Tag: constructivist

Here is my response

The Gates Tip Line includes a recent post in which the host asks for replies to a teachers negative analysis of Prensky’s comments (I did not see the phrase “engage me or enrage me”, but this is the type of comment that Prensky uses). The host was disappointed with the lack of response to the request for responses to the teacher. I attempted to add a comment, but the options appear to require that you identify yourself through a commercial blog service or OpenID. I will add my comment here. By the time I read the comments, some had already made the effort to reply. I have excerpted one comment I would like to address:

The teacher’s statements above fly in the face of what the last two decades of psychological research have found (which (surprise!) support constructivist models of learning rather than a transmission model of education!). ‘Guide on the side,’ not ‘sage on the stage.’ As much as possible, discovery- and inquiry-based learning rather than lecture and regurgitation.

I don’t like phrases like “regurgitation”. These discussions should be about data and sound judgment. We can leave the defamatory phrases to the politicians. If you mean memorization, say so. I do agree that education should attempt to require more than memorization. Lecturing, like books, is an information delivery system. Hopefully, learners are capable of using information, however they encounter it, as the starting point for learning. The constructivist model, as I understand it, suggests we all understand by attempting to interpret experiences (including lectures I assume) based on our existing personal knowledge.

I would sincerely like to be made aware of the research mentioned here (please provide references). If you have followed my recent and past comments, I have not read what I consider quality research supporting the “child-centered” position. I have read many books and articles on the topic and I have myself added to this material, but these are not research papers. As I have said, I can direct you to reviews of research by Sweller; Chall; Mayer; and Lesgold that are quite critical. You have to consult these reviews for the specific studies that are available. So, there are many studies arguing the negative side of this debate.

Perhaps this is a matter of differences in definition – constructivism and child-centered are difficult to operationalize. I am not attempting to bait anyone here, but since blog hosts are appealing to general readership for help and information. If we can switch the discussion to the data, please help by offering references the rest of us can review. I have already read negative reviews, where are the positive studies?????

Chall, J. (2000). The academic achievement challenge: What really works in the classroom. Guilford.

Kirschner, P.A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R.E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work. Educational Psychologist, 41, 75-86.

Lesgold, A. (2001). The nature and methods of learning by doing. American Psychologist, 56(11), 964-973.

Mayer, R. (2001). Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery? The case for guided methods of instruction. American Psychologist, 59, 14-19.

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When will learners teach themselves?

I have long been troubled by the instructivist vs. constructivist debate. I find constructivist theoretical positions appealing, but struggle with the lack of data supporting such theories. I do understand there are those willing to explain why my pessimism is unwarranted, but my training limits what must be offered as justification. Perhaps, one critical issue is what we are willing recognize as tests of our ideas. If we find ourselves stuck with conventional contexts, factors which may generate change may be difficult to implement and evaluate. I ran across an interesting Ted Talk that tested the power of exploratory learning in a very different context. This presentation concerns students learning about and with technology in an extremely “informal” setting. What is at issue in this demonstration (I am not sure research would be the proper term) is what are learners capable of learning on their own. I find this demonstration more persuasive that those who use children’s mastery of complex video games as evidence that exploratory learning can be successful, but again the connection with identifiable classroom content is evident.

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Teaching to Learn

A certain type of guilt has been embedded within my academic personality. I credit this to my early academic training. I am tempted to compare this to religious training, but I do not want to be accused of being politically incorrect. If I become excited about something and become an advocate, there is a little voice that constantly challenges me – what evidence do you have? Sometimes I admire those who can advocate without feeling the need to justify. Taking time to establish and communicate supporting evidence slows you down and takes away some of that “cool” from presentations. Well – enough of this public examination of my personal behavior.

I encourage educators to involve their students in content-based multimedia projects. Like any activity that competes for limited classroom time, the issue of impact should be considered. As I have examined in previous posts, this perspective is typically tagged as constructivist in orientation and the efficacy of activities grouped within this category has been challenged. What about counter arguments? This is a struggle. One argument I rely on defines multimedia projects as opportunities to engage in multimedia authoring potentially allowing one to draw upon the writing to learn literature.

I must being experiencing an especially bad case of academic guilt lately because I have felt the need for further justification. From the depths of my many years of experience, I have dredged up another concept – Teaching to Learn. Multimedia authoring resembles teaching to learn – mastering a specific body of information so that you can teach it to someone else. While this argument probably resonates with anyone who teaches, cool and logical sounding ideas still do not satisfy the true test (show me the data). I remember a topic associated with Mastery Learning (a topic that intrigued me many years ago). In some mastery systems, students serve as tutors for other students and the benefits to the tutors (often in college settings) have been examined. For example, Johnson and Ruskin (1977 – note the date here – I take some satisfaction in remembering this book was on my shelf) describe a study comparing the change in GRE scores for psychology majors who did or did not serve as tutors between the occasions on which they took the GRE specialty exam in psychology. The study reported much higher gains for those who served as tutors. Processing information while or so you can help others understand it appears to be beneficial.

One caveat – your mileage many vary. More and more I am convinced that benefits come not from doing an activity, but from doing an activity well. This may speak to the limited success of many constructivist ventures and perhaps to the benefits of uninformed teaching.

Johnson, K. & Ruskin, R. (1977). Behavioral instruction: An evaluative review. Washington, DC: American Psychology Association. (Benefits to proctors is discussed on page 145.)

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The Case For Direct Instruction

I have a personal interest in the benefits of student multimedia authoring (e.g., web design, blogging, video production). The idea is that students author products associated with their content area study and I assume they benefit from such activity. To me, this idea is not a huge leap of faith. Educators have been promoting and researchers have been evaluating writing to learn and writing across the curriculum for years. Large scale multimedia projects might be viewed as an alternative to a term paper. Smaller scale projects are more the equivalent of other less utilized writing to learn tasks.

Our interest in student authoring is not unique – many interested in K-12 technology applications have encouraged multimedia projects. Often, this approach has been identified as constructivist. The difficulty I have with this label is that it appears to mean different things to different people. When I think of a learning theory, I assume the theory is an effort to describe how learning happens. To me, the idea that a theory is about a technique is misguided. It seems possible that different technqiues might result in better or poorer learning, but inappropriate to label some technigues as constructivist and some not. So I see theories as constructivist (i.e., learning requires the integration of what is known with new experiences) or not, but not experiences. My professional training involved a focus on information processing theory – I understand info processing theory as an attempt to explain some of the details of constructivism (which to me lacks attention to the specifics of learning).

Anyway, my wife sent me a reference to a blog entry summarizing an Educational Psychologist article (Kirschner, Sweller, Clark – 2006) critical of constructivism, discovery learning, experiential learning, etc. A draft of the Kirschner, et al. article can be found using a link from the blog (the journal publication date listed on the draft is incorrect and should be 41(2) – I suppose the journal got a little behind). The article argues that learners inexperienced in an area of study do poorly when allowed too much freedom in their approach to learning (hence the references to some of the very early critics of discovery learniong – e.g., Ausubel). Perhaps recognition of this reality is why some constructivists are careful to recognize the need for scaffolding. This is a good analysis and understanding such issues is important.Some of these topics remind me of political controversies – i.e., your approach is boring and meaningless, students can’t learn about topics for which they have no background.Comments on the Kirschner, et al paper seem to be rippling through the educational blogs. The day after the original version of this post the Connectivism blog commented on the same article. If the distinction between constructionism and constructivism is of interest to you the connectivism post has much more detail (too many isms for me to explain).

What I like about Kirschner’s approach is the connection (pardon my use of this term) with the empirical literature. Those taking a contrasting position seems to rely on philosophy, anecdote, and personal reflection. The Kirschner article, Mayer’s Ed Psychologist article, and a historical series of similar complaints (e.g., Ausubel) seem to beg for engagement in a “scientific” debate. If no data exists to counter their concerns, perhaps the first step would be admit this problem and then at least outline the types of demonstrations and the data types that could be used to argue for a different position.

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