Constructivist Approaches to OPD

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Subject: [PD 3489] Constructivist approaches to OPD
From: David Rosen DJRosen at theworld.com
Date: Thu Jun 18 09:07:15 EDT 2009

Hello Holly and others,

I want to take the excellent examples you have given us, Holly, as a starting point for a new strand of this discussion. Let's look at OPD (and on Friday -- also online learning with students) through a constructivist lens, that is, using an approach that is based on project-based, inductive learning, vs. using an approach that is based on instruction. We have all experienced instruction. It's the mainstay of most courses. A constructivist approach, on the other hand:

  • starts with the learner's experience
  • builds on the learner's (or learners') current knowledge (implying that the facilitator knows what that is)
  • through organized discovery activities. learning experiences, projects, or teacher research enables learners (in this case practitioners who are learners) to construct/build new knowledge (or skills) often filling in gaps from where they are to where they want to be.
  • often involves making/creating/building/developing something tangible, often with a group.

For a more complete definition of constructivism look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory)

I have some questions for Online Professional Developers in this discussion:

1. Do you use an instructivist or constructivist approach, or both?
2. If you use a constructivist approach, do you have a process ( a set of steps or considerations, perhaps a checklist) for building good constructivist online PD activities?)
3. If so, can you share it with us?

My colleague and I are trying to use the MLoTS video library http://mlots.org to build constructivist OPD, where teachers:

1) systematically "think together" with other teachers about their own current practices for teaching X (a set of skills or knowledge)
2) look at an authentic video of an adult ed teacher teaching X
3) systematically think about the lesson they have seen
4) think about what they might (or might not) want to do differently in their own teaching of X, based on both the group discussion and the video.
5) in some cases, try out and evaluate the new teaching strategy(ies) or methods.

Any thoughts about how we can do that better?

Thanks,

David

David J. Rosen
DJRosen at theworld.com

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