This is my Most Important Theory Blog.
References:
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Garrison,
D. R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st century: A
framework for research and practice. London: Routledge Falmer.
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Hi Crawford,
ReplyDeleteI am big fan of CoI :) Have you done any research on Community of Practice (Wenger & Lave). How are these the same? How are they different?
Do you favor constructivism or social constructivism? Why? Which theory best contributes to a more learner centered environment?
I am looking forward to your ideas - and so happy to provide you with a challenge :)
Best,
Dr Courduff
You're killing me with these tough questions, Doc! Intelligent response forthcoming- I hope!
DeleteHello again, Crawford,
ReplyDeleteExcellent post. Collaboration and social constructivism are topics that are extremely important to the design of a course. I believe that the age of the learners has a lot to do with the implementation of the theory. This belief is based on the "proximal zone of development" that Vygotsky put forward. This is something that has baffled me for years as it pertains to the educational classroom set up. Why do we place children of all the same age in a classroom together? Especially in middle-school? Middle-school I just don't understand as those are such volatile years for children. I see benefit in collaboration between ages that is supervised by someone more knowledgeable than the group as a whole.
As I read through my paragraph it sounds idealistic or "old-fashioned". However, I speak mostly from experience of my own educational background, which I believe to have played a wonderful role in my education and life. I grew up in a small community where the grades, for the most part, were a mix of ages and stages. While the grades were still implemented, we had continual learning contact with kids of all ages(k-12) and were constantly involved in school activities with everyone as a whole. I believe because of the community of learning that was possible from the small group atmosphere there was always opportunity for collaborative learning.
How can this effectively be transferred to an online setting? I think traditionally everyone thoughts immediately go to Discussion Boards as the main tool for collaboration. However, I think we need to go beyond the traditional way of thinking and utilize the technologies available to us. At a conference I recently attended one of the speakers was definitely using social collaboration tools to her advantage and combining technologies and theories to create a classroom that appeared to effectively work towards the student's learning. She holds her classroom on Facebook (possible for the limited number of students she has) instead of an LMS. She then has these students (both residential and online) collaborate through posts and assignments. She has also recently integrated another class from another discipline (business) to work collaboratively with her students. So, she is cross teaching, in a sense, with 2 different schools of learning (Language/design and Business). The students are required to create a pretend resort and get people to rate it, create a brochure, a web page, a travel page...etc. using the knowledge they are learning in class. She bridges the gap in disciplines by using augmented reality. The group chooses a picture for their resort and then all of their personal findings can be fixed to that picture using the augmented reality tools. Brilliant ideas, I believe, in social collaboration. I am trying to locate information on her to post but am having a hard time. I only have my written notes from the conference (see, I'm stuck in the dark ages with pen and paper ;-)). Anyhow, there are so many implications that technology and collaboration have, we just need to be creative. Creativity can sometimes be limited, as I'm not sure how many copyright laws are violated by her classroom, and I'm not sure how accessible all her ideas are; but I was impressed.
Reference:
(2005). An Introduction to Vygotsky. New York, NY. Routledge: ISBN#: 0-415-32812-8
Constructivism and Social Constructivism are very similar in they describe learning through experience. The constructivist believes people give meaning to the world through their experiences. They believe that we are all products of our history and environment (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek (2012). Social constructivists believe that this learning will come from the interaction with others and the sharing of their experiences. In this course alone, I imagine we have over 500 years of experiences in a variety of fields. Learning from each other is a much more dynamic process than a single ILT delivery method.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to Community of Practice and Community of Inquiry, a CoI seems to be more mediated by an outside entity (teacher) while a CoP is direction through the motivation of the group. The CoP is a group that collaborates to solve a common problem but not necessarily in an educational setting. A CoI seems to be what we have here in this class where we are ultimately in search of knowledge but not for the immediate goal of problem solving.
Reference:
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Amen and hallelujah! Now - apply it to your Lit Review and job :) Gauntlet cast.....
ReplyDelete