Role of the subject expert in a constructivist approach

Right from the first readings I read for this course, through to last week’s readings, I have continued to reflect on the idea of teacher as expert; teacher as subject matter superior; specific discipline thinker. I have waffled back and forth between thinking anyone can teach anything, to thinking only someone with an advanced degree in math should teach math. I think I am somewhere in the middle now, but I seem to oscillate depending on the angle at which I explore the idea.

At the start of this course, we spent two weeks discussing the very idea of constructivism. In the Week 3 we read an article by Schwartz and Fischer (2003) which described graduate students in a Faculty of Education grappling with science concepts using a constructivist approaches. My classmate Mehjabeen Datoo, posted the following: “A deep knowledge of the discipline and of the subject matter being taught is also pretty key and in the North American context, not all teachers have sufficient expertise in all the subjects they teach to be able to work with them using constructivist methods. “

Mehjabeen’s post helped me to see that I was struggling with the concept of teacher as expert. As a response to her post, I wrote: “ In the Internet age, there is no reason for the teacher to be the fount of all knowledge”, I went on to explain my experience teaching a subject matter I had no experience with, but that I managed to teach it well due to three factors, “a) I knew how to learn, b) I knew where to find the resources, c) I knew how to critically assess the resources as valid. As for the content - well that can be found in a book or on a website, it need not be in my head! This is why I get excited about the future of schooling. Perhaps teachers become experts in how to learn and how to teach others how to learn and no one teacher need be a content specialist.”

My classmates were quick to point out the simplicity of my thinking, and while I remain convinced that teacher’s do not need to have ALL knowledge, being an expert in a subject has several advantages when using constructivist techniques.

-          Constructivist teachers role model thought processes for students. Because different disciplines are aligned with particular and unique ways of thinking (knowledge structures), being a subject matter expert helps role model these discipline specific ways of knowing.

-          Constructivist lessons enable students to take ideas and concepts in unforeseen directions, so a teacher needs to be ready to step in and scaffold as needed. One the spot scaffolding needs a deep well of knowledge to draw from.

-          As students are building knowledge, they may make errors in their assumptions or theories and a subject expert is needed to spot these mistakes and are able to gently guide students in a different direction

Upon reflection, I think there are two separate issue here.

Phillips (1995) talks about “bodies of public knowledge known as various disciplines” when referring to the physical sciences, humanities, social sciences and the like. The first issue revolves around this idea of a discipline.

The second issue, where I believe I was focused on in my post, is the information and facts that make up the body of knowledge. This is the chemistry or physics of the physical sciences.

Perhaps, what is needed in the classroom is a discipline expert – someone who is able to think like all those who subscribe to or belong in the larger community that makes up the body of public knowledge. What may not be needed is someone who knows the finer details of a particular aspect of the discipline.

For example, perhaps someone with a strong background in chemistry but only a cursory knowledge of physics can still be an excellent constructivist teacher of physics since he or she is familiar with the ways of knowing involved in physics.

I think I am starting to tap into the idea of Pedagogical content knowledge, but I need to learn more. This blog has an excellent discussion of the concept - http://blogs.maryville.edu/shausfather/vita/content-process/

Phillips, D. C. (1995). The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Many Faces of Constructivism. Educational Researcher, 24(7), 5-12

Schwartz, Marc S. & Fischer, Kurt W. (2003). Building vs. borrowing. Liberal Education 89(3), 22-29.

Moving from the individual to the collective

I have not read my statement on my personal theory of learning that I wrote in the opening weeks of this course. I am hoping when I come to write my revised version next week, I will have made some changes. I hope.

You see, I lost a bit of hope when, tonight I sat down to review the last five weeks to so in an attempt to pull some of the ideas together. Finding patterns and relationships is how I learn. You see, despite all of the learning I have enjoyed in this course, I still am most comfortable as an individual learner.

The dialogue generated through online posts in the course has challenged by thinking and should I find myself in a teaching situation ever again (I have taken a hiatus from the classroom), I will strive to incorporate the concepts of this course. However, push comes to shove and I need to produce a knowledge artifact, I just want to retreat to my office, read my material and then be left alone to contemplate, to play with ideas on a mind map or chart, and then to write. I love a good debate and would discuss my writing with anyone willing to engage me, but I still need the time alone for the production before I want to dialogue with anyone.

Having said that, I am intrigued by the ideas presented in the last five weeks which are pulling me in a more collective direction.

Most recently, in week 10, we explored Scardamalia’s idea of collective cognitive responsibility. The most exciting aspect of this concept for me is the idea of having each student accepting personal responsibility for not only their own learning, but also for the learning of their peers. In Collective Cognitive Responsibility, the teacher joins his or her students who become a group of equals all contributing to a body of knowledge. If students got used to the idea of Collective Cognitive Responsibility in the K-12 system, then the independent learning demanded in post-secondary would not come as such a shock. Also, when professors encourage students to from study groups to help each other through, those who grew up with CCR would know what to do instead of staring at the professor in complete confusion.

Also in week 10, we looked at the idea of a community of inquiry from Garrison and Arbaugh (2007). I enjoyed how this article looked at learning from three different presences: social, teacher, and cognitive. A group who has come together for learning needs to have a social presence – where open communication and collaboration is encouraged. A guiding force to structure content and assure content expertise is also needed. Thirdly, there must be a cognitive presence where students have a sense of wonder and a desire to acquire answers.  The authors state that all three aspects are integral for learning to occur.

I was fascinated to discover the idea of distributed cognition (also referred to as distributed intelligence and distributed constructivism). The article from Pea (1993) explored the idea that others are required for our learning that we can’t learn in isolation. The idea of affordances was discussed – the idea that our perception of an object is linked to how it is used. This related to the fact that objects in our everyday life possess distributed intelligence – they contain the intelligence of those who invented it and taught us how to use it. Pea (1993) likened his ideas to those of Vygotsky stating that Vygotsky, “placed great emphasis on the ways in which character of social interactions and externally mediated action makes explicit certain processes that come to be internalized in the private thought of an individual.” Pea (1993) explained that we use our environment which includes other people as well as objects when we learn and therefore our new ideas and thoughts are distributed across that environment.

A video that help me understand affordances

Cole and Engestrom (1993) discussed four different ways that effect just how cognition is distributed

a)      In person – Each of us has a unique cultural perspective, our own personal view of the world that differs from everyone else’s.

b)      In the medium culture – The goals of the learning, where it takes place (setting) and the tools that are used will affect how cognition is distributed

c)       Socially – the rules of engagement and the artifacts generated in which the learning takes place affects distribution.

d)      In time – meaning changes over time

The Cole and Engestrom helped me to understand how meaning is shared across a group and how meaning affects cognition.

The last concept that helped me begin my journey from individual to collective was that of situated cognition. As Dewey stated “learning is an experience of the relations of things”. Learning is embedded in context. Learning is also personal. This concept is very much based in activity, where the distributed cognition was very much places in the realm of ideas and learning, not so much on tasks.  

So what does this all mean?

The idea of learning as a social activity is the most obvious common thread in all of the above concepts. With my teacher hat on, I say, “OF COURSE”. But, then when I think of learning, I find that harder. Given a choice between reading a book along in my room or sitting in a room full of people talking, I choose the book every time. However, I will acknowledge that I do learn more (after reading first) when discussing ideas with others because others challenge my ideas and cause me to reach into my learning to justify, clarify, or change my stance.

The concepts also bring to the fore the idea of learning be situated in and distributed among the tools, people, and environments we learn with. The learning will be changed significantly by what is going on within and around us at the time of learning.

SIDE NOTE: A brilliant blog and wiki that one can get lost in for hours….. http://cresenciafong.com/blog/?p=9

Cole, M. & Engestrom, Y. (1993). A cultural-historical approach to distributed cognition. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions. Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 1-46). NY: Cambridge University Press

Garrison, D. R & Arbaugh, J. B. (2007). Researching the community of inquiry framework: Review, issues, and future directions. Internet and Higher Education, 10, 157-172

Pea, R.D. (1993). Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions. Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 47-87). NY: Cambridge University Press.

Scardamalia, M. (2002). Collective cognitive responsibility for the advancement of knowledge. In B. Smith (Ed.) Liberal Education in a Knowledge Society (pp. 67-98). Chicago: Open Court. http://ikit.org/fulltext/inpressCollectiveCog.pdf

Who am I when I am online?

The goal for week 9 of class was “Critical Perspectives”. We were asked to “consider, as you read the papers for this week whether we can have multiple theoretic frameworks inform one another, or are they separate "solitudes"? Can we work towards a broader more eclectic perspective than given by constructivist or critical perspectives alone?” The papers (listed at the bottom of the post) introduced ideas of intercultural communication in online environments, “embedded power relations and values in immersive online environments”, and issues arising from linguistic and cultural differences of users in an online environment. What was most fascinating for me was the fact that in both discussion groups, and despite three very different discussion thread prompts, much of the ensuing discussion revolved around the question of personal identity and how students choose to represent their identity online.

Looking back at the posts that week and the insightful learning journals of Megan and Sherida, three thematic questions emerge from our class exploration of “critical perspectives”.

1.       Does disembodiment occur? If yes, what are the consequences?

2.       Do students intentionally misrepresent themselves online? If yes, is it for nefarious reasons or because of lack of self-esteem?

3.       Do students know the difference between the “chatter” of the fun and easy online environment of social media and the formal discourse in a challenging academic online environment?  

Disembodiment

The argument made in both the Dare and Vander Valk articles was that the academic online environment has the potential to allow for reduced bias in peer-to-peer as well as student-to-teacher interactions. Dare states:

“Precisely because online education erases the question of bodies so effortlessly and pervasively, in this essay I argue that this “erasure” can provide a starting point for talking about and reworking our understanding of how raced, classed, gendered bodies learn, travel, and interact online.” (page 2)

I found the discussion on the concept of disembodiment interesting because I don’t know that as a class (or a smaller discussion sub-group) we came to consensus on whether or not there is in fact disembodiment online. While obviously there is no actual body in the online environment, current technologies allow for each user to post a profile picture, posts can be in text, video, or audio format, and many users will also post a bio with links to their Twitter, Tumblr and FaceBook accounts. It would not take much effort for class members to learn about each other’s race, gender, and even habits and preferences. While I am encouraged by the idea that an online environment reduces many biases that occur in the classroom, I don’t see the “erasure” Dare speaks of in her article.

Misrepresentation

Dare suggests several advantages disembodied online environment. She speaks of the ability of online courses to increase accessibility to higher education opportunities by drawing in from different groups of traditionally underrepresented students. This drawing in of a diverse study body leads to another advantage in the diversification of ideas and perspectives. A third advantage is that students who may speak less in the face-to-face classroom (whether due to oppression from dominant culture or shyness or an inability to react quickly and speak on the spot) to make an increased number of contributions to class discussions.

Again, I was most fascinated by the week’s posts because a discussion of dominant culture ontology presenting itself in an online environment sparked a detailed discussion of how student represent themselves online. I found this to be an interesting twist in the dialogue. My only experience teaching in an online environment has been teaching a blended class where students spent three hours per week in class and then were responsible for posting one online reflection and responding to other’s reflections each week. In this environment, I found the students to be very open and honest and, in fact, more themselves online than in the class. The students shared deeply and were extremely supportive of one another online. In class, their tougher exteriors resurfaced and they didn’t share as deeply.  (For context sake: I was teaching a group of 16-19 year olds who had been kicked out of one or more high schools and were enrolled in a special program in the college. Many of the students were crown wards and most had grown up in poverty. The course was designed to look at personal issues in preparation for post-secondary schooling. )

I have no doubt that people misrepresent themselves online, but I think it is often done to protect oneself or to present a “better” image. In my experience teaching the class above and in my three years working with college students and exploring their learning management systems (an academic online environment – but not always course specific), I found the students to be fully authentic in the academic online environment.

Social Media versus academic online environments

A student behaving one way when using social media and another in an academic environment brings me to the third theme. I think just as most students know that how to dress, talk, and behave on a Friday night at the bar is not how they conduct themselves in a classroom on Monday morning, I think the average student knows the difference between online behavior using social media tools and functioning in an online course.

An excellent question sparked by the Dare article and brought up in the week 9 discussion thread is: should students be pushed into discomfort for purposes of social justice? Should teachers – whether they teach chemistry, college student success skills, or critical theory be introducing social justice into the online course environment? I think this can be done and the Dillon, Wang and Tearle article discusses some course design elements that can facilitate this. I also argued in my post that inclusiveness and social justice can be woven into mindful course design.

Just as when I taught at a school for dyslexic children and learned that teaching students with leanring challenges is just plain old good teaching - so too, incorporating cultural and linguistic differences is just good online practice.

Excellent online teaching is ....

1. Multi-modal - it incorporates text, video, and other online tools

2. Builds community - models and encourages personal interaction

3. Is Interactive- creates opportunities for input from students and intervention from the teacher

4. Is flexible - asynchronous and synchronous options

5. Explicit - expectations of the course are laid out at the start and guidelines for appropriate interaction are made explicit, introductions to the technology to be used is given and extra help is offered to those who need it.

Teachers who empower all students by making the rules of engagement explicit help those from other cultures understand the "unwritten rules". Flexibility in the course allows those who need more time to compose a response that needed time. Teachers who build community enable students to see each other as fellow humans and build the necessary relationships that break down barriers.

Dare, A. (2011). (Dis)Embodied Difference in the Online Class: Vulnerability, Visibility, 
and Social Justice, Journal of Online Learning and Teaching,7(2).

Vander Valk, F. (2008). Identity, Power, and Representation in Virtual Environments. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 4 (2), 205-211.

Patrick Dillon, Ruolan Wang & Penni Tearle (2007): Cultural disconnection in virtual education, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 15 (2), 153-174.

Using Big Words

Perhaps it is cheating, but I am going to use my third learning journal post to examine some of the big words I continue to come across and look up, but can not seem to keep in my head.

Studying words without their context was an example of bad teaching/learning practice in the readings in the two weeks we discussed Situated Cognition in class, however, I find that my lack of understanding of these words severely limits my learning. The first problem is that I don't understand what the author is trying to get across  The second, and more debilitating issue, is that not understanding a word in the course of reading an article causes me to lose my flow and "come out" of the reading. This is not only inefficient as it take extra time to do the reading, it slows the whole understanding process down.

Given that this course is about constructivism, I have been trying to "gloss" over my misunderstandings and hope that the class discussions will fill me in. Sadly, for the most part, this has not happened and has casued mounting frustration with each week.

And so for this week, I regress into a more solo cognitive effort - however, I will attempt to make reference to my classmates posts and the readings (if I can find the patience and the time!)

heuristic - experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery; methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution; mental short cuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. (ref). 
From Pea (1993, page 48) - "distributed intelligence.... is a heuristic framework for raising and addressing theoretical and empirical questions..."

microgenesis - The concept of microgenesis refers to the development on a brief present-time scale of a percept, a thought, an object of imagination, or an expression. It defines the occurrence of immediate experience as dynamic unfolding and differentiation in which the ‘germ’ of the final experience is already embodied in the early stages of its development. (ref)

ontogenesis - a theory of the development and structuring of the individual that takes into account the individual's origins and the conditions of his or her development. ... Defining ontogenesis, or the development of the individual, requires examination of what constitutes the mind and what the primary conditions of its organization are. What is called for is nothing less than a clear understanding of the origins, developmental stages, and earlier states of an individual's history. (ref)

phylogenesis - the processes of evolution and acquisition particular to a species (ref)

From Pea (1993, page 72) - "What constraints govern the dynamics of such distribution in different time scales (e.g. ...microgenesis, ontogenesis, cultural history, phylogenesis)?"

dialectical - any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict -- or -- discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation; specifically : the Socratic techniques of exposing false beliefs and eliciting truth -- or -- the Platonic investigation of the eternal ideas (ref) - This is kind of what I thought it was, but now I am more confused....

Dialectical psychology (Riegel, 1973) postulates that one's mental processes move freely back and forth among all the Piagetian stages, meanwhile "transforming contradictory experience into momentary stable structures." .....Here the meaning of "dialectic" will be taken to be number (8) in the article "Dialectic" in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "...the logical development of thought or reality through thesis and antithesis to a synthesis of these opposites." (ref)
45
From Pea (1993, page 78) - "One of the central implications of the dialectical perspective on human nature arises when we look at the ceoncept of development itself."

While googling words and concepts may not be a traditionally constructivist activity - these past 45 min have been fruitful. For I reviewed the Pea article and the notes I took in the margins a few times while looking for the words again. And google is a wonderful activity causing one to weave and discover while connecting concepts. 

Now if only I can recall these definitions when I encounter them again - and if not, I have created some distributed intelligence that I can rely on!


Pea, R.D. (1993). Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions. Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 47-87). NY: Cambridge University Press

Where do facts belong?

I've been putting off my second journal entry for two reasons. First, I am struggling to keep up with the posting I need to do on a weekly basis on top of work, research, and kids. Second, and a much larger cause, is that I am wholly intimidated by the task of writing something that is required to be connected to others. It would be so simple to record my thoughts and the issues I'm grappling with. But, to have to read over the last 5 weeks of postings, and then all of my classmates learning journals and then come up with something that reflects my thoughts and incorporates theirs is overwhelming to say the least. The last few weeks has opened up my mind to the idea of social cultural learning and learning in context and all the other relationship stuff, but it hasn't changed 41 years of preference for solitude!!!!!

However, I am ever the good student, so I shall make an attempt.

After two weeks of classes, the two questions ruminating in my head were:

- if knowledge is constructed, where do facts belong?

- I agree that truth is relative, but 1 + 1 does equal 2 regardless of my biases, my previous knowledge, or whether I agree with that fact. So if meaning is 100% constructed and I believe 1 + 1 = 3, does that make it right?

In week one, we were asked to explore our own leanings towards objectivist or constructivist. Many people in the class posted that they leaned towards constructivism, but acknowledged the value in both theories. Megan said it excellently with, "Both constructivist and objectivist approaches should be used as tools, used when necessary, to provide the best possible education for all students."

When introduced to the ideas of Bruner, I started to see where facts belong. Bruner talks of categories, implying that knowledge can be reduced to facts which can be manipulated. Russell quotes Bruner as  "To perceive is to categorize, to conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form categories, to make decisions is to categorize." 

And now along comes Dewey and I am confused again. He states: "(i ) that the educational process has no end beyond itself; it is its own end; and that (ii) the educational process is one of continual reorganizing, reconstructing, transforming". As a scientist, I fully agree that knowledge is a process and that it is continually being refined – but where does one start?

If knowledge is full constructed, if meaning is solely socially construed, then belief is on an equal playing field with perception. If a child comes to the conclusion that hot air sinks at the end of her science lesson and she has constructed that knowledge through her observations – is she wrong?

 So I am struggling with is - but I just watched this video - which although it talks about contructivism in the political science paradigm has helped me clear some things up. 

Ok.... I am getting it.... slowly. Really it is our collective consciousness that develops reality. So the "fact" that hot air rises is something that society believes because a number of people have observed it and believe it to be "true". Someone some day may make a different observation and convince others that this different observation is the new "truth". 

Ahhhhhhh..... so contructivists are advocating that students discover the collective consciousness rather than just being told what it is. 

It's late, I haven't figured out how to quote my classmates and weave in the readings, but I've had my ah-ha moment and shall try to sit down later this week and tackle my other questions. 

Sigh

And so it begins

Welcome to my addled thoughts! This blog begins as a course requirement for my PhD. It starts as a learning journal where I record my musings, confusions, and learnings as I progress through a course with Clare Brett that "examines the theory and research that underlies constructivist learning and its historical and philosophical roots through exploring concepts connected broadly with the Learning Sciences like situated and distributed cognition and sociocultural learning theories along with other theories that have informed distance education and online learning in particular."

Whether this blog blossoms into anything else remains to be seen. I was a disciplined diarist from the time I could write until just over ten years ago. I see value in journaling  but am still rather uncomfortable with the idea of public journaling. It seems rather narcissistic behaviour. However, one can only grow through challenge and so I begin the challenge. 

On January 24, I scribbled down these notes as a contemplated what to write about in my Learning Journal:

quick thoughts that need to be flushed out

- if knowledge is constructed, where do facts belong? 

- Truth is relative, but 1 + 1 does equal 2 regardless of my biases, my previous knowledge, or whether I agree with that fact

- Does a teacher need to be a content expert? What role does discipline knowledge play in the method by which knowledge is constructed?

- pedagodgy vs. androgogy

Like my classmate Chris, I am struggling with the workload on my first online course. I am used to doing my PhD work on the bus between London and Toronto on class nights and then for a chunk of time on Sunday afternoon. The interactive nature of a discussion based online course requires that I log on frequently and write thoughtful responses to my peer's thoughts. I am spending four and five times more time in this course than any of the four previous ones I've taken. I am not sure I can keep up!

Perhaps that is just an excuse.....I have learned more in three weeks than I learned all last semester, so there is definitely a plus side to all of the work. 

And so, I begin with this post. A half start, tentative step, a pocket of intention....the kids want to go tobogganing, so I'll end here and hope I am inspired while on the GT racer and can come up with a coherent composition when the house is once again quite!