Theoretical Educational Approaches And Constructivism Education Essay Example

how the encephalon plants and the cognitive procedures of larning. Cognitive theories look beyond behavior to explicate brain-based acquisition, and analyze how human memory plants to advance acquisition ( Bloom & A ; Krathwohl, 1956 ) .

1.2.1 Constructivism

Constructivism is a philosophical model of larning theory that pedagogues began to see more closely in the 1990 's ( Paas, 1992 ) . One of the primary dogmas of this doctrine is that scholars construct their ain significance from new information as they interact with others with different positions. Students are required to use anterior cognition and experiences to explicate new, related, and/or adaptative constructs in acquisition. However, constructivist pedagogues must do certain that the anterior acquisition experiences are appropriate and related to the constructs being taught. Under this model, instructors take on the function of facilitators, supplying counsel so that scholars can build their ain cognition ( Siemon, Virgona, Lasso, Parsons, & A ; Cathcart, 2004 ) .

Techno-Constructivists are instructors who are adept at incorporating engineerings into their course of study in a manner that non merely complements direction but besides redefines it. A true Techno-Constructivist has realized the full potency of engineering to assist pupils construct upon their ain experiences, construct their ain significances, create merchandises, and work out jobs successfully ( McKenzie, 2012 ) .

Social Constructivism is a theory of cognition that considers how societal phenomenon or objects of consciousness develop in societal contexts. Some beginnings cite that this theory is similar to, but different from traditional constructivist theories. Collaborative acquisition activities, such a treatment forums, web logs, and wikis, are good suited to social-technical resources. The collaborative attack of Social Constructivism adapts the

building of educational content to turn to a wider group, which can include the pupils themselves. The One Laptop per Child Foundation attempted to use the Social Constructivist attack to its undertaking ( Muema & A ; Muia, 2011 ) .

1.2.2 Inquiry Learning

Inquiry Learning is a signifier of active acquisition. This signifier of acquisition is an instructional method that was developed during the find larning motion of the 1960 's. Harmonizing to cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner, inquiry-based acquisition was developed as a response to the sensed failure of traditional signifiers of direction, wherein pupils were required chiefly to memorise facts from instructional stuffs ( Bruner, 1961 ) . In using this methodological analysis of acquisition, the educational advancement of pupils is assessed by how good they develop experimental and analytical accomplishments, instead than by the measure of cognition they possess.

Inquiry-based acquisition, Problem Based Learning, Project-based Learning, and are all active learning Educational Technologies used to ease acquisition. All three engineerings are pupil centred, affecting real-world scenarios in which pupils actively prosecute in critical thought activities ( K12 Academics, 2012 ) .

In Problem Based Learning ( PBL ) , pupils learn by work outing jobs and rei¬‚ecting on their experiences ( Barrows & A ; Tamblyn, 1980 ) . PBL is good oriented towards assisting pupils become active scholars because it situates larning in real-world jobs and makes pupils responsible for their acquisition. It frequently has a double accent of assisting scholars develop schemes and building cognition ( Hmelo-Silver, 2004 ) .

Experiential acquisition focal points on the larning procedure from the person 's position. An illustration of experiential acquisition would be traveling to a public fish

tank and larning through observation and interaction with the fish tank environment, as opposed to reading about marine life from a book. One so makes finds and experiments with first-hand cognition, instead than reading about others ' experiences.

Dr. David A. Kolb is an American educational theoretician who helped to popularise the theory of experiential acquisition. The Experiential Learning theory proposes that larning is accomplished through contemplation on making, and is frequently contrasted with didactic methods of learning. Traditional based methods of academic acquisition use the procedure of geting information through the survey of a topic non needfully with direct experiences. By comparing, experiential larning methods involve the dimensions of analysis, enterprise, and submergence ( Stavenga de Jong, Wierstra, & A ; Hermanussen, 2006 ) .

Project-based acquisition ( PBL ) is an instructional method that assigns pupils with complex undertakings based on inquiries or jobs that require them to work in collaborative squads to do determinations, work out jobs, and utilize fact-finding accomplishments ; all of which may necessitate teacher facilitation but non needfully way. The undertakings help pupils to show what they have learned, and often integrate in-depth probes of capable affairs that involve outside experts to supplement instructors ' cognition, and in the procedure, pupils learn from their ain experiences. Students are given existent undertakings with challenges to work out in context with the agencies in which they will finally be required to work in the existent universe. It emphasizes originative believing accomplishments by leting pupils to happen that there are many ways to work out a job. Through Project-based acquisition, pupils learn from their experiences and are able use them to the universe

outside their schoolroom ( Hmelo-Silver, 2004 ) .

1.2.3 Situated Learning & A ; Communities of Practice

Situated acquisition is based on the theories of Situated Cognition and Communities of Practice ( Hung, D. , Looi, C.-K. , & A ; Koh, T.-S. ( 2004 ) . Situated Cognition and Communities of Practice: First-Person `` Lived Experiences '' vs. Third-Person Perspectives. Educational Technology & A ; Society, 7 ( 4 ) , 193-200 ) . Situated Cognition presupposes that larning is inseparable from making, and that all cognition attained in situated in activities are bound to societal, cultural, and physical contexts. Knowing exists in-situ, and hence is inseparable from the single environments of people, civilization, and linguistic communication ( J. S. Brown, Collins, & A ; Duguid, 1989 ) .

Lave and Wenger ( 1991 ) , concluded that acquisition is basically a societal procedure, and focused on the relationships between larning and the state of affairss in which they occur, and defined situational acquisition as similar to some signifiers of `` societal co-participation '' , and consequently, they inquired into what sorts of societal battles provide the best context for larning to take topographic point, with scholars take parting in communities of practicians and traveling toward full engagement in the sociocultural patterns of a community ( Lave & A ; Wenger, 1991 ) . The basic statement made by Wenger ( 1998 ) was that communities of pattern are everyplace and that we are by and large involved in a figure of them, no affair whether that there are at work, school, place, or in our civic and leisure involvements.

Harmonizing to Wegner ( 2002 ) , true

Communities of Practice have three nucleus elements: sphere, community, and pattern. A sphere is defined as a shared country of involvement to which members are committed and in which they have a shared competency that distinguishes them from other people. A Sphere of cognition is thought to make a common land, to animate members to take part, to steer acquisition, and to give significance to actions. A Community creates the societal cloth for larning. In communities prosecuting their spheres, members engage in joint activities and treatments to assist each other and portion information. Although spheres provide the general country of involvement for communities, patterns are the specific focal point around which each community develops, portions, and maintains its nucleus of cognition ( W. Snyder, Wenger, & A ; Briggs, 2004 ) .

Learners who engage in communities with shared involvements tend to profit from the cognition of those who are more knowing than they are. Social interaction is an of import portion of the acquisition procedure ; it allows pupils to encompass a community where they can larn from one another other ( Ernst & A ; Clark, 2009 ) . In legitimate peripheral engagement, fledglings become portion of a community of pattern bit by bit through the engaged in acquisition of procedures to going a full participant in a sociocultural pattern ( Lave & A ; Wenger, 1991 ) .

1.3 The Emergence of Technology Enhanced Learning ( TEL )

The term Technology Enhanced Learning ( TEL ) may mention to any signifier of larning that is supported by engineering. TEL is besides sometimes referred to as eLearning or EdTech. EdTech is a popular acronym for the

term Education Technology and is frequently associated with the tools used in eLearning environments. Harmonizing to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology ( AECT ) Definitions and Terminology Committee, Educational Technology is defined as the survey and ethical pattern of easing acquisition and bettering public presentation by making, utilizing, and pull offing appropriate technological procedures and resources ( Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 2012 ) .

Educational Technology may theoretically be traced back to prehistoric times with the usage of pictures on cave walls. Though a more common attack the history of Educational Technology begins with the usage of educational movies in the 1900 's, and the first documented use of Educational Technologies on a big graduated table hints back to the WWII epoch with the preparation of U.S. soldiers through preparation movies ( Leigh, 1998 ) .

The 1950 's epoch led to two major and popular designs in Educational Technology. The work of Skinner led to a `` programmed direction '' design, which focused on the preparation of behavioral aims, interrupting instructional content into little units, and honoring right responses early and frequently ; and Bloom endorsed instructional techniques that varied both direction and clip harmonizing to scholar demands ( Wiburg, 2009 ) .

Models based on these two designs were present throughout the 1970 's through the 1990 's, and were normally referred to as either Computer-Based Training ( CBT ) , Computer Aided Instruction and/or Computer Assisted Instruction ( CAI ) ( Marold, Kathryn A. , The twenty-first Century Learning Model: Electronic Tutelage Realized, Journal of Information Technology Education Volume 1 No. 2, 2002, Metropolitan State College of Denver, Denver, CO, Editor:

Linda Knight ) . Computer Based Learning ( CBL ) continued to come on through the 1980 's and 1990 's, and was often based on constructivist and cognitivist acquisition theories ( McKnight, Dillon, & A ; Richardson, 1996 ) . These engineerings correspond to a simplified format of today 's e-content that frequently form the nucleus of eLearning set-ups, which are frequently referred to as Web-Based Training ( WBT ) . Some of the earliest documented utilizations of computing machines in instruction were in the early 1960 's by Suppes and Atkinson from Stanford University to learn mathematics and reading accomplishments to simple school kids in Palo Alto, California ( Kulik, 2002 ) .

Many of the earliest eLearning classs in the 1970 's and 1980 's were based upon Computer Based Learning ( CBL ) systems ( Ally, 2009 ) . Computer Based Learning ( CBL ) refers to the usage of computing machines as a primary constituent of an educational acquisition procedure. Most early eLearning systems were Computer Based Training ( CBT ) systems that simulated traditional bossy manners of instructors through supplying the major map of reassigning cognition to pupils ( UNCCD Project Management, 2011 ) . Thismethodology was contrasted subsequently with systems, such as Computer Supported System Learning systems ( CSSL ) that were more collaborative in nature and supported a shared development of cognition ( G. Chen & A ; Chiu, 2008 ) .

Although recent developments in CSCL are frequently referred to as eLearning 2.0, the construct of collaborative acquisition environments designed to promote scholars to work together has been around for much longer. Collaborative acquisition is different from more

traditionally based methods of direction wherein the direct transportation of cognition is done instructors as the exclusive distributer of cognition. Learning in this capacity is frequently referred to as eLearning 1.0, and reflect the early CBT acquisition environments. eLearning 2.0 based upon Computer Supported Collaborative Learning ( CSCL ) accepts that cognition can be socially constructed, with conversations about content and interaction based upon jobs and solution oriented actions ( S. Brown, Adler, & A ; Richard P. , 2008 ) .

The original history of networked acquisition can be traced back to the nineteenth century with the coming of networked substructures such as railwaies and telegraphs. More late, nevertheless, the roots of modern networked acquisition began in the 1970 's with the usage of computing machine webs. The Institute for the Future, located in Melno Park, California, began experimenting in the 1970 's with networked larning patterns based on the usage of the cyberspace for computing machine conferencing. Hiltz and Turoff are two celebrated educational innovators that began printing research in the 1970 's on usage of cyberspace engineerings in instruction at the New Jersey Institute of Technology ( Beller, 1998 ) Dr. Charles Findly lead a collaborative web undertaking in the late 1980 's at the Digital Equipment Corporation that observed tendencies in collaborative acquisition environments, which were instrumental in developing paradigms that finally became the footing for developing collaborative web acquisition and collaborative acquisition work ( Findley, 1987 ) . In 1997, the State University of New York ( SUNY ) studied the procedures for measuring merchandises and class development schemes for learning and larning in eLearning environments ( Graziadei, Gallagher, Brown, &

A ; Sasiadek, 1998 ) .

eLearning systems have continued to germinate since computing machines were foremost used in instruction. eLearning 2.0 frequently features Computer Supported Collaborative Learning systems ( CSCL ) , which came about with the debut of Web 2.0 engineerings. With the coming of eLearning 2.0, larning besides began to integrate societal acquisition and collaborative attempts with tools such as web logs, podcasts, wikis, and practical universes. The design of distributed net-based instruction attacks are frequently designed around the construct of communities of pattern. Communities of Practice can be anyplace, including online, such as within treatment boards and newsgroups, or in existent life, such as at work, in a field scene, or elsewhere in the natural environment. Communities of Practice are non needfully a new happening, nevertheless. They have existed since people foremost began to larn and portion experiences together. The term Communities of Practice was used by Lave and Wenger to depict larning through engagement and pattern, and the topic of Communities of Practice was later expanded upon by Wegner in 1998, 2002, and 2009. Communities of Practice ( COP ) are `` Groups of people who portion a concern, a set of jobs, or a passion about a subject, and who deepen their cognition and expertness in this country by interacting on an on-going footing '' ( W. Snyder, Wenger, & A ; Briggs, 2004 ) .

Globally Networked Learning Environments ( GNLE ) were first described in 2007 by Starke-Meyerring, Duin, & A ; Palvetzian in their book Global partnerships: Positioning proficient communicating plans in the context of globalisation. GNLE 's are networked learning environments specifically designed to link pupils from

around the Earth to one another. They are designed to ease duologue and coaction among pupils from different parts of the universe. Their purpose is to develop competencies towards a greater apprehension of the universe for planetary work and citizenship. Some GNLE 's have been initiated through establishments of higher instruction, such as the Center for Collaborative Online International Learning at the State University of New York ( COIL, 2010 ) , and others through third-party administrations such as the NGO Soliya ( Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007 ; Soliya, 2012 ) .

There several different degrees of eLearning execution, from utilizing schoolroom AIDSs such as PowerPoint slides with voice overs for talks, to deployment of class web sites or Course Management Systems, to necessitating pupils to convey in their ain laptops to category as portion of the in-classroom procedure, to a wholly on-line larning experience, which is besides considered a signifier of distance larning instruction ( OECD, 2005 ) . eLearning can mention to a broad scope of applications of engineering, and its exact definition is hence non even clear in peer-reviewed research publications discoursing eLearning ( Lowenthal, Wilson, & A ; Parrish, 2009 ) .