teachers what the future looks like.

smilesmilesmilesmilesmile

Thats a nice image:

'Teacher, teacher, teacher?"

"yes?"

"Can we have an interactive bit of cyber space to discuss our learning outside class"

"no, it would be impossible to set up/very expensive/it would take too much time..."

"really?  well I've done it already, do you want to see?...."

smilesmilesmilesmilesmile

Richard

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In reply to Jonathan Benjoseph

Re: Social Constructionist pedagogy

by Don Quixote -

Hi Jonathan,

I understand your enthusiasm when reading about "social constructionism". I have read the first time just some month ago here at moodle and was quite astonished to find a whole theory which pretty much expressed what I thought should change in education.

At the first moment I almost agreed with Bryan Williams ("you are the future"), but sorry.........  I rather think this is already a (small and growing piece) of the present wink

Learning means to me to be active, to exchange, to create something. That's the reason I cannot understand, for instance, why some people think that the most desirable technology in eLearning is streaming video with the goal to transmit the traditional "Frontal-Unterricht" (sorry I don't know this expression in English) to your home. Do we really want that the same thing happens over the internet again? The learner leans back and consumes the "knowledge show" of the teacher?

(Sure, video can also be a very interesting tool, but certainly not this way)

Greetings

Andreas

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In reply to Don Quixote

Re: Social Constructionist pedagogy

by Andy Diament -

I think I must have been lucky - on my teacher training course (1992) I thought that the 1st lesson was going to be on something like the correct way to write on a chalk board or how to mark work or fill in a register

It turned out that the lecturer spent about 5 minutes explaining the idea of constructing knowledge (I can't remember if he called it constructivism or constructionism) but it's the one piece of educational theory that has always stayed with me, and I always try to start with the foundation of what a learner might/should already know.

So Thanks to Andrew Cleminson, Brunel University, UK

Cheers, Andy D

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In reply to Don Quixote

Re: Social Constructionist pedagogy

by Birdie Newborn -
I had the same reaction -- thinking I was off in left field while everybody else was taking notes from a lecture. My first hint was from What Every Smart Student Knows by (Andy?) Robinson from Princeton Review Press -- the idea that the college student is the employer, and teaching that didn't connect with or build on (i.e. construct on) her or his prior knowledge was useless. He never called it "Social Constructionism."

This led me into taking seriously Vygotsky's proximal zone of learning -- that indefinable edge separating what you know from what you don't know. Now, who better to talk with or work with than another student, sharing a similar proximal zone? Where does that leave teachers? Depends on the subject, but in the humanities, often the best teacher is a facilitator.

I haven't installed Moodle yet -- technophobia sad -- but it looks like Martin has done the work of shaping new possibilities into this system. Perhaps online courses can do some things as well or even better than face-to-face classrooms.
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In reply to Birdie Newborn

Re: Social Constructionist pedagogy

by Mary Kaplan -

Sorry to interject with comments, but I have to interrupt here--NOT better than face-to-face. A supplementary activity, I think, is a more appropriate way to see this. A reinforcement, perhaps, but not a replacement of face-to-face.

--Mary

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In reply to Don Quixote

Re: Social Constructionist pedagogy

by James Sangster -

[begin witt]

I believe that your "Frontal-Unterricht" term would loosely translate to "crap" in English in the sense of out dated and ineffective. Perhaps the equivalent of banging two halves of a coconut together to make a galloping sound instead of getting a real course.

[end witt]

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