Reiser and Dempsey (2007) defined epistemology as, “the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge and understanding.”(p. 54). This work argues against the positivism perspective about knowledge being independent of the learner and the claim that there is an absolute truth. Our believe is that knowledge is constructed by the learner through an open-ended and learner centered environment. The traditional hegemonic classroom environment allows teachers to transmit information to the learner instead of facilitating their learning experience. We embrace the relativism epistemological perspective whereby the environment fosters a self-regulated learning environment to educate and empower students with skills to transform and enhance their educational experience. The constructional design provides an avenue for students with different learning styles. Keefe (1989) defined learning styles as “cognitive, affective, and physiological behaviors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment.”
In an open-ended and collaborative environment students develop their problem solving skills and nurture their independence of thought through experiential learning. Learners have been on the receiving end for a long time and in some cases even today they are still treated, as pupils not even students, yet knowledge uniquely constructed. Even though Reiser & Dempsey (2007) claim that positivism has been a cornerstone perspective of the instructional design, still suffers from lack of direct engagement and involvement of learners to construct knowledge. The learner should negotiate the meaning in an effort to construct knowledge, which will empower them for the rest of their lives. The purpose of the classroom should be to empower global citizens instead of making them a bank of information. Learners should be treated like living organisms that grow and making decisions about their future.
Transforming knowledge from the outside to inside the learner could cause memory overload. Educators should embrace constructivism theorem and take the learner-centered environment as an alternative pedagogical strategy to reach out to all students with different learning styles so that all students can reach their full potential instead of being receivers. Especially today there are different “multi-user virtual environments (MUVE)” that has “the ability to leverage the authentic learning conditions that are hard to cultivate in a traditional classroom settings.” (Griffin, 1995). Sheingold & Frederiksen(1994) state, “MUVEs open up a new world of possibilities for creating learning experiences that not only are authentic, situated, and distributed, but also provide a context to change our standards by which student achievements are judged and the methods by which students’ accomplishments are assessed.”
The processes of constructing constructivist learning environment are no systematic, they value the fact that learning is not a linear process. Our understanding is that learning is interdisciplinary, thus most educators have valued liberal arts education. The only concern with it is the failure of academician to explain explicitly the importance of taking a history class while in an engineering school, taking a language while in the physics department. The constructivist learning environment support active learning, learned-centered environment, and problem-based learning, collaborative environment, and a space to socialize and build relationships. Collaborative environments accommodated the limits of the working memory as they encourage engagement and management of load on working memory. The problem of overloading students working memory is the loss of interest and the active cognitive processing is affected greatly (Sweller, 1988; Sweller, 1989; Mousavi at al., 1995). Having open-ended environments that supports constructivists design activities provide multiple point of communication thus creating a community of learners as learning and construction of knowledge occurs when learners interact with some content to construct shared meaning (Damer, 1997; Damer et al., 1999; DiPaola & Collins, 2002).
The objectivists believe that knowledge exists independently of the learner is a misleading concepts because learning involves human reasoning and decision-making. There is no way that knowledge can be built from outside then transferred to the learner. As learners are becoming more involved with social networks there is a great need to even engage those virtual environments in creating interactive activities to facilitate learning. The constructivists ideology of objects and events having no absolute meaning is correct, as interpretations and meaning depends on individuals’ experience (Reiser & Dempsey, 2007). Through the collaborative environment learners share different perspectives, which may cause conflict among each other as learners go through the process of resolving cognitive conflict learners advance their cognitive development (Rogoff, 1990). Learners could be empowered with a new method of solving a problem or even understand it different.
In conclusion we truly believe the constructivist learning theory covers a lot of ground and provide learners a platform construct knowledge and meaning through their different experiences. Experience definitely plays a major role in knowledge construction as learners try to make sense of new information. Learning is an active and non-linear process rather than passive process. Kanuka and Anderson (1998) asserted that we construct knowledge based on what we know. The role of an educator should be to facilitate the process, by helping learners to organize information in order to engage student’s interest (Hanley, 1994). Overall the constructivist environment is learner-centered and makes students to participate in their cognitive development.
Brooks and Brooks (1993) suggested the following characteristics of constructivist teacher:
• Become one of many resources that the student may learn from, not the primary source of information.
• Engage students in experiences that challenge previous conceptions of their existing knowledge. 1
• Allow student response to drive lessons and seek elaboration of students' initial responses. Allow student some thinking time after posing questions. 1
• Encourage the spirit of questioning by asking thoughtful open-ended questions. Encourage thoughtful discussion among students. 1
• Use cognitive terminology such as "classify," "analyze", and "create" when framing tasks. 1
• Encourage and accept student autonomy and initiative. Be willing to let go of classroom control. 1
• Use raw data and primary sources, along with manipulative, interactive physical materials. 1
• Don't separate knowing from the process of finding out. 1
• Insist on clear expression from students. When students can communicate their understanding, then they have truly learned.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Transformative and Engaging Learning Environment
The computing power is growing exponentially resulting in massive purchase of digital devices for home use, school use, office use, etc. Due to the influx of such devices there is a dramatic increase in the adoption of technology-driven activities to enhance students’ experience inside the classroom. The paper will take readers for a long journey to understand the importance of transformative and engaging instructions. The plea is to buckle up and enjoy the motivational and engaging instructional design principles. We will look at the different motivations and their role in a technology-driven classroom. Keller and Litchfield (2007) addressed three levels of motivation: motivation to learn, motivation to work, and self-motivation. In order to understand motivation one needs to have “knowledge of motivational principles”, “methods for analyzing learner motivation,” and “methods for designing relevant motivational tactics.”
The new technology applications like facebook, wikis, twitter, virtual environments and other collaborative softwares demand innovative ways to engage learners who have had influence of the digital wave. It is important for educators to understand how the electronic communication, Web and gaming technology have changed the way learners learn and socialize. Today, learners are more content with text messaging, emailing and instant messaging, they use these platforms intensely. Educators have the duty to influence their teaching styles with this electronic media in order to keep learners interested. It is imperative for them to understand some of the classroom organizational dynamics that makes a class boring and less engaging. Once educators have that understanding and have their teaching methods in-line with students’ way of doing things then they could give them the most coveted and elusive educational experience. Just because educators are digital immigrants, that does not mean they have to stay out of touch with the current trends in the application of technology-driven instructions. Even though time and other resources are scarce, following some of the “first instructional principles” there is no way to get around them, they are as important. Good instructional activities can transform students’ way of thinking and understanding of abstract concepts and theories presented to them. Some of the measures of motivational instructional activities are engagement, and the creation of social communities, through collaborative learning.
New generation tent to socialize on virtual environments, which can have negative effects on their personal growth. Teachers should be innovative in their quest to help students develop skills and construct knowledge. The availability of social media and interactive technology open up innovative ways of engaging students in the classroom by creating a transformative classroom environment. The face-to-face interaction and digital devices inside the classroom enable learners to collaboratively work together to solve problems and promote human interaction. Thus it is important for educators to find the balance between the classroom and all the technology-driven media. Before any design of instructional activity designers should analyze the instructional theories and models available to them, to extract the first principle, identify the cognitive processes associated with each principle and then identify the empirical support for the principle (Merrill, 2002)
As we continue on this journey to effective instructional design activities, we need to find ways to measure how the activities motivate and improve learners’ performance. In order for motivation to be in effect, the classroom should challenge learners’ curiosity, invention and creativity. According to Marc Prensky (2002) reason game players say they enjoy playing games is because of the following: challenging (79 %), relieve stress (55 %), entertainment (49 %) and social activity (38 %). Looking at the numbers and thinking about the population that plays games, definitely educators have a big challenge of educating this game playing generation. Learners should be engaged in their educational experience. Engagement can be described as attracting and occupying the attention of a person or involving someone’s interest or attention. Merrill (2002) suggests that we investigate the following areas: cognition and mental models, knowledge objects and instructional design models. In Merrill’s first principle of instruction, states that learning is facilitated when learner is engaged in solving real-world problems, new knowledge built on learner existing knowledge, knowledge application by the learner, and the integration of new knowledge to learner’s world.
For an instruction to be motivational, learners should feel a sense of connectedness: friendships, cohesion, interdependence among other learners, and have confidence (Alfred, 2002). The state of flow is another factor towards motivation. Mihaly (1990) defined it as a mental state of intense concentration and accomplishment of goals with great deal of pleasure. The classroom activities should fully support students’ engagement. Some of the important factors in a flow state in reference to games are Mihaly (1990):
• Enormous reward when player is doing well
• Not making things too hard to frustrate the player
• Not making things too easy
• Achieve something unexpectedly
The same thing applies with instructional design we have to design instructions that reward students for their hard work, incorporate memorable characters, make learners understand the goal of the activity and then make it challenging to achieve it. If such has been incorporated not only they will facilitate learning, but will also reinforce theories and concepts learned. In our class we could also incorporate the principles of good gaming (Prensky, 2002) which are as follows: motivation, flow, social groups, ego gratification, enjoyment, intense passionate and involvement. As Keller and Litchfield (2007) assert we should not equate motivation with entertainment and fun. There should still be rules imposed to limit learners from just playing for pleasure without achieving the goal of the instruction. Throughout the instruction learners should receive feedback and demonstrate results that they understand the goals of the instruction and achieving them. There should be consequences of every move positive or negative, as feedback is known to promote continuous learning. The instruction should also promote interaction among the learners and facilitators.
Motivational instructions should transform learners’ perception about the classroom, as a place to torture them with information. It should spark a great word of mouth and encourage them to reflect on what they have learned. Marc Prensky (2002) provide seven factors of engaging games:
• They give players intense and passionate involvement
• They spark players creativity
• They give players enjoyment and pleasure
• They give players flow
• They give players motivation
• They give players structure
• They give players adrenaline
Motivation is one of them and the same factors should apply inside the classroom full of learners that are technologically stimulated. The classroom should be a place to empower and transform learners view. In order to successfully understand the importance of motivation some assessment should be performed before, during, and after the instructional activity.
The new technology applications like facebook, wikis, twitter, virtual environments and other collaborative softwares demand innovative ways to engage learners who have had influence of the digital wave. It is important for educators to understand how the electronic communication, Web and gaming technology have changed the way learners learn and socialize. Today, learners are more content with text messaging, emailing and instant messaging, they use these platforms intensely. Educators have the duty to influence their teaching styles with this electronic media in order to keep learners interested. It is imperative for them to understand some of the classroom organizational dynamics that makes a class boring and less engaging. Once educators have that understanding and have their teaching methods in-line with students’ way of doing things then they could give them the most coveted and elusive educational experience. Just because educators are digital immigrants, that does not mean they have to stay out of touch with the current trends in the application of technology-driven instructions. Even though time and other resources are scarce, following some of the “first instructional principles” there is no way to get around them, they are as important. Good instructional activities can transform students’ way of thinking and understanding of abstract concepts and theories presented to them. Some of the measures of motivational instructional activities are engagement, and the creation of social communities, through collaborative learning.
New generation tent to socialize on virtual environments, which can have negative effects on their personal growth. Teachers should be innovative in their quest to help students develop skills and construct knowledge. The availability of social media and interactive technology open up innovative ways of engaging students in the classroom by creating a transformative classroom environment. The face-to-face interaction and digital devices inside the classroom enable learners to collaboratively work together to solve problems and promote human interaction. Thus it is important for educators to find the balance between the classroom and all the technology-driven media. Before any design of instructional activity designers should analyze the instructional theories and models available to them, to extract the first principle, identify the cognitive processes associated with each principle and then identify the empirical support for the principle (Merrill, 2002)
As we continue on this journey to effective instructional design activities, we need to find ways to measure how the activities motivate and improve learners’ performance. In order for motivation to be in effect, the classroom should challenge learners’ curiosity, invention and creativity. According to Marc Prensky (2002) reason game players say they enjoy playing games is because of the following: challenging (79 %), relieve stress (55 %), entertainment (49 %) and social activity (38 %). Looking at the numbers and thinking about the population that plays games, definitely educators have a big challenge of educating this game playing generation. Learners should be engaged in their educational experience. Engagement can be described as attracting and occupying the attention of a person or involving someone’s interest or attention. Merrill (2002) suggests that we investigate the following areas: cognition and mental models, knowledge objects and instructional design models. In Merrill’s first principle of instruction, states that learning is facilitated when learner is engaged in solving real-world problems, new knowledge built on learner existing knowledge, knowledge application by the learner, and the integration of new knowledge to learner’s world.
For an instruction to be motivational, learners should feel a sense of connectedness: friendships, cohesion, interdependence among other learners, and have confidence (Alfred, 2002). The state of flow is another factor towards motivation. Mihaly (1990) defined it as a mental state of intense concentration and accomplishment of goals with great deal of pleasure. The classroom activities should fully support students’ engagement. Some of the important factors in a flow state in reference to games are Mihaly (1990):
• Enormous reward when player is doing well
• Not making things too hard to frustrate the player
• Not making things too easy
• Achieve something unexpectedly
The same thing applies with instructional design we have to design instructions that reward students for their hard work, incorporate memorable characters, make learners understand the goal of the activity and then make it challenging to achieve it. If such has been incorporated not only they will facilitate learning, but will also reinforce theories and concepts learned. In our class we could also incorporate the principles of good gaming (Prensky, 2002) which are as follows: motivation, flow, social groups, ego gratification, enjoyment, intense passionate and involvement. As Keller and Litchfield (2007) assert we should not equate motivation with entertainment and fun. There should still be rules imposed to limit learners from just playing for pleasure without achieving the goal of the instruction. Throughout the instruction learners should receive feedback and demonstrate results that they understand the goals of the instruction and achieving them. There should be consequences of every move positive or negative, as feedback is known to promote continuous learning. The instruction should also promote interaction among the learners and facilitators.
Motivational instructions should transform learners’ perception about the classroom, as a place to torture them with information. It should spark a great word of mouth and encourage them to reflect on what they have learned. Marc Prensky (2002) provide seven factors of engaging games:
• They give players intense and passionate involvement
• They spark players creativity
• They give players enjoyment and pleasure
• They give players flow
• They give players motivation
• They give players structure
• They give players adrenaline
Motivation is one of them and the same factors should apply inside the classroom full of learners that are technologically stimulated. The classroom should be a place to empower and transform learners view. In order to successfully understand the importance of motivation some assessment should be performed before, during, and after the instructional activity.
Transcending the Walls of the Classroom
The power of informal learning has been overlooked for a long time by yester-years educators who are eager to teach and turn students into information databases. Like Winston Churchill said, “Personally, I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught.” This post outlines the importance of informal learning and bring to readers attention about the misleading term “knowledge management” instead of information management. I am a champion of informal learning, which is in line with the constructivism theorem, and the fact that knowledge can be constructed internally depending on individual experiences. Rossett and Hoffman (2007, p. 167) provide the characteristics of informal learning: authentic, happening beyond the control of facilitators, outside the limits of the classroom, or training facilities. Education has evolved over the years from being an institution that would bring a certain degree of social leveling, social justice, and social cohesion (Borg & Mayo, 2006). Today, we are dealing with schools and educational institution’s ability to empower, democratize knowledge, and create a genuinely “meritocratic” society.
Informal learning supports the notion of lifelong learning as it underlines the aspects of learning and pedagogy that occur outside the domains of formal learning institutions. Sociological interpretations refute the structural-functionalist view of schooling; this is due to the emergence of various schools of thought (Gumport, 2007). The homogenization of learning is one of the tragedies created by traditional educators over the years, which is flawed and not inline with reality. I believe informal learning is a bridge to knowledge construction and acquirement. Education goal is to empower and improve the mobility of human capital, not to build moving silos of information. For institutions to successfully empower learners should “create bridges and articulate between various learning pathways” to avoid the possibility of giving learners passes instead of empowering them with applicable skills and help them construct knowledge. The application “taylor-made” learning approach for learners in their own environment is long overdue. The rise of bureaucratic principles and values paved a way for formal education, instead of transformational and entrepreneurial type of education.
The growing of various schools of thoughts promotes “threaded discourse” which encourages reflection. I concur with Brown and Campione (1996) that discourse is central to knowledge advancement.
Informal learning supports the notion of lifelong learning as it underlines the aspects of learning and pedagogy that occur outside the domains of formal learning institutions. Sociological interpretations refute the structural-functionalist view of schooling; this is due to the emergence of various schools of thought (Gumport, 2007). The homogenization of learning is one of the tragedies created by traditional educators over the years, which is flawed and not inline with reality. I believe informal learning is a bridge to knowledge construction and acquirement. Education goal is to empower and improve the mobility of human capital, not to build moving silos of information. For institutions to successfully empower learners should “create bridges and articulate between various learning pathways” to avoid the possibility of giving learners passes instead of empowering them with applicable skills and help them construct knowledge. The application “taylor-made” learning approach for learners in their own environment is long overdue. The rise of bureaucratic principles and values paved a way for formal education, instead of transformational and entrepreneurial type of education.
The growing of various schools of thoughts promotes “threaded discourse” which encourages reflection. I concur with Brown and Campione (1996) that discourse is central to knowledge advancement.
Dream Killers
Life has presented us with challenges some easy to get over with and some challenging enough to force you to call it a quit. Lately I have been reflecting on my past while trying to continue on this journey to complete my education. Throughout my educational experience I have been challenged, wounded, humiliated not because of my abilities but because of the way I look. There are professors who are there to empower students, while some earned their doctorates in dream killing. I never thought of myself losing any battle but lately I have felt so weak and ready to call it a quit. I have asked myself about the value some people bring to myself, only to find out that some of them have been all out to destroy me judging me by the color of my skin, not the character of my mind, but through it all I will persevere. I believe all the challenges are just molding my character and developing me to be the best leader I can be. This is just one of the learning curves.
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