Group items tagged

This line of research indicated that the multivariate measure of learning represented by the cognitive presence factor could be predicted by the quality of teaching presence and social presence reported by learners in online courses. The relationship between these constructs is illustrated in Fig. 1 below.

t least four types of thinking are identified in the literature as being promoted by discussion: critical thinking, higher-order thinking, distributed thinking, and constructive thinking.

At least four types of thinking are identified in the literature as being promoted by discussion: critical thinking, higher-order thinking, distributed thinking, and constructive thinking.

learners construct knowledge for themselves---each learner individually (and socially) constructs meaning---as he or she learns. 3 Constructing meaning is learning; there is no other kind. The dramatic consequences of this view are twofold;

1) we have to focus on the learner in thinking about learning (not on the subject/lesson to be taught):

2) There is no knowledge independent of the meaning attributed to experience (constructed) by the learner, or community of learners

The purpose of learning is for an individual to construct his or her own meaning, not just memorize the “right” answers and regurgitate someone else’s meaning.

Constructivism is a philosophy of learning founded on the premise that, by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in

 In short, “all knowing depends on the structure of the knower” and “every act of knowing brings forth a world”.

Constructivism is basically a theory -- based on observation and scientific study -- about how people learn. It says that people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences.

Constructivism modifies that role, so that teachers help students to construct knowledge rather than to reproduce a series of facts. The constructivist teacher provides tools such as problem-solving and inquiry-based learning activities with which students formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey their knowledge in a collaborative learning environment. Constructivism transforms the student from a passive recipient of information to an active participant in the learning process. Always guided by the teacher, students construct their knowledge actively rather than just mechanically ingesting knowledge from the teacher or the textbook.

It is useful to think of embodied learning (“M-BOD”), as Gee conceives it, as a dimension of EL since the pedagogy constructs learning as active and interactive, but it would be a mistake to conflate the concepts. M-BOD is a framework, a set of principles, for understanding how people become motivated to engage and re-engage cognitively challenging tasks--to "practice" at something--but this is not thinkable as an operation of (again in Fenwick's words) an "autonomous rational knowledge-making self, disembodied, rising above the dynamics and contingency of experience." Condensing and simplifying some of Gee's ideas, I came up with the hypothesis that practice is pleasurable when it involves people in making choices that reward them somehow--choices about who to be: (imaginative projection: some participation in story-telling or drama) what the rules are (game recognition: the mental labor of identifying problems and how to solve them) how to adapt (or improvise on) the rules to suit a particular context (game elaboration: some kind of recoding of some elements of the game)

Far more than books or movies or music, games force you to make decisions. Novels may activate our imagination, and music may conjure up powerful emotions, but games force you to decide, to choose, to prioritize. All the intellectual benefits of gaming derive from this fundamental virtue, because learning how to think is ultimately about learning to make the right decisions: weighing evidence, analyzing situations, consulting your long-term goals, and then deciding…. Those decisions are …predicated on two modes of intellectual labor that are kept to the collateral learning of playing games. I call them probing and telescoping (41) Probing: you have to probe the depths of the game’s logic to make sense of it and like most probing expeditions, you get result by trial and error, by stumbling across things, by following hunches (42-3) Telescoping is managing…simultaneous objectives… you can’t progress far in a game if you simply deal with the puzzles you stumble across; you have to coordinate them with the ultimate objectives on the horizon...Telescoping is about constructing the proper hierarchy of tasks and moving through the tasks in the correct sequence. It’s about perceiving relationships and determining priorities (54-55).

. In this environment, teachers become mentors and guides rather than the "all knowing" authority often associated with the traditional face-to-face format. In addition, new issues and challenges have begun to materialize from this new paradigm, prompting investigations related to the quality of online instruction:

engage distance students in their local communities through experiential learning opportunities.

provide community service as part of their academic coursework, learn about and reflect upon the community context in which the service is provided, and develop an understanding of the connection between service and their academic work.3

Constructivist teaching is based on the belief that learning occurs as learners are actively involved in a process of meaning and knowledge construction rather than passively receiving information. Learners are the makers of meaning and knowledge. Constructivist teaching fosters critical thinking and creates motivated and independent learners.

belief that knowledge isn't a thing that can be simply given by the teacher at the front of the room to students in their desks

ction from the transmission curriculum to a transactional curriculum. In a traditional curriculum, a teacher transmits information to students who passively listen and acquire facts. In a transactional curriculum, students are actively involved in their learning to reach new understandings.

Lecture = 5% Reading = 10% Audiovisual = 20% Demonstration = 30% Discussion Group = 50% Practice by doing = 75% Teach others / immediate use of learning = 90% It should also be recognized that a person's prior knowledg

Before we answer this question, ask yourself, "How do I learn best?" For example, do you learn better when someone tells you exactly how to do something, or do you learn better by doing it yourself? Many people are right in the middle of those two scenarios.

This has led many educators to believe that the best way to learn is by having students construct their own knowledge instead of having someone construct it for them

The professor is the central figure, the "sage on the stage

transmittal model, assumes that the student's brain is like an empty container into which the professor pours knowledge

Rather, knowledge is a state of under- standing and can only exist in the mind of the individual knower; as such, knowledge must be constructed--or re- constructed--by each individual knower through the process of trying to make sense of new information in terms of what that individual already knows