How the Environment Plays a Role in Learning? Essay

During the 1990s, great interest has been generated in the pattern of constructivist learn purlieus. The promise of these frames to leverage capabilities of technology, induct learners to pursue unique goals and needs, and re-conceptualize teaching-learning practices has sparked both provocative ideas as well as heated debate. Yet, problems in grounding designs within constituteed theory and search are commonplace, as designers grapple with questions regarding epistemology, assumptions, and methods. Problems in implementation and practice are also commonplace, as pragmatic constraints surface and conflicting values emerge. We give notice three key issues that are likely to dominate the constructivist learning surroundings landscape.Inertia and the Tyranny of Tradition Old Dogs, New Tricks? Although as educators we surveil represent for constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, we stay put to rely on familiar pedagogical approaches such(prenominal) as lectures, worksheets, and rote learning practices. At the moment, educators perceive such approaches as more compatible with traditional expectations and methods of student assessment and wagerer supported by existing infrastructures. Stated differently, it is easier and more efficient to proceed current practices than to promulgate approaches for which significant shiftsepistemological, technological, and culturalare demand. (Swef, 2002) In truth, some designers buzz off acknowledged, much less successfully negotiated, the hurdles associated with transforming a highly traditional commwholey of educational practice.Yet, as constructivist learning purlieus are repurposed to insure traditional classroom practices, mismatched theoretical foundations, assumptions, or methods may result. instructional methods or assessment practices are often added to (or taken away from) buffer designs to dress them more compatible with classroom pragmatics and constraints. In essence, constructivist pe dagogy is utilise to attain traditional goals, and the environment becomes an instance of what Petraglia ( 1998) refers to as domesticated constructivism (cited in Karyn, 2003).For instance, a teacher may intend to employ a constructivist environment withina climatology unit to support hypothesis generation, prediction, data collection, and analysis. The environment may also employ powerful 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 control learning of basic skills. Consequently, kind of than engage in prediction, interpretation, and data analysis, learners sort of search databases to pose specific resultants to questions established in advance (e.g., find the temperature in San Diego define the greenhouse effect what is the coldest day on trans previous(a) in Los Angeles). Pragmatic influences may also intervene. (Karyn, 2003) Activity may be limited to the traditional two 50-minute class meetings per week and conventional tests and assessments of the units meteorology content.Perhaps only a single reckoner is available, and consequently the teacher chooses to project and demonstrate the tools and resources rather than allow students to define, solve, and fall in on weather prediction problems. (Zevenbergen, 2008)Learned Helplessness and Learner Compliance give This Be on the Test? In typical constructivist learning environments, students establish (or adopt) learning goals and needs, navigate through and evaluate a variety of potentially relevant resources, generate and test hypotheses, and so forth (Oliver, 1999). Teachers clarify rather than tell, guide rather than direct, and facilitate student effort rather than travel to their own approaches.For both teachers an d learners, these represent radical departures from conventional school-based learning activities. Teachers allow traditionally possessed the required knowledge, determined what is coiffure and what is incorrect, and set and implement grading standards. (Goodyear, 2001) Students are told what knowledge is required, which answers are correct and which are incorrect, and the standards that describe thoroughly from bad students, average from substandard performance, and robins from bluebirds. A pact amid teacher and student is tacitly struck and enforced Good teachers make the preceding explicit and direct student effort accordingly, while good students learn quickly to rule and comply with the standards.Research in the late 1990s on student engagement in constructivist learning environments has underscored several(prenominal) disturbing patterns. Land and Hannafin (1997), for instance, examined how seventh graders used the ErgoMotion (Karyn, 2003) roll coaster micro founding to learn about force and motion concepts. Despite numerous and vary features and opportunities for learners to hypothesize, manipulate, and test predictions, many learners failed to all connect key concepts well or internalize their understanding. In lieu of the teacher, and perhaps in an attempt to get a line what the system required of them, most relied exclusively on the explicit substitute structure provided by the system. They frequently queried the researchers as to whether or not responses were correct or whether they had done enough yet.Students were dependent on, and sought compliance with, remote agents to tell them what, when, and in what order to respond, as well as to hear the quality, accuracy, and completion of their effortsskills essential to constructivist learning environments. (Kember, 2007)Similarly, numerous compliant strategies in web-based, interactive multimedia environments were reported among middle school (Oliver, 1999) and adult students. Learners tended to use externally provided questions closely exclusively to navigate the system and find answers to open-ended problems (Kember, 2007). Similarly, Karyn (2003) reported that children attempt to apply traditional strategies to presumably web-based inquiry-oriented learning tasks. They tended to view the activity as finding the correct answer to their research question and thus cut back 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 formal education. In the late 1990s, constructivists have emphasized the importance of scaffolding learner self regulation and strategic processes to help learners manage the complexity of the environment (Karyn, 2003). It is important to determine how learners use available scaffolds and to adapt accordingly. Without strategi es appropriate to student-centered learning tasks, learners may fail to either invoke the affordances of the environment or to develop the strategies engendered by them.The Situated reading Paradox. I Know What I Know. Although prior knowledge and situated contexts heighten transfer potential (Oliver, 1999), they also engender incomplete, nave, and often imprecise 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 sink and lighter objects float their private begets confirm this intuitive theory. The resulting misconceptions, rooted in and strengthened by ain experience, are highly resilient and resistant to change. Although personal theories are considered minute to progressive understanding, they can become especially problematic when learners become fasten in faulty theories to explain events that cannot be tested within the boundaries of a system or fail to recognize important contradictory evidence. (Cunningham, 2008)Learners pen prior knowledge and experiences that either contradicted or interfered with the environments word of the concepts of force and motion (Zevenbergen, 2008).In one case, theory preservation severely limited the ability to learn from the system. One student failed to either detect system-provided information or seek confirmatory data due to the intractability of his thoughts he was so entrenched in his beliefs that he failed to seek and repeatedly overlooked counterevidence (Karyn, 2003). In another 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, falsely confirming her belief that brakes were applied when they were not. Because they were strongly rooted in personal experience and could not i s tested using the available tools, faulty conceptions endured. Thus, the completeness of a systems representation of simulated phenomena is critical because learners feeler related 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 make 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 completely merely also to better understand the promise and limitations of constructivist learning environments.ReferencesCunningham, Billie M. (2008) use work Research to Improve encyclopedism and the Classroom Learning Environment. Issues in bill 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 enunciate, 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, 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 transnational Perspective. New Jersey World Scientific Publishing Company.Zevenbergen, Robyn Lerman, Steve. (2008) Learning Environments Using Interacti ve Whiteboards New Learning Spaces or Reproduction of Old Technologies? mathematics Education Research Journal, Vol. 20 Issue 1, p107-125