At CDSM, we draw on a range of theories – from the past and the present – to form the method and practice behind our award-winning e-learning. This is known as our ‘pedagogy’. In our last post (E-Learning Design Part 3: The Learner as an Active Participant), we gave you an insight into how we use some of the essential aspects of the theory of ‘constructivism’ in our digital learning solutions. Now, let’s take a closer look at an important branch of this learning theory: Social Constructivism.
As learning theories, constructivism and social constructivism have much in common. In fact, as we alluded to above, some educators see them as being one and the same. However, the difference between the two is that social constructivism places an emphasis on the collaborative nature of learning, highlighting the importance of cultural and social influences.
Initially developed by a cognitivist named Lev Vygotsky, social constructivism sees learning as being an ‘active process’ (that is, more than just the passive absorption of new information) in which a person’s interactions with others (including peers, family, and – in a formal context – teachers or trainers) have a significant impact on their learning. These interactions – along with the influence of the learner’s cultural and social environments – shape the way that the learner’s knowledge and understanding is constructed.
Our subscription to social constructivism is reflected in our e-learning tool set. The challenge of independent e-learning is isolation, so our learning platform technology gives its users access to a community of learners, enabling them to share, reflect and discuss using communication tools such as forums, comment threads and real-time chat facilities.
However, this doesn’t mean that content doesn’t play an important part. In the context of an online community of learners, content is presented in the form of a repository of open resources, designed to be discovered and added to by the learner through searching and sharing. They feed into the learning conversation and provide scaffolding to support new understanding of a subject.
The benefits of being part of an online community of learners are clearly seen in our platform’s ‘Networks’ function, where users can collaborate with other learners, regardless of geographical location. In Networks, users share resources and discuss their relevance and impact. They are also able to share any ‘Playlists’ they have created or found that are relevant to the Network.
Playlists are a way for users to bring content from different sources together quickly and easily, combining them into a single piece of learning content. This is achieved through an easy-to-use search function and a simple drag and drop tool, meaning that anyone can become a curator of their own knowledge.
At CDSM, we think it’s essential to practice what you preach. That’s why the community model is one that we routinely use for our own learning and development, with many of us subscribed to multiple MOOCs (pronounced ‘mooks’) – ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ with open access and unlimited participation. To find out more about MOOCs, you might like to watch educational activist Dave Cormier’s informative video – What is a MOOC? – or perhaps even find a MOOC to join yourself using MOOC List – a complete list of Massive Open Online Courses.
In an earlier post in this series (E-Learning Design Part 2: Observable and Measurable Outcomes), we gave an overview of Bloom’s Taxonomy and its influence on our pedagogy. In our next post, we’ll take a look at how that taxonomy can be ‘flipped’, so that learners are actively involved in knowledge construction from the outset. This flipped taxonomy, also referred to as ‘Blooms 21′, is more in keeping with constructivist and social constructivist approaches to learning.
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