Image by Scott Tammik

About This Lesson

This lesson was created for ETEC 530, A University of British Columbia online graduate studies course titled, “Constructivist Strategies for E-Learning”.

Earlier in the course, I completed a survey of constructivist approaches already in use in my grade ten communications technology class. One of several recommendations from that survey, was to improve the level of control students have over the learning process. This lesson is intended to provide students with the required information to give the lesson structure and clear expectations, while leaving a high degree of control for students to progress through the learning process at their own pace. Opportunities for collaboration with their classmates is also emphasized in this lesson.

Work in Progress

I fully intend to use this lesson in my photography classes and it remains a work in progress. In particular, a rubric to evaluate the group critique, photography, and participation components of the lesson, remains to be written.

The previous version of this lesson was lecture based with a slide deck, handout and a somewhat similar photography activity at the end. It offered students little control over their learning journey and little opportunity for meaningful collaboration.

Constructivism

Constructivist learning is intended to be discovery based, including authentic activities and delivered in an environment which is highly social and encourages collaboration. This lesson has been design to embody the constructivist principles outlined below.

Driver and Oldham (1986) describes the following constructivist teaching sequence, which this lesson attempts to follow, as described in the written lesson plan here, which accompanies this website.

•Orientation. Reflecting on previous knowledge prior to making decisions and categorizing this new information. This lesson starts with an activity which encourages students to use a prior knowledge to describe the composition of the photo shown.

•Elicitation questioning what is already known. An instructor lead discussion and critique of the image show in the first activity, will provide an opportunity for students to question the assumptions they have about photographic composition. This critique will also model the format students should use to evaluate and discuss photographs in a formal setting.

•Restructuring of ideas processing the information. While completing the worksheet and engaging in the small group critique activity, students will have an opportunity to explore and restructure their ideas about composition. This worksheet is completed independently first, to allow students to explore their own ideas before having the opportunity, later in the lesson, to review the worksheets of other classmates for  possible reevaluation of their ideas.

•Applications of ideas manipulating concepts prior to producing. Students engage in a small group critique activity, which will offer them another chance to apply their knowledge of composition, prior to creating photographs.  Only then are students asked to apply their knowledge by using a digital camera to create their own composition exemplars on the worksheet.

•Review reflecting on the process individually and in group. A general class discussion held online during the entire lesson, will offer students an opportunity to reflect on the learning process, at any stage. Finally, each student is asked to submit an individual learning blog post (a term long activity), to further consider the new knowledge they have acquired and to encourage metacognitive processing.

The conceptual theories of constructivist learning presented in the course, include three dominant models. Constructivist Instruction Model (CIM), Predict Observe Explain (POE) and the Conceptual Change Model (CCM). The structure and content of this lesson aligns most directly to to the CIM model, though aspects of POE and CCM exists as well. Students early on in the lesson will likely encounter dissatisfaction with their limited ability to evaluate and articulate the compositional elements in photos. The activities in the lessons will allow new concepts to become tangible and ultimately fruitful in the creation of photographs by the end of the lesson. This directly follows the CCM model. Finally, considering the POE model, the small group critique activity allows students to compare their observations and explanations about composition, while the culminating activity of creating photographs, is an excellent opportunity to reinforce students new understanding.

I found the recreation of this lesson and my attempts to infuse it with constructivist approaches, to be a very rewarding experience. I look forward to the opportunity to similarly reevaluate many of my other lessons in the future, to help me improve in my daily teaching practice.

Rubric for Evaluating This Lesson

A rubric to evaluate evaluate how well this lesson embodies constructivist learning methods can be downloaded here.

References

Driver, R., & Oldham, V. (1986). A constructivist approach to curriculum development in science. Studies in Science Education, 13, 105-122.

Duffy, T.  & Savery, J. (1995). Problem based learning: An instructional model and its constructivist framework. Educational Technology, 35, 31-38.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge England, New York: Cambridge University Press.