Artifacts:
Knowledge and Truth Discussion
Reflection:
I would like to reflect upon my entire ETEC 530 course, Constructivist Strategies for E-Learning, as it was my first course and the most influential as it had particular consequences that endured throughout my MET journey. Looking back, I understand how the order of each course has a profound effect on how we experienced the MET program. If not for this course, my outlook may have been very different.
Coming into this course, I had experience with Van De Walle’s and Lesson Study’s theories in teaching and learning, both constructivist like models but ones that I didn’t originally recognize as associated with any formal learning theory. Initially, I couldn’t have differentiated acclimation from accommodation and I knew nothing of constructivism despite having practiced many of its tenants for years. It was this past experience with similar practices that allowed me to quickly contextualize the information in this course. My ability to accomodate and apply this learning theory to various practices was further aided by my natural tendency to act as an experiential and social learner. In my life, the process of accommodation has been a personal philosophy of mine, in the sense that I believe in applying everything I learn.
DORI: When you give me code, I accommodate everything into my programming. Sometimes it works out great, and other times you almost cause me to have a system malfunction. Maybe this acclimation isn’t so bad. I mean, should we really accommodate everything that comes along? And now that I am hooked up to the internet, I am completely connected to the world, and all of its information, programs, and viruses. I’m not sure I like all of this accommodation. Now that you are hooked up to the online MET program, how many viruses have you gotten?
Wow, Dori, you know I had never thought about the similarities until you asked. But going from a face-to-face (F2F) environment where you seldom have discussions with peers and your teacher, to an online environment with weekly forums and an endless stream of discussions, I was overwhelmed and I might have had a few system malfunctions. However, I’m pretty sure that none of my colleagues gave me any viruses. However, they may have given me some headaches trying to figure out how to accommodate their perspectives into my own, but unlike you, I can’t get viruses from sharing information or code. However, to prevent system malfunctions, I had to learn how to skim and filter. What surprised me was that I was drawn to peers with opposite views, not at first, but with increasing confidence, these were the discussions that drew my attention. In many ways they lead to a lot of perturbation, which sounds like a terrible virus and has similarities. But instead of making me weaker, it made me stronger. I didn’t realize it at the time, but in true constructivist fashion, I learned the most from others that disequilibrated my thinking and forced me to defend or change my perspective, thereby creating a new or better equilibrium. It was definitely terrifying at first, but it was also an amazing experience to have access to so many perspectives and sources of perturbation. Like my experiences with Web 1.0, ETEC 530 was an awakening to the vast amount of information that was out there and the beginning of my appreciation for the power of social learning, as I discuss in my Web 2.0 Social-based section.
One of the most perturbing and interesting exercises in this course was the contextualization and application of a SET CRITERIA to a number of situations and readings throughout the course. At various stages we were required to describe our conclusions and reflect upon them. I remember discussing the list extensively with peers in discussion posts trying to figure out the purpose and meaning of the criteria. None of us seemed to figure out that this was a list of constructivist principles until we were almost at the end of the course. We recognized certain aspects as constructivist as we progressed through the readings, but the list was so extensive that it obfuscated the connection to the theory of constructivism. Looking back on this exercise, it is not surprising that we had such great difficulty making the connection, as the criteria were broad and seemed to include aspects of other theories like behaviorism and cognitive theory. With just a burgeoning understanding of constructivism at the time, I began to suspect that this was a constructivist activity in itself.
Probably the most interesting and earth shattering experience in the MET program and this course, was the first readings and subsequent KNOWLEDGE AND TRUTH DISCUSSION. As a person grounded in my belief in science, I had definitive ideas about words like “truth”, “proof”, “logic”, etc. What I didn’t realize, until this course discussion, was the tentative nature of these ideas and how each represents a construct of experiential understanding grounded in social negotiation, i.e. people’s shared explanations (models) for the events around them. What I came to understand during our discussion of truth, was that like beauty, truth is in the eye of the beholder and ultimate truth does not exist. At best, truths are working models that we construct to explain events. The models that are socially accepted and shared by the majority of people are usually considered the veritable truths, for instance, the understanding that like ends of a magnet repel each other. This profound realization overflowed into both my practice as a teacher and as a student. As a teacher, my students often ask me physics questions like, why do two bodies attract each other (speaking of gravitational force, of course). And before taking this course, I would answer this question by explaining how it occurs, how to predict future outcomes, and I could draw models to represent abstract ideas from concrete constructs (ray or distortion diagrams), but I could never answer why two bodies attracted each other. I used to think it was my failing as a teacher that I couldn’t answer why. But now I realize that there is no answer to why and I use this knowledge to perturb them. This puzzles them and they usually argue with me, but in the end, we all seem to agree that why is not answerable. The truth is not a truth as we often imagine it. It is merely a working model for understanding events around us. They may evolve over the ages as we grow, learn and develop new knowledge, but each rendition of the truth is not an ultimate truth, but simply our present understanding based on observations rather than meaning. A perfect example of this is the replacement of Newton’s theory of gravity with Einstein’s theory of relativity. Although, Newton’s theory is still used today as an approximation of gravity for doing calculations on earth, Einstein’s theory is accepted by scientist as a much more accurate, although a more complex theory. These calculations don’t tell us the truth, they simply give us a model to predict future occurrences. If I drop an apple with weight, m from a height of y, then I can determine that it will take time, t to reach the ground. This hardly describes why, but simply how. Therefore, I conclude that there is no such thing as an ultimate truth, only our best understanding of what has occurred.
As I mentioned above, this course has overflowed into my learning, as well as my teaching. As a learner, I was shaped by this idea of truths as evolving illustrations of events. This was never more obvious than in the metaphor exercise. Early in the course, we were asked to apply the list of criteria, mentioned above, to what we were told were pictorial metaphors of teaching and learning. This exercise required us to identify what each metaphor represented and how it related to the list of criteria. What I, and my peers, quickly realized, was that we all had slightly different interpretations of the metaphors’ meanings. It was extremely frustrating to apply a list of criteria, that I didn’t fully understand, to a metaphor that didn’t seem to have a definitive meaning. What a shock to my system, and one that seemed to be shared by many others, as referenced in the CRITERIA DISCUSSION. We were lost in our uncertainty, as we failed to take a stance in deference to the belief in one ultimate truth. However, by eventually accepting that there was no ultimate truth for each metaphor, we could construct an individual working model of the metaphor for which we could apply the criteria and build understanding of constructivism. This was a magnificent constructivist assignment for teaching us about constructivism. We were beginning to see the world differently. I was starting to see myself as an individual capable of constructing my own model of understanding to be studied by myself in reflection and, later, socially negotiated with my peers in discussion. What I learned from this exercise, I carried throughout my MET journey; I accepted that there are no right or wrong answers, ultimate truths, or just one perspective. This realization profoundly changed me as I accommodated this information into my understanding that we each have a different interpretation, no better or worse, and as long as we can explain our position and take responsibility for our own learning and knowledge production, we need not look for direction from others, but can benefit from negotiating, on equal footing, our learning with peers and instructors. For as long as I could defend my decision and describe my understanding based on my perspective, I thrived in any situation within the program. But more importantly, I was finally able to throw off the shackles of worry, about what was expected by others, what was “right” or “true”, and how I was supposed to perform. This course taught me how to steer myself by my own compass and gave me the beginnings of my appreciation for the significant diversity of ideas and perspectives as discussed in my DIVERSITY AND DEMOCRACY reflection. In the end, like in Web 1.0, we are ultimately responsible for the information and the perspectives that we accommodate into our understanding of the world and the knowledge that we produce from it.
As a mathematician, I have accepted many truths 1+1 =2 or 1+1=1 or 0, both true from different disciplines. And, just like I rarely find the most direct or simplest path to any solution, as you might notice in my rambling reflections, I encourage my students to find any path, not just the “best” path. Yet, looking back and reflecting on my Lesson Study experience from my new ETEC 530 perspective, I realize that my practice has been inconsistent with my beliefs. As ETEC 530 has taught me, truth is subjective, it is based on what works for each of us, and it is different from different angles. As discussed in my first reflection, I was a Lesson Study facilitator that encouraged my peers to collaboratively create one perfect lesson, one truth, one negotiated ideal rather than encouraging everyone to develop different truths that were individual to themselves and their various situations. My ETEC 530 LESSON STUDY ESSAY was based on the analysis of LS in terms of constructivist learning. And although I didn’t realize it going into the analysis, by the end of the paper I understood that the most important achievement of lesson study was the creation of a collaborative spirit among peers, one that enabled the sharing of beliefs and practices, and the perturbation of thinking (Piaget, 1964; Vygotsky, 1934). Through this, we could experience greater insight into our own methods and learn new approaches from others allowing us to construct and negotiate a practice that works best for each of us. And although my perspective would change somewhat in subsequent courses, during this course, I remained convinced that online LS could provide one of the best means for sharing and collaborating on teaching and learning.
Now, at the end of my MET journey, I can identify many inconsistencies between my beliefs and my actions regarding professional development (PD) learning. In this reflective process, I have been able to realign them to represent an understanding of PD that is not about perfection or organization but about encouraging social understanding and experimentation. With a vast diversity of styles of teaching and learning, expansive curriculum, different types of learners with their strengths and challenges, and different ways of perceiving knowledge, one could never hope to create the perfect lesson, or the perfect way to teach a student. Add all that complexity to an online PD environment, and you have a complex set of factors that cannot be neatly organized into a pre-scripted PD method, rather it requires flexibility to enable ongoing discussion and negotiation of shared perspectives and experiences, theories and practices, and individual and social understanding.
The reason that this revelation is important is because developing an online PD method requires understanding the purpose behind the platform. If the purpose is to create a perfect lesson through constant negotiation and revision, then the platform needs to be structured to provide opportunities to reflect and communicate in a step by step procedure. On the other hand, if the goal is to encourage discussion on practice and beliefs, then the model should provide a more open structure that enables teachers to share and interact in informal and unstructured way that provides them the autonomy and empowerment to steer their own learning. In essence, if we plan to continue the practices that were foisted on us as teachers in training, then the former model makes sense. However, if we hope that teachers will become active lifelong learners, the latter model seems a better fit. This revelation was not achieved during my ETEC 530 project, but rather was the result of the research done for the ETEC 500 LESSON STUDY LIT REVIEW AND PROPOSAL, subsequent courses, as well as my thinking on action as part of the reflective ePortfolio process.
References:
Piaget, J. (1964). Development and learning. In R.E. Ripple &V.N. Rockcastle (Eds), Piaget Rediscovered (pp. 7-20). Retrieved from http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~siegler/35piaget64.pdf
Vygotsky, L. (1934). The development of scientific concepts in childhood. In Thinking and Speaking (ch 6). Published by the M.I.T. Press, edited and translated by E. Hanfmann and G. Vakar. Retrieved from http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/words/ch06.htm
Follow
Leave a Reply