A Constructivist Perspective of Learning, Technology, and Collaboration

In my regular interaction with students in my classes and peers on my school faculty, as well as peers from other schools, I have encountered a general understanding that supports collaboration in the workplace. It seems that what was considered “cheating” 40 years ago is now considered “networking” and becoming more familiar with information through peer tutoring and cooperation. This may very well reflect the concept of self-enrichment (in lieu of altruism) as presented by Rheingold’s video.

For quite some time now, I have worked with the concept that all of us know and are capable of more than just one of us. This has been shared with my students and co-workers, resulting in higher returns and richer final projects in all of our classes. It is especially helpful when facilitating cross-discipline instruction, involving individuals of varying core subjects working with technology to enrich and reinforce lessons presented in other class rooms. Students are also encouraged to assist one another when conducting research or preparing materials for projects. This assistance is understood to be “focus and guidance with information sharing”, but not to the point that the work of one student is taken and used by another. This method has been used with my classes for about 15 years with varying levels of success. However, the most successful results have been within the last two years. I attribute this to the fact that I now work in a single-gender school (all girls). Repeated research studies have reported that girls and young women learn best in collaborative situations. This reinforces my belief that all humans have a basic need to extend the clan or tribe mentality (strength and safety in numbers) to collaborative problem solving.

Principles of Constructivist learning include the following:
1. Learning environments provide multiple representations of reality.
2. Representations reflect complexity of the real world.
3. Knowledge construction is emphasized over knowledge reproduction.
4. Authentic tasks are emphasized in meaningful context.
5. Real world settings or case-based learning is provided.
6. Thoughtful reflection on experience is encouraged.
7. Enable context- and content- dependent knowledge construction.
8. Supports collaboration and social negotiation among learners.
9. Discovery learning
10. Collaborative activity
11. Integration and activation of prior knowledge
12. Opportunities for hands-on activities

All of these principles are supported by the use of technology in the classroom. Research, collaboration with class mates, interaction with others in remote locations, and cross-discipline instruction answer the principles of constructivist theory. Students are often able to use acquired knowledge to affect their own environments and others in a positive, productive manner.

Three articles of interest concerning education, learning, and collaboration are listed below. They may all be located for review in the Walden library.

Craig, J., Poe, M., & Gonzalez Rojas, M. (2010).Professional communication education in a global context: A collaboration between the massachusetts institute oftTechnology, instituto tecnológico y de estudios superiores de monterrey, mexico, and universidad de quintana roo, mexico. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 24(3), pp. 267-295. Retrieved from the Sage full text data base at http://jbt.sagepub.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/content/24/3/267.full.pdf+html

Meittinen, R., Lehenkari, J.,& Tuunainen, J. (2008). Learning and network collaboration in product development: How things work for human use. Management Learning, 39(2), pp. 203-219. Retrieved from the Sage full text data base at http://mlq.sagepub.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/content/39/2/203.full.pdf+html

Powell, F., Fields, L., Bell, E., & Johnson, G. (2007). Manhood, scholarship, perseverance, uplift, and elementary students: An example of school and community collaboration. Urban Education, 42(4), pp. 296-312. Retrieved from the Sage full text data base at http://uex.sagepub.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/content/42/4/296.full.pdf+html

References:

Ghezzi, P. (2008). How girls learn. SchoolFaily.com. Available from http://www.schoolfamily.com/school-family-articles/article/855-how-girls-learn

Jonassen, D. (1994). Thinking technology: Toward a constructivist design model. Educational Technology, 34(4), pp. 34-37.

TED (Producer). (2005). Howard rheingold on collaboration [Video program]. Available from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html