ETEC530: Constructivist Strategies for E-Learning
Reflections
ArtifactsETEC 530 covered contemporary constructivist instructional strategies. I was interested in taking this course because I use constructivist strategies in designing my courses. Learning how constructivism can be used in the online environment was especially exciting for me. During this course we had an opportunity to experience different methods of constructivist learning as well as create constructivist learning experiences ourselves for our classmates to test, assess their effectiveness and provide feedback.
This was the most challenging course for me as it had a strong scientific aspect and was based on deep philosophical discussions on knowledge and truth, and I am not fond of such discussions. Only after the course started I realized that this is an advanced graduate course for educators interested in deeper philosophical discussions. There was no way back. I learned a lot by asking questions and communicating with my peers, which really is a constructivist way of learning. I still feel that too much time was spent on the nature of knowledge and truth and what philosophers have to say about these topics. Honestly, I suffered through the first part of it and tremendously enjoyed the second part on constructivism. Although understanding of how knowledge is central to constructivist pedagogy is important, I feel I would benefit more from having more opportunities to learn and practice constructivist strategies for eLearning. I loved how the course activities and assignments were designed keeping constructivist principles in mind and providing opportunities to build our knowledge during the course.
Overall, this course was very practical. I especially liked Research Cafés, where each student had to create a mini lesson using constructivist principles for peers to try and provide feedback. This part exposed me to how my peers perceive a constructivist classroom, what tools and techniques they use, what works and does not work for me. It was a very valuable learning and teaching experience. I use lots of techniques I learned in my ID practice.
This was the most challenging course for me as it had a strong scientific aspect and was based on deep philosophical discussions on knowledge and truth, and I am not fond of such discussions. Only after the course started I realized that this is an advanced graduate course for educators interested in deeper philosophical discussions. There was no way back. I learned a lot by asking questions and communicating with my peers, which really is a constructivist way of learning. I still feel that too much time was spent on the nature of knowledge and truth and what philosophers have to say about these topics. Honestly, I suffered through the first part of it and tremendously enjoyed the second part on constructivism. Although understanding of how knowledge is central to constructivist pedagogy is important, I feel I would benefit more from having more opportunities to learn and practice constructivist strategies for eLearning. I loved how the course activities and assignments were designed keeping constructivist principles in mind and providing opportunities to build our knowledge during the course.
Overall, this course was very practical. I especially liked Research Cafés, where each student had to create a mini lesson using constructivist principles for peers to try and provide feedback. This part exposed me to how my peers perceive a constructivist classroom, what tools and techniques they use, what works and does not work for me. It was a very valuable learning and teaching experience. I use lots of techniques I learned in my ID practice.
Artifacts
Artifact 1: Reflection on Knowledge, Constructivism, and Learning
This assignment involves synthesis of my understanding of the relationship between knowledge, constructivism, and learning. It helped me to reflect on how my understanding of these concepts might be applied to support my professional context. Now I use my knowledge on constructivism and learning for my consultations with faculty when designing online courses. As many of instructors believe in the exclusive power of lectures and that knowledge can be transferred from the head of the teacher to the heads of learners, I now have conversations with them about the approach that leads to understanding. I use my course readings and learnings from the discussion fora to support my point that knowledge cannot be ‘transmitted’ from teacher to learner by the means of words, but words can enable the teacher to orient the learner’s conceptual construction and provide learners with opportunities and incentives to build it up (Fostnot, 2005). Most times I am able to convince faculty that knowledge is constructed through interactions and experiences and motivate them to take a radically different approach to instruction and develop an attitude of inquiry toward the learning process.
Artifact 2: Research Cafe Proposal and Self-reflection
This assignment involved facilitating an online discussion with our peers on teaching using constructivism (constructivist e-learning). We selected articles for our peers to read and prepared thought provoking questions to advance our knowledge of constructivism and how it may be applied to teaching online.
This assignment allowed me to explore my personal teaching/designing context and the application of effective constructive strategies. I facilitated a research cafe on the topic related to higher education: Learning Entrepreneurship from a Constructivist Perspective.
As an instructional designer of various masters programs, including entrepreneurship courses, I was interested in learning how constructivist theory can support entrepreneurship education, where students-entrepreneurs try everything and are ready to learn what is needed to be successful. I also consult faculty on best practices for designing online courses, and the proposal presents a study I use during my consultations.
The self-reflection covers things I learned about constructivist strategies, new research skills I developed, e-learning strategies I tried out with my peers, memorable examples of dialogue from the café, and e-learning strategies I will apply to my personal teaching context.
Artifact 3: Lesson Plan
This assignment involved applying what we have learned on constructivism and e-learning to the construction of a lesson. It starts with the course concepts and literature review applicable to my lesson and continues with the lesson plan and related notes explaining how the concepts learned are applied.
For this assignment, I worked on a real lesson plan I was designing at that time in collaboration with faculty for one of the online Master of Science in Nursing Programs, for the Legal & Ethical Issues in Healthcare course. I put emphasis on helping students to construct meaning by individually discovering and transforming complex information to make it their own. I created opportunities for the instructor and peers to challenge students' ideas in group discussion and relate new information to their existing knowledge and experience working as a nurse.
This assignment involved applying what we have learned on constructivism and e-learning to the construction of a lesson. It starts with the course concepts and literature review applicable to my lesson and continues with the lesson plan and related notes explaining how the concepts learned are applied.
For this assignment, I worked on a real lesson plan I was designing at that time in collaboration with faculty for one of the online Master of Science in Nursing Programs, for the Legal & Ethical Issues in Healthcare course. I put emphasis on helping students to construct meaning by individually discovering and transforming complex information to make it their own. I created opportunities for the instructor and peers to challenge students' ideas in group discussion and relate new information to their existing knowledge and experience working as a nurse.