Group items tagged

A video about pedagogical theories created for a Curt Bonk class. May not last long, but give it a try. Illustrates Behaviorism, Vygotsky, and Social Constructivism with clips from contemporary movies. Clever and memorable.

An interesting article from Slate and Future Tense, an e-zine from Arizona State University, that discusses how constructivism may have been lost in the rush to make education cheaper for universities. Linked articles discuss Certificates for online courses and other issues in the MOOC movement.

Constructivist perspective on learning - Siemen's blog

Our pedagogical imperative is to let a course unfold according to the whim and determination of the group - to replace teacher-as-content with learning-community-as-content-maker. Doesn't this replace the content-as-authority with the random knowledges of various members of the group? How does "whim" become "content"? Wouldn't it be better to start with actual, factual knowledge? on Dec 09, 14 - Edit - Remove This is at the heart of what Freire calls "co-intentional education," in which "Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating that knowledge." The collective knowledge of a group of students will almost always exceed the expertise of one instructor. The last sentence is misleading -- not what Freire says. If the teacher is not included as part of the task, the knowledge of the group of students probably doesn't exceed the instructor's expertise.

I will analyze three common strands of current thought about education and the Internet. First is the idea that the instant availability of information online makes the memorization of facts unnecessary or less necessary. Second is the celebration of the virtues of collaborative learning as superior to outmoded individual learning. And third is the insistence that lengthy, complex books, which constitute a single, static, one-way conversation with an individual, are inferior to knowledge co-constructed by members of a group."

Article on PBL: The assumption of non-constructivist approaches to learning has been that as long as learners are provided with knowledge, they will be able to use it. Education based on that assumption is thus primarily concerned with transferring substance to the learner, and little importance is placed on the role of the learning activity. From a constructivist view, on the other hand, learning is the process of constructing knowledge - not merely obtaining it - in social environments (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). The theory of situated learning consistent with this view asserts that what we come to know and understand is fundamentally a product of the learning situation and the nature of the learning activity. Learning tasks should thus, as far as possible, be embedded in the target context and require the kind of thinking that would be done in real life (Brown et al., 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991).

" My Notes Help prepare students to learn by using their past experiences. Helps develop grammatical and lexical choices, as well as structure and organization. Developed in Partnership with Stanford University.

This article describes many different settings and activities that involve "making" and speaks to when and why the movement makes sense.

"Overall, Behaviorism, although controversial in the modern educational settings, continues to remain a tool at every educator's disposal to construct foundations for lessons and help students to succeed. The incorporation of current and burgeoning technologies will further fuel the debate regarding the use of behaviorist instructional/behavior modification strategies, however, these same technologies can help even the most struggling student to succeed and thrive in their educational career. We must ask whether we, as adults, like the ways in which our behaviors are modified by these digital, social spaces. Only upon some honest reflection can we answer whether we want to do the same to our children." A thoughtful examination of how behaviorism applies in the uses of technology and generally in classroom practices.