How the Environment Plays a Role in Learning? Essay

During the 1990s, bulky interest has been baffled in the design of constructivist encyclopaedism pur propertys. The promise of these outlines to leverage capabilities of technology, empower memorizeers to charter unique goals and needs, and re-conceptualize teaching- schooling practices has sparked both provocative ideas as healthy as heated debate. Yet, conundrums in grounding designs within established inconsiderateing and re reckon be commonplace, as designers clamshell with questions regarding epistemology, assumptions, and methods. Problems in writ of execution and practice argon also commonplace, as pragmatic constraints show and conflicting values emerge. We suggest collar key issues that argon likely to omit the constructivist skill environment landscape.Inertia and the shogunate of Tradition honest-to-god Dogs, raw(a) Tricks? Although as educators we espo usance plunk for for constructivist approaches to teaching and schooling, we dwell to rely on fa miliar pedagogic approaches such as lectures, worksheets, and rote learning practices. At the moment, educators perceive such approaches as more compatible with conventional expectations and methods of schoolchild assessment and better supported by existing infra grammatical constructions. Stated differently, it is easier and more competent to maintain current practices than to promulgate approaches for which solid shiftsepistemological, technological, and culturalargon require. (Swef, 2002) In truth, a couple of(prenominal) designers suck ac fellowshipd, much less successfully negotiated, the hurdles associated with transforming a highschoolly traditional comm building blocky of educational practice.Yet, as constructivist learning environments atomic number 18 repurposed to fit traditional schoolroom practices, mismatched theoretical arrangeations, assumptions, or methods may result. Instructional methods or assessment practices are often added to (or taken away fr om) veritable designs to make them more compatible with schoolroom pragmatics and constraints. In essence, constructivist pedagogy is use to contact traditional goals, and the environment expires an instance of what Petraglia ( 1998) refers to as domesticated constructivism (cited in Karyn, 2003).For instance, a instructor may intend to use a constructivist environment withina climatology unit to support hypothesis generation, foresight, info collection, and analysis. The environment may also employ right on visualization tools and complex sets of meteorology databases and resources (perhaps from the WWW) in ways that are consistent with the environments constructivist foundations. (Swef, 2002) Yet, as pedagogical methods are considered, they may be tempered by the prevailing cultural values of high standardized test scores and triumph learning of basic skills. Consequently, rather than concern in prediction, interpretation, and data analysis, learners instead search datab ases to find specific answers to questions established in advance (e.g., find the temperature in San Diego pose the greenhouse effect what is the coldest day on record in Los Angeles). Pragmatic influences may also intervene. (Karyn, 2003) Activity may be limited to the traditional two 50-minute manakin meetings per week and conventional tests and assessments of the units meteorology content.Perhaps barely a single computer is available, and consequently the teacher chooses to project and demonstrate the tools and resources rather than pass on savants to define, solve, and collaborate on weather prediction problems. (Zevenbergen, 2008)Learned Helplessness and Learner Compliance allow for This Be on the Test? In typical constructivist learning environments, students establish (or adopt) learning goals and needs, pilot through and evaluate a variety of likelyly relevant resources, generate and test hypotheses, and so forth (Oliver, 1999). Teachers crystalize rather than tell, guide rather than direct, and hasten student reason rather than recruit their own approaches.For both teachers and learners, these represent ancestor departures from conventional school-based learning activities. Teachers obtain traditionally possessed the required knowledge, interpretd what is slouch and what is incorrect, and set and enforced grading standards. (Goodyear, 2001) Students are told what knowledge is required, which answers are correct and which are incorrect, and the standards that separate good from bad students, norm from substandard performance, and robins from bluebirds. A pact surrounded by teacher and student is tacitly smitten and enforced Good teachers make the antedate explicit and direct student effort accordingly, while good students learn quickly to detect and comply with the standards. seek in the late 1990s on student engagement in constructivist learning environments has underscored some(prenominal) disturbing patterns. Land and Hannafin (1 997), for instance, examined how seventh graders employ the ErgoMotion (Karyn, 2003) bowl coaster micro world to learn about force and motion concepts. disdain legion(predicate) and varied features and opportunities for learners to hypothesize, manipulate, and test predictions, umteen learners failed to each connect key concepts well or internalize their catching. In lieu of the teacher, and perhaps in an attempt to appoint what the administration required of them, most relied just on the explicit proxy structure provided by the system. They frequently queried the look intoers as to whether or not responses were correct or whether they had through enough yet.Students were dependent on, and sought deference with, external agents to tell them what, when, and in what ensnare to respond, as well as to valuate the quality, accuracy, and completion of their effortsskills essential to constructivist learning environments. (Kember, 2007)Similarly, numerous compliant strategies in web-based, hypermedia environments were report among middle school (Oliver, 1999) and adult students. Learners tended to use externally provided questions almost exclusively to navigate the system and find answers to open-ended problems (Kember, 2007). Similarly, Karyn (2003) report that children attempted to apply traditional strategies to presumptively web-based inquiry-oriented learning tasks. They tended to view the activity as finding the correct answer to their research question and thus reduced the task to finding a single page, the perfect source, on which the answer could be found.In these instances, learners invoked methods that do not typically support or promote open or inquiry-based learningironically the strategies required for successful performance in ball education. In the late 1990s, constructivists have accentuate the importance of scaffolding learner ego regulation and strategic processes to help learners bang the complexity of the environment (Karyn, 2003). It is most-valuable to determine how learners use available scaffolds and to adapt accordingly. Without strategies allot to student-centered learning tasks, learners may fail to either invoke the affordances of the environment or to catch the strategies engendered by them.The Situated Learning Paradox. I Know What I Know. Although prior knowledge and situated contexts enhance transfer potential (Oliver, 1999), they also engender incomplete, nave, and often inaccurate theories that interfere with rather than support learning. Paradoxically, these are precisely the types of thinking constructivist learning environments build upon. Most learners, for instance, believe that heavier objects steady down and lighter objects float their personal experiences tolerate this intuitive theory. The resulting misconceptions, rooted in and modify by personal experience, are extremely resilient and resistant to change. Although personal theories are considered circumstantial to progre ssive understanding, they can become especially problematic when learners become secure in faulty theories to explain events that cannot be tested within the boundaries of a system or fail to recognize important opposeory evidence. (Cunningham, 2008)Learners referenced prior knowledge and experiences that either contradicted or interfered with the environments treatment of the concepts of force and motion (Zevenbergen, 2008).In one case, theory preservation hard limited the ability to learn from the system. 1 student failed to either detect system-provided teaching or look for confirmatory data due to the intractability of his beliefs he was so entrenched in his beliefs that he failed to seek and repeatedly overlooked counterevidence (Karyn, 2003). In some other case, a learner recalled an operator remarking that roller coaster brakes and clamps would terminate a problem run immediately. Consequently, she mistakenly perceived the coaster to be slowing down around curves, fal sely confirming her belief that brakes were applied when they were not. Because they were strongly rooted in personal experience and could not is tested apply the available tools, faulty conceptions endured. Thus, the completeness of a systems representation of simulated phenomena is critical because learners access relate prior knowledge and experiences that may contradict the environments treatment of those concepts.In sum, several perspectives regarding design of learning environments have emerged in response to interest in alternative epistemologies. Although considerable progress has been do to advance researchers understanding, many questions and issues remain. Whereas some studies have identifiedproblems and issues related to the design and implementation of constructivist learning environments, others have reported noteworthy benefits. It is imperative that efforts continue not only to ground design practices more in all but also to better understand the promise and lim itations of constructivist learning environments.ReferencesCunningham, Billie M. (2008) Using operation Research to Improve Learning and the classroom Learning Environment. Issues in Accounting Education, Vol. 23 Issue 1, p1-30,Goodyear, P., Salmon, G., Spector, J. M., Steeples, C. & Tickner, S (2001) Competences for Online Teaching A Special Report, Educational Technology, Research & Development, Proquest Education Journals, pp 65-72Karyn Wellhousen, Ingrid Crowther (2003) Creating Effective Learning Environments. Florence, KY Delmar Cengage Learning.Kember, David Leung, Doris Y. P. Ma, genus Rosa S. F.. (2007) Characterizing Learning Environments Capable of Nurturing Generic Capabilities in higher(prenominal) Education. Research in Higher Education.Oliver, R. (1999) Exploring strategies for online teaching and learning. Distance Education, 20, 2, Proquest Education Journals, pp 240-54Swef Chiew Goh, Myint Swe Khine. (2002) Studies in Educational Learning Environments An Internati onal Perspective. red-hot Jersey World Scientific create Company.Zevenbergen, Robyn Lerman, Steve. (2008) Learning Environments Using Interactive Whiteboards New Learning Spaces or Reproduction of Old Technologies? Mathematics Education Research Journal, Vol. 20 Issue 1, p107-125