Translating Constructivism into Instructional Design

All instructional designers are expected to be familiar with the theories and their consequences on the process of instruction. Here are my notes from the latest article I’ve been reading:

Translating Constructivism into Instructional Design

The implications of constructivism for instructional design are revolutionary as they replace rather than add to our current understanding of learning.

According to the constructivist theory, knowledge is being actively constructed by the individual. Learners strive to make sense of the world based on their personal filters: experiences, goals, beliefs etc. Individuals live in the world of their own personal and subjective experiences. It is the individual who imposes meaning on the world. Individuals build a personal view of reality by trying to find order in the chaos of signals that impinge on their senses.

Implications on the design process

Analysis

Constructivists search for authentic tasks and let the specific objectives emerge and be realised as they are appropriate to the individual learner in solving the real-world task. The goal, for instance, is not to teach a particular version of history, but to teach someone how to think like a historian. Instructional designers must confront students with information and experiences that threaten their ‘misconceptions’ and offer support to this reflective process.

Development

Constructivists point to the creation of environments that are student-centred, student-directed, collaborative, supported with teacher scaffolding and authentic tasks. Such environments involve tools to enhance communication and access to real-world examples, reflective thinking, multiple perspectives, modelling or problem solving by experts in a context domain and mentoring relationships to guide learning.

Active learning – Meaningful understanding occurs when students develop effective ways to resolve problematic solutions. Such situations foster motivation.

Authentic learning – Learners are more likely to view a problem from an ownership perspective when the situations represent authenticity. Learning occurs when instruction recreates real-life complexities, students become aware of the relevancy and meaningfulness, and instructional designers situate cognition in real-world contexts.

Multiple perspectives – An important strategy is the presentation of multiple and alternative views to learners; multiple representations of knowledge from different conceptual and case perspectives.

Collaborative learning – A central strategy is to create a collaborative learning environment. Learners should be able to explain and justify their thinking.

Evaluation

As there is more than one way of solving a problem, each student’s approach is more important than a particular solution. The students’ ability to explain and defend decisions is an important element of evaluation.

The Challenges

The conundrum that constructivism poses for instructional designers is that if each individual is responsible for knowledge construction, then designers can not determine and ensure a common set of outcomes for learning. The key to developing constructivist models is to provide learners a measure of control. However, this creates problems of accountability that students will learn. Learners might construct the wrong knowledge, skills and abilities since some students just want to be told what they need to learn.

Constructing the theory

A distinction needs to be drawn between extreme and moderate approaches to constructivism. Some of the assumptions and prescriptions of a more moderate constructivism are consistent with instructional design theory:

• Content of each individual’s mental models may be different, but the structure is the same
• Teaching authentic tasks in context is desirable, but there is also a need to teach abstractions
• Learning should be active, but not always collaborative
• Testing could be integrated and consistent with the learning objectives, but separate assessment of achievement is also possible

The instructional designer’s toolbox contains an increasing number of possibilities. Other theories also have their strengths. For example, constrained, sequential instructional design is most suitable for introductory learning while constructivist approaches are more appropriate for advanced knowledge acquisition.

Technology tools

Multimedia and the Internet are alternatives to the linear structure. As an experiential learning tool, virtual reality could be considered. Multimedia, socratic dialogues, coaching and scaffolding, role-playing games, simulations, storytelling structures, and case studies could facilitate more active construction of meaning. Microworlds and virtual reality simulations could stimulate authentic learning. The World Wide Web could offer multiple representations of reality.

Conclusion

1. Pragmatic constructivism could be built on moderate theoretical assumptions that are more compatible with instructional design practices.
2. The emergence of rich constructivistic environments can be facilitated by the emergence of powerful technology tools.

Retrieved from the ‘Journal of Educational Technology & Society’ website: http://www.ifets.info/others/