Constructionism: Changing the job description of teachers.

In teacher centered learning, there are two pairs in learning. First teachers must code information with using words and sentences, and transmit the knowledge clearly, and second, students must receive and decode this information and process the knowledge. If you ever played ear to ear game where students transfer a sentence to each other with whispering, you would see that first and last sentence are not same. This is because, brain process the information and make it meaningful before transferring to the next student. Teaching a lesson is not different. Like Dr. Orey stated, everybody has their own understanding of words therefore, there will be a difference between coded and decoded message. In other words, each student has a unique understanding of words, and firsthand experience is necessary to understand things, assimilate or accommodate new information and update or build new knowledge schemas (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010).

From youtube website.

Behaviorist and cognitive theories focus on the learning process and operant conditions that can make learning easier or more difficult. However, these theories based on the assumption that working principles of all brains are alike and similar input will produce similar output. On the contrary, we know that understanding of each student is unique, and the same input may result many different output. Therefore, students learn best when they build stuff and learn themselves with firsthand experience (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010).

From  http://carolyn.jlcarroll.net/Construct.html website

Seymour Papert is a mathematics professor in MIT who developed constructionist learning theory and invented Logo programming language (Seymour Papert, 2011). In his theory, Dr. Papert stated that people learn with designing, constructing, creating or building stuff. Additionally, sharing the product, explaining the results, and making it a public entity reinforce the learning effectively (Thurmond, 1999a). Together with his Epistemology and Learning group, Dr. Papert explored usage of constructionist learning in education. They created three main themes and named them as “learning through design”, “learning in communities” and learning about systems” (Thurmond, 1999b). Kafai, & Resnick (1996) published a book that explains how to use constructionist theories and gave examples. The main idea behind the constructionist learning theory is that students will build stuff and create their own firsthand experiences themselves. In this method, teacher starts with a topic, and students discover the main idea and detail their ideas themselves through discovery learning (Culatta, 2011). Therefore, a constructionist learning strategy must engage students and let them investigate, create, and solve problems themselves. Click here for further information about how to use constructionist theory in class and “learning by design”.

To be precise, one of strategies that involve constructionist learning theory is generating and testing hypotheses. In this strategy, teacher asks students to generate and test their own hypotheses, and explain their conclusions clearly in front of class or in public. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski (2007) state that; “there are six tasks that teachers can use to help students generate and test hypotheses are using system analysis, problem solving, historical investigation, invention, experimental inquiry, and decision making.” All these tasks require research. Additionally, students may need to collect and analyze data. Therefore, students can use spreadsheets for data processing. Meanwhile, students have to build stuff, investigate about a problem, create and solve related problems. In other words, students will learn themselves, while generating and testing their own hypotheses, and, this is called constructionist learning.

Another example of constructionist learning is problem based learning. In this strategy, teacher asks a question; students do research, and try to find out solution of the problem themselves. Finally, they defend and share their result and solution in front of the class. An example of this strategy is “what’s wrong with the water?” project in Samstonian (Glazer, 2001). In this project, students investigated the problem in river water, and tried to figure out the reason behind pollution that killed fishes. Students conducted tests, worked as a team, and created their own solution and conclusion. You can see their result with clicking here. Their teacher guided them and acted as facilitator. Therefore, this activity is a good example of problem based constructionist learning strategy.


In conclusion, thanks to technology, students learn extra information from different sources such as Internet, television, software, books and families. Therefore, prior knowledge of students is so rich when compared to previous generations. Additionally, students can reach information easier than before with using the internet. Moreover, today’s curriculum includes more topics and skills than before. Hence, teachers cannot know and prepare individualized curriculum that address each student. At the other hand, teachers have educational technology tools and supporting materials to ease teaching and learning. Therefore, it is time to change the centre of mass of education from teachers to students. We must trust our students, and we must give them freedom to learn with using their own way. It is time to change our classroom environments from teacher centered learning environment to student centered learning environment. It is time to share responsibility of education with students. It is time to reevaluate our teaching strategies and start using constructionist learning theories in class. You will be surprised to see that your students can think out of the box and create innovative solutions to the problems.

References

Culatta, R. (2011). Constructivist Theories of Learning. Retrieved from Innovative Learning Web site: http:/?/?www.innovativelearning.com/?educational_psychology/?constructivism/?index.htm

Glazer, E. (2001). Problem Based Instruction. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Kafai, Y. B., & Resnick, M. (1996). Constructionism in practice: designing, thinking, and learning in a digital world. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program seven. Constructionist and constructivist learning theories [Webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Seymour Papert. (2011). Retrieved from Wikipedia Web site: http:/​/​en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​Seymour_Papert

Thurmond, A. (1999a). Constructionism. Retrieved from The San Francisco State University Web site: http://online.sfsu.edu/~foreman/itec800/finalprojects/annmariethurmond/defconstructionism.html

Thurmond, A. (1999b). Constructivism and Constructionism. Retrieved from The San Francisco State University Web site: http:/​/​online.sfsu.edu/​~foreman/​itec800/​finalprojects/​annmariethurmond/​home.html

Applications of Cognitive Learning Theories in Today’s Technology Rich Classrooms

from http://www.flickr.com/photos/esmeq/5082915860/sizes/o/in/photostream/ website

Jean Piaget (visit http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/piaget.html for his biography) who was born at 1896 interested in learning process and development of thinking. He conducted a research and labeled his framework as “genetic epistemology”. Piaget studied about the intellectual development of a human being starting from birth and focused on cognitive structures which are defined as; “patterns of physical or mental action that underlie specific acts of intelligence and correspond to stages of child development.” In his theory, Piaget stated that there  is four main cognitive structure namely sensorimotor stage (0 to 2 years), preoperational stage (3 to 7 years), concrete operational stage ( 8-11 years) and formal operational stage (12 -15 years) (Genetic Epistemology, n. d.).  Cognitive theory accepts learning as a mental activity, and relates learning with age, information processing, and making connections.

James Hartley (Smith, 1999) identified the most important properties of learning according to the cognitive theory and stated the following:

·         Instruction should be clearly structured. Subject matters are said to have inherent structures - logical relationships between key ideas and concepts - which link the parts together.

·         The perceptual features of the task are important. Learners attend selectively to different aspects of the environment. Thus, the way a problem is displayed is important if learners are to understand it.

·         Prior knowledge is important. Things must fit with what is already known if it is to be learnt.

·         Differences between individuals are important as they will affect learning. Differences in 'cognitive style' or methods of approach influence learning.

·         Cognitive feedback gives information to learners about their success or failure concerning the task at hand. Reinforcement can come through giving information - a 'knowledge of results' - rather than simply a reward.

From Teachertube Videos (http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=53591)

In summary, cognitive theory says that children learn with processing information, and there are three steps. First, brain receives information via senses such as smelling, listening, watching or feeling. Second, brain processes this information in short-term memory. After process, brain may store this information into long term memory with a lot of connections, with a few connections or may not store at all (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010).  These steps are similar to the computers. Computers receive inputs from software, process this information in CPU and store in ram, and save the information into the hard disk if you click save button. If you forget to save, you cannot get that information back. If the software was not well-written, processing may be slow and computer may crash. Similarly, students can understand and save information in to their long term memory if this information was well-organized, clearly connected and received from multiple sensors. Thanks to technology and computers, using cognitive theory in the lesson is easier than before, and there are lots of applications of cognitive theory with using cognitive tools. You can find two of them below.

Cues, Questions, and advance organizers.

Cognitive theory states that students learn better when the topic is well organized and more input and connections between information pieces are provided. Accordingly, one of the best cognitive practices is using advance organizers to organize the lesson. Advance organizers are lesson outlines that teachers give to the students at the beginning of lesson (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007). These outlines are especially important to connect prior and new knowledge, and connect the information pieces to each other. Before, teachers were using A1 size papers, pictures, photos and drawings to prepare advance organizers. Today, thanks to technology there are lots of educational technology tools that we can use to prepare well-organized, engaging, multimedia rich and different kinds of advance organizers. For instance, teachers can give cues and topic related questions to the students, and ask them to do a research and gain background knowledge. Students can use this knowledge to create more connections while learning. Another method can be preparing a brochure, booklet, chart or tables about the topic (Pitler, et al, 2007). Students may use those materials to prepare themselves to the lesson and figure out the connections between concepts easily. Most importantly, teachers may create mind maps with using online websites such as Webspiration and Bubbl. You may visit http://www.professorarnold.net/6711.htm for a tutorial about how to use those two websites.

Cognitive theory says that students learn when they transfer their knowledge from short term memory to long term memory. More importantly, students need to link pieces of information with each other. Without connections, brain cannot reach  the information and students cannot remember. Research (Ausubel, 1978) says that advance organizers are so effective in creating connections and learning new concepts. There are different kinds of advance organizers such as expository, narrative and graphic advance organizers (Pitler, et al, 2007). While preparing advance organizers keep in mind that you need to ask essential, analytic questions that elicit inferences. Additionally, you should let students discuss and think before answering questions (Pitler, et al, 2007).  Finally, teachers can create so attractive advance organizers with using software, multimedia and office tools. You may visit eHow  and National center on accessible instructional materials websites for more information about advance organizers.

Summarizing and note taking.

According to the cognitive theory, our short term memory can process seven plus or minus two pieces of information at any given time. Additionally, brain needs time to process information, make connections and transfer it to the long term memory. The reason is, brain does not save the same information again and again. Instead, brain records same information pieces only once and create connections between prior information pieces when a chunk of new information is received (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). Its working principle is similar to the indexing system and page rank system of Google, and this is why Google is the best search engine (Wikipedia, 2011). Accordingly, students cannot process all the information in class and must take notes to process information later. To do this, students have to separate the information pieces that are taught in the lesson and process them later. To achieve this goal, students should be able to identify, summarize and note down the important points of the lesson. Additionally, each lesson has important information that students must learn and memorize, and other information that are given to support the main idea or to engage students to the lesson. Therefore, students must know how to analyze given information and record only the necessary items. These notes should be used to process information pieces later and to strengthen connections with reviewing before tests (Pitler, et al, 2007).

Students cannot note down everything that they heard, watched and felt if they are not using a pen shown in video above. Therefore, students must know how to summarize the lesson. Deleting the unnecessary and repeated information, replacing specific words with known and general ones and identifying the main ideas of the lesson are essential steps of summarizing (Pitler, et al, 2007). Students can use word processing tools to summarize articles and research papers that they read. Additionally, students may take visual notes with using concept maps. While taking notes in a lesson, students must note down the answers of main questions such as the topic and statement of the lesson, main problems, possible solutions and best solution for the problem (Pitler, et al, 2007). There are different types of information, and students must adapt different techniques to summarize and note down this information. Some of the education technology tools that students can use are; Microsoft Word to summarize texts and articles, Microsoft Visio to create concept maps and prepare a visual network between information, Powerpoint to create a multimedia rich summary of projects, wikis to share and create summaries as a group and blogs to archive all notes in Internet (Pitler, et al, 2007).

In conclusion, cognitive theory is a very effective learning theory especially when technology is integrated. Cognitive tools (Cognitive Tool, 2009) can be used to ease the learning process, organize the information, and provide dual coded information. Therefore, I strongly advise all teachers to use cognitive tools and find a way to integrate technology into their classrooms. Because, children are our future and they deserve a better education.