The PD session was developed prior to taking this course on constructivist strategies for e-Learning. While the day was not purposefully designed with constructivism in mind, in retrospect it closely followed the seven constructivist best practices as outlined by Beers and Wilson (2003), which I have chosen for my evaluation guidelines, and fits equally well with Driver and Oldham’s (1986; cited in Matthew, 1994) model of the five stages of lesson planning – orientation, elicitation, restructuring of ideas (clarification & exchange of ideas, construction of new ideas, evaluation of the new ideas), application of ideas, and review and reflection . While our typical PD sessions normally do have certain constructivist attributes, this particular day proved to be very effective.
Our PD sessions always include active participation by the teachers, whether it is trying out new software or participating in discussions concerning pedagogical principals of online learning and course design. Social learning, through the sharing of ideas and collaboration while working on learning new tools, also plays a part in the days’ activities, although it is often more in line with small group activity rather than true collaboration. This particular day, however, provided an authentic scenario where teachers were placed in a situation which required true collaboration; a scenario requiring both F2F and virtual cooperation that we hope would serve as a model of what they might employ with their own students. The minimal instructions required the teachers to problem-solve and use existing knowledge to devise possible solutions. Frustrations, as expected, did arise but as made clear by the teacher reflections posted at the end of the day these experiences helped teachers gain a better understanding not only of their online students, but also of their own learning.
Using Driver and Oldham’s (1986, from Matthew, 1994) Constructivist Instructional Model (CIM), students (the online teachers) were oriented towards the lesson as the objectives – developing the rubrics – related directly to their online teaching and developing. Once in their initial small groups, elicitation occurred as the teachers discussed their current thoughts on teaching/developing and began to search online, and with their virtual team mates for additional opinions and information. As the teams developed their rubrics, gathering information from different sources, restricting of ideas began. Perhaps the most pronounced example of cognitive dissonance occurred as teachers came to understand the distinction between online teaching strategies and instructional course design. Many in the group had not considered these as separate facets of online teaching and learning prior to the day’s exercise. This generated a great deal of discussion among the entire group once we came back together to review the experience near the end of the day. This discussion focused as much, if not more, on the process of the day’s activity than on identifying characteristics of quality online teaching and course design. The reflections posted on our shared Google Doc demonstrated the effectiveness of the day’s approach. Hopefully the teachers will begin to apply the lessons learned during the workshop as they return to their online classrooms, and continue to work on their courses, both on the characteristics used to build their rubrics but also on the experiences gained from working collaboratively in an engaging activity.
References
Beers, M. and Wilson, M. (2003). Constructivist e-learning methodologies: A module development guide. British Columbia Institute of Technology, Learning Resources Unit.
Matthews, M. R. (1994). Constructivism in science and mathematics education. Science Teaching. New York: Routledge.