The term constructivism is used by Papert (see his last text Children and PC) tha he opposes to the term education: The author uses it to underline the differences between the two educational methods: one based on the teacher and the other on the student, including in this comparison all the implications that exist between objectivism and constructivism. Construction is equivalent to the interpretation that Papert gives to the constructivism.
Bianca Maria VARISCO's E-Mail Address : edusc02@ipdunivx.unipd.it
“... I can say to you that substantially the goal is to transform learners into teachers, and vice versa. This demand comes from the observation that teacher is the most learned in classroom, not only about the bulk, but also about the quality of information; in other words, how informations organized themselves in teacher’s mind.
This concept reguards the idea of expert and the idea of beginner. The teacher is the expert , so his goal is to transform learners into teachers, not only refering to the bulk of information knowned, but also the quality of these. To get this result, the learner should be able to know and to use strategies and methodologies, and also he should be able to explain and to make accessible them to others.
I think that an example of this is the construction of hypermedia, but it is a personal idea, you cannot find it neither cited nor proved ! In my opinion, who benefits from the interaction with an hypermedia is the designer. During the phases of designe, construction and setting up of the hypermedia, he has to review his knowledge, to evaluate, to select and to organize them. So the knowledge can be available, understandable for every one. It involves for learners a leap of learning greater than the simple consultation.
Who is going to design supports for hypermedia, automatically wil learn more. The designer becomes more able to self-monitor and self-evaluate his knowledge. These skills are indispensable to teach, though these are not always clear. Two concepts belong to the category of metacognitive abilities, which are more used by teachers: to self-monitor and to self-evaluate.
I also said that teacher becomes a learner. This means that is possible to consider children’ s knowledge. Besides group work and personal qualifications induce to a comprehensive increase of classroom knowledge, in fact learners haven’ t the same knowledge. So the child, who is expert about something, becomes the one who can teach also to the teacher. It seems a trick, but actually it shows that are not important the information and given knowledge, while the priority is given to process of making new knowledge and developing higher order thinking skills; in other words, it’ s important to reflect, to self-monitor, to point out the right method for information learning: learn to learn skill.
Maria Beatrice Ligorio
ERASMUS Phd
from University of Bari (Italy)
E-Mail : ligorio@fapse.unige.ch
Suffice to say that I struggle with the same issues you do. Yes, the
SCALE is an objectivist measure of a constructivist environment. Why?
Answer: because we have to start somewhere and here in the States people
want some type of numeric understanding before they will fund or refund
anything. Some assess and assess and then assess some more; whereas
others cry out to moral and ethical issues in such assessment as they
debate and debate and debate till they are blue in the face. To me,
neither approach is particularly useful. We must be pragmatic (and
idealistic) and forge ahead with new constructivist tools, practices, and
assessments. Some will work, others won't. I am still not happy with
the SCALE, though I may try to publish something in the Learning and
Instruction journal, not sure.
The SCALE is not meant for dynamic assessments, though portions of it
might be as would modifications to it. 40 items is too many and yes,
some affective and motivational environmental concerns need to be
addressed too. I had enough trouble with the more cognitive side.
Someone might want to develop a parallel affective SCALE. To try to
unlock the secrets of the effectiveness of a learning community, we must
look at personal relevance/meaning, student self concept and empowerment,
and knowledge generation and collaboration. Do you know of a way to
understand all those factors in a relatively brief assessment or
observation or through video or interviews...Neither do I. The SCALE is
simply one push to try to think about these more global environmental
factors. I take a resource view and feel that peopl like Celestin
Freinet and Lev Vygotsky are/were a useful path in pursuing the resources
that help foster a child centered, community oriented approach to education.
In the US, the moral majority (religious right) has effectively deleted
all talk of humanistic psychology of maslow, Rogers, and Combs in
undergraduate teacher training. But these humanists knew something about
trust, respect, teacher as co-learner, knowledge generation, higher-order
thinking skills, psychologically safe learning environments, less tests
and texts and more resources, student autonomy and negotiation of meaning
(especially Rogers). Since we cannot use humanistic terms here anymore,
many resorted to the phrase "constructivism" in the late 1980's (and more
recently social constructivism). But as they (i.e., we) entered schools
and learning settings, we found that teachers, parents, and principals
did not fully comprehend this movement--constructivism was too
fuzzy/nebulous a term. Hence, the new lingo from the American Psych
Association and from most progressive US educators is to promote
"learner-centered environments." These learner-centered envir's support
both affective and cognitive variables such as the ones you bring up.
And this terms is less political here. See Carl Rogers' Freedom to Learn
book from the 60's or 70's and Freedom to Learn for the 1980's he wrote
before he died. I would love to unmask myself as a humanist interest in
these affective and cognitive variables, but right now only the cognitive
psych people get to publish and most humanists hide under the
learner-centered framework. We are moving to better learning
environments here, despite our fixation with assessment, but the movement
is far too gradual. What do you suggest we can do???
Hec, in my
wondrous State of Indiana, it is very conservative. Some parents took a
new state test with more essays and cognitive process assessments to
court since it had questions that they thought were too personal; such as
describe someone who has had an influence on your life. Geez, isn't role
modeling important? Here, we just cannot ask these affective sorts of
things, so we are left assessment constructivism with objectivist
measures. If you find a useful dynamic assessment device or idea, let me
know.
Hope this helps explain my position (at least a little bit).
curt bonk (doc Jay) out...
See my new WWW homepage: http://nickel.ucs.indiana.edu/~cjbonk
"The traveller is always leaving town,
He never has the time to turn around.
And if the road he's taken isn't leading anywhere,
He seems to be completely unaware.
The traveller is always leaving home,
The only kind of life he's ever known.
When every moment seems to be a race against the time,
There's always one more mountain left to climb.
...Days are numbers, count the stars.
We can only go so far.
One day, you'll know where you are."
Alan Parsons (1984), Days Are Numbers (The Traveller), Vulture Culture
Curtis Jay BONK
PhD Indiana University
E-Mail address : cjbonk@indiana.edu
homepage : http://nickel.ucs.indiana.edu/~cjbonk