Tuesday, October 29, 2019

“Constructivist Learning Theory” and how it relates to technology integration.

Brunner has made positive contributions in Constructivism to education.  His constructivist theory that learning is an active process, whereby students learn best by constructing new ideas and building new schemas based upon current and past knowledge (Hein, 1991).  This process is called cognitive which has a cultural and social aspects on rewards and punishments, and students’ motivation to learn the content. Programs across the country who use this model of education feel that the constructivist theory to encourage students and train teachers to discover principles on their own, using the knowledge they already have to embrace information (Mos, 2003). This implies that learning is not about simply being exposed to new information but is an active process whereby learners examine, code, decode, and interpret new concepts and ideas. Learners select and transform information, construct “hypotheses,” and rely on cognitive structures to build and refine their schemas (Kever, 2003; Mos, 2003).

According to Bruner he emphasizes that people interpret their world through the similarities and differences between objects and events. Secondly Bruner believes that learners will compare new ideas to the ones they already have and learn through the similarities and differences.  Finally, Bruner believes that a person’s socio-cultural background and situation play a highly important role in dictating what sorts of information that person will learn, as well as forming the cognitive processes that person uses to build and use schemas (Kever, 2003).

Knowing what we know about Bruner’s constructive process that social-cultural background and situation is also recognizing that people learn differently from different cultures.  Bruner’s constructivist instruction theory consist of four important points of the Constructivist Education Theory. Bruner’s first point in the learning process is, students’ predisposition towards learning, second point on how to structure knowledge that it can be most readily understood by the learner, third point is the most effective sequence in which to present material, and the fourth point is the nature and pacing of motivational rewards and punishments. Instructors should encourage students to discover the principles of the lesson themselves, primarily by engaging in active dialogue with the instructor and other students (Mos, 2003).

Educational design models for Bruner’s constructivist theory have common issues in the design process.  These issues include in choosing what would be the best methods for teaching, learning and provide assessments.  The second issue is creating the learning environment. The third issue is integrating students’ experience into various course elements (Bines, 1992a).  Educational models will consider using the constructivist theory to find and match educational needs with socio-culturally groups of students.

“Integrating educational technology is the process of determining which electronic tools and which methods for implementing them are appropriate for given classroom situation and problems (M.D.Roblyer, 2002).” The integration of technology in Constructivism has the ability to foster creativity, increase transfer of knowledge to problem solving, and foster group cooperation. Bruner’s theory on constructivism consists of how people’s environments and cultures play key roles in their cognitive development relating to education and the integration of technology.

References:

Bines, H. (1992a). Course Delivery and Assessment. In Developing Professional Education
(pp. 57-92). Oxford: SRHE and Open University Press.

Hein, G. E. (1991, 15-22 October). Constructivist Learning Theory. Paper presented at the CECA (International Committee of Museum Educators) Conference, Jerusalem Israel.

Kever, S. (2003, Mon Mar 3 6:59:24 US/Pacific 2003). Constructivist Classroom: An Internet Hotlist on Constructivist Class. Retrieved 22 January, 2004, from http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/listconstrucsa1.html

Mos, L. (2003). Jerome Bruner: Language, Culture, Self. Canadian Psychology, 44(1), 77-83.

Pagán, Brian – (2006) PsycEXTRA Dataset –Positive Contributions of Constructivism to Educational Design https://ejop.psychopen.eu/index.php/ejop/article/view/318/html

Roblyer, M.D. (2002).” Learning Theories & Technology Integration
https://studylib.net/doc/9828725/learning-theories-and-technology-integration

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