Teaching OUR NEW/FUTURE GENERATION=teaching WITH THE FUTURE IN MIND

Create open communication channels.

Wanting to know more about how humans learn is not something new, it all started back to the ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Those philosophers were the first to explore whether knowledge and truth could be found within oneself (rationalism) or through external observation (empiricism). As time passed by and education continued to evolve, by the 19th century, psychologists with scientific studies, started to explore the field of studies and began to answer questions about how humans learn. During my intensive research, I found out that there are five primary educational learning theories.

Deep into my studies, I realized that it is vital for educational theorists and educators to consider that learning theories such as behaviorism, cognitive, constructivism, humanism, and collectivism can provide successful approaches to teaching and serve as concrete foundations for developing lesson plans and curricula. Furthermore, according to Yiasemina, and Lizos, instructional designers are expected to be familiar with the epistemological underpinnings of several theories and their consequences on the process of instruction. Thus, as a future instructional designer and to better prepare myself for this project, I did just a little research on those theories and the following is just a tiny piece of my research.

Cognitive learning theory is based on both information factors such as information or data and internal thought processes. Unlike behaviorism, cognitive learning theory concentrates on the mind’s role in learning. According to the International Bureau of Education, “In cognitive psychology, learning is understood as the acquisition of knowledge.” For example, here the student is an information processor who absorbs information, undertakes cognitive operations on it, and stocks it in memory.”

Behaviorism learning theory, according to “Mcleod,” is concerned with observable stimulus-response behavior, as they can be studied in a systematic and absorbable manner. Behaviorism is a theoretical perspective in psychology that emphasizes the role of learning and observable behaviors in understanding human and animal actions. Behaviorism is also a learning theory that states that all behaviors are learned through conditioned interaction with the surrounding environment, therefore, behavior is simply a response to environmental stimuli. When using the behaviorism theory, educators teach with the understanding that learning is based on a system of routines that “drill information into a student’s memory bank, as well as positive feedback from the educators as well as the educational institution itself.

When using Constructivism learning theory, it is vital to understand that there are multiple types of constructivism, radical, social, physical, evolutionary, post-modern, and information-processing. For this blog, I will be focusing on social constructivism, where the learner learns by building his or her knowledge based on his or her previous experience and understanding constructing a new understanding.

Moreover, according to, Yiasemina and Loizos, constructivism is the dominant theory of the last decade and supports the construction of knowledge by the individual. Furthermore, Hence, Ernest 1995) stresses that “there are as many varieties of constructivism as there are researchers” (p. 459). In general, two loosely associated groups are identified: first, radical constructivists who insist that every reality is unique to the individual, and second, social constructivists who believe that shared reality grows out of social constraints placed on the constructive process of the individual. In continuation, the social constructivist group believes that knowledge is viable not only personally, but also in a social context (Tobin and Tippings, 1993) while reality is viewed as a constructive process embedded in sociocultural practices (Duffy and Cunningham, 1996). Culture provides different types of tools to help us construct meaning. For example, language, the most frequent of these tools, is characterized by a dynamic process of interchange during which meanings are chosen. Our construction of meanings is grounded in the groups to which we belong through social interactions. (Von Glasersfield, 1995; Willis, 1998). Constructivist theory gears towards the creation of instructional environments that are student-centered, student-directed, collaborative apprenticeship, anchored instruction, and cooperative learning. All those learning environments are part of an abundance of teaching and learning tools to improve communication and access to real-world examples, reflective thinking, multiple perspectives, modeling or problem-solving by experts in a context domain, and mentoring relationships to guide learning. Using the constructivist learning theory to teach students requires that the educator does not give students direct guidance on the contrary, the learning setting must be with minimal supervision from the educator and guided towards maximum control of the student to provide the students with the opportunity to themselves visualize, articulate, express, explain, interpret and apply new knowledge.

Active learning strategy

The main principles of constructivism that I am going to focus on in this blog are particularly active learning, where the center of the instruction is the learner. According to the constructivism theory, learners' meaningful understanding happens when the learner develops effective ways to resolve problematic situations. Challenging situations foster motivation because the learner has the chance to experience the pleasure and satisfaction inherent in problem-solving. Constructivists recommend that instructional designers provide problems that may be solved in different ways and leave the learners struggling with problems of their own choice (Von Glasersfield, 1993). Such problems are regarded by learners as obstacles in their progress toward a goal. Perkins (1991a) points to the need for discovery learning through two approaches to constructing knowledge. This strategy goes hand in hand with question number two from Reiser and Demsey, pg. 79, “What is motivation (and what isn’t What is it different from), the authors explain that there are three major categories of influence on performance: capability, opportunity, and motivation. Capability refers to a person’s knowledge, skills, and aptitudes, which determine what a person can do. To foster capability in the learner, the educator must give the learner the opportunity to dig deeper into his previous knowledge, skills, and aptitude so that the learner himself discovers his or her highest potential. Opportunity refers to resources and information that are necessary for a person to perform a task and guidelines for performing the job. Finally, motivation, in its broadest sense, refers to a person’s desire to pursue a goal or perform a task, which is manifested by choice of goals and effort (persistence plus vigor) in pursuing the goal. This strategy can be used to promote learners' desire to act. For example, here the learner can use his or her instructive motivation, meaning that the learner will work on the assignment just for the pleasure of the activity. To enrich this strategy, educators can use Nearpod gamification and interactive activities. According to Nearpod, gamification and activities depend on student understanding and engagement through gamification and activities like Time to Climb, Matching Pairs, Draw It, and Drag and Drop.

Authentic Learning and Collaboration Learning Strategies

According to Cey (2001), authentic learning occurs when instruction is designed to facilitate, stimulate, and recreate real-life complexities, and collaborative learning happens when learners can participate in partner talk, group talk, and partner share activities. When utilizing these principles, it is vital to keep in mind the challenges of issues such as pre-specification of knowledge, authentic evaluation, and learner control. When preparing for the specifications of intended learning outcomes, it is vital for an instructional designer to keep in mind that when using the social constructivism approach, the content cannot be pre-specified. Thus, they must concentrate on the environments in which knowledge, skill, and complexity exist naturally. A central strategy for constructivism is to create a collaborative learning environment. Collaborative learning does not just entail sharing a workload or coming to a consensus but allows learners to develop, compare, and understand multiple perspectives on an issue. The goal is the rigorous process of developing and evaluating the argument (Bednar et al., 1992)

The main digital tool that I will first use when integrating those main strategies is, Nearpod. Nearpod uses insights from more than 20 formative assessments and dynamic media features. Using those tools to create interactive content will help motivate and improve student outcomes. Those tools can also facilitate instruction or address misconceptions on the spot, differentiate, enrich, or provide extra support to meet students where they’re at from wherever they are learning (physical classroom, remote, or hybrid). Nearpod also offers interactive slides, educators can make any slides-based lessons interactive to captivate learners and to gather learners' data based on their understanding of the lesson by adding formative assessment simulations and dynamic media. With Nearpod, educators also could choose from thousands of ready-to-teach, customizable, standards-aligned lessons from teachers' favorite brands.

References

Karagiorgi, Y., & Symeou, L. (2005). Translating Constructivism into Instructional Design: Potential and Limitations. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 8(1), 17–27.

Nearpod. (2018). Nearpod | Technology in the classroom. Nearpod.com. https://nearpod.com/

Strategies and Activities for Constructivist Teaching. (2010, August 30). Www.brighthubeducation.com. https://www.brighthubeducation.com/teaching-methods-tips/85138-student-centered-learning-with-constructivist-teaching-strategies/#strategies-and-activities

Thompson, M. (2019). Education Reimagined Through Constructivism | Michelle Thompson | TEDxBethanyGlobalUniversity [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVMyHt5ULUA

PHILO-notes. (2020). Constructivism in Education. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4BWpJ85jys