Week 4

Flipped preparation (required): View the video 'Top 10 Learning Theories for Digital and Collaborative Learning'. Consider the differences between constructivism and constructionism and how collaboration relates to both. Create a diagram that captures your ideas on a single slide, then record a screencast of you explaining your diagram (2 mins max). You'll show this to another student in class, so you just need it saved on your device.




Flipped preparation (required): Read the article on the portal "Research-Informed Teaching of Adults: A Worthy Alternative to Old Habits and Hearsay?" - in particular the first five and a half pages and the conclusion on page 15. Then consider whether teaching need to be Research-Informed? If so, what parts of the article should you keep in mind when working on your assignments?

Teaching should be research informed.

• Research needs to inform practise, be understandable for practitioners and be able to be integrated into the classroom and teaching environment. 

Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is a learning process that brings learners together (including the teacher) and enables students to be responsible for their own learning as well as the learning of their peers. Collaborative learning is aimed at having students fully appreciate the process of building knowledge together and improving learning outcomes by collective knowledge and collective capability. We might link these ideas with the concept of kotahitanga, as outlined in this week's in class video from Trevor Moeke

In the flipped preparation discussion this week we will be looking at how collaboration links with the learning theories of constructivism and constructionism. A learning theory is about changes in observable behaviour. It addresses: how such changes become relatively permanent, whether the change is immediate or potential, what role experience plays, and what aspects of reinforcement are present (Olsen & Hergenhahn, 2013).

These top ten learning theories are particularly relevant to digital and collaborative learning

1. Conditioning
2. Connectionism and the Law of Effect
3. Progressive Education
4. Constructivism: Social Development Theory
5. Constructivism: Equilibration
6. Social Cognitive Theory
7. Situated Learning / Cognition
8. Community of Practice
9. Constructionism
10. Connectivism

Constructionism

Constructionism argues that collaborative learning is particularly effective in environments where learners are required to actually produce what Seymour Papert refers to as a 'social product' - and this may be anything from a robot to a computer game or even a mathematical theory.

Papert & Harel (1991) state that constructionism is the idea of learning-by-making and that these activities display qualities of "learning-richness":

"The simplest definition of constructionism evokes the idea of learning-by-making... I do not believe that anyone fully understands what gives these activities their quality of "learning-richness." But this does not prevent one from taking them as models in benefiting from the presence of new technologies to expand the scope of activities with that quality." Papert & Harel (1991)

Constructivism

Constructivism is based on a type of learning in which the learner forms, or constructs, much of what he or she learns or comprehends (Cashman et al., 2005). This means that knowledge is constructed, and transformed by students. The learning process is something a learner does by either activating already existing cognitive structures, or by constructing new ones that accommodate the new input. Learners do not passively receive knowledge from the teacher; teaching becomes a transaction between all the stakeholders in the learning process. One of the ideas associated with constructivism is Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (what the learner can do with the guidance of a knowledgeable other).

Liu and Matthews (2005) put constructivism in its historical context, contrasting it with earlier behaviourist and cognitivist theories; "knowledge is not mechanically acquired, but actively constructed within the constraints and offerings of the learning environment… The mechanistic positivist accounts of learners as recipients of hard-wired knowledge were supplanted by accounts of learners as situated, active knowledge constructors.”

Scratch

The first activity of this session will be using Scratch, a visual programming tool with Makey Makey kits to make a musical instrument.

Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, and it helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. With Scratch you can program your own stories, games and animations and share and use other projects on the online library. When combined with a Makey Makey it can be used to respond to external events to create interactive programs. Makey Makey is an electronic circuit board that allows users to connect everyday objects to computer programs that respond to events.

After the activity, we will reflect on how constructionist and constructivist theories apply to this type of learning.

Some other ways in which Makey Makeys can be used are:

• Building scientific instruments
• Flight simulators
• Power motors
• Lighting LED's
• Rain gauge
• Home security system
• Selfie switch
• Bringing code to life.

These ideas are described in the video on the portal: Makey Makey: An invention kit for everyone.

Cooperation and Collaboration

One area of debate in education is the difference (or similarity) between cooperation and collaboration. To begin our discussion this week we ask you to answer the PollDaddy question at poll.fm/5zccy to share your own viewpoint on collaboration and cooperation

In his book chapter, 'What do you mean by collaborative learning'. Pierre Dillenbourg suggests that it is not easy to define what we mean by collaborative learning, since there are many different opinions. “This book arises from a series of workshops on collaborative learning, that gathered together 20 scholars from the disciplines of psychology, education and computer science… The reader will not be surprised to learn that our group did not agree on any definition of collaborative learning. We did not even try. There is such a wide variety of uses of this term.”

This, however, is not very helpful to teachers who are required by 'Our Code, Our Standards'  to “Teach in ways that enable learners to learn from one another, to collaborate, to self-regulate and to develop agency over their learning.” (Education Council, 2017).

Fortunately there are some ideas in the literature that can help us to define what collaborative learning means. Kozar (2010) uses the analogy of a pot luck dinner to compare cooperation and collaboration. In a potluck dinner, people cook and bring different dishes to the table. Had they cooked together they would have learned a lot more from one another; they would have taken away some practical, hands-on skills even if cooking together had meant a messier and a more chaotic process. In the cooperative process, guests return back to their homes being able to cook only the same dish they brought. In collaboration, guests cook together to  gain new knowledge or experience from the interaction.

A few other ideas about what defines collaborative learning include

• Shifting the responsibility for learning to the student (Panitz, 1999).
• For non-foundational knowledge (picks up where cooperative learning leaves off) (Bruffee, 1995).
• A social contract (instructions, settings, constraints) (Dillenbourg, 1999).
• Horizontal not vertical division of labour (reasoning layers, not subtasks) (Dillenbourg, 1999).
• Interdependent, with shared responsibility to make substantive decisions together (ITL Research, 2012)

References

Bruffee, K. A. (1995). Sharing our toys: Cooperative learning versus collaborative learning. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 27(1), 12-18.

Cashman et al. (2005). Teachers Discovering Computers: Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom (4th Ed.) Cambridge: Course Technology.

Dillenbourg, P. (1999). What do you mean by collaborative learning? In P. Dillenbourg (Ed.). Collaborative-learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches. Oxford: Elsevier

Education Council. (2017). Our Code Our Standards: Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession. Wellington: Education Council.

ITL Research. (2012). 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

Kozar, O. (2010). Towards Better Group Work: Seeing the Difference between Cooperation and Collaboration. English Teaching Forum, 48(2), 16-23.

Liu, C. H., & Matthews, R. (2005). Vygotsky's Philosophy: Constructivism and Its Criticisms Examined. International Education Journal, 6(3), 386-399.

Olsen, M. & Hergenhahn, B. (2013). An Introduction to Theories of Learning (9th ed.) Boston, Mass: Pearson.

Panitz, T. (1999). Collaborative versus Cooperative Learning: A Comparison of the Two Concepts Which Will Help Us Understand the Underlying Nature of Interactive Learning. ERIC. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED448443

Papert, S. & Harel, I. (1991). Constructionism. Ablex Publishing

Research Informed Leadership

Research informed leadership means being able to lead in your practice by having the knowledge and skills to use evidence and critical thinking to support innovatiosn and lead others to change.

Developing Research Informed Practice

1. Develop a personal commitment to review research to determine what is likely to works best and to determine what ‘best-practice’ models exist.
2. Encourage your peers to work with you to empower a collective of teachers who collectively participate in research and literature reviews.
3. Disseminate information and research findings with your students and your peers to raise awareness of research informed practice and decisions in your school.
4. Encourage your students to be reflective of their actions and decisions so that they learn to self critique and take greater responsibility for their learning outcomes.
5. Develop a class culture of referring to credible sources of data and let the class develop a sound understanding of how to evaluate data/content soruces.
6. Be a consumer and promoter of evidence
7. Pose questions without pre-determined answers or expectations. Identify ways to enhance a commitment to investigation.

Whakataukī

Ehara taku toa I te toa takitahi; engari he toa takitini

Success is not the work of one, but the work of many

Related Standards for the Teaching Profession

Design for learning
Select teaching approaches, resources, and learning and assessment activities based on a thorough knowledge of curriculum content, pedagogy, progressions in learning and the learners.

Te hoahoa akoranga
Me whiriwhiri i ngā huarahi whakaako, i ngā rauemi, ā, me ngā mahi akoranga, aromatawai, i runga o te matatau ki ngā kaupapa marautanga, ki ngā tikanga whakaako, ki ngā taumata akoranga, ā, ki ngā ākonga hoki.